AOS: Orient Express 1883 [quench'd]

[The Bison King]

Or maybe make Russia, and Spain lighter, either way.

[natty dread]

Ah, many replies. Let's see...

I agree, adding 2 neutrals is the best solution. I don't think it matters where.

One would be Luxembourg, this would also prevent dropping Low countries. But where to put the other? There aren't any more small bonuses to "block", so perhaps a territory which isn't in the "way" of anyone. Like East Prussia? But then would it just stay neutral forever? On the other hand, if someone is crazy enough to go for Germany (or Austrohungary) then a single neutral isn't going to hold them much...

To Bison King, I'm sorry you dislike the recent changes. The map has gone through a lot of makeover, basically, I had to solve some issues which required these changes. I hope you will get used to them eventually... I feel that making the neutral land area "fade" into the background helps to accentuate the playable area, so I probably won't be changing that much - at least not unless there's a high demand for it.

As for the railways, I'm actually still not sure if I want to implement them in the map - I fear they may clutter the map too much, there are some places where having larger rail lines might threaten border visibility...

[natty dread]

Ok well, I'm trying something for the neutral lands... how's this?

Click image to enlarge.

[The Bison King]

Yes I think that works! Its subtle and it pushes it into the background but still keeps it visually separate from the sea.
Two Thumbs up!

[natty dread]

Thanks TBK.

As for the GP problem... I think the best options for the 2nd neutral are Turkey and East Prussia, so I will be putting it in either of them. I'm not sure which, I'll have to sleep on it...

[The Bison King]

I'm not sure a corner territory like Turkey or East Prussia is your best option because:

it just stay neutral forever

maybe territories like Slovakia or Saxony that have no individual relevance that lie in the middle of bonuses are a better option.

[natty dread]

I'm not sure a corner territory like Turkey or East Prussia is your best option because:

it just stay neutral forever

Well, Turkey is required for the Ottoman bonus, which is one of the strongest areas on the map, so I doubt it would be much of a problem. Maybe if I put it as a neutral 2?

[The Bison King]

Maybe not, but you could just as easily make Macedonia neutral without running the risk of alienating it as a desirable territory. Whatever you decide though, I'm sure that this decision is not of any immense impact.

[RedBaron0]

Maybe Rome instead? The bonus is worth taking, and you'll have to go through Rome to get to the rest of the map from the islands

[natty dread]

Rome sounds good.

[natty dread]

Ok, I decided to add in Luxembourg and Rome as neutral 2:s. Moldova, Monte Negro and Switzerland stay as neutral 3:s.

Latest XML: http://www.fileden.com/files/2010/2/7/2 ... ientx2.xml

Regular stations are 2:s, Express stations & termini are 3:s. Territories connecting to express stations/termini are starting points and start with 3.

2 players: each gets 14 territories.
3 players: each gets 13 territories.
4 players: each gets 10 territories.
5 players: each gets 8 territories.
6 players: each gets 6 territories.
7-8 players: each gets 5 territories.

[natty dread]

Enjoy.

v12 large

Click image to enlarge.

v12 small



I decided to do the rails in two different styles to differentiate the Orient Express line from other rail lines. Also brought small map up to date and redid the station army circles in the small version to ensure symmetry wrt. army numbers.

[ender516]

This is looking sharp.

[natty dread]

This is looking sharp.

That's a good thing, right?

Only thing I'm dissatisfied with is the small map regular stations. They came out smudgy. I wish I'd remember how I did them for the large so I could replicate the results in smaller scale...

ps. I also might lower the opacity of the regular rails, to have the orient line stand out more.

[The Bison King]

Yeah sharp is good. and the new rails, very sharp

[carlpgoodrich]

I agree, looking sharp (a good thing). Confused though, why is the bonus for the Ottoman Empire the same as Ramania and Servia? Seems like it should be more.

[natty dread]

I agree, looking sharp (a good thing). Confused though, why is the bonus for the Ottoman Empire the same as Ramania and Servia? Seems like it should be more.

Ottoman is one of the easiest, if not the easiest bonus to expand. You can take the full country bonus by taking the stations and up the bonus to 6 (counting autodeploy). Then you can either expand by taking Servia, M.N. & Belgrade or Romania with Bucharest and in either case up your bonus to 9. Or take both and get a 12 bonus. Then it's just a matter of building up and storming the Express line for an objective victory...

I made the land bonuses low on purpose because I wanted the railways to be the focus of the gameplay. This is a new kind of rail map, you know

I made some updates too, fixed the regular stations on small map, lightened the regular rails on both, and some other small things. Will post images soon.

[The Bison King]

This is a new kind of rail map, you know

and a promising one, still dying to get a taste of Pacific rail

[natty dread]

Click image to enlarge.

[Industrial Helix]

Uh, could you lower the word Austria a tad so the Germany border doesn't mess with it.

And I really hate that shade of green on France... maybe a shade of blue darker than that used on Switz? I guess in general I like the color of the country to reflect some aspect of their map... just a thing I have.

[natty dread]

Uh, could you lower the word Austria a tad so the Germany border doesn't mess with it.

I'll see what I can do, but the army number must fit under it. I like to keep a certain safety-distance between army numbers & territory names...

And I really hate that shade of green on France... maybe a shade of blue darker than that used on Switz? I guess in general I like the color of the country to reflect some aspect of their map... just a thing I have.

That's ok, I'm not a huge fan of the green myself. I'll try to figure out a better colour for it.

[natty dread]

Click image to enlarge.

[natty dread]

Currently I'm a bit worried about the austro-hungary & servia train bonuses. I mean if you hold Servia & MN, Belgrade and the A-H train stations, you'll be getting a total of +7 for holding 5 territories which seems a bit much for me.

I'm not sure if I should wait for beta-testing and fix it then or should I fix it now?

The best solution would probably be to make the A-H & Servia-MN train monopolies non-cumulative, ie. you only get the higher one.

[Industrial Helix]

Looks good... you think there is a way to make the dotted color of A-H, Servia and the Ottoman Empire more... dotty? I think they blend a little too well and it lose that same feeling that the other countries have.

I still have beef with the mountains and I think the drawn teepees would work exceptionally well here.

Click image to enlarge.

[natty dread]

Looks good... you think there is a way to make the dotted color of A-H, Servia and the Ottoman Empire more... dotty? I think they blend a little too well and it lose that same feeling that the other countries have.

The dottyness is more apparent on dark colours. I'm not sure if it's possible to fix this without messing with the colours, but I will try.

I still have beef with the mountains and I think the drawn teepees would work exceptionally well here.

I disagree. I've tried various styles of teepee-style mountains and I just can't get them so that they would match the style of the map.

Besides 19th century maps - at least the professionally drawn ones of multiple-country-scale - didn't actually have mountains in the "teepee" style. They were more like abstract representations of air-photographs, if that makes any sense. This map of scotland is a good example of how mountains were commonly drawn in them:

http://www.mapsorama.com/maps/europe/uk ... m_1843.jpg

Now I know they don't really look like the mountains in my map, but the actualy style of mountains used in them would be too hard to see as an impassable, so I had to apply some artistic license.

Anyway, got any input on the gameplay issue?