Eastern Hemisphere [Quenched]

[MrBenn]

Hmmm....

The mountains still look slightly strange to my eyes, but the texture in the background has made heaps of difference.

As far as gameplay goes, I'm not sure you needed to reduce Naval Sup. down to 4, I thought it was good at 5.... Whichever you choose should be fine though

[oaktown]

thanks benn... I think 3, 4, or 5 would all work... let's start at 4, and if it turns out to be a bit high or low we can maybe tweak it in beta.

still to do in the xml: add starting locations, make naval a killer neutral, coordinates, check connectivity.

[gho]

The naval superiority makes Europe to powerful, and to compensate i think you should reduce the Europe bonus (probably to 6).

[iancanton]

The naval superiority makes Europe to powerful, and to compensate i think you should reduce the Europe bonus (probably to 6).

this is part of an ongoing debate. i think having to go through 4 neutrals probably deters people from using the ship unless they are really desperate (the armies lost by doing this cannot be used for reinforcement), so the current europe bonus ought to be retained.

have u given a bit too much of sweden to norway? the southern part of the border looks too far east.

more on norway: in world 2.1 and the original europe map, finland incorrectly has an arctic ocean coastline, thereby cutting off norway from russia. up to 1920 and after 1946, norway had a land border with russia. in 1920, finland annexed the petsamo area from the ussr and held it till 1946. below is a map of the grand duchy of finland dated 1899, showing that norway connects with russia proper. if possible, i'd like this border to be shown, to balance the misleading ones in the world 2.1 and europe maps; it also has the side-effect of making it slightly harder to hold the europe continent for +8.

http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/map/map23.html

any chance of persia regaining its border with british india, which it hasn't had since page 1?

ian.

[oaktown]

if possible, i'd like this border to be shown, to balance the misleading ones in the world 2.1 and europe maps; it also has the side-effect of making it slightly harder to hold the europe continent for +8.

Woo hoo! Something to do! Had to do some hunting to find another map that corroborated this, as most maps from the era are simply vague about exactly what "finland" is prior to independence.

Click image to enlarge.

Alright, that constitutes a pretty minor gameplay change. I'd like some feedback on the addition of 'texture' mountains throughout.

[ZeakCytho]

The texture mountains are great. The vein ones still don't cut it for me...

[gimil]

The vein ones still don't cut it for me...

I second that

[yeti_c]

I have to say that I completely disagree - as proven earlier in this thread - these look like mountains - not to scale - but they look like mountains - and they suit the map style.

I stand with Oak!

C.

[pamoa]

this issue has been going since the begining Ithink, with 50% pro and 50% against.
I must admit I wasn't a big fan of those mountain but the last improvement is helping a lot.
So I'm now with the pro "like they are" although you can maybe fade it a bit more in the bg by adding some kind of pale grey glow around them so they blend with the texture mountains. Anyway the graphic style is very coherent and so the map must go forward. Graphic style is a mapmaker prerogative so only constructive comments should be taken in consideration. And obviously "I don't like" isn't constructive!

Oak you have to resist and prove you can exist!

[$t0kA]

i Think that is pefetic how it resets to neutral!!why would tht happen..it's not like every time a country controled the sea's in an area there ship all ran away and turned agasint them...maybe tops like take away 1 every round or somthing and it could start off 4...personally i dont even think it should be there....

[oaktown]

i Think that is pefetic how it resets to neutral!!why would tht happen..it's not like every time a country controled the sea's in an area there ship all ran away and turned agasint them...maybe tops like take away 1 every round or somthing and it could start off 4...personally i dont even think it should be there....

Well, in the early part of the 20th Century (and onward) no one nation ever held perpetual control over the entire Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In this game, if a European power wants to devote resources to building an overwhelming naval force they can do so and exert some significant - yet very costly - control over the developing world. But such a naval force would be incredibly difficult to maintain so far form home, so to maintain your naval superiority you need to be prepared to devote significant resources to it on a near constant basis.

[e_i_pi]

i Think that is pefetic how it resets to neutral!!why would tht happen..it's not like every time a country controled the sea's in an area there ship all ran away and turned agasint them...maybe tops like take away 1 every round or somthing and it could start off 4...personally i dont even think it should be there....

Well, in the early part of the 20th Century (and onward) no one nation ever held perpetual control over the entire Atlantic and Indian Oceans. In this game, if a European power wants to devote resources to building an overwhelming naval force they can do so and exert some significant - yet very costly - control over the developing world. But such a naval force would be incredibly difficult to maintain so far form home, so to maintain your naval superiority you need to be prepared to devote significant resources to it on a near constant basis.

/Agree with oaktown here

Not resetting to neutral would imbalance the map, and the reset can easily be justified. Keep in mind resets and attrition (decay) of armies can be explained in a number of ways: Cost of upkeep, distance from base of operations, harsh conditions, desertion. If it can be justified in any way, and serves to create balance in the map and interesting gameplay, there is no reason why it shouldn't be used.

[iancanton]

now that finland is done, there are a couple more borders to fix.

have u given a bit too much of sweden to norway? the southern part of the border looks too far east.

any chance of persia regaining its border with british india, which it hasn't had since page 1?

ian.

[Jumentum]

the colors are kind of dull and it is not overall that aesthetically pleasing

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

I've updated borders as suggested above... India borders Persia (as it should in 1910) and pushed the Sweden/Norway border back where it belongs. The India/Persia move changes gameplay a bit in that region, but since both were already border territories it isn't a major change. It's a good move in that it makes that corridor less linear.

I noticed that the borders were getting lost under the new mountains, so the borders layer is now above them

the colors are kind of dull and it is not overall that aesthetically pleasing

Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, Berlin. Don't we have enough uber-colorful maps around here?

[pamoa]

Definitely naval superiority should be 3 or even 2, as it is only a bombarding position and can serve only for one round. It's only use is to break an opponent bonus. With 4 you should dedicate at least 8 troops to be sure to be able to bombard someone after taking the ship. And with the bonus you can have it would be the unique action for one's turn. And if their is no use in mid game, I don't think it would be of any use. I hope you get what I mean...

[oaktown]

Definitely naval superiority should be 3 or even 2, as it is only a bombarding position and can serve only for one round. It's only use is to break an opponent bonus. With 4 you should dedicate at least 8 troops to be sure to be able to bombard someone after taking the ship. And with the bonus you can have it would be the unique action for one's turn. And if their is no use in mid game, I don't think it would be of any use. I hope you get what I mean...

Two debates will never go away on this map - the mountains are "shit" or "the shit" and how to work the ocean bombardments.

I can live with Naval Superiority being a 3 neutral (it started much higher and I've brought it down to 4) for all of the reasons mentioned by Pamoa. The argument for keeping it high is this: this map has 69 territories that can be held, which means that in a four player game (for example) everybody gets a drop of 5 armies before bonuses. And there are... 15 different bonuses that one could pick up for a total of... 57 bonus armies. Six of the bonus regions include one or more of the European territories that can hit Naval Superiority, and if somebody holds all of Europe they get eight armies on top of their drop. There's a lot of armies floating around.

As Pamoa said, it will take a commitment of at least 8 armies to use Naval effectively - I would say it might take even more, because once you get there you want to have at least five armies to do something with. I would like to see the space be used mid-game, once players have started carving out their holdings, as a way to disrupt somebody else, but I want it to require a significant enough force that it won't be used too early. What would people say if instead of dropping the neutral value, we instead pumped up bonuses across the board a bit to make it easier for players to use it?

[asl80]

remember that with 69 starting territories, in a 3 player game you are going to start with at least 4 possibly 5 armies to deploy (or this could be for 4p, not sure how the nuetral distribution works) ... but in any case i think it still holds that after a couple of rounds you should be holding a decent enough territory bonus ... i.e. this be an argument for not having to scale the bonuses up.

i would however suggest that the russian empire bonus could be increased to +9 or +10, on account of the difficulty of holding its western european section.

and seperately, as for the northern and southern african sections, it would seem that northern, on acocunt of it's internal border countries needed to hold it, it would seem that +3 would be more appropriate, but, on account of it's proximity to both the european bases and the bulk of their colonies in africa (i.e. as a passing through point), it is understandable that this would be much harder to hold and deserve its +4.

for the southern african continent i am having trouble seeing why it is similarly valued at +4 when 4 of the 5 eurpean powers have colonies there, and possibly requires defenses on 9 of its 9 territories to hold it, in any mid to end game position.
here, an increase to +5 or even +6 would make more sense. ???

and for the record, naval superiority at +4 seems appropriate, especially seen as, like in arms race, you can knock it down to +1 on one go without capturing it, and then have a shot at it next round while it's still down at +1 ... hehe, though the one whose defenses look like it may be hit on that next turn may well indeed capture it so that it does reset back up to +4 thus giving them a little more of a buffer, hehe could be lots of fun little twists here, can't wait.
...well, actually, on this reflection, +5 on naval superiority could be an option. anyway leave it how it is for now and see what crops up as this heads into the forge!

once again, looking beautiful.
............ p.s. (glad there'll be no movement on the colours, a very nice feel to the map indeed, but hey, i was one of the defenders of the berlin scheme too, so i might be a little biased, hehehe)

[MrBenn]

I've just spent ages getting my head back around this... I like it

I was going to add that the gameplay seems balanced now, and then realised I dished out the GP stamp a while back

The mountains, as you correctly surmise, are always going to be a bone of contention.... I'm still not a big fan of them, but they're growing on me (a bit like mould)

The yellow glow around the Chinese Empire isn't overly clear, although I'm not convinced it needs to be.

I'm assuming that Madagascar is part of S Africa? The colours are probably technically the same, but appear to be slightly different shades of grey (Mad. looks slightly darker, and a bit more purpley)

Is the order of regions in the legend in any specific order, or just how they fit best?

[reggie_mac]

Yes, the mountains are 'the shit' i like them.
North Island of New Zealand still isn't quite right.
Colours are great, i like a map i don't need to wear eye protection to play, kind of reminds me of the 70's board from a game that is similar to this.

"You can please all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time"

And that is my map making mantra

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

I'm going to try to respond to everything said in the last few days, but I apologize for not quoting everybody - too much.

• New Zealand looks wrong: fixed. I didn't realize I had split the north island in two.

• North Africa as +3 or +4... Africa in classic is a rather stingy +3, with 6 territories and 3 defense points. This has an extra border to defend, plus 8 enemy territories on its borders. I think +4 is warranted, especially given that a larger map can absorb larger bonuses.

• Southern Africa higher bonus? I think this is absolutely necessary. It is larger than either Oceania or China so it won't go quickly, and when it finally does somebody else may be strong enough to whack them from Europe. The two concerns I think I had about making the bonus too big are that 1) those territories figure into a lot of other bonuses, and 2) holding all of Africa together shouldn't be too big of a bonus. Still, I don't see any problem with making it +5... +6 may even be justified. ?? I think that if we lowered the Naval Superiority value to 3 we'd have to up this bonus even further, but as is I think +5 will do.

• Russia going up to +9... since we made St. Petersburg a border state, 8 of the 12 Russian sectors are now borders. Europe only has 6 to hold, and they receive many other benefits. Done.

• Graphics are good, graphics are bad. Thanks to those who like the look, and for those who prefer brighter maps I would direct you here.

• Order of regions in the legend were mostly as they fit, but also clustered as much as I could. I swapped two to make the top line read west-east, as do the other lines. Line 2 is east asia, line 3 is Africa. Colonial powers are in no particular order, but if anybody really thinks it would make a difference somehow I'd be happy to move them.

• Madagascar's shade: it was indeed the same, but given the size of the island it was a thinner glow... that and all the mountains behind it made it look a bit off. I hope it's improved.

• asl80 makes a nice point about being able to knock down the naval space one turn, move through on the next... i tend to forget you can do that.

The other change to this version is that I've changed the army circle color. I stuck a number on an old circle color, and it didn't work; army circles should lighten the area behind the count, not darken them. These whitish circles look a bit weird at first, but I've already gotten used to them, they look better with counts, and they're actually less visually intrusive than the old dark circles.

Let's bring gimil in here for some graphics thoughts.

[reggie_mac]

• Graphics are good, graphics are bad. Thanks to those who like the look, and for those who prefer brighter maps I would direct you here.

That is golden, im still laughing about it.

The only thing i find difficult about this map graphicly is its hard to red ' Chinese Empire', now that just may be that im retarded and have po-dunk eyes so choose to ignore me if you please.

[oaktown]

The only thing i find difficult about this map graphicly is its hard to red ' Chinese Empire', now that just may be that im retarded and have po-dunk eyes so choose to ignore me if you please.

As you're the second person to say so, it will be a bit easier to read on the next update. That doesn't mean you aren't also retarded.

[asl80]

Nice changes oak. and the above was a good one too. x2 hehe

now;

Let's bring gimil in here for some graphics thoughts.

hehe, "My name is Gimil ... my graphics suggestions are; ... your borders are all wrong, too pixelated, please redraw them entirely and i'll give you some more pointers after that."

hehe, just kidding gimil ... do look forward to the next comments too.

[gho]

Why dont you connect abyssinnia or somaliland to the ottoman empire and up the bonus to +2