The Dawn Of Ages - Quenched

[Kabanellas]

Porken, I’m completely open to change some symbols for others that you guys might suggest me.
And I’ll probably lose all those ‘the’s , except the one from Lost Island.

Evil, yes. The Sea of Akhenat borders the warrior’s regions and the Sea of Telal borders Horsemen’s regions. I’ll try to make the legend more fluid along the coast.

[Kabanellas]

After a long nice chat with Andrew last night, we came to the conclusion that changes had to be made to balance game-play.

For this effect Andrew changed the existing bonus calculator spreadsheet so we could add the neutral troop’s factor. And that was crucial when choosing neutral troops for each pair’s bonus. Thanks Andrew!!!!

You can see the table results below to better understand the mechanics of all this.

V10

Click image to enlarge.

Bonus calculator

Click image to enlarge.

[AndrewB]

I think that Hellnor and House Of Gods should be dropped to 2 neutrals and Auto-deploy should be raised to 2.

The only thing that Auto-deploy can do is to Auto-attack the 2 territories, which are neutral to start with....

Otherwise no one will ever go for it.

[Kabanellas]

ok, I'll drop the neutrals in HoG. But raising the bonus value would be giving it to much power IMO. ...And people will go for it when the guy holding the Towers becomes too annoying

[Evil DIMwit]

I'm not sure what the logic is behind Hellnor not connecting back to any other port but if you want the island to become more desirable, making it able to attack out may be a better way of going about it than lowering the neutral.

The problem with counting on the tower owner being annoying to make the HoG more attractive is that the towers aren't all that great themselves as it is. The tower of control is, ironically, impossible to control -- it can't be defended with less than four territories. It may be useful for attacking the eyes, but it's easier to disrupt by going at it directly than by sneaking out back to the HoG. The Tower of Doom gives no more auto-deploy than the elf village or skull peninsula, and it takes four turns to make up in auto-deploy for the neutral troops that are on it to begin with. And since the Tower of Control is so easy to lose, that one-troop bonus for holding both towers doesn't mean much.

The fact is that by just holding Raiders Haven, Downfalls, and Shadowlands a player gets almost the same benefit as one holding both towers, and the former are vastly easier to defend. The towers come out as a handy bonus for someone who's already holding down the Orc-and-maybe-Dwarf zone in the middle, but given that that's harder to hold than Europe, they don't justify going through any number of neutrals to reach a territory whose sole purpose is to bombard them.


(Also, do you get the Dwarven bonus for holding the mountains themselves or the territories that the gateways are in? It occurs to me that this bonus is slightly ambiguous.)

[MrBenn]

The graphics on this map are very very good.

The biggest problem I have with it, is that it is overly-complex. By that, I don't mean that it is too complex, but that it is visually confusing - there are too many different symbols, with no obvious connection to help bring the two elements together --essentially I'm concerned that the legend is about half the size of the map

I think there are ways that the map can be made slightly simpler, but still have the same essence of gameplay, and still capture that spirit of Tolkien (which you have done incredibly well)... I'll pop back later to give some more thoughts

[porkenbeans]

The graphics on this map are very very good.

The biggest problem I have with it, is that it is overly-complex. By that, I don't mean that it is too complex, but that it is visually confusing - there are too many different symbols, with no obvious connection to help bring the two elements together --essentially I'm concerned that the legend is about half the size of the map

I think there are ways that the map can be made slightly simpler, but still have the same essence of gameplay, and still capture that spirit of Tolkien (which you have done incredibly well)... I'll pop back later to give some more thoughts

Yes Mr. B is correct here in pointing out the maps weakness. Its like I said before the symbols are just way to numerous, and some are a bit confusing as to what they are supposed to be. Mr. B makes a very good point about the legend being too large. I would say that at least a 50% reduction in its size and content, would go a long way to improve this map. Here is something to think about, If you were able to reduce the size of the legend, you would actually be able to shift the whole map down. This would allow for you to enlarge the Skull peninsula. This feature would become the maps signature icon. I think that it IS the most interesting feature, So why not showcase it ?

[Kabanellas]

I'm not sure what the logic is behind Hellnor not connecting back to any other port but if you want the island to become more desirable, making it able to attack out may be a better way of going about it than lowering the neutral.

The problem with counting on the tower owner being annoying to make the HoG more attractive is that the towers aren't all that great themselves as it is. The tower of control is, ironically, impossible to control -- it can't be defended with less than four territories. It may be useful for attacking the eyes, but it's easier to disrupt by going at it directly than by sneaking out back to the HoG. The Tower of Doom gives no more auto-deploy than the elf village or skull peninsula, and it takes four turns to make up in auto-deploy for the neutral troops that are on it to begin with. And since the Tower of Control is so easy to lose, that one-troop bonus for holding both towers doesn't mean much.

The fact is that by just holding Raiders Haven, Downfalls, and Shadowlands a player gets almost the same benefit as one holding both towers, and the former are vastly easier to defend. The towers come out as a handy bonus for someone who's already holding down the Orc-and-maybe-Dwarf zone in the middle, but given that that's harder to hold than Europe, they don't justify going through any number of neutrals to reach a territory whose sole purpose is to bombard them.


(Also, do you get the Dwarven bonus for holding the mountains themselves or the territories that the gateways are in? It occurs to me that this bonus is slightly ambiguous.)

Evil, I’m posting version 11, below, where I’ve inserted a threat to the Raider’s Haven. It will be less untouchable now, by far.
Also dropped the neutral troops from House of Gods from 4 to 2, so for that sneak attack you’ll have to kill 3 +2 neutrals, and gain while doing it a territory with a +1 auto-deploy.
As for the Dwarves’ bonus , they work by holding the Gate Icon wich will open for the territory they’re in.

Thanks Benn!
Well, I guess that it can be confusing at the first look, but once you get into it, things will start to clarify, I think . But I'm always open to suggestions!

[Kabanellas]

Posting
Version 11

Click image to enlarge.

Small version

Click image to enlarge.

[Evil DIMwit]

Hmm. So Sea Dragon is sort of a mini Lost Island. I guess that makes the Raider zone sort of a mini Tower zone, which might work out fairly nicely.

As for the Dwarven gates: From the circles' positioning it looks like each circle belongs to one of the mountain ranges, rather than just to the gate attached to it. I'm not quite sure what 'adjacent exterior regions' means either -- which territories can each gate attack?

[darkangelsguy205]

wahho 100th respond umm it looks fun

[Kabanellas]

Hmm. So Sea Dragon is sort of a mini Lost Island. I guess that makes the Raider zone sort of a mini Tower zone, which might work out fairly nicely.

I think you can put it that way

As for the Dwarves' gates they work like this:

i.e. from Ralak-Marsan Gate you can one way assault Ralak-Marsan region, and you can assault (both ways) Grut Gate Entry.

in another example - From Khnum region you can assault (both ways) Khnum Gate Entry but from Damkianna region you can't assault Damkianna Gate because it's not an Entry. On the other hand Damkianna Gate can one way assault Damkianna region.

As for the number circle, I haven't found a better place to put it yet... maybe if I put it close to the 'gate icon' but in the field instead of placing it in the mountain, it could help....

[Evil DIMwit]

Hmm. So Sea Dragon is sort of a mini Lost Island. I guess that makes the Raider zone sort of a mini Tower zone, which might work out fairly nicely.

I think you can put it that way

As for the Dwarves' gates they work like this:

i.e. from Ralak-Marsan Gate you can one way assault Ralak-Marsan region, and you can assault (both ways) Grut Gate Entry.

in another example - From Khnum region you can assault (both ways) Khnum Gate Entry but from Damkianna region you can't assault Damkianna Gate because it's not an Entry. On the other hand Damkianna Gate can one way assault Damkianna region.

As for the number circle, I haven't found a better place to put it yet... maybe if I put it close to the 'gate icon' but in the field instead of placing it in the mountain, it could help....

Ah, I see. The way I'd understood it is the dwarven gates assault territories adjacent to either the territories the gates are sitting in or the mountain ranges they're attached to, i.e. Khum's gate could either assault Yazun, Ongot, Bhaku, etc. or Nekhbet, Ostrakon, etc. So maybe I'm just thick, or maybe you could add outwards arrows to clarify, or I don't know.

[40kguy]

looks like a fun map to play on i would play on this map if it gets finished

[AndrewB]

Hmm. So Sea Dragon is sort of a mini Lost Island. I guess that makes the Raider zone sort of a mini Tower zone, which might work out fairly nicely.

As for the Dwarven gates: From the circles' positioning it looks like each circle belongs to one of the mountain ranges, rather than just to the gate attached to it. I'm not quite sure what 'adjacent exterior regions' means either -- which territories can each gate attack?

My concern exactly. I had exactly same problem while calculating the bonus the Kabanellas.