Conquer Club

That may work. Tamar and Heim are the only ones that are grossly unbalanced right now. All the rest are a few neutrals off from each other, so they are fine IMO.

i agree that heim has a big advantage, not only in the arrangement of the bonus icons, but also because every other tower apart from tamar (whose position is probably inferior, as isaiah has already postulated) and oloch is so far away that heim tower cannot be attacked easily. to remedy heim being hard to reach, is it possible to widen the heim river, move the s06 shrine to s04 and move the s04 boat to s06? also, all towers are 2 steps away from the nearest bonus, except heim, who is only one away. swapping he07 with mana6 is an easy fix.

the other change i'd like to see is for the n04 shrine to move to me06 to provide some protection for merin tower (especially from aris tower, but also from forces coming via the n05 boat) if desired or an alternative bonus to mana2 if combined with deyr village. merin is fairly easily reached from most towers except heim.

ian.

iancanton wrote:is it possible to widen the heim river, move the s06 shrine to s04 and move the s04 boat to s06?

It's doable... a bit of a pain in the ass, but doable...

iancanton wrote: also, all towers are 2 steps away from the nearest bonus, except heim, who is only one away. swapping he07 with mana6 is an easy fix.

Actually, that'd bring the shrine even closer to Heim, and that won't do... I'll just redraw some regions to make the distance 2.

iancanton wrote:the other change i'd like to see is for the n04 shrine to move to me06 to provide some protection for merin tower (especially from aris tower, but also from forces coming via the n05 boat) if desired or an alternative bonus to mana2 if combined with deyr village. merin is fairly easily reached from most towers except heim.

Sure, that can be done.

*yawns and stretches* Oh, shit! I forgot to follow-up on this

I'll be back after your next update, I'm sure. Feel free to bother me via PM. That's generally the best way to get me to post, ha.

-Sully

natty_dread wrote:

iancanton wrote: also, all towers are 2 steps away from the nearest bonus, except heim, who is only one away. swapping he07 with mana6 is an easy fix.

Actually, that'd bring the shrine even closer to Heim, and that won't do... I'll just redraw some regions to make the distance 2.

trees between mana6 and he02 will do it.

azael is the only other tower that has only one step to the nearest bonus. taking just three regions secures an additional bonus of +3. trees between az02 and mana8 will help to reduce this quick advantage.

ian.

Sorry I've been lagging on updates with this one... I've been thinking about some possible graphical changes, but haven't been able to just get to work on them...

I'll try to have an update posted as soon as.

'Look forward to it

-Sully

Ok, finally got an update done. There was so much stuff to do, if I forgot anything that I've promised to do, just let me know...

You may also notice the borders were completely redrawn. I tried to go for a bit more organic feel for them, to make them look less artificial, which IMO is often a problem on fictional maps...

Made a bit more touch-up to borders, and moved the gold from Az7 to Az9.

For the fans, here's some original artwork done for the map. You can find all of these on the map in a smaller size...

So hey what's next for the gameplay?

Ian, Isaiah, anyone...?

I'm waiting for more gameplay feedback. What's next to change? I'm open to all suggestions here.

Sorry natty, I sort of forgot about this. I have put a call out to Ian for another look see. I'm still not convinced about Tamar Tower as I believe it is still the weakest tower on the map. That being said I'll discuss it more with Ian.

Frankly, in this kind of situation, it's going to be difficult to get everything right this time through. I fully expect changes aplenty in beta. At any rate, we should still have a good foundational gameplay structure, of course, and I don't think we're too far.

I think something as simple as moving Mana5 to Ta06 would give Tamar a well enough bump. IMO, Merin is the one that's screwed. It doesn't have any real accessible resource pairs (even the Mana Fount is a bit more than a hop and a skip away), plus it has to deal with Aris, since Aris can only go toward Merin. I still think Aris needs an alternate route.

-Sully

Victor Sullivan wrote:moving Mana5 to Ta06 would give Tamar a well enough bump

All the mana founts are at distance 3 from their tower... well except for Aris which is 4. Anyway I'm not convinced that moving the mana fount closer would give a sufficient "bump", it just means 2 less neutrals to go through to get the same bonus...

Victor Sullivan wrote: IMO, Merin is the one that's screwed. It doesn't have any real accessible resource pairs (even the Mana Fount is a bit more than a hop and a skip away), plus it has to deal with Aris, since Aris can only go toward Merin. I still think Aris needs an alternate route.

There is an alternate route for Aris, the ferry at N05. And Merin has a mana fount in an easily defensible place, along with a shrine nearby... to me it seems Merin's got nothing to worry about.

natty dread wrote:

Victor Sullivan wrote:moving Mana5 to Ta06 would give Tamar a well enough bump

All the mana founts are at distance 3 from their tower... well except for Aris which is 4. Anyway I'm not convinced that moving the mana fount closer would give a sufficient "bump", it just means 2 less neutrals to go through to get the same bonus...

True, but getting a slight head start would help. And I think the relative sparsity of his 'dominion', if you will, could leave him under-the-radar enough to secure it. Moving the Mana Fount closer (even to Ta02) could help him get a head start on this... It's something to think about at least.

Alternatively, perhaps adding a shrine to S01 would do well? It seems to me that would put Tamar at a relatively even standing with Heim.

natty dread wrote:There is an alternate route for Aris, the ferry at N05. And Merin has a mana fount in an easily defensible place, along with a shrine nearby... to me it seems Merin's got nothing to worry about.

I disagree. N05 really isn't that valid of an alternate route, as the Aris player would go toward Amun and the gold at Me08, it seems to me. What if you moved the ferry from N05 to N03?

-Sully

Victor Sullivan wrote:True, but getting a slight head start would help. And I think the relative sparsity of his 'dominion', if you will, could leave him under-the-radar enough to secure it. Moving the Mana Fount closer (even to Ta02) could help him get a head start on this... It's something to think about at least.

Yeah I don't know, I'll wait to hear what Isaiah suggests about it.

Victor Sullivan wrote:What if you moved the ferry from N05 to N03?

I can do that.

Victor Sullivan wrote:Alternatively, perhaps adding a shrine to S01 would do well? It seems to me that would put Tamar at a relatively even standing with Heim.
-Sully

This would work, and you can leave the manna Fount where it is. This will give Tamar an equal chance.

isaiah40 wrote:

Victor Sullivan wrote:Alternatively, perhaps adding a shrine to S01 would do well? It seems to me that would put Tamar at a relatively even standing with Heim.
-Sully

This would work, and you can leave the manna Fount where it is. This will give Tamar an equal chance.

But this would mean the south side would have one more shrine than the north side.

Actually, when I look at it, I really don't see how Tamar is at a disadvantage. Tamar has:

- Mana fount at distance 3 (+1)
- Village at distance 3 (+2)
- Unicorn at distance 2, Gold at distance 4 (+2)

When you compare it to Heim, who has:

- Mana fount at 3 (+1)
- Village at 4 (+2)
- Shrine at distance 4 (+2 with village)

They seem pretty equal to me. True, with the 2nd spell Heim can get an extra +3 from the Shrine, but the Shrine is also contested with Tamar, who will be right next to it after he takes the unicorn + gold. And Tamar can also get his own shrine easily via the ferry route.

So can someone explain to me the reasoning why Tamar is weak?

Seriously guys, please tell me why you think Tamar is at disadvantage, what makes him weaker than others. Because I have a hard time seeing it, honestly. If we know why he's weaker then it could be easier to figure out a good solution for it.

natty dread wrote:Actually, when I look at it, I really don't see how Tamar is at a disadvantage. Tamar has:

- Mana fount at distance 3 (+1)
- Village at distance 3 (+2)
- Unicorn at distance 2, Gold at distance 4 (+2)

When you compare it to Heim, who has:

- Mana fount at 3 (+1)
- Village at 4 (+2)

Look at it again. By the time Tamar can get to the gold, Heim would already have the gold and be blocking Tamar from getting it.
Heim
- Shrine and Village +2
- Mana Fount +1
- Village auto +2
- Total +5

Tamar
- Mana Fount +1
- Village auto +2
- Total +3

With the 2 extra men Heim gets - with moving those 2 from the village - Heim has a clear advantage on making sure Tamar doesn't get too far. Heim would effectively block Tamar from getting the Unicorn/Gold bonus for a couple of rounds, before he/she gets it themselves thus Tamar would not have chance. A couple of rounds later Heim would have +7 compared to Tamar's +3. and this is not counting the territory bonus. If we calculate that in Heim would get +9 while Tamar would get +6. Heim has the advantage.

isaiah40 wrote:Look at it again. By the time Tamar can get to the gold, Heim would already have the gold and be blocking Tamar from getting it.

How do you mean? Tamar has a shorter distance to that gold. Heim has 3 regular territories + Shrine in between, while Tamar only has 3 regular territories. That's 6 neutrals vs. 10 neutrals.

natty, can you please post your new version with the neutrals on it?

Yeah, in a moment.

Here