So, uh, is there a less-ink-intensive, more printer-friendly version of, say, the city grids?
Certainly I can find blank hex paper, but the problem is finding anything like the city grids that doesn't have that gorgeous (yet exceedingly expensive to print-out) sheet of heavily-colored paper.
Black and white, I could do, but the problem is that it's still a metric ton of ink - only slightly less expensive than the full color versions.
Basically: does anyone have a version that's both black and white and ink-lite? Anyone? Anyone? Beuller? Beuller? Beuller? Anyone? Beuller?
To be clear, I'm posting this in between infant feedings and on a tremendous lack of sleep: it's not too likely that I'd be able to check this thread or respond too much. Sorry. If you have a solid lead or direct response, you might want to PM me.
Also, I want to mention that I'm looking for these not just for our Kingmaker stuff, but also for several other games that I'm planning on running. That said, if your personal "ink-lite" version happens to, say, have "KINGMAKER" printed all over the place, I don't really care, so long as it doesn't burn as much ink as those beautiful things that Paizo officially publishes.
Thank you all so much in advance!
(Also, infants are awesome. Time consuming, exhausting, but awesome.)
To be honest, I went full digital for city maps until a district was full. I know that doesn't help terribly but I'll link the software if you like.
Good luck with the infant. And trust me when I say, that it does get better! I remember feeling like the not sleeping would last forever, but it only feels that way.
Anyway, I would think that any sort of graphical representation of the city grid is going to take a lot of ink. Your best bet to a low-ink alternative, I think, would be to use Excel or a similar program to recreate the grid, and type in the building names in their proper location. Most of the kingdom-tracking Excel spreadsheets out there use something like that to manage the grids. It won't look great, but it should get the job done.
To be honest, I went full digital for city maps until a district was full. I know that doesn't help terribly but I'll link the software if you like.
Sure, why not? :)
Thanks!
Good luck with the infant. And trust me when I say, that it does get better! I remember feeling like the not sleeping would last forever, but it only feels that way.
As this is our second go-round, I definitely recall! Thank you very much for the encouragement, however!
Anyway, I would think that any sort of graphical representation of the city grid is going to take a lot of ink. Your best bet to a low-ink alternative, I think, would be to use Excel or a similar program to recreate the grid, and type in the building names in their proper location. Most of the kingdom-tracking Excel spreadsheets out there use something like that to manage the grids. It won't look great, but it should get the job done.
This is what I was thinking, but it makes me somewhat sad. The proportions are all off. I really wish someone with more time and artistic talent than I would get in there, scrub all the gradients off of a basic city map grid, and leave a nice white-and-black lined paper without all the gorgeous ink-devouring shading that the official papers use (when you print 'em in black-and-white: the actual color is even more expensive).
Thanks for the suggestions, all! I'd love to hear more if anyone has them!
I print out our city grids so they are 8"h x 7+7/8"w so they fill one sheet of paper. Instead of using the district grid from KM or UC which is 5+3/4"h x 5+7/8"w.
Printing out 15 districts (+3 more shortly) for each game can chew through a lot of ink.
For decent color copies, using draft output on plain paper uses the least ink.
For B&W copies, using draft output with gray scale on plain paper should use the least ink.
(This also looks pretty good on parchment colored paper)
Depending on what image manipulation programs you have on your computer you could also make the image more transparent - thus reducing the ink used (paint.net is free and can do a lot).
In the beginning of our kingdom building I printed out a dozen districts on card stock. And pages with 2 rows of 8 of each type of building except houses, which got a whole page. Then cut out all the buildings and put them in an organizer. Using double sticky scotch tape attach them to the grid and just write a label on it. ( You could also printout on a magnetic sheet and put the building icons on stickers & stick them on magnets too.)
I make the corrections to our e-maps later, so I can just printout the district on one clean sheet. But I have lots of old district maps with buildings stuck to them, I think we started KM in 2011 after Second Darkness, no reason those old maps couldn't still be used.
We write in the empty lots our future building plans and the same on our e-maps, that really helps keep track of things.
My original district parts would have easily covered our needs up to now, and they really didn't use much ink to make. It also helps to put the date on each map so you know when it was last updated. You can also use the margins to label the grid & keep track of borders, stats, important npcs and such. Don't keep track of magic items on the same page since those are constantly changing, just use a seperate page for all your district magic items.
You could also put you e-maps on a flash drive and have your local office supply store print them on a banner, the same with your kingdom map.