Conquer Club

There will be 8 starting positions – the Barbarian Tribes. All other regions will be randomly distributed between all players with the exception of regions with Legions on them, Barbarian Outposts and all Administrative seats in the Roman government.

Starting neutral troops need to be defined. I'm thinking on 2 troops for every Vicarious seat, 3 or 4 for every Praetor seat, and 10 troops (?) for each Emperor seat.

Regions with Legions should start with 3 neutral troops and Barbarian Outposts should start with 4 or 5 troops.

We still need to decide the number of troops for every starting position. I was thinking on 1. To that you'll add 2 from the autodeploy + 3 (I'm thinking about disabling the terr number bonus for this map)

seriously, the legend takes up 60% of the map.

zimmah wrote:seriously, the legend takes up 60% of the map.

Not really. The top-right portion is playable. I'd say it's around 30, which isn't bad. Plus, the legend's rather clear, and clarity is essential.

As for your neutrals, Kab, they look pretty good. I'm an advocate of 4 for the Praetors, 8 for the Emperors, and 4 for the Outposts. The rest look good, including the starting troops for the Tribes.

-Sully

Kabanellas wrote:

There will be 8 starting positions – the Barbarian Tribes. All other regions will be randomly distributed between all players with the exception of regions with Legions on them, Barbarian Outposts and all Administrative seats in the Roman government.

Starting neutral troops need to be defined. I'm thinking on 2 troops for every Vicarious seat, 3 or 4 for every Praetor seat, and 10 troops (?) for each Emperor seat.

Regions with Legions should start with 3 neutral troops and Barbarian Outposts should start with 4 or 5 troops.

We still need to decide the number of troops for every starting position. I was thinking on 1. To that you'll add 2 from the autodeploy + 3 (I'm thinking about disabling the terr number bonus for this map)

Barbarian Outposts should start with 4 neutral in my opinion instead of the 5. I'd start with 2 troops for every starting position instead of the 1, that would make it a little hard to get, but not too hard if a player chooses to take the outpost on his/her first turn.

isaiah40 wrote: I'd start with 2 troops for every starting position instead of the 1, that would make it a little hard to get, but not too hard if a player chooses to take the outpost on his/her first turn.

But Isaiah, that will never happen because it's totally impossible to take a barbarian tribe in in the first 3 or 4 turns (to say the least).....
You'll need to take 2 neutrals from the vicarious seat, then 4 (or 3) troops from the Preator seat, then 8 (or 10 troops) from the emperor seat. That would be around 14 neutral troops. Of course that after a couple of turns the Barbarian tribe garrison would be larger, making the odds of taking out a tribe in the first rounds of a game, quite hard.

something that hasn't been mentioned yet: Unattributed Barbarian tribes should start with 8 neutral troops probably ?

I've placed all the starting neutral troops:

[bigimg]http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af105/Kabanellas/ConquerRome7b_img.png[/bigimg]

In the legend, is "II A" 2 armies/troops? If it is, since you have a mix of "II Armies" and "II A" it might make sense somewhere main to add something like "II Armies (A)..."


--Andy

Kabanellas wrote:

isaiah40 wrote: I'd start with 2 troops for every starting position instead of the 1, that would make it a little hard to get, but not too hard if a player chooses to take the outpost on his/her first turn.

But Isaiah, that will never happen because it's totally impossible to take a barbarian tribe in in the first 3 or 4 turns (to say the least).....
You'll need to take 2 neutrals from the vicarious seat, then 4 (or 3) troops from the Preator seat, then 8 (or 10 troops) from the emperor seat. That would be around 14 neutral troops. Of course that after a couple of turns the Barbarian tribe garrison would be larger, making the odds of taking out a tribe in the first rounds of a game, quite hard.

something that hasn't been mentioned yet: Unattributed Barbarian tribes should start with 8 neutral troops probably ?

No, no, no. I was talking about taking the Barbarian OUTPOST from the Barbarian Tribe, not taking the Barbarian Tribe. You can attack the outpost from the tribe right? If not, then my apologies, as that is how I am seeing it.

AndyDufresne wrote:In the legend, is "II A" 2 armies/troops? If it is, since you have a mix of "II Armies" and "II A" it might make sense somewhere main to add something like "II Armies (A)..."


--Andy

I'll do it Andy

isaiah40 wrote:No, no, no. I was talking about taking the Barbarian OUTPOST from the Barbarian Tribe, not taking the Barbarian Tribe. You can attack the outpost from the tribe right? If not, then my apologies, as that is how I am seeing it.

I see

You'll start with 1 + 3 (if you drop the terr bonus in the tribe) + 2 (auto-deploy). That will be 6 against 4. Players will probably have to wait a couple of turns before taking the outposts... Which is a good thing in my opinion.

Kabanellas wrote:

isaiah40 wrote:No, no, no. I was talking about taking the Barbarian OUTPOST from the Barbarian Tribe, not taking the Barbarian Tribe. You can attack the outpost from the tribe right? If not, then my apologies, as that is how I am seeing it.

I see

You'll start with 1 + 3 (if you drop the terr bonus in the tribe) + 2 (auto-deploy). That will be 6 against 4. Players will probably have to wait a couple of turns before taking the outposts... Which is a good thing in my opinion.

IMHO, that is a good thing.

E chose to leave the Illyrici Praefectura with 3 neutral troops instead of 4, because of it being considerably smaller that the others. I would even consider leaving it with just 2 troops....

On the other hand, Illyrici is more protected from assaults - only 2 Vicarious can reach it....

[bigimg]http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af105/Kabanellas/ConquerRome7b_img.png[/bigimg]

Kabellanus...very nice, and relatively easy to understand within a couple of minutes
...only a couple of very small things...
1. in the story, perhaps change 'expecting' to 'planning' -
[expecting: 1. Regard (something) as likely to happen.]
[planning: 1. The process of making plans for something]
2. in each side of the texts under Diocesis Capitals....i am reading "YELD"...shouldn't that be "YIELD"....don't know if it is the font my eyes, or simple misspelling.
3. in the story, "3TH' should be "3RD"
4. in the eastern DIOCESIS CAPITALS, there is no circle and v indicator...perhaps for consistency for each side?

thanks Cairn

cairnswk wrote:Kabellanus...very nice, and relatively easy to understand within a couple of minutes
...only a couple of very small things...
1. in the story, perhaps change 'expecting' to 'planning' -
[expecting: 1. Regard (something) as likely to happen.]
[planning: 1. The process of making plans for something]
I'll change it in the next update

2. in each side of the texts under Diocesis Capitals....i am reading "YELD"...shouldn't that be "YIELD"....don't know if it is the font my eyes, or simple misspelling.
I already noticed this error, but kept forgetting to correct it

3. in the story, "3TH' should be "3RD"
I'll change it in the next update

4. in the eastern DIOCESIS CAPITALS, there is no circle and v indicator...perhaps for consistency for each side?
This is just a small remark so players can quickly associate the icon with the function. I didn't feel the need to repeat it, especially now that I've changed the lower left legend making the capitals much more perceptible

I haven't been commenting much on this map, because it's too hard to find any flaws in it... graphically, it's pretty damn near perfect already, and gameplay looks interesting as well.

Few nitpicks... the bubbles for the barbarian tribes might look better if you'd increase the opacity somewhat. They remind me of comic speech bubbles, so why not complete the image by making them more opaque.

The red bonus areas are a bit hard to tell apart. Maybe you could differentiate them some more, especially IT & IA look very similar. Maybe if you make IT clearly darker or lighter than both other red areas, since IT is in the middle it should be enough to set them apart.

The title bar in the upper left... perhaps you could add a black stroke to set it apart from the map.

The gameplay seems pretty much done, I don't have anything constructive to say about it. Good job.

Thanks Natty!

natty_dread wrote:I haven't been commenting much on this map, because it's too hard to find any flaws in it... graphically, it's pretty damn near perfect already, and gameplay looks interesting as well.

Few nitpicks... the bubbles for the barbarian tribes might look better if you'd increase the opacity somewhat. They remind me of comic speech bubbles, so why not complete the image by making them more opaque.

Well, I've tested them a lot initially. I've noticed that with this grade of opacity they would blend with the 'barbarian background' in a more 'elegant' way, not standing out too much which is a better option in my opinion.

The red bonus areas are a bit hard to tell apart. Maybe you could differentiate them some more, especially IT & IA look very similar. Maybe if you make IT clearly darker or lighter than both other red areas, since IT is in the middle it should be enough to set them apart.

I don't have that same perception on my screen and they look pretty much distinguishable... I could try to adjust them a bit though.

The title bar in the upper left... perhaps you could add a black stroke to set it apart from the map.

You're talking about the title bar/stripe?... I could make it drop a tiny shadow to make it level up from the map. I have to be careful though, I don't want to mess things up with the Roman Government bar and board....

The gameplay seems pretty much done, I don't have anything constructive to say about it. Good job.

Hi Kabanellas,

At natty said this map is near perfect graphically. I really struggled to find something constructive to say. I have a few (very minor) things to say though.

The single biggest issue I could find was the clipart used for the legions. It has a 3D perspective and dull colours which do not fit the 2d perspective of the map with vibrant colours. I would suggest going with some kind of 2d black silhouette for the legions image in order to tie them in better with 'the bigger picture'. Something like this:



Also, (this is a suggestion, rather than a criticism) you have that golden bar than reads 'roman government' up the top, which i fell looks really good. Would you be open to do another bar like that for the 'emperor bonus' box? There is space for it and I believe it would look pretty good and add a bit more consistency to your legends up top.

Finally I agree with natty that the title box at the top left needs a little something to pull it up off the map. I don't think a black stroke is the way to go, but I agree with you about maybe adding a subtle shadow. The legend boxes to the right have a very subtle shadow that pulls the boxes up, without being to intrusive, I would try something similar to that.

Excellent effort here mate. Keep it up!

I just thought a black stroke would have been consistent with the rest of the map. A simple 1 px black line on the edge where the title bar meets the map. Kinda like how you have 1px black lines on the imperial seat icons, the vicarious boxes, and the left/right sides of the map...

Thanks Gimil for the input

Well, I do like the Legions. Especially that 3D aspect of them, standing out of the map itself. It's like those little army pieces that generals used to place troops around in strategic maps.

As for the Emperor bonus suggestion, I've tried and it looks cool. I also added a small subtle shadow to the title stripe, taken from Natty's remark. Looks cool too.

[bigimg]http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af105/Kabanellas/ConquerRome8_img.png[/bigimg]

if I good read the map, the diocese capital assaults vicarius in legend in the upper right corner. if yes you should delete "diocesis capitals" and write here "vicarius".

theBastard wrote:if I good read the map, the diocese capital assaults vicarius in legend in the upper right corner. if yes you should delete "diocesis capitals" and write here "vicarius".

I could.... and they are indeed the Vicarious seats. But I'm just not sure if that would work better than what we have right now. And well, there's a direct reference to that function below Londinium, where I put that small 'V' indicator connected to the Vicarious bonus.

But you're probably right. Maybe I should change the legend from 'Diocesis Capitals' to 'Vicarious Seats'

Kabanellas wrote:But you're probably right. Maybe I should change the legend from 'Diocesis Capitals' to 'Vicarious Seats'

you have explainted in the low left legend that diocesis capitals attack vicarious seats. and I think it would be fine if you write "vicarious seats" to west and also east side.

I'm a bit worried about the small version... are you sure all numbers will fit on it? A lot of places already look tight on the large...

I've added the 3 digits armies in the more critical places

[bigimg]http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af105/Kabanellas/ConquerRome8a_img.png[/bigimg]

[bigimg]http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af105/Kabanellas/ConquerRome8_small_img.png[/bigimg]

[bigimg]http://i998.photobucket.com/albums/af105/Kabanellas/ConquerRome8_small_troops_img.png[/bigimg]

Hm... it is a bit tight... technically they fit, but...

Maybe you should ask for a couple of pixels extra size for the small only?