[Idea] Pangea Map with Gradual Shrinking Outliers

[RjBeals]

Here's how Shep nicely summed it up in it's own thread:

This is what I sent Evan...

Since Africa is a priority, I wanted to check in as to what the last remaining issue is. Widowmakers and I tested it out in Dev, and it's still whacked.

On the map there are a couple dozen regions that lose one troop per turn. That works. If you start a turn and one of those regions only has one troop, it reverts back to neutral. That works. Trouble is, there will be situations in which a player is eliminated when their last remaining region(s) decay down to zero, and this isn't working. A player who loses his last region in this manner keeps on getting turns, but with zero troops, and the game never ends.

So we need automatic, server-forced player eliminations. No other player will get credit for the kill (as they normally would in Mercenary games) and no player will get the elimimated player's reserves. However, if a player is eliminated in an Assassin it should end the game in favor of the player whose target was eliminated.

Hope that helps.

 

[Shepherd]

The above quote reflects an issue that our team is currently working on, but it shouldn't impede the development of this idea. The problem will get sorted out.

There are really two different functions at work in Africa: Troop Decay and Killer Neutrals. The two should not be confused.

Troop Decay is when the troop count on a region is reduced when a player starts his/her turn. We can make a region lose one or more troops each round. I believe that Troop Decay ceases when the region hits 1 troop - you can't go lower than and still control that region. Right now I don't believe we have any maps with regions that automatically decay, though we do have maps with regions that automatically receive troops each round (12 Domains, Mars, Nukes).

A Killer Neutral is what we call a region that automatically turns neutral. We can set this to happen at the beginning or end of one's turn, in Nukes and 12 Domains the warhead and dragons regions turn neutral at the end of your turn, and any troops you left on there are lost forever. We can also set this to happen conditionally based on troop count; e.g. if you only have one troop on region X it turns neutral. (This is where we're currently running into trouble in Africa - the server isn't sure what to do on those rare occasions when this results in a player elimination.)

Both of these features are currently coded into our game engine, but that doesn't mean we're limited to using these systems on this map. From what I understand in reading this thread so far, I think we're talking about an entirely new feature - for sake of conversation I'll call it Region Devastation. This map wouldn't just make a region turn neutral, it would kick the controlling player off of the region, kill those armies, and make the region so inhabitable that it removes the region from play entirely. Ideally we would write into the rule a way by which we can make the regions actually look different on the map - by layering another image on top of the layer in the same way that we currently have layers for mouse-overs and attacks. And we need to think about when is the best time for regions to be Devastated - at the start of a round? The end of a round? (These are different things from the server's point of view.) The start of one's turn?

A simpler alternative would be to just use the Killer Neutral function and replace the player's troops with 500 neutral troops, which should be enough to keep most players out. That way we don't need to worry about changing the look of the map every time a region is devastated. But even so, we'd still need some new features...

For starters, we would also need the Region Devastation to be controllably randomized. We don't want the regions to be devastated in a predictable way, but we want them to be systematic in their devastation. We'd want to create sets, and have the server eliminate one or two per round from given sets. This will take some thought, since we want the system to be easily codable AND easily understandable to the player. The earlier suggestions (by me) of having multiple sets of regions that devastate and to put those sets in series now seems somewhat overwhelming. What I would suggest is this:

1. Figure out what natural disasters you (Steelrain, the map developer) would like to see result in Devastation.
2. Create one set for each natural disaster; e.g. all of the coastal regions would be devastated by rising sea levels, or all of the northern regions by cold, or all of the central regions by volcanos. Having just one set per disaster allows us to easily indicate them and explain the feature on the May Brief, and we don't need to time-delay secondary sets (which may prove confusing to the average Joe Player).
3. Determine how many regions per round we want to see Devastated from each set.

In coming up with the sets, we need to think about the possible ramifications of a region being cut off from the rest of the map by way of Devastation. Imagine playing an Assassin game, and you can't get your target's last region because the regions between you and him have been taken out of the game. That would be frustrating, though mildly amusing.

 

[Cardinalsrule]

If I may throw in 2 cents here:

I like the concepts developed in this map, it'd be great fun to play, never knowing when the ice was going to come or the volcanoes erupt. As far as the placement of the volcanoes, I suggest to make it geologically accurate, maybe 3 along the volcanic belt that goes through the center of the island? (for those of you non-geologist types, the reason for that belt is that the mid-Atlantic ridge, a tectonic spreading center, goes through Iceland and the island is essentially growing outward in both directions as the volcanic material is added.) So, a random eruption could engulf an adjoining tert and turn it neutral?

Edit: what would be really cool, but probably a coding nightmare that would make Evan want to come to my house and slap me, is for new (neutral) terts to form in the central belt randomly as the volcanoes erupt.

 

[Chilly]

Hilarious.

 

[steelrain]

For starters, we would also need the Region Devastation to be controllably randomized. We don't want the regions to be devastated in a predictable way, but we want them to be systematic in their devastation. We'd want to create sets, and have the server eliminate one or two per round from given sets. This will take some thought, since we want the system to be easily codable AND easily understandable to the player. The earlier suggestions (by me) of having multiple sets of regions that devastate and to put those sets in series now seems somewhat overwhelming. What I would suggest is this:

1. Figure out what natural disasters you (Steelrain, the map developer) would like to see result in Devastation.
2. Create one set for each natural disaster; e.g. all of the coastal regions would be devastated by rising sea levels, or all of the northern regions by cold, or all of the central regions by volcanos. Having just one set per disaster allows us to easily indicate them and explain the feature on the May Brief, and we don't need to time-delay secondary sets (which may prove confusing to the average Joe Player).

Here are some questions:

Question 1.) If all similar terts are destroyed the same way, will the game map feel too contrived?
Question 2.) If all the disaster sets are randomized and put into motion at the same time, will be like trying to dodge raindrops in a rain storm? Since you are just as likely to get hit standing still as you are trying to dodge, what is the point of dodging?

I like the idea of there being some hinterland that, if not safe, is at least safer. This 'safer' real estate will be in high demand and the center of some bloody contests. One goal of this map is to encourage players to aggressively seek out commands that have the best chance of lasting the longest.

I understand simplity for the average Joe is important. Let me propose this for simplity: Every turn 2 coastal terts freeze over at random. Every third turn one volcano tert erupts at random. Once all the coastal terts are frozen, then 2 central (non-coastal, non-volcano) terts freeze over each turn at random.

Is this straighforward enough? Is this able to be coded?

As far as the placement of the volcanoes, I suggest to make it geologically accurate, maybe 3 along the volcanic belt that goes through the center of the island? (for those of you non-geologist types, the reason for that belt is that the mid-Atlantic ridge, a tectonic spreading center, goes through Iceland and the island is essentially growing outward in both directions as the volcanic material is added.) So, a random eruption could engulf an adjoining tert and turn it neutral?

I do like the idea of being geologically accurate. While there are seven active/semi-active volancos on mainland iceland they are mostly in the eastern and southern half of the island (at least according to my map below). I'm not sure if it would look right if all the lava and death flowed in a westerly/northern direction. However, it might be possible to rework some of the terts to make this more of a possibility if we decide to go this route. A time delay of ice on the central terts could also work.

Below is an updated map with all seven volcanos each in their own tert. The command bonuses and some borders definately may need to be reworked for the sake of playability. Currently there are:
32 coastal terts
7 volcano terts
13 central (non-coastal) terts

On a future draft it might be worth redrawing the central tert bondaries so that each central tert is bordering at least two other central terts (to lower the chance of players being blocked off from the rest of the map).

Would appriciate any and all suggstions.

 

[steelrain]

I like the concepts developed in this map, it'd be great fun to play, never knowing when the ice was going to come or the volcanoes erupt.

One idea we discussed earlier was having the terts that were going to destruct change color the turn before. Maybe the freeze-over terts turn blue and the volcano terts turn red (similar to when you mouse over the screen they terts change color). This would give players a little bit of warning and would take some of the sheer randomness out of the game. Still will be fun to play...

 

[Cardinalsrule]

nah, I like the no warning thing much better.

Edit: I do want to congratulate you on a great concept that's looking more and more like a really fun map to play, steel

I kind of see it that the ice and lava make the terts go neutral, do you see them being re-takable immediately, or after a round or two?