WWII Pearl Harbor - [Quenched]

[Greycloak]

When you take away the plane bonus, the map changes from something unique to yet another map whose bonuses are not defendable in any meaningful sense. The only bonuses that will be in play will be the +1 for an AA gun. Once people take the AA guns and kill the halo of enemy planes around them, there will be no incentive to retake the planes because defending 4 isolated points that are covered so well by bombardments for a measly +3 bonus is not a good return on units. All the games will end up with a bunch of wasted neutral planes and the struggle will be for the choke points and to leverage your coverage into more attacking units.

There are tons of maps on this site that have lots of theoretical bonuses and victory conditions that rarely enter into game play in singles and almost never are of importance in team games (Gazala to name an example). This change will turn this map into another one of those.

What's odd is that you chose Age of Realms as a map to compare to. Those three are among the trickiest to play where if you know "the strategy" you cannot lose against some poor schmuck who doesn't - exactly the learnability issue you decry above. I don't care for how the gameplay works in those maps so despite knowing the tricks, I choose not to play them. I love nothing more than coming from behind in a PH game because it's fluid, it's full of objectives that will all work and it's different than the vanilla maps out there. I'll be sad if this changes because something that is unique will be lost.

[OTE]

I agree with Greycloak completely. Why change the bonus structure it is a great map as is. OTE

[captainwalrus]

I agree with Greycloak completely. Why change the bonus structure it is a great map as is. OTE

I once saw someone start off the game by getting 12 troops a turn while I was only getting 3. That is hardly balanced. It needed to be changed.

[Thezzaruz]

I once saw someone start off the game by getting 12 troops a turn while I was only getting 3. That is hardly balanced. It needed to be changed.

Making a 2 or 3 player game on a large map that has many continent bonuses in play is the real problem there, not the map itself.

[Knight2254]

When you take away the plane bonus, the map changes from something unique to yet another map whose bonuses are not defendable in any meaningful sense. The only bonuses that will be in play will be the +1 for an AA gun. Once people take the AA guns and kill the halo of enemy planes around them, there will be no incentive to retake the planes because defending 4 isolated points that are covered so well by bombardments for a measly +3 bonus is not a good return on units. All the games will end up with a bunch of wasted neutral planes and the struggle will be for the choke points and to leverage your coverage into more attacking units.

There are tons of maps on this site that have lots of theoretical bonuses and victory conditions that rarely enter into game play in singles and almost never are of importance in team games (Gazala to name an example). This change will turn this map into another one of those.

What's odd is that you chose Age of Realms as a map to compare to. Those three are among the trickiest to play where if you know "the strategy" you cannot lose against some poor schmuck who doesn't - exactly the learnability issue you decry above. I don't care for how the gameplay works in those maps so despite knowing the tricks, I choose not to play them. I love nothing more than coming from behind in a PH game because it's fluid, it's full of objectives that will all work and it's different than the vanilla maps out there. I'll be sad if this changes because something that is unique will be lost.

Well said. This map does have the potential for drop favoritism, but this is just as likely to go for you as against. In the long run it should even out... And really good players can overcome bad drops some of the time.

As I stated earlier the only effective points on the map are going to be the AA guns because they are +1 by holding 1 territory while you potentially have to hold 4 isolated points for +3? This makes little sense to me.

[iancanton]

if everyone thinks that +3 is too low for holding 4 planes, then the simplest xml change (which has the merit of xml continuity) is simply to zero the 2-plane bonus and leave the 4-plane bonus unchanged. however, as far as i know, this is not under consideration by the author at the moment.

ian.

[captainwalrus]

I once saw someone start off the game by getting 12 troops a turn while I was only getting 3. That is hardly balanced. It needed to be changed.

Making a 2 or 3 player game on a large map that has many continent bonuses in play is the real problem there, not the map itself.

It was a 4 player game, the one person just beat all of us. Maps should try to be as balanced as possible for all settings though, not just 8 player games.

[shidarin]

I once saw someone start off the game by getting 12 troops a turn while I was only getting 3. That is hardly balanced. It needed to be changed.

Making a 2 or 3 player game on a large map that has many continent bonuses in play is the real problem there, not the map itself.

It was a 4 player game, the one person just beat all of us. Maps should try to be as balanced as possible for all settings though, not just 8 player games.

I wanted to see this game, so I took a look at your game records,

According to the list, you've only played 2 Pearl Harbor games, one a doubles with 6 people, January of 2008, and one with 6 people in Nov 2007.

What's up with that?

This map is fantastic as is- please do a poll before the change- I think you'll see the haters are in the minority.

[owenshooter]

As I stated earlier the only effective points on the map are going to be the AA guns because they are +1 by holding 1 territory while you potentially have to hold 4 isolated points for +3? This makes little sense to me.

or you could keep the guns at +1, but make the bonus automatically added to the gun... never thought of that before.. as far as the planes go, there are some really good ideas in here. when someone lands on a plane bonus, it is just too hard to get them off of it, and often times it is the end of the game if they hold it for their turn... still love the map... but these bonus updates are an interesting fix...-0

[waseemalim]

Well said. This map does have the potential for drop favoritism, but this is just as likely to go for you as against. In the long run it should even out... And really good players can overcome bad drops some of the time.

As I stated earlier the only effective points on the map are going to be the AA guns because they are +1 by holding 1 territory while you potentially have to hold 4 isolated points for +3? This makes little sense to me.

Agreed that in the long run better players will have a greater than 50% win rate. But the win rate can not be significantly higher than 50% because the randomness is just going to bring it down. Most of the top team players and complex map enthusiasts willfully avoid this map because of this fact alone.

I wouldnt be making a fuss about it if this was doodle -- but this map has a lot of potential. It is being stunted by its rubbish bonus structure.

+1 for 1 territory makes a lot more sense than +3 for 2 territories -- dont you think? The bonuses dont have to be in perfect ratio, but there shouldnt be any outliers. Given the size of the map,I doubt that the +1 bonuses will be of much use even if one gets a couple in his drop. I could be wrong here... but I am pretty sure that the changes being suggested would make this game a lot more playable.

[Forza AZ]

Just lost a 4 player doubles game because of the drop. 1 of our opponents started with 16 armies en took away all our bonusses before we could get started, so after the end of round 1 they were already up more then 25 armies and the game was over.

I don't know if somebody already made this suggestion:
The Planes bonusses are unique for this map, so I don't want to remove them, but having the Planes as normal starting territories favours the starting team in most of the games, so I would suggest having the Planes start as neutrals (maybe just 1, so they are easy to grab, but at least you have round 1 to break your opponents bonusses and not having yourself in a lost position before you even took your first turn).

[Knight2254]

As I stated earlier the only effective points on the map are going to be the AA guns because they are +1 by holding 1 territory while you potentially have to hold 4 isolated points for +3? This makes little sense to me.

or you could keep the guns at +1, but make the bonus automatically added to the gun... never thought of that before.. as far as the planes go, there are some really good ideas in here. when someone lands on a plane bonus, it is just too hard to get them off of it, and often times it is the end of the game if they hold it for their turn... still love the map... but these bonus updates are an interesting fix...-0

I actually like the auto-deploy +1 to the AA guns -- great suggestion. I would agree that if you wanted to slightly balance this map doing that and perhaps making the plane bonus +2 for 2 held, +3 for 3, ect., would make it more balanced.

On a side note -- we're coming back in a 4 player game right now with perhaps the worst drop I've ever had on Pearl: Game 5733713.

Though I did lose on a bad drop to Chephren and his gang in Game 5719484 which we could do nothing about.

[MrBenn]

It's been a while since the change was announced - the next step is for the map to be withdrawn for new games. We'll give it a couple of weeks for existing games to disappear before implementing any changes.

[timl2k9]

The oil tap is not obvious to me to be part of oil storage, this could use visual improvement.

[cairnswk]

The oil tap is not obvious to me to be part of oil storage, this could use visual improvement.

not even with the small white storage tank symbol on it the same as with the legend.
first time this has ever been mentioned i beleive.

[Riazor]

It's been a while since the change was announced - the next step is for the map to be withdrawn for new games. We'll give it a couple of weeks for existing games to disappear before implementing any changes.

Huh? What?! Noooo! We're playing a tournament on it, and its our home map.
Oh, and if any changes HAVE to be made, please consider doing something along these lines (instead of neutering plane bonuses):

I don't know if somebody already made this suggestion:
The Planes bonusses are unique for this map, so I don't want to remove them, but having the Planes as normal starting territories favours the starting team in most of the games, so I would suggest having the Planes start as neutrals (maybe just 1, so they are easy to grab, but at least you have round 1 to break your opponents bonusses and not having yourself in a lost position before you even took your first turn).

[lord voldemort]

indeed...though something needs to be done....i dont like being burned on it

[cairnswk]

This is the new Version 45 with the adjustments.

Click image to enlarge.

888 images

Click image to enlarge.

This is the xml file for checking.
Coordinates have been changed only for K6.

http://h1.ripway.com/cairnswk/Pearl_Har ... 040909.xml

Small
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s282 ... urV45S.jpg
Large
http://i155.photobucket.com/albums/s282 ... urV45L.jpg

[MrBenn]

The Pearl Harbor will be taken out of play for a little while now. Active games will be allowed to continue; the map will be relaunched and available again at some point on December 7th - the updated gameplay will be as per the update in the above post by cairnswk.

Apologies for the inconvenience caused - there will be some fall-out, but this way the damage to games-in-progress will be minimised.

--MrBenn

[laughingcavalier]

Really sad to see the planes bonus being effectively taken away. I've always liked the complexity of this map. Would much prefer to see a solution like Forza's or just making 2 planes a +2 bonus.
I thought the planes won at pearl harbour, so I thought that was why they were given such A good bonus.

[timl2k9]

The oil tap is not obvious to me to be part of oil storage, this could use visual improvement.

not even with the small white storage tank symbol on it the same as with the legend.
first time this has ever been mentioned i beleive.

Yes. It is too small, and not easy to perceive as a hexagon. It's vague.

[Gilligan]

the map will be relaunched and available again at some point on December 7th

Was that a joke, or was it a truth?

(FYI Pearl Harbor was on December 7, 1941)

[InsomniaRed]

the map will be relaunched and available again at some point on December 7th

Was that a joke, or was it a truth?

(FYI Pearl Harbor was on December 7, 1941)

I think that's the point If not, good coincidence

[Gilligan]

the map will be relaunched and available again at some point on December 7th

Was that a joke, or was it a truth?

(FYI Pearl Harbor was on December 7, 1941)

I think that's the point If not, good coincidence

Well, who's to say that the games will be done by the 7th?

[MrBenn]

the map will be relaunched and available again at some point on December 7th

Was that a joke, or was it a truth?

(FYI Pearl Harbor was on December 7, 1941)

I think that's the point If not, good coincidence

Well, who's to say that the games will be done by the 7th?

The choice of date was deliberate, so right back at you

A lot of the active games will have finished by then - but we'll be putting reminders/notifications into the game chat of active games so that people are aware.