Conquer Club

Ok here's a weird one. This kind of came to me all at once and I want to see what you guys think. The gamplays a little bit different on this one. It's all about holding cities that auto deploy, and using those as bases to conquer the surrounding farmlands. There aren't really the classic region bonuses. On top of the generic +1 for every 3 territories you'll receive an additional +1 for hold 3 territories of the same state (+1 for every 4 for a few states).

I also added Roads in. The same style I had in Thyseneal. Cities connected by roads can attack each other directly. Additionally some have bonuses attached to holding all the territories along their paths. However the road bonus may be a little supplementary.

Right now I'm just throwing it out there. If there is enough support I might actually go ahead with this.

Whoa guys! please one comment at a time.

"Adjectent"? Lol.

I like it, but mostly because it's Ohio, though I am disappoint Columbus isn't a +3 or 4 auto-deploy. Cleveland and Cincinnati are actually smaller in population and smaller than size (neglecting suburbs).

Interesting gameplay, though. Rather heavy on the auto-deploys and not so much on the deployable.

-Sully

I'm not sure I like the gameplay on this map at all the way you have it now. Maybe some kind of objective victory conditions would encourage people to do more than just stack on the cities. Also so many game settings would be rough here i.e. flat rate/no spoils and adjacent forts. Of course you can say people shouldn't play a map that way but as long as we can't filter certain maps out of random it's bound to happen. Last of all, you misspelled "Kentucky" in both the map and the legend. As for what to call it--you could call it "Old Northwest" as that was the name of that exact region in the early years of U.S. expansion.

Well, the legend seems way too large. There's no way you're going to need that much room for it.

The map itself seems to cut off a bit abruptly on the right side. Pennsylvania looks cramped in that corner, I think you could increase the cropping or move it to the right a bit.

Also, I know this is just a draft, but you should start by redoing the map tracing. Take heed from your experiences in the Africa map, and this time pay more attention to the line work of the borders. And turn on the damn anti-aliasing when you draw, dammit.

perchorin wrote:I'm not sure I like the gameplay on this map at all the way you have it now. Maybe some kind of objective victory conditions would encourage people to do more than just stack on the cities. Also so many game settings would be rough here i.e. flat rate/no spoils and adjacent forts. Of course you can say people shouldn't play a map that way but as long as we can't filter certain maps out of random it's bound to happen. Last of all, you misspelled "Kentucky" in both the map and the legend. As for what to call it--you could call it "Old Northwest" as that was the name of that exact region in the early years of U.S. expansion.

Actually if I remember right, this area was part of Virginia. The Northwest territory included Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, Iowa.

Ok, about the spelling concerns... oops. Yeah I did this draft from 1am-2am after a night out. Like I said the idea hit and I just want to get it down, so a lot of mistakes were made. Like the Kentucky one... yeah that's just embarrassing.

I like it, but mostly because it's Ohio, though I am disappoint Columbus isn't a +3 or 4 auto-deploy. Cleveland and Cincinnati are actually smaller in population and smaller than size (neglecting suburbs).

Yes but Columbus has very little significance outside of Ohio while Cincinnati and Cleveland have historically been more connected to surrounding parts of the country.

Interesting gameplay, though. Rather heavy on the auto-deploys and not so much on the deployable.

True but that's sort of the idea. Think feudal America!

I'm not sure I like the gameplay on this map at all the way you have it now. Maybe some kind of objective victory conditions would encourage people to do more than just stack on the cities.

I think that this does encourage long games, that is true. However I don't view that as a bad thing. I think that maybe adding more cities might encourage more action. You know, having more things to fight over, maybe some +1's

Also so many game settings would be rough here i.e. flat rate/no spoils and adjacent forts. Of course you can say people shouldn't play a map that way but as long as we can't filter certain maps out of random it's bound to happen.

honestly I don't see how game settings are going to make or break this map. Flat rate games will take longer but they always do. Also don't forget the road bonuses. There's plenty to fight over on this map.

Well, the legend seems way too large. There's no way you're going to need that much room for it.

Agreed, I just winged it on this draft.

The map itself seems to cut off a bit abruptly on the right side. Pennsylvania looks cramped in that corner, I think you could increase the cropping or move it to the right a bit.

Agreed, and I'd add more of Kentucky in as well.

Also, I know this is just a draft, but you should start by redoing the map tracing. Take heed from your experiences in the Africa map, and this time pay more attention to the line work of the borders. And turn on the damn anti-aliasing when you draw, dammit.

Noted.

Actually if I remember right, this area was part of Virginia. The Northwest territory included Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, Iowa.

You are correct, and I considered that but decided that that is too similar to the Great Lakes map already in play.

isaiah40 wrote:

perchorin wrote:I'm not sure I like the gameplay on this map at all the way you have it now. Maybe some kind of objective victory conditions would encourage people to do more than just stack on the cities. Also so many game settings would be rough here i.e. flat rate/no spoils and adjacent forts. Of course you can say people shouldn't play a map that way but as long as we can't filter certain maps out of random it's bound to happen. Last of all, you misspelled "Kentucky" in both the map and the legend. As for what to call it--you could call it "Old Northwest" as that was the name of that exact region in the early years of U.S. expansion.

Actually if I remember right, this area was part of Virginia. The Northwest territory included Minnesota, Wisconsin, Upper Michigan, Iowa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Northwest
Wiki agrees with me, and I'm always glad to have confirmation senility hasn't started setting in yet

Interesting, I like it, but thats cause I don't like the USA map pack of the similar region, this is refreshingly simple and clean.

One major thing stands oput to me needing clarification: to hold the road bonus, does one need to hold the cities as well, for example, Cleveland to Cincinnati do I need to hold Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnatti?

I think you could do a farm patchwork design as a texture to emphasize the farmland and it would be pretty cool.

If you need more cities, for whatever reason, Kalamazoo could work nicely in MI. Fort Wayne would be cool in Indiana as its the only place I've been to in Indiana.

Is Wisconsin playable? If not you should grey it out or something.

And you'v got some serious pixelization on those rivers.

Get some territory names on there and you'll be good to move on to the Main Foundry (pending a little more support and that my collegues in cartography don't find the map redundant, I will commune with them soon... for now I'm going to move it to the Drafting room.

Here's a version I did with more cities. Though I think that may be too many. I could get rid of "greater" area's such as Clarksville and Newport, which aren't really cities in their own right, but sucker fish clinging to whales... err, well big sharks any way. Gary could be seen that way as well.

Interesting, I like it, but thats cause I don't like the USA map pack of the similar region, this is refreshingly simple and clean.

Glad to here it. I'm starting to think I'd really like to go ahead with this one. It's refreshing to me because It's an area I'm so familiar with.

One major thing stands oput to me needing clarification: to hold the road bonus, does one need to hold the cities as well, for example, Cleveland to Cincinnati do I need to hold Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnatti?

Um... really at this stage I could really go either way. I was sort of thinking that you only need to hold the farmland, that way you have more bonus options without the cities.

I think you could do a farm patchwork design as a texture to emphasize the farmland and it would be pretty cool

Yeah that could be. I was thinking a slight bleed of a satellite image.

Is Wisconsin playable? If not you should grey it out or something.

I kind of grouped Wisconsin, Iowa, and St. Louis into a category called "Western regions" Sort of the left overs that didn't have enough presence to warrant their own region.

And you'v got some serious pixelization on those rivers.

Please please please understand that this is the roughest of rough drafts.

Get some territory names on there and you'll be good to move on to the Main Foundry

I was debating whether or not I wanted to use actual "names" for the farm land regions or go with a more generic, Indiana 1, Indiana 2, type scenario...

Please, please use the [BigImg] tags!

isaiah40 wrote:Please, please use the [BigImg] tags!

Oh sorry...

isaiah40 wrote:Please, please use the [BigImg] tags!

Yeah what he said, I went in and edited your posts to restor some sanity to the previous images.

If the road bonuses are sans cities, you should mention that in the legend. I think this would be the best option because as you say, it gives some bonuses outside of the cities.

Also, I think real names would be better cause I hate the 1, 2, 3 method of naming. I mean most of these regions already have names, not too hard.

K, I'm going to do a revised, cleaned up, nice version real soon. Honest.

Can't wait.

Doesn't the heartland include like Iowa and the Dakotas? I like the layout you have here. Looks interesting with the straight borders and then the curvy Mississippi under it. Looking forward to what sort of Americana graphics you come up with.

RjBeals wrote:Doesn't the heartland include like Iowa and the Dakotas? I like the layout you have here. Looks interesting with the straight borders and then the curvy Mississippi under it. Looking forward to what sort of Americana graphics you come up with.

"Heartland" is really a vague open ended term that could pretty much refer to anywhere in the interior united states, usually leaning towards the central east since that's where the geographic population center is.

RjBeals wrote:Doesn't the heartland include like Iowa and the Dakotas? I like the layout you have here. Looks interesting with the straight borders and then the curvy Mississippi under it. Looking forward to what sort of Americana graphics you come up with.

Well, Ohio's motto is "the heart of it all", so I pretty much regard Ohio and its environs as the heartland. And by curvy mississippi do you mean the curvy Ohio river?

Industrial Helix wrote:And by curvy mississippi do you mean the curvy Ohio river?

well i'll be damned. I always thought that was a part of the Mississippi.

I think every state in the Midwest believes they are a part of the Heartland, and lots of things in the Midwest are named Heartland. In fact, University of Wisconsin and the University of Iowa have a traveling trophy called the 'Heartland Trophy' for NCAA Football.


--Andy

Ok, I'm posting this just to give people an idea of where I'm going with this. As you can see for starters I'm increasing the amount of territories that are in each state. Basically I'm arriving upon the philosophy that more is more, and more is always better. Especially when it comes to territories on CC maps.

I'm not sure where to go with Farmland territory names. I'm trying to avoid town or city names because it's a thematic clash with the city territories. I've done a test run on Ohio where I just pick a county from that region and use it for the whole area. Hopefully that wont get a lot of flak from people who think that their county is being inappropriately ignored, because I used Hamilton instead of Clarimont of whatever.



The below image is ESPECIALLY NOT to be taken literally. It is just to show you guys the artistic direction that I'll be going with this later on. All the artwork on there is copyrighted stuff I pulled from the internet and WILL NOT be used on the final or any following versions. The above map just looked so naked that I wanted to give you guys a look at what this will be like further along.

Ok still not there yet but at least all the territories are there and labeled.

AndyDufresne wrote:I think every state in the Midwest believes they are a part of the Heartland, and lots of things in the Midwest are named Heartland. In fact, University of Wisconsin and the University of Iowa have a traveling trophy called the 'Heartland Trophy' for NCAA Football.


--Andy

The heartland generally is defined as the midwestern states. That includes Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, the Dakotas, a bunch of states I forgot the names of because I'm bad with state names, Ohio, Indiana....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States

So, how do you plan on players to start on this?

If it starts as a random drop, it will be very unequal, with all the +1 for x bonuses... but if everyone starts with just a city, and the cities can attack each other, then... first round eliminations.

I think this needs to be solved first.

natty_dread wrote:So, how do you plan on players to start on this?

If it starts as a random drop, it will be very unequal, with all the +1 for x bonuses... but if everyone starts with just a city, and the cities can attack each other, then... first round eliminations.

I think this needs to be solved first.

Uh crud I didn't think about that... obviously.

ok, here's what I'm thinking. All Cities start neutral (equivalent to their value, maybe starting at 2 for the +1's). We add the rule +1 for every 3 farmland territories "with at least 1 city" and add a city in West Virginia so that players can reap it's farmland bonus.