Embassies?

[Banana Stomper]

An idea that i was toying with is that every territory would have one embassy located in another territory. The idea would be that if you held a region, you got a bonus, but if you held a region and held the embassy, you got an additional bonus. It would be denoted with the marking of a little building of the appropriate color, or something like that.

[freakshow]

I was toying with a similar idea when thinking of the over sized world map.
Greenland is part of Denmark. So Denmark could be attacked from every contry bordering it and every contry bordering Greenland. They would be in every sense of the word one contry, this could make the games a little tricky to handle.

[Hoff]

I wouldnt want it on all new maps. But it would be something to try it for a 1 map.

[Black Jack]

Another version of this is called... Cities.

Several territories are designated as Cities... with additional armies going to the controlling player.

It started as a variant for the boardgame... back in the 60's.

We used hotels, from Monoply, to represent the cities.

[Marvaddin]

Terrible idea. So, a continent with 4 countries, like Oceania, dont could have embassies of the others, right? Or a country could be multi embassies? And it would probably make the map harder to read... terrible idea, I dislike veeeeery much.

[Black Jack]

In board play... cities were normally limited to one per continent.

[Hoff]

why is it a terrible idea? I think alot of people would enjoy playing a map with embassies every now and then

[HighBorn]

i think it could be intresting...

[Banana Stomper]

I don't really see what you are saying would be so terrible Marv. It would be a feature built into the map, not something that occurs randomly each time a game starts up. Every continent would have one embassy placed within another continent on the map, and no continent would contain more than one embassy. And i don't see why it would make the board so difficult to read. Countries have some extra room on them, it wouldn't be difficult to just place some little graphic of a building in there that would constitute an embassy.

[onbekende]

If it stays to 1 specialy designed map, it is good. But not everyone is jumping for this.

[HighBorn]

yeah i agree.. 1 map only...

[freakshow]

Terrible idea. So, a continent with 4 countries, like Oceania, dont could have embassies of the others, right? Or a country could be multi embassies? And it would probably make the map harder to read... terrible idea, I dislike veeeeery much.

Yeah if anyone has seen any of Marv's other posts he has a tendency to speak his mind, often with little regard to the fact that he's more often than not unruly and drunk. He also thinks that his suggestions are always right, which it might suprise him is not always true. Marv I ask you to look beyond the Classic Risk formula and consider the possibility of new and inventive things in maps. I'm with Black Jack on this, do it on a map, it will add a whole new level of strategy, if it become popular more maps will have embassies, if not then yours will be the only one.

[Hoff]

How would you give out armies for these embassies? Maybe for every embassy you hold you get an extra guy. So if you own all 7 then you get plus 7 bonus. Is that the idea?

[Banana Stomper]

I was thinking that the embassy would be a bonus only if the player who holds the the region holds the embassy as well. So the only way to get the embassy bonus is to hold the region of the embassy, but if there would be a better implementation, do tell. I don't think a bonus just for holding the embassy would be a good idea because someone could end up with a pretty big advantage if they end up on an embassy in the original deployment.

[Marvaddin]

[quote="freakshow]Yeah if anyone has seen any of Marv's other posts he has a tendency to speak his mind, often with little regard to the fact that he's more often than not unruly and drunk.[/quote]

Is this a joke?

[quote="freakshow]He also thinks that his suggestions are always right, which it might suprise him is not always true.[/quote]

Of course, I believe what I think is right, or I would think another way. Are you different?

Man, the idea is bad. If the bonus for hold 1 more country is great, its unfair. If its really small, its nothing. In several maps, its difficult make room for both name of country and number. How would you represent a country as ambassy? And, anyway, ambassies are anything after declared a war? Would it be an outpost?

Want something different? 5 or 6 continents, each have a capital... its not really part of the continent... Having all capitals, great bonus. Im thinking about it... Im imagining a fantasy based map, it would represent mana sources, or magic fortresses... I would include even magic portals that can attack any locations (according to lack, its possible always put neutral armies on it from the start)... However, my problem is the lack of options. I think I will create a topic to all suggestions for different maps. Maybe I can use some as magic power

[Hoff]

you still havent given a good reason for it being a bad idea...

You say its unfair? How? It adds strategy to the game and you can decide if its worth try to hold the embassies or not. It just adds another element to game play.

And is your main concern that it wont fit in the map? Easy solution, stick the embassies in a country where they do fit. Its easy to make them fit, its not an issue. I don't see why its such a horrible idea?

[Banana Stomper]

I've been working on this map,(Comment on it here) so i just put in what it would look like with the embassies in place. I decided just to use flags for simplicity's sake. I didn't put anything in the legend either, as you can tell.

Basically, i immagine it would work something like this:
If you owned a territory, you would get the basic bonus that is determined as per usual. If you owned the Embassy of your territory in addition to holding the territory, denoted by the flag of the appropriate color, you would recieve an additional bonus along the lines of two or three armies.

I considered a bonus of just one, but i decided that would be sorta pointless. You would inevitably waste more than that just on taking the region and holding it. So a mildly significant bonus would have to be in place.

[HighBorn]

looks great!!

[Hoff]

i like the idea. i think a bonus of 2 or 3 would be nice. But you need to find someway to explain it in the legend.

[freakshow]

I'm all for this, My poll under new maps shows that people want original stuff not the same old stuff with a new skin. I think this definatly qualifies as an original idea. Marv, I might have been kinda harsh, I don't always think I'm right, in fact most of the time I feel I'm wrong and someone else might know better. As for the rest of that I direct you to the topic with your name on it in the flame wars section.

[Hoff]

zinger

[Mr. K]

I think this is a great idea to include in some maps here and there. The complaints against it are pretty absurd, and it looks like the complainer was fishing really hard for anything to complain about.

Not enough room on the maps? That is the lamest reason I've ever heard. If a map-maker can't find a way around this obstacle than they're maps probably going to be pretty shitty anyway. And trying to say you wouldn't be able represent a country as an embassy? Another extremely easy obstacle to tackle. As you can see, Banana Stomper did a great job showing us how to overcome these problems. Not to give him too much credit though, as these problems are extremely simple. It would take a very non-creative mind to not be able to find away around it.

And on the question of it being unfair? I'd say thats a pretty big crock as well. As Hoff said, it just adds another level of strategy. You have to decide if its worth capturing the embassy and trying to defend it. Its gonna take a pretty big round of luck to get your territories mapped out where your troops are all gathered in one continent and its respective embassy, which is the only way I could see someone getting an unfair advantage.

Give way to some creativity, it's healthy.

[freakshow]

one thing you have to be carefull of is not having a situation where:
country 1 has it's embassy in country 2
country 2 has it's embassy in country 1

Some times this might be unavoidable but If it all possible lets make sure you need to hold most of the continates before you can pull something like this. This is the only valid stategic complaint I could think of. It's kinda a big deal so I though I'd mention it.

[Black Jack]

My only problem is with the terminology... I really do not like using the word embassies.

It just does not sound right and feel right.

I would prefer almost anything else... Cities, Towns, Capitals, Seats of Power, Thrones, Army Headquarters (AHQ), etc.

All these terms, plus many more, where used to label this variant... long before anyone dreamd of playing with a computer.

I recommend this variant for maps that play well... without cards.

[Hoff]

but it doesnt make sense to have your Cities, Towns, Capitals, Seats of Power, Thrones, or Army Headquarters in another country. Thats just absurd. Your embassies, however, are on foriegn soil. SO the use of an embassy makes sense to me.