The Third Crusade [Quenched] Revamping

[thenobodies80]

Can we have an auto-deploy region that is triggered by possessing another region?

I thought you needed to assign autodeploys to a single territory and that a bonus for two territories would be assigned as though you were holding a continent and the bonus would be a generic bonus that could be dropped anywhere you control.

Correct
Autodeploy bonus is assigned to a specific territory (<bonus>):

Code: Select all

<territory>
<name>Blackwidow Roost</name>
<borders>
<border>Frogstomp</border>
<border>Deadmen Dancing</border>
<border>Magic Wand</border>
<border>Gizzard Gue</border>
<border>Well of Spells</border>
</borders>
<coordinates>
<smallx>430</smallx>
<smally>450</smally>
<largex>530</largex>
<largey>549</largey>
</coordinates>
<neutral>6</neutral>
<bonus>1</bonus>
</territory>

[Kabanellas]

Ok Limbo, you've got a point there. The thing is that I wanted to mark the different ethnicities in the region and somehow enrich the map.... But I’ll make a different version.

Nobodies thanks. But what can be done? I need that bonus to work the way it works – i.e. London-Cyprus with the bonus appearing in Cyprus. I need some ideas....

[eigenvector]

Hi,

This map looks awesome; I can't wait to start playing on it.

I have some suggestions/questions, mostly about historical accuracy:

(1) The county of Edessa had been destroyed in 1044 and was a total goner by the 3rd Crusade. I suggest you remove its bonus to indicate it was no longer a separate political entity.

(2) I don't get the "Byzantine Bonus" of +3 for holding the Vatican and Constantinople. What is the basis for this?

(Apropos, I do not think the name Vatican was in use to refer to the Papal State in the Middle Ages but I could be wrong here.)

(3) I confess I do not understand the three extra rules about London/Paris/Ratisbone. Can you please explain?

(4) The Byzantine empire used to contain the Seljuk territories and in fact during much of the 12th century it managed to regain at least a suzerainty over them (until Manuel's debacle at Myriokephalon on 1176). So I suggest a special bonus for holding both areas.

Way to go!!

[Kabanellas]

Thanks Eigen for your support.

1) You’re right, of course. But I think that its appearance would spice up a bit the Middle East scenario inset. Think of it this way: Maybe restoring the County of Edessa could be an option if the Third Crusade had gone in a slightly different way.

2) Another Spicy situation – Since the break of the Roman Empire, the idea of bringing back the West and the East together subsisted for centuries... Being so, if someone unites again Rome and Constantinople should be given a bonus for it.
As for the Vatican issue.... I’m not sure either... I didn’t name the region ‘the Papal States’ for they were indeed much larger. I could call it Rome – but it would lose the religious meaning that I find important to be represented in the map

3) The rules: Paris, for example. If you have Paris and Tyre you’ll get a +3 Bonus auto-deployed in Tyre (the crusade army) on the other hand I gave a negative effect to a player owning Paris and invading an Iberian region – so the wars between European countries in Europe don’t get too appealing.

4) The Seljuks existed in that area and they were strong there, by 1190. I preferred to make the Byzantium motherland zone bonus in its natural core giving the extra bonus to Trebixond, Cyprus and Cherson. Both trebixond and Cherson were actually possessions of the Byzantine Empire in 1190 (Cyprus was conquered by the English), but they are quite hard to protect. So I had to keep them separated.

[Kabanellas]

Ok. version 6 ready.
It comes with 2 options.

One with different colours representing the different ethnicities in Eastern Europe, another with a grey scale on them so people don’t get mislead and think that those territories give bonus.

Size corrected now – 600 pixels height

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

[barterer2002]

The problem I have is that while you're right that the EC isn't impassable, it certain is until the first set of cards comes in. A player in Paris isn't going to be able to get there until at least that time. And while I understand the idea of protecting London from early attacks it seems to me that London is protected and none of the other opening areas are. For instance what's to prevent the paris owner from fighting with rattisborne? For instance start with 3 on Paris, Deploy your three there. Good rolls will take you through the 3 on Lorraine and the 3 on Rattisborne before that player even has a chance to move. Its very good rolls of course but it has been done and can be again. I don't see why you're protecting London here and not others. That's the issue with the EC 10 in my mind.

[Kabanellas]

Barterer, remember that you have negative effects:

About the France-Ratisbone issue:

Remember that there are negative effects from having Ratisbone and any French region…. Being so, if a player starting in Paris got so lucky to take Ratisbone He would be put out of game… (he would receive the normal 3 but would have a negative effect of -4 – He would have no armies to deploy in the next round.)

[Industrial Helix]

Right, but can't the Paris player capture everything but Ratisbone and use that against which ever player is there? So he can break the HRE bonus if he choses but the Ratisbone player can not break the France bonus.

[barterer2002]

Yeah I see that although I think the map isn't clear on it. I would suspect that many players playing the game for the first time won't see that and will lose due to map trickery. Your phrase reads that its -4 for any time Rattisborn invades France. Now in truth the way it works is that holding Ratts and any French tert is going to be -4 but for some reason you haven't gotten it written that way. (you've got the French/Iberia type of thing that should likely be fixed).

I'm also not finding the starting positions to be balanced and maybe you're right on Paris/Ratts that the protection is there for both of them but you've got 8 starting positions and they're certainly not all protected. Compare to Cairo, Amasia, Thessalonica, there isn't any. They're closer to the objectives but also are subjected to standard take outs (which the Europeans aren't. That may be what you're going for historically speaking but this isn't a map to show history, its a map to play Risk on and giving certain starting positions advantages in terms of not being able to be taken out early is a grave issue IMO and one that still isn't being addressed.

[lostatlimbo]

Kabanellas - I like the grayscale version. I think you could add a little more contrast there between the various regions and find a happy compromise between the gray and the 'ethnic' versions, but the gray works, in my opinion.

I noticed another color issue - is Malta part of the England bonus, because the color looks identical to me. You might want to put that to gray as well, if not.

The background images are looking better, but I'm still not feeling the ship(s). If I had not seen the larger version before, I'm not sure I'd know what those are at their current size and they'll be even more indistinct on the smaller map.

Now in truth the way it works is that holding Ratts and any French tert is going to be -4 but for some reason you haven't gotten it written that way. (you've got the French/Iberia type of thing that should likely be fixed).

Yeah, I was rather confused by this as well and to a larger point, I think this will be tremendously frustrating during gameplay as a player holding Paris or Ratisbone will have no recourse to disable their opponent to the West. In Risk, it isn't enough to just defend your territories well, you need to be able to hinder your opponents growth as well.

You said earlier:

But I just didn’t want to go in the way that the ‘New world’ map went, having the European powers in a small frame without connection between each others.

However, this map has similar boundaries. Unlike New World, a player CAN attack from France to Iberia, but why would they? The border between Toulouse and Iberia may as well be impassable from Paris's POV, except that the Leon player can torment them endlessly - without fear of retaliation.

It also means that the player in HRE can drop troops on Corsica & Arles and if any other player got ahold of Tyre, the Paris player is trapped and cannot move anywhere on the map. (Unless they then go north, which requires passage through 7-10 territories to reach anything resembling a significant bonus.)

Still, that's a minor problem compared to not being able to attack an opponent in Leon. Ditto for the Ratisbone player trying to hinder his Paris opponent. While I love the visuals of this map, this element of gameplay would instantly turn me away.

[Kabanellas]

Helix, the negative effects working in just one way was intentional, so players can move east through Europe. To compensate that I made France easier to defend from Iberia point of view having just 1 border region and HRE with just 2 borders.

Barterer, I realize that they are not all equally balanced (yet), but that happens in some others maps too. Bringing up the New World map example again: if you start in a European country you’ll get an advantage over someone starting in the native’s homeland, because of the ‘landing point’ bonus.

Ok... Guys I could change it all! Drop the negative effects and all.
But wouldn’t we be losing more than we would gain in terms of interesting game-play situations?

One of the things that I find appealing is that each position/player will need to have a different style of play in the map never forgetting that the game is won by achieving objectives. I’m finding hard to believe that European countries will run onto each other a let Saladin/Cairo calmly reach victory.

[whitestazn88]

just noticed something... don't put your name on that white space in the inset of the map thingy... it made me think that was a territory.

[Kabanellas]

Limbo, changed the Grey grade and sunk the ships.

Stazn, changed the name location (forgot to do it in version A)

[barterer2002]

Barterer, I realize that they are not all equally balanced (yet), but that happens in some others maps too. Bringing up the New World map example again: if you start in a European country you’ll get an advantage over someone starting in the native’s homeland, because of the ‘landing point’ bonus.

But the difference between starting positions in maps like New World are minor. Here there is some major imbalance in play.

[Kabanellas]

The way I see it we have 2 options:

A) We keep the starting positions (and start focus on game-play, trying to reduce advantages where we feel there’s too many)

or

B) We change those starting positions to neutrals keeping the previous ones, and everybody starts scattered all over the map. (I had to drop the negative effects of course and take down those 10 neutrals from the English channel)

What do you think?

(I’ll start preparing a map for option B anyway)

Btw, I’ll most probably have to drop those ‘auto-deploy’ connections (London-Cyprus/Paris-Tyre/Ratisbone-Seleucia). The XML doesn’t support it.