[Abandoned] - Gettysburg

[Seamus76]

Need a little time to digest, but I like where you are heading.

Also, there is absolutely no better person for you to work with on this map other than Marshall. This should turn out well.

[isaiah40]

All I can say right now is much better!!

[Minister X]

Are there no complaints about this map? It's perfect? Or is it just that no one cares?

[Victor Sullivan]

Are there no complaints about this map? It's perfect? Or is it just that no one cares?

Patience, Young Sasquatch, Sully is on the case.

-Sully

[Victor Sullivan]

When one thinks of Gettysburg, he thinks of the Civil War, the Union, the Confederacy... There seems to be a lack of the two sides of the war/battle.I'm sure MarshalNey could help with this, but I think the roads should be designated as Confederate or Union, and you can only get a bonus for holding multiple roads if they're all either Confederate or Union. Also, with the auto-deploys for Round Top and Cemetery Hill, it seems rather overpowered to give a bonus for holding them in addition to the auto-deploy. Try something like +2 auto for Round Top, +1 auto for Cemetery Hill, and maybe up Gettysburg to +2 auto as well.

-Sully

[Minister X]

Okay. I am in the process of totally re-designing the map. I'm using "army boxes" instead of drawing borders. This allows the roads to be shown as roads, with the army boxes strung along them like beads. In addition, some boxes will be blue, some red, and some neutral. The blue will correspond to Union positions as per the USMA "Overview Map" for July 3rd; the red will correspond with Confederate positions. They, in addition to the roads, will be continents. This will be similar to the Austerlitz map. Watch this space.

[TaCktiX]

I like the change in direction, but I'm struck with how perfect most of the territories look. We've got quadrilaterals aplenty all over. It doesn't really jibe with what I think of when I hear "Civil War." And while I think this is closer to Gettysburg than your first go at it, I'm distracted from the Round Top by people marching into town. It's more of a Preparations for the Battle of Gettysburg than the Battle of Gettysburg. I realize you've already done one absolutely massive redo on the idea and if you want to set my comments aside I won't be offended and will still try to get its gameplay balanced and its elements clear.

Speaking of which, I almost missed Impassable's description on the map. Perhaps set that off?

[Minister X]

SIXTH DRAFT
This is a complete from-scratch re-design - almost worthy of having started a whole new thread. This version gives roughly equal weight to the most famous elements of the battle and to the nature of Gettysburg as a road junction, which is why the battle was fought there in the first place. The "elements" are the recognizable placenames and the disposition of forces illustrating the general course of day two of the battle.

If/when choosing to display a disposition of forces for this battle, more so than for most, the question is: when? Each day had different starting/ending dispositions. The ones I chose are from a US Military Academy map illustrating what they call the "Overview" of day two - neither the start or end, but a representative look at where most of the forces were most of the day. This seemed to me to show battlelines that would not only be most familiar to most people and run along the most famous landmarks, but also give the most representative feel for the engagement as a whole.

There are 79 terts and 17 different bonuses. There are also seven terts with autodeploys (of one or two). These seven will start with neutral forces of 3 troops each.

The bonuses come in two flavors: roads and historically disposed forces. Each road continent is discrete and solid and linear. Disposed forces continents are a lot less organized/cohesive. The two types overlap: to own certain roads you'd need to own certain disposed forces terts and vice-versa. This overlapping is extensive but only takes place on about half the map, making this something of two maps in one. The gameplay up north, with several small and one very large road will be much "cleaner" than gameplay in the more confused south-center.

Confused, but hopefully no confusing. Roads have names to identify them as per the legend, and are strung along the actual roads. Disposed forces are colored red or blue and have little tags denoting whether they belong to a left or right flank or the center of their respective side. I think this should all be clear enougth so that the only prospective players who are scared away will be those like me, who have almost zero tolerance for anything that looks like it might be confusing.

I see no difficulties making a smaller version of this map. This large version is 840 x 800.

show: superseded

[gimil]

At first glance this is far, far superior graphically to the last version of the map. The tones and colours really give a feel for what the map is about. I shall take a closer look at it in the future, when your game play has been more fine tuned!

[cairnswk]

What a difference a day makes, twenty four little hours....

Wow, you've really changed this around.
i have suggestions that are gameplay and graphics...when i started doing this map, i had some difficulty in remebering who was Union and who was Confederate. Is there anyway you could work that reminder into the legend somehow for non-US players.

Also, i see you have bonuses for right flank, centre and left of each side which agrregate for Union 13 and Confed. 16.
Is this unbalanced for gameplay?

Also, do these bonuses include only the coloured positions marked on the map of also ER1, TR1 and TR2 for instance.

I am really lilking where you are heading with this though.

[Minister X]

... difficulty in remebering who was Union and who was Confederate. Is there anyway you could work that reminder into the legend somehow for non-US players.

Also, i see you have bonuses for right flank, centre and left of each side which agrregate for Union 13 and Confed. 16.
Is this unbalanced for gameplay?

Also, do these bonuses include only the coloured positions marked on the map of also ER1, TR1 and TR2 for instance.

I honestly think all these questions could be answered simply by spending another minute studying the map.

The "tags" on the red and blue boxes indicate C for Confederate and U for Union (or USA). However, in the legend, I can put these red and blue colors under the appropriate words to strengthen the association. It will make the legend more difficult to read, however, so I'd like to hear from others whether they think it's needed.

The fact that there are more Confed. than Union terts makes absolutely zero difference to gameplay balance.

The right-most legend indicates the bonuses for the roads. Apparently this is not sufficiently clear? I have room to add the words "ROAD BONUSES". Would that help?

**I'm glad the reaction so far has been generally positive. Thanks.

[cairnswk]

...
I honestly think all these questions could be answered simply by spending another minute studying the map.

The "tags" on the red and blue boxes indicate C for Confederate and U for Union (or USA). However, in the legend, I can put these red and blue colors under the appropriate words to strengthen the association. It will make the legend more difficult to read, however, so I'd like to hear from others whether they think it's needed.

The fact that there are more Confed. than Union terts makes absolutely zero difference to gameplay balance.

The right-most legend indicates the bonuses for the roads. Apparently this is not sufficiently clear? I have room to add the words "ROAD BONUSES". Would that help?

**I'm glad the reaction so far has been generally positive. Thanks.

You've left UC out of the bonuses legend
From my experience with somewhat complex maps like this (and yes even i still don't get it correct out of the box), you need to make it perfectly clear what constitutes a bonus or not. That is to say, not everyone will read the map just like i did.

A lot of players will want to jump into the map and go pow wow and immediately expect to understand it, so anything you can do to assist this sitution and lessen your pain later would help...i.e. some colouration of the union and confed legend pieces. Perhaps this can be done as a background colour.

The title of Road bonuses or some such will assist also.

Are there going to be any bombardment positions? you have cannon on the map which leads me to think there might be.

Also, i have to say the additon of the flags in the background leads me to think literally one side against the other on the map, and as such i would consider to be distracting from the actual gameplay.
Perhaps they can be moved to the legend where they could be more useful in identifying the sides.
Just some suggestions if they help.

[Minister X]

I'll fix those things. It means losing the flags, which is okay if something just as good replaces them. There's plenty of imagery from the war, so it shouldn't be too hard, but if anyone wants to propose something specific I'll be receptive.

In Austerlitz both sides are shown, as here, and even have little men facing each other, but there's no confusion I've seen that would lead asnyone to say, "leads me to think literally one side against the other on the map, and as such i would consider to be distracting from the actual gameplay." So hopefully it's just the flags, and their removal, unfortunate as that may be, will solve the problem.

Bombardment positions: I had considered them but three things made me decide against them. 1) unlike so many earlier battles, at Gettysburg the artillery was spread onto every commanding height. For instance, Little Round Top was bristling with canon, but it also had infantry. It would be misleading to make it a bombardment position. 2) This was a big battle for the time. The union line is two miles top to bottom. Artillery had limited range. At this scale it would have been just to the next tert - rarely beyond. 3) I'm just starting out as a mapmaker. I'm having enough trouble (as you've seen) getting just a few different elements explained. Bombardment terts would add one more.

[MarshalNey]

I agree with Minister about the bombardments. While they would be a nice touch in a more complex map, I believe that Minister is aiming for a moderately simple gameplay framework. Given that goal, the number of gameplay elements should be small, probably no more than one, possibly two 'non-standard' types on the map (e.g., autodeploys, superbonuses, bombardments, one-way attacks, etc.)

Wow, though, this map is looking wonderful I think that the framework that you've settled upon here is a keeper. The attack routes look reasonable and historically sound too. Tweaking and balancing for the drop will probably be the main bulk of work.

I'm going to check the 1st post and see if you've posted any ideas for starting neutrals and the number of regions per player on the drop. If they're not there, then that's the next step I think as far as gameplay is concerned.

Excellent work!

-- Marshal Ney

P.S. Edit: Okay I checked the 1st post and it needs an update. Newcomers to this thread will see that post, and it needs to provide them with easy info that they can use to comment constructively (plus it helps us CAs too ). I realize that you just came out with this version, but I think it will be the definitive revision as far as concept goes, so it's worthwhile to revise the 1st post as well.

P.P.S. Edit: For neutral starts, obviously the auto-deploy regions should all be included. The smaller road & army bonuses should also be considered (like the MR bonus for instance). Try to tweak it so that you get a "golden number" of regions open for the drop. The "golden numbers" are listed under the Foundry gameplay guidelines (I think).

[Minister X]

I agree with Minister about the bombardments. While they would be a nice touch in a more complex map, I believe that Minister is aiming for a moderately simple gameplay framework. Given that goal, the number of gameplay elements should be small, probably no more than one, possibly two 'non-standard' types on the map (e.g., autodeploys, superbonuses, bombardments, one-way attacks, etc.)

Wow, though, this map is looking wonderful I think that the framework that you've settled upon here is a keeper. The attack routes look reasonable and historically sound too. Tweaking and balancing for the drop will probably be the main bulk of work. ...Excellent work!

Thank-you. That's great news.

For neutral starts, obviously the auto-deploy regions should all be included. The smaller road & army bonuses should also be considered (like the MR bonus for instance). Try to tweak it so that you get a "golden number" of regions open for the drop. The "golden numbers" are listed under the Foundry gameplay guidelines (I think).

Live and learn. I looked up the golden numbers. They are HERE under "Balanced Deployment". I have 79 total terts and the 7 autodeploys are already noted as being neutral starters so that's 72: a bad number. I need to add one to six more neutral starters. I want to prevent unreasonably good drops, so the small continents are the obvious targets. If I include continents with 4 terts that would be too many add'l neutral starters but two's and three's are just right. MR1, HAR1, HUN1 and YP1 will become Neutral starters, thus giving me the golden number of 68 deployable starters.