Conquer Club

Here's what I got from the previous page on which I have something meaningful to comment:

Gameplay Concerns
A: Zeppelin Strikes looks pathetically weak compared to the other researches. Perhaps adding adjacent neutral countries?

Actually, I like that the benefits of the Techs are varied... some should be teeny and some very large, as long as the costs are proportionate. That gives players options on how they want to pursue Research.

I do feel that some techs will always be pursued last (like Propaganda) and some always first (like the quick flat bonuses). This diminishes the excitement of research a bit, I think. If all of the options were equally valid to pursue right from the get-go, it would be a pretty neat research tree. Then just the TSF stuff would be the later-game techs.

But all of that aside, the Zepplin Strikes are a bit odd in that the research directly bombards territories... is that correct? In some ways, I thought the idea of Research was that it was completely separate from Conquer, which is neat. Otherwise, why wouldn't you have Researchs like Fifth Column, which could 1-way attack terts directly? (okay, that almost sounds like a good idea, but you get the drift)

Anyway, if for argument's sake the Zepplin Research does bombard, then why not make the target all other Capitals? After all, that's what Zepplins typically did in actual usage, they were far too inaccurate to bombard "tiny" targets like towns. Only against big massive cities did they have any real value, much like the Big Berthas from the same war.

So, to sum up, make Zepplin Tech read, "Can bombard enemy capitals" That's far from a trivial effect. Just make the neutral cost high enough that someone can't wipe another player right away.


B: I'm convinced there is too much Conquer on the map.

Well, I don't think territory count says the whole story. Tech should always be about quality over quantity... right? So there should be a discrepancy.


On a final note, a few of the Tech descriptions on the map don't seem explicit enough on the map.

For Propaganda, is that +2 per Foreign Homeland (tert) held? Or is it just +2 for holding any Foreign Homeland tert (but no more, which would hardly seem worth it)?

For National Pride, a similar question... does one have to hold all of the Homeland terts, or just one for the bonus? If the latter, then it's awfully similar to Secret Conscription, and if the former, then it's not really an option until some Conquering is done which makes Secret Conscription the clear first choice.


Like the map, like the idea, and I hope this helps.

eally something has to be able to stop the capitals from banging away all of your tech, and what more appropriate way than with Tech?

you know the capitals can only bombard their own techs...

natty_dread wrote:you know the capitals can only bombard their own techs...

No, sorry, wasn't immediately clear from the map. I suppose I should edit the above post then... sigh.

MarshalNey wrote:I do feel that some techs will always be pursued last (like Propaganda) and some always first (like the quick flat bonuses). This diminishes the excitement of research a bit, I think. If all of the options were equally valid to pursue right from the get-go, it would be a pretty neat research tree. Then just the TSF stuff would be the later-game techs.

Hence my concern about Zeppelin Strikes' relative weakness. The research was originally thought up long before the map as you see it existed. Now it seems like a neat little oddity instead of a potential game-changer. And yes, it directly bombards. The reason why it does is that is the only way to code with the XML the functionality. There are no conditional bombardments.

Anyway, if for argument's sake the Zepplin Research does bombard, then why not make the target all other Capitals? After all, that's what Zepplins typically did in actual usage, they were far too inaccurate to bombard "tiny" targets like towns. Only against big massive cities did they have any real value, much like the Big Berthas from the same war.

That's an interesting alternate way to do the tech, and I like it a good bit. I'll talk it over with OliverFA and see if that's a sufficient buff, and then what neutral value to stick to it with the increased power.

Well, I don't think territory count says the whole story. Tech should always be about quality over quantity... right? So there should be a discrepancy.

In any case, Version 3 will be 3 maps including wires as yeti_c has explained. One will be ~60 neutral territories, another ~90, and the third the present 126. I want a full gameplay analysis done to see what option we should go with. I still believe that the gameplay is going to be the hard part of making this map, not the graphics.

For Propaganda, is that +2 per Foreign Homeland (tert) held? Or is it just +2 for holding any Foreign Homeland tert (but no more, which would hardly seem worth it)?

The former. I'll add the word "each" in there.

For National Pride, a similar question... does one have to hold all of the Homeland terts, or just one for the bonus? If the latter, then it's awfully similar to Secret Conscription, and if the former, then it's not really an option until some Conquering is done which makes Secret Conscription the clear first choice.

I get the feeling it'll need a complete reword. You need all territories with a flag and the capital to pick up the Homeland bonus. Perhaps "+4 reinforcements for holding all flagged territories and capital"?

Like the map, like the idea, and I hope this helps.

Much appreciated.

Sorry again for the late responses to some of these... life's been pretty hectic the last 2-3 weeks and my highspeed connection has been out for the last week which hasn't helped things If anyone would like me to repost this in separate posts, let me know.

TaCktiX wrote: Gameplay Concerns
A: Zeppelin Strikes looks pathetically weak compared to the other researches. Perhaps adding adjacent neutral countries? Neutral value will be adjusted as appropriate.

The major benefit that Zeppelin Strikes will give is the ability to sit still and stack on your capital while bombarding a homeland territory for cards. This alone I think makes them worthwhile, at least in card games. This in card games would also add extra strategy if kept the way it is by making someone decide between National Pride or Zeppelin Strikes. Of course, this would make them pretty weak in No Card games. If you wanted to counter that, you could expand them to include adjacent neutral countries as well... though you end up losing the extra strategy that you get with card games with having to choose between National Pride and Zeppelin Strikes.

MarshalNey wrote:A: Zeppelin Strikes looks pathetically weak compared to the other researches. Perhaps adding adjacent neutral countries?

But all of that aside, the Zepplin Strikes are a bit odd in that the research directly bombards territories... is that correct? In some ways, I thought the idea of Research was that it was completely separate from Conquer, which is neat. Otherwise, why wouldn't you have Researchs like Fifth Column, which could 1-way attack terts directly? (okay, that almost sounds like a good idea, but you get the drift)

Anyway, if for argument's sake the Zepplin Research does bombard, then why not make the target all other Capitals? After all, that's what Zepplins typically did in actual usage, they were far too inaccurate to bombard "tiny" targets like towns. Only against big massive cities did they have any real value, much like the Big Berthas from the same war.

So, to sum up, make Zepplin Tech read, "Can bombard enemy capitals" That's far from a trivial effect. Just make the neutral cost high enough that someone can't wipe another player right away.

I think that adding that they can bombard other players' capitals would be a nice touch that would allow them to get use even during No Card games. I do think that they should still bombard your own homeland territories as well, since that would still allow them to be useful for getting cards while stacking during card games.

TaCktiX wrote: B: I'm convinced there is too much Conquer on the map. There are 126 territories outside of the Homelands, which are 48 strong themselves. Compare that to the research territories, which for the sake of argument I'm including all of them; we've got 66. So the map is presently 2/3 Conquer, 1/3 Research. Doesn't seem even. I intend to cut the number of neutral territories down significantly for Version 3, unless I'm presented with a good counter-argument.

I don't think there is too much conquer area. I think a ratio of 2/3 conquer to 1/3 research is actually ideal. The research territories are quite powerful and hence should be less in number. Any imbalances that could arise between conquer and research I think could easily be fixed by adjusting the starting neutral values, most likely in the research area.

Evil DIMwit wrote: On the other hand, you've got a bunch of territories that just don't do anything. Maybe you should add some more barriers, chokepoints, bonuses -- *something* to make the center of the map more strategically interesting.

The one thing that the territories do, even the empty ones, is provide extra bonuses from the Secret and Open Conscription. I also think that the middle of the map has a number of bonuses in the form of mines. Extra strategical features on a map are always nice though

TaCktiX wrote: The problem you pointed out just now is why I think there is too much Conquer. Right now, I feel that there is no reason not to just Research Rush and take Doomsday, and when you do it'll take too long for players to reach you to stop your inevitable victory. Doomsday should be a threat in the mid-to-late game, but stoppable by a sufficiently motivated player.

I think it should be easy enough to change how easy or hard it is to win by Doomsday simply by changing the neutral value on Doomsday. I think that with the Conquer territories as they are, you will be providing everybody a chance to conquer enough areas to get a decent bonus along with whatever tech they have.

natty_dread wrote:You know, the capitals being able to bombard researches puzzles me. What if you're doing really well on the conquest side, but someone notices a hole in your defense and manages to take your capital... then he can just smash your research, and leave you wandering on the conquest side, not being able to regain your research?

I guess I'm trying to say, the problem is that when all your researches get bombarded, there's no way to begin researching any more.

natty_dread wrote:Although... if capitals can attack Labs / TSF:s, this enables a player to have multiple researches...

This is a pickle. Perhaps just abandon the idea of eliminating your opponents, and make this purely an objective based map? This would make assassin & terminator games pointless, but then, this is already a pretty non-standard map...


edit. or, you could make it so, that the research bonuses won't be duplicated even if you hold several of the same researches, and that you need a matching capital to get benefits of the researches. This way, if you conquer someone else's research, it doesn't give you a huge benefit - and it would be more realistic, as a research is either researhced or not researched. If you know what I mean...

I think that this comes down to how you want the gameplay to go on this map. My thoughts on the four options that I can think of are as follows:

1) If you leave it as is, then the map effectively becomes a capitals game. Once your capital is taken, then you're effectively out of the game. I think that this is quite a valid way for the gameplay to go, as it will encourage players to strongly guard their capitals. It also allows for the capitals to help 'research' techs through the bombarding, which I would think should be a reasonable feature.

2) If you change it to allowing capitals to attack labs and TSfs, then it still becomes a capitals game to a certain extent, but allows a recovery should your opponent break your defenses. In this case, making sure that a research only counts once per player would be critical.

3) If you completely sever the research from the conquer, then you have an interesting gameplay where once you research something, nothing can touch it. If this ends up being the case, I think all the neutral values for research should be put higher than any of the previous two options. The one major problem I can see with this is that once a player got to the point of being able to research Doomsday, there would be no way to stop it.

4) Not sure if it would make much of a difference and I think capital bombardment would still work better and be easier to protect research, but the concept of spies could always be added in as a killer neutral. Maybe spies bombard researches and capitals can bombard their labs and TSfs? This would make the research easily vulnerable to temporary disabling, but would make it harder to completely take out someone's ability to research. A sufficiently high killer neutral would make it so research bombarding would be an option, but not one you'd do every turn. Maybe a number around 20? Initial research values would probably need to be lower than they would have been in options 1 and 2 if this were to happen.

TaCktiX wrote:

MarshalNey wrote:For Propaganda, is that +2 per Foreign Homeland (tert) held? Or is it just +2 for holding any Foreign Homeland tert (but no more, which would hardly seem worth it)?

The former. I'll add the word "each" in there.

For clarity sake here, if red player owns only three of the eight yellow homeland territories, then red player gets a +6 bonus? Or does this mean that if red player owns ALL of yellow's homeland territories (the entire yellow homeland region), then he gets +2 and then if he owns ALL of green's homeland territories as well, he'd get a +4 bonus?

Either way, if the idea to allow players to conquer other player's research territories goes through, care will need to be taken in the XML creation to make sure that this tech doesn't double, as I could see it being a huge headache to code.

Version 3
Updates:
- Changed numerous legend wordings to be more clear
- Dried out the lake
- Changed research neutral values to be higher
- Added neutral values to the rest of the map
- Revamped wire version to requested parameters
- Added more shadow to the pipes surrounding the map
- Washed out the mountains to be in line with the ground of the map
- Changed numerous borders to be more clear
- Spread out the research locations for ease of 888
Provisional Values Wire Version Gameplay Concerns:
1: Again, interaction between Research and Conquer. In light of the good argument of "you can just adjust the research neutrals to match the conquer aspect," I stuck with the present 126 territory version.
2: Neutral values, too high, too low, what?
3: Any other things requiring greater clarity?
Graphics Concerns:
To Do:
- Bridges
- Adding an army box behind the research neutrals, for visibility and flair reasons
1: Alterations, any further ones needed?

In response to the previous post...
I'm beginning to realize it's an ongoing concern about 2-3 player games. In those games, each player will get 2 capitals, and 2 labs. To say "you only get 1 of those" is just straight wrong. It will have an interesting implications with Propaganda, National Pride, and Mining, but when you think about it, the player is researching those twice, so they should get twice the bonus, yes? Propaganda we will likely need to code so that it triggers when you DON'T hold the capital (so you get the +4 out of the homeland as expected). Picking up the capital will likely remove the Propaganda bonus and replace it with generic Homeland, since technically you own the country now.

As a further argument in regards to "but if someone eliminates another and picks up all their research, they get all the benefits," think about real war. Once a nation is taken over, inevitably its secrets and capabilities are given to the victor. And it's an interesting gameplay twist that we've been trying to cultivate this entire time, hence the title "Research & Conquer."

I'll check over things a bit better later and give more feedback, but I'm still confused regarding the National Pride and Propaganda bonuses... are these for holding each territory within the 'entire homeland' or an extra bonus for holding the 'entire homeland' of eight territories?

Extra bonus for holding the entire homeland of technically 6 territories, as the Mine and Capital do not have a flag (the symbol for homeland, as indicated in the legend).

TaCktiX wrote:Version 3

Gameplay Concerns:
1: Again, interaction between Research and Conquer. In light of the good argument of "you can just adjust the research neutrals to match the conquer aspect," I stuck with the present 126 territory version.
2: Neutral values, too high, too low, what?
3: Any other things requiring greater clarity?

The relationship between the neutral values for National Pride and Propaganda seem a bit off. If you own a foreign homeland and want a +4 bonus, you need to take out a 12, whereas for a +2 bonus you need to take out a 10. Perhaps 20 would be a better neutral for National Pride?

I am also wondering how nationality will be determined on a code level? I had thought that it was going to be based on red player getting SW, green getting W, etc. If this is the case though, I could see this not working in 2-3 player games. This is what I think someone said was the case when I asked before, but I'm not sure. If so, I recall natty_dread suggesting a "required=1" tag to eliminate doubling techs... I wonder if this could also be used to include all of the techs and the lab/TSf spots to determine nationality?

TaCktiX wrote:In response to the previous post...
I'm beginning to realize it's an ongoing concern about 2-3 player games. In those games, each player will get 2 capitals, and 2 labs. To say "you only get 1 of those" is just straight wrong. It will have an interesting implications with Propaganda, National Pride, and Mining, but when you think about it, the player is researching those twice, so they should get twice the bonus, yes? Propaganda we will likely need to code so that it triggers when you DON'T hold the capital (so you get the +4 out of the homeland as expected). Picking up the capital will likely remove the Propaganda bonus and replace it with generic Homeland, since technically you own the country now.

As a further argument in regards to "but if someone eliminates another and picks up all their research, they get all the benefits," think about real war. Once a nation is taken over, inevitably its secrets and capabilities are given to the victor. And it's an interesting gameplay twist that we've been trying to cultivate this entire time, hence the title "Research & Conquer."

If a player starts with two capitals, then they can always make a choice on which technologies to research and not duplicate their efforts. I really don't think that tech should be getting doubled in any situation, including when a nation is conquered. In any 4x game I've ever played, you only receive the techs of the conquered nation that you don't already own. If you already know how to mine, then it's hard to learn how to do it again from another country you just conquered, for example.

A few other small things that I noticed from a balance perspective:

1) Red can own their homeland and have direct access out from their capital, this provides a huge strategic advantage. Perhaps the mine should be moved to the location either SW1, SW3, or SW5 is currently at?
2) Both Yellow and Teal have two territories to reinforce through to get out from their capital... not a big deal unless the map is played on adjacent reinforcement settings.
3) The top left seems pretty wide open for taking easy territories. This provides too unfair of an advantage to blue and possibly green.

TaCktiX wrote:Extra bonus for holding the entire homeland of technically 6 territories, as the Mine and Capital do not have a flag (the symbol for homeland, as indicated in the legend).

I'm not sure if there's a better way of indicating this, but perhaps some thought could go into making it a bit clearer. I could see how some people could get confused, especially with the mine being the same colour as the homeland territories and the capital. I understand that it's like that because the mine is part of the country, but it can confuse things a bit.

I unfortunately can't come up with any suggestions for this myself at the moment, but I'll give it some thought and see if I can come up with something to suggest.

Yes, I also strongly suggest not doubling the tech bonuses. Nobody forces anyone to research multiple techs in 2-3 player games.

However they will be nice backups. If someone bombs your other research you still have backup techs that give you a bonus... so they're not completely useless either.

As for concerns...

1: Again, interaction between Research and Conquer. In light of the good argument of "you can just adjust the research neutrals to match the conquer aspect," I stuck with the present 126 territory version.

Agree with this.

2: Neutral values, too high, too low, what?

Hmm... I'll have to get back on this, but it seems national pride should be higher.
Mining should be lower, since it would be nice to encourage players to take it early, so the mines on the conquer side would enter the gameplay. The mines should be a big aspect of the conquer side of gameplay, IMO. Something the players should fight for.

3: Any other things requiring greater clarity?

Not atm...

- Bridges

Yes, bridges. This could probably wait until graphics shop, but they look like bandages... or pieces of tape... no offense.

Make them either look like actual bridges, or make them the same colour as the land and have them blend in with the land. On the other hand your mountains look awesome, I wouldn't mind knowing how you made them

natty_dread wrote:
Hmm... I'll have to get back on this, but it seems national pride should be higher.
Mining should be lower, since it would be nice to encourage players to take it early, so the mines on the conquer side would enter the gameplay. The mines should be a big aspect of the conquer side of gameplay, IMO. Something the players should fight for.

I had thought of this too at first, but if someone were interested in mining early in the game, it should be easy enough for them to get two mines, which at a neutral 20 on mining would make it worthwhile within 5 turns. I find this acceptable, especially since it's not a huge stretch for someone to take another 2-3 mines early enough that they could be getting a +8-10 bonus by round 8-10 from it. The bonus also has potential to go quite high. Someone holding down their own sixth of the board would be looking at getting +16-20 or so troops from it, probably by the time round 12-15 comes along. I think that given this, 20 is a good point for it as it still encourages it to be used early enough in the game.

As things are right now and without analyzing too much, I'd probably do Standing Army, National Pride, and then Mining for research first. If National Pride goes up to say 20 as well, then I think it would make Mining more attractive as an alternative, depending on if I wanted to play defensively (stack on capital) or offensively (capture some conquer area spots).

Any response to this?

yeti_c wrote:Also - this allows you to have 1 capital - and 1 set of research that aren't actually linked.

C.

(Apologies if I missed it)

C.

-=- Tanarri -=- wrote:The relationship between the neutral values for National Pride and Propaganda seem a bit off. If you own a foreign homeland and want a +4 bonus, you need to take out a 12, whereas for a +2 bonus you need to take out a 10. Perhaps 20 would be a better neutral for National Pride?

I'll talk with Oliver about that.

I am also wondering how nationality will be determined on a code level? I had thought that it was going to be based on red player getting SW, green getting W, etc. If this is the case though, I could see this not working in 2-3 player games. This is what I think someone said was the case when I asked before, but I'm not sure. If so, I recall natty_dread suggesting a "required=1" tag to eliminate doubling techs... I wonder if this could also be used to include all of the techs and the lab/TSf spots to determine nationality?

We will have designated start positions, comprising a capital and a lab. So long as the same player gets the same pair, it doesn't matter their color. I only used the colors I did on the map for consistency's sake, not for any direct correlation to the map in play.

If a player starts with two capitals, then they can always make a choice on which technologies to research and not duplicate their efforts. I really don't think that tech should be getting doubled in any situation, including when a nation is conquered. In any 4x game I've ever played, you only receive the techs of the conquered nation that you don't already own. If you already know how to mine, then it's hard to learn how to do it again from another country you just conquered, for example.

I'm split on the issue. Half of me wants to keep in the tradition of other conquer-based maps like Age of Realms and Feudal War (effectively allowing doubling), and of having researches one-shot like the 4X example you mention (one of my fave genres, btw). We might roll up a poll after I discuss it with Oliver.

1) Red can own their homeland and have direct access out from their capital, this provides a huge strategic advantage. Perhaps the mine should be moved to the location either SW1, SW3, or SW5 is currently at?
2) Both Yellow and Teal have two territories to reinforce through to get out from their capital... not a big deal unless the map is played on adjacent reinforcement settings.
3) The top left seems pretty wide open for taking easy territories. This provides too unfair of an advantage to blue and possibly green.

Duly noted, and we might balance it out, we might not. As it stands, the map is deliberately asymmetrical, encouraging different approaches for different starting points. For blue, going for Secret/Open Conscription and Mining would make a lot of sense, with all that cheap territory. Red, meanwhile, would likely want to go with Standing Army and Zeppelin Strikes to go for an immediate push into green or teal. I'm not the most seasoned gameplay expert (that's what iancanton's job is), so I reserve it for other judgment, those are just my thoughts.

I'm not sure if there's a better way of indicating this, but perhaps some thought could go into making it a bit clearer. I could see how some people could get confused, especially with the mine being the same colour as the homeland territories and the capital. I understand that it's like that because the mine is part of the country, but it can confuse things a bit.

When you think about it, it's fairly immaterial if they understand exactly how many territories are included, for to take over that much of a homeland and hold the bonus you very likely took over everything anyway. We'll have some interesting exclusions when coding this all, but it can be done.

natty_dread wrote: However they will be nice backups. If someone bombs your other research you still have backup techs that give you a bonus... so they're not completely useless either.

You'd have to kill all of those neutrals to get...a backup. Serious waste of armies, to the point of being completely useless.

yeti_c wrote:Also - this allows you to have 1 capital - and 1 set of research that aren't actually linked.

Negative. XML will be coded so that a lab is required to hold the research, and since labs are starting position-linked to capitals, the possibility you pointed out won't occur.

TaCktiX wrote:

yeti_c wrote:Also - this allows you to have 1 capital - and 1 set of research that aren't actually linked.

Negative. XML will be coded so that a lab is required to hold the research, and since labs are starting position-linked to capitals, the possibility you pointed out won't occur.

Ah yes - you can do that...

You will need to make the continents for each lab and research - and then create 1 continent that requires 1 of them...

Then use that continent to validate the research bonuses.

C.

TaCktiX wrote:

-=- Tanarri -=- wrote:I am also wondering how nationality will be determined on a code level? I had thought that it was going to be based on red player getting SW, green getting W, etc. If this is the case though, I could see this not working in 2-3 player games. This is what I think someone said was the case when I asked before, but I'm not sure. If so, I recall natty_dread suggesting a "required=1" tag to eliminate doubling techs... I wonder if this could also be used to include all of the techs and the lab/TSf spots to determine nationality?

We will have designated start positions, comprising a capital and a lab. So long as the same player gets the same pair, it doesn't matter their color. I only used the colors I did on the map for consistency's sake, not for any direct correlation to the map in play.

So it will be similar to City Mogul, where the starting positions are random but matched as pairs?

-=- Tanarri -=- wrote:If a player starts with two capitals, then they can always make a choice on which technologies to research and not duplicate their efforts. I really don't think that tech should be getting doubled in any situation, including when a nation is conquered. In any 4x game I've ever played, you only receive the techs of the conquered nation that you don't already own. If you already know how to mine, then it's hard to learn how to do it again from another country you just conquered, for example.

TaCktiX wrote:I'm split on the issue. Half of me wants to keep in the tradition of other conquer-based maps like Age of Realms and Feudal War (effectively allowing doubling), and of having researches one-shot like the 4X example you mention (one of my fave genres, btw). We might roll up a poll after I discuss it with Oliver.

The doubling thing doesn't seem to be a conquer-based map thing, but rather it's own separate thing. Feudal War, for example, does not have doubling at all, whereas Age of Merchants does have doubling and it isn't a conquer-based map. Doubling seems to be its own thing as far as CC maps go.

TaCktiX wrote:

natty_dread wrote: However they will be nice backups. If someone bombs your other research you still have backup techs that give you a bonus... so they're not completely useless either.

You'd have to kill all of those neutrals to get...a backup. Serious waste of armies, to the point of being completely useless.

I would agree that killing all of those armies for a backup would be poor strategy and nearly pointless. That being said, in 2-3 player games when a player would get two capitals and labs, they could simply choose to research different things with each capital/lab combination.

For example, one thing I would consider doing myself is to do most of my research on one capital/lab while letting the other lab and capital stack. When I ready to make a move, I would use the capital to knock down Zepplin Strikes and then take the lab stack down to bombard the capital I wanted to make a move for.

Another example would be to have one set research mining and national pride while the other gets standing army and either zepplin strikes or stacks for secret conscription.

TaCktiX wrote:

yeti_c wrote:Also - this allows you to have 1 capital - and 1 set of research that aren't actually linked.

Negative. XML will be coded so that a lab is required to hold the research, and since labs are starting position-linked to capitals, the possibility you pointed out won't occur.

[/quote]

If the lab is going to be required to hold the research, then that should probably be mentioned in the legend, as it would affect strategy significantly. If a player knows this, then they could go straight for the lab to knock out all research instead of maybe going after the individual researches.

Looking at what you've posted, I feel much better about this map. As for your current concerns:

1: Again, interaction between Research and Conquer. In light of the good argument of "you can just adjust the research neutrals to match the conquer aspect," I stuck with the present 126 territory version.

I'm not sure about the increase in neutral values... it's so very hard to gauge when Conquer will become more profitable than Research. Certainly, if you were worried about there being too much Conquer beforehand, increasing the costs of Research isn't going to ease that concern...

2: Neutral values, too high, too low, what?

See above. I don't think that the current values are definitively imbalancing to the Research/Conquer mix, but I'm not convinced that the increase was necessary even if it isn't imbalancing. What were the reasons for the increase? I might feel better about it if I knew.

3: Any other things requiring greater clarity?

Well, everything is much more explicit, except for the usage of the word "homeland".

Here's the problem: "homeland" is never defined, so we have to pick it up from context, and there are two duelling contexts.

In one context (the stronger one), there are instructions that state, "Holding entire homeland..." or, "Holding entire foreign homeland..."
In this context, one would be lead to believe that "homeland" refers to a whole region marked by the colored flags.

In the other context (the weaker), there is an instruction for Foreign Propaganda that states, "+2 bonus for each foreign homeland held," while the instruction for National Pride states, "+4 reinforcements for each homeland held."
With these instructions, the definition of "homeland" as a region seems in doubt; if Foreign Propaganda only activates when you hold the entire region, it seems like a pretty special case, since you'll likely have the Capital too and then it would only fall under National Pride since it wouldn't be a foreign homeland anymore. On the other hand, if Foreign Propaganda activates when you hold just a single tert with a flag (which we could guess since the qualifier 'entire' wasn't used here), then National Pride seems either way overpowered giving +4 per single flagged territory, or it's unclear that you need a single flagged territory to activate a one-time bonus.

In other words, if "homeland" refers to a whole region, then Foreign Propaganda is nearly useless; if "homeland" refers to any single piece of a region, then National Pride is way too useful.

What I'm guessing, is that you're using homeland to describe both a whole region and any single flagged territory, in which case you'll need to come up with another term and apply it to one of those definitions or use better qualifiers.

MarshalNey wrote:See above. I don't think that the current values are definitively imbalancing to the Research/Conquer mix, but I'm not convinced that the increase was necessary even if it isn't imbalancing. What were the reasons for the increase? I might feel better about it if I knew.

OliverFA got me a start on the Map XML, and in it he had comments for his neutral values of research, which were much higher than my own. His rationale was the benefit of holding the research for a certain number of turns (typically 5) constituted the neutral value. I still thought a lot of those a bit high to encourage going after the research, so I took each value and dropped it a slight bit, keeping in mind the interplay between things.

In this context, one would be lead to believe that "homeland" refers to a whole region marked by the colored flags.

This is the correct context. With that in mind, how can I A: make that explicit on the research side, and B: make Propaganda worth it? Our original thinking with Propaganda was to "even out" a foreign homeland to be equal to your own, but we were never thinking in context of 2-3 player games. I see two options from a design perspective. We go with our original plan and have a two-capital "cancel-out" so that the second homeland you get only grants +2. Kinda crapsack for the lower number of players, but it makes Propaganda work as intended. Second, we change the functionality of Propaganda to do something different entirely, as the extra bonus is near-worthless in light of the 1 territory difference between Propaganda and holding the homeland in its entirety.

MarshalNey wrote:Looking at what you've posted, I feel much better about this map. As for your current concerns:

1: Again, interaction between Research and Conquer. In light of the good argument of "you can just adjust the research neutrals to match the conquer aspect," I stuck with the present 126 territory version.

I'm not sure about the increase in neutral values... it's so very hard to gauge when Conquer will become more profitable than Research. Certainly, if you were worried about there being too much Conquer beforehand, increasing the costs of Research isn't going to ease that concern...

I suspect the Draft Version 2 values for research were just place holders and were never intended to be real values. I believe the original concern TaCktiX had with there being too much Conquer, was that it made Research much easier to take than it did to take an equivalent ratio of Conquer territories. By increasing the neutral values in the research, it makes it more difficult to take the research territories, hence balancing everything out.

MarshalNey wrote:2: Neutral values, too high, too low, what?

See above. I don't think that the current values are definitively imbalancing to the Research/Conquer mix, but I'm not convinced that the increase was necessary even if it isn't imbalancing. What were the reasons for the increase? I might feel better about it if I knew.

As with my response above, part of the reason would have been to balance research and conquer.

The other reason, as far as I'm concerned, is that without the increase, it would be way too easy to take over all of the research based territories very quickly. Now that the values have been increased, it takes on average 4-5 turns to start to see a benefit from the research. This makes a player choose which researches they want to go for and adds a much greater level of strategy.

In some cases the break even point is sooner if you own enough appropriate Conquer territories. An example of this would be Mining. If you own more than 2 mines, then it takes less than 5 turns to benefit. Mid-game a player could easily hold 5 mines, which would make it so you'd see the benefit in 2 turns.

MarshalNey wrote:3: Any other things requiring greater clarity?

Well, everything is much more explicit, except for the usage of the word "homeland".

Here's the problem: "homeland" is never defined, so we have to pick it up from context, and there are two duelling contexts.

In one context (the stronger one), there are instructions that state, "Holding entire homeland..." or, "Holding entire foreign homeland..."
In this context, one would be lead to believe that "homeland" refers to a whole region marked by the colored flags.

In the other context (the weaker), there is an instruction for Foreign Propaganda that states, "+2 bonus for each foreign homeland held," while the instruction for National Pride states, "+4 reinforcements for each homeland held."
With these instructions, the definition of "homeland" as a region seems in doubt; if Foreign Propaganda only activates when you hold the entire region, it seems like a pretty special case, since you'll likely have the Capital too and then it would only fall under National Pride since it wouldn't be a foreign homeland anymore. On the other hand, if Foreign Propaganda activates when you hold just a single tert with a flag (which we could guess since the qualifier 'entire' wasn't used here), then National Pride seems either way overpowered giving +4 per single flagged territory, or it's unclear that you need a single flagged territory to activate a one-time bonus.

In other words, if "homeland" refers to a whole region, then Foreign Propaganda is nearly useless; if "homeland" refers to any single piece of a region, then National Pride is way too useful.

What I'm guessing, is that you're using homeland to describe both a whole region and any single flagged territory, in which case you'll need to come up with another term and apply it to one of those definitions or use better qualifiers.

I do agree that homeland needs to be defined a bit clearer. In all cases (and correct me if I'm wrong TaCktiX) homeland refers to all flagged territories of one colour. Propaganda is meant to make the bonus you receive for holding a foreign homeland (normally +2) the same as owning all of your homeland (+4 without National Pride).

Propaganda is a fairly weak research, but it is also fairly cheap as well. It becomes a bit more worth it later on in the game.

About Propaganda, I was just remembering some discussion a few pages back about whether the neutral countries should have bonuses added to them or not. I wonder if maybe extending the +2 bonus you get for foreign homelands to the neutral countries as well would make Propaganda worth it? It would give another nice way to tie research to the conquer map.

If this happened, I think Propaganda would have to have its neutral value increased a bit... perhaps 15?

imagine a 2v2 game.

on turn 1, red receives 3 troops for regions, with +2 auto on red capital and +3 auto on red lab. with 8 on red capital, he annihilates blue and yellow labs. blue annihilates green lab. green, red's teammate, deploys 3 on red lab, making 9. yellow, blue's teammate, fails to annihilate red lab.

on turn 2, red receives 3 troops for regions, with +2 auto on red capital and +3 auto on red lab. he kills blue via zeppelin bombard. game virtually over.

is there something that i'm not seeing?

ian.

Red capital can't attack blue & yellow labs. Red capital can only attack red lab.

It's an understandable mistake, however... I made the same assumption, based off of the text in the map that's still in the first post.

However, the map text has been corrected, along with a host of other changes. Unfortunately, that version is still buried in the thread. Might I suggest that the first post get an update?

OliverFA has not been online in some time, and I don't have access to the first post, else it would have been posted.

To begin with, we've expanded the objective to include continents. This will lead to maps with more flexible winning objectives like "hold 60% of the world". For more information about map development, please visit the Map Foundry.

I think this opens up interesting possibilities for this map...

natty_dread wrote:

To begin with, we've expanded the objective to include continents. This will lead to maps with more flexible winning objectives like "hold 60% of the world". For more information about map development, please visit the Map Foundry.

I think this opens up interesting possibilities for this map...

Most definitely.

C.