4 Star Meats [Quenched]

[The Bison King]

Please please please do continue! Keep the dream alive!

[dana1971]

Hi all,

It's been a crazy summer for me but no that it's over I am ready to start working on the cow again.

Still rough around the edges, but I want to nail down the game play before I make it all pretty.

I've taken on board most of the suggestions, dropped the loyalty points, and hopefully made the map more balanced.

Any suggestions on changing bonus numbers would be great.

Not sure about the colors, I'm thinking they may be to similar?
Also wonder if the rules are clear enough?

Click image to enlarge.

Anyway, still working on it.

Best Wishes,
Dana

[x-raider]

Yay!

[koontz1973]

[Moved]

Hi-dilly-ho, neighborinos! Back you go.

koontz

[ManBungalow]

Very nice update. Good to see you back also.

I have a few things to point out:

*how easy is it to read neutral player values on the special offer?
*the left legs don't have any region names - are we supposed to deduce the names of each part based on the matching component of the right legs?
*what's the point of the special offer? does it connect the tip/tongue/hoof regions?
*some of the bonuses do have similar colours, as you've acknowledged. go check out the hive map - in particular the honeycomb cluster naming system. i'm thinking that you could make one region name in each bonus stand out - perhaps by being bold. for instance, you could highlight the word 'crown' in the crown bonus.
*the left fore leg and plate bonus regions are too similar in colour to say that they are adjacent.

I look forward to seeing another update!

[isaiah40]

dana, can you please do your title in this format:
name of map [date] v1, pg(page that the most recent update is on)
i.e. 4 Star Meats [15 Sept 2012] v20 pg 26

[dana1971]

Thanks,

I changed the title, no problem.

[dana1971]

*how easy is it to read neutral player values on the special offer?

Guess I should change the background on that one.

*the left legs don't have any region names - are we supposed to deduce the names of each part based on the matching component of the right legs?

I will put them in, just want to make sure game play works first.

*what's the point of the special offer? does it connect the tip/tongue/hoof regions?

It does connect to everything on offer. i.e. hoofs, tongue, and tail tip. Guess I should make the rules more clear somewhere on the map.

*some of the bonuses do have similar colours, as you've acknowledged. go check out the hive map - in particular the honeycomb cluster naming system. i'm thinking that you could make one region name in each bonus stand out - perhaps by being bold. for instance, you could highlight the word 'crown' in the crown bonus.

Not a bad idea, I can try that.

Thanks.
Best Wishes,
Dana

[iancanton]

top side and back rib are already part of very difficult bonuses. move their stars to shell steak and top blade instead?

the standout gameplay feature on the map is the special offer. however, it will hardly be used at all because i don't see many players going through 5 killer neutral troops to break a +2 leg bonus, in which case the legs have only 1 region to defend in practice and are worth only a +1 bonus. if u make it 2 killer neutral troops instead of 5, then it's a different story, with the +2 leg bonuses being fully justified (except maybe for the shorter left fore leg, which is arguably a +1).

ian.

[AndyDufresne]

Cool to see this back in production.


--Andy

[dana1971]

top side and back rib are already part of very difficult bonuses. move their stars to shell steak and top blade instead?

OK will move them to Ox tail base, and Shell Steak. Going to leave it in the neck position.

the standout gameplay feature on the map is the special offer. however, it will hardly be used at all because i don't see many players going through 5 killer neutral troops to break a +2 leg bonus, in which case the legs have only 1 region to defend in practice and are worth only a +1 bonus. if u make it 2 killer neutral troops instead of 5, then it's a different story, with the +2 leg bonuses being fully justified (except maybe for the shorter left fore leg, which is arguably a +1).

I don't totally agree with no one going through the killer neutrals. Really depends on the game. Terminator for example, sometimes it's easier to go through a neutral than go through a bunch of large armies to get your target. I'd also say in long games when the numbers get high 5 troops won't mean much. Still, you're not the first person to say keep that number low so I'll lower it to 3.

Best Wishes,
Dana

[dana1971]

Here's the latest

Click image to enlarge.

Still need to clean up graphics around legs and hanging meat, but hopefully game play is looking better.

The following regions will start with neutrals.

Tenderloin: 2
Tri-Tip: 2
Special Offer: killer 3
4 Star Meats Logo: 3

Continent bonuses may need adjusted? What do you think?

Best Wishes,
Dana

[The Bison King]

I feel like it's there or just about there. You've been working on this a long time, and I feel like it's finally looking like it's ready to move forward. I'm really glad you've stuck with this.

[Flapcake]

I think that even though the colors are so close to each other have no bearing, because you can see what's what ... If you dont, get glasses

I also think that your super nice map is ready to move forward.

Thumbs up. Flaps

[AndyDufresne]

I feel like it's there or just about there. You've been working on this a long time, and I feel like it's finally looking like it's ready to move forward. I'm really glad you've stuck with this.

Agreed.


--Andy

[nolefan5311]

We will go ahead and sticky this for the stamp. It's pretty darn close.

[ManBungalow]

What does the small image look like?


And a really petty point - the T in Tongue for the special offer should be capitalised!

[anamainiacks]

Sorry if this has already been brought up - I didn't want to read through the earlier 26 pages.

Did you have to method of coming up with the bonus values for the various regions? Looking at them now, they don't seem very balanced... The most glaring one to me is, why is the Ox Tail only worth 1, while all the legs are with 2, when they all have the same number of territories to conquer (though LF only has 4), and to defend? Ignoring the tail tip, it has 1 territory to defend (Ox Tail Base) bordering 3 regions (Company Logo, Top Side, Minute Steak).

In comparison, all legs - ignoring their hooves - have 1 territory to defend, bordering less than 3 regions, except the R.Hind leg.

• L.F. Marrow Bone borders Outer Skirt (1)
• R.Fore Shank borders Plate and Outer Skirt (2)
• L.Hind Shank borders Bottom Flank (1)
• R.Hind Shank borders Round Tip, Tri-Tip, Top Flank (3).

So if anything, the Ox Tail would seem like one of the harder 'continents' to hold between the 5 of them. It should be given a 2-troop bonus as well, I think.

I also think Crown should be downgraded to a 2-troop bonus region. While it has 3 territories in total and 3 territories to defend, only 2 territories can attack the region, which is a far cry from the 5 territories that can attack Flank.

And I know we were only asked for gameplay input, but I found it a little hard to link the legend to the parts of the cow (yes, I don't know my parts of a cow very well!). I did notice there was a slide bolding of the territorial words that were the same as its bonus regions, so that could be made more obvious (:

In all, I was pleasantly surprised when I came to see what the front page was moo-ing about - love the concept, very unique (:

[dana1971]

Thanks for the feedback, I'm happy to make those changes anamainiacks.

Best Wishes,
Dana

[AndyDufresne]

And I know we were only asked for gameplay input, but I found it a little hard to link the legend to the parts of the cow (yes, I don't know my parts of a cow very well!). I did notice there was a slide bolding of the territorial words that were the same as its bonus regions, so that could be made more obvious (:

Yeah, this might help with finding each bonus zone. You could even underline the 'Main' region in each bonus zone, and that may simply be enough to attract a player's eye.


--Andy

[nolefan5311]

And I know we were only asked for gameplay input, but I found it a little hard to link the legend to the parts of the cow (yes, I don't know my parts of a cow very well!). I did notice there was a slide bolding of the territorial words that were the same as its bonus regions, so that could be made more obvious (:

Yeah, this might help with finding each bonus zone. You could even underline the 'Main' region in each bonus zone, and that may simply be enough to attract a player's eye.


--Andy

Great idea.

[nolefan5311]

Sorry if this has already been brought up - I didn't want to read through the earlier 26 pages.

Did you have to method of coming up with the bonus values for the various regions? Looking at them now, they don't seem very balanced... The most glaring one to me is, why is the Ox Tail only worth 1, while all the legs are with 2, when they all have the same number of territories to conquer (though LF only has 4), and to defend? Ignoring the tail tip, it has 1 territory to defend (Ox Tail Base) bordering 3 regions (Company Logo, Top Side, Minute Steak).

In comparison, all legs - ignoring their hooves - have 1 territory to defend, bordering less than 3 regions, except the R.Hind leg.

• L.F. Marrow Bone borders Outer Skirt (1)
• R.Fore Shank borders Plate and Outer Skirt (2)
• L.Hind Shank borders Bottom Flank (1)
• R.Hind Shank borders Round Tip, Tri-Tip, Top Flank (3).

So if anything, the Ox Tail would seem like one of the harder 'continents' to hold between the 5 of them. It should be given a 2-troop bonus as well, I think.

I also think Crown should be downgraded to a 2-troop bonus region. While it has 3 territories in total and 3 territories to defend, only 2 territories can attack the region, which is a far cry from the 5 territories that can attack Flank.

And I know we were only asked for gameplay input, but I found it a little hard to link the legend to the parts of the cow (yes, I don't know my parts of a cow very well!). I did notice there was a slide bolding of the territorial words that were the same as its bonus regions, so that could be made more obvious (:

In all, I was pleasantly surprised when I came to see what the front page was moo-ing about - love the concept, very unique (:

I agree with everything said here.

In addition, Sirloin needs to be reduced to a +4 bonus. Suggested bonus value puts it at 4.75, but that's with a neutral 3 right in the middle of it (Tenderloin) and another n3 as a border region. And Rump needs to be lowered a +4

So just to clarify:
Ox tail needs to be increased to a +2
Crown needs to be reduced to a +2
Sirloin needs to be reduced to a +4
Rump needs to be reduced to a +4

Also, Flank, Crown, and Brisket continents all need to have a region coded as neutral to start the game to prevent a bonus from being dropped. I would suggest Flank region, Brisket region, and Bridge region be the neutrals.

Also, in the first post please post the map image with the starting neutrals. I count 75 total territories, with 7 starting neutrals (4 Star Meats logo, Special Offer, Tri Tip, Tenderloin, Flank, Brisket, and Bridge), leaving 68 to be distributed at the drop, which is a good number. Is this correct?

2 player games - 22 regions per player (24 neutrals)
3 players - 22 (2 extra neutrals)
4 players - 17 (0 extra neutrals)
5 players - 13 (3 extra neutrals)
6 players - 11 (2 extra neutrals)
7 players - 9 (5 extra neutrals
8 players - 8 (4 extra neutrals)

Once you make these changes, I believe we can stamp it.

[iancanton]

In addition, Sirloin needs to be reduced to a +4 bonus. Suggested bonus value puts it at 4.75, but that's with a neutral 3 right in the middle of it (Tenderloin) and another n3 as a border region.

nolefan, this is the one part of the comprehensive analyses by anamainiacks and u (thanks, both!) where i differ because, not only do the neutrals fail to protect completely any regions, but the sirloin bonus zone is non-contiguous, which makes forting a more difficult job; is +5 a good compromise?

how about swapping the colour of crown with that of rib? the difference in brightness between the crown and neck colours is almost imperceptible if viewing in black-and-white.

otherwise, it's virtually all good news on the gameplay front.

ian.

[nolefan5311]

In addition, Sirloin needs to be reduced to a +4 bonus. Suggested bonus value puts it at 4.75, but that's with a neutral 3 right in the middle of it (Tenderloin) and another n3 as a border region.

nolefan, this is the one part of the comprehensive analyses by anamainiacks and u (thanks, both!) where i differ because, not only do the neutrals fail to protect completely any regions, but the sirloin bonus zone is non-contiguous, which makes forting a more difficult job; is +5 a good compromise?

That works for me. I tend to want to undervalue bonus regions but you make a good point.

[dana1971]

No problem, I can do that. Should I be checking the map in black in white?
I tried underlining the region names this weekend and found the lines competed with the boarder lines and made the map a bit confusing. I did however make the region names bolder so hopefully that will be enough. I'm almost ready for a new post.
Best wishes,
Dana