Dark Continent (Colonial Africa) [Quenched]

[The Bison King]

Now that Libya is all over the news I did some reading up on its history... apparently the Italians only took it from the Ottomans in 1911-1912. If it's 19th Century Africa you're going for, you ought to strip it Ottoman Green.

1914 is the date I'm basing this off of.

[$nakeface]

if it's 1914 you should mention that on the map somewhere imo. also since it's 1914, you might want to make morocco french, given IH's post.

also i like all the impassables, but it could be cool if the gray areas were unplayable or had some bonus value of their own, though how that would be done i have no idea. as is it seems like they're just taking up space.

and if i didn't catch this forgive me, but will the colonizers be default starting positions?

[TaCktiX]

A couple clarification notes:
- The use of the black/red counterpoint doesn't set them apart enough. While it's clear (mostly), it also looks cluttered. Perhaps try (parentheses) for the colonial bonus, or otherwise distinguish the additional bonus.
- You mean "can attack or be attacked by" for that section, though "borders" works just as well and takes up less space.

[The Bison King]

if it's 1914 you should mention that on the map somewhere imo. also since it's 1914, you might want to make morocco french, given IH's post.

hmm... I see. You're probably right then. I'm just worried about adding yet another territory to the already bloated West French Africa bonus. It's already sort of and "asia" I'm afraid adding another territory will make it a "super asia" maybe if I could combine 2 regions... but then again it really wouldn't increase the amount of borders since it would replace Algeria as a border & Algeria would become and an internal territory to the bonus.

it could be cool if the gray areas were unplayable or had some bonus value of their own, though how that would be done i have no idea. as is it seems like they're just taking up space.

I can't make them a bonus because that wouldn't make sense, and I can't make them impassable because they are needed as passage ways. Most of them are good strategic points. Ethiopia gaurds 2 bonuses from the west. Arabia defends 4 territories, Russia connects the Ottomans with Europe. Austria-Hungay and Greece are a little redundant though. I would happily combine them if I had some sort of historical reason.

and if i didn't catch this forgive me, but will the colonizers be default starting positions?

Yes, all players are guaranteed to start with at least 1 colonial tert.

A couple clarification notes:
- The use of the black/red counterpoint doesn't set them apart enough. While it's clear (mostly), it also looks cluttered. Perhaps try (parentheses) for the colonial bonus, or otherwise distinguish the additional bonus.
- You mean "can attack or be attacked by" for that section, though "borders" works just as well and takes up less space.

Good suggestions, both of them

[Victor Sullivan]

Looks A-OK gameplay-wise. You just need bonus area names. There are some obvious graphical concerns, but I won't go into them now.

(*The crowd cheers, "Yay! Sully's back from his week - or whatever - hiatus!"*)

[The Bison King]

It's been a while since the last upload and I apologize. There really isn't even that much difference in this post. Morocco is now a french controlled territory.

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

[TaCktiX]

I suppose the parentheses still don't work for the bonuses. Short of making a bigger minimap or a table equating region to a bigger minimap I'm not sure what'll fix it, though you have a good portion of the top right of the map to mess with. Likewise, several territory names are hard to see due to the watercolor. Perhaps a white outer glow or something similar?

Other nitpicks:
- The minimap doesn't show Morocco's addition to French colonial control.
- Eq. Africa (from disputed regions) appears to have changed names to Congo on the map.
- Your mountains are three different colors for whatever reason. It's a little jarring considering they're only raw impassables with a color palette that doesn't support the different colors (though the Alps being white makes perfect sense).
- Guinnea-Bissau (well, that bit of legend in general) could use some glow to pull it out of the sea.
- Changing the assault directions to "...Atlantic and Indian Navies, but they revert back to 5 neutral when held on your next turn." would be A: better grammar, and B: standard killer neutral descriptor.

[The Bison King]

I suppose the parentheses still don't work for the bonuses. Short of making a bigger minimap or a table equating region to a bigger minimap I'm not sure what'll fix it, though you have a good portion of the top right of the map to mess with. Likewise, several territory names are hard to see due to the watercolor. Perhaps a white outer glow or something similar?

Other nitpicks:
- The minimap doesn't show Morocco's addition to French colonial control.
- Eq. Africa (from disputed regions) appears to have changed names to Congo on the map.
- Your mountains are three different colors for whatever reason. It's a little jarring considering they're only raw impassables with a color palette that doesn't support the different colors (though the Alps being white makes perfect sense).
- Guinnea-Bissau (well, that bit of legend in general) could use some glow to pull it out of the sea.
- Changing the assault directions to "...Atlantic and Indian Navies, but they revert back to 5 neutral when held on your next turn." would be A: better grammar, and B: standard killer neutral descriptor.

did I miss something? was this moved to graphics when I wasn't looking?

I do agree with pretty much everything you have said here. As follows:

- The minimap doesn't show Morocco's addition to French colonial control.

you're right, a mistake

- Eq. Africa (from disputed regions) appears to have changed names to Congo on the map.

Another mistake.

- Your mountains are three different colors for whatever reason. It's a little jarring considering they're only raw impassables with a color palette that doesn't support the different colors (though the Alps being white makes perfect sense).

Yes they will be re-done later. The yellowish ones are supposed to be sand dunes... I'll make them look better later...

- Guinnea-Bissau (well, that bit of legend in general) could use some glow to pull it out of the sea.

fair enough.

- Changing the assault directions to "...Atlantic and Indian Navies, but they revert back to 5 neutral when held on your next turn." would be A: better grammar, and B: standard killer neutral descriptor.

Again you are correct.

but these are all graphic concerns. Am I to assume everyone's happy with the gameplay? There's still a few things I'd like to fine tune, bonus values for one. I also have a different idea on how to do the naval territories. I'll do a post tomorrow with the idea. I may stick with what I have but I'd at least like to show you what I have in mind.

[TaCktiX]

No, they are gameplay clarification issues (except the mountains, that's graphics). If the gameplay as portrayed by the graphics is hard to understand, the gameplay is not done. Sure it's graphical changes, but clarity is a requirement to getting the gameplay stamp.

[The Bison King]

... ok well I didn't get a chance to work on it today. The idea is that I would strip the naval territories entirely. Instead European powers would be able to 1 way assault any of the 1 territory bonuses like Ivory coast, or Gold coast.

Another thought would be that those territories could assault the corresponding European power. Ivory Coast, for example, could be 1 way assaulted by Ottoman, Britain, Belgium ect... but could only assault France itself. Of course the trick with that is that I would need to add at least one of these territories for each power.

[Victor Sullivan]

... ok well I didn't get a chance to work on it today. The idea is that I would strip the naval territories entirely. Instead European powers would be able to 1 way assault any of the 1 territory bonuses like Ivory coast, or Gold coast.

Another thought would be that those territories could assault the corresponding European power. Ivory Coast, for example, could be 1 way assaulted by Ottoman, Britain, Belgium ect... but could only assault France itself. Of course the trick with that is that I would need to add at least one of these territories for each power.

Meh, I like the navies. The concept you've brought up doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, while the navies at least make some sense. Consider making the navies auto-decays instead of killer neutrals (you lose some ships to the treacherous water, instead of a tsunami or hurricane knocking them out in a turn). Maybe auto-decay of 2 or 3?

[MarshalNey]

Personally, I dislike the navies for the simple fact that they mimic the function of the naval superiority in that other map about European imperialism. Same function for a map of the same theme knocks the uniqueness of this map way down in my mind. The only real difference is that there's two instead of one.

A decay instead of a killer neutral would only be superficially different, as they both still try to penalize players for using the route.

I know that it probably won't help, especially at this stage, but what strikes me about New World, Eastern and this map is that none of them address the reason that the imperialists made the ventures in the first place, which was resources; conquest was just sort of a means to a more efficient gathering and proprietary labelling of those resources- be it slaves, gold, ivory, rubber, or other scarce materials. I read a book called "King Leopold's Ghost" about the Belgian administration of the Congo and it was all about finding rubber, enslaving natives to 'milk' the rubber and making profit off of having exclusive access to said rubber. Ironically, Leopold was seen as a humanitarian for his "efforts" in Africa due to his skillful propaganda- it took decades for any of his admirers to actually visit the place and expose the Belgian Congo as a giant slave factory for producing rubber.

Anyway, the overall balance of the map as it stands seems fine. I just get a strong vibe of the Eastern Hemisphere map right now, and the Navies are the most glaring similarity.

-- Marshal Ney

[The Bison King]

Meh, I like the navies. The concept you've brought up doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, while the navies at least make some sense. Consider making the navies auto-decays instead of killer neutrals (you lose some ships to the treacherous water, instead of a tsunami or hurricane knocking them out in a turn). Maybe auto-decay of 2 or 3?
Image

The biggest credit to the navies is that they do make sense. However the other system I've thought of might make things a little more even in terms of who has access to what. Concerning the auto decay vs. Killer I don't see much of a point in changing it. if it's -2 or -3 no ones going to leave anything on there anyway.

Personally, I dislike the navies for the simple fact that they mimic the function of the naval superiority in that other map about European imperialism. Same function for a map of the same theme knocks the uniqueness of this map way down in my mind. The only real difference is that there's two instead of one.

Personal I don't see that as a discredit. It worked for that map and it can work for this map. This is a similar map in theme and to my mind that's exactly why it does make sense.

A decay instead of a killer neutral would only be superficially different, as they both still try to penalize players for using the route.

agreed, it really makes little difference.

Concerning the resourced based stuff, it's interesting but it's not a direction I'm interested in.

Anyway, the overall balance of the map as it stands seems fine. I just get a strong vibe of the Eastern Hemisphere map right now, and the Navies are the most glaring similarity.

good, I will do a version with out the navies, the only problem that I need to resolve in doing so is finding a spot to add a colony for Belgium and Ottoman.

[The Bison King]

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

Ok spent the majority of my morning working on this. Take some time to drink it in, read the legend, see how you feel about this as compared to the naval territories. I think he legend is clear on how it works but for reference those single region bonuses with the glow around them (listed in the bottom left) can be assaulted by any European Power. They can also assault back to their corresponding power. They are +1 with the corresponding power.

[TaCktiX]

Your legend has been afflicted by Typoes!

Landing Territories: +1 with the corrEsponding European power. They can be 1 way assAUlted by any European power and can attack their corrEsponding power.

And why can't we use a symbol instead of a text list for which territories are which? Text lists are a near-guarantee of confusion.