King's Court 2 [Quenched]

[laughingcavalier]

Some territories appear to have different names in drop down from map
Eg
HB6 Road (dropdown) = R02 (map)
Confusing!
Forgive me if this has been noted already

///Ignore this - my mistake has been explained to me - I'm reading the terr name from the cell beneath by mistake...

[greenoaks]

i do that all the time

[ViperOverLord]

Are the nobles marked with the corresponding castles? Cos this keeps screwing me up when I try to deploy. The castles are marked with names and the nobles are marked with symbols and I'm not see the correspondence.

[Kabanellas]

Well, houses' names range from A to J clockwork wise, from bottom left to bottom middle (House of Aldudenie - House of Jaroman)

Nobles are organized from A to J (you can see HA, HB... inside those nobles' circles - not very explicitly though). Also, those symbols are present near each Castle - but it's more an aesthetic feature than a practical thing because those symbols are very much blended to the map.

[Robert The Red]

Hi
Great map, will have fun working out some winning strategies on this one. Just one pointer from me. I am getting Kings court squint, the outline of the hexes is very difficult to see hence i am never sure which hex the road is running through plus the roads could also do with a bit more highlighting. I curently just take every hex and hope for the best on the law of averages that i will increase my bonus. I have tried changing the look of it in BOB but to no avail. apart from that causing me some frustration, the game is great.
Thanks
Robert The Red

[Robert The Red]

Hi
Just noticed that the archer at HJ6 will not reinforce other archers ie left click it and there is no yellow box.
also the Trebuchet's do not not turn to neutral until the player who captured it takes his next turn. this worked in my favour as i was left with 13 on one and when neighbouring enemies took their turn they did not try to take it and bombard me in return as they saw the 13 and did not realise it would go to neutral when they bombarded it with their catipult hence lucky for me, but to be fair i think they should go back to neutral at the end of a players turn not at the begining of the next. hope that all makes sense.
robert the red

[Robert The Red]

reference my last message. rather than archer HJ6 to may be more to do with the archer above HJ6 which i think is A18

[Kabanellas]

Hi
Great map, will have fun working out some winning strategies on this one. Just one pointer from me. I am getting Kings court squint, the outline of the hexes is very difficult to see hence i am never sure which hex the road is running through plus the roads could also do with a bit more highlighting. I curently just take every hex and hope for the best on the law of averages that i will increase my bonus. I have tried changing the look of it in BOB but to no avail. apart from that causing me some frustration, the game is great.
Thanks
Robert The Red

Hi, could it be your monitor/display ? ....

[Robert The Red]

Hi
No nothing to do with my monitor I play on 2 different ones both fairly new. The outline of all the hexes are very faint but more particulary in the lower left hand cornner. it is not clear where they are and which ones the roads are running through and somtimes difficult to guess when the road is close to the edge of a hex. if the there could be a bit more contrast betwwen the background and the hex outlines it would make the experience much better. I use fairly low magnification reading glasses but have bought a stronger pair to help and still struggle to see them properly. I am sure i cant be the only one, so if anyone else reading this has the sane thoughts please post a reply.

[greenoaks]

Game 11891885

2012-11-17 19:09:41 - greenoaks deployed 12 troops on The Admiral
Then i took P06 Port, R40, R41, V08, HE1, House of Ecthelion

Now i get 9 to deploy but i don't hold the King.

Why has my deployment gone down?

[JustCallMeStupid]

MAP DESIGN AND STRUCTURE SUGGESTIONS:

Just started experimenting with the map and I think that a -2 is a bit harsh for not being on the roads -1 be better. It will make going by non roads almost never done. Additionally, castle HF has a disadvantage, if that person wants to go down in a trenched game they are forced to -2 on territory N76 (another reason it should be -1).

Also, I am not sure anyone would ever take V10 (upper right) due to its location and lack of roads it has no strategic value might as well get rid of it or connect a road to it where the Impassable forest is and move the woods bonus on H1 down to N94.

I hope some of these ideas are helpful.


Another idea which might be interesting would be to increase the deploy for holding a noble without a castle maybe u get a +2 or something kind of like the councellors get u a +5 w/o a castle maybe gives someone a chance to get back into a game or something. Just a random idea on this one.

[Robert The Red]

Archer A11 seems to be of little use plus there is no knight near by which i find a big disadvantage particulary at the start of a game, perhaps switch archer for a knight. also are A11 & N106 the same, it looks like there are 2 numbers coresponing to the same hex.
I have found with a lot of the games i have played that battles tend to go either clockwise or anti clockwise with little attack going across the map via the ports. perhaps more could be made of the island to make it more strategic and to encourage players to attack across the map, an idea may be to have a bigger island that is laden with resources but difficult to hold, plus perhaps then move the ports inbetween the castles so effectifly 2 castles are sharing a port. i apreciate space is a premium and that you can only fit a limited amount on the map

[greenoaks]

V10 also seems useless.

access to it from HF is blocked by an Archer and a Catapult. it is not linked to anything by road so it would rarely, if ever come into play.

[DoomYoshi]

Ah yes, the great "territories that don't matter" debate.

[JustCallMeStupid]

Ah yes, the great "territories that don't matter" debate.

Ya and one of them is a repeat off mine too lol. ITs fine if there are territories that dont matter, it seems silly to have village V10 at all, but ur right, it is a pretty irrelevant issue.

I have analyzed each of the castles and came to the conclusion that castles HA and HJ and HB have a large disadvantage because T1 can basically kill all surrounding points except an archer making it impossible for those castles to get back into the game after being bombarded. Every other castle has a knight or generic territory that can be taken to get them back into the game. I think it be a benefit to the game if T1 location was swapped with N35. Additionally, T1 being the strongest Trebuch it happens to be located near a port, (which I have seen used every game the ports), which means it has the easiest access from a team rushing the ports. (Castle HE is in a similar situation as above mentioned but T4 isn't quite as strong as T1 and I cant figure out an easy fix for that one that doesnt effect balance disproportionately)

I think this change would balance out the castles more. I really like how they are not identical in any manner but I think it is unfair that 3 castles can be completely nuked by the Trebuch leaving only an archer to survive while every other castle has at least a knight or blank territory that cannot be bombarded by a single Trebuch.

[GoranZ]

Archer A11 seems to be of little use

FAIL

P.S. Don't ask me why, I wont tell, I can sometimes demonstrate on the battlefield

[greenoaks]

Ah yes, the great "territories that don't matter" debate.

Ya and one of them is a repeat off mine too lol. ITs fine if there are territories that dont matter, it seems silly to have village V10 at all, but ur right, it is a pretty irrelevant issue.

I have analyzed each of the castles and came to the conclusion that castles HA and HJ and HB have a large disadvantage because T1 can basically kill all surrounding points except an archer making it impossible for those castles to get back into the game after being bombarded. Every other castle has a knight or generic territory that can be taken to get them back into the game. I think it be a benefit to the game if T1 location was swapped with N35. Additionally, T1 being the strongest Trebuch it happens to be located near a port, (which I have seen used every game the ports), which means it has the easiest access from a team rushing the ports. (Castle HE is in a similar situation as above mentioned but T4 isn't quite as strong as T1 and I cant figure out an easy fix for that one that doesnt effect balance disproportionately)

I think this change would balance out the castles more. I really like how they are not identical in any manner but I think it is unfair that 3 castles can be completely nuked by the Trebuch leaving only an archer to survive while every other castle has at least a knight or blank territory that cannot be bombarded by a single Trebuch.

but that's just it, i think your request is irrelevant.

differences in castles make this a great map as you learn different strategies to deal with them. it is not one strategy fits all. Age Of Realms 2 anyone ?

however V10 adds nothing to the map as it is not accessable by its closest castle & not linked by road if you take the very long way round

[JustCallMeStupid]

but that's just it, i think your request is irrelevant.

differences in castles make this a great map as you learn different strategies to deal with them. it is not one strategy fits all. Age Of Realms 2 anyone ?

however V10 adds nothing to the map as it is not accessable by its closest castle & not linked by road if you take the very long way round

Your evidence of "differences in castles.... it is not one strategy fits all." does not (at all) argue with the point I am making (In fact evidence shows it narrows the strategy down to a focus on HA first strategy, so thanks for making my point greenoaks if u want more variety). Every castle aside from castle HA has 1 territory that is either completely safe from bombarding or at least two Trebs would be needed to put the player into only a noble. HA is severely at a disadvantage and therefor there is no strategy the person on HA can take except to hope that no one takes T1 and bombards him to smithereens. As alternative to switching the location of T1 with the neutral above it the catapult and knight on HA could be switched so that HA would still have their knight after a full bombarding and could crawl back into the game like every other castle can. This would make it in a slightly comparable position as HC.

Additionally, one can argue 'each castle/realm is different like HF has no knights....' Again, my point is HA is THE ONLY CASTLE that can be completely bombarded out of the game with no comeback from a single Trebuch, where every other castle has some kind of territory they can call safe from one solo trebuch bombarding. I think Fixing this makes the map a better map overall, but specifically for the, currently, very unlucky person to get HA.

Im certain the map maker can give some reasonable feedback as to why 1 location should be severely worse off than every other or he will make a change to slightly balance this out yet still 'keep differences in the castles varied enough' for a great game. Currently any skilled player knows you go for castle HA first in a team game because of the above aforementioned evidence.

[Kabanellas]

Additionally, one can argue 'each castle/realm is different like HF has no knights....' Again, my point is HA is THE ONLY CASTLE that can be completely bombarded out of the game with no comeback from a single Trebuch, where every other castle has some kind of territory they can call safe from one solo trebuch bombarding. I think Fixing this makes the map a better map overall, but specifically for the, currently, very unlucky person to get HA.

Hi!! and sorry guys. I've been having some terrible last few weeks at work, with a lot of stuff to do (which surely reflected on my recent HEAVY point loss and my somewhat absence from forum debates)

anyway JCMS, I see what you mean. Though HA has 2 safe spots from T1 (HA1 and HA2) they just have bombard feature, so no coming back from there. Must say that this is a problem that has never been raised nor I, from all the games I made, felt uncomfortable with.

If this proves to be such a great issue, I'm ready to swap H1 Archer for H3 Knight (though I was completely ready to quench this map already). H1 will lose access to 2 archers, on the other hand the knight will reach V01, which will surely compensate

[JustCallMeStupid]

Ya look into it Kaban, cause so far in one map I have used T1 to my teams advantage by stacking HB going straight for T1 and complletely destroying all of HA's areas since the poor guy never even took his catapult, I figured out the strategy so in this game Game 11907597 when my castle HJ got bombarded later in the game when they took the Trebuchet 1 via the port. Being my first time on the map I realized being narrowed down to an archer sucks so I went around each castle figuring out where the safe spots were from Trebs. It wont be a problem for the less competitive play but in any clan competitions all the other clans will soon realize the weakness of castle HA and also that T1 is the strongest Trebuch in the map and T4 is probably the second strongest Trebuchet based on the damage opportunity they have. As someone else said, I like the variety, but HA needs a little bit of love. Its actually better if u switch them because losing access to A01 archer makes the castle a tiny bit safer from an archer invade not that Ive ever seen one yet, the only downside of the switch is the access to the K Knight which is further away via knight to knight travel.

Also, I find it hard to figure out which castle goes to which noble by looking at the pictures alone. Im not sure if in small lettering you can put the castle name right below each noble and extend the 'key' a little larger to make room for this. The only way I figure out which castle to take to eliminate their noble is using BOB. I come into this problem after the castle has been taken by someone else or bombarded. The game I am in where I am having this trouble is Game 11964765 where people have taken other peoples castles and it is getting confusing for when I am at a computer w/o BOB.

Im just trying to get every castle to have an option for a safety spot to get back into the game if hit by Treb, no one has to take these spots but at least they would be there and they wouldn't be a -2 either.

Suggestions I think would help improve balance and not significantly give any location an advantage:
HA: Switch knight with archer
HE5: Add road to here (its a safe spot from T3) (alternatively switch HE archer w HE5 and add road even safer spot if someone were to want to have one)
Label the Nobles so easy to associate with castle. Maybe this could be done like NJ for Noble Jaroman.
N06: add road
change the -2 non road to a -1 (this is just a preference, Im not really sure how often this really comes into play (this is probably least important change Id suggest)
N83: should there have been a knight here instead of a neutral spot? (would this add to the map, take away, or do basically nothing? I kind of think it would make it better, maybe someone would go for V10)


I really enjoy the map. Me and my buddies have been testing out a lot of team games on it and it is well designed through and through. I hope you dont see any of this as me saying ur map sucks cause it doesnt, its an awesome map and thanks for making it.

[Kabanellas]

Suggestions I think would help improve balance and not significantly give any location an advantage:
HA: Switch knight with archer
Will do
HE5: Add road to here (its a safe spot from T3) (alternatively switch HE archer w HE5 and add road even safer spot if someone were to want to have one)
I'd prefer not to. For conceptual reasons, mainly... It would be a road leading to nowhere and remember that you can always take that spot just don't leave troops on it
Label the Nobles so easy to associate with castle. Maybe this could be done like NJ for Noble Jaroman.
If you look at it there are letters inside those noble's circles (HA,HB....) not perceptible though... I'll see what I can do about it. In the meanwhile you can always have this mental scheme: HA is the first Castle/Noble and it goes clockwise so HC = 3rd noble spot
N06: add road
Please please please no that would be insane work at this stage. I would have to reaname all N hexes on map and all R hexes as well. That would be a major XML change and a lot of work on the graphics part as well.
change the -2 non road to a -1 (this is just a preference, Im not really sure how often this really comes into play (this is probably least important change Id suggest)
I'd rather keep the -2. This works great on trench warfare
N83: should there have been a knight here instead of a neutral spot? (would this add to the map, take away, or do basically nothing? I kind of think it would make it better, maybe someone would go for V10)
That would give some advantage to HG over HF and again..... a lot of stuff to change....

I really enjoy the map. Me and my buddies have been testing out a lot of team games on it and it is well designed through and through. I hope you dont see any of this as me saying ur map sucks cause it doesnt, its an awesome map and thanks for making it.

Thanks a lot!! It was made out of love

[greenoaks]

N101 is showing in a FoW game when T4 is taken but it is not displaying in the drop down as an attack/bombard option

[JustCallMeStupid]

Cool. I know it is a lot of work to make changes, hence Im just sending suggestions and you can decide what is realistic or not. I didnt think about how much map modification it is to change a neutral to a road. I still think that a knight at N83 would give the map more variety. HF has a pretty strong Archer area and it would also improve HF too as the archer can be used to protect the surrounding areas while HF moves in for the hypothetical knight. Also archer A10 would not be effected as knights cant assault archers on hills.

Im in a game right now where I am at castle HF and traveling down to HG is a real bear with all the territories I have to travel through since HF is designed around a strong archer strategy, I think it would benefit both castles almost evenly, slightly in favor of HG maybe. And you are right the letters are on the nobles but really hard to see, I never noticed it haha. If you can darken it cool, if not the clockwise thing helps if no BOB is available.

Keep it on the back burner as an idea.
K-Knight on N83
A12: make this archer on a hill (still trying to wrap my mind around this, and only a decent idea if N83 became a Knight, allowing this archer to bomb the knight, otherwise its fine)

EDIT: Why is HB knight the only knight in game that starts as a 4?

[Kabanellas]

EDIT: Why is HB knight the only knight in game that starts as a 4?

That's an error, will be promptly corrected on the next update

[Robert The Red]

Hi
Still playing this map alot and really enjoying it. but now finding it is much better as a team game. In the standard game the fighting tends to rotate in a clockwise or an anti clockwise way if you are lucky, if you are unlucky you may have both neighbours attacking you. but what i think may open the game up more would be to encourage attacking across the lake. at the moment the ports seem to be a very defensive role and not usually used to attack until later in the game and usually a neighbour. if ports conected with an opposing port across the lake, gained a significant bonus i think it would encourage people to take them earlier and provoke attacks with others, rather than just fighting your imediate neighbours.
Robert The Red