Introducing Wargame Design Studios

[-72-]

I stopped playing Tiller games when I got a higher resolution monitor and have been waiting for support for higher resolutions. The fake zoom should have been a short term fix. The games are well researched and the IGOUGO game has evolved but the map graphics have not. 4k monitors are coming down in price. It's overdue for an upgrade to the various zoom levels.

I hope WDS gets the code to FWW.

But is it the graphics or the style of the maps? What I mean by that is, there is a reason that the maps are assembled in the way they are - the hex-centric, layered approach, as opposed to one big map image - and that is directly due to file size.

I think that in the Civil War Battles, Antietam title, what with what Frank Mullins' group did with that shows that you can do it (ok I guess technically the Battleground series also had to work the same way) -but those maps are big file sizes, arguably too big, where the really large maps are impractical to do as a single image file.

The layered approach allows for far greater flexibility, or at least that is the technical, and non-aesthetic side of the decision.

Now that being said, yes I agree with the magnified zoom level being less than the ideal solution; yes I have to make that argument myself to the powers that be - that being, I can and will make it happen. It is not a problem. I don't know what the answer will be -but that being said- I am actually in the role there that I would be the guy who has to do it.

How do you show it? I guess the only way would be to take the graphics from one of the series other than PzB and plug it into PzB (since it is the only series that currently is using this approach), and then making the presentation that it is not an inordinate amount of artwork (adaptation basically ) to be done, so as to have additional native graphics levels and not rely on magnification. 

Short answer- yes it can be done, and it is something that I am going to make the pitch to do (and then dumbly on my part- probably get made to do it). :)

I guess the (rhetorical) question becomes- the point is that it is still using layers -is that really going to be enough?

I can't and won't pretend to answer for David as to where they want to go with things; I imagine though they still have to work with optimal file sizes.

What is needed is larger hex sizes for people with high resolution monitors. With larger hexes more information could be displayed on a unit on the map. I think the map graphics in PzB and FWW are fine.

Then your post was not about the graphics, but rather the programming, which is ok - but just requires a different solution.

Afaik Ed remains working under JTS directly with FWWC.