Conquer Club

laughingcavalier wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

ender516 wrote:I don't see the problem with the buildings. If you can look at the legend and not see the difference between a castle (blocky, probably four sided), a Hanseatic city (two or three large peaked roofs), and a town (three steeples), then I don't know what to tell you. Plus, the castles have one of two shields on them.

+1 There's no doubt the different types of buildings are in three clearly distinct styles.

I disagree - my only problem with the map is that playing on my mobile phone I couldn't tell the difference between castles and towns (though I could tell the difference when playing on my computer). The castles and towns are too similar to differentiate between them on a small low quality screen - the town's steeples simply disappear. I think they could be differentiated without radically changing the symbols, eg by giving the castle a bold outline.

Well, in the past, I don't think much consideration was given to low-res or tiny screens, but if this is important to many CC members, the policy may need updating. I wonder what statistics and guidance the new administration can provide us in this matter. I will flag this for rdsrds2120's attention.

laughingcavalier wrote:Just finishing a few team games and I have really enjoyed playing this map - thanks for developing it. The gameplay is heavily oriented toward taking and holding bonuses, expecially the +3 castle bonus. At first I thought this was a problem, but came to see that is what gives the map its interest. It's like playing a conquest map like Feudal where the person who holds the most castles wins - but with the twist that you don't start in possession of the castles, and that the castles are key to moving around the map. Quite possibly the importance of the castles is historically accurate too.

Glad to hear that the map provides you with fresh interest in playing. That is key to maintaining and growing the player base, which is why new maps are made.
I believe historical accuracy was important to the original developer of the map, theBastard, who has withdrawn from CC. He had personal reasons (a hand injury limited his artwork and typing), but sadly, he also became frustrated with the Foundry and erased many of his posts.

laughingcavalier wrote:The islands seem to be a bit of a backwater and the Gotland bonus very hard to break - you may want to consider reducing the ships from 3 neutrals to 2 so they are easier to take. Similarly you might want to differentiate between the castles and the towns because you get +3 drop in the former and +1 drop in the latter. YOu could reduce the towns to 2 neutral troops or increase the castles to 4 neutral troops. At the moment there is no real incentive to take the towns.

I hope you have read the comments on bonuses starting at the top of page 55 from swimmerdude99, puppydog85, and Dukasaur. There are thoughts on both sides regarding neutrals, and clearly this is an open question still. The spreadsheet that I used to help me come up with the bonus values does not address the issue of the number of neutrals to use. I think reducing the town neutrals to 2 might be a good idea, but if they become too easy to get then players who drop the surrounding territories may get too much of an advantage. That might be correctable by making the surrounding territories starting positions to ensure a fairer drop. There are thirteen towns embedded in thirteen distinct areas, so there would always be at least one odd one left out. For this map, I don't know if I would want these starting positions to be underlying neutrals, as they would seal in a town and possibly partition the map. Of course, the underlying neutral could be a 1, which might make for some interesting land rushes.

Great map

I disagree with much of what has been posted in the past few pages. I think the map looks perfect the way it was when it was released to beta, but then again, I'm not colorblind. I guess it is best to make it CB friendly. Still though, I rather enjoy the darkness of the map. It has a nice aesthetic quality.

As for telling the cites, hanseatic cities and castles apart, I have no problems with it whatsoever. I see no reason to change it just to please people with a tiny screen.

Somebody posted something along the lines of seeing no reason to take the cities...I have to strongly disagree with that. The payback you get for letting it sit for a few turns more than makes up for what it cost to take the city. I'm playing in an 8 man standard game right now that I'm about to win due to all the auto's, not just castles (although those help much more than cities), but the cities as well. I love the strategy on this map and really hope you guys don't change it too much. The map is perfect as it is in my opinion.

Great job to all involved.

Love the look of the map. On gameplay, I'm on my third flat spoils game, and it seems if you get a scattered drop you're pretty much cooked. You can say that about a lot of small to medium maps, but the 3 neutrals contribute to that.

I am now completely satisfied with the map. Sadly it is not something I see as ideal for team play imo. But great for games especially involving trench. I really dig this map.

swimmerdude99 wrote:I am now completely satisfied with the map. Sadly it is not something I see as ideal for team play imo. But great for games especially involving trench. I really dig this map.

Foghorn Leghorn wrote:Dig? Trench? Pay attention, boy, you're making jokes and you don't even know it!

Seriously, I am glad you like the map.

I just play this map for the first time. I like the gamplay a lot so far!

But it took me long to understand that you have to hold also cities and towns to get territtory bonus. I think it would be better to tell that over the territory bonus legend. Its only mentioned in the castle description and that sentence is weird as its puts together two very different things (not bonus part but water crossing).

I like to play and learn new concepts, but it took me to long to understand what is elementary in my opinion.

Otherwise this map will become one of my favorites!

it is maybe too late (I was not here when map was developed) but I think that notice in legend about Hanseatic cities and Towns that they ARE part of land bonuses will help.
also what about to add frame to bottom legends too? there is space, just move "2 Duchy of Estonia", "2 Bishropic of Osel, Wick and Dago" a little down.

Oneyed

doppelmonster wrote:But it took me long to understand that you have to hold also cities and towns to get territtory bonus. I think it would be better to tell that over the territory bonus legend. Its only mentioned in the castle description and that sentence is weird as its puts together two very different things (not bonus part but water crossing).

Oneyed wrote:notice in legend about Hanseatic cities and Towns that they ARE part of land bonuses will help.

agreed. i had to look at previous games to find out that the towns and hanseatic cities are part of the bonus zones.

ian.

I've grown fond of this map. Fog goes natural with it which is something I like. I have to agree with what has been said though, the legend does little to hint that you need the cities to hold a territory bonus.

Why would you assume that cities and towns are not part of the bonuses, especially when the legend specifically excludes the castles, but does not exclude the cities and towns?

Ok, sorry for my absence but work is keeping me really busy.
Finally I had a bit of time to work on the map and produce an updated version.

This is what I did:
I changed the color accordingly your suggestions, now the colors are easier to distinguish.
Lighter map.
Added to the legend that cities and hanseatic are part of land bonus (althought I don't get why people continue to assume things that are not written )

Instead I have not added a frame to the right legend, in this case is just matter of personal taste and personally I removed the frame on this side because I like the map more as it is now.

@Ender516, to fit the additional text for cities and hanseatic part of land bonuses I had to enlarge the top left legend and so move gotland/visby and the connection of trade route. You have to move the coords for these two territories (gotland and visby) to reflect the updated version of the map.

Here below the latest large and small images, version 6.0.2 :

Large Version

Small Version


Nobodies

You caught me on a good night -- I had time to make this change (Gotland and Visby moved):

Baltic_Crusades_1.20.xml

Bonuses seem to be broken. In a current game I have:

18 territories (6)
Gotland (1)
Visby + ship + Koningsberg (2)
3 castles (1)
all green territories (3+2...+6?)

So I should be getting 15-21 armies per turn (don't understand what the green 6 means) but instead I am only listed to get 14...

Edit: hmmmm, read above, didn't know you had to have towns for bonus, so guess I don't have all green.

Still, it's not clear what the 6 means, 6+2+3 or 6 instead of 2+3...

the castle bonuses are +3 autodeploy, which means +3 is added to each castle and the extra troops are not available for u to place. holding all dark green and light green regions together (including the towns and hanseatic cities within the green regions) gives +6 in total. it sounds as if u ought to have +15 listed as the bonus, but i can't see exactly the regions u're holding because u're in a foggy game.

ian.

ZeekLTK wrote:Edit: hmmmm, read above, didn't know you had to have towns for bonus, so guess I don't have all green.

Still, it's not clear what the 6 means, 6+2+3 or 6 instead of 2+3...

It's written --> (All bonus areas). It means that if you hold both (light+dark green) you receive 6, as iancanton said.
Don't tell me you thought to receive 11 for holding those regions.

It means 6 instead of 2+3.

New files have been sent!

Nobodies

Something seems to have happened. Suddenly the troop numbers for Visby and Gotland are no longer within their designated circles.

Looks like they uploaded the new images without the new XML. Here is my post from the previous page.

ender516 wrote:You caught me on a good night -- I had time to make this change (Gotland and Visby moved):

Baltic_Crusades_1.20.xml

I have sent all files....:S
I've checked all new maps uploaded files but, as an idiot, i forgot to double check the ones of our map! lol

However the issue will be fixed soon.
Nobodies

I just wanted to say that I'm a huge fan of this map! Very fun for 1v1

I just started my first game on this map. This may be a BOB issue, but it looks like the East Prussia and Teutonic Order bonuses are switched. Using BOB, when I try to highlight the East Prussia bonus territories, it shows Samland, Nadruvia, Sudovia, etc... For Teutonic Order, it highlights Prussia, Ermland, etc...

I think the real problem is the legend. East Prussia is the northeastern part of the Order State, while the Teutonic Order occupies the southwest, just as BOB is telling you. We just need to swap the colours of the little green shields.