iancanton wrote:this is a very promising map.
Thanks, as you know I've been working on it for a while now.
I'm just getting a look at your comments, which I really appreciate, so these are just my first impressions.
iancanton wrote:however, my biggest bone of contention is that the aleutian islands, which is the bonus zone that has fewest regions and is therefore the easiest to occupy, is in a corner of the map and therefore relatively inaccessible to an opponent who is trying to break it. my recommendation is to merge the aleutian islands bonus with the southwest bonus, with two or three southwestern regions being merged away if u regard this bonus zone as being too big.
Ok, I understand what you're saying, but I really don't want to combine these, or any other regions, and I think we can come up with something to alleviate your concerns. Combining those would be a
huge deviation from the actual Alaska, and splitting up the Far North was already a concession I made. So looking at options and the region, keep in mind Dutch Harbor can be attack by 3 ship sets within the Bering Sea, and 6 other ports (if the ports stay the way they are). Then you have Port Heiden which can be attacked by the port of Kodiak (which can be attacked by 3 ship sets in the Gulf of Alaska, as well as the 6 other ports. Finally you have Port Heiden again which can be attacked by Egegik. So personally I think it will be harder to hold than you expect, but if it's really a concern why can't we just lower the bonus to +1 then? Although Koontz just ran the numbers for the bonuses I would rather lower it than combine areas, etc.
iancanton wrote:the north might do with more impassables to mimic the difficult terrain, such as the mountains being extended to separate baird from nigalek; the will make the bonuses easier to defend.
That's an easy one.
iancanton wrote:the use of the word region in the legend is confusing. area or district might be better.
I like area better than district, but technically they are referred to as the "five regions of Alaska", plus isn't "region" what most players would associate with the bonuses I'm excluding them from?
iancanton wrote:all port cities connect is unrealistic for the period of the map and ruins its shape. it's reasonably appropriate if u turn it into all airports connect, but that turns the map into one of modern alaska.
Right, and this is obviously not going to be a modern map, so what would you suggest? I know it's not realistic for the time period, which is tough to balance, because on one hand we're splitting actual, established, land borders (the Far North) in the name of gameplay, but on the other hand another gameplay element is unrealistic. I'm totally open to changing how the ports work, just let me know your thoughts.
iancanton wrote:thematically troubling is the bland uniformity of the land areas. nowhere is more crowded than elsewhere and there are no wastelands represented by larger-than-average regions. there is no acknowledgement of the severe polar climate in the far north or the lack of roads or settlements (causing movement and supply difficulties) in most of the west.
What does "nowhere is more crowded than elsewhere" mean, sorry. As for the sizes, the terts within the Interior and some adjacent terts are actually pretty large, comparatively speaking. I also think the tert count is pretty nice for all game types, so eliminating or combining terts is not something I'd really like to do. As for the climate, I was representing the difficulty of moving throughout the entire area by the different Expedition Routes, which do lie mostly around the interior area. Looking at the map, they are pretty much placed where they fit best, etc.
iancanton wrote:anchorage is a logical point to bring in supplies, so u might consider making it one of the base camps instead of one of the decaying explorer trail regions.
My idea for the Base Camps was that they are "ending" points on the Expedition Routes, rather than "starting" points, so moving the Base Camp to Anchorage would be a little awkward compared to all of the others. But, moving the Port from Valdez to Anchorage might be a better solution. Thoughts?
iancanton wrote:the ships are an original, refreshing feature of the gameplay that add to the period flavour of the map.
Thanks so much. This also makes it more important to have the Ports be a key to navigating the map, which is why I like them all connecting.
I appreciate your time and feedback.