Balkans - or - The Balkan Peninsula

[Cardinalsrule]

the mountains that smi drew could easily be altered to follow tert borders; I like the idea of a bonus for the cities (surrounded commands). You could also add the one in Moldava to that. Maybe start them all as neutrals (2 or 3) and give a plus 1 for holding 2, plus 2 for holding 3, plus 3 for holding 4.

 

[smi]

You could also add the one in Moldava to that.

I didn't added moldova because it would be kinda imbalanced to have both the capilal bonus and an easy to hold command . Maybe if the bonus was +1 and +1 for each it would be balanced but i dont see any gameplay profit from it then , since it doesn't fall to the "easy to hold city - hard to hold command" scenario .



Tho i'm really positive about your idea about bonuses when holding 2 ,3 etc capitols .

 

[Cardinalsrule]

I threw in the Moldava one because, in my scenario, you don't get a +1 until you hold 2 of them... Works either way, though. Good idea, Smi!

 

[patsfan44]

So I just threw this up real quick(as you can tell) to show where Some good impassables would be and possible sea routes.

Allso I think the hold 3 cities for +1 and hold 4 for +2 etc is a good idea and we could easily add in more cites.

 

[smi]

In my opinion the sea routes should not connect east with west since it kind of defeats the purpose of the impassable mountains . It would also make a lucky start on either side quite snowbally since once you got hold of a command you can easily prevent holding of almost all other commands globally . I think the not having a direct route to break commands directly emulates a "buffer" which helps preventing lucky starts snowball to victory easily ( what 12 domains map does )

Also i think the mountains at bulgaria should separate greece from bulgary and not bulgary from the rest of the middle lands (so they should be horizontal and not vertical ) in order to
A. Give greece , a command without a capitol enough natural defences to be worth it .
B. Make bulgary , a command with a capitol , hard to hold as a whole , to counter balance the advantage of having a capitol

Other than the above , i like a lot the map ! Especially how the mountains flow into a river to create an impassable line in the south

 

[Shepherd]

I love the way you guys are knocking this out... keep it up!

In my opinion the sea routes should not connect east with west since it kind of defeats the purpose of the impassable mountains.

I agree with smi. I could see three sea regions - Black, Aegian, Adriatic - and they only connect nearby sea ports, but there might be a port (Istanbul) that connects with two of them. That gives the suggestion that Istanbul controls trade through the Bosphorus, which is does.

Also i think the mountains at bulgaria should separate greece from bulgary and not bulgary from the rest of the middle lands (so they should be horizontal and not vertical )

That might make more sense geographically, and it would add the benefit of making Plovdiv a protected region if the mountains ran that far. I'm also concerned that we haven't represented the Baltic Mountains at all - they should run along the north of Pernik, through the middle of Bulagaria - yes it's weird to split a country in half, but you can't fight geography.

Other than the above , i like a lot the map ! Especially how the mountains flow into a river to create an impassable line in the south

I also like the map, but the mountain into river was the one thing I immediately did NOT like. In general I don't like rivers that start and end in the middle of a map - where does that river run to? I'd rather just lose it that have this ting that doesn't make any sense.

The mountains north of Split also bother me for some reason. Maybe it's the way they run into the sea - wouldn't there be a passage for an army at the coastline? I'll think on that one.

Visually I could see this being a companion map to the Middle East, since the two border each other. But we can worry about that later.

 

[patsfan44]

So this is what I took from what every one has stated. I also added the whole Danube River because it has limited crossings. ( As wikipedia tells me)

So does this represent what everyone was thinking?

 

[smi]

there you go map

 

[ndrm31]

-Maybe it's too late, since the map is really advanced now, but for next time, we can mix the political map with the geographical map, so the mountains at bulgaria, could be a command in his own for example.

-What about to have other way of bonus?, for example to hold the sea corridors may give you some bonus, and even may have -1 decay in certain regions, that also can be done with the central river holding certain cities on it, let say the ones that have the crossing bridges

 

[smi]

-What about to have other way of bonus?, for example to hold the sea corridors may give you some bonus, and even may have -1 decay in certain regions, that also can be done with the central river holding certain cities on it, let say the ones that have the crossing bridges

If you get -1 for holding territories near the riven so why even go for them ? They would be weak as commands /not worth it , needing buffs to balance this .But i don't like the extra compexity that comes with this , i feel it doesn't give any gameplay benefit , its complexity for the sake of complexity .

 

[ndrm31]

If you get -1 for holding territories near the riven so why even go for them ? They would be weak as commands /not worth it , needing buffs to balance this .But i don't like the extra compexity that comes with this , i feel it doesn't give any gameplay benefit , its complexity for the sake of complexity .

Well, I was thinking in other kind of maps, from other sites, where u have bonus for hold an entire road, railway or river, across the commands, and the gameplay is very interesting, anyway as I said before, I should have comment this before, and we may get this on mind for the future XD

 

[Shepherd]

-Maybe it's too late, since the map is really advanced now, but for next time, we can mix the political map with the geographical map,so the mountains at bulgaria, could be a command in his own for example.

It's never too late (until it is, which it isn't), but you're right in that this may be too advanced to make such a fundamental change. It would interesting to have a map that's based on geography more than political boundaries, but it will require some thought from the start - I'd hate to just throw something into this map that doesn't make it any better.

-What about to have other way of bonus?, for example to hold the sea corridors may give you some bonus, and even may have -1 decay in certain regions, that also can be done with the central river holding certain cities on it, let say the ones that have the crossing bridges

I think a +1 for holding the Seas would work. One thing about decays is that you wouldn't want to start with a region that decays because it would be a disadvantage - they'd have to work like the conflict zones in Africa, where they start neutral so taking them is a calculated risk. On this map we're trying to maintain 72 regions for 12p and 24p games, so anything we make a neutral start has to be replaced with another region.

 

[patsfan44]

Well it looks like the map with the three sea regions has 72 regions.

Do the borders seem like they would work well?
Does there need to be a crossing in the western mountain range?
Anything else ya'll see?

 

[Shepherd]

I see a question mark in the adriatic, and I stole this from wikipedia... though I'm not sure it help much.

"There are nineteen Adriatic Sea ports (in four different countries) that each handle more than a million tonnes of cargo per year. The largest cargo ports among them are the Port of Trieste (the largest Adriatic cargo port in Italy), the Port of Venice, the Port of Ravenna, the Port of Koper (the largest Slovenian port),[257] the Port of Rijeka (the largest Croatian cargo port), and the Port of Brindisi. The largest passenger ports in the Adriatic are the Port of Split (the largest Croatian passenger port) and ports in Ancona (the largest Italian passenger seaport in the Adriatic).[258][259][260][261] The largest seaport in Montenegro is the Port of Bar."

 

[patsfan44]

I see a question mark in the adriatic, and I stole this from wikipedia... though I'm not sure it help much.

"There are nineteen Adriatic Sea ports (in four different countries) that each handle more than a million tonnes of cargo per year. The largest cargo ports among them are the Port of Trieste (the largest Adriatic cargo port in Italy), the Port of Venice, the Port of Ravenna, the Port of Koper (the largest Slovenian port),[257] the Port of Rijeka (the largest Croatian cargo port), and the Port of Brindisi. The largest passenger ports in the Adriatic are the Port of Split (the largest Croatian passenger port) and ports in Ancona (the largest Italian passenger seaport in the Adriatic).[258][259][260][261] The largest seaport in Montenegro is the Port of Bar."

So what I am getting at is the port should be in Montenegro.

Or maybe we need to look at ports other then the Adriatic sea. Like the Ionian which should be west of Greece.

 

[Shepherd]

You can have more than one port connection to that sea. Split would make sense, as it's a large port. Montenegro doesn't look to have much in the way of significant ports; Bar is the largest, but the population is only 17,000. Durres, Albania, is ten times the size. If the connections went Rjeka, Split, Durres, I think you're cool.

Not sure about how Durres borders both the country to the north and the country to the south... might be better to slow movement along the coast since there already aren't any north-south impassables.

 

[patsfan44]

You can have more than one port connection to that sea. Split would make sense, as it's a large port. Montenegro doesn't look to have much in the way of significant ports; Bar is the largest, but the population is only 17,000. Durres, Albania, is ten times the size. If the connections went Rjeka, Split, Durres, I think you're cool.

Gotcha that sounds fine.

Not sure about how Durres borders both the country to the north and the country to the south... might be better to slow movement along the coast since there already aren't any north-south impassables.

Yeah, that sounds good. Will be adjusted.

 

[patsfan44]

 

[KungFuDuet]

Looking good pat What I now think should be on its way is the bonuses of the commands

Oh! and I think you may be mistakenly colour in pristina differently...

 

[leagaepr]

It's still Instanbul instead of Istanbul