But when I left, I had a few maps that were in progress. One was the Dungeon of Draknor, which got finished up by WidowMakers (and it looks great!). But I stumbled across a couple of other unfinished maps I had been working on at the time, and since they're not doing me any good collecting dust on my hard drive, I figured I'd send them out into the world on their own. If any experienced map maker wants to adopt either of these and make them playable, please, be my guest! Fix the gameplay problems, tweak the country/continent names, make 'em actually look good, whatever. I just ask that you keep at least the basic concepts and mechanics intact. (And if no one wants 'em, that's fine too. They're probably about five years stale by now, after all.)
Map Name: Time
Mapmaker(s): Jota
PSD file: http://grunk.org/risk/time.zip
Someone has invented time travel, and now no one is safe. Load up the quantum nukes, because we're invading Pangea!
Map Image:
- Click image to enlarge.
This map represents the same territory as the Classic map, but at five different points in time: prehistory, ancient times, the present, the future, and the end of time. The gimmick is that there are zones for both the time periods and for the geographical continents. Consequently, every country is simultaneously a part of two different zones: its time period and its continent. For instance, the United States of America is a part of both the "Present" zone (the area in the middle of the map image) and the "North America" zone (all the bright green countries). Rome is part of the "Past" zone (the area in the upper right part of the map) and the "Europe" zone (all the blue countries).
Connections between countries in the same time period work as usual (the funny arrows sticking out of Alaska and Russia just mean that the map wraps around). The letters-in-circles indicate connections between countries in different time periods. E.g., there's a (D) in both Ancient Egypt and Sahara, so those two countries share a border (through, um, some kind of time portal or something).
The main mechanical problem I see with this map is that it's way too connected. Most zones have too many borders to defend. Maybe with some clever tweaking, you can improve on that. Or maybe it doesn't need improvement, and that'll just make playing on this map a different experience from usual. Or maybe it's not worth fixing. Who can say?
Map Name: Invasion
Mapmaker(s): Jota
PSD file: http://grunk.org/risk/invasion.zip
This small island has come under attack. What's attacking it? Everything! Aliens. Zombies. Pirates. Ninjas. Vampires. Monkeys. And, of course, you. Can you save the island from everyone else by conquering it for yourself?
Map Image:
- Click image to enlarge.
Here, we've got a couple things going on. First, instead of traditional continents, we have many overlapping zones spread throughout the map. Every block of seven countries in a hex formation is a zone. If you hold Lookout Point, Diamond Landing, Far Respite, Mt. Olgud, Seven Pines, Mt. Maird and Bondale Tor, you get a a continent bonus of five. If you hold Mt. Maird, Bondale Tor, Mountain Pass, Bondale West, Bondale East, Fisher's Cove and Opal Landing, you get a continent bonus of five. If one player had all twelve of those places, then they'd get both bonuses. But two players can't hold those two zones, because they'd both have to own Mt. Maird and Bondale Tor. (This is probably all perfectly obvious to you guys, but back when I was making maps, this was complicated stuff that confused people, so I figure I ought to over-explain it.)
The other wacky thing here is that we've got a bunch of one-way borders. All those "Bases" areas on the right? They don't border each other. Instead, they can each attack a couple of the "Landing" spaces on the left. E.g., the Zombies Base can attack Diamond Landing and Moonstone Landing. (You can tell because they've got that little Z attached to them. Pearl Landing and Quartz Landing have W's, so they can be attacked by werewolves.) But Diamond Landing and Moonstone Landing can't attack back. Sucks to be them, eh? Also, the Base countries each count as a separate zone with its own deployment bonus of two. So that's an extra twenty-four armies coming into the game every turn, right there. It's gonna be a real bloodbath.
If the Landings can't fight back against the Bases, then what hope is there? That's where the Tors come in. Cayrus Tor, Bondale Tor and Alluris Tor can bombard any of the Bases. (Does bombardment exist? Or is that just something people were speculating about at one point? If it's possible to have a connection where one country can attack another, but can't move troops there, then that's what I intended here. If it's not possible, then just make them normal one-way borders.) Of course, being able to attack every Base (without the Bases being able to directly hit you back!) is pretty powerful, so there's a trade-off: every Tor is a zone by itself, with a negative deployment bonus of two. (But don't worry: odds are you'll still own several bases of your own, so you'll probably still have plenty of armies to play with.)
If there's a mechanical way to make "own all the island countries" into a win condition (so that you don't actually need to conquer all the bases as long as you can claim the whole island), then that's what I'd like to see here, since cleaning up the bases after conquering everything else wouldn't be kinda anti-climactic, but I don't think it would be a huge problem even if we can't do that.
Anyway, there you have it. If you've got a decent forged map or two under your belt, and one of these sounds interesting to you, then jump in and claim it! And if someone else claims it, then doesn't get around to finishing it after a few months, then consider it up for grabs again. I may or may not check in here from time to time to see if anything comes of this. I might even kibbitz a bit, if someone does work on one. But if I do, feel free to just treat me any other annoying person spouting unfounded opinions.
And have fun with it. Don't let the Foundry process grind you down!
