King's Court 2 [Quenched]

[Kabanellas]

Map Name: King's Court 2
Mapmaker(s): Kabanellas
Number of Territories: 335
Special Features: 10 starting positions - 1 territory (the King) that gives access to all.
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: An expansion to King's Court

I've been cooking in my mind for quite a long time a sequel to King's Court. A supersized sequel with new features and some enhanced dynamics.

Differences to King's Court:

-We now have 10 starting positions instead of 8.
-The King it's not a neutral killer anymore. It can be hold and will yield some positive and/or negative bonus.
-The Admiral was added to the Council.
-The roads now take part in game dynamics and are not just for graphical purposes like in the previous version. You can now link features for additional bonuses.
-All non-important hexes without roads on them will make you lose 2 armies per round due to attrition (Supply lines)
-New features were added: Mines, Woods, Ports, Cathedrals and the College of Cardinals.
-Cathedrals link to the College of Cardinals from where you can bombard (excommunicate) all Court members, including the King.
-Noble families now have a name instead of just letters making the lay-out more attractive. They're also represented on map by their unique coat-of-arms.
-The game can now be won by objectives.

..and that's about all folks. Hope you enjoy

Large Version - http://imageshack.us/a/img528/9528/scourt2v17img.png
Small Version - http://imageshack.us/a/img171/7572/scourt2v17bsmallimg.png
Map with neutral troops and starting positions - http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/669/scourt2v16smalltrimg.png
XML - http://www.freewebs.com/kabanellas/KC2_Version3.2.xml

Large Version
[bigimg]http://imageshack.us/a/img528/9528/scourt2v17img.png[/bigimg]

Small Version
[bigimg]http://imageshack.us/a/img171/7572/scourt2v17bsmallimg.png[/bigimg]

Neutral troops and starting positions
-starting positions will start with 2 troops when assigned to player, but with 8 neutral troops (castles) and 2 neutral troops (nobles) when not assigned
-all empty hexes/territories will start with 1 neutral troop
[bigimg]http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/669/scourt2v16smalltrimg.png[/bigimg]

[koontz1973]

I liked Kings Court so I will love this. Bigger is better.

As for other things, will leave that to later.

[Teflon Kris]

Great start - more comment later.

[AndyDufresne]

Looks mighty good, yowza. I don't think I've played much on KC1, but yowza.


--Andy

[isaiah40]

Let's do this!!

[Kabanellas]

Thanks guys!

[Victor Sullivan]

I just died by this map's sheer complexity, then was raised again by it's sheer beauty.

-Sully

[QoH]

2 words:

Fucking amazing.

[greenoaks]

my 1st thought was having a victory condition on this map would really suck. then i found the victory condition.

are you determined to maintain it at 6 castles or is that going to be influenced by feedback up or down?

i ask that because i don't yet know how many castles a player will start with in 1v1. imo they can't start with 5 each. 4 would probably also put them too close to the victory condition. 2 leaves a damn lot of empty territory to get through to find each other. that leaves 3 starting possies each.

[QoH]

my 1st thought was having a victory condition on this map would really suck. then i found the victory condition.

are you determined to maintain it at 6 castles or is that going to be influenced by feedback up or down?

i ask that because i don't yet know how many castles a player will start with in 1v1. imo they can't start with 5 each. 4 would probably also put them too close to the victory condition. 2 leaves a damn lot of empty territory to get through to find each other. that leaves 3 starting possies each.

You also need a lot more than just 6 castles to win though.

[Kabanellas]

I intend to keep the starting position limited to 2, in line with what happens on KC1.

So you'd have to get the King, 4 more Castles, 4 more Nobles and 6 Knights to win.

Of course that doing it will not be easy at all. Non-attributed castles will start with 6 or 8 neutrals. Also, owning King and Castles can be quite expensive, just to get an idea, if one owns the King with 4 castles will have a negative effect of -16 troops. Hard isn't it

It's always difficult to balance Winning Conditions between impossible objectives, which are the ones you'll accomplish when you'd win the game anyway, some rounds later, and the feasible ones.

From my part, when playing KC1 I've always felt that objectives would be a very cool add on there. So I had to insert them here

[greenoaks]

awesome,

one of the issues i had with the 1st map was the labelling of the terits. after many games i still find myself attacking a terit to find i attacked the one below what i wanted. i think it is because the labels in shops always refer to what is above it, not below. i don't play board games so i have no knowledge of how they are laid out.

anyhow the borders on the map you've uploaded are much more defined so for me that is a positive, even though i need to unlearn a behaviour.

[Kabanellas]

BOB would really help you there

[danryan]

Awesome. Let's play it. Now.

[greenoaks]

BOB would really help you there

i don't like BOB and it is not incorporated into the site.

anyhow i just took some turns on KC1 and noticed the troops container for those neutral terits sit right above the terit name for the region below and the border between is almost non-existent.

you seem to have clearly defined borders on this one so it may not become an issue, just thought i'd raise it

[laughingcavalier]

I like it!
The background graphic is a bit too busy to my eye, makes it hard to see the road layout - can it be knocked back a bit?

[Kabanellas]

I suppose I could reduce the opacity of those coats-of-arms...

[The Bison King]

Well heck. This looks pretty sweet. Kabanellas has definitely proven himself as a capable cartographer and Kings Court 1 has it's fans (not me I sucked hard when I've played it ). So uh yeah.

I'm going to go ahead and sticky this for a draft stamp. If anyone has a reason this shouldn't advance now's the time to speak up.

[TheMissionary]

Looks great, now you just have to teach me how to play it

[Victor Sullivan]

Or you could do what I do with just about every map: plunge into it with reckless abandon and complete disregard for a decent strategy and just get a feel for the map, whilst enjoying yourself, despite your confused, disgruntled opponents resent for your nonsensical actions.

-Sully

[ManBungalow]

I like it!
The background graphic is a bit too busy to my eye, makes it hard to see the road layout - can it be knocked back a bit?

I came here to say this. The background overwhelms many of the borders/roads. Some tweaking of the opacity should do the trick.

Otherwise, freaking awesome. I'll come back when I've properly digested the gameplay. I think my large intestine is just having one of those days.

[isaiah40]

Hear ye! Hear ye! The King has declared this map Draft Stamp ready!!

[Kabanellas]

Thanks !!

[Gillipig]

wow already at this stage the graphics are much better than Kings Court 1!

[Gillipig]

Did I say I like the colours? Awesome colours! I'll admit I'm not much of a fan of the first one, partly because of how it looks. This one is very beautiful though.