Eastern Hemisphere [Quenched]

[oaktown]

i'll be interested to see how the empire bonus turns out. holding eight territories in different regions looks very tough.

another idea, inspired by the new world map, is for certain colonies to be marked by symbols as belonging to an empire. the imperial power can one-way attack these colonies at any time. for example, a red anchor symbol might be put on india, australia, new zealand and south africa to show that they are british colonies and that great britain can one-way attack them. this means it will be important to hold the imperial powers (great britain, france, germany, the netherlands, portugal, st petersburg and japan), especially later in the game, as a way to project ur forces.

Either idea works for me... I like the notion of Imperial Powers one-way attacking out, and it would solve Tactix's concern about Africa (which I'd noticed earlier, but I figured that if anybody is able to mop up the whole thing they deserve a break!). But rather than a straight-up attack I might allow the Imperial Powers to bombard territories in their empire - this allows the Europeans to hold off incursion by their enemies while not entirely retaining control, which is the whole idea of this map - Empires are beginning to crumble.

This could ultimately be a more important feature than an auto-deployed extra army. I'll work on that one.

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

Alright, this map is starting to come together... thanks for all of the suggestions!

I've added capital cities: London, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Tokyo. Is there a more accurate word than "capital" cities? Because technically there are many more capitals on this map, these are just the key centers of imperial power. I guess I could just call them Imperial Powers. Duh.

Germany, France, and Britain can now bombard their colonial holdings... I could also add Portugal and show its holdings in both east and west africa if you think that works. Great Britain just became a very important territory on this map - as it should be considering the time period - though while it can wield great influence through its disruptions (bombardments) abroad it can't do much in terms of actual expansion. Again, I think this fits the theme of empires falling.

[bryguy]

gameplay is perfect to me. Get to work on the graphix.

[gimil]

I dont know if im digging the whole bombardment thing. I think classic gameplay will be a winner on this one. If you keep the bombardment your going to have to consider upping the african bonuses since there much much harder to hold now.

[gimil]

Almost forgot

[adv. idea]

[BaldAdonis]

Slow morning so I stumbled in here. I've got something for your gameplay though. 65 territories makes a good size for 8 player escalating games, so I'd support standard bonuses with no auto-deploy. That sort of thing overvalues certain territories early in the game and leads to ugly moves.
You do have a lot (4, or 6 without bombardments) of isolated territories. That is, places adjacent to only 1 territory (Portugal, Liberia, Nepal, Arabia, with New Zealand and Madagascar reachable by artillery). This really slows down an escalating game because blocks are so easy to establish and maintain. Consider 6 player games played on Europe vs Arctic. Both give players 8 territories like this one does, but Arctic only has 2 isolated while Europe has 4, and Arctic moves a lot faster. Having 6 would make the game slower than Europe, and 4 isn't exactly ideal either. I wager you could fix it by keeping bombardments and making an attack route between Arabia and Persia.

[oaktown]

thanks, bald, for counting up the dead ends; I don't like them because they are usually out of play by round three of most games, and never come back into play until players start getting eliminated. I'm leaning toward keeping the colonial bombardments, which takes care of some of them, and as I tinker I'll work on eliminating more.

[Ruben Cassar]

In the 1920 the borders looked different. Maybe better stick with 1910?

Also I think the British had Hong Kong as a colony in 1910.

I know it's not exactly gameplay related.

[TaCktiX]

I think it's not giving China any credit to not give them their own capital. I agree with Bald that the +1 autodeploy is a bit much for the gameplay, simply bombardment is enough. Highlighting the capitals is still a good idea, as it'll add to the historic context of the map.

[AndyDufresne]

I like the look of this map, and will comment more once it wanders into the Main Foundry.

But I will say...those millipede mountains are horrendously frightening.


--Andy

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

Alright, I'm starting to play with what this map might eventually look like. I'm aware that most of the borders and coastlines still need to be redrawn to look realistic - I did the Oceania lines right to begin with, elsewhere everything it too flat.

And the map still needs a proper legend - the info at the bottom is just to tell you what does what.

But I will say...those millipede mountains are horrendously frightening.

Better now?

[gimil]

Oaktown can you keep the page number of the latest update in the title

come on I thought you would know better.

[Joodoo]

Do you think adding Ceylon (Sri Lanka and former British colony) to South East Asia would improve gameplay? And also, how about a sea route from the Ottoman Empire to Somalia or from Arabia to Somalia? Also, Burma and Afghanistan were British colonies.

[Mr. Squirrel]

I think you should add portugal and the dutch colonies to the map. They weren't as widespread as Britian and France, but they still played a major role in history.

[Kaplowitz]

To make africa and the Middle East harder to hold, you could put a connection from Ottoman Empire to Abbysinia