Gilgamesh; Coordinates on pg 20

[oaktown]

Oak, what are your intentions in relation to altering borders/boundaries/bridges/barriers?

I guess a lot depends on whether or not we go Gilgamesh or just make it a Mesopotamia map. A historical map means geographical accuracy and losing the fictional territories in the north - the scorpion gates, humbaba, Dilmun, etc. - but we could add more cities in the fertile crescent since we would no longer be bound by the territory layout of the old map. And it could mean bonuses for control of rivers and overland trade routes in addition to regions.

A Gilgamesh map would mean more leeway in terms of where things sit, and would allow some more fantastical elements that I haven't drawn yet: the bull of heaven, humbaba, garden of the gods, etc. Ideally a Gilgamesh map would have fewer territories - all the lands in the west really have no place in the gilgamesh tales other than the fact that they existed in the same era.

Either way I'll be putting the rivers in the correct places - right now the river valleys are drawn to reflect the gameplay of the Centerscape map. Also, I'd probably cut the southern connection across the Arabian desert (unrealistic), and put the mountains in more geographically accurate places. But the tile wall look will definitely stay, and I have some ideas about how to make it look a bit more like a map painted onto a wall.

For the record, the idea for the look of this map came from the designs and colors of the Ishtar Gates, now housed in a Berlin museum. The mountains seem to be another love it/hate it situation (why always my mountains?) but I really like the color - it's a brightly painted tile wall after all, albeit faded by time and desert winds.

[sailorseal]

I agree this could become a very great map but I would make a few changes. At the bottom you give me the feel like this is made from tiles and I would like you to continue that all through the map. Also I like the use of arrows as bridges very original. I would like to see a better distinction between what is part of the playable territories and what is the surrounding area in the top left corner I became mildly confused.

I very much like this map and would hope you keep going with it.

[whitestazn88]

i say keep the gilgamesh idea, but you could definitely change a lot and make it better. centerscape held back a lot of the potential in my opinion. if you don't wanna keep working on it, i would understand, especially since you would be making it not as a replacement for centerscape, but as a brand new map and that would take a lot of work.

i would enjoy seeing this map get produced, but thats all up to you

[MrBenn]

For the record, the idea for the look of this map came from the designs and colors of the Ishtar Gates, now housed in a Berlin museum. The mountains seem to be another love it/hate it situation (why always my mountains?) but I really like the color - it's a brightly painted tile wall after all, albeit faded by time and desert winds.

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

An update! Obviously, the gameplay is no longer Centerscape. Rather we are now doing the fertile crescent, with an eye on the Epic Adventures of Gilgamesh.

Right now, everything is up for discussion - territory names and locations, gameplay features, bonuses, color choice, etc. So have at it.

Stats:
43 Territories
7 regions
Nothing fancy.

[edbeard]

I'd say you should make the green continent non-linear. just separate Humbaba and Cedar Forest with a border so they both touch Silver Mountain and The Passes


red in the lower right is not worth the same as the grey one. you can take over Susa and drop your border count AND hold brown easily along with red. grey doesn't have the same luxury.

sooo, increase grey to +6 or +7 OR make Mari border Assur OR something else

[MrBenn]

The number of bridges/arrows In the red are (bottom-right) look awfully congested... Perhaps you could take out the Lagash/Eridu connection (which overlaps the terr name), and maybe move the Lagash/Susa link to Lagush/Eshnunna...

Actually.... I'm not too sure.... It's just that part of me feels like there are too many crossings??

[e_i_pi]

As I said in the comp thread, I'm loving this map. I can see problems with it gameplay-wise though:

Dilmun (dark blue) and Wilds (Green) are the obivous early captures. Subartu and Sumer are pretty much never going to be held - there are simply too many borders to defend. Which is a shame, because that area of the map is traditionally a very important area of the world.

How would you feel about having some sort of bonus for holding x amount of territories that lie between the Tigris and the Euphrates? Like the Zeroes/Kates/Vals on Pearl harbour. That would bring more attention to the centre of the map early on, which I think would create a more widespread dynamic for the map.

[oaktown]

How would you feel about having some sort of bonus for holding x amount of territories that lie between the Tigris and the Euphrates? Like the Zeroes/Kates/Vals on Pearl harbour. That would bring more attention to the centre of the map early on, which I think would create a more widespread dynamic for the map.

I totally agree - this is the cradle of civilization after all, so the territories with the Tigris/Euphrates valleys should be the focal point of the map. And I always love giving players incentive to start in regions that would traditionally be an unwise start (see India, berlin, eastern hemisphere).

Any suggestions on how this could best work? Perhaps a ziggurat symbol noting the major civilization centers within the rivers, and give +1 for holding any three, +2 for any four, etc. Or is this too Route 66?

[e_i_pi]

How would you feel about having some sort of bonus for holding x amount of territories that lie between the Tigris and the Euphrates? Like the Zeroes/Kates/Vals on Pearl harbour. That would bring more attention to the centre of the map early on, which I think would create a more widespread dynamic for the map.

I totally agree - this is the cradle of civilization after all, so the territories with the Tigris/Euphrates valleys should be the focal point of the map. And I always love giving players incentive to start in regions that would traditionally be an unwise start (see India, berlin, eastern hemisphere).

Any suggestions on how this could best work? Perhaps a ziggurat symbol noting the major civilization centers within the rivers, and give +1 for holding any three, +2 for any four, etc. Or is this too Route 66?

Hmm. Two ways you can go with this:

The Territory Bonus
Something like Berlin would be good, but Berlin uses x/2+1 territories as the cutoff for bonus, meaning only one player can have the bonus at a time. I would think allowing more than one player to achieve bonus would be good, given the sheer number of territories. 1 for 3, 2 for 5, 3 for 7 maybe, but I don't know. edbeard would be the one to grill about the bonus structure. Also, a problem with doing it this way is you'd potentially fall into the same trap experienced with USA Map Pack and Wales - ie, the problem with a player dropping 'the lot'.

The Key Point Bonus
Use just the major cities, so I dunno what they are, I guess:
Susa, Ur, Nineveh, Babylon
I've never studied Ancient History, but those 4 would be in there, I'm guessing another 2 or 3 would be good then have a structure like you described above.

I would prefer to see something like the first option, but that is somewhat unmanageable, and the second option is a good balance between allowing open play and ensuring certain game types aren't farcical.

[ZeakCytho]

How would you feel about having some sort of bonus for holding x amount of territories that lie between the Tigris and the Euphrates? Like the Zeroes/Kates/Vals on Pearl harbour. That would bring more attention to the centre of the map early on, which I think would create a more widespread dynamic for the map.

I totally agree - this is the cradle of civilization after all, so the territories with the Tigris/Euphrates valleys should be the focal point of the map. And I always love giving players incentive to start in regions that would traditionally be an unwise start (see India, berlin, eastern hemisphere).

Any suggestions on how this could best work? Perhaps a ziggurat symbol noting the major civilization centers within the rivers, and give +1 for holding any three, +2 for any four, etc. Or is this too Route 66?

Hmm. Two ways you can go with this:

The Territory Bonus
Something like Berlin would be good, but Berlin uses x/2+1 territories as the cutoff for bonus, meaning only one player can have the bonus at a time. I would think allowing more than one player to achieve bonus would be good, given the sheer number of territories. 1 for 3, 2 for 5, 3 for 7 maybe, but I don't know. edbeard would be the one to grill about the bonus structure. Also, a problem with doing it this way is you'd potentially fall into the same trap experienced with USA Map Pack and Wales - ie, the problem with a player dropping 'the lot'.

The Key Point Bonus
Use just the major cities, so I dunno what they are, I guess:
Susa, Ur, Nineveh, Babylon
I've never studied Ancient History, but those 4 would be in there, I'm guessing another 2 or 3 would be good then have a structure like you described above.

I would prefer to see something like the first option, but that is somewhat unmanageable, and the second option is a good balance between allowing open play and ensuring certain game types aren't farcical.

What he said. The first option would be best, but the second may be what we have to go with to prevent an imbalanced drop.

[oaktown]

i think I'm reading the two suggestions correctly, and I think that a hybrid of the two ideas might work best. I think we could identify eight major cities in the T/E river basin, mark them on the map, and give an escalating bonus for holding them. As e_i_pi said; hold 3 for +1, hold 5 for +3, hold 7 for +5. This would be in addition to the bonuses you already receive for holding those regions, so if we put four in each of the central regions it would give each region another +1 army on top of the regular bonus, reflecting the importance of the region. Hell, we could just put three in each territory and put two elsewhere to make things interesting - Susa and Mari would be the obvious choices.

I like Uruk (Gilgamesh's home city) Babylon, and Ur in Sumer; Assur, Nineveh, and something farther north in Subartu; Mari and Susa to mix things up. ??

The reason I'm suggesting eight is that we could code them as starting positions, so no one player would start with three of them, with the exception of two and three players games in which each player would at start with a minimum of two cities, and the last two would - if I am remembering the rule correctly - would be assigned randomly. You can't make every map perfect for every game type.

[InkL0sed]

I'll comment on this some other time, but I just wanted to say right now that the combination of the idea with these incredibly befitting graphics has me giddy with excitement.

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

Didn't put too much into the graphics, but this is the basic idea. Forgot to tweak the bonuses as suggested above, but there's all kinds of time for that.

[MrBenn]

The reason I'm suggesting eight is that we could code them as starting positions, so no one player would start with three of them, with the exception of two and three players games in which each player would at start with a minimum of two cities, and the last two would - if I am remembering the rule correctly - would be assigned randomly. You can't make every map perfect for every game type.

If you were to code the cities as neutrals, then the remaining cities wouldn't be allocated to anybody.

I still think the red/brown regions are quite isolated, and easier to hold than anywhere else