Roman Empire

[Cagey]

Well I like the standard boxes and I think the "cities as autodeploy terts" thing is the real feature of the map and the way the cities currently sit on top of their troop boxes looks just right as it is and would look less so with a variety of shapes, IMO. I think the difficulty in the GB map is because of the limited pallet to choose from for the players: if it had the full range that CM has then they'd be no problem... well, not for me anyway.

I also like the sea the way it is: I like the way the land sort of pops up and you'd lose that effect and also the sealane reinforcement.

I think I'm about ready to say this is the best I can do for this map, except maybe change the line under the title to include "of the Roman Empire at it's height", except, you know, it's a little wordy and does it really need to be spelt out? I dunno. Also contemplating putting a graphic of a motorcycle next to Rome, probably a Bonneville 750, though it might be a little hard to get the detail of make and model in such a small space.

 

[Cardinalsrule]

I'm going to say it's good to go, Cagey, I'm impressed with all the work you've done, this is a really nice map and I'm excited for when Shep has time to jump in and get it ready to go.

 

[hat7rick]

I'm going to say it's good to go, Cagey, I'm impressed with all the work you've done, this is a really nice map and I'm excited for when Shep has time to jump in and get it ready to go.

+1

 

[Cagey]

OK, final version from me:



I'll clean up the brief map a bit 'cause that's a little sloppy.

 

[ndrm31]

Great work cagey, I really like the map, and cant wait to play it, again, I guess that Im to late, to ask for killing neutrals

 

[Cagey]

I don't know what you mean by "killing neutrals".

Currently the idea is that all cities start with 3 neutral troops, except Rome which starts with 4. That leaves a base of 60 terts to be shared out at the start of the game - which poses an interesting question : if you look at your initial disposition and decide to go for a command do you take the command's city first and hope the autodeploy helps you clear out the enemies, or leave the city to be taken last?

Are the commands Italia, Orient and Hispaniola stronger because Rome Babylon and Corduba are away from the borders, or better to have a city as border since your autodeploy goes straight into the front-line?

Italia has an effective bonus of 6, with only 3 borders. Too strong?

---Just for fun here's a mock-up of how it might look in current form -

 

[Cardinalsrule]

yeah, maybe knock Italy down 1.

 

[Cagey]

Yeah but look: whoever holds Slavia is going to want Liguria big time, analogous to the Tanzania situation in CM, and Sicily has two cities right on it. That's two of the borders inherently unstable. Also the Roman +2 is offset because it takes a troop move to get them into action - two if 'border' is selected - so, you know, maybe if you can take and hold Italia you can win the game, but neither are going to be easy. I think stick with +4 but it needs to be play-tested.

I messaged both Shepeard and RJBeals a couple of days ago asking them to take another look. No response as yet.

 

[aym]

Nice work Cagey.

To clarify, when there's a sea lane to a city, the sea lane only connects to the city? And not to the land tert around/beside/behind it? (London, Instanbul, etc.)

I think a few of the connections could be clearer, such as around Instanbul, but overall it looks really nice. Hope they give this one the green light.

 

[Cagey]

All sea lane connections to cities are just to the city. You have to take the port before you can move inland.

I made the connections as clear as I could: there's a space limitation, especially around Constantinople and Londinium; there's only so many pixels to work with. I could make the broken lines bolder but then they start to look like islands or bits of land. So I dunno, maybe someone with more skills can tweak it.

 

[Sebrim]

I also love the way the map looks now - great! I think the connections are fine. I'm just wondering about the connection between the Lower Kingdom and Arabia. Does it exist?

The one thing I'm still not entirely sure about, is the division of the Caucasus. The Eastern part of what you have called 'Lasica' was in fact a vassal state called 'Albania'. There was no connection between 'Lasica' and 'Albania' north of 'Iberia', where the Caucasian Mountain Range provided a natural border to the tribes up north. See f.x. here.

So, you should probably add 'Albania' and make it 61 + 12 terts, or get rid of another territory (such as joining together the two Pannonias, for example.)

 

[aym]

I guess it is clear enough, especially once the map is playable and the connecting terts get highlighted during play. For Constantinople, you might be able to straddle the city across the strait? Then it'll be clearly connected to both commands. Moving around the city troop containers a little in the final version may make it all easier to see as well. These are all details though, looking good overall.

 

[Cagey]

I also love the way the map looks now - great! I think the connections are fine. I'm just wondering about the connection between the Lower Kingdom and Arabia. Does it exist?

The one thing I'm still not entirely sure about, is the division of the Caucasus. The Eastern part of what you have called 'Lasica' was in fact a vassal state called 'Albania'. There was no connection between 'Lasica' and 'Albania' north of 'Iberia', where the Caucasian Mountain Range provided a natural border to the tribes up north. See f.x. here.

So, you should probably add 'Albania' and make it 61 + 12 terts, or get rid of another territory (such as joining together the two Pannonias, for example.)

Yes, the Lower Kingdom borders Arabia

Well, you know, it's not a history lesson, I mean I've made up some of the names, made arbitrary divisions, moved cites... it's like Hollywood history: historical accuracy takes a back seat to entertainment, or in this case gameplay. I think adding another tert to Orient would unbalance the board. So, you know, we could but I don't think we should.

 

[Sebrim]

I think adding another tert to Orient would unbalance the board. So, you know, we could but I don't think we should.

OK, in that case, I'd say incorporate the Eastern part of 'Lasica' into 'Iberia'. It just is geographically nonsense to have that corridor along the mountain range.

 

[Shepherd]

I will get to this map within the week. Really. I pinky swear.

 

[Cardinalsrule]

Woo Hoo! Shep's here.

 

[Cagey]

 

[ndrm31]

I don't know what you mean by "killing neutrals".

Hi Cagey; by killing neutrals I mean *as I read in the past in other posts Auto decay regions -1 per turn, like in africa map; anyway now its to late, but I still hope that we can get more maps with them, to get a diferent gameplay

 

[Shepherd]

OK, let's see what you guys have done. While I apologize for my absence, it's nice to walk into a map thread that has progressed nicely and to look at a solid, well thought-out product.

For starter, I only read back a couple of pages - it's too hard to catch up with the entire conversation - so my apologies if I'm missing something major. But it does mean I'm looking at the current version with fresh eyes, as would a user coming in to play the map for the first time.

I'll quickly address the troop container concern by saying simply that you shouldn't worry about that at this stage... that can be addressed later, and doesn't have any impact on the map itself. I'm also not going to spend too much time of graphics, as gameplay should always come first. There are some colorblindness concerns with the pastels, and I'm not digging the two arches facing each other, but that's all subjective stuff that can be figured out later as well.

In looking at the map for the first time I'm confused by the cities. I read that they start neutral, which they should considering they get auto-bonuses, but I'm uncertain as to what they border. The Hispaniola city, for example, has a troop container that is 95% situated in one region and touches another, while the city icon sills over into a third. And to get from Britannia to Belgae, do you have to go through Londinium? The beauty of our highlight system is that you can fudge the border clarity on the maps a little bit because you can mouse over a region to see the borders, but I don't like relying on the highlights completely. And in this case the region itself is no more than an icon, so figuring out how to do the highlights will be challenging. The troop containers may need to be incorporated into the city icons to make it clear that they don't go with the regions behind them, and we'll need to figure out how to highlight the city icons in three different colors without making them muddy.

I assume you need to hold the cities to collect the region bonus, which we can make more clear when we get to the details later.

When I look at a map for the first time, one of the first things I try to do is figure out where the best start/s would be to see if there's an advantage to getting a particular drop. Every command is about the same size - 4 to 6 regions including the cities - and the bonuses seem reasonable given the sizes and the city benefits. So it comes down to geography. Gaul, Belgae, and Slavia basically represent a dead zone in the map because each region of each command borders another command - discouraging a player form trying to hold them for bonuses. I'd include Illyricum in that dead zone, since only one region isn't a border region, which means that most of Europe is going to be ignored early in most games. Asia Minor is the largest command on the map, so that may also be ignored early. Players will go after Britania because it doesn't have anybody picking on it, and you could expand into the smallish Belgae region, but I don't think it's unfair.

The way I see it, there are two power starts. First, Italia: six troops for holding only five regions; just three border regions; Sicily will be easy to hold so long as the two neighboring regions (both cities) remain neutrals; and northern Italy is unlikely to face much resistance because nobody can hold the two commands up there. If I'm lucky enough to drop three of four regions in Italy - or even all four since you need Rome for the bonus - I'm feeling pretty good about my start. Now, I understand the logic behind beefing up the Italy bonuses, since this is a map of the Roman Empire, bu the +4 for Italia is twice the bonus of Africa, which has more regions. I'd say keep the Rome city bonus high, but bring the Italia bonus in line with the rest of the map. And we may want to consider doing some magic behind the scenes to make it impossible to drop all four Italy regions.

Second, the player who gets the biggest drop in the east has a nice start. Both Aegytpus and the Orient get +3 plus the city drops (Africa is the same size and only gets +2). If you can take one early you move into the other, take one region in Asia Minor, and suddenly you're pulling in eight troops per turn by only defending four regions - and you can move out step by step to maintain your defensive position.

Some of this could be mitigated with a couple of impassable borders in Europe somewhere - mountains, rivers, a line of scary monsters that you steer clear of, etc. The benefits of impassables are that you create some flow to otherwise open areas map, and make it possible to hold commands and pick up bonuses - the game becomes more about knowing the map and less about brute force. Right now most of Europe is going to be settled by brute force after players have already established positions elsewhere. The final map image can be a bit larger, and to be a bit more efficient with the space, if pixels are a concern. The Rhine or the Alps or the Seine would make working on central/northern Euope more attractive and give the Rome player a true rival.

Going a bit larger with the final image would be good for clarity as well - some of the borders in Europe, Greece, and Aegyptus are a bit thin. Again, I don't like to rely on the highlights to let a player know what borders what.

I have some naming questions... in some commands I see the Roman names, and in other cases the modern English names. Consistency is nice, and since this is a Roman map it would make sense to use Roman names. And a couple of names are just incorrent: Hispaniola is an island that Columbus stumbled upon, while I believe the Romans called that region Hispania, or Iberia after the Greek. Illyricum was indeed a Roman province, but I think it's in the wrong place.

Hope I've given you something to think on... again, if I've missed a key feature of the map that has led to some misconceptions I apologize, but it does show the need to better indicate that feature on the map itself.

 

[hat7rick]

wow awesome comments! i agree/like everything Shep mentioned