Conquer Club

Did you have a look at my gameplay scribbles porkenbeans?

DJ Teflon wrote:Did you have a look at my gameplay scribbles porkenbeans?

Yes I did, Take a look at my post that followed it.

I believe that mapmaking follows a natural course. Maps evolve differently, most start with an idea, be it Graphically or gameplay wise. Then it is batted back and forth between the two, as it progresses into a finished product. Each one changes with every return.

I liked some of your ideas and so I batted this last image back to you. The ball is now back in your court. I look forward to see what you come up with. Remember, nothing is in stone, and I can change anything with the respect to the graphics.

Cool - just adjusting my bat then

DJ Teflon wrote:Cool - just adjusting my bat then

Pick a heavy one, and bat away.

Ok - here's a gameplay ideas update:

Main change = using the tunnels to create an underground network - with includes lots of one way tunnels and entrances within the castle.

Minor changes (some of them) - extra entrances to each large tower (as well as the one-way entrances from the tunnels inset). The area between the canon tower and main castle becoming a village - surrounded by a wall.

If start positions are adopted then - either distant ships in insets which can enter the bay by any region would be cool (8, or preferably 9 ships needed) - or the alternative idea below with ships seperated by rocks (forgot to show one-way attack out from ships on the diagram) and then meeting at neutral killer whirlpools (a la Danelaw) - I included 16 starts to help ensure a balance. Really, I should have moved the island to the middle for balance (with 8 starts either side).

I've labelled the bay and beach regions with E & W - one idea might be for one tower to be able to bombard the east, and the other the west - however, one bombarding water regions and the other land regions would be cooler I think.

My diagram is shorter in the downward direction to try to create room for an underground inset, key, bonus box etc. There is scope perhaps for a little more trimming.

Similarly, room could be created on the right-hand side (where perhaps ships insets could live).

Anyway:



Really awfully scribbled underground inset:

Further Explanations for the Legend and bonus box

Further explanation:

Ships (SH1 to 9) are starts & +2 auto-deploy.

Ships can only progress through the whirlpools.

Whirlpools reset to neutral after one turn.

The bay regions have decay due to swimming dragons.

The bay and inland beach / shrubbery / woodland areas are build-your-own bonus areas (e.g. +1 for 3, +2 for 6)

Small bonus areas:

• The Shallows +1
  Island Camp +1
  Woods Camp +1

Gaining access to the castle (all one-way attacks):

• 1. Via the tunnels
  2. Via the drawbridge
  3. From catapults (landing regions marked)

Bonuses within the castle:

• 1. Outer Wall +6
  2. Inner Wall +2
  3. West Hall +4
  4. East Hall +4
  5. Great Hall +2
  6. King +2 auto-deploy
  7. Queen +2 auto-deploy
  8. Main Tower +2

Objective - Hold King, Queen & Kinght's Hall

Village area (between main castle & high tower) +5
High Tower bonus (not including canons) +2

Bombardments:

Canons can bombard long-range water regions - ships, bay, shallows (this could be changed to western side of the map, outside the walls)

Outer walls can bombard cup to 2 regions away (beyond walls) - not including underground (this may need rethinking as it may be difficult to determine what is or isn't 2 regions away beyond the moat etc.

Main Tower can bombard any land regions outside the walls (i.e. not the village) (this could be changed to western side of the map, outside the walls - although perhaps not the ships)

Possible further amendments (on top of making the island central) include broken walls beyond the moat - adds extra impassables to break-up those areas, and, interestingly would make the areas between the moat and outer walls protected from bombardment from the main tower (but not the castle outer wall regions).

I can happily re-do the above diagrams, especially since the first could do with thicker pen being used and the second is very messy

Nice work dj.
I am going to take my time to study this. In the meantime would it be possible to see this in full size 840x800. Also if there is going to be insets of any kind, that means that the current map image will need to be shrunk. We are limited to 840 wide x 800 tall. Here is the problem that we might run in to. If we shrink the image to make room for an inset, some of the territs will become too small. Remember this is the large version, and we will have to make a small map as well.

I like what I see from browsing it briefly. I will take a few days to study it in depth. It would help me if I had a full size version that matches my working draft to scale.

I'll have a look when I get home shortly - I think I should be able to post bigger images, the original scan was massive and I think I saved it before scaling down to what I posted above.

I'll post a few suggestions on saving space too.

OK - Here is a bigger version of the image above:

Really awfully scribbled underground inset again

Further Explanations for the Legend and bonus box again

Further explanation:

Ships (SH1 to 9) are starts & +2 auto-deploy.

Ships can only progress through the whirlpools.

Whirlpools reset to neutral after one turn.

The bay regions have decay due to swimming dragons.

The bay and inland beach / shrubbery / woodland areas are build-your-own bonus areas (e.g. +1 for 3, +2 for 6)

Small bonus areas:

• The Shallows +1
  Island Camp +1
  Woods Camp +1

Gaining access to the castle (all one-way attacks):

• 1. Via the tunnels
  2. Via the drawbridge
  3. From catapults (landing regions marked)

Bonuses within the castle:

• 1. Outer Wall +6
  2. Inner Wall +2
  3. West Hall +4
  4. East Hall +4
  5. Great Hall +2
  6. King +2 auto-deploy
  7. Queen +2 auto-deploy
  8. Main Tower +2

Objective - Hold King, Queen & Kinght's Hall

Village area (between main castle & high tower) +5
High Tower bonus (not including canons) +2

Bombardments:

Canons can bombard long-range water regions - ships, bay, shallows (this could be changed to western side of the map, outside the walls)

Outer walls can bombard cup to 2 regions away (beyond walls) - not including underground (this may need rethinking as it may be difficult to determine what is or isn't 2 regions away beyond the moat etc.

Main Tower can bombard any land regions outside the walls (i.e. not the village) (this could be changed to western side of the map, outside the walls - although perhaps not the ships)

Possible further amendments (on top of making the island central) include broken walls beyond the moat - adds extra impassables to break-up those areas, and, interestingly would make the areas between the moat and outer walls protected from bombardment from the main tower (but not the castle outer wall regions).

I can happily re-do the above diagrams, especially since the first could do with thicker pen being used and the second is very messy

Space Saving Ideas

To create a little more room the village area could be condensed, the bottom corners cut and the right-hand edge trimmed (at the moment there are big regions here for the woods camp.

Having starting position ship insets (that could attack any whirlpool entrance to the bay) in the space created (right-hand side and bottom corners) may also save space?

Similarly, making the bay and beach areas thinner would create some room perhaps.

The underground inset could be relatively small (although this would be out of scale with the main map).

And simplifying some of the bonuses may create some space (less bonus text) - for example, the village area (and maybe the walls) could also be +1 for any 3 regions, and maybe the east and west halls could be one zone?

In most castle siege movies, the people attacking the walls usually get done over pretty well. Perhaps you could portray this with decaying neutrals around the outer wall?

Looking good!

natty_dread wrote:Looking good!

Thank you.

Need some help with the "Z" areas. There is room for one or two bonus regions there. But do not know exactly how it should be divided up, or named.

I like where this is going. You have a lot of 4+ way corners, though, which ideally you should get rid of.

Evil DIMwit wrote:I like where this is going. You have a lot of 4+ way corners, though, which ideally you should get rid of.

I understand. Will do on the next version.

The gameplay looks like a lot of fun.

But the graphics are a sore contrast between digitally created and realism. You should use a less obvious photoshop texture for the castle floors and ought to use a photographs of real boats or something. The brick is decent, but it looks strange all cobbled together like that.

The text would be better with a black glow rather than a drop shadow. The drop shadow just looks out of place.

Speaking of shadows... the castle doesn't have one.

maybe the stone could be more like so.

Either in the castle itself or the walls.. Bricks and Castle walls just do not mix?

Bruceswar wrote:maybe the stone could be more like so.

Either in the castle itself or the walls.. Bricks and Castle walls just do not mix?

The bricks are from the original Siege, But you may be on to something with this sug. I will try out a few Alternatives. Thank you much.

Here are some more samples...

Samples

If you need textures I'll be glad to help.

natty_dread wrote:If you need textures I'll be glad to help.

I am fine with exeriamenting with some texture changes, but I am not sure that I want to loose all of the ties, to Siege I.

Well, just let me know if you need a texture for anything.

natty_dread wrote:Well, just let me know if you need a texture for anything.

I am open to, and would like to get your suggs, if you have any.

Well, how about something like this

or, with a polar transformation for the round floors of the towers:
edit. ok, this one didn't turn out so well...

Did the Merlin thing get dropped? I'd like to see that instituted. Maybe he could have some special one-way attacks and he'd have an auto-deploy as his bonus? Also, I don't understand the point of C4 - C6. They don't have cannons (which I assume one-way bombard certain territories?).