Minimap preview in menu

[Krom]

I was thinking, what info would you expect from minimap preview when in lobby and when selecting single-player map?

Should it be covered with fog of war?
Should it show all the opponents starting towns?
What about troops?
Anything else?

[Wesley762]

imo a preview of the map is a great idea.
and for singleplayer it should only display your building area an cover the enemy with fow.
maybe use the skull banners from the campaign map to indicate where thevenemy is "roughly" located. and maybe use the red banner for your own location.

[caykroyd]

I was thinking, what info would you expect from minimap preview when in lobby and when selecting single-player map?

Should it be covered with fog of war?
Should it show all the opponents starting towns?
What about troops?
Anything else?

Starting locations should be visible, yes, because even if they are not, people with more experience at the map will already know where is each location, so being visible is good for new player. That way no one will have an advantage over the other.
Other important info would be coal, gold, iron, stone and trees.
Troops aren't important to be shown on a preview of the map, i think. Those can easily be detailed in the description if necessary.

[Krom]

The problem with FOW is that it will show a single store surrounded by a green/brown circle - not very informative, right? On the other hand TPR maps allowed to see whole map terrain.

Currently I'm thinking along these lines:
- show all players starting locations with FOW covering the rest of map
- in case you could select alternative locations, e.g. in MP all 8 locations will be visible to all players (unless some special mod is enabled by host?)
- locations will be marked with a shield icon (use Store location or ai_position from script?), since flag used in campaigns is a bit too big, and colored to players color
- also I'm thinking about connecting allied players with some sort of lines or something like that to indicate the alliances
- minimap will be like in a game - 192x192px, maybe with sepia filter applied to it (like TPR maps were)
- with these outlines text map description would not properly fit and I was thinking about removing/making it smaller

[Wesley762]

now that i think about those shields will work better indeed then banners.
and for alliances you could also give each team a certain color shield or a colored circle around the shields (if we can make diffrent shield sprite varients). an otherwise the lines will do just fine imo.

[caykroyd]

This thing of shields gave me an idea of adding personal shields (from coats of arms - blazon language), but i immediately know it is impossible. For the amount of trouble it would take it wouldn't give any benefit but visual.

Though something more simple like this would be possible:
In this example, RED is the colour of the player, and BLUE his team. (I put a "chevron", but instead any other object could be added in its place, like a "Bend" = "//")
Red would be substituted by the colour of the players flag, and blue subtituted by a default colour from each team (eg.: team 1 gold, team 2 white, etc)



Is something like this possible and doesn't give much trouble??

[The Dark Lord]

- show all players starting locations with FOW covering the rest of map

Why not show the whole map? That would make it fair for people who don't know the map.

- in case you could select alternative locations, e.g. in MP all 8 locations will be visible to all players (unless some special mod is enabled by host?)

Sounds good.

- locations will be marked with a shield icon (use Store location or ai_position from script?), since flag used in campaigns is a bit too big, and colored to players color

Hm, I prefer the flag. Is it really too large? Can we make it smaller? Also, I think storehouse locations are better than the AI start positions (I don't know about the original developers but sometimes I put the AI defense position right on top of the storehouse belonging to the human player, so they would attack it if I made them attack the nearest building to their start position).

- also I'm thinking about connecting allied players with some sort of lines or something like that to indicate the alliances

Alliances depend on the settings. I don't think it's really necessairy. It would be nice though to see which location belongs to which player (e.g. top left corner = player 1, etc.).

- minimap will be like in a game - 192x192px, maybe with sepia filter applied to it (like TPR maps were)

Okay, not sure about the sepia but it might work out great. I can't judge that now, have to see it first.

- with these outlines text map description would not properly fit and I was thinking about removing/making it smaller

I'm not sure what you mean but if you mean removing the map description completely I strongly disagree.

[Lewin]

In multiplayer I think the entire map should be shown with no FOW, I don't think the layout of a multiplayer map is a secret or needs hiding. I also think the starting location of each player (where the screen is centered or the storehouse) should be marked with the number of the position, e.g. "1" for location 1. This means players in the lobby can actually SEE which location they are selecting, and arrange for teams to be on opposite sides of the map or whatever. The number could be shown on a banner if you like, but I think just overlayed on the map would also look fine.
Eventually we could make the map a bit interactive, so you click on a starting location and it selected it. Players names could be shown next to the location they have selected. But of course that's not very important.

For single player I think it should show FOW and only the parts you can see, so it does not spoil any surprises the map creator has added, e.g. a fortress for the enemy.

The map description should definitely not be removed, I'm sure we can fit the preview around it. Or we could have two tabs: Description and Mini Map Preview so they both share the same screen space.