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Preface: Years and years ago, board game nerd friends of mine and told me how Advanced Civilization (a strategy board game on which the video game series was founded for those not in the loop) is the best game ever and how it is impossible to find. I decided to take a crack and try and build it a few years later, and for a DIY boardgame, it turned out ok. Below is what the finished product looks like (taken from the guy who originally designed it, I can't find any pictures of mine), but my version is much more shoddy.  All the stuff you need to do this yourself can be found here if you're interested: https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/880022/civilization-total-graphic-redesign/page/15 As an event, I got a few army buddies together and we made a thing of it in the mess. The fancy surroundings made me thing I could really make something fancy of it so I started this project. I'd been reading about laser cutters for about two years now and this looks like a good intro project to get into and also do something cool, so here we are. Drawing the map: I was inspired by this DYI project for laser cut 3D maps (here: http://theshamblog.com/a-wooden-laser-cut-topo-map-of-portland-me/).  .The first step was to locate some DEM (digital elevation model) files in order to actually build the layers from it. I did some research trying to find a good DEM of the geographic areas used in the game map...  But due to the area it covers, I found it to be quite difficult to find something that met my needs so instead I decided to cheat and download a raster of an elevation and modified it instead. First I had to overlay it onto the game map and rubber sheeted the image to line up with the geography because, big surprise, the board isn't to scale or geographically accurate.  So I loaded it up into a vector editing software, did an image trace and went to work creating the separate layers. I also adjusted some of the elevation to simplify construction because the initial design has over 3000 pieces to it which would've taken FOREVER to physically assemble. Also, I tweaked some of the water to reflect the function of deep sea on the game map.  Next I created the game elements on a separate layer.  Coming up next: The physical design. I want to make the board "portable", so probably make it in 3 separate pieces. A Civilization board is huge - 1.14m x 0.53m What I want to do is build the map part, then laser etch the game elements on a transparent acrylic surface in order to easily see the cool map and the game elements. I will probably make it so it connects together with magnets or something. I will do a test build using 3D modelling and take it from there. Thanks for reading! Comments/criticism/input welcome! CADPAT fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Dec 22, 2016 |
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Dec 22, 2016 01:34
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Quick Update: Due to a sewage pump failing at home, no time to work on this today other than to look for a company to produce cards. Right now I'm looking at makeplayingcards.com to print off some high quality plastic cards.
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Dec 22, 2016 23:59
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i came here looking for an avatar thread but i wish you luck in your cool endeavor
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Jan 8, 2017 17:32
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Another quick update. I've been working on this on and off during the holidays but I have hit a wall. I did all of the paths in Photoshop with the hopes that I could import them into Illustrator and use them for cutting, but disaster strikes. I want to cut the whole board into 3 equal pieces, but I designed the path for each layer as a whole. There is no method in Photoshop to slice a path into thirds, and there apparently is one in illustrator but I can't make it work right. This means I have to go back to Photoshop and re-draw each layer divided into the three component parts, which I don't want to do. Right now I've been looking at maybe exporting them into some CAD software and seeing if there is a way to do it in there, but no answers yet. Another option would be to slice all the layers up, export as images and get Illustrator to re-trace them, which might work. Also, thanks NTB!
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Jan 10, 2017 05:09
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Intriguing, but more here to say yes, it is the best and it's hard to find. 
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Jan 20, 2017 22:51
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