AOS: Transsib 1914 <v16>

[natty dread]

As usual, I can help with proper Russian namings .

Thank you, much appreciated. I'll try to remember to call you when I can start working on this again...

[natty dread]

this is where I am now

[bigimg]http://a.imageshack.us/img801/3200/transsib3.png[/bigimg]

impassables haven't yet been placed, title and station names missing, i'll try to finish it tomorrow.

[The Bison King]

I'm not sure how I feel about white as the background color. I do know how I feel about using squares for stations... that is to say I don't like them.

I kind of have a thought for how you might be able to do the background color in the playable area's. What if it resembled the actual geography? That is to say a slow gradient from white in the north to various greens and browns in the south. Just a thought, it could be cool.

[natty dread]

This is not meant to represent the final graphical form of the map. I'd like to get the gameplay in shape first.

[Victor Sullivan]

Ha! Good one.

[Industrial Helix]

Glad to see this map back in action!

Think you can break Korea up into at least 2 spaces plus a RR station?

And I kind of feel like there should be some unison between the Russian Territories compared with the other states. Even making them all shades of the same color.

[natty dread]

Thanks IH. About Korea, we'll have to see if there's enough room. I think I'll have to cut down the territories a bit, there's some places I'm not sure if they work on the small map...

About the colours, I just picked some colours at random, I think they can be tweaked properly in graphics.

[natty dread]

this is v4

[bigimg]http://a.imageshack.us/img375/2903/transsib4.png[/bigimg]

[Victor Sullivan]

Wouldn't it be better just to have "Age of Steam: Trans-Siberian Rail" and drop the "TRANSSIB"?

[Victor Sullivan]

"Hold both termini and any 6 Transsib stations for one round to win"
Why not just hold all of them? It's only one more. Wouldn't that be more consistent with the Orient?

[natty dread]

count again

[Victor Sullivan]

Yeah, I noticed.

[natty dread]

As for your question, I don't want the objective to be too hard. I want the objective to be a viable way to win the game, not something that only gets used rarely.

However, once OE has been in beta for a while we'll see how the objective works in practice, so we'll know if there should be less or more stations in the objective.

[Victor Sullivan]

Cool beans. I can't wait to play OE! I hope it moves swiftly into beta mode.

[natty dread]

Ok... so I've been wondering: should I pursue historical accuracy at the cost of good gameplay, or the other way around?

Because the BAM (Baikal-amur mainline) which in this map goes from Krasnoyarsk to Sovgavan wasn't built until soviet times. Also, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, the trans-mongolian rail wasn't built until the 60:s or so.

So does it bother anyone that railways that didn't exist yet at the time are on the map?

[Industrial Helix]

It kind of bothers me... but not really. I guess you could take the approach of the history of the transiberian RR. You could do something like a planned railway scheme.

[natty dread]

Well it kind of bothers me too... on a historical map there shouldn't be that big inaccuracies.

So I'm thinking of maybe transforming the gameplay to something a bit different... I have some ideas...

[natty dread]

Here alternate gameplay plan is

[bigimg]http://a.imageshack.us/img825/5687/transsib5.png[/bigimg]

[Industrial Helix]

Didn't the original Transsiberian RR go straight through Manchuria, as opposed to around it? So the Transsiberian Station should be at Harbin, not tynda and birobijan

[natty dread]

Well, it may be, but both routes were operational at approximately in the same time frame... and this way there are more transsib stations.

I don't know, I guess there will be time to work on that in GP...

[natty dread]

I'll probably have to scrap the verny-novosibirsk line too, it seems it wasn't built until 1930:s...

[natty dread]

I believe I wish to further deviate from the gameplay of OE with this map, and I believe I will do it thus:

[bigimg]http://a.imageshack.us/img822/1150/transsib6.png[/bigimg]

[Victor Sullivan]

"Industrial Centers"? That seems cool. Do you have a reason for their placement?

[natty dread]

yes.

[Victor Sullivan]

Sigh... I meant are there industrial centers where you placed them on the map or are they placed strategically for gameplay reasons?