MarshalNey wrote:... I really like the uniqueness and historical aspect of the idea, but in terms of gameplay I'm not convinced that it won't be imbalancing. It's conceivable in 8 player games, for instance, that an unlucky bugger could start with 3, 4 or even 5 fewer troops than most of the other players. On team games, the troop differential could become even more pronounced.
The troop differential is okay if there were a balancing advantage to having the low-population areas, but there isn't. In fact, the opposite is true: the high pop areas have the juicy bonuses, a wealth of cities and rapid movement through rail junctions. You said in your original reasoning that the low-pop areas gave players a chance to build up men to take the high-pop, but I can't see how in an actual game that a player could win such a build-up unless one is assuming that the high-pop players attack each other and ignore the low-pop. This last reason isn't a good one, to my mind, because it assumes that players' strategy/behavior will cover up an imbalance in the map dynamic.
Industrial Helix wrote:... addressing your concerns Marshal, every player can attack into the high pop zone within one territory save for Kaledin. Deniken and Trotsky are the only ones which do not attack have a buffer territory between them and the high pop zone. I'm not sure what to do about this, but I'll try to figure something out to balance the drop. To be fair though, every player is randomly deploying throughout the map, its just the commanders that are slightly uneven.
OK, let me start off by again saying (a) I love this map, (b) I love unique ideas, and (c) making the starting troops uneven is pretty unique.
The potential problem I see is the raw difference in starting troops- not so much attack routes where your thoughts are gathered- but the fact that in some game setups, players are guaranteed to have different starting numbers of troops. And being random deployment, there is a decent chance that the difference between the highest and lowest could be substantial... say, a 3 or 4 troop swing? Players who pick the "Automatic" setting for a map are expecting everyone to start with even numbers of troops on even numbers of regions.
With 12 regions deploying 2 troops (randomly assigned) and 29 regions deploying 3 troops (again random), the worst case is easy to see- a 2 or 3 player game where somehow one player ends up with all twelve 2-troop regions. That would mean one player would start with 12 more troops than his opponent, before the game even really begins. I don't use this example as a serious argument against the 2-troop/3-troop scheme... after all you'd probably win the lottery before that would happen. I'm just pointing it out as an illustration of where my fears lie.
No, I think what is far more likely is for a player to end up with a preponderance of those twelve 2-troop regions, and then end up with fewer troops than everyone else. In fact, it is
far less likely for there to be an
even distribution of these regions between all players than there is to be an inequity of some kind, great or small.
Which is fine, I think, as long as there is some kind of compensating advantage.
And that is the key to making this idea work, I think. Unfortunately, the 2-troop areas are exactly the opposite of advantage- they give no bonus and are not necessarily close to cities like the 3-troop areas.
I'm not sure what sort of 'compensating advantage' would satisfy your sensibilities about the historical nature of the country and the conflict- I'm still slowly reading up on the subject myself- but I strongly feel at the moment that one should exist.
I'm hestiant to make any direct suggestions until I get a sense of what, historically, would make the most sense to you.
