[Abandoned] Struggle for Oil: Central Asia

[Industrial Helix]

Move to the gameplay workshop? Not just yet. The key purpose of the melting pot is to screen map ideas to prevent something from going through that doesn't a) come close to meeting CC standards or b) has major issues that will clog up the maps progress in the other workshops (like the small map in Napoleonic Europe should have been addressed here before a gameplay was committed to).

The idea is to pass a map that looks like it isn't going to have major graphical or gameplay issues in the future. When I look at the small map of this, I see a future Napoleonic Europe crisis in the making. I also see problems with the fact that as a complex map it is going to have less support than maps usually do (though this doesn't necessarily stop them). In the melting pot an idea is not committed to a map and a different map does not mean a different idea.

I highly advise that you don't get too attached to this map in its current iteration. I think a reduction of territories is key to making this map work and there is going to have to be another version of this map to progress.

[pamoa]

Does that mean I should throw away a 50 hours job and start something new?
Are you categoric or do we have a chance to go any further?

Your comment is very rough for a first advice

[Raskholnikov]

The Map Ideas Guidelines state:

The reviewers will make make suggestions and recommendations for the development of the map idea, with successful design concepts being moved into the Gameplay Workshop.

It frankly makes no differnce to me on which thread of this forum this proposal is located. But, if we are to follow the Guidelines, we should be consistent in our approach.

What is a successful design concept? Clearly not an almost entirely completed map and gameplay, which only need relatively minor changes in Gameplay and Graphics. Otherwise, the role of the Gameplay and Graphics sections almost lose their relevenace - especially considering there is an Iron Forge after them to clean everything up before going to Beta.

A successful design concept is, no doubt, a map proposal with a detailed layout of the map. territories, objectives, bonuses, where the gameplay is clear and the graphics show promise.
AS you saidm you like the direction of this map's graphics. As to the gameplay, even if we simplify some elements (tankers, pipelines, territories) the actual gameplay won't change drastically: we still will have 8 starting points, and a struggle to control refineries, terrorists, and Central Asia. THAT is the successful design concept.

So, unless you object to the actual design concept, this map should move to Gameplay. There, we can look specifically at Gameplay and make any alterations we deem necessary in that area.

In short, to cram 80 per cent of the work in this section and call it design concept really is not in accordance with the guidelines. Let's move on to Gameplay, focus on that, stramline what needs to be streamlined there, and then go to graphics and do the same there.

Serious mapmakers will not put significant more time and effort in developing maps if they are asked to put over 50 hours of work in a design concept which, despite its obvious quality and interest, is refused progress to the next stage on the ground that it's not almost perfect.

Please note I am taking all your comments as constructive criticism and attempting to accomodate them - but this goes both ways: unless your advice is seen by us as objective and in accordance with the Guidelines, we just won't keep going wasting our time in a process which does not follow its own Guidelines, but can have as many different interpretations as there are members in the cartography department.

[natty dread]

Does that mean I should throw away a 50 hours job and start something new?

This is a reason why you should not put too much work in a first draft. The idea of the foundry as I see it is not that you work 50 hours on a map, then put it up and expect that it will glide through the forums since "you have worked on it so much already"... it's more that you post an idea, people get to give it feedback, and you start working on the idea based on the feedback, advancing the map bit by bit...

[Industrial Helix]

No, I'm saying start over. But the map as it stands is very complicated and the small map isn't going to make it through the graphics workshop. I'm saying reduce territories first of all. And second of all refine the gameplay to something manageable as not all of us have BOB.

The concept is great, I like the graphics, but the gameplay is too complicated and overcrowded. Don't throw it away, but I can't move it to gameplay like this.

[Raskholnikov]

The concept is great, I like the graphics, but the gameplay is too complicated and overcrowded. Don't throw it away, but I can't move it to gameplay like this.

Am I the only one who thinks this is self-contradictory? You say you like the design concept, but gameplay needs substantial work. Yet you won't move the thread into Gameplay, where the gameplay work is done, because the gameplay is not yet almost perfect? Wwell that's exactly what we are supposed to do in Gameplay! It's not the Gameplay STAMP I'm asking for - just approval of the design concept and permission to move into Gameplay where we can focus exactly on the issues you raise:

Gameplay Development Guidelines

The development of solid, balanced gameplay is one of the first challenges of map development. In order to meet gameplay expectations and make your map successful, you will need to incorporate the following elements:


Balanced deployment - It should be unlikely that one or more players can start the game with a major advantage as a result of the initial drop or getting the first turn. Conquer Club is primarily a strategy game, and we therefore like to minimise as many of the luck factors as possible - the dice are randomness enough!

Reasonable bonus structure - Bonuses should make sense given the size/style of the map, and be based on a consistent formula. Consideration should be given to balancing the strength of the board, ensuring that no specific area of the map gives an overwhelming advantage from the start of a game.

Game type flexibility - The map should support various game types and not be designed with specific/limited game settings in mind (standard, assassin, fog of war, 2 players, etc.). Maps designed for fewer than 8-players should be discouraged, and will only be approved if the map is really something special.

Player-friendliness - Any information you need to know to play a map should be easy to gather by looking at the map itself. The legend should be clear, concise and consistent; the map itself should be free of unnecessary or cumbersome rules that push it over the line separating complex from confusing.

Open-play - There should be many ways a game might progress on a map, and many roads to victory. Such features as unpassable borders should enhance, not limit, gameplay, and every effort should be made to limit the number of dead ends and bottlenecks in a map, unless they are justified by the desired play of the map. The map should be fun to play, not frustrating.

Function trumps form - The style of the graphics should not detract from ease of play: borders should be clear, titles and numbers easy to read, colors easy to distinguish, etc...

Form must follow function - So important it's on the list twice! Expect to show some flexibility and be prepared to move away from complete geographical accuracy or historical authenticity: the look and theme of the map must be utterly subservient to gameplay and legibility.

Please, let's just follow the Guidelines and work on the actual map rather than quibbling about threads and playing power games. It would make the creative process so much easier and more fun...

[pamoa]

Well. At first sight this looks interesting. I would recommend doing a draft of the small version with 888:s to ensure everything will fit properly. You don't want to run into the same problems you had with the napoleon map...

Does that mean I should throw away a 50 hours job and start something new?

This is a reason why you should not put too much work in a first draft. The idea of the foundry as I see it is not that you work 50 hours on a map, then put it up and expect that it will glide through the forums since "you have worked on it so much already"... it's more that you post an idea, people get to give it feedback, and you start working on the idea based on the feedback, advancing the map bit by bit...

Well it is not possible to do it half way
either you make a draft as you saw it before or you make the map
making an accurate hand draft is 10 to 20 hours
but then throwing it away to start the real map isn't a very efficient way of working

[Elijah S]

Per your PM I'm responding with a little input.
It's clear that a lot of work has been done on this map, but it's very hard to look at without some major changes in the color scheme.
The game idea is good; gameplay will need some work - objective seems a little complicated;
I messed with the colors a little - pretty much just inverted them. The ocean would, of course be blue or maybe white, but I suggest you play around with the territories and try something other than the blue for them; also, it doesn't read very easily - you may want to address that as well. Maybe try more suitable fonts, etc.
Kandahar and Islmabad should be in one word, not split to 2 lines.
Is topography really needed and does it benefit the map in any way? Maybe just solid colored territories would be better.
The location of the insets should be easier to find - maybe color-coordinated.
Having so many territories seems like a stretch for geographical correctness, but I think it also clutters the map to an extent. -Maybe a compromise involving fewer territories would be better.
All-in-all, I'd say this is an "okay" map, but in its current draft not one that would turn many heads.
Good luck.

[natty dread]

I like these colours. I know I know, I said I liked the previous colour scheme, and I still do, but this one is somehow less stressing to the eye...

Anyway I think you should go with these colours, or something close to them.

[Evil DIMwit]

Yeah, those inverted colors are much easier on the eyes.

I like this idea. It's rather crude at this stage and will need a good deal of work to refine; but by no means should you dump this draft into the sea.

[RjBeals]

very blue. doesn't feel like an "oil war". maybe it's the blue/white border combo. You've got a lot going on here. I think it would help a lot if you take out the terrain landscape, and go with solid colors. Really though - you've got to simply this, somehow. Maybe instead of having an army circle AND a bonus symbol on a tert, combine the two. Have the army digits ontop of the bonus symbol - if it's possible.

Also, you don't identify the call-out box maps.. well, barely. It took me a long time to figure out what regions they were zoomed from.

[the.killing.44]

I know you won't want to hear this from me, rask, but honestly there is way too much going on in such a small space. It's a combo of the terrain + the omnipresence of blue and white + the symbols. I'm not sure if the terrain should be the first thing to go, since I like it and it adds to the satellite image feel of the map. Elijiah's simple inversion did a lot to help the overwhelming nature of the map at first sight, but when one tries to study it more, there's still too much going on with icons.

[Raskholnikov]

Thanks for everyone's input.

I suggest we deal first with gameplay, and then with graphics, as the former really will affect the latter a lot.

Let me summarise here the gameplay idea and see how it can be improved.

1. We have 8 starting points - each capital of a major country / alliance.

2. Basic bonuses: 1 army per 3 territories (3 minimum to start), plus 1 army per each 2 territories owned within one country /alliance. +3 self-deploy on capitals.

3. Four of them are large enough to accomodate 10 territories each, four others, only 6.

4. To even out gameplay, the following is suggested:

a) each of the four smaller countries gets one metropolis, with a +2 self-deploy.

b) neutral armies are spread out in such a way that large countries have five territories with 1 neutral army each, while each metropolis has 5 neutrals each. This means each country would need to take 5 neutrals to get a +6 bonus, in addition to the +3 capital self-deploy. In my opinion this balances the game quite well.

c) Most other territories get +4 neutral on them (4 such per major country).

5. The total number of territories for the eight countries is 4 times 10 plus 4 times 6: 64.

6. The aim of the game is to illustrate the fight for Central Asia, with its number of refineries and tankers. Central Asia has 17 territories divided into:

a) seven one-territory countries; and

b)one ten-terrory country, KAzakhstan. Only it has a capital, Astana, with a +3 self-deploy. All territories are +4 neutral, except Astana, which is +6.

The aim is to try to push the players to go for Central Asia and the win objective, as opposed to just eliminate one another.

So we are now at 81 territories.

This is the basic map and gameplay.

7. Additional features:

a) Refineries: these act as bonus-generating tools. There are 24 refineries. Each group of 3 gives a +2 bonus. They are not independent territories, but part of the underlying ones.

b) Tankers: these illustrate oil tranport and have 2 purposes:

1. bonus generators: +1 for every 2; and

2. communcators: all fleets in a given area (Caspian, Black Sea / Med, and Persian Gulf / Indian Ocean) connect with each other and allow for more varied attack options between players than the traditional territories.

15 Tankers which are separate territories and connect only with their own unerlying territory (as well as with each other)

c) 8 Revolts: these designate territories experienencing real life civil / ethnic unrest, and give a -2 troop reduction down to 1 troop;

d) 8 Terrorists: territories with this designation have 2 functions:

- bombard any refineries and tanks; and

- connect with each other.

e) Pipelines: they act like a railway and connect refineries.

f) 2 US fleets: they are both +3 neutral to start with, can be conquered by capitals, can bombard refineries and terrorists. and revert to +3 neutral at the end of each round.

8. Wining conditions: 2 possibilities: winning as the Global Community of as the Terrorists by taking control of Central Asia.

a) There are 2 terrorists in Central Asia. Therefore, victory condition for Terrorists is: take control of 17 central asian territories PLUS all 8 terrorists (6 outside Central Asia)

b) Therefore, the Global Community winning condition should be to take control of 17 central asian territories PLUS 6 more objectives: let's say 1 tanker and 5 refineries not located in Central Asia.

Total territories: 98 (actually 99 because of Israel).

I suggest we work on gameplay first. What do you all like? What don't you? What can be simplified? Always of course keeping in mind the idea of the map, which is the Struggle for Central Asian oil.

Once we agree on gameplay, I think a lot will fall into place, including nr of territories, colors etc. Which is why I think this belongs in the Gameplay section.

Be that as it may, I look forward to your input on this.

R

[natty dread]

Well, I'd say there are a few areas where you could cut down the number of territories.

Ukraine, Iran & Afghanistan could each lose a few territories. Things are a bit cluttered in all of them. Maybe southern Khazakhstan too.

Also, you're going to need to identify the bonus areas somehow. Currently nowhere on the map are the bonus area names said. There are people who are not too familiar with the area, even if they know the geography, and they can't be expected to memorize the name & location of each country just to play the map. I suggest a small minimap somewhere - north africa could work if you put it on top of Cairo, also simplify Turkey & the Jerusalem area so that you can move Jerusalem away from Africa.

The revolts: do they give a negative bonus, or do the territories lose troops each turn? If it's a territory decay it could work, otherwise I don't see much point to them...

The US fleets.. why are there 2 of them, when they both can be accessed from the same territories? Seems a bit redundant. Since they both are also killer neutrals, no one is going to put a huge stack on them to keep them occupied, so one fleet should be enough.

Actually... since the terrorist can already assault each other, and they can bombard the same territories the US fleets can (refineries & tankers), why would anyone bother going for the fleets? You need some incentive. Perhaps make terrorists bombard refineries and US fleets bombard tankers?


Well that's all from me for now... hope you find something useful from my post

[Raskholnikov]

Well, I'd say there are a few areas where you could cut down the number of territories.

Ukraine, Iran & Afghanistan could each lose a few territories. Things are a bit cluttered in all of them. Maybe southern Khazakhstan too.

For Ukraine, what we could do is change from Ukraine to Eastern Europe, transform the 5 Ukrainian territories into 2 (one is currently Belarusia), and add Moldavia, Rumania (with a refinery - actually existing in reality) and Bulgaria. The afvantage of this would be that the new region would also connect with Turkey, whilst now its only contact is with Russia.

For Afpak, pretty much all we can do to simplify is to merge two Cashmir territories, give the new one to Afpak, and merge two existing Afpak territories.

Iran and Turkey are small, but they only have 6 territories each and they are quite clear, I think.

The Middle East Alliance has 11 territories. We could take Jerusalem completely out of play (like Nepal) and thus simplify the area.

Also, you're going to need to identify the bonus areas somehow. Currently nowhere on the map are the bonus area names said. There are people who are not too familiar with the area, even if they know the geography, and they can't be expected to memorize the name & location of each country just to play the map. I suggest a small minimap somewhere - north africa could work if you put it on top of Cairo, also simplify Turkey & the Jerusalem area so that you can move Jerusalem away from Africa.

There are no bonuses given for specific areas. Bonuses are given for each 2 territories owned in the same country/alliance, as indicated by colors on map. Players don't need to know the name of any country - just how many territories they own in each. There are no fixed bonuses for owning a country, which differ from country to country. It's the same for all: 1 unit for each 2 territory owned within any and all countries.

The revolts: do they give a negative bonus, or do the territories lose troops each turn? If it's a territory decay it could work, otherwise I don't see much point to them...

The territories lose troops each turn, down to a minimum of 1. So yes, it's a territory decay.

The US fleets.. why are there 2 of them, when they both can be accessed from the same territories? Seems a bit redundant. Since they both are also killer neutrals, no one is going to put a huge stack on them to keep them occupied, so one fleet should be enough.

Actually... since the terrorist can already assault each other, and they can bombard the same territories the US fleets can (refineries & tankers), why would anyone bother going for the fleets? You need some incentive. Perhaps make terrorists bombard refineries and US fleets bombard tankers?

Yes , we could have terrorists bombard refineries only, the US 5th Fleet bombard all terrorists, and US 6th Fleet bombard all tankers.


Well that's all from me for now... hope you find something useful from my post

Thanks for your comments. I will wait to see what others have to say before making any changes.