Oasis [Quenched]

[cicero]

Perhaps instead of a full circle (or square really) - Consider a U shape...

C.

I thought I'd mentioned that already!

A U shape would work for me.

there are a ton of extra desert areas down there, adding a bit more fertile would work nicely.
This next update might take a while. school finals and projects and everything, but I'll work on this whenever I can.

A breakthrough !!
Good call yeti (or was it InkLOsed? ).

Really looking forward to the next version wcaclimbing.

[InkL0sed]

Huzzah! I'm willing to share credit with yeti...

[wcaclimbing]

Really looking forward to the next version wcaclimbing.

It'll be a while, but it will be up eventually.
I won't post any "does this look good before I add ____" updates.
I'll put it all and post it all together as one BIG update.

[bryguy]

Huzzah! I'm willing to share credit with yeti...

and yet i could have sworn that i had posted that idea somewhere.... eh curse my poor memor..... what was i saying? oh well




cant wait for an update wca, and for the U desert that ink/yeti/bryguy came up with

[jetpac]

It could be worse. You could have attention deficit d..... hey look, something shiny!

[/hijack]

U-shape sounds like a fantastic compromise, this map just keeps on getting better

[sfhbballnut]

the brilliance stumbled upon here sometimes is quite suprising, U shape seems like it'd work real well, looking forward to seeing it

[rocky mountain]

just when i thought this map was at its prime, something else comes up that could be a major breakthrough!!!
of coarse we don't know yet how it will turn out yet, but hopefully it will be great!

[cicero]

The difficult part about a U shape is maintaining the incentive to go through the desert ...

Assuming an actual U (ie left and right sides are connected at the bottom) - perhaps the spread of oases and the size of the bonuses associated with them should be such that the ones at the top have bigger bonuses ...

[yeti_c]

The difficult part about a U shape is maintaining the incentive to go through the desert ...

Assuming an actual U (ie left and right sides are connected at the bottom) - perhaps the spread of oases and the size of the bonuses associated with them should be such that the ones at the top have bigger bonuses ...

Remember that the ultimate goal is at the top of the desert though?

C.

[wcaclimbing]

Here you go, guys. as you suggested, the fertile land is now in a U shape.

Click image to enlarge.

Stuff done:
---the fertile land now extends around the bottom of the map! (based on suggestions from page 30 and 31)
---I got rid of the N/S border in the desert. now they will just be named "Desert ##" from 1 to 81. It just didn't make much sense to me with a big part of the South desert missing to keep it split in half like that.

Stuff Lost:
In the process of adding the bottom section of fertile land, 10 Desert territories and 3 Oases were removed. The number of territories is still the same, as well as all the borders, but those territories had to change to include the fertile land.

Stuff to do:
Small version
Army numbers
Fix any problems with the graphics

Discussion questions:
New graphics. good or bad?
New gameplay. good or bad?

[oaktown]

The difficult part about a U shape is maintaining the incentive to go through the desert ...

Cicero has a point... if you want players to go after the objective you may want to do something to make it more difficult to eliminate the competition, because right now I'd stay away from the desert and just wail on everybody else.

What about adding three or four impassable boundaries - mountains, lakes, rivers - around the outside to break up the fertile land and force users into the desert?

[edbeard]

you can wail away at people in the fertile lands all you want. I'll grab some oases and get 3 armies for each one and wail on you right back

[cicero]

New graphics. good or bad?

First impression is that the roofs that you can see at the bottom of the map are bigger than those on the sides. They now look 'too big' to me. Those on the sides are already at the upper limit of 'big enough' I think.

[InkL0sed]

The difficult part about a U shape is maintaining the incentive to go through the desert ...

Cicero has a point... if you want players to go after the objective you may want to do something to make it more difficult to eliminate the competition, because right now I'd stay away from the desert and just wail on everybody else.

What about adding three or four impassable boundaries - mountains, lakes, rivers - around the outside to break up the fertile land and force users into the desert?

Also, if you notice, you can reach the Grand Oasis from the bottom much more quickly than you can from the side -- only 3 territories (one of them being an oasis).

I was gonna complain about that, but maybe it's actually fine.

[t-o-m]

i really likr this and the GFX are great, is it just me or are some - just a few - of the oasis terit names looking a bit weird becasue theyre resting the tops of the name on the oasis terit line
?
you can see this on the oasis of freedom

*this is a very very small issue*

also, on the oasis of freedom i dont like the fact that some of the grass is leaked on to oasis 27, i know its meant to be there but i dont like that particular bit becasue its the only bit of grass leakage on that oasis

[oaktown]

Also, if you notice, you can reach the Grand Oasis from the bottom much more quickly than you can from the side -- only 3 territories (one of them being an oasis).

Right, every fertile territory needs to hit at least three dead areas to reach the grand oasis, while Besk can get there in two. If you had 68 and 69 wrap under Oases of Liberty and border each other it would eliminate the border between Liberty and 76 and restore the balance.

And Ed is absolutely right about grabbing an oases for the bonus and wailing on his opponents, but that's just the problem: everybody will treat this as a normal map, you grab a cheap bonus and eliminate your enemies. If something can be done to make the objective a more attractive route to victory I think it would make games on this map (and any map with an objective for that matter) more interesting. An impassable object (mountain or lake) in each corner of the fertile lands might introduce a new obstacle to the traditional wail-away-and-win gameplay by forcing people into the desert, even if it is only to go around the lake to strike an enemy.

or it might not... it's just a thought.

[InkL0sed]

Well, considering there's only 8 armies (I think?) on each Grand Oasis, I think anybody that plays this map well will consider taking it as an option. It's certainly more doable than AoR Magic...

[t-o-m]

i think that the neutral army count is WAY too low,

theres a +3 bonus for each oasis, and quite a few of the oasis's are about 1 terit away (or between them) so you can easily get quite a few small oasis's in a turn, making your army re-enforcements quite high en-ableing you to capture the Grand Oasis easily and forting everything you got into there at the end of a turn; so i think the neutral armies need addressing

[oaktown]

Well, considering there's only 8 armies (I think?) on each Grand Oasis, I think anybody that plays this map well will consider taking it as an option. It's certainly more doable than AoR Magic...

Agreed, this seems like a more obtainable objective than those of the other objective maps we have out there. But I think that the U configuration makes elimination a more attractive route than when it was a two-sided map and enemies could find themselves split up after a few rounds.

[yeti_c]

The difficult part about a U shape is maintaining the incentive to go through the desert ...

Cicero has a point... if you want players to go after the objective you may want to do something to make it more difficult to eliminate the competition, because right now I'd stay away from the desert and just wail on everybody else.

What about adding three or four impassable boundaries - mountains, lakes, rivers - around the outside to break up the fertile land and force users into the desert?

Also, if you notice, you can reach the Grand Oasis from the bottom much more quickly than you can from the side -- only 3 territories (one of them being an oasis).

I was gonna complain about that, but maybe it's actually fine.

Could move the grand oasis up - to where "Oasis of freedom" is?

Also - Now that we've lost a couple of other oases... could we swap out "Honor" with one of the ones that aren't so controversially spelled?

C.

[InkL0sed]

Also - Now that we've lost a couple of other oases... could we swap out "Honor" with one of the ones that aren't so controversially spelled?

C.

Good compromising -- I like it.

[rocky mountain]

But I think that the U configuration makes elimination a more attractive route than when it was a two-sided map and enemies could find themselves split up after a few rounds.

The reason why we did the U thing is to avoid the problem in assassin games if someone had a bad drop and all his armies were on one side of the map: he would have no chance to win, unless getting across the desert which takes a fair amount of armies. the u shape solves that problem, but raises others, like oaktown is saying. I do like his idea of the impassibles at the corners.
Other than that, i really like it, and it just keeps getting better. how come its not stickied yet?

[yeti_c]

You only get stickied when you pass the gameplay & graphics stamp.

C.

[rocky mountain]

ya i just figured that out like 2 minutes ago in foundry discussion....... what more is there to do for those stamps then?

[sfhbballnut]

Alright, so just got the chance to take a look at the new update. The U shape looks like its gonna work out great, I disagree with those who say that it deters people going into the desert, there are no bonuses other than teritory number outside the desert, so the fight over the oases will be intense, and I'm against any kind of impassable borders in the fertile land, this is a very free and open map, lets you pick you're ouwn strategy and allows for several possible sucessful ones

No complaints on the graphics, except maybe move Woal's territory name to the top of the territory rather than the bottom, it looks out of place there. And it remains to be seen, based on numbers, but it looks like the name Grand Oasis 2 is gonna need to move up and over, but we'll see.

That's all I see for now, looks good overall, can't wait for it to be up and playable