[Abandoned] - Zombie Invasion!

[MarshalNey]

I'll try putting in some alternate passageway then (starting with open doors)... the update is still in progress, sorry. Distracted by newsletter and working on the small map. The small map is going well, though, it looks like there won't be any extreme legibility issues.

[Memnon]

Hello again Marshal.

Your map is looking fantabulous! I like the idea of doors being "open". In an architectural drawing doors have a V shape, with an arc connecting the door and frame, bah. Words fail me...lemme load something up here from paint.



There we go. Now, doing it on a small scale (say the small map) is gonna be tough, but I have confidence in you. Looking at it separate from a room structure isn't exactly awe inspiring either, but trust me. When you put it into the door frame it'll look nice.

Honestly, this map is far beyond anything I could ever accomplish. Kudos to following it through this far M-ney. Can't wait to play it! The "Killer Neutrals" will make this map insanely random and fun. Looking forward to THAT.

More later, after I catch up on the 9 PAGES OF POSTS that I seem to have missed out on when it moved over here to the workshop.

Memnon

[MarshalNey]

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

So here's the latest, with a small map included!

Let me know where the worst legibility problems exist... I know some of the text (like "Bolt Hole") is hard to make out.

[MarshalNey]

Also, I'm working on the new open door icon, as per natty's and Memnon's suggestion, hopefully that will be done sometime this weekend.

[Evil DIMwit]

All the territory labels in the street are just tiny, and I think you can bring the labels in the fort up a point or two.

[MarshalNey]

Here's a new direction, sort of, with the room connections and the names of the zombie regions.

For the room connections, I've been wasting time trying all sorts of doors, and as you can see I'm not entirely happy. This map displays all of my attempts thus far, let me know everyone what appeals to you- I'm partial to scrapping the doors altogether, and using the black shadows as seen in the upper left and left buildings (Bank and Church).

Click image to enlarge.

As for the Zombie names, you'll probably notice that the 'big' zombies all have some goofy font. This isn't meant to be an end-product, but just a marker to show that I was thinking of having individualized fonts for those four zombies.

Let me know what you think.

Note: I didn't put this to the first post until I decided on a connection for the buildings- plus I have to change it on the large map too.

PS- Evil D I intend to bring the Fort Alamo fonts up a few points, probably the same for the buildings, I've been pre-occupied with those doors.

[Evil DIMwit]

The dark doesn't look too great -- a little better in the bank than the church. I still prefer no doors at all.

[MarshalNey]

This is something that might work... I used 'passages of light' instead of shadow, with transparency to preserve the look of gaps but still possessing a definite 'boundary' that makes the room edges hopefully better defined.

Click image to enlarge.

I can't leave it alone because several comments have indicated that the gaps by themselves make some regions connections vague.

I also finalized the 'To Do' gameplay elements, as follows:

(1) I bumped up the # of regions that start for deployment to 71 (1 extra region as buffer in case something needs to go). The changes involved:

a) making all of the Fort Alamo area open deployment. To compensate for the added vulnerability in taking the Victory Objective, I increased the neutrals on the Items and increased the requirement to holding 2 Items instead of one.
b) Added an 'overpass' region between the Mall and the Police HQ, and increased their bonus accordingly for the added border.
c) Added 'Gate' street region (non-zombie) in front of 'No Exit'. It makes the 'No Exit' region conceptually make more sense I think, plus it adds a throw-away buffer for the total deployable regions in case I need to adjust later.

(2) Increased the bonus for the Cop HQ to +5, and increased the Mall bonus to +7 to reflect the impact of the Bridge between the two. This accidentally makes a semi-symmetrical line of bonuses, which I don't mind at all. Vertically, the bonus regions go like this (from the bottom to top): +5, +4, +3 ; +7, +3, +7 ; +3, +4, +5. Weird, huh?

(3) Changed the Victory Objective to require holding any 2 Items instead of just one. I also modified the neutral values on the Items to reflect their importance/ease of holding. The entire Fort Alamo area is now open deployment.

The 'death from above' 1-way attacks from the towers may or may not make into the map, depending on how cluttered/full the legend ends up.

I kept fiddling with look of the street names, of course.

Thoughts? Questions?

[natty dread]

I think the open doors could have looked better if they were all the way open, so that the doors are at a 90* angle to the walls...

[ender516]

That symmetry in the bonuses (180 degree rotational symmetry) should keep all parts of the map active. I like it.

I presume you will reorder the bonus legend to something more rational in the Graphics Workshop? I would suggest that since the legend is very vertical, take the regions from the map in vertical strips, left, then centre, then right. So, reading down the legend, we would see Bank, Church, Mafia HQ, Mall, Fort Alamo, Ghetto, Cop HQ, Hospital, and Academy.

[MarshalNey]

I think the open doors could have looked better if they were all the way open, so that the doors are at a 90* angle to the walls...

Good to see you back natty!

As for the 90 degrees, I tried it and it just didn't help define the region boundaries at all, so it would've been just eye candy... I thought in the end perhaps less was more.

That symmetry in the bonuses (180 degree rotational symmetry) should keep all parts of the map active. I like it.

I presume you will reorder the bonus legend to something more rational in the Graphics Workshop? I would suggest that since the legend is very vertical, take the regions from the map in vertical strips, left, then centre, then right. So, reading down the legend, we would see Bank, Church, Mafia HQ, Mall, Fort Alamo, Ghetto, Cop HQ, Hospital, and Academy.

Ah yes, totally agree. The bonus order has ended up haphazard after so many revisions, and really I've only organized the legend to make sure that all of the relevant gameplay instructions will fit.

But why wait for the Graphic Workshop? I'll put that on my 'to-do' queue.

Thanks guys for the feedback and advice, you are both rockbeds for the Foundry.

[Evil DIMwit]

I wonder if the whole zombies-all-over-the-place thing is liable to cause ludicrous stacking. Some of these buildings are pretty isolated, to the point that attacking another building would take up 5 or more extra troops just to get there -- and forget about it if you don't manage to establish a beachhead.

[MarshalNey]

I wonder if the whole zombies-all-over-the-place thing is liable to cause ludicrous stacking. Some of these buildings are pretty isolated, to the point that attacking another building would take up 5 or more extra troops just to get there -- and forget about it if you don't manage to establish a beachhead.

The 'zombie gauntlet' gameplay idea did worry me when it came to defensive stacking, because I think many players (myself included) hate those games that just go on forever, where the strategy is simply to wait for someone to act first.

So, I put in some elements that I hoped would encourage only offensive stacking... since stacks are going to be an inherent part of getting through the zombie gauntlets.

First, I have the safe havens, the non-killer regions in the streets. These are meant to mitigate part of the risk of venturing out into the streets- if the dice go poorly at some point, a player can 'drop off' his remaining troops at a safe haven somewhere along the way, instead of losing them all in a futile attempt.

Second, I have the two Wheels items- the Meat Wagon and the Armored Car. Their power allows a player to teleport to any safe haven (non-zombie street zone) on the map- including each other. Obviously, this is handy as it allows a player to nearly circumvent the zombie gauntlet in many cases.

Third, and most important, I have the indoor zombie regions. These are meant to make the buildings they occupy fairly indefensible with troops stacks- there are simply too many borders. The Ghetto, for instance, would need a stack on every indoor region to be completely safe, because the Halls will always act as a border to everything inside.

Having said all that...

Some of these buildings are pretty isolated, to the point that attacking another building would take up 5 or more extra troops just to get there -- and forget about it if you don't manage to establish a beachhead.

I very well may have made some buildings too isolated. Which ones struck you in particular?

I could switch around a safe haven or two, or even add a zombie region indoors to rectify the problem.

[Evil DIMwit]

The bank a bit, but mainly the Mafia HQ.

[MarshalNey]

Hmmm.... 3 regions in the Mafia HQ are pretty vulnerable from any region in the Ghetto- they just have to go through 3 1's (Halls -> Blood Alley -> Kitchen) and then can attack any of three rooms (Restaraunt, Meat Locker or Back Room). With 3 effective borders, I think it's fairly accessible... (thoughts)?

The Bank, on the other hand, I think is too isolated. I'm going to post an update with changed street connections, and shorten the path by at least 1 zombie region- I'm going to cut Lunch Hour I think. I might also reduce the bonus to +2. Good catch there.

I'm looking over the others and I'm fairly satisfied that they "link" with some sort of short-ish path with another building. The Church might be too isolated... but it's a large area, unlike the Bank, and the bonus is small...

I forgot to mention, but also to prevent excessive stack-building, I put in the victory objective. If players are getting to the point where they can own buildings, the objective shouldn't be that difficult to take (but perhaps difficult to hold).

[Evil DIMwit]

Hmmm.... 3 regions in the Mafia HQ are pretty vulnerable from any region in the Ghetto- they just have to go through 3 1's (Halls -> Blood Alley -> Kitchen) and then can attack any of three rooms (Restaraunt, Meat Locker or Back Room). With 3 effective borders, I think it's fairly accessible... (thoughts)?

One, three 1s would consume about 5-6 armies on average for anyone who wants to pass through. That's no trifle.

Two, it's not very likely someone will take the Ghetto. It's practically your Asia, which means Mafia HQ is practically your Australia. At least, that's my take on it.

[MarshalNey]

New Update! The large map is also up-to-date, and posted on the first post.

Click image to enlarge.

CHANGED STREET ROUTES
Hopefully addressing Evil D's fears somewhat, I shortened two zombie gauntlets by eliminating Lunch Hour and Dread Legion (turned into Deadman's Curve).

I added in Custard Stand as a safe zone near the Bank, to provide easier access to invaders.

Melded and modified some of the street paths to provide clarity and a little more vulnerability to the buildings.

MODIFIED THE KITCHEN
To make the Mafia HQ more of a pain-in-the-butt to take, and to increase the number of 'border' regions, I connected the Kitchen to the Front Office, now making the Kitchen a barrier neutral that cuts the bonus area more effectively (2 regions, 1 region, and 4 regions)

NEUTRALS CHANGED A LITTLE
With the addition of new safe regions, and for the purposes of golden number drops, I made the helicopters in Fort Alamo neutral again. Accordingly, the victory objective is back to holding only 1 Item.

LARGER TEXT, DIFFERENT NAMES
The text for the indoor regions on the small map is larger. In some cases, I used alternate names that fit better.

The street region text is going to also be enlarged in the next update.

COSMETIC TOUCHES
I started the process of sharpening some of the blurry images on the small map, fixing some longstanding mistakes in the walls, and cleaning up the placement of the army circles.

I also added in 888 army numbers to indicate open drop regions on the large map, and performed an 888 test on the small map.

[ender516]

You have a very thorough first post, but apart from the mention on the map itself, you don't describe the victory objective. (I presume you will change the small map to match the big one regarding only one Item needed for the objective.)

[Industrial Helix]

You know, the gameplay elements look pretty good and ready for its final evaluation... can we get the map surveyors in here?

Looking at it myself, I'd say all my crits are graphics oriented, which I will save for later.

[MarshalNey]

You have a very thorough first post, but apart from the mention on the map itself, you don't describe the victory objective. (I presume you will change the small map to match the big one regarding only one Item needed for the objective.)

Whoops!

Corrected version of the small map (and reordered the bonuses like in the large map). Edited 1st post to detail the victory objective.

Click image to enlarge.

[Top Dog]

lookin' good... I'll have to come out of my retirement to play this map once it's finished haha... and I agree with Industrial Helix, we could get someone to take a look at the map and see how close it is to the next step

[Evil DIMwit]

Well, I don't really see anything preventing this map from moving on. Sticky time.

[Evil DIMwit]

No complaints? Well.

On we shamble.

[Victor Sullivan]

Congrats on the stamp! Not far from beta testing...

[RjBeals]

now get to work on those graphics !