Wales [Quenched]

[yeti_c]

I like the mountains - although - I dislike that some are half coloured - I think it would look cleaner if they were single coloured? (If that makes sense)

Couple of other things - the yellow and red smudges under the names don't match the "continents" as closely as the others - mainly due to orientation - could you rotate them a bit so they're closer to their "reallife" counterparts?!

C.

[RjBeals]

Looking good benny.

I agree wit yeti - the mountains would look better 1 color, and not split. But the style is perfect. It's very very hard to nail down mountain ranges - you did a great job here.

My only suggestion is the poem / paragraph visual style. The map itself is on a faded yellow parchment looking background, but the text is deep crisp black. Granted you blurred is on the map edge - but I suggest adding some "grunge" to it. WidowMakers taught me the importance of the grunge layers, and he's very right. I would like to see your poem text blend into the map better - like Mibi did with his Iraq map. That text fits perfectly.

Do you agree.

[e_i_pi]

I agree with 2 previous posters on the mountains. The multiple colours on them doesn't look right, not when there's a nice spraycan inner glow on the continents. Not sure what solution you want to try, but a simple blur between the colours, and then a lightening effect, kinda of like bleach, to leech out the colour a little may remedy things.

I'm a little concerned about the bonuses. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you held South-West continent, you could be attacked from Sir Benfro, Sir Gaerfyrddin, Sir Aberteifi, Montgomeryshire, Radnor, Breconshire, and Glamorgan? Yet it is worth only +3? Seems like it will be quite difficult to hold continents in anything other than 2-4 player or team games. I appreciate it is a small map, and lends itself to smaller player numbers, and also that according to spreadsheet bonuses calculators, it's probably spot on. But given the mirrored gameplay, there is a multitude of possible attack routes. Sure, you only have to defend 3 provinces, but you *have* to defend all 3, you can't lock one behind your main border.

Aside from that it's looking great. I think the gameplay is going to be hard to balance properly, and I don't envy you on that one

[InsomniaRed]

Once the colors are sorted out on the mountains, I think they'll look fine. The mountains themselves are great. I usually do not pay attention to mountains on maps, but these look top notch to me

[MrBenn]

All-righty then... Version 11...

The biggest change is the text - I've gone for Oaktowns poetry, which was marginally superior to mine, although I did have to correct some of the American spellings (neighbor)
I've shifted the colours where the mountains meet... Each mountain is now one colour or the other - I tried an attempt with no colour on them, but it just looked wrong, This version looks tidier than the previous one, which is what I was hoping to achieve.
The text has been mildly grunged, and I've changed the colour to a very dark brown instead of black.

To reiterate how the gameplay is supposed to work; each Shire has two armies. Hold both armies in a Shire for +1. The South-West (red) has 3 Shires, or 6 armies. If you hold this region, you will get (3 x +1) for each Shire, and (1 x +3) for holding the region.

[ZeakCytho]

In the bonuses area at the bottom, you put the name in Welsh on top and the English translation below for all of them except the rightmost one...I think it should be flipped?

Other than that, I don't see any problems.

[MrBenn]

Thanks Zeak. I've put the English name on top for all the English areas too... are you just suggesting switching the names on the blobs, or those on the map too?

[ZeakCytho]

Having Welsh on top is fine, but my point was you're not consistent. The bonus for the English region says "English/Saesneg" instead of "Saesneg/English"

[edbeard]

sorry to say this again but I still don't think the gameplay works. going first is HUH-YUGE on this map.

you've got 2 territory continents all over the place. someone is going to start with a shire. if not multiple people. maybe maaaybe it'll be fine because other people can catch up quite quickly but I'm not sold on that. I really don't know how to fix it since no one has brought a good starting location idea to solve this. I'm not sure one exists. I don't like putting negative feedback without a solution but I don't have one.



mountains look worlds better by the way because of you did the colour.

[yeti_c]

Mountains much better.

Gameplay - I gave you an idea on how to fix this for 2 player games - would that solve Ed's problem? - Would 3 player games need fixing too? - We can do that too (without impacting too much on the 2 player)

C.

[MrBenn]

The starting positions will definitely put in place for 2 player games, although I wish that they could be more customisable...

I've just made an XML suggestion that would also help to avoid the luck of the drop

If we can;t resolve this gameplay issue, I guess we could tweak it so that you need two Shires to start getting a bonus? Or the Shire bonus could be dropped altogether? Or I could start half the territories neutral so there are 16 start places? - these are all random ideas....

[yeti_c]

Perhaps "shire" bonuses could only be given if the "county" is over half held? - Not sure if your prose will be able to be manageable for that though.

C.

[edbeard]

Mountains much better.

Gameplay - I gave you an idea on how to fix this for 2 player games - would that solve Ed's problem? - Would 3 player games need fixing too? - We can do that too (without impacting too much on the 2 player)

C.

doesn't your idea involve a different XML for 2 player games? No way in hell lack is doing that.


the other ideas are totally unappealing. 16 territories would make for a joke of a game (slightly less so than Doodle because of the neutral territories around but still a joke). yeti's 'half the shire' idea is too far out there in terms of making sense other than just 'we needed something to make the gameplay work'. too random for me. no shire bonuses makes me wonder why you even have the shires. it basically would just mean all the continents are super hard to hold for no real good reason.


there is the possibility that I'm wrong and easily dropped +1 bonuses aren't detrimental to the gameplay. test it out at home?

[yeti_c]

doesn't your idea involve a different XML for 2 player games? No way in hell lack is doing that.

No - it involves having 2 <position> sections - each with the opposing half of each of the shires...

This means that either player will never have a shire bonus (or a county bonus)...

However - it does mean that each 2 player game will start exactly the same.

We *could* extend it to 3 players (i.e. have 3 position tags)

where each player gets 1/3 of the territories - the other 1/3 will be randomised in the 1v1 game (with a 1/3 of those being neutral)

All of this is possible with the current XML.

C.

[MrBenn]

Onwards and Upwards... Version 12:

I've added some grunge to the rest of the text on the map
The region names on the English bonus blob been switched so that the Welsh translation is on the top
The bonus blobs for Midlands and South-West have been redone so they look more like the regions on the map.

Areas For Discussion
I think that the grpahics are pretty much there now, maybe just some minor tweaks required?
The gameplay needs ironing out... I'm trying to get my head round the probability and impact of receiving shire bonuses on the drop...

[oaktown]

the crud on the text looks cool, but it explains such a key gameplay feature that you may want to go back to making it easier to read - at least the English stanza.

Looking forward to your initial placement thoughts.

[edbeard]

no one likes being forced to play alone but hey we might be wrong about all the 2 territory continents being a bad thing. Possibly since there's so many it'd actually work out. I'd say try it out a few times on a 6 player game and maybe a 3 player game. Easier said than done though. maybe some other people would be willing to help you out and do it too.

[oaktown]

Here's my thought on the starts... yeti, please tell me if this is wrong. And maybe this was yeti's idea, but I'm only now understanding how this works.

If every shire were to be split up into just two starting positions, every two player game would start exactly the same. One guy would have A, C, E, G, and the other player would have B, D, F, H. Since there are only two starting positions, they would be ignored by games with three or more players.

SO... what if you coded three starting positions? In a two player player game the third position would go neutral, in a three player game you would eliminate starting bonuses, and everything above that the starts are ignored. A game on this map with four or more players will have a lower likelihood of seeing an unfair start; it will happen, but it's easier to do something about in a game with more players.

The downside of this is that every game will start the same in one and two players, but whatever... better then devil we know than the devil we don't.

[yeti_c]

Oak's got my idea in a nutshell...

Note: 2 player games wouldn't start the same for 2 reasons.

a) of the 3 position tags - 2 would get chosen randomly.
b) The 3rd position tag wouldn't be used... the territories defined in this would be assigned randomly (With a 1/3 going to neutral).
> Note of course - that 32 divides into 2 but not 3 easily.

This would mean that the 3 player game would be totally balanced...

a 2 player game might still drop some small bonuses - but - if one player gets them - the other player is likely too - because the combinations will either match up - or not... of course - there is a chance that only one player gets all of the matches and the other doesn't - but that's what you get with 1v1 anyways?!

So it depends on what you want to do - protect 3 player games or protect 2 player games.

C.

[oaktown]

Note: 2 player games wouldn't start the same for 2 reasons.

a) of the 3 position tags - 2 would get chosen randomly.
b) The 3rd position tag wouldn't be used... the territories defined in this would be assigned randomly (With a 1/3 going to neutral).
> Note of course - that 32 divides into 2 but not 3 easily.

This would mean that the 3 player game would be totally balanced...

Agh! I thought I finally understood the subtle complexities of the Positions tags, but clearly I do not.

In (a) above, you say 2 of the three tags would be chosen randomly... I thought that two of the three tags positions would be NOT random, in that the territories within that position tag aren't scrambled. Which position tag you get, however, WILL be random.

In (b) I assumed that the third, unassigned position tag would go neutral, no? In Das Schlos, which has eight positions, if you're playing a two or three player game are the last two positions that aren't handed out split up among the players? Because that would lead to one player having an paratrooper, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid by setting up the positions in the first place.

[yeti_c]

Note: 2 player games wouldn't start the same for 2 reasons.

a) of the 3 position tags - 2 would get chosen randomly.
b) The 3rd position tag wouldn't be used... the territories defined in this would be assigned randomly (With a 1/3 going to neutral).
> Note of course - that 32 divides into 2 but not 3 easily.

This would mean that the 3 player game would be totally balanced...

Agh! I thought I finally understood the subtle complexities of the Positions tags, but clearly I do not.

In (a) above, you say 2 of the three tags would be chosen randomly... I thought that two of the three tags positions would be NOT random, in that the territories within that position tag aren't scrambled. Which position tag you get, however, WILL be random.

Correct.

In (b) I assumed that the third, unassigned position tag would go neutral, no? In Das Schlos, which has eight positions, if you're playing a two or three player game are the last two positions that aren't handed out split up among the players? Because that would lead to one player having an paratrooper, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid by setting up the positions in the first place.

All of the territories in Das Schloss are marked as neutral - and the positions override these... we cannot do that with this map - as that would make it a 2/3 player only map.

C.

[yeti_c]

> Note of course - that 32 divides into 2 but not 3 easily.

In this instance - I would give each <position> 10 territories - the extra 2 will be neutral - I would suggest choosing something right in the middle for those 2...

So - with 3 positions of 10 each... then 2 player games would get 10 pre assigned - and 6 other territories each.

C.

[oaktown]

Alright, thanks for the clarification, above. I may have finally wrapped my melon around this one.

> Note of course - that 32 divides into 2 but not 3 easily.

In this instance - I would give each <position> 10 territories - the extra 2 will be neutral - I would suggest choosing something right in the middle for those 2...

So - with 3 positions of 10 each... then 2 player games would get 10 pre assigned - and 6 other territories each.

I think you're saying two different things here, yeti. Three tags of ten leaves 2 territories, which should just be left alone - not tagged neutral. In a two player game they will made neutral automatically since there aren't three to split up among the two players and the 1v1 neutral. So each player in a 2 player game would start with the 10 pre-assigned, plus 5 territories from the unclaimed third tag (not 6).

In games of four or more I assume the position tags would be disregarded completely, and all 32 of the territories thrown into the mix together.

[yeti_c]

I think you're saying two different things here, yeti. Three tags of ten leaves 2 territories, which should just be left alone - not tagged neutral. In a two player game they will made neutral automatically since there aren't three to split up among the two players and the 1v1 neutral. So each player in a 2 player game would start with the 10 pre-assigned, plus 5 territories from the unclaimed third tag (not 6).

In games of four or more I assume the position tags would be disregarded completely, and all 32 of the territories thrown into the mix together.

You're completely right - and wrong!!

So - for 3 player we would have 10 territories each from the positions.

For 2 player - each player would have 10 position territories - and that would leave 12 left unassigned...

Each player would then get 4 of those randomly assigned - and 4 would goto neutral (12/3 = 4)

Sorry for the confusion - I cocked it up that time.

C.

[oaktown]

I think I might finally understand. Thanks yeti!

Clearly this is uncharted territory in terms of the use of the [positions] tag, so it's throwing us all off.