[Abandoned] - Epic Epoch

[Evil DIMwit]

I think it's a little odd that the castle in Enclave is as big as three full realms in Aeternum.

[natty dread]

I think it's a little odd that the castle in Enclave is as big as three full realms in Aeternum.

Well that's basically what I was saying earlier...

[MarshalNey]

Heh, I'm not trying to reopen an old argument by saying "Supersize". Really, it's just the obvious, um, "fullness" of the map that prompted my reaction. I'd be the first to say, for instance, that Waterloo could have used a wee bit more room. And just to be clear, in no way was I proposing more territories or other gameplay elements, just some extra space so that the map has a little more room to breathe. Anyway, Evil D has done a wonderful job of getting everything into the space he has and still keeping it to the Foundry standard for clarity. Yes, that's right, I feel it meets the standard; I also feel that a little more room could improve the map clarity. However ultimately it's up to the mapmaker, and re-sizing a map is a huge pain in the butt, so this is the last that I'll say on the matter unless Evil D brings it up.

As for the map gameplay, I'm happy with the framework, and the elements seem to have gotten a huge boost (from my perspective anyway) from the Victory Conditions. In fact, my one overall suggestion for the gameplay is simply to emphasize the Victory Condition regions further, and to pull back on some of the larger bonuses.

Here's my thought- in all of the current Victory Condition maps (where the Victory Condition is viable, anyway) only one player can hold the needed regions to gain victory; if more than one player is pursuing the Victory Condition, they have to fight over the regions. However, this map has 24 possible Victory "Points" available and a requirement of only 12 VP to win. Thus, two players could be pursuing the Victory Condition in parallel and never have to fight, giving the map more a feel of a race.

I like this, it's different but not gimmicky or complicated. In fact, it might be nice to expand the number of VP available so that 2 players could pursue Victory more comfortably, so that it would have a real possibility of coming up in an actual game.

What could encourage pursuit of VPs further (without making it an overpowering element of the map) would be to tone down some of the bonuses associated with VP regions, thus making them less attractive to players who are merely pursuing lots of reinforcements. Then VPs could be pursued more for their own sake. Finally, by reducing bonuses that are already a bit out of line with the other 'continents' (Epochs), it provides more balance to the map as a whole, although that really isn't strictly necessary the way the map deployment is laid out.

I would suggest reducing the huge bonus for the Twin Oasis (btw is there a plural for 'Oasis'?) a bit, maybe down to a +10? The bonus for the castles and villages might work out as a +2 autodeploy and +1 auto.

Really that's about all I've got, and even those are just preferences, I don't think the map gameplay is imbalanced as it is. The routes through the ports and helipads really keep any one Epoch from being overpowering.

Oh one other thing, what are the probabilities for a bonus on the drop, and how big? I notice some +2 for 3 regions bonuses (like on the inset) and a several +1s as well...

As for looks, well, the region names will get a bit hairy to sort out when a person actually has to find 'AA2' or some such. The naming conventions are consistent and easy to grasp, but not as easy to find, because some of the Epochs are so large. I think perhaps some things could be done in this area to improve the clarity, but right now it's only a feeling... I may have some concrete suggestions in the near future.

-- Marshal Ney

[Evil DIMwit]

I'll follow this up with responses and analysis and such at a slightly later date, but for now I just wanted to remark:

re-sizing a map is a huge pain in the butt

This is the opposite of the case; since I work in vector graphics, resizing is pretty easy.

[Boler]

This looks really fun!

One little thing though, the twin oasis has a rather large +15 bonus which is a bit too close for my liking to 2 ideal starting locations, Timber, and Mire. Timber is only 5 territories away, and Mire is 6.
If any one got a hold of the Twin Oasis that fast I would expect them to win.

But i'd play it anyway.

[Evil DIMwit]

Supersize supersize...

I guess 10 pixels here or there wouldn't hurt. Still, all the map's information seems to fit and the policy is no supersize unless it's strictly necessary, no?

In fact, it might be nice to expand the number of VP available so that 2 players could pursue Victory more comfortably, so that it would have a real possibility of coming up in an actual game.

I don't want it to be *too much* of a race. Races mean too much luck and not enough strategy. I can see reducing the VP needed to 10 out of 24; that's 10 out of 20 outside of the Twin Oasis. 1v1 games would be kind of a race, but the change would be more for the benefit of higher numbers of players, to make Victory victory more of an option.

I would suggest reducing the huge bonus for the Twin Oasis (btw is there a plural for 'Oasis'?)

'Oases'.

a bit, maybe down to a +10? The bonus for the castles and villages might work out as a +2 autodeploy and +1 auto.

Now that the VPs are in place, that does make some sense. I'll do both of those.

As for looks, well, the region names will get a bit hairy to sort out when a person actually has to find 'AA2' or some such.

With clickable maps now, these names aren't as important as they used to be. Either way, I can't think of a more organized way to go about the territory naming.

Oh one other thing, what are the probabilities for a bonus on the drop, and how big? I notice some +2 for 3 regions bonuses (like on the inset) and a several +1s as well...

For each 2-territory region, it's a 30% chance that *someone* holds it in a 3-player game, 18% in a 5-player game, 11% in 8-player. For 3-territory regions, it's 10% in 3p, 3% in 5p, 1% in 8p. 4-territory regions have a 3% chance of being held in 3p, half a percent in 5p, and 0.1% in 8p. There are two 2-regions, four 3-regions, and three 4-regions. The expected value is less than 1 extra bonus troop per player. Meanwhile in 3 player games each player starts with more than 30 territories, in 5 it's 19 and in 8 it's 12. Factor in the castles' starting auto-deploys and the small droppable bonuses don't seem like they're any sort of gamebreakers.
(While we're at that, by adding two neutrals (or removing two starting territories) I can make the 8p starting territory count 11, which would lessen first player advantage a bit; I'm not sure where to put them, though.)

[Evil DIMwit]

New version:
[bigimg]http://i1011.photobucket.com/albums/af239/RASSyndrome/CC_Misc/Epoch_9.png[/bigimg]

Changes:
-- Aeternum castles/villages and Fahrenheit's Twin Oasis have had their bonus reduced
-- The victory point count now says "10 to win" instead of "12"
-- I've adjusted the bottom of Aeternum. AV1 has been bothering me before as a particularly useless territory, so I put a village in it. The map's edge has also been straightened to give more space for the victory condition.
-- I also adjusted a bit of Newtown's border to make it fit with the legend better, but that's no significant change.

Upon further calculation, it seems that the starting territory distribution for 4p, 5p, 6p, and 8p games are 24, 18, 15, and 12 territories per player. By squeezing in one more starting territory I can make 5p and 6p not be multiples of 3 anymore; by removing two I can solve the problem for 4p and 8p. However, I don't know that this is too much of a problem since Aeternum and Fahrenheit offer fairly significant fields of cheap neutrals to expand into.

Also, I've done a quick analysis of the maximum possible bonuses of each region:
[Starting territories/total territories ; # of VPs ; maximum bonus]
Aeternum: 8*/44 ; 8 ; 16 bonus + 20 auto + 14 territorial
Enclave: 24/25 ; 3 ; 16 bonus + 8 with Aet. castles + 8 territorial
Fahrenheit: 8/29 ; 4 ; 19 bonus - 7 decay + 9 territorial
Newtown: 19/28 ; 4 ; 17 bonus + 3 auto + 9 territorial
Ocean: 11/12 ; 1 ; 7 bonus + 4 territorial
Seascape: 17/21 ; 4 ; 20 bonus + 4 with OM2, OM3 + 7 territorial

Note that that Seascape is disproportionately bountiful -- with OM3 and OM2 you can get up to 6 bonus for each resource pair (one for the pair and one for each market). However, it's a fairly slow start, since each resource pair with local market only gives +2 bonus for at least 3 territories to defend, so I'm not sure that the high bounty isn't justified.

[Boler]

In the Legend, I noticed a small mistake, you wrote "Small oasis +3 per turm

Sorry its hardly worth a post.

[Evil DIMwit]

In the Legend, I noticed a small mistake, you wrote "Small oasis +3 per turm

Sorry its hardly worth a post.

That's a pretty big catch there. I'd stay it's worth at least two posts.
Consider it fixed in the next version.

[isaiah40]

Hmmm ... I really don't see anything wrong with the gameplay, that is unless I am missing something. The only potential problem may be the number of starting territories as you mentioned. As you mentioned Aeternum and Fahrenheit offer an abundance of neutrals, so I'd be willing for Beta to see how it works out.

I'll keep looking at this to make sure I'm not missing anything.

[TaCktiX]

I've got three minor nitpicks:

- It's difficult to tell that only the Grand Oasis applies for the victory condition, at least without any explanation. Perhaps add some text to designate the difference?
- Ocean has the capacity to have 4 borders and a 7 bonus (not including the territory count). Suggest switching Marina down to a 1 to make it a more reasonable 6 bonus.
- Seascape has the possibility to get way out of hand compared to the other areas. Perhaps switch the foreign market bonus to +1 per 2?

[Evil DIMwit]

Those are all pretty brilliant ideas. I'll get right on 2 and 3. 1 might have to wait for a slightly larger overhaul, which will involve supersizing the map a little bit to make room for clearer instructions and such.

[Edit...]

And boom. First page is updated with new statistics, too.
[bigimg]http://i1011.photobucket.com/albums/af239/RASSyndrome/CC_Misc/Epoch_10.png[/bigimg]

[Teflon Kris]

There is a section of EAeturnum ewhere a player could create an empire of +10 reinforcements and +8 auto-deploys, defedned by 5 regions. Not sure if this is problematic or not though as I've only briefly looked at other areas and Nettwon has a good deal for the whole area(17 +3auto with 4 spots to defend), as well as the Tunnel+Inside Castle area (7+? with 4 (and ?s to defend).

[Evil DIMwit]

Yeah, there are a lot of places where you can build large bonuses, but of course you have to work to get to that point, especially in Aeternum.

[isaiah40]

Since we are in one big happy main foundry workshop now, I will unsticky this until it is very close to entering the Final Forge.

[TaCktiX]

[Moved]

It would appear that development of this map has stalled. If the mapmaker wants to continue with the map, then one of the Foundry Moderators will be able to help put the thread back into the Foundry system, after an update has been made.

[Victor Sullivan]

I don't understand, I thought we were just waiting on a GP stamp?

-Sully

[thenobodies80]

The six months of vacation has expired, for this reason this topic is now labeled as [Abandoned]. If the original mapmaker wants to continue this map project it's fine but an update must provided. From this moment anyone else is free to take this project without the original mapmaker permission, but it has to be started from the scratch.

[DBandit70]

wow that is a neat map