[Vacation - Valid until Oct 2013] Ziggurat

[jonofperu]

Map Name: Ziggurat
Mapmaker(s): Jonofperu
Number of Territories: 65 (16 starting spots)
Special Features: Battle for HIGH GROUND! Auto-deploy bonuses which increase as players conquer higher ground; higher levels bombard all lower levels; starting spots with auto-deploy that one-way attack the pyramid and bombard the first 2 levels on their side. The summit E01 is the only territory that can kill starting spots.

Map Image (v7):

Click image to enlarge.

show: Map v6

show: Map v4.2

show: Map v4.1

show: Map v3

show: Map v2

show: Map v1

What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made - The creation of Ziggurat:

The main reason for creating new maps aside from a change of scenery, is to provide new and interesting mechanics or strategy. There is a particular major factor in historical warfare that I haven’t seen represented. I may have just missed it and there are certainly similar concepts out there (King’s Court archers?), but I think we need a map that has it.
I got to thinking that I would like to create a map that reflects the advantage of taking the high ground. I thought of calling it, “King of the Mountain”, but that’s taken.

How then do you represent the advantage of high ground in a Risk game? We can't create a roll advantage (and probably wouldn’t want to), so it would have to come through in two things (at least these are what I’ve thought of so far).
1. On the high ground you are protected from attack while able to bombard or attack.
2. Extra bonuses / auto-deploy.

Any high ground should give an advantage, hence the auto-deploy bonuses on every territ rather than zone bonuses.

TO DO:
Graphics
1. Draw shadows (the shadow at the bottom is a sample
2. Create unique patters on stone walls: randomize.
3. Draw "camps", etc. Possibly draw a river valley around the Ziggurat with bridges from camps to ziggurat. (yikes! for how much work that would be)

Gameplay
Define levels of neutrals/autodeploy.
Confirm bombardment scheme for camps & summit.

show: Further discussion from original post

[generalhead]

This is a really cool idea. That is what I was thinking too "king of the hill" like you said though that is taken. Graphics do need work but that will come in time. I am a little confused about the bombard down and what can bombard what. What advantage is E01 going to have, is it going to be able to attack or bombard everything? A neat idea might be that you can only attack up and bombard down until you reach the top. I will leave the game play up to the professionals though.
For graphics it would be nice to see some texture on the pyramid. Is the brown line necessary, I think without it you would still be able to see where to attack. It would look cleaner without it also.
P.S. I don't know if you have worked in the foundry before but I like this as a first draft.

[deantursx]

This looks really fun...I think you should make the autodeploys a little heavier though...and maybe make the neutrals in between the starting spots much heavier.

I think you've got a good thing going here though. I'm excited to see where you go with this.

[koontz1973]

jonofperu, firstly, welcome to the foundry, always nice to see a new face. Firstly the official stuff. Have you read this? It will give you most of the info on map making but if you have a question, ask. I changed the title of your map to this (title - date - page number). You need to keep this up yourself. Name of map, date of last update, page of last update. This will allow me to know when you last updated the map and where players can find the latest update. Can you use the big image tags when you post an image. Lastly, keep all old drafts in [spoiler] tags.

Now for the map. First draft, not bad at all. Pretty nice looking.

Your map is symmetrical and this is going to be a big problem as it will lead to some boring games. Have a think about moving some stairs and walls around so players have to think about what they are going to do. You line of sight bombards is not going to work. Just looking at the text and examples, I am asking how can line of sight be in effect if their is a wall there. Have a think about the bombards going straight down in all directions. Easier to explain and easier to understand. You have 16 starting positions only on the "A" level, this is going to lead to round one eliminations in team games. not a good thing. You want players to go up, this will be a fine line between bonuses and neutrals. With the neutral values you have now, no one will go up. 1v1 games will never get played as you fight going around the base until you meet. No one will like this.

Suggestions. Have the bottom two layers deploy randomly. This will give more troops for players and solve round one eliminations. Move walls and stairs to be more random for different strategies to be found. Reward players for going up but not with auto deploys.

Just some random thoughts. Will have another look later and give some more.

koontz

[jonofperu]

Thanks for the warm welcome and great feedback. I'll try to address some issues with an update over the weekend. This just from my phone. May try to respond later from my computer. Im thinking swap neutrals & starting spots in A level to make it more likely people go up the pyramid. Increase neutrals to 5 on corners since they will be attackable from 2 fronts.
Working on a clearer legend and adding texture.
I really admire the work you guys have done in forge & hope to contribute

[AndyDufresne]

Look forward to this. I'll post some more with one of your future updates.


--Andy

[jonofperu]

OK here goes for an update. Thanks for all the feedback. Some really good ideas and observations from everyone.

Click image to enlarge.

Changes:
1. Shifted all starting spots around one space. This makes it more rewarding to attack the neutrals up the mountain than to attack the neutrals between starting spots (due to auto-deploy). I increased the neutrals on the B corners since they now can be attacked from two sides.
2. Increased neutrals between starting spots to 4. Not sure I want to go higher, but this further encourages fighting for high ground rather than attacking around the base.
3. I reduced the thickness of the paths. I think they might look better if combined with texture – the ideal would be to represent a worn path over stone (if my artistic ability ever gets me that far).
4. I've tried to clarify the bombardment mechanics, but I'm struggling with how to represent it. (could use some ideas please!)

The concept is that you can only attack (up and down) at every other space around each level.
However, once you gain the high ground you can bombard down where you can't attack. "line of sight" makes logical sense to me, but may not be a clear enough explanation. “Straight down in all directions” might be better, but I’m not convinced yet. The walls are intended to represent fortified positions which combined with high ground prevent attacks. Just think of a castle where parapets do not prevent sight or bombardment of those below.

The great advantage of moving up the pyramid is that the higher you go the greater the area you command.
E01 at the pinnacle can bombard the entire pyramid (except D2, D4, D6, D8) since the entire pyramid is below it.

On the symmetry of the map…
It is intentionally symmetrical. I’ve thought of using the same “high ground” concept in a more natural location/scenario, but I felt this map would be the “pure incarnation” of the concept. Granted, different personalities will like/dislike something that’s coldly geometric. But there are a bunch of symmetrical maps out there that I enjoy a lot, so I’ll assume that there should be enough interest in spite of that (Chinese Checkers, Circus Maximus, Conquer 4, Knights, US Senate). Personally I like the idea of a map that is perfectly balanced all the way around. If I create the other version I’ve referred to it will give people another way of playing the concept with the variability of terrain.

Potential changes:
Increase auto-deploy. Not sure, it’s going to be a delicate balance.

Other ideas (which I’m not convinced of yet, but they’re interesting)
1. Make attacks one-way up the mountain until you get to the top (or even then, maybe make it so you can only bombard down). I don’t particularly like this even though it’s a very interesting mechanic because it’s just not very realistic – why would you be able to attack up but not down?

2. Change to bonuses per territories controlled per level rather than auto-deploy. I feel like with bombardment maybe it makes high ground TOO valuable. One reason I like auto-deploys on this map is that they make each territory individually valuable. I feel that’s realistic. Holding high ground in one place gives you an advantage at that spot with no particular advantage somewhere else.

@ koontz1973
Thanks for formatting my post. I read everything (I think), but was bound to miss some things.

Still working on:
Texture – this one’s stretching my limited graphic design/artistic ability, but I know what I want to create, so we’ll see.

[jonofperu]

Ah, and one more reason this map should be created...
We have no "Z" maps!

[koontz1973]

jonofperu, I still feel this needs to be broken up some for game play reasons alone. No matter where you start, you have 3 others territs that can have the exact same moves as you and then this come down to the luck of the dice. Breaking this up is going to be a must. You do have two choices here, move the steps to random places around the temple or make the temple older (ruined) and place some impassables at strategic positions.

On the map, you say you can bombard down in line of sight, but you also say that C10 can bombard downwards, even though you have a wall there. You cannot have it both ways. I suggest you word it so that the walled areas cannot bombard down at all, this will give safe zones to park a stack and stop confusion. Also, with the bombards, just go straight down only. C11 to B16 only. B17 to A22 only. Put a little wall at the corners so you stop the confusion their.

As for deployment, lose the neutrals. Way too high and too many. Allow players to randomly drop on the first 3 levels. D can go to 5 neutral and E can stay 15.

koontz

P.S. when you post a new draft, put it into first post as stated and also into the last post you made. This way, anyone who follows the map can see the latest draft when they come into the thread as well as read all information regarding the draft.

[tokle]

jonofperu, I still feel this needs to be broken up some for game play reasons alone. No matter where you start, you have 3 others territs that can have the exact same moves as you and then this come down to the luck of the dice. Breaking this up is going to be a must. You do have two choices here, move the steps to random places around the temple or make the temple older (ruined) and place some impassables at strategic positions.

On the map, you say you can bombard down in line of sight, but you also say that C10 can bombard downwards, even though you have a wall there. You cannot have it both ways. I suggest you word it so that the walled areas cannot bombard down at all, this will give safe zones to park a stack and stop confusion. Also, with the bombards, just go straight down only. C11 to B16 only. B17 to A22 only. Put a little wall at the corners so you stop the confusion their.

As for deployment, lose the neutrals. Way too high and too many. Allow players to randomly drop on the first 3 levels. D can go to 5 neutral and E can stay 15.

koontz

P.S. when you post a new draft, put it into first post as stated and also into the last post you made. This way, anyone who follows the map can see the latest draft when they come into the thread as well as read all information regarding the draft.

The walls are superfluous anyway. Since you have the stairs and the lines to show where attacks and movement is possible. You might as well just get rid of them.

[generalhead]

The walls are superfluous anyway. Since you have the stairs and the lines to show where attacks and movement is possible. You might as well just get rid of them.

I agree that if you are going for a pyramid look the walls really don't flow.
What is the point of the big brown line too, you can see where to attack without it.
It seems like you might have too many steps right now too. It might be good to eliminate some and move some around. especially on the corners.
I am excited to see this map progression.

[jonofperu]

Posting a small update to the examples. Let me know if they are clearer.

Click image to enlarge.

I'm working on a fairly major graphics update which will remove the walls and paths as they are now. If I can get it to look like the picture in my head I think the concept will make more sense. I'll just drop a hint that this isn't exactly an aztec pyramid, but something of a cross between that and a fortress from another ancient civilization.
It will probably take a week or two considering my RL work load at the moment.

[koontz1973]

Any joy coming with the update?

[Domination_44]

I really like this concept! I think that this map would be a really cool map if it was made much bigger and was made into a 2nd battle royal map! I'm new to the Foundry Forum and have never made a map, so I don't really know what's possible and what's not, but that would be cool!

[jonofperu]

Chipping away at an update. Don't worry, I'm sticking with this. I've just been swamped.