Stronghold - updated 29/01/2015

[ManBungalow]

Map Name: Stronghold
Mapmaker(s): ManBungalow and the community
Number of Territories: 56
Special Features: Bombards, autodeploys, winning condition, starting neutrals
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: idk

Map Image: (with starting neutral values)
[bigimg]http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/rr317/ManBungalow/v11b_zpsrvw3lxwd.png~original[/bigimg]

[spoiler=regions per player]Total number of regions: 56
Number of coded neutral regions: 12
Number of playable regions: 44

number of players | number of regions per player | number of neutral regions
2 | 14 | 16
3 | 14 | 2
4 | 11 | 0
5 | 8 | 4
6 | 7 | 2
7 | 6 | 2
8 | 5 | 4
9 | 4 | 8
10 | 4 | 4
11 | 4 | 0
12 | 3 | 8[/spoiler]

[spoiler=first draft][bigimg]http://i495.photobucket.com/albums/rr317/ManBungalow/v04b_zpsb8cf2038.png[/bigimg][/spoiler]

[spoiler=GCCM criteria]01. Map based on High Fantasy (High fantasy overview bottom of post)
02. Medium map - 35-65 region count.
03. Classic Game Play.
04. Dako (winner of Graphics competition 1) must be on the map.
05. Map must depict a Battle.
06. Continental style bonuses
07. RjBeals (winner of Graphics competition 2) must be on the map.
08. Gameplay feature that must be on the map - Winning Condition
09. Gameplay feature that must be on the map - Auto Deploys
10. Gameplay feature that must be on the map - Bombardments
11. Map makers are allowed to add any one extra game play feature from the current xml features as described in the xml guide.

High fantasy (also referred to as epic fantasy) is a sub-genre of fantasy fiction, defined either by its taking place in an imaginary world distinct from our own or by the epic stature of its characters, themes and plot. Quintessential works of high fantasy, such as The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Worm Ouroboros, have both of these attributes. Accordingly, works where the fantasy world impinges on our world, or where the characters are concerned only with adventure or personal goals (as in sword and sorcery fiction) are less likely to be classed as high fantasy.[/spoiler]

[koontz1973]

First of, lets all congratulate Manbungalow on a superb win. I have sent a PM to all of the other entrants asking them to hold of for one week before posting their maps in the drafting room. This will give ManB a good amount of time to get some great feedback from those who voted for him. He says he has some ideas on how to better his map already so lets have at it.

So, this is the time for you all in the community to make a good map, great. Any idea for this should not go unspoken. No idea is so outlandish that it has to be silenced. If you see a mistake, tell ManB. If you think your idea will make the map better, tell ManB. The aim now is to make the next great community map.

ManBungalow, here are the kickers, you now have the biggest job. I have done my bit with running this contest. It is now up to you to finish it of. This map is now considered part of the foundry proper and will be given no special treatment by any cartographer (this means you need to answer all community suggestions). We will assist you in any way we can though, but you have to ask for that help.

All prizes will be awarded upon completion of this map (some when you hit beta play, others upon quenching). If this map falls to the wayside (like Papua New Guinea), the second place map will be moved into winning place and you will of forfeited all prizes. This is to make sure that we get a map from this in the end.

Once again, well done ManBungalow. I look forward to see where you can take this.

[koontz1973]

OK, so lets now move this over to the community.

Here is my first big question. What is the name of this map ManB? Do you have any idea?

[ManBungalow]

Thanks koontz.

Alrighty...
The premise is that there's a central battle for the Stronghold (which is really quite similar to Helms Deep in the Lord of the Rings, which ties up the high fantasy criterion nicely). This is. in fact, the struggle of three distinct armies battling for the stronghold.

The 888s you see on the image above just show which regions start neutral.

I've really gone for simplicity in this map. I want to make a map which everybody can understand. There are some maps out there which I'm terrified will come up if I start a 1-minute-round-speed-game, and I don't want this to be one of them.

I've been reading the public reactions to this map during the voting process.
Here is a brief to-do list:
Change the font of the region names
Probably rename some regions
Add detail to regions
Sorting out the rebel regions
Find a way to convey each bonus name

I've seen that many people don't like how the rebel regions work. To be honest, I don't either. I had difficulty getting the auto-deploy and bombardment features required by the GCCM voters into the gameplay structure. I'll think about this, and seriously review it.

Discussion focus:
Map name
Rebel regions (remember - bombardments and autodeploys must be on the map somewhere)

stop making borders "classic cities : Jakarta" style. They are ugly and you can do better than that.

More generally - graphics and gameplay

[ManBungalow]

OK, so lets now move this over to the community.

Here is my first big question. What is the name of this map ManB? Do you have any idea?

I was thinking "Three Armies", or "Battle of Three Armies".

But I'd really like the community to suggest names for consideration.

[Aleena]

The goal is to capture the stronghold - so why not call it:

Stronghold

In fact if you wanted to make more graphic changes and completely change the story Though I do not know the story behind this battle any ways.....

I see the board has a stronghold guarded by 3 armies and in the cavern 4 sets of rebels..
I for some reason see this as a great layout for Robinhood...

Change cavern walls to tree tops (so your looking down onto sherwood forest.
The Stronghold - could be Nottingham
The 3 guards are the sherif's men
The 4 rebels are robinhood's men

Players can fight with robin hood's men until they are excepted into their ranks and there after be given their support of 2 new bandits to assist you each day.

Once you capture Nottingham it takes a full day to hold it (so that you find the sherif hiding in nottingham and end his plague on the people)

so a name if you go this route "Sherwood"

Though my second view is way off target and makes you change a lot - you might want to stick with "Stronghold"

[dakky21]

On the Graphical part, you say "Mountains and water are impassable". Does that mean that river which enters the sea is also impassable? So no way from lower part of map to the upper part of map, only through Stronghold?

[ManBungalow]

On the Graphical part, you say "Mountains and water are impassable". Does that mean that river which enters the sea is also impassable? So no way from lower part of map to the upper part of map, only through Stronghold?

Yes, this is correct. It's partly a deliberate thing to funnel the activity to the three army regions.

I sort of had in mind for that top-right corner something like a wing in Supermax, where it's hugely advantageous to clear enemies out of it completely. Looking at it now, it would benefit from having a bridge between New Headland and Tantamount or similar.

I feel that I shall also redo the river because it's dangerously thin at some points.

[waauw]

On the Graphical part, you say "Mountains and water are impassable". Does that mean that river which enters the sea is also impassable? So no way from lower part of map to the upper part of map, only through Stronghold?

Yes, this is correct. It's partly a deliberate thing to funnel the activity to the three army regions.

I sort of had in mind for that top-right corner something like a wing in Supermax, where it's hugely advantageous to clear enemies out of it completely. Looking at it now, it would benefit from having a bridge between New Headland and Tantamount or similar.

I feel that I shall also redo the river because it's dangerously thin at some points.

If you could change the colour of the river too so it looks a bit different from the borders, that be nice too. I didn't even notice there was a river

Anyway, for a mapname why don't you just give it a fantasy name(made up castle/kingdom name) or just make some variation with the either the word rebel or stronghold in it.

[ManBungalow]

I'll call it Stronghold for now...partly just for the look of it when nobodies posts a headline.

[koontz1973]

ManB, I still have the GCCM PM list, so if you have anything that you need the community to decide (like a name for the map), you can set up a poll and I will PM the list with the question.

[RjBeals]

Congrats MB on the win!

Couple of things:

I like the natual colors of this map, but initially, it doesn't look like a map. I know it's a rough draft, but those patches of "mountains?" need some work.

You already mention changing fonts - thats good.

Changing the water/river colors would help.

The stronghold is nice - I would almost say really make that a focal point with some good detail, move those mountains off it a bit.

At first I didn't like how the borders didn't touch any edges, but it will work. All region borders are obvious. Any reason for the smooth vector lines instead of jagged borders? Just wondering.

Looking forward to some updates. I don't have any suggestions for a name.

[Dukasaur]

Personally, I like the font.

[koontz1973]

Manb, How about Stronghold for the title?

With the font, not really fantasy type is it but I can live with it as it is now with a clean up of the kerning.

[dolomite13]

Love the basics of this map.

The graphics however, as they are, are a great draft. But need a lot of work to make it worthy of live play. I would actually suggest scrapping all of he graphics and starting from scratch with colors for each "continent", water that is blue, and mountains that look more like mountains.

I look forward to seeing where this map goes.

=D13=

[ManBungalow]

Thanks all for some good feedback so far.



Does anybody else feel this way?

I would actually suggest scrapping all of he graphics and starting from scratch...

...with colors for each "continent", water that is blue, and mountains that look more like mountains.

Mountains and probably water, yes. The continents...I quite like being able to see the ground colours everywhere. Maybe some colour in the region names instead like Africa II ? Link: http://maps.conquerclub.com/Africa_II2.S.jpg

[Aleena]

Love the Stronghold colors and design, make it a complete circle - and branch out from that - maybe having lighter color near the stronghold and slowly getting darker, creepier colors and graphics away from the Stronghold...

Also like the shields....

I did not see the mountains as mountains, I thought they were cavern walls - to me it looks like the stronghold in under ground - if they are mountains, and not cavern walls - then yes I agree, it would be nice with better mountains..

No one seems to like the color of the water and I have to agree with that as well...

But I do like the green shades of color of the areas... Maybe replace the mountains/cavern walls with Trees so that it goes better with the area colors and just have the stronghold located in the center of a forest near a lake or water - instead of in the mountains.

[dakky21]

I like the map as it is, I'd only change color of terrain, like you have grain fields or swamps or low density forest.... and that's it. This one looks like a finished map to me and the font is fine

[rishaed]

I also think that the rebels need fixing, the thing is that simply put unlike the Siren's in Labyrinth they just autodeploy troops that you can't use/fortify with which thus makes the autodeploy useless. So lets say that you get eight guys on this map one takes the rebel territ, gets eliminated from every other territory on the map, but the Rebel base. Hes not eliminated but he can't win anymore either. It would cause frustration to players who this might happen to.

[dakky21]

Hes not eliminated but he can't win anymore either. It would cause frustration to players who this might happen to.

Yeah that would suck. But then again, San Francisco has Alcatraz, where same idea is used and it works pretty well/funny.

[Doc_Brown]

What if you change it so that rebels border each other and they can 1-way attack the nearest army? That makes the rebels more useful and it introduces additional connections to the upper right portion of the map while sticking with the theme (rebels exchange information with each other and constantly harass the armies) and without having to add bridges or change the layout.

[Aleena]

Rebels border each other?
I actually prefer the Rebels scattered across the map as they are now.
What I think might be cool though is that even though the rebels are at 3 different corners of the map - that they are all connected to each other (as if they have a hidden passage between them which connects them.)

So they will be able to do the bombarding as you desire - but they also can only assault and move between each other.
So rebels from the east (for example) can reinforce the rebels to the west - if the west appears to be in trouble at the time - by traveling through an unseen (maybe underground) hidden rebel passageway. This way a player that has control over the rebels do not feel as trapped in those one spots and they can still move at least between themselves as they see the action move around the board.

So once a rebel all ways a rebel (can not leave a rebel space) - but can move between them (which are located at different corners of the map) and from each location they have their own bombardment sites. (They should expand their bombardment areas a little - I think 4 bombardment targets per rebel site would be nice.)

Over View:

Sun Rebels
Can Bombard:
.....Potter
.....Gargoyle
.....Bishop Plains
.....Minty Fields

Coven Rebels
Can Bombard:
.....Raven
.....Iron Mine
.....Murky Valley
....Nickel Mine

Night Rebels
Can Bombard:
.....Copper
.....Tin Mine
.....Brothers' Pass
.....Scavenger Mount

Lake Rebels
Can Bombard:
....Threadhare
.....Olive Trees
.....Hares
.....Isthmus


Adjacent spaces to the Rebels have a oneway connection with the rebels.
All Rebels are only connected to themselves (all other Rebels)
So each Rebel space will have 4 bombardment sites, and be able to move, attack or reinforce any of the other Rebel sites.


Suggested Bombardment areas have cross arrows on them.
[bigimg]http://www.stradigest.com/Images/Stronghold.jpg[/bigimg]

[ViperOverLord]

What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: idk

Uh, duh! That it won the huge competition!

[ManBungalow]

[bigimg]http://www.stradigest.com/Images/Stronghold.jpg[/bigimg]

I dig this.

[dolomite13]

What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: idk

Uh, duh! That it won the huge competition!

Yes but that doesn't mean it makes it worthy of being played. It now has a chance to move through the forge the same as any other map.

I would love to see another fantasy based map as they are my favorite kind. However when looking at this map I don't feel any sense of High Fantasy. I'm sorry that I just don't. I feel the same as when I look at the classic map.

I know your not working on final graphics at the moment and that it is currently time for gameplay discussion, bonus amounts, etc... But I really hope that when you do start polishing the map you look at adding that high fantasy feel and theme to the map that it so deserves.

This is a great foundation for a map and I look forward to seeing how it develops.

Just my 13 cents worth

=D13=