by Incandenza on Fri Dec 05, 2008 8:07 pm
Hey haoala, I'll be stamping this map for gameplay. I remember back when you first started it, glad to see you've been able to get back to work.
But I have some concerns.
1. The bonuses: you say "The continents are generally harder to get than most maps around" like it's a feature of the map, when I think that the reason you don't see many (if any) maps with such difficult-to-hold bonuses is that it's generally a Bad Idea. The way it's set up, there's only one easily-gettable bonus, the Northwest (which with 3 terits and one border should probably be a +1 instead of a +2 regardless of how many terits can attack it, in general I'd say all your bonuses could stand to be shaved by an army). So basically you have it set up that unless you drop strong in and around the northwest, you're out of luck. The Northeast is only plausible as part of a larger strategy of taking that whole side of the map (which, see below). The Islands have too many terits for an easy strike, though an easy fix for the islands to to have a minibonus of +1 per 3 purple islands. Or make those 3 green northeast islands their own +1 (or add another island and bump it to a+2) But the way it is now, there's a balance issue.
2. The bottlenecks: The big one I worry about is Potong Pasir. That's +9 worth of bonus behind just one terit, plus it'll be a problem in escalating games. Then two terits away is Tanjong Pagar, another map-slicing bottleneck. Now, if you have solid reasons for having these bottlenecks, I'm all ears. But my instinct would be to try and break up these bottlenecks, which, entertainingly enough, brings me to my next point.
3. terit count: 36 isn't a great number. In 1v1 and 3p games, everyone starts with 12 terits, giving the first to play a marked advantage. So you could conceivably get it up to the platonic ideal 42 by breaking up some of the bigger terits, especially Tanjong Pagar, Sembawang, Hong Kah, etc.
4. Legibility: you're going to have serious gameplay issues when there's actual armies on the small map. The enclave and those two small red islands will be virtually swallowed up, and you'll have issued like "Can PP Timor attack Pasir Ris" or "Can Hougong attack pasir Ris" or "can Choa Chu Kang attack Bukit Timah". Seems like you've got some breathing room for to make the map physically bigger. Another thing that'll help comprehension is losing the cartoons, but now we're starting to drift into graphics...
Anyway, a bit of food for thought.
THOTA: dingdingdingdingdingdingBOOM
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