13 Colonies Quenched!

[Industrial Helix]

ok, ok. got a new version of the map this time with most recommended changes made. Here's the Mk IV

Click image to enlarge.

1) took out the "No Bonus" from the rules thing and added the new flag for B.C.
2) I revised the gameplay for B.C. it now deploys much higher but but can be a tad more difficult to obtain. no autodeploy.
3) I fixed the problem with the 3s and they are now readable.
4) Obviously, i changed the map to more resemble the territories as they looked back then. Consequentially, I lost a few terrs. as a result and had to restructure.
5) Virginia's bonus has been lowered one to reflect the fact that it lost a terr.
6) Carolina's bonus has gone up as another territory has been added.
7) Massachusetts Bay has been added (Maine) and Micmac Territory moved over one.


Anyway, thoughts and comments are very appreciated, only with your help can this map see its way to completion.

[Elijah S]

Helix - This map is coming along nicely!
I particularly like the way you've placed the bonus graphics - nice touch.
My only suggestion might be to add texture or additional objects to the left side, as there seems to be large areas of empty space.
Best of luck!

[TaCktiX]

Okay, when I look at this map, I think "cool, the 13 Colonies", NOT the American Revolution. Granted some territories are named for famous battles of said war, and there are British areas on the map, but I just don't feel like it aptly shows a war. This likely is just me, but something to keep in mind.

Graphics
- Most of the territory names are aligned with the bottom of the map, but some of them, particularly in the south, seem to move sideways to fit into the territory. If Massachusetts Bay is any indication, you should be just fine with having them coming out of the borders a smidge.
- The dotted lines to the ships are inconsistent in their placing. Some of them go right up to the ship, others stop short. Try to come up with a universal "distance from" and stick to it for all connections.
- The stars around American Revolution look like a distended disc instead of the intended shifted circle. Doing a re-look at it might be necessary.

Gameplay
- The British bonus is unnecessary, and the +6 bonus justifying the 5 neutral territories I think is unnecessary as well. If anyone eventually held it, the resetting 3-neutrals would make it almost impossible to break. Remove the Brits from Canada, and use the Indian Territories as quick connections between different states, just at a price.
- The description of the killer neutral in the legend isn't exactly correct. It would reset to neutral 3 on the holding player's next turn.

That's all I have for now, but nevertheless you got
.

[Industrial Helix]

Elijah S - Thanks for the feed back, I've been giving some thought to the left side and still am unsure. Any ideas would be appreciated. Quote, maybe a graphic or something.

Alright tacktix, you gave something to work with here. Here's what I've got.

I changed the dotted lines to be more consistent and i touched up a few other graphics problems i had as well. I changed the slanted names to align more with the bottom and altered some borders as well. Most fit in their terr. save Appalachia, Chattahoochee, Allegheny and a few others. I'll see what others say but the only one that is too big, imo is Appalachia. I messed around with the title as I've been meaning to do, you're not the only one to say that and to be honest its pretty much true, esp. if I take out the Canada thing. I suppose Elijah S's map is more American Rev. than mine. So I played with it, not sure which I like yet:

The 13 Colonies
The 13 American Colonies (i think i like this one best, see below)
The Thirteen American Colonies

And lastly I took the Canada feature out to see how it might look. As I've feared, there's a lot of empty space and I'm not sure what I can do about it given the dimensions of the playable landmass. Any thoughts on all this would be appreciated.

Click image to enlarge.

NO CANADA:

Click image to enlarge.

Discussion points:
1) Do you like no Canada better than having playable Canada?
2) Is it too spacey in the upper left? (I'm thinking maybe add a quote or something up there.. ideas? thoughts?)

All thoughts and comments appreciated, I can't make this map alone!

[whitestazn88]

i did like the canada bonus as a way of taking up space, although the structure of the bonus was confusing... was it a total of 6 with boats and canada or was canada a completely different bonus?

the above question brings me to my next point which was that the canada bonus wasn't really that cool... so taking it out is better.

as for making more playable area, maybe you could incorporate indian territories more? like have another bonus of +1 maybe per tribe, but each tribe would be like 2 territs, with 1 of the 2 being neutrals? i don't really know... or maybe you could tilt the playable area to the left, bring it down a bit and try to enlarge it...

again, i'm not totally sure for playable area, but i'm sure that i like the 3 canadian flags out of the way

[Industrial Helix]

whitestazn88 - first off, thanks for the input.

The more I look at the map, i think having canada out of the game is for the best. Given that Elijah S is going for a more American Rev. game, it seems apt that I should push the 13 American Colonies more and of which Canada was not.

I'm thinking of taking a couple possible routes with the extra space, and everyone feel free to comment on this

1) Fit the third Indian Territory back in and use them as links up and down the western border, start neutral 3, no killer neutral .
2) Leave it at two Indian territories and clean up the western space with a quote or graphic

Otherwise I'm at a loss for ideas on that right now. Any help on that is appreciated.

[MrBenn]

It's nice to see that you've used the correct version of the Union flag for the period, although the flag doesn't seem to blend into the map properly right now.

For me the bigget concern is that the map appears to have a mini identity crisis... You've clearly mentioned the 13 Colonies on the title, yet have only got 6 bonus regions, and there are more than 13 territories... as a Non-American (while familiar with the broad detail of the American Revolutionary War / Battle for Independence) the specific locations of the thirteen colonies is hazy and not clearly defined enough here to justify that as a subtitle. You've made allusions to particular battles(through some territory names), but not enough to give a sense that a war / rebellion / invasion was going on

If the colonies were more clearly delineated, then there would be a good opportunity to 'unite the 13 colonies', possibly even as some kind of objective??

That's my main random thought/observation.

You alluded to the fact that you were going to have to (re)draw some borders freehand. If you zoom in really close (800% or more), and use a 2-3px brush, then mouse-wobble becomes less of an issue

[Ace Rimmer]

I think the graphics of this map look good, and I think that changing it from "American Revolution" to "The 13 American Colonies" was a good idea. I also think that the removal of Canada was a good idea.

What about basing it off of something like this: http://www.scarsdaleschools.k12.ny.us/mslib/images/13colmap.gif with each colony having a few territories, then getting a bonus for holding each colony? I think that makes more sense than how you have them grouped now for bonuses. The other option would be to just have five bonus regions (one for each of the Colonies group plus the boats) but that may make gameplay too difficult.

A bonus for each colony would be a problem with Rhode Island and Delaware at least, I don't see you splitting them into more than one territory. Maybe make them +1 auto deploy? I don't know if that would make it a problem at the start since I assume someone would drop them. You could always make them neutral to minimize this problem.

Since Vermont was disputed between New Hampshire and New York, how about having that as a territory that gives you a bonus if held in conjunction with either NY or NH? If you hold all NY, NH, and VT the bonus would still just be +1 though.

Also see that Maine was part of Massachusetts at the time, so that may pose a problem, since they did not border each other. Maybe use one of the ships to get between the two instead of having to go through NH.

I like the idea of the Indian Territories as killer neutral shortcuts between some of the colonies. I think the way you have it now with the two Indian Territories is a good idea.

Jake

[Industrial Helix]

Mr Benn - Ok, you make a real good point about the colonies not being identified. I'm working on coming up with a solution to that. As you can see from the progress, this kind of went from an American Revolution theme to the current 13 colonies. I've decided to run witht he 13 colonies style over the American rev. as my plans for the American rev. style seemed to be lacking given the map that I've created. I think it will be much better suited as a 13 American Colonies map than American rev. So then you're points do have weight about the identity of the colonies, next update should address that. Thanks for your thoughts.

Jake - First off thanks for the feedback. Glad you liked the changes that have been made. As for a regrouping of colonies, I'm working out some sort of system that will give each of the 13 colonies a place in the map and not just grouped as part of a bonus. As for Vermont, I think I'm going to just leave it as it is b/c when I was looking at some of the period maps, Vermont or the territory that woul dbe come Vermont, was not included in the colonial border. Not sure why exactly, but I think sticking to the 1763 border line will be the route for this one as there's not a whole lot of room there to play with a playable feature.

As for Maine or Massachusetts Bay as I've seen it labeled. It's probably going to be the toughest colony to work with for the reasons you said. Stay tuned for the next update and we'll see what I can come up with. Rhode Island and Del. are also gonna be a pain, we'll see how that goes as well. Thanks again for the feedback.

[MrBenn]

I just noticed that your poll ended a while ago...

Poll Result

How should British Canada be played?
Poll ended at Sat Apr 18, 2009 3:11 pm

Neutral... 9... 47%
Neutral with a bigger bonus... 4... 21%
Killer Neutral... 3... 16%
Open deployment (just got to be lucky!)... 2... 11%
Open deployment with open deployment Indian Territories... 0... No votes
Open deployment with starting neutral territories, not killer... 1... 5%

Total votes : 19

[Industrial Helix]

OK, I've been thinking about it and here's what I thought are the three possible ideas for solving the 13 colonies problem. For further reading on that, see above comments.

1) Cut the borders out of the states and redistribute the bonus areas. Each colony is worth a bonus depending on its size. Colonies like Rhode Island will get 1 bonus for occupying it. Bigger colonies, like Pennsylvania, will get a larger bonus.

2) Leave the bonus areas as they are but stipulate that holding a colony will also get a bonus based on a key in some of that dead space I've got to the left. I am considering adding a color variation to each colony, for example Penn is in the red bonus region but will be a dark red than Maryland and Delaware will be a lighter. Or just using a different border color for the colonies.

3) Cut out all the borders within the states and set the map at 13 land terrs, 2 indian terrs and 4 ship terrs.

Any thoughts or new ideas are welcome, there'll be a new poll up for people to vote. Please comment if you have something to say. thanks!

[TaCktiX]

You need to up the territory count as best you can. I would say throw out option C (way too few territories), and perhaps go with a variation on Option B. Consider having multiple territories per state as you have now, with cities and/or important locations as titles. The script font may need to go to fit things better, and you'll likely need to re-engineer bonuses. A bunch of mini-bonuses is a perfectly fine gameplay (look at USA Map Pack).

[dolomite13]

The USA map pack that breaks the map down into states and sub divides states by the major cities might be a good way to have only 14 colonies but more than 13 territories that can be conquered.

Great job thus far =)

--D

[whitestazn88]

yo, whitestazn88 here for the preliminary review. i believe i wrote here about a week ago, and there hasn't really been much changed since then. it looks good, and i'm pretty happy with how the gameplay looks thus far.

the only thing i'm concerned about is the indian territories and how useful they might be... i think instead of having them revert to neutral 3, they should start neutral, but have a +1 autodeploy for holding them. that would put them into play more often

[Industrial Helix]

ALL- Anyway, I'm not intending to update this map graphically until the poll is over or the outcome seems very predictable. I figure its best to have a discussion before I put any more time on Photoshop changing the map. So we'll see where this goes with the poll and discussion and then go from there.

Tactix - Ok, I counted 34 terrs. that are playable which I think is reasonably good. One this I tried to avoid was overcrowding on this map and there's spots where it already feels like it. Not sure if I want to push it any more. While Classic has 42 terrs., Australia, Ireland and France 1789, has mid 30s, Luxembourg has 19. I don't really feel that having a mid 30's count of terrs is going to harm the map.

As for important cities or maybe battle sites or something, I'm not throwing the idea out and will consider it, however right now it just doesn't seem viable with space.

I did take a look at the map pack maps as I've never played on it before. Pretty interesting how all that is fit in there and I'll keep it in mind when I go to make the next update.

Thanks again for your feedback!

Dolomite - Thanks for the feedback, Ive been taking a look at the map packs recently and getting a few ideas. I don't totally want to swipe the ideas there, but its good inspiration. Thanks again!

Whitestazn - Yeah, not much has happened, lol. Just waiting to get some feedback on the latest stumbling block. you make a good point about the Indian terrs. and as I'm thinking about it now, I might just make them start neutral 3 and not killer, as for an auto deploy... hmm, its an interesting idea. My initial reaction is that it would make the Indian terrs too powerful. A player can then stack up on the Indian terr. and threaten the entire game from the rear, which would be against the American Rev. idea but favorable to stress the relationship of the colonies with the indians. Do you think maybe having a collected bonus of 1 or 2 would be good? It gives weight to the terrs as more than quick routes yet doesn't over power them. Thoughts?