AndyDufresne wrote:tkr4lf wrote:Also, I never got much feedback about the placement of the impassables.
Does anybody have any thoughts on this? Do they look ok where they are?
I know that's more of a gameplay discussion, but I'd like to have them relatively set before the draft is finished.
Placement currently creates a lot of bottlenecks (that is if the Black Sea doesn't come into play a lot). Additionally, it looks like most of the bonus zones have similar number of borders, around 2-3 (again, that is if the Black Sea doesn't come into play a lot).
--Andy
True, I guess it does depend on the if the black sea is used or not. Speaking of which, I was thinking keeping the killer neutral a low number to encourage its use, somewhere around 2-4, thoughts on that?
When counting how many borders each area had, I counted all the territories lining the black sea as well, since they can technically be attacked, assuming one goes through the black sea first. With that in mind, border territory counts are as follows:
Greece: 4
Macedonia: 1
Serbia: 2
Bulgaria: 5
Romania: 5
Moldova: 1
Ukraine: 5
Russia: 5
Georgia: 3
Northeast Turkey: 3
Northwest Turkey: 6
Southwest Turkey: 4
Republic of Cyprus: 1
So I guess my reasoning for creating so many bottlenecks was to make it easier to hold the bonus areas, since without these particular impassables, there would be many more border territories to defend. Of course, they can be moved around to achieve the same effect, without causing so many bottlenecks, if that is so desired.
koontz1973 wrote:With the impassables, do three things. Remove all of the ones you have now.
Look at a real map and see if it can be copied.
Lastly, think of it as a player. One of the things I did for Rorke's Drift was look at my favourite map (World 2.1) and see how that is laid out. A lot of territs you go on to have multiple attacks, only one bottleneck but it also makes players choose there route. "Which way to go?" can create many options for attacks. That is the best advice. Would you like to play on this map with this many impassables on it?
As a player, yes and no. No because I do see how there are too many bottlenecks and how that can lead to stale gameplay, but yes because the way they are structured makes the bonus areas much easier to actually obtain and hold than without them. But as I said above, I can move them around to make it less bottleneck-y and more open, but still make the zones easier to hold, not to mention keeping the bonus troops down to a reasonable level (some of them are still pretty high, but try running the numbers through the bonus calculator spreadsheet without the impassables...you end up with some of them netting +12 troops or some other crazy high number).
But I see where you are coming from, so when I start working on this again, I will see what I can do about the impassables. I can look at a real map and see what I can copy, what makes sense where, etc. But, I guess the main thing to keep in mind is, openness of gameplay?
One more question: Do you guys think there should be another connection for Republic of Cyprus? As it is, there is only one territory that can attack it, and it leads to only one place, Southwestern Turkey. I could add in a sea route to the Greek Isles or to (what is falsely labelled as) Crete. Or does it seem ok as is?