Crusader states

[Cardinalsrule]

Not liking Cyprus either the old or the new way - the old way, as Shep pointed out, was too much, now with the changes no one will go near it. Surrounding it entirely with killer neutrals and making the entire island start neutral makes it WAY too much of an outlay of troops to take for a plus-2. I predict that it would just sit neutral and untouched in many if not most games.

 

[OneEyed]

ok, I tried to solve high bonuses.
castles are now +1 autodeploy
muslim cities have different condition for bonus

also I changed sea routes, so now will be Cyprus much more important. I hope.

brief

OneEyed

EDIT

or this version where castles are +2 autodeploy and other bonuses are lower. to make castles realy powerful.

brief

 

[Shepherd]

OneEyed, could you please mark on the map exactly which regions you intend to set as neutral starts? It will give us a better idea of how games will start.

 

[Cardinalsrule]

Shep, could you (and anyone else who wants to) weigh in again about Cyprus? I really am not liking it being assessable only through killer neutrals. Are you OK with that?

 

[OneEyed]

here are neutral starting positions. with number of troops.

if there is problemwith ships as killer neutrals I could make them "decay 1 troop per turn and revert to 1 neutral when number of troops become 0", or just simply "decay 1 troop per turn".

OneEyed

 

[Cardinalsrule]

It's just that the way you have it, a player would have to kill 10 neutrals to take Cyprus, and then to attack out have to attack a neutral. Not at ALL worth it for a plus-2 command. Cyprus might as well not be there, no one is going to go near it. IMO, there needs to be a path to attack that's not a killer neut, or the island tert itself shouldn't be a neutral. Or both.

 

[Shepherd]

I agree with Cards... Cyprus is meaningless on this map. Tripoli has the same problem - it isn't worth attacking until you already have a bonus and a big stack of armies, making that part of the map dead for much of the game.

Another concern is that only 30 regions are in play to start the game. It starts like a small map but plays like a big map. Each player is only going to start with a few regions, so the start has to be considered very carefully or else somebody could get lucky early and the game is over.

 

[Cardinalsrule]

what do you think of making the main terts in Cyprus and Tripoli NOT start neut, and making the ships not killer neuts? That might get those areas 'in the game'

 

[OneEyed]

what do you think of making the main terts in Cyprus and Tripoli NOT start neut, and making the ships not killer neuts? That might get those areas 'in the game'

looks as only the right solution. how much regions is needed in play from the start?

OneEyed

 

[ndrm31]

What about holding the 3 ships a bonus, in that case they may/or not keep a -1 killer neutral *+5 bonus and u keep the -1 or just a +2 bonus

 

[OneEyed]

I edited starting neutrals. so now there are 36 regions in play from start.

here are two versions of brief, better said two versions of sea routes. I think now when Cyprus is added more to game from start, more sea routes are better, the game is more open.

OneEyed

 

[OneEyed]

there are about 370 views of this thread, but only few replies. each new map idea and map itself needs any feedback from community. so it would be realy fine when you can post your ideas here, or just your opinion if you like or dislike map idea. the maps are made for you, you will play them, so more feedbacks from comunity can help to make maps better.

OneEyed

 

[Cardinalsrule]

I edited starting neutrals. so now there are 36 regions in play from start.


OneEyed

I like this much more. Tripoli and Cyprus are now alot more likely to be part of the game.
Since the ships are not killer neuts now, what do you think about making holding all of them a plus-1 bunus?

 

[masterjskye]

I applaud your efforts OneEyed! Another fine looking map you have produced. It usually takes me a long time to get my head around new maps, and I have to play them to really figure that out, so I don't really have much constructive criticism for you. Basically just keep at it and I reckon we'll be playing this one some day (I hope!).

 

[OneEyed]

I like this much more. Tripoli and Cyprus are now alot more likely to be part of the game.
Since the ships are not killer neuts now, what do you think about making holding all of them a plus-1 bunus?

yes, its better
about ships, I thought that if somebody will holds all three he receives negative -1 bonus. I would leave them as they are, player who gets bonus for them could build there and block game.

I applaud your efforts OneEyed! Another fine looking map you have produced. It usually takes me a long time to get my head around new maps, and I have to play them to really figure that out, so I don't really have much constructive criticism for you. Basically just keep at it and I reckon we'll be playing this one some day (I hope!).

thank you. each opinion is good and each idea or constructive critism could make better map.

OneEyed

 

[Shepherd]

I like this much more. Tripoli and Cyprus are now alot more likely to be part of the game.

I'm still skeptical, and i still don't like the 21 starting neutrals - I think it takes too much of the map out of play to start a game. I don't see why the Christian cities need to start neutral: they don't receive a bonus to begin the game unless they are coupled with a land region within the same command. The game engine is set up so that no player will get both to start a game, so players will be scrambling early to hit each other for the quick bonuses, rather than hitting neutrals for quick bonuses.

Making the Christian cities regular starts also means more than one player will start in Cyprus, which right now gives that one player an advantage there.

"Anywhere" reinforcements would be a terrible game option on this map - we don't want player one making it impossible for anyone else to grab a quick +1. We can actually turn that off as an option. (Personally I think Anywhere reinforcements are stupid on any game, but that's me.)

Since the ships are not killer neuts now, what do you think about making holding all of them a plus-1 bunus?

If the ships are starting regions it would be a disadvantage to make them a negative bonus. Imagine an eight player game and all of your starts are on sea regions - you automatically lose a third of your troop count before you get to make a move.

In the final map I think the sea regions will need to be drawn on, and not just on the brief.

And I agree, it would be nice if more people would weigh in on this project. More eyes and more voices can only make the map better. Anyone? Bueller?

 

[OneEyed]

I'm still skeptical, and i still don't like the 21 starting neutrals - I think it takes too much of the map out of play to start a game. I don't see why the Christian cities need to start neutral: they don't receive a bonus to begin the game unless they are coupled with a land region within the same command. The game engine is set up so that no player will get both to start a game, so players will be scrambling early to hit each other for the quick bonuses, rather than hitting neutrals for quick bonuses.

I did not know that it is possible to set up starting positions that no player could holds Christian city and its land region.

Making the Christian cities regular starts also means more than one player will start in Cyprus, which right now gives that one player an advantage there.

according what is writen upper I agree.

"Anywhere" reinforcements would be a terrible game option on this map - we don't want player one making it impossible for anyone else to grab a quick +1. We can actually turn that off as an option. (Personally I think Anywhere reinforcements are stupid on any game, but that's me.)

I also think anywhere reinforce is stupid . is it possible to switch off this for any map? does game engine allows you to make that only some setups of game will be valid for map?

If the ships are starting regions it would be a disadvantage to make them a negative bonus. Imagine an eight player game and all of your starts are on sea regions - you automatically lose a third of your troop count before you get to make a move.

if game engine allows you to setup that no player will starts with Christian city and its land region, I think it could be also possible to setup that no play will holds all ships from the start. but anyway I can leave ships without any bonus.

In the final map I think the sea regions will need to be drawn on, and not just on the brief.

yes, the sea routes could be drawn on map, but I like as they are made in Balkan map. they are not visible there, only when player has cursor on ship or port they are visible.

OneEyed

 

[Cardinalsrule]

I can answer the questions, I think. It is possible to turn off 'anywhere' reinforcements for a given map; they're turned off on Nukes.

The game engine is set up so that no player can start with a bonus, so it would automatically start each game with different players holding the Christian city and the land region.

I don't like the idea of negative bonuses either, I still think a +1 for holding all 3 ships is a good option. Right now, you have Cyprus as a +2 from holding the 2 Christian cities. Three terts, 2 places to defend. Reasonable. If you consider the ships with that, you'd have a +3, 6 terts, 3 places to defend. Reasonable. The ships without Cyprus, 3 terts to defend, +1. Not really worth it alone, considering that 6 terts can attack them. In short, I think a +1 for holding all 3 doesn't give a great advantage and seems like a positive addition to the game. It would also assure that no player could start with all 3.

By changing the 9 Christian cities from starting neuts, you now have only 14 starting neutrals which makes it a whole lot better, IMO. That was a great call, Shep. (By my count, there were 23 starting neuts before, including the castles)

The sea routes are invisible on Balkans and on Philippines until you curser over them. I see no reason why that couldn't be the case here, but that's a very minor point, IMO.

 

[Shepherd]

The game engine is set up so that no player can start with a bonus, so it would automatically start each game with different players holding the Christian city and the land region.

Correct.

However, there is a danger in this. The game engine, by my understanding, assigns regions to one player at a time, which causes problems on maps that have a lot of small bonuses. Let me explain:

• First, the game engine figures out what, if any, regions are supposed to be neutral. Those are coded as such.
• Then the game engine figures out how many regions each player will get, by dividing the number of available regions by the number of players.
• Next it assigns regions to randomly selected Player 1. As it does so, it look at each and every bonus to make sure that Player 1 does not start the game with a bonus.
• Then it assigns regions to Player 2, also making sure that Player 2 does not get any bonuses. Then Player 3, etc.

The problem occurs when there is an entire bonus that has not been assigned and only one player left to give regions to. For example, in a 3p game the server has assigned regions to P1 and P2, but has not yet assigned Aliye and Antalia. In order to give Player 3 the same number of regions as P1 and P2, it has to give both regions to P3, but it can't because together they make up a bonus.

The result of this situation is that the server can't resolve the problem and the game never initializes. This happens quite often on maps with 2-region bonuses; this map would have nine of them. Sea of Japan had only four little bonuses, and we had dozens of games not start. A few years ago we had a lot of zombie games on the active list before we modified some of the regions in some maps because of this problem.

So, while we can solve the problem of too many neutrals, it raises the problem of games never starting.

 

[OneEyed]

sorry for delay, I was ill.

ok, tried to solve too much neutrals problem. I kicked off Christian cities and made some changes. the bonuses need to be setup anyway, I think. now there are 40 regions in game from start and 16 starting as neutral.

and brief

OneEyed