Mystical Era [1vs1 map] [9th April]

[ManBungalow]

Map Name: Trent Reznor
Mapmaker(s): ManBungalow
Number of Territories: Roughly 150
Special Features: Several
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: TBC
(but 1vs1 and some conditional borders)

Map Image:

Click image to enlarge.

Important Gameplay Stuff:

• This is to be exclusively a 1vs1 map.
• The map is split down the middle.
  
  • One player starts exclusively on the left, the other on the right.
• However, the castles are the only start positions.
  
  • And the castles on each side are to be otherwise distributed randomly (ergo some will be neutral)
• The only way to move to the other side of the map is by holding 6 or more kingdoms and attacking enemy (or neutral) castles in the way described in the legend.
• Forests/mountains impassable as ever.
• Plays a little like Feudal Epic, I guess.

Proposed neutral starts.

Click image to enlarge.

I'd like to stop here to highlight some of the most important features of the gameplay overall for me at this point:

You can indeed rush off to try and take 6 kingdoms and jump to the other side of the map. But in order to do that quickly, you'll be using all of your troops from the castles. What if your opponent just happens to take 4 towers (which is deliberately easier to attain than 6 kingdoms)? He can then bombard your castles, meaning that you have fewer kingdoms, and crippled bonuses. This is where the strategy of balance applies. Consolidate your lands before you risk an assault on the other side.

So you have 6 kingdoms now, huh? Even now, your only route to the other side of the map is through a tower. Even if the opponent hasn't fortified that particular region, he should have all manner of troops ready to defend - from different kingdoms to boot.

To do:
Can you tell what a kingdom is and where they start/end?
Region names.
Some sample troop numbers so you get a better idea of what I mean in terms of start positions.
Other stuff.

[Seamus76]

I like it. Nice work.

I can definitely tell what a kingdom is, I think others will have better gameplay input, so just keep doing what you're doing.

[koontz1973]

I like the artwork, but why only 1v1? Why not make it an 8 player game? The castles at a +2 auto deploy and a +3 bonus make it +5 for holding a 3 or 4 regions. This is too high. +2 castles and +2 bonus is better. Towers can go +1 auto.

A lot of this idea is going to come down to dice luck. First to get to 6 kingdoms wins. So first turn and dice luck are going to be major factors in winning this game. Hence the reason for the above of making it 8 players.

You are right about the title. Mystic seems magical, this is more feudal. So not sure.

[The Bison King]

I like the artwork, but why only 1v1? Why not make it an 8 player game? The castles at a +2 auto deploy and a +3 bonus make it +5 for holding a 3 or 4 regions. This is too high. +2 castles and +2 bonus is better. Towers can go +1 auto.

This is more or less what I was about to say... Then I saw you already said it. So I didn't bother, but I agree.

You could also try making the kingdoms bigger.

Definitely a cool start. I'm obviously a supporter of the feudal style gaameplay.

[koontz1973]

ManB, been thinking about this, with the mystical title, why not see if you can add some elements like that. Say Dragons instead of sea routes. I can already see a huge dragons eye behind the title.

[ManBungalow]

I've been considering the gameplay merits and flaws of this draft.

I think it would be best if the castles can attack towers when 6 or more kingdoms are held.

And towers can bombard castles when 4 or more towers are held.

I feel that this would force each player to divide his attention between towers and castles more tactically. Do you leave many of your troops on most of your castles, lest your opponent bombards them (reducing your kingdom bonus, and also the chance of holding 6 kingdoms), or do you go all out for more bonuses and try to make the leap to the other side of the map?

And for that matter, do you aim for the tower bonus or the kingdom bonuses? (remember that some castles on your side start neutral)
If you get the towers first, you can cripple the enemy's castle bonus. Or you can otherwise take your own kingdom bonuses.

But when you do make the leap across to the other side, you land on a tower. Which way do you go from there?

And so on.

I added in the mystical aspect to explain how castles/towers can specifically target each other at great range. And it is a fantastical setting anyway. So, if in doubt, wizards did it.

[ManBungalow]

Click image to enlarge.

[ManBungalow]

I like the artwork, but why only 1v1? Why not make it an 8 player game? The castles at a +2 auto deploy and a +3 bonus make it +5 for holding a 3 or 4 regions. This is too high. +2 castles and +2 bonus is better. Towers can go +1 auto.

This is more or less what I was about to say... Then I saw you already said it. So I didn't bother, but I agree.

You could also try making the kingdoms bigger.

Definitely a cool start. I'm obviously a supporter of the feudal style gaameplay.

I feel that trying to account for games with more than 2 players would skew the idea I have in mind.
It's theoretically not impossible to have 3 or more players on this (with the castles still being the only start positions, everything else is neutral), but I don't think it would play very well. The kingdoms aren't equal, and some players may start with a castle one both sides while others do not. And so on.

There are lots of kingdoms so both players (1vs1) have multiple options/decisions to make, which is greatly reduced when one starts with only one or two regions (>2players), which may be closer or not to a tower than other castles.

But please discuss this matter. That's what I'm putting this in the foundry for.

[koontz1973]

I feel that trying to account for games with more than 2 players would skew the idea I have in mind.
It's theoretically not impossible to have 3 or more players on this (with the castles still being the only start positions, everything else is neutral), but I don't think it would play very well. The kingdoms aren't equal, and some players may start with a castle one both sides while others do not. And so on.

This can be easily over come with starting positions. Also, not everyone could or should start even. Differences will lead to lots of different strategies.

[AndyDufresne]

ManB, someone spilled some mustard on your map.

I like the direction this is going.


--Andy

[ManBungalow]

XML question:
Is it possible to code starting positions this complex?

I would like it to be as follows;

1 vs 1 games:
Castles are the only start points (everything else is neutral).
One player only has castles on the left, the other only on the right.
However, some castles are to begin neutral.

3+ players
Castles are the only start points (everything else is neutral).
Players just have whatever castles...
...but should ideally have at least one on each side of the map.

[koontz1973]

XML question:
Is it possible to code starting positions this complex?

I would like it to be as follows;

1 vs 1 games:
Castles are the only start points (everything else is neutral).
One player only has castles on the left, the other only on the right.
However, some castles are to begin neutral.

3+ players
Castles are the only start points (everything else is neutral).
Players just have whatever castles...
...but should ideally have at least one on each side of the map.

This can be done, it is the same as Trench Warfare and Knights xml. Both have xml designed for the 1v1 game before 1v1 games where allowed.

Here is how you can do it. Choose any 8 castles. 4 on each side of the map. These 8 will be your starting positions. You need to space these out evenly.
Starting position 1 - 4 castles on the left side
Starting position 2 - 4 castles on the right side
All other castles will be neutral starts.
So in a 3+ player game, these two starting positions are ignored and the 8 castles will be handed out randomly.

Other thoughts.
4 towers to bombard castles, 6 kingdoms to attack towers. Swap these around as no one will hold enough kingdoms to get across the water.
On the right, you have 2 sea routes, it would be nice to get one or two between the sides to stop any deadlocked games happening. Bung a high killer neutral half way to discourage players from using it though.

[thenobodies80]

Here is how you can do it. Choose any 8 castles. 4 on each side of the map. These 8 will be your starting positions. You need to space these out evenly.
Starting position 1 - 4 castles on the left side
Starting position 2 - 4 castles on the right side
All other castles will be neutral starts.
So in a 3+ player game, these two starting positions are ignored and the 8 castles will be handed out randomly

The above works perfectly except for this (at least not 100%)

Players just have whatever castles...
...but should ideally have at least one on each side of the map.

Apart for starting drop, I have a couple of questions

With "hold towers or castles" in the middle legend you mean on the same side or any of them? And again the fact you can bombard or attack "any" castle or tower .....isn't a bit unmanageable? It sounds if you meet a requirement you can attack everywhere so from that moment it's just lucky dice.

Is there something I'm missing?

[ManBungalow]

With "hold towers or castles" in the middle legend you mean on the same side or any of them? And again the fact you can bombard or attack "any" castle or tower .....isn't a bit unmanageable? It sounds if you meet a requirement you can attack everywhere so from that moment it's just lucky dice.

Is there something I'm missing?

The "hold x to y" applies to all towers/castles.
If you, for instance, hold (in a 1vs1 game) 6 kingdoms, you can actually assault towers on your own side of the map (in addition to all towers on the opposite side). I feel that this would be a legitimate strategy to bolster your own bonus before making the risky leap to the other side.

I'd like to stop here to highlight some of the most important features of the gameplay overall for me at this point:

You can indeed rush off to try and take 6 kingdoms and jump to the other side of the map. But in order to do that quickly, you'll be using all of your troops from the castles. What if your opponent just happens to take 4 towers (which is deliberately easier to attain than 6 kingdoms)? He can then bombard your castles, meaning that you have fewer kingdoms, and crippled bonuses. This is where the strategy of balance applies. Consolidate your lands before you risk an assault on the other side.

So you have 6 kingdoms now, huh? Even now, your only route to the other side of the map* is through a tower. Even if the opponent hasn't fortified that particular region, he should have all manner of troops ready to defend - from different kingdoms to boot.

This all brings to light how carefully calculated the number of castles each player starts with in a 1vs1 game must be (and why it is imperative that the 1vs1 start positions are the priority in the xml). It can't be too many, or the 6 kingdoms can be gained too quickly, or too few to limit the options entirely. And while I could raise the number in "6 kingdoms", I'd like to have more areas/bonuses to 'discover' on your own side while it is still possible to move to the other. So this needs discussion once everybody fully understands what I'm going after in terms of gameplay.

Please let me know if I need to clarify any of this.

[footnote] * I've considered having some complex conditional borders so that once you hold a tower on the opposite side of the map, the "castles can assault any tower" borders don't apply -- you can't assault another area on the opposite side directly from your own until you lose that tower (like you have only one invasion force), but I think this would be too complicated to get into a map which I want to be relatively simplistic. You see that there's no cluttered legend or vast range of symbols.

[ManBungalow]

Anyhow, minor update:

Click image to enlarge.

I tried out a sea snake attack route for koontz, but I'm not sure I like it.

I slapped some region names on for the castles. I think I can reduce the size of those names in the next update. Probably the towers will have some names also, but I feel that the non-important regions will inevitably end up being simply numbers.

The autodeploy of the castle has been reduced to +1.

Also dirtied up the region background a little bit.

[koontz1973]

Also not liking the sea snake idea. But that general direction is something maybe worth exploring. ManB, do me a favour and update the thread title please.

[mr. CD]

Looking very good, I think naval routes will be clearer and less distracting than mystical things.
Gameplay sounds quite fun, I see no harm in this map primarily being meant for 1v1 but also usable in other ways. Is it possible for xml to make it that one team starts at one side and the other at the other? That would make it great for team games too.

The kerning is a little off in both any's, they kind of look like two words (a ny) now.

Is the castle a different territory from the region it is in?

[ManBungalow]

Looking very good, I think naval routes will be clearer and less distracting than mystical things.
Gameplay sounds quite fun, I see no harm in this map primarily being meant for 1v1 but also usable in other ways. Is it possible for xml to make it that one team starts at one side and the other at the other? That would make it great for team games too.

The kerning is a little off in both any's, they kind of look like two words (a ny) now.

Is the castle a different territory from the region it is in?

Thank you for your feedback.

To the best of my knowledge, it is not possible to code starting positions by team. Only for the individual, or not at all.

You are right about the kerning. And the sea routes. I'll see what I can do on both counts.

The castle symbol is just a symbol, not a different region.

[ManBungalow]

Click image to enlarge.

Some region names for the kingdom regions.

Naming convention is as follows:
[on image] -- [in log/xml]
Kyanite -- Kyanite Castle
Ky 1 -- Kyanite 1
Ky 2 -- Kyanite 2
Ky 3 -- Kyanite 3

Also, I uploaded this image in the .png format with minimum compression; do you think the quality is worth the increased file size?

show

[ManBungalow]

Click image to enlarge.

And to demonstrate the start positions:

show

[ManBungalow]

What do you make of these slightly different trees?

Click image to enlarge.

I still feel that they can look better.

And also I think I'll up some of the neutral values from the previous post.

[thenobodies80]

I like very much the map and the graphics...but more time I spend looking at it more I don't get why you want it as 1vs1 only.
Not saying I won't allow it....just why you want it only limited to 2 players?

Nobodies

[ManBungalow]

I'm considering more and more the potential for having more than 2 players on this map.

However, I have 26 start positions here. In a game of 8 players, that gives 3 regions each. Which may be on the same side of the map. But really I think there would be a limited degree of strategy involved because it's just a case of getting good dice against the adjacent castle/tower -- this is fundamentally because the bonuses are close together. Compare start positions Howlite and Melonite. I don't want to be encumbered by trying to make the start positions equal for big group games.

With 2 players, player A might start with Melonite and player B might start with Howlite, but each has several other kingdoms to work with and can connect them up for reinforcement chains/leave one to stack up against an enemy attack/but basically they have more options available, and that justifies the varied kingdom strengths for me. The factor of getting good dice still applies, but there are more regions to get good dice on.

[Teflon Kris]

Maybe you could go for 4 starting position sets, but it has its problems:

In 5+ players there could be advantages for some players.

In 4-player, there are 2 each side, equal for all players.

In 3-player, chaos as 2 on one side, 1 on the other.

In 1 v 1, sometimes players are on both sides, sometimes not, equal for both players.

Maybe 6 starting position sets works better? Maybe not for 4-player & dubs. Hmmm

We need an xml feature to allow different starting positions for different game types

(Surely this must be getting towards the top of the list of new features soon?)

[ManBungalow]

Granted, one option is to not bother with having both players (in 1vs1) exclusively start on one side each.


Mods, please don't move this to main foundry without asking me first, as I'm not 100% sure about this. If the gameplay is so shaky at this point, I don't want to progress further to have it completely stall, especially given the punishment for abandoned projects.