Moderator: Cartographers
The reviewers will make make suggestions and recommendations for the development of the map idea, with successful design concepts being moved into the Gameplay Workshop.
Pamoa wrote:Does that mean I should throw away a 50 hours job and start something new?
The concept is great, I like the graphics, but the gameplay is too complicated and overcrowded. Don't throw it away, but I can't move it to gameplay like this.
Gameplay Development Guidelines
The development of solid, balanced gameplay is one of the first challenges of map development. In order to meet gameplay expectations and make your map successful, you will need to incorporate the following elements:
Balanced deployment - It should be unlikely that one or more players can start the game with a major advantage as a result of the initial drop or getting the first turn. Conquer Club is primarily a strategy game, and we therefore like to minimise as many of the luck factors as possible - the dice are randomness enough!
Reasonable bonus structure - Bonuses should make sense given the size/style of the map, and be based on a consistent formula. Consideration should be given to balancing the strength of the board, ensuring that no specific area of the map gives an overwhelming advantage from the start of a game.
Game type flexibility - The map should support various game types and not be designed with specific/limited game settings in mind (standard, assassin, fog of war, 2 players, etc.). Maps designed for fewer than 8-players should be discouraged, and will only be approved if the map is really something special.
Player-friendliness - Any information you need to know to play a map should be easy to gather by looking at the map itself. The legend should be clear, concise and consistent; the map itself should be free of unnecessary or cumbersome rules that push it over the line separating complex from confusing.
Open-play - There should be many ways a game might progress on a map, and many roads to victory. Such features as unpassable borders should enhance, not limit, gameplay, and every effort should be made to limit the number of dead ends and bottlenecks in a map, unless they are justified by the desired play of the map. The map should be fun to play, not frustrating.
Function trumps form - The style of the graphics should not detract from ease of play: borders should be clear, titles and numbers easy to read, colors easy to distinguish, etc...
Form must follow function - So important it's on the list twice! Expect to show some flexibility and be prepared to move away from complete geographical accuracy or historical authenticity: the look and theme of the map must be utterly subservient to gameplay and legibility.
natty_dread wrote:Well. At first sight this looks interesting. I would recommend doing a draft of the small version with 888:s to ensure everything will fit properly. You don't want to run into the same problems you had with the napoleon map...
natty_dread wrote:Pamoa wrote:Does that mean I should throw away a 50 hours job and start something new?
This is a reason why you should not put too much work in a first draft. The idea of the foundry as I see it is not that you work 50 hours on a map, then put it up and expect that it will glide through the forums since "you have worked on it so much already"... it's more that you post an idea, people get to give it feedback, and you start working on the idea based on the feedback, advancing the map bit by bit...
Elijah S wrote:
natty_dread wrote:Well, I'd say there are a few areas where you could cut down the number of territories.
Ukraine, Iran & Afghanistan could each lose a few territories. Things are a bit cluttered in all of them. Maybe southern Khazakhstan too.
For Ukraine, what we could do is change from Ukraine to Eastern Europe, transform the 5 Ukrainian territories into 2 (one is currently Belarusia), and add Moldavia, Rumania (with a refinery - actually existing in reality) and Bulgaria. The afvantage of this would be that the new region would also connect with Turkey, whilst now its only contact is with Russia.
For Afpak, pretty much all we can do to simplify is to merge two Cashmir territories, give the new one to Afpak, and merge two existing Afpak territories.
Iran and Turkey are small, but they only have 6 territories each and they are quite clear, I think.
The Middle East Alliance has 11 territories. We could take Jerusalem completely out of play (like Nepal) and thus simplify the area.
Also, you're going to need to identify the bonus areas somehow. Currently nowhere on the map are the bonus area names said. There are people who are not too familiar with the area, even if they know the geography, and they can't be expected to memorize the name & location of each country just to play the map. I suggest a small minimap somewhere - north africa could work if you put it on top of Cairo, also simplify Turkey & the Jerusalem area so that you can move Jerusalem away from Africa.
There are no bonuses given for specific areas. Bonuses are given for each 2 territories owned in the same country/alliance, as indicated by colors on map. Players don't need to know the name of any country - just how many territories they own in each. There are no fixed bonuses for owning a country, which differ from country to country. It's the same for all: 1 unit for each 2 territory owned within any and all countries.
The revolts: do they give a negative bonus, or do the territories lose troops each turn? If it's a territory decay it could work, otherwise I don't see much point to them...
The territories lose troops each turn, down to a minimum of 1. So yes, it's a territory decay.
The US fleets.. why are there 2 of them, when they both can be accessed from the same territories? Seems a bit redundant. Since they both are also killer neutrals, no one is going to put a huge stack on them to keep them occupied, so one fleet should be enough.
Actually... since the terrorist can already assault each other, and they can bombard the same territories the US fleets can (refineries & tankers), why would anyone bother going for the fleets? You need some incentive. Perhaps make terrorists bombard refineries and US fleets bombard tankers?
Yes , we could have terrorists bombard refineries only, the US 5th Fleet bombard all terrorists, and US 6th Fleet bombard all tankers.
Well that's all from me for now... hope you find something useful from my post
There are no bonuses given for specific areas. Bonuses are given for each 2 territories owned in the same country/alliance, as indicated by colors on map. Players don't need to know the name of any country - just how many territories they own in each. There are no fixed bonuses for owning a country, which differ from country to country. It's the same for all: 1 unit for each 2 territory owned within any and all countries.
Rashkolnikov wrote:The Middle East Alliance has 11 territories. We could take Jerusalem completely out of play (like Nepal) and thus simplify the area.
The territories lose troops each turn, down to a minimum of 1. So yes, it's a territory decay.
Yes , we could have terrorists bombard refineries only, the US 5th Fleet bombard all terrorists, and US 6th Fleet bombard all tankers.
Evil DIMwit wrote:Rashkolnikov wrote:The Middle East Alliance has 11 territories. We could take Jerusalem completely out of play (like Nepal) and thus simplify the area.
That'd be nice. Jerusalem's awkward troop number placement is one of the most annoying. If you do that, though, be sure to connect Cairo to the rest of the map somehow, either by sea route or by tanker (the latter would be either interesting or awkward since there are no other Mediterranean tankers in the region).
Yes, that's an issue. Maybe we can keep Jerusalem, combine Beirut and Damascus, and move the Jerusalem label up.
While I'm on the subject of awkward placement: It's not enough for icons to touch the label of their territory; if they aren't on the territory itself, it's confusing to look at. That's true in Istanbul, it's true in Abu Dhabi, it's true with the Krasnodar fleet, and especially the Ajana fleet. In these cases there's just no room for more than one territory in that region; I recommend just scrapping those fleets. Maybe put a fleet in Izmir to give one to Turkey.
I can easily see reducing tankers from 15 to 9 - 3 per region, which would then eliminate the ones you mention.The territories lose troops each turn, down to a minimum of 1. So yes, it's a territory decay.
I think even then, the revolt territories are one of the least necessary features gameplay-wise, and since you're (hopefully) trying to simplify the gameplay, the revolts should be first to get cut.
Well they do add a degree of realism to the game... Also revolts are not separate territories, like tankers, but just a characteristic of existing territories. The fire symbols can easily be removed towards the end of the process, if they still are a sticking point.Yes , we could have terrorists bombard refineries only, the US 5th Fleet bombard all terrorists, and US 6th Fleet bombard all tankers.
Another way to differentiate the fleets would be to have them only be able to bombard tankers in the same sea. That would kind of make sense.
Perhaps also only have terrorists bombard refineries within the same region? That way they give more of a sense of local resistance.
Then again, that wouldn't come into effect very much since probably most of the refineries that have terrorists in their region actually border that terrorist territory.
If we reduce tankers from 15 to 9, that would give US fleets a really limited number of targets. I still think we can try my proposal above: terrorists bombard refineries only, the US 5th Fleet bombards all terrorists, and US 6th Fleet bombards all tankers.
The bonuses for Arunachal and Kashmir are not particularly interesting; because of the build-a-bonus system, it's not likely that a player is going to hold either all of China or all of India. It might work better to say that those territories count for either country.
Yes, I agree. One Kashmir would go to China, two others would be combined and given to Afpak and two existing Afpak territories combined to make the region less crowded, and Arunchal would go to India. Instead of the Cashmir window in the legend, we could put there the mini-map natty was asking for.
Finally, you'll want to either make the metropolis auto-deploy bigger or the neutral smaller, since most of the metropolises are so out of the way that just a 2-troop auto probably won't affect much.
natty_dread wrote:I realize this, but people still should know the name of the bonus areas - think about team games, how will you tell your teammate "take that blue bonus... not not that blue bonus, the other blue bonus..." or when you're negotiating a truce in a singles game...
Bonus area names are necessary for smooth gameplay, even if they don't have specific bonuses. Look at maps like Feudal or New world, bonus areas are named even in them. A small & simple minimap like the one in Feudal is all I ask.
Evil DIMwit wrote:I don't think this is really necessary. It's not difficult to describe the different regions, and they will most likely be given names on the game log whenever they give a bonus. A minimap that only exists to give names to the regions would be a waste of space, in my opinion.
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