barterer2002 wrote:OK, I've been asked here for my thoughts so lets look at a few things.
1). It seems to me that whoever deploys in London gets a huge advantage. How, really would anyone attack London here. While I realize that there is some historical basis for this, in a CC map it needs to have some balance. Whoever gets London takes Wales and then just can move everyone to Cyprus secure in the 10 protection from the Channel. I don't see any of the Europeans attacking across that early in the game. On the other hand, the other players will all have to protect their home bases throughout.
2). IMO you've got way way way too many bonuses here. I count 17 different bonuses not even including the extras one gets for holding something plus another something (i.e. HRE plus Corsica and Sardinia).
3). Why does the Vatican start off as N6 and not Grenada. In terms of game play they're both important as either one or the other is necessary for the conquest. Historically speaking they're also important as Grenada is the choke point for the Med and the Muslim control limited what fleets of ships could sail through.
4). Since you're seeming to intend this to be a conquest game rather than a defeat your opponents type of game for the most part (see comments on London also you're earlier comments that it won't work for Assassin) are you providing a different advantage to the holder of Cairo who goes through two terts to get to Jerusalem over a starting point like Tunis which has to go through 5.
I guess my main concerns here are that the game play is fairly unbalanced with different starting positions having clear advantages over others.
I completely agree with everything barterer has said.
Your bonus structure is also perplexing - I'm still trying to figure out what the bonus is for the maroon-ish territory group surrounding Kiev is. I've looked over your legend a dozen times and I'm pretty sure it has been excluded. I wonder if I'm just missing something here, because I can't see that anyone else has mentioned this oversight.
Additionally, many of the bonus values seem off:
1 terit Antioch is +1 bonus (plus potential for Templar bonus)
2 terit Edessa is +2
4 terit Hungary (with no safe terits!!!) is +1????
I think this has already been said, but all the solo terits that have no purpose - Prussia, Alans, etc - just cut them out, make them a neutral gray or assimilate them into nearby territories. it makes no sense to have all these solo terits with different colors when you already have a map full of color issues and bonuses. visually, those terits make me expect a purpose, but they're just filler. imo, they need to look as irrelevant as they are.
I also second the re-organization of your legend. Having the Edessa green directly under France and England, creates the illusion of it being the Iberian bonus. The order of these is jumping all over the map. Instead, pick on corner of the map and start there, then work your way clockwise (or counter-) around the map. This and better colors (and maybe continent names on the map) will do wonders.
Constantinople needs to be a +6 neutral to coincide with the Vatican, Jerusalem, etc.
Overall, I really like the visual style you've chosen for this, but there are a couple places that look a little sloppy - primarily the Templar image that is seen in the Mediterranean. You can see a straight, hard line coming down vertically, just below Sicily and another horizontal edge between Apulia and Larissa. If you take a little more there and maybe fade both of these (the NW bckgnd image as well), I think it will look great.
The lone ship just above West Egypt, however, is out of place. I'd suggest dropping it altogether, but if you have your heart set on a ship image, try to find something that fits in visually with the other two images - something you can slip into the background of the sea. As it is now, I don't think it suits your theme.
Personally, this map simply has too much going on. Too many bonuses and color codes that are difficult to discern - even on the large map. Too many combos and one way attacks and a subset map that is extremely difficult to determine what borders what between it and the main map.
In some ways this reminds me of the Iraq War map, but something about its inset map of Baghdad worked where this one is lacking. I'd have to compare the two side by side, so maybe I'll leave some additional feedback when I have the time.
Long story short - nice visual effort, but I hope you can eliminate some of the excessive/filler elements and lay everything out in a way that's a tad easier to digest.