USA 2.1 [10 Mar 2013] Beta Baby!!

[AndyDufresne]

What do you think about making the interstate bonus +1 for every 5 consecutive cities?

It could be done, at the same time I don't think I want to make it too hard to get the bonus. I'll see what ian has to say.

I kind of like the idea. I am not sure it would be too hard, but with the plethora of bonuses and combinations on this map, I kind of like adding the consecutive to the mix, since Capitals are just 'every'. But I'll leave the real discussion to those who know best.


--Andy

[isaiah40]

A couple of changes:
1. Hawaii outline added to legend
2. Capital star added to legend
3. D.C. Capitol Building added to legend
4. New England on the mini-map now matches the main map

Forgot about changing Moorhead to Minneapolis.

Changed the text color in Alabama to white with a dark outerglow. Peronally, I prefer the black text with the light outer glow.

Click image to enlarge.

[iancanton]

What do you think about making the interstate bonus +1 for every 5 consecutive cities?

It could be done, at the same time I don't think I want to make it too hard to get the bonus. I'll see what ian has to say.

good move. coding the bonus as 5 consecutive reduces or even eliminates the chances of dropping an interstate bonus without having so many neutral starts. increasing the bonuses to +2 or even +3 for every 5 consecutive is more realistic if u want the interstates to play a part in deliberate strategy rather than someone trying for the fifth city just because he already has four from other attacks. n3 is probably enough for any city that starts neutral, otherwise we have players tiptoeing round the neutrals wherever possible.

The route from Great Falls to Tok is actually heavily traveled. Though in reality there are about 4 different roads you travel on. You would actually drive through Calgary, Edmonton then on up to Dawson Creek which is the beginning of the Alaska Highway. That being said I could put a killer neutral and have it as Calgary for example.

a killer neutral is fine. it just shouldn't be as easy as, for example, san francisco to san jose.

how about a killer neutral of 1 to represent the canadian border?

ian.

[isaiah40]

how about a killer neutral of 1 to represent the canadian border?

ian.

Argh!!! I forgot that one as well! It is now done!

Changes made:

1. Moved Alaska down to the bottom left by Hawaii
2. Moved the title to the bottom
3. Spread out the mini-map across the top so it will be easier to see what each bonus is
4. Cropped the height down from 800 pixels to 710 pixels
5. Changed the Interstate city bonus from "+1 for every 5 interstate cities" to "+3 for 5 consecutive interstate cities"
6. Added in Calgary as a killer neutral between Great Falls and Tok
7. Changed Moorehead to Minneapolis and moved it to the right a tad bit

Click image to enlarge.

Still needing:
1. Should I go with the white text with dark outer glow like what is on Alabama, or the black text?

[koontz1973]

1. Moved Alaska down to the bottom left by Hawaii

This is so wrong, words fail me.

2. Moved the title to the bottom

but OK.

3. Spread out the mini-map across the top so it will be easier to see what each bonus is

Clearer so it is a good move but it seems to of gone in the wrong direction. By moving the title to the bottom, you already had room to spread the mini map out some, so why not put Alaska back where it should be. This would be clearer for game play.

4. Cropped the height down from 800 pixels to 710 pixels

How can this map be made more condensed and confusing? You seem of found it. I know that size is being an issue right now, but this map should not be one to be cropped, squeezed, squashed, crushed, flattened or any other word that comes to mind. I understand the height thing, but it feels as if you went too far this time. By putting Alaska back at the top, you grow some, and have the room for the mini map. You will not need the amount lost but somewhere in between should be good.

5. Changed the Interstate city bonus from "+1 for every 5 interstate cities" to "+3 for 5 consecutive interstate cities"

Good.

6. Added in Calgary as a killer neutral between Great Falls and Tok

Good move, but with Alaska down at the bottom, your arrows go no where.

1. Should I go with the white text with dark outer glow like what is on Alabama, or the black text?

Black on white IMO.

[isaiah40]

Done as koontz suggested. Had to expand the map up to 750 pixels in height.

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

Much better. Sorry for being negative in the last post.

[isaiah40]

Much better. Sorry for being negative in the last post.

Not a problem. You didn't see any punches being thrown your way right?

[nolefan5311]

I much prefer the black text.

Is there supposed to be a connection between Manchester and Boston? If not, the New Hampshire bonus should probably be reduced to a +1.

The border lines between states in the NE is a little hard to tell. Is there something you could do to fix that? Or something you could do is because there are already so many lines on the map, maybe getting rid of the border lines completely and just having a gap there similar to how the regions are split up.

Also, you should probably indicate somewhere in the legend that Calgary is a killer neutral. I can see someone parking a stack there not realizing that.

[isaiah40]

I much prefer the black text.

Yes, I prefer the black text better.

Is there supposed to be a connection between Manchester and Boston? If not, the New Hampshire bonus should probably be reduced to a +1.

Good catch! Yes there is. I'm thinking that maybe NH should be +1 anyways.

The border lines between states in the NE is a little hard to tell. Is there something you could do to fix that? Or something you could do is because there are already so many lines on the map, maybe getting rid of the border lines completely and just having a gap there similar to how the regions are split up.

I will be redoing all the borders and such as time goes on. As for the gap, I did have it that way way back when but it was making the map look way too cluttered.

Also, you should probably indicate somewhere in the legend that Calgary is a killer neutral. I can see someone parking a stack there not realizing that.

Done!

[iancanton]

juneau to anchorage is presumably by boat, the same as juneau to seattle. the only regular juneau ferry actually sails to bellingham, not to seattle, although there are pleasure cruises from seattle to alaska.

http://www.ferrytravel.com/juneau.htm

it's logical for u to use the same symbol for both connections: remove the dotted lines and put a boat beside anchorage, then amend the legend wording to connects juneau with anchorage and bellingham?

if u want seattle to play a bigger role as the gateway to alaska, then perhaps remove the above boat connections completely and add a blue plane beside both seattle and anchorage (to represent by far the busiest air link between the continental usa and alaska), with the wording connects anchorage with seattle.

rayan10154 noticed something on wm's usa: new england map that has carried over to here.

There are some mistakes on the New England map. Plattsburgh is closer to Burlington than Montpelier so those should be connected and Montpelier is closer to Berlin. I-90 is supposed to go through Worcester. And also New York City should connect to Scranton.

vermont is the wrong shape. the long western edge is supposed to follow a north-south line instead of being diagonal as at present. the road from plattsburgh to montpelier (note the spelling of both cities) is not direct, but goes through burlington. burlington is east of plattsburgh and northwest (not northeast) of montpelier.

http://www.discovernewengland.org/travel-planning/new-england-maps/

the above change also lets us reduce both vermont and new hampshire to +1.

Is there supposed to be a connection between Manchester and Boston? If not, the New Hampshire bonus should probably be reduced to a +1.

Good catch! Yes there is. I'm thinking that maybe NH should be +1 anyways.

maybe also eliminate the minor road between casper WY and crawford NE, to reduce the difficulty of both state bonuses.

For the capitals, are you saying Western +8 for 6 etc?

yes, basically a simple +8 for holding all of the state capitals in any of the maps of the map pack, exceptions being +16 for great lakes because of its sheer size and +8 for the capitals of the western map plus alaska and hawaii.

are u still thinking about these +8 and +16 capital bonuses, or have u finally kicked this one into the long grass? at the moment, in the absence of the superbonuses (that probably will be ignored by players if put back in), the map lacks something which binds together each map area, for example there is no bonus to tie any state to any other state that has the same colour, meaning that the bonus zones of the original usa map are now irrelevant. this bonus tries to redress that issue.

ian.

[AndyDufresne]

Though I am in the minority, think white text helps in an overall map sense, since you already have a plethora of black connecting lines all over the map. The white doesn't look great in the region of the South, however, so to go with white text you'd have to find some slightly different shades of background colors, which you probably won't want to do.

All in all, white I think would serve the map better, but in the end I suppose I'll defer.


--Andy

[isaiah40]

if u want seattle to play a bigger role as the gateway to alaska, then perhaps remove the above boat connections completely and add a blue plane beside both seattle and anchorage (to represent by far the busiest air link between the continental usa and alaska), with the wording connects anchorage with seattle.

Done with the exception of leaving the ferry icons next to Juneau and Anchorage. I have also placed a dedicated airport connection between Los Angeles and Honolulu, and placed the cross map airport on San Fransisco. This was done because I had 3 airports in the Western bonus area while the others only had 1. This will help by not making the Western area so hard to hold. Western now has 2 dedicated airports with Seattle/Anchorage and Honolulu/Los Angeles which can only attack the other corresponding airport.

rayan10154 noticed something on wm's usa: new england map that has carried over to here.

There are some mistakes on the New England map. Plattsburgh is closer to Burlington than Montpelier so those should be connected and Montpelier is closer to Berlin. I-90 is supposed to go through Worcester. And also New York City should connect to Scranton.

vermont is the wrong shape. the long western edge is supposed to follow a north-south line instead of being diagonal as at present. the road from plattsburgh to montpelier (note the spelling of both cities) is not direct, but goes through burlington. burlington is east of plattsburgh and northwest (not northeast) of montpelier.

http://www.discovernewengland.org/travel-planning/new-england-maps/

the above change also lets us reduce both vermont and new hampshire to +1.

Done with the exception of adding in the road between NYC and Scranton as it would be hard to see and make it too cluttered

maybe also eliminate the minor road between casper WY and crawford NE, to reduce the difficulty of both state bonuses.

Done, and also corrected Pittsburgh as well.

For the capitals, are you saying Western +8 for 6 etc?

yes, basically a simple +8 for holding all of the state capitals in any of the maps of the map pack, exceptions being +16 for great lakes because of its sheer size and +8 for the capitals of the western map plus alaska and hawaii.

are u still thinking about these +8 and +16 capital bonuses, or have u finally kicked this one into the long grass? at the moment, in the absence of the superbonuses (that probably will be ignored by players if put back in), the map lacks something which binds together each map area, for example there is no bonus to tie any state to any other state that has the same colour, meaning that the bonus zones of the original usa map are now irrelevant. this bonus tries to redress that issue.

ian.

This can be done, but for the Southwest area I'm thinking +7 for 6. +8 just seems like too much for there.

Changes made:
1. All of the above
2. Changed the color of the Los Angeles and Honolulu airport icons and made them connect
3. Added an airport icon to San Fransisco to connect with the other airports for cross map attacks
4. Added "Same colored airports can attack each other"

Click image to enlarge.

[iancanton]

Western now has 2 dedicated airports with Seattle/Anchorage and Honolulu/Los Angeles which can only attack the other corresponding airport.

that works nicely.

For the capitals, are you saying Western +8 for 6 etc?

yes, basically a simple +8 for holding all of the state capitals in any of the maps of the map pack, exceptions being +16 for great lakes because of its sheer size and +8 for the capitals of the western map plus alaska and hawaii.

This can be done, but for the Southwest area I'm thinking +7 for 6. +8 just seems like too much for there.

+14 for all great lakes capitals and +7 for all capitals on any other map is reasonable and simple to explain.

wyoming and nebraska need to be reduced to +3 and +2.

ian.

[nolefan5311]

Some thoughts I have after studying the map pretty hard for the past 90 minutes or so, lol.

First thing is, the airplane coloring is causing me, a slightly colorblind person, issues. Is there any way you can make them contrast each other more?

Weston, WV label sort of clashes with the borders. Can it be moved?

In the legend I think D.C. needs to list what regions assault it. As is, it looks like its just placed on top of the interstate, and not necessarily in the assault path. You might also make it border both Annapolis and Richmond.

Additionally, the Maryland bonus can probably be increased by 1.

Maybe work on the positioning of "Des Moines"? Currently it cuts off the border between Iowa and Missouri.

The border between South and North Carolina, and most of the Northern Florida border appear thicker than anywhere else on the map.

Wyoming is abnormally shaped. I know it's this way to make things fit, but its longer than it is tall, and it's the opposite on the map. Is there something that can be done about that?

Sterling, CO is covering up some border lines and is a little confusing as to which state it belongs to.

Does Barstow, CA attack Las Vegas? If so, the interstate symbol covers up that attack route...can that be repositioned?

Suggested bonus changes (in addition to Wyoming and Nebraska mentioned by ian above):
Florida needs to be reduced to a +4.
Georgia actually seems a little low with the airport connection there now.
Texas needs to be reduced to a +5
Iowa needs to be reduced by 1.
Michigan could probably be reduced by 1 as well.
Alaska at +4 is too high. It still only has 2 ways to attack in, and one of those is a killer neutral (which still needs to be indicated on the map).
Hawaii can probably be reduced to a +1 since the only way to attack in is Honolulu