Oceania [Quenched]

[Blitzaholic]

looks nice, i like the variety of colors as well

[iancanton]

before u try to fix the gameplay, can i suggest some changes to the geography to make the map more credible, especially in the eyes of our oceanian friends? the number of territories, 44, is good, so don't change this.

the ashmore islands are uninhabited lumps of rock that have no importance, while ACT (australian capital territory) – where the capital city of the most powerful country on the map is located - is missing. i propose that ACT (which borders new south wales and nothing else) replaces the ashmore islands.

the coral islands are, i think, called the whitsunday islands.

as the number two country of the region, i'd like new zealand's 4 major cities to be included, so that it has 5 territories in total: auckland and wellington (both on north island), christchurch and dunedin (both on south island) and chatham islands. remove the kermadec islands and line islands, which are both uninhabited, from the map. this keeps the territory count at 44.

make the air routes more realistic: let christchurch (south island) link to victoria, not to tasmania, and give auckland (north island) an additional link to sydney (new south wales).

the names of two of the island groups can be replaced by the names of the (more famous) largest island: north mariana islands becomes saipan and french polynesia becomes tahiti. u can then increase the size of each of these islands to maybe 10mm on the large map, so that we can see their shape properly!

u are receiving many positive comments about the look of the map so far. i'll add my support to this aspect, especially the vibrant colours.

ian.

[nazlfrag]

I really like this map, you've done fantastically well with the look and it looks like it will be fun to play. It works nicely with the Asia map starting where that one stops. I did notice a couple grey dots near the top right though, look like leftover uncoloured bits of island or something.

Regarding Ians ideas above, the ACT seems like a bit much, it just gives whoever has NSW 1 extra territory without adding anything much to the map. It has some RL importance but it is tiny, really just a city, and for the purposes here Australia already has plenty of territories. Still, there are the Ashmore and Line islands which I agree have no RL importance are there, so why not Canberra. Perhaps just remove those two islands and add two territories to New Zealand, one on each the north and south islands, and make it worth +4 and Kiribati +3. I also agree that links to/from NZ and mainland Australia would also be sensible and a good addition.

[LED ZEPPELINER]

it looks a little too flat to me, maybe try adding some height to the land

[thenobodies80]

Update 02/15/2009

Oceania Map v5

Click image to enlarge.

Modifications:

i try to sodisfy as large as possible the community request:

• wrong bonuses:
  Spoiler

  ...Bonuses are still very much "off" or at least a bit strange/difficult to figure out.
  One thing that is certain is that Kiribati is not +4. 4 territories with 3 borders? only 5 territories from 2 continents can attack. and, expansion to Micronesia might not be too difficult.Micronesia for instance has 6 territories with 3 borders. it borders 2 continents in 3 territories. Furthermore, it is a potential 7 territory 2 border continent that borders 3 continents in 4 territories. I'm not sure that's a +4 region. +3 seems more apt. maybe others disagree. Or, possibly a border redraw here would help. maybe Caroline Islands should border Papua New Guinea. though that might screw up the Melanesia bonus..East Indonesia is probably only +4 as well if you consider it's only 5 territories. But, compare that to Melanesia and it's obviously not worth the same as that? So do you keep it as you have it thereby making the bigger bonus of Polynesia relatively wrong. I could go on forever doing these comparisons.Underlying problem is that some bonuses work if you look at it alone but in the bigger picture they look messed up. Compare Kiribati to East Indonesia right now. Or even if you change them to +3 and +4 respectively like I've said, they still seem relatively wrong (though less than before)"fixing" this might require changes to gameplay like different borders which in some cases might be easy considering they're done via water routes.
  
  Then these bonuses (randomly placed. sorry) look a lot better to me.
  
  Australia: +8
  Polynesia: +6
  New Zealand: +3
  East Indonesia: +5
  Melanesia: +5
  Kiribati: +3
  Micronesia: +4

  Decision:Bonuses resetted, as you can see a "+X" is displayed on map legend.
• Adding new territories:
  Spoiler

  before u try to fix the gameplay, can i suggest some changes to the geography to make the map more credible, especially in the eyes of our oceanian friends? the number of territories, 44, is good, so don't change this.
  the ashmore islands are uninhabited lumps of rock that have no importance, while ACT (australian capital territory) – where the capital city of the most powerful country on the map is located - is missing. i propose that ACT (which borders new south wales and nothing else) replaces the ashmore islands...As the number two country of the region, i'd like new zealand's 4 major cities to be included, so that it has 5 territories in total: auckland and wellington (both on north island), christchurch and dunedin (both on south island) and chatham islands. remove the kermadec islands and line islands, which are both uninhabited, from the map. this keeps the territory count at 44...

  Decision:
  • [1] ACT isn't possible to add, because this is the large map, in small map this territory is too unclear.Ashmore Islands removed.
    [2]New Zealand north island divided in two smaller territories: Auckland and Wellington ; south island divided in two smaller territories:dunedin and christchurch, Kermadeck islands removed
    [3]Line islands not removed, kiribati will be too small if removed.
• New routes
  Spoiler

  make the air routes more realistic: let christchurch (south island) link to victoria, not to tasmania, and give auckland (north island) an additional link to sydney (new south wales).

  "fixing" this might require changes to gameplay like different borders which in some cases might be easy considering they're done via water routes.
  
  Ideas? well. Add this border...
  
  Papa New Guinea-Caroline Islands

  Decision:ALL ROUTES resetted and rewrited to a better gameplay.All continents have a "hidden" territory, good for assassin and fog. Others are similar to last version, but something changed.
• Territory names
  Spoiler

  the coral islands are, i think, called the whitsunday islands.
  the names of two of the island groups can be replaced by the names of the (more famous) largest island: north mariana islands becomes saipan and french polynesia becomes tahiti. u can then increase the size of each of these islands to maybe 10mm on the large map, so that we can see their shape properly!

  Decision:NAMES CHANGED, and locked!
• Territory to flat
  Spoiler

  it looks a little too flat to me, maybe try adding some height to the land

  Decision:FIXED

[The Neon Peon]

Can you please get rid of the "and idea"? Ideas are thrown out there all the time, and I would expect to find at least 3 other threads in the recycling bin where someone suggested a map of Oceania. This has also not been put on any of the quenched maps we have.


I like that the dotted lines extend from map circle to map circle, but can you please either stay consistent on that for mainland Australia, or have them extend to the coast rather than a bit into the land, but not to the army circle.

[thenobodies80]

Can you please get rid of the "and idea"? Ideas are thrown out there all the time, and I would expect to find at least 3 other threads in the recycling bin where someone suggested a map of Oceania. This has also not been put on any of the quenched maps we have.


I like that the dotted lines extend from map circle to map circle, but can you please either stay consistent on that for mainland Australia, or have them extend to the coast rather than a bit into the land, but not to the army circle.

Already contacted the graphic, there will be a minor update in few days.

[LED ZEPPELINER]

it still looks pretty flat

[thenobodies80]

Update 02/18/2009

Oceania Map v5.1

Click image to enlarge.

Can you please get rid of the "and idea"? Ideas are thrown out there all the time, and I would expect to find at least 3 other threads in the recycling bin where someone suggested a map of Oceania. This has also not been put on any of the quenched maps we have.
I like that the dotted lines extend from map circle to map circle, but can you please either stay consistent on that for mainland Australia, or have them extend to the coast rather than a bit into the land, but not to the army circle.

FIXED

it still looks pretty flat

FIXED

Others graphical details will be added in future.

Next update :

- Fixed Legend
- Starting armies/neutrals
- New Bonuses

[iancanton]

this map is developing very nicely.

a couple of errors in the names: whitsundays islands is whitsunday islands and solomon island is solomon islands. also, wellngton is wellington.

http://www.tourismwhitsundays.com.au/rt ... 9DC6ED7B5A
http://www.visitsolomons.com.sb/

can u draw a new zealand air route from auckland to christchurch, to help with fortification? at the moment, new zealand is very linear. to do this, move the text for wellington to the left, so that there is space for the dotted line.

from norfolk island, remove the air route to lord howe island. draw an air route to queensland. similarly, remove the solomon islands to whitsunday islands route and draw solomon islands to queensland. remove both of the air routes to western australia. taken together, these changes will reduces australia's border territories from 7 to 5, so that it becomes possible to hold, while fortification becomes easier.

the brighter air routes are a good gameplay improvement.

i'd like to see some islands such as tahiti drawn bigger, at least the size of an army circle, so that we can see their distinctive shape.

http://www.tahiti-tourisme.com/islands/ ... mapbig.asp

ian.

[gho]

I think the islands are the right size and don't think you should increase the size to an unreal size. I think you should put some 'designs' like the islands picture next to the word Oceania in the top left corner of the map and maybe another one next to your signatures on the bottom left, as currently those areas look really bare (esp. top left, where you look at first)

[pikkio]

I think you should put some 'designs' like the islands picture next to the word Oceania in the top left corner of the map and maybe another one next to your signatures on the bottom left, as currently those areas look really bare (esp. top left, where you look at first)

yes, it's still in program. ^_^ first i want to fix the general graphic.

[thenobodies80]

Version 5.2 NEW!

Click image to enlarge.

some errors in territory names

a couple of errors in the names: whitsundays islands is whitsunday islands and solomon island is solomon islands. also, wellngton is wellington.

DONE- all names fixed

NZ new air route

can u draw a new zealand air route from auckland to christchurch, to help with fortification? at the moment, new zealand is very linear. to do this, move the text for wellington to the left, so that there is space for the dotted line..

DONE WITH MODIFICATIONS - air route added but wellington moved to the opposite side. Looks better

AU new air routes

from norfolk island, remove the air route to lord howe island. draw an air route to queensland. similarly, remove the solomon islands to whitsunday islands route and draw solomon islands to queensland. remove both of the air routes to western australia. taken together, these changes will reduces australia's border territories from 7 to 5, so that it becomes possible to hold, while fortification becomes easier.

PARTIALLY DONE - We rewrite air routes partially, we discussed for long time about it but we don't like the "from solomon to queensland" one. there could be some graphical problems and i don't think that's a good choice for gameplay.Aussie with 6 borders is good for us.

resize small islands

i'd like to see some islands such as tahiti drawn bigger, at least the size of an army circle, so that we can see their distinctive shape..

REFUSED - Pikkio complitely refused this option, and i'm complitely agree with him. we oversized the smaller islands yet (here). Another resize is too , we assure you!

graphic

I think the islands are the right size and don't think you should increase the size to an unreal size. I think you should put some 'designs' like the islands picture next to the word Oceania in the top left corner of the map and maybe another one next to your signatures on the bottom left, as currently those areas look really bare (esp. top left, where you look at first)

DONE WITH MODIFICATIONS - added some graphic elements as requested and one in aussie to have it more less flat

NEXT UPDATE:

• - starting positions
  - starting neutrals

while waiting new version, please suggest!

[thenobodies80]

After fixing attacks,i try to calculate new bonuses on v5.2

I calculated with bonuses spreadsheet in Map making tools.
but i'm not sure that the results will be right for this map.

Click image to enlarge.

i try to do some modifications

• Australia is the biggest one.
  But there's some dead ends...(good for assassins or foggy games).
  10 territories, but when you take western, south, tasmania,lord howe, it similar to a 5 territories continets.
  So, calculated bonus is a quite too.
  probably i think that the good choices could be -1 than polynesia
• New Zealand is 5 territories, but defendable with only 2 territories (40%).
  I suppose that +2 is enough. In my opinion is the easiest to defend.
• Melanesia 5 territories but the hardest to hold
  i supposed +4
• East Indonesia 5 territories, with two dead ends.
  only +3
• Micronesia is 6 territories
  probably +4, one for any border.
• Kiribati is smaller but it has 75% of territories under enemies fire
  so probably +3 is good.
• Polynesia could be +6 or +7
  it could be attacked by 6 routes, but it's easy try to take line islands and reduce them to 5.
  In this way an expansion to kiribati seems easy to do.
  This continents isn't so easy to hold.

OCEANIA BONUSES:
Australia +5
New Zealand +2
Melanesia +4
East Indonesia +3
Micronesia +4
Kiribati +3
Polynesia +6

I will open a new poll.

Waiting your response

[iancanton]

I calculated with bonuses spreadsheet in Map making tools.
but i'm not sure that the results will be right for this map.

i try to do some modifications

OCEANIA BONUSES:
Australia +5
New Zealand +2
Melanesia +4
East Indonesia +3
Micronesia +4
Kiribati +3
Polynesia +6

i think that u have a good eye for bonuses, as ur figures are much better than the ones on the spreadsheet. the only one that i'd increase is australia: by comparison with classic north america, which has 3 border territories out of 9 for a +5 bonus, our australia has 6 border territories (5 if u remove whitsunday islands to solomon islands) out of 10, so i think it's worth +6.

to help those who want to try a strategy of holding australia, i'd like also to remove the following air routes: west papua to northern territory, west papua to queensland and whitsunday islands to solomon islands. this means there are 3 dead-ends in australia, so connect south australia to tasmania. u'll be happy to hear that these are the final changes i have for australia!

can u draw new air routes from guam to palau and guam to marshall islands, so that fortifications can go through guam as well as caroline islands (in real life, guam has a busy international airport)? at the moment, if an opponent takes caroline islands, then the micronesia player is crippled.

[3]Line islands not removed, kiribati will be too small if removed.

i like ur gameplay principle of keeping the smallest continent at 4 territories minimum, which reduces the chance of unfair starts.

ian.

[sailorseal]

This is what I think in the way of bonuses:
- AUSTRALIA +6
- KIRIBATI +3
- MELANESIA +4
- MICRONESIA +4
- NEW ZEALAND +3
- POLYNESIA +5
- EAST INDONESIA +3
Make the assault routes look better and make the title of each area bolder or something. Very nice map!

[the.killing.44]

First time commenting here, upon request of thenobodies … nicely done. My comments right now will be pretty quick.

• Firstly, in response to sailorseal, I disagree with what he said. The titles are fine, and there's nothing to change on the assault routes.
  But here's what I'd do. Do you have all the circles in one layer? If you do, command-click the box by the name.Then go to your assault route layer and hit helete. That should clean up the dots somewhat (stands out are Kiritimati, the Solomons, and Nauru). If you don't have all the circles in one layer just shift-command click on the boxes for each of them.
  I'd do the same with Australia and its border with the dots.
  Bonses … umm:
  • Australia +5
    New Zealand +2
    Melanesia +4
    East Indonesia
    Micronesia +3
    Kiribati +2
    Polynesia +6
  I love the surfer (well, maybe just because I surf )

Sweet map, maybe try making the background color a little bit lighter? Just a thought
.44

[MrBenn]

Poll Result:

What do you think about bonuses?
Poll ended at Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:24 am

Bonuses are good, no modifications to do... 6... 67%
Bonuses are complitely wrong, more troops!... 1... 11%
Bonuses are complitely wrong, less troops!... 1... 11%
Suggestion... 1... 11%

Total votes : 9

[edbeard]

Your
OCEANIA BONUSES:
Australia +5
New Zealand +2
Melanesia +4
East Indonesia +3
Micronesia +4
Kiribati +3
Polynesia +6

My changes:

Australia +6


Other than that, everything looks great to me.

well. I don't like the island in the top right. if you're not looking hard at it, it looks like a waterfall or something. not an island. maybe just do the trees? not a big deal either way.

[devonakins]

Loving the concept of this map. Although I just signed up and trying to get used to this game I find it to be quite interesting. I hope to see this map come to life. Is there beta testing? I'd be interested...

[thenobodies80]

Thank you all for suggestions.

we're going to do some little fix to the bonus.

about this....

Loving the concept of this map. Although I just signed up and trying to get used to this game I find it to be quite interesting. I hope to see this map come to life. Is there beta testing? I'd be interested...

be patient, devonakins, we hope to finish this map soon...

In few time a new version will be posted.

Have a nice day

[devonakins]

Thank you all for suggestions.

we're going to do some little fix to the bonus.

about this....

Loving the concept of this map. Although I just signed up and trying to get used to this game I find it to be quite interesting. I hope to see this map come to life. Is there beta testing? I'd be interested...

be patient, devonakins, we hope to finish this map soon...

In few time a new version will be posted.

Have a nice day

Can't wait

[thenobodies80]

Oceania V5.3 New!

Click image to enlarge.

• Australia bonus
  requested

  i think that u have a good eye for bonuses, as ur figures are much better than the ones on the spreadsheet. the only one that i'd increase is australia: by comparison with classic north america, which has 3 border territories out of 9 for a +5 bonus, our australia has 6 border territories (5 if u remove whitsunday islands to solomon islands) out of 10, so i think it's worth +6.

  My changes:
  
  Australia +6

  Decision: Australia bonus value +6
• Air Routes
  requested

  i'd like also to remove the following air routes: west papua to northern territory, west papua to queensland and whitsunday islands to solomon islands. this means there are 3 dead-ends in australia, so connect south australia to tasmania.

  Decision: Australia bonus value +6
• Background color
  requested

  Sweet map, maybe try making the background color a little bit lighter?

  Decision: color was chosen with a public poll in past so we don't change it

Gameplay should be good now.

Poll Result:

What do you think about bonuses?
Poll ended at Thu Feb 26, 2009 12:24 am

Bonuses are good, no modifications to do... 6... 67%
Bonuses are complitely wrong, more troops!... 1... 11%
Bonuses are complitely wrong, less troops!... 1... 11%
Suggestion... 1... 11%

Total votes : 9

So we decided to start some graphic adjustment like remove island in the right upper side of map and we removed the last dots in the armies circles, we added a squid but if community don't like it we could develope something different.

Gameplay is now fixed,we are waiting other suggetions about graphic.

[Joodoo]

sry I have one more suggestion for gameplay, maybe you could add in the capitals of Australia and New Zealand and give like a +1 bonus for holding both...
it can start neutral....

[thenobodies80]

sry I have one more suggestion for gameplay, maybe you could add in the capitals of Australia and New Zealand and give like a +1 bonus for holding both...
it can start neutral....

Another suggestion like yours....but in small map it's difficult to see them ( here ).