Salem's Switch V34 [Quenched]

[cairnswk]

I like the idea of the objective of freeing everyone. Looks good cairns! (Do you have a day job by chance? Or is this all you do )

Freeing everyone....can you explain that one further isaiah40, please?

I was agreeing with captainwalrus where he said:

5- Have you considered making it objective? Maybe like the judges, the hanged, and witches hill. Or the accusers, judges, reverends and witch's hill. Or go the other way and do all the accused and the reverends. Something that represents either hanging everyone (and therefore accomplishing some people's objectives) or freeing everyone, and accomplishing the objectives of people like reverend hale and the accused.

Sorry I didn't make myself clear on that

Ah OK, now i understand, well that would be one option to consider as an objective if the map becomes that....

[cairnswk]

Lovin' what I see so far Cairns. Looking at it with thoughts game play. Doesn't Elizibeth Hubbart seem a bit far away from the other starting points?? Wouldn't perhaps William Good be more central for a starting point than her. Just thinking she is several terries further away from the initial action then the rest. There are 5 neutrals between her and the action while most others have 3.

neanderpaul14, this is a very historical event, and changing the location of one the initial accusers E Hubbard, IMO, would be a no-no. Yes she is further away from most of the other starters, but she is not without capability of gaining reources of farmland around her, and she has quite a lot of terts right of her location before she might go charging off to conquer another. The others will possibly be less fortunate.
With the exception of Sarah Good (which i will change shortly), everyone has connection to RPP immediately out of the blocks.

Can you explain to me a little more about what you see as "the action".
Remember these bonus terts at present are widely scattered which means that players are going to have to "travel" via those RPPs to get to other bonus terts. I think the very nature of the scatteredness (depending on how bonuses and neutrals are applied) may see some very interesting strategies being applied.

[cairnswk]

please refresh to see the changes to Sarah Good bordering an RPP.

[ender516]

Why are the starting positions all crowded into the north end of the map? At a glance they seem centred but the township shown in the inset is actually attached in the south, is it not? Poor Ann Putnam Jr has to go past everyone else to get anywhere.

[cairnswk]

Why are the starting positions all crowded into the north end of the map?

Because that's where they all lived....this is a real town that existed.

At a glance they seem centred but the township shown in the inset is actually attached in the south, is it not?

yes and to place it anywhere else at present is not feasible unless you undo the entire design, and even then I doubt I'd get the town in at the bottom.

Poor Ann Putnam Jr has to go past everyone else to get anywhere.

Yes i see what you mean.
The way around that might be to have a second/third starting point for each player that covers the rest of the map in some of those areas of land ownership where it is possible to build other bonuses.
What about that, cox i really don't want to change the owners.

[ender516]

Why are the starting positions all crowded into the north end of the map?

Because that's where they all lived....this is a real town that existed.

Yes, I know that and have no doubt that you have researched this well enough to make this as accurate as it can be. (It would likely take more work to invent all these locations and names than to derive this map from a true historical one.)

At a glance they seem centred but the township shown in the inset is actually attached in the south, is it not?

yes and to place it anywhere else at present is not feasible unless you undo the entire design, and even then I doubt I'd get the town in at the bottom.

Agreed. My comment/question was mostly intended to confirm that I was reading the map and its inset properly. I had some difficulty to start and I know some other early poster here did too.

Poor Ann Putnam Jr has to go past everyone else to get anywhere.

Yes i see what you mean.
The way around that might be to have a second/third starting point for each player that covers the rest of the map in some of those areas of land ownership where it is possible to build other bonuses.
What about that, cox i really don't want to change the owners.

Yes, that seems like the best idea. I guess my original question should have been, "Why have you chosen these as your starting positions?" I gather you have chosen the initial accused and accusers. So the challenge is to find another eight or sixteen which help to balance the locations of the initial drop. This will take a little more thought, but is of course open for discussion by all at this stage.
Thinking about this has me wondering about the starting position mechanism again. How would the game engine handle things if seven of the starting positions had one territory each, while the one with Ann Putnam Jr had a second down in the township? Is the division of the non-starting positions affected by this, that is, does that player get one less to keep the totals even? I suspect not, but someone with inside knowledge could confirm or deny this. (I'm not suggesting that a single extra territory is the balanced way to address this issue, I'm just a little curious about the effects of unusual XML, and this map may require some when this starting position thing comes to a head.)

[cairnswk]

Poor Ann Putnam Jr has to go past everyone else to get anywhere.

Yes i see what you mean.
The way around that might be to have a second/third starting point for each player that covers the rest of the map in some of those areas of land ownership where it is possible to build other bonuses.
What about that, cox i really don't want to change the owners.

Yes, that seems like the best idea. I guess my original question should have been, "Why have you chosen these as your starting positions?" I gather you have chosen the initial accused and accusers. So the challenge is to find another eight or sixteen which help to balance the locations of the initial drop. This will take a little more thought, but is of course open for discussion by all at this stage.

yes i'll start looking into that later today.

Thinking about this has me wondering about the starting position mechanism again. How would the game engine handle things if seven of the starting positions had one territory each, while the one with Ann Putnam Jr had a second down in the township? Is the division of the non-starting positions affected by this, that is, does that player get one less to keep the totals even? I suspect not, but someone with inside knowledge could confirm or deny this. (I'm not suggesting that a single extra territory is the balanced way to address this issue, I'm just a little curious about the effects of unusual XML, and this map may require some when this starting position thing comes to a head.)

Mmmm. I'm not sure how this would be handled by the xml engine...C might know.

[Evil DIMwit]

I am modestly confused by how you're using the starting positions. Are you just using them to avoid players dropping a bonus from the get-go, or is the rest of the map going to start neutral?

[cairnswk]

.... or is the rest of the map going to start neutral?

Yes, rest of map starts neutral.

[Evil DIMwit]

.... or is the rest of the map going to start neutral?

Yes, rest of map starts neutral.

Ah, then a few comments:

1) First of all, I guess it'd be nice if you clarified that in the first post.

1a) While we're on the first post, it doesn't matter that the territory count isn't one of the optimal numbers.

2) You'd probably be better off not conforming to any pre-defined set for your starting positions. It doesn't mean much, history-wise, that the players start on the initial accusers and accused. It would be much easier to get a balanced set of SPs if you don't limit yourself to any specific kind of territory.

2a) In fact, if you can come up with 16 or so balanced territories, all the better. I think a big map like this would benefit from giving each player multiple starting position, to extend their options and decrease the chances of early elimination.

3) I worry that the less-strategic bonuses will dominate here. It's much easier to gather and hold 7 landowners than it is to hold a specific set of accused, accusers, etc., while the bonuses are equal. This could easily devolve into grab-as-much-land-as-you-can, especially on a big map like this. I recommend making each accused/accuser bonus give you at least as many troops as there are territories in the bonus.

4) Make the prison visually distinctive, since there's a bonus that includes it.

5) Come to think of it, do Court House, Town Common, Prison, etc. count as landowners?

[captainwalrus]

Why is the text to the right of R8 and R10 different colored than the text on other green territories?

[cairnswk]

Why is the text to the right of R8 and R10 different colored than the text on other green territories?

Were you referring to the Lot Conant text? It was an experiement to see what other text is possible.

Version 5. - Whole map changed.
1. Township moved to bottom of map so that there is no doublt about what borders what for those more challenged not able to put 2 + 2 together - this has taken two days to complete.
2. Map stretched to give territories more eye space.

[Evil DIMwit]

Well, now it's not particularly clear that the township area is zoomed in, but that's a small thing to sacrifice. You seem to have neglected to put glow on the water in the new insert, though.

[cairnswk]

Well, now it's not particularly clear that the township area is zoomed in, but that's a small thing to sacrifice. You seem to have neglected to put glow on the water in the new insert, though.

Yes, well i thought it would be better to have the township down there in the long run -> less questions about the connections between Trask Mills and Witch Hill.

I you refresh, you'll see an extra 8 starting positions that have nothing to do with the 'cussers or the 'cussed...to balance the map.

[Evil DIMwit]

I you refresh, you'll see an extra 8 starting positions that have nothing to do with the 'cussers or the 'cussed...to balance the map.

Are these going to each be attached to one of the original starting positions or will they all be put into a common pool? Or will there be two pools, one for the accusers/accused and one for the rest?