USA 2.1 [10 Mar 2013] Beta Baby!!

[isaiah40]

You left the 16th biggest city in the country with a population of 750,000 off the map. Add Fort Worth or I cannot take it seriously.

How about I rename Dallas to DFW? Would that satisfy you?

[AndyDufresne]

Thumbs up, do it.


--Andy

[The Bison King]

kind of surprised this is going to the forge. The graphics could be so much better. The states could at least be in the right shapes. Yada yada yada I know I've said it all before.

[cairnswk]

kind of surprised this is going to the forge...

i think this is still in gameplay isn't it? hasn't been stamped on front page for GP!
so graphic-wise, i know isaiah40 will do much better than this.

[nolefan5311]

kind of surprised this is going to the forge...

i think this is still in gameplay isn't it? hasn't been stamped on front page for GP!
so graphic-wise, i know isaiah40 will do much better than this.

cairns is correct. This is currently stickied for the GP stamp.

[isaiah40]

looks as if MT is missing a territ from the original. Glendive which connects to parshall and Billings.
salem might need to connect with Burns (it does in the orginal.)

Glendive was remove per iancanton's suggestion, as for Salem to Burns, that connection is now Medford to Burns.

kind of surprised this is going to the forge. The graphics could be so much better. The states could at least be in the right shapes. Yada yada yada I know I've said it all before.

Cairns and nolefan area correct, this is still in GP, and I know you've said it before, and as I have said before, if it doesn't pertain to gameplay clarity, it can wait until graphics.

[mr_chopper]

If it is alright, I will start a tourney with this map and gather info for you from the participants!

[nolefan5311]

If it is alright, I will start a tourney with this map and gather info for you from the participants!

Your tourney will not start for quite a while, as this still has some time to go before it will be released into Beta.

[charmir]

If it is alright, I will start a tourney with this map and gather info for you from the participants!

Your tourney will not start for quite a while, as this still has some time to go before it will be released into Beta.

Lets start it now. This is more than good enough for me.

But as for game play which the thing on the home page says you want, this looks OK to me. But one question, why does Hawaii only have one way in or out and Alaska have two? Hawaii has one extra region to take but it is only a +2 to a +4. Should these be a bit closes together. Maybe add another connection to Hawaii and both be +4 or just make Alaska a +3.

[Nola_Lifer]

I can't see the map still.

[ViperOverLord]

It's much harder to see the state lines than in earlier versions.

[isaiah40]

I can't see the map still.

Clear your cache and try again.

It's much harder to see the state lines than in earlier versions.

I will be working on them while in graphics.

I think I got everything now!

Click image to enlarge.

[iancanton]

a progress report while i'm midway through checking bonuses. states that have a yellow airport appear to be undervalued by about 2 troops. my gut feel is that very large states, such as california, texas and florida, will be rarely attempted unless their bonuses are increased, simply because higher-paying combined bonuses, such as state plus highway, are available for the same number of cities held. more after i've completed my analysis of bonuses!

ian.

[RjBeals]

any reason you chose green, yellow and blue for the colors? Wouldn't red/white/blue be more fitting?

[iancanton]

what a good job u've made of the state bonuses! 90% of them are good as is, which is some achievement on a map of this size and complexity.

as mentioned before, the large states with yellow airports will need bigger bonuses to compensate for both their vulnerability to attack and the delay in actually starting to pay out: +9 instead of +6 for california, +8 instead of +5 for texas, +5 instead of +3 for illinois, +7 instead of +5 for new york and +6 instead of +5 for georgia.

the corner location of florida just about compensates for the large number of cities that it has, so we can leave it at +4. for dc, +2 auto-deploy instead of +3 is probably more balanced, since it's initially accessible only from baltimore and will almost certainly form part of a strategy that combines dc with i-95.

for the bonuses that involve state capitals, perhaps include the star symbol to make it clear that dc doesn't count.

the road from plattsburgh to burlington has somehow gone through canada. straighten out the border to fix this.

ian.

[isaiah40]

any reason you chose green, yellow and blue for the colors? Wouldn't red/white/blue be more fitting?

It would, at the same time I had to get colors that contrasted well with each other and that were good for our color blind players. The 888's show up good with these colors so for now I'm going to keep them. But while in graphics I may play with the colors some more.

what a good job u've made of the state bonuses! 90% of them are good as is, which is some achievement on a map of this size and complexity.

Thank you!!

as mentioned before, the large states with yellow airports will need bigger bonuses to compensate for both their vulnerability to attack and the delay in actually starting to pay out: +9 instead of +6 for california, +8 instead of +5 for texas, +5 instead of +3 for illinois, +7 instead of +5 for new york and +6 instead of +5 for georgia.

Done.

the corner location of florida just about compensates for the large number of cities that it has, so we can leave it at +4. for dc, +2 auto-deploy instead of +3 is probably more balanced, since it's initially accessible only from baltimore and will almost certainly form part of a strategy that combines dc with i-95.

Done.

for the bonuses that involve state capitals, perhaps include the star symbol to make it clear that dc doesn't count.

For the Interstate bonuses I included "Does not include D.C." As for the other bonuses, I believe that they are clear considering that both the Capital and D.C. bonuses have their associated symbol next to them.

the road from plattsburgh to burlington has somehow gone through canada. straighten out the border to fix this.

ian.

Done.

And without further ado, here is v27!

Click image to enlarge.

[FreeMan10]

Wow! Quite some progress from the original version.

A graphics suggestion - change the pink airplanes to green, then change the yellow ones to red. To my eye, the yellow airports get lost in the middle of the map. Possibly just swap pink & yellow, but the complete color changes eliminates the yellow on yellow of LAX and Honolulu.

Also, IL, IN & OH are horribly misshapen from reality, but somehow these colors & borders seem to hide the fact. Either that, or I still have the original images in my mind's eye, and you've actually cleaned up the shape somewhat. Either way, it seems to work now.

EDIT: Also, and I think this was mentioned earlier, the northern border of FL & the north eastern border of GA are a little wonky. They look like impassibles that weren't called out in the legend.

[isaiah40]

Wow! Quite some progress from the original version.

A graphics suggestion - change the pink airplanes to green, then change the yellow ones to red. To my eye, the yellow airports get lost in the middle of the map. Possibly just swap pink & yellow, but the complete color changes eliminates the yellow on yellow of LAX and Honolulu.

Also, IL, IN & OH are horribly misshapen from reality, but somehow these colors & borders seem to hide the fact. Either that, or I still have the original images in my mind's eye, and you've actually cleaned up the shape somewhat. Either way, it seems to work now.

EDIT: Also, and I think this was mentioned earlier, the northern border of FL & the north eastern border of GA are a little wonky. They look like impassibles that weren't called out in the legend.

Thank you!

I'll play with the color of the planes to see if I can't get them to stick out more. One thing that won't happen is the yellow to red because the red will disappear on the blue for the color blind.

Yes there are some states that are out of whack, I plan on redoing them once into graphics.

[iancanton]

for the bonuses that involve state capitals, perhaps include the star symbol to make it clear that dc doesn't count.

For the Interstate bonuses I included "Does not include D.C." As for the other bonuses, I believe that they are clear considering that both the Capital and D.C. bonuses have their associated symbol next to them.

the +1 for every 2 capitals bonus is clear. i was actually referring more to the hold all capitals +14 bonus as the one where there might be some confusion.

also, when requesting the reduction in dc auto-deploy from +3 to +2, i had assumed that the i-95 bonus could include dc: by any logic, dc appears to be squarely on i-95, so it's natural for it to count toward the 5 consecutive cities needed.

ian.

[isaiah40]

Hmmm ... Well, I'm okay with either way with D.C. I'll add in the Does not include D.C. with the Hold all capitals for the great lakes.

[sumone10154]

New England should be renamed to Northeast. New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are definitely not part of New England. Also, I-95 goes through Trenton.

[isaiah40]

New England should be renamed to Northeast. New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are definitely not part of New England. Also, I-95 goes through Trenton.

New England will not be renamed, as then I would have to change Great Lakes because Delaware is not around the great lakes. But I digress, this map is based on the USA map and the USA map pack. Though I can move I-95 so it goes through Trenton.

[iancanton]

I can move I-95 so it goes through Trenton.

in this case, the new jersey state bonus increases from +1 to +2.

ian.

[isaiah40]

Okay ian, I think I covered all your suggestions, so this should do it for game play *crosses fingers*

Click image to enlarge.

[iancanton]

it's certainly been a long time in coming. onward and upward!



ian.