The Temple of Jinn [03/02/2014] V9m pg 15

[Blakkrose]

Searching on google I found Iblis, present in Islamic culture
"In Islam Iblis is a jinn who refused to bow to Adam (Adem)".
(wikipedia source)

Do you like it?

Click image to enlarge.

I also changed the legend as suggested by EricPhail

[Blakkrose]

In that case may I suggest the "Serpent Apep"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apep

Pictured here under a boat on an egyptian wall art fighting with RA..

I am considering your idea ...
Should I change the graphics or the snake is fine as it is?

[Aleena]

I personally like the serpent better - but your new one is cool too - so - feel free to use either - or take a pole from more of the community.

[Blakkrose]

I personally like the serpent better - but your new one is cool too - so - feel free to use either - or take a pole from more of the community.

Well, I ask to the community: you prefer Apep with the graphics of Marine Serpent or Iblis?

I eliminated the Mummy and the Ghost.
I plugged in Acolyte (follower of the fire element) and a Ghul (the strongest of the Jinn)

[isaiah40]

One thing you need to do is to please keep the title in this format so it will be easier for people to see changes:
The Temple of Jinn [12/08/2013] V2 pg 4 - The "V" for what version you are on and the page it is on. It helps us carto's to go directly to the page you rmost recent update is on, and when we are comparing versions, we can say "On version 2 you had this ...." It makes it easier on all of us.

So that being said, here is your shiny new stamp!!

[Blakkrose]

One thing you need to do is to please keep the title in this format so it will be easier for people to see changes:
The Temple of Jinn [12/08/2013] V2 pg 4 - The "V" for what version you are on and the page it is on. It helps us carto's to go directly to the page you rmost recent update is on, and when we are comparing versions, we can say "On version 2 you had this ...." It makes it easier on all of us.

So that being said, here is your shiny new stamp!!

OK

Now what should I do to have the second stamp?

[isaiah40]

Now you will be working on the game-play aspect. iancanton does the game-play, and he has already made a few suggestions. The draft stamp is normally the fastest stamp everyone receives, because now we get down to the nitty picky. As of right now, as graphics CA, I'm not seeing a lot graphics wise, but when you get into graphics then I will along with RedBaron0 take a close look at it.

[koontz1973]

Blackrose, nice to see this worked on. Some things from me, can we get the territory groups into different colours so as to make it easier to find on the board. In the victory condition, you say take over the monsters and the temple of jinn, does that include also TJ4 & TJ5?

[EricPhail]

Iblis, so much Iblis, that new graphic is cool

Assuming the start positions are the one with the blue 88s it seems they are in need of a look wrt gameplay and balance some of them look to be much better locations (closer to the area bonuses: FJ21 is much closer to fire crystal, Wj15 the water crystal and worst of all AJ2 who has the shortest path to Air, and the temple) thus allowing them quicker access to the zone bonuses and associated bombardments

Oh one other thing both ends of each teleport have the same name which seems odd perhaps T1a, T1b, T2a .... etc

[cairnswk]

Blakkrose..congrats on your draft stamp...impressive graphics indeed
I have taken your large image and reduced it to small size. At this very early stage your might want to check:
1. that to determine if the 20x20 or 22x22 army holder circles are going to fit and be seen adequately, and
2. if you were to downscale the image to small size automatically (not suggesting this is how you work though) which will save you heaps of time - how small the legend instruction text is going to be and whether that will be reasonable for players to read as legible. For me, as this reduced size, the small text is barely legible at all.
Just a couple of things to keep in mind along the way.
Soutien!

[Blakkrose]

Blackrose, nice to see this worked on. Some things from me, can we get the territory groups into different colours so as to make it easier to find on the board. In the victory condition, you say take over the monsters and the temple of jinn, does that include also TJ4 & TJ5?

Thanks.
-The territory zones are already colored differently from the rest of the level (maybe I should reinforce colors)
-Yes, the Temple of Jinn consists of 5 territories, as you can read in the legend

[Blakkrose]

Iblis, so much Iblis, that new graphic is cool

Assuming the start positions are the one with the blue 88s it seems they are in need of a look wrt gameplay and balance some of them look to be much better locations (closer to the area bonuses: FJ21 is much closer to fire crystal, Wj15 the water crystal and worst of all AJ2 who has the shortest path to Air, and the temple) thus allowing them quicker access to the zone bonuses and associated bombardments

Oh one other thing both ends of each teleport have the same name which seems odd perhaps T1a, T1b, T2a .... etc

Let examine the distances:

1. -FJ21 is attached to the Jinn that protects the Fire Crystal,
2. -WJ15 is 2 territories from the Jinn that protects the Water Crystal,
3. -AJ2 is 2 territories from the Jinn that protects the Air Crystal,
4. -The temple is accessible only through the teleport 3 that is protected by the most powerful monster of the map: Iblis.

"What do you suggest?"

Consider that I have placed the 8 starting points so that they are not too close together.
Here are the shorter distances:

1. AJ2 - AJ11 (through the teleport1): distance 10 territories
2. AJ2 - EJ22 (through the teleport1): distance 10 territories
3. AJ11 - EJ22 : distance 8 territories
4. EJ22 - FJ7 : distance 9 territories
5. EJ22 - WJ23 (through the teleport2): distance 10 territories
6. FJ7 - WJ15 : distance 7 territories
7. Fj7 - FJ21 (through the teleport5): distance 14 territories
8. FJ21 - EJ17 (through the teleport4): distance 10 territories

I did not consider the distance when there is a monster in the middle.

"Think that it is possible to place the 8 starting points at equal distance between them and the Jinn that protect Crystal zones?"

For the teleports you're right, I'll edit them in T1a and T1b, T2a and T2b, etc.

[Blakkrose]

Here are today's updates:

1. I reinforced the colors of the bonus zones,
2. I touched up the legend decreasing the number of words and enlarging the font,
3. I changed the labels for the teleports.

Click image to enlarge.

"Looking at the legend I begin to think that with the character so much I should change font because I do not like what's more."

So I changed the font. Here is the result:

Click image to enlarge.

I also changed all the labels and appearance of the pyramid and columns and added some background decoration.

I am always available to the movements of the starting points

[koontz1973]

Blackrose, nice to see this worked on. Some things from me, can we get the territory groups into different colours so as to make it easier to find on the board. In the victory condition, you say take over the monsters and the temple of jinn, does that include also TJ4 & TJ5?

Thanks.
-The territory zones are already colored differently from the rest of the level (maybe I should reinforce colors)

Not what I meant. Colour each one a different colour and use those colours in the legend to make finding them really easy. This will help out the non English speaking players a lot but also in speed games, it will allow players to easily identify regions on the board.

-Yes, the Temple of Jinn consists of 5 territories, as you can read in the legend

But it is not what is said in the victory condition (lose the "s"). Again, this is just to make the board easy to understand.

What are all the blue regions (T3b for example)?

All monsters seem to be a 5 neutral, why is Iblis a 10?

[Aleena]

someone was concerned about the different distances from starting points to Victory condition Temple...
Think it was EricPhil....

Well... what you can do (instead of changing the map - or moving the starting location) is you can make weaker monsters and more bonuses along the trail for the players that are farther away... And make the players with a shorter path - to have stronger monsters, and or no bonuses along the way - unless they go out of their way for them...

If done mathematically you can balance out the board with out any major changes, just changes in variable values...

Or you can make it no matter where they start they need to control something in all four corners of the map to open passage to the temple... Maybe like the gems..

[Blakkrose]

But it is not what is said in the victory condition (lose the "s"). Again, this is just to make the board easy to understand.

What are all the blue regions (T3b for example)?

All monsters seem to be a 5 neutral, why is Iblis a 10?

I understand you correctly? Are you referring to the legend?
I modified the legend and labels bonuses.
The blue regions are teleports. There are 5 bidirectional pairs.
Iblis is the bigger monster because it protects the teleporter that leads to the final part of the level: the Temple of Jinn

Click image to enlarge.

[Blakkrose]

someone was concerned about the different distances from starting points to Victory condition Temple...
Think it was EricPhil....

Well... what you can do (instead of changing the map - or moving the starting location) is you can make weaker monsters and more bonuses along the trail for the players that are farther away... And make the players with a shorter path - to have stronger monsters, and or no bonuses along the way - unless they go out of their way for them...

If done mathematically you can balance out the board with out any major changes, just changes in variable values...

Or you can make it no matter where they start they need to control something in all four corners of the map to open passage to the temple... Maybe like the gems..

If I modify the bonuses along the paths between the players must necessarily change the number of gems and their location (I have placed in an equidistant between them, there are two identical stones nearby) and then the same bonus in proportion to the number of gems.

I did not understand what you mean with your second sentence.
Perhaps you mean that I should eliminate the starting points and leave the server the task of assigning a random initial territory to each player?

I'd rather give a little room to each player.
I'm perfectly willing to change the level. Where do you think it is better to change the dungeon?
koontz1973 what do you suggest?

[EricPhail]

I worry that not only are the crystals and the temple the only army bonus easily secured (in this case I mean all in one area) they also allow VERY powerful bombardments (If you get control of the temple, especially in trench you might be able to bombard the other players out of the match without really bothering about the victory condition as only monsters, teleports and the crystal zones are immune, could also lead to eternal stalemates as several players block each others path to advancement)

thoughts for fixing:
1. at least double all monsters (bar maybe the ghul and acolyte), as a victory condition, they should be higher neutral count anyway: this makes rushing for the temple less viable and thus the starting position distance imbalance weaker
2. consider toning down the power of the bombardments:
either give the territory that actually bombards a strong decay (~10 would be a reasonable start)
or create a killer territory that does the bombardment (conditional borders prevent taking it before gaining the area)

this reduces the advantage gainable by rushing to an area with a bombardement (especially powerful in trench or assassin)

of course perhaps everyone else disagrees with my fear that bombard rush matches will happen

[Blakkrose]

...
thoughts for fixing:
1. at least double all monsters (bar maybe the ghul and acolyte), as a victory condition, they should be higher neutral count anyway: this makes rushing for the temple less viable and thus the starting position distance imbalance weaker
2. consider toning down the power of the bombardments:
either give the territory that actually bombards a strong decay (~10 would be a reasonable start)
or create a killer territory that does the bombardment (conditional borders prevent taking it before gaining the area)

this reduces the advantage gainable by rushing to an area with a bombardement (especially powerful in trench or assassin)

of course perhaps everyone else disagrees with my fear that bombard rush matches will happen

1. You mean perhaps change 4 Jinn from 5 to 10 (Marid, Dao, Djinn and Efreet) and change Iblis from 10 to 20?

2. I prefer the decay of territories that bombard but maybe 10 is too much.
I can not create the killer territores why make it impossible to take the bonus area.

I could insert a bonus for the control of monsters. This would push not to entrench in the areas from which bombards

[Aleena]

Victory condition:
Control ALL monsters and the Temple..

Since players need to control all of the monsters, this part of the victory condition will force all players to travel across the entire board - so set or random starting points I feel really does not matter, for no matter where you start - you have to travel to all locations which are scattered across the board...

I like what you have I see no need for change on this subject...Though I'm all ways welcome for a blood bath and doubling monsters lives sounds good to me..

As for the Bombardment worries....
I see his point about them being too powerful...
A few suggestions....

Suggestion #1
You have 4 gem types but a total of 23 gems on the board (based on your legend - i did not count them myself)
So right off the bat, I see that not all gems have equal number of bombardment areas, for 4 does not divide into 23 evenly...

Maybe clear off some spaces - remove some gems... instead of having a gem on every space (all most) just have a few scattered... So maybe drop from 23 gems to 16 gems that would give each gem 4 locations to bombard and open up the map to have 8 additional areas to secure you forces - though in trench mode corridors will still be blockaded with these bombardments - but if I'm not mistaken - it cost troops to bombard - - so the more a player bombards, they hurt themselves equally as they hurt their enemy... So a player focused on bombarding will dwindle their own forces instead of using them to capture more gems for bonuses... Or am I wrong about this? I've only played with bombards once so far so I'm not fully familiar with them...

Suggestion #2
Change the Bombardment targets...
Instead of having them bombard gems and instead of having the temple bombard crystals....

Color the Teleporter statue sets to match the gems...
A Blue, Green, Red, White, Yellow statues sets for teleporting and have the bombardments from the temple and the crystals only focused on the teleporters..

Leaving the gems all along the floor open for safe picking up..

Just a suggestion....


Another idea but has nothing to do with the bombardments except to make entering the temple harder so to gain that bombardment ability more difficult...

on space Eg8 leading up to the temple, maybe place an archway gate or doorway .... Not passable with out a key - then place on AG6 the Key... So the player needs to control space AG6 to enter cross from Eg8 to the temple.

I see that all your monsters but the Acolyte is protecting something...
This will give the Acolyte it's own treasure to protect...

Acolyte gateway to the Key...
Marid gateway to the water crystal
Efreet gateway to the fire crystal
Doo gateway to the earth crystal
Djinn gateway to the air crystal
Iblis gateway to the teleporter to the temple

oh, I was wrong you still have the Ghul that is not guarding anything - oh well - just a suggestion to make entering the temple even more difficult - by adding a key space....


On another note - I like the idea of giving bonuses for controlling monsters... Two ideas for that:

also if your going to change your bombardments to only teleporters and your going to add a monster bonus - then maybe your victory condition should be control ALL Crystals and the Temple - instead of controlling all monsters and the temple....

Idea 1 monster bonus:
Each monster you control raises Bonus:
Control 1 for +1
Control 2 for +2
Control 3 for +4
Control 4 for +8
Control 5 for +16
Control 6 for +32
Control 7 for +64

Idea #2 For Monsters Bonus
The Ghul opens up the Bonuses for the Monsters..
If you control the Ghul then any additional monster you get will give you a Bonus..
(ha ha, now the Ghul has something to protect)

Any and all monsters except Ghul = Zero Bonus (Need Ghul to access monster bonus)
Ghul only = Zero Bonus
Ghul plus 1 additional monster +1
Ghul plus 2 additional monster +2
Ghul plus 3 additional monster +4
Ghul plus 4 additional monster +8
Ghul plus 5 additional monster +16
Ghul plus 6 additional monster +32

I like this second suggestion better myself... Also I tried to make it that if a player does have the chance to gain access to all monsters, even though it is only 8 spaces - they become an equal match to any player that is dominating the board and gathering all the gems... Though the initial monster bonuses are not that strong to off set them from being too powerful too soon...

Just a few ideas...Take them or leave them....

[Blakkrose]

...Suggestion #1
You have 4 gem types but a total of 23 gems on the board (based on your legend - i did not count them myself)
So right off the bat, I see that not all gems have equal number of bombardment areas, for 4 does not divide into 23 evenly...

Truly the gems are 23 for each color, then 92

Maybe clear off some spaces - remove some gems... instead of having a gem on every space (all most) just have a few scattered... So maybe drop from 23 gems to 16 gems that would give each gem 4 locations to bombard and open up the map to have 8 additional areas to secure you forces - though in trench mode corridors will still be blockaded with these bombardments - but if I'm not mistaken - it cost troops to bombard - - so the more a player bombards, they hurt themselves equally as they hurt their enemy... So a player focused on bombarding will dwindle their own forces instead of using them to capture more gems for bonuses... Or am I wrong about this? I've only played with bombards once so far so I'm not fully familiar with them...

You're wrong.
If during you bombardment your dice's score is higher than the opponent you annihilate the territory without losing any troop

Suggestion #2
Change the Bombardment targets...
Instead of having them bombard gems and instead of having the temple bombard crystals....

Color the Teleporter statue sets to match the gems...
A Blue, Green, Red, White, Yellow statues sets for teleporting and have the bombardments from the temple and the crystals only focused on the teleporters..

Leaving the gems all along the floor open for safe picking up..

I dont understand what do you mean

Another idea but has nothing to do with the bombardments except to make entering the temple harder so to gain that bombardment ability more difficult...

on space Eg8 leading up to the temple, maybe place an archway gate or doorway .... Not passable with out a key - then place on AG6 the Key... So the player needs to control space AG6 to enter cross from Eg8 to the temple.

Nice idea!

Any and all monsters except Ghul = Zero Bonus (Need Ghul to access monster bonus)
Ghul only = Zero Bonus
Ghul plus 1 additional monster +1
Ghul plus 2 additional monster +2
Ghul plus 3 additional monster +4
Ghul plus 4 additional monster +8
Ghul plus 5 additional monster +16
Ghul plus 6 additional monster +32

Another nice idea but 32 army are really too much to just 7 territories!
You should control all 23 gems of the same color to have 33 armies!
It would use two different scales of values

[Aleena]

oh, I thought the bonus was for total gems controlled - not based on color...
So if I had 4 red gems, 4 white gems, 4 blue gems, and 4 green gems for a total of 16 gems, then I'd get a +21 bonus...

Oh, they need to be all the same color... Don't like that as much, but I understand it....
I think it would be better just give a +1 per gem (and cut the number on gems in the game by 1/2) or for every 4 gems, no matter what the color....
But that is only my opinion...

For my one suggestion you did not understand, I'll try to make it clearer....

Suggestion 2 about bombardments...

Gems do not get bombarded....
Teleports get bombarded instead...

So...
Water Crystal would bombard only T4a and T4b which are Blue statues of Sphinx - or could be Sphinx made of water crystal

Fire Crystal would bombard only T1a and T1b which are pink statues of a dog - though you might want to make them more redish if you do this system to match the fire stone better...

Earth Stone would bombard T3a and T3b which are statues of Green ram or maybe a ram statue made of earth stone...

Wind Crystal would bombard T5a and T5b which are currently statues of a yellow cat - though If you do this system, they should be change to be white cats..

The Temple Bombards T2a and T2b which are currently Golden or Gilded statues to match the golden Temple...

This will limit the bombardments a lot, and allow secondary passages available if playing a trench game... Though if your willing to move the statues around I think it would be better to have the bombardments as follows:
Water - T5a, T5b
Fire - T4a, T4b
Earth - T3a, T3b
Wind - T1a, T1b
Temple - T2a, T2b

In no way should the Temple ever Bombard T3a and T3b for else it would make the Temple a protected zone once captured in a trench game.... But any other way you wish to connect them would be fine....

This was only a suggestion to make Bombardments less powerful....

[Blakkrose]

oh, I thought the bonus was for total gems controlled - not based on color...
So if I had 4 red gems, 4 white gems, 4 blue gems, and 4 green gems for a total of 16 gems, then I'd get a +21 bonus...

Oh, they need to be all the same color... Don't like that as much, but I understand it....
I think it would be better just give a +1 per gem (and cut the number on gems in the game by 1/2) or for every 4 gems, no matter what the color....

I took The values ​​of the bonus for the gems from the tip of iancanton on page 4 so i do not think to change it.

For my one suggestion you did not understand, I'll try to make it clearer....

Suggestion 2 about bombardments...

Gems do not get bombarded....
Teleports get bombarded instead...

So...

Ok, now I understand your idea.
The thing does not seem exciting.
Is certainly interesting to cause damage to the opponent in terms of bonuses!
I'm editing, in any case, the level bringing the pairs of teleports from 5 to 3 and attempting to move the starting points. Place as soon as possible the result of my work.

I think the right way is to place the starting points in a more balanced way

Meanwhile, I wait for the opinion of koontz1973.

[iancanton]

1. at least double all monsters (bar maybe the ghul and acolyte), as a victory condition, they should be higher neutral count anyway: this makes rushing for the temple less viable and thus the starting position distance imbalance weaker

1. You mean perhaps change 4 Jinn from 5 to 10 (Marid, Dao, Djinn and Efreet) and change Iblis from 10 to 20?

the monsters have no bonus so, if u do this, then they will simply become impassables: no-one will attack most of them in most games because it's easier to eliminate an opponent by killing his troops directly.

2. consider toning down the power of the bombardments:
either give the territory that actually bombards a strong decay (~10 would be a reasonable start)
or create a killer territory that does the bombardment (conditional borders prevent taking it before gaining the area)

this reduces the advantage gainable by rushing to an area with a bombardement (especially powerful in trench or assassin)

of course perhaps everyone else disagrees with my fear that bombard rush matches will happen

2. I prefer the decay of territories that bombard but maybe 10 is too much.
I can not create the killer territores why make it impossible to take the bonus area.

it is worth trying the decay idea.

I could insert a bonus for the control of monsters. This would push not to entrench in the areas from which bombards

the monsters at the moment are completely passive unless someone tries for the victory condition. perhaps an auto-deploy bonus will make them more scary.

ian.

[Blakkrose]

I've finally done it: I found a bit of time to finish the changes to the map.
Thanks to the ideas of Aleena (You're so precious, keep it up ) and the suggestions of Iancanton here is version 8.

I changed some connection between territories and moved some gem.
I entered a decay of 3 armies per turn for territories that can bombard (Water Crystal, Earth Crystal, Fire Crystal, Crystal Air and TJ1) but in doing so the bonus for the crystal areas and the Temple of Jinn would have been futile so I eliminated by inserting in its place a bonus for the control of monsters.
For Iblis + 1 monster get 3 armies,
for Iblis + 2 monsters get 6 armies,
for Iblis + 3 monsters get 9 armies,
for Iblis + 4 monsters get 12 armies,
for Iblis + 5 monsters get 15 armies,
for Iblis + 6 monsters get 18 armies.

I entered a dark gem guarded by Ghul.
Now you can bombard by owning the also the dark gem, so the same ghul.

I put in a Gate to the Temple of Jinn and a Key guarded by Acolyte.
If you do not have the Key you do not have access to the territories TJ4 and TJ5

I deleted 2 pairs of teleports and added some territories without buds, which therefore can not be bombed, near Ghul and the Acolyte.

In this way I complicated things by forcing players to run for the level rather than a defensive position in a crystal areas and bombard anything.

I could drop a gem for color, bringing them from 23 to 22 and, thus creating another 4 territories without gems that can not be bombed, to be placed always near Ghul and Acolyte.

"What do you think?"

I look forward, as always, your opinions and suggestions

Click image to enlarge.