[Abandoned] - De Bello Gallico

[Evil DIMwit]

The bonus region boundaries are the big green lines. I suppose I should make them clearer.

And I certainly don't want to leave any visible tweaks to be done before leaving this workshop. Beta is for discovering tweaks that you couldn't find otherwise, but I see quite a few problems with the gameplay as it is; for example:
1. Having the players drop on the coalition tribes would make it too easy to drop bonuses, while having the tribes start neutral would give a big advantage to any player that happens to drop a lot of presence in the Roman provinces.
2. The victory condition of holding that many coalition tribes forces one to count to more than four, which I don't want to impose on our players.
3. I don't like it.

[MarshalNey]

And I certainly don't want to leave any visible tweaks to be done before leaving this workshop. Beta is for discovering tweaks that you couldn't find otherwise, but I see quite a few problems with the gameplay as it is; for example:
....
3. I don't like it.

That's the biggest thing right there. I hate to be so empty of ideas on such a good map... you know, maps like this are an argument for those two-sided maps that Helix was dreaming about.

Anyway, I can't think of any map that uses two separate victory conditions, which sort of makes it a selling point to my mind (yes, 3rd Crusade uses two, but only marginally so b/c they share the Holy Land... although shared territory here between the two victory conditions might help some of your problems?)

[natty dread]

I can't think of any map that uses two separate victory conditions

Europe 1914.

[eigenvector]

The bonus region boundaries are the big green lines. I suppose I should make them clearer.

And I certainly don't want to leave any visible tweaks to be done before leaving this workshop. Beta is for discovering tweaks that you couldn't find otherwise, but I see quite a few problems with the gameplay as it is; for example:
1. Having the players drop on the coalition tribes would make it too easy to drop bonuses, while having the tribes start neutral would give a big advantage to any player that happens to drop a lot of presence in the Roman provinces.
2. The victory condition of holding that many coalition tribes forces one to count to more than four, which I don't want to impose on our players.
3. I don't like it.

1. I'm not sure it's that bad - in my experience, most times it is quite possible to counter an initial onslaught of this kind - it just takes a bit of dogged determination and an ounce of luck.
2. Here's a suggestion: split the coalition into sub-coalitions (like the sub-continents on World 2.0 or a dozen other maps). This way the players will have less counting to do. You could add coloured stripes to the huts to distinguish between the sub-coalitions. Maybe if somebody here has time on their hands and a copy of Caesar's book, they can dig up suitable names for the sub-coalitions.
3.

[MarshalNey]

I can't think of any map that uses two separate victory conditions

Europe 1914.

hmph. Smart alec. Probably took you two seconds to think of that, didn't it?

Is that the only one, though? It would still be an exclusive group, if that's the case.

[natty dread]

hmph. Smart alec. Probably took you two seconds to think of that, didn't it?

Is that the only one, though? It would still be an exclusive group, if that's the case.

No it didn't, but that's only because I've played it recently... and yeah it seems to be the only one as far as I can tell.

[Evil DIMwit]

There are certainly no other maps with victory conditions that are so different from each other.

1. I'm not sure it's that bad - in my experience, most times it is quite possible to counter an initial onslaught of this kind - it just takes a bit of dogged determination and an ounce of luck.

Yeah, I'd rather not have the players rely on an ounce of luck if I can afford to.

2. Here's a suggestion: split the coalition into sub-coalitions (like the sub-continents on World 2.0 or a dozen other maps). This way the players will have less counting to do. You could add coloured stripes to the huts to distinguish between the sub-coalitions. Maybe if somebody here has time on their hands and a copy of Caesar's book, they can dig up suitable names for the sub-coalitions.

Well, that might make counting easier, even if I don't name the sub-coalitions.
I did consider putting a hut in every territory outside the Roman cities, color-coding them according to general ethnolinguistic group, and giving bonuses for holding the whole group, but in most cases the provincial borders actually did correspond with ethnolinguistic groups, so there wouldn't be much difference.

[eigenvector]

Imho, it's better to leave the number of huts the same as it is - putting a hut in every territory would obviate most of the charm.

[MarshalNey]

Imho, it's better to leave the number of huts the same as it is - putting a hut in every territory would obviate most of the charm.

You are my hero, simply for using 'obviate'- I've never heard of the word, but even if it was made up it's still cool.

...1. Having the players drop on the coalition tribes would make it too easy to drop bonuses, while having the tribes start neutral would give a big advantage to any player that happens to drop a lot of presence in the Roman provinces...

Okay, I have a question... is it just the possibility of easily dropping bonuses that bothers you? Could you, perhaps, make the tribes start at neutral 1, thus avoiding a lucky drop but not really posing a serious barrier to taking them?

[Raskholnikov]

Love the Asterix like map.

Howeer, De Bello Gallico without.... battles?

There at least 8 major battles that should be included: Bibracte, Vosges (58 BC), Sabis River (57), Morbihan Gulf (56), Gergovia, Lutetia Parisorum, Dijon, Alesia (52).

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/caes ... inners.htm

These battles should be part of the gameplay. At the very least, Alesia should be part of the winning conditions.

[Evil DIMwit]

I don't want to overcomplicate things... Particularly, I don't want to include some historical aspect for its own sake when I have really no idea of how it might contribute to gameplay. Alesia as a victory condition is even stranger because, though it certainly offered a good tactical position, the main strategic reason that Caesar attacked it was that there were 80,000 Gauls holed up inside. Caesar didn't win by victory condition; he won by wiping out his enemies.

In which case, if I'm going for historical representation, I should pretty much scrap the victory condition, and either use tribes, cities, etc. for bonuses, or not at all. Thanks, Rask!

[Evil DIMwit]

Taking this in a somewhat new direction:

Click image to enlarge.

The coalition and client tribes would start neutral, of course, which leaves 14 starting spots within Roman territory and 11 outside of it (assuming the Alps camp also starts neutral), though I might add an arbitrary number of territories if this is not enough starting spots.

The victory conditions have been scrapped, for all the reasons above.

[theBastard]

the last version looks very nice.
for me "star" as symbol for chieftains looks peliculiar. you have nice symbols (and looking ancient) - villages, roman tent, legion eagle. maybe celtic boar or celtic helmet could be fine?

Spoiler

Spoiler

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[Industrial Helix]

Hmm... interesting idea for the auto-deploys. But the big question is: Is this possible? Conditional Autodeploys? I was under the impression it was not.

The roman province areas need clarification... Perhaps even a color contrast to the green, like faded reds or something.

Click image to enlarge.

[natty dread]

Conditional autodeploy is not possible.

[eigenvector]

Assuming the auto-deploys are possible (not my province at all, pun unintended ),
it's not clear to me who gets auto-deploys: only the holder of the province for hist tents , or every tent, no matter who holds it? Same for the huts.

Also, I think that +3 for the chiefs is a bit too much.

But we're making progress here!

[Evil DIMwit]

it's not clear to me who gets auto-deploys: only the holder of the province for hist tents , or every tent, no matter who holds it? Same for the huts.

Since the only organized provinces are the Roman ones in the south, there's no notion of provinciality for most of the tents, huts, &c. Just whoever holds them at the time.

The roman province areas need clarification... Perhaps even a color contrast to the green, like faded reds or something

I'll see how well I can affect those changes while keeping the relief map style.

for me "star" as symbol for chieftains looks peliculiar. you have nice symbols (and looking ancient) - villages, roman tent, legion eagle. maybe celtic boar or celtic helmet could be fine?

The star is taken directly from a shield design in the Asterix comics, but I've no opposition for a snazzy helmet.

Hmm... interesting idea for the auto-deploys. But the big question is: Is this possible? Conditional Autodeploys? I was under the impression it was not.

Conditional autodeploy is not possible.

Assuming the auto-deploys are possible (not my province at all, pun unintended ),

That'll teach me to put together gameplay at 3 in the morning...

Ah, well. I'm patient.

[Kabanellas]

Hmm... interesting idea for the auto-deploys. But the big question is: Is this possible? Conditional Autodeploys? I was under the impression it was not.

I was just about to ask that same question here. I wanted to do something like that in the Third Crusade, an auto-deploy trigger, but Andrew killed it for me.

[Evil DIMwit]

Well, unless someone has a brilliant idea on where else to take this map, I'll just bin it until someone implements conditional autos.

[theBastard]

as you can see MrBenn promissed this


Re: XML Suggestions and Modifications II
by theBastard on Wed Jul 28, 2010 9:10 am

very good topic. was any of ideas here used in XML?

sugestion: auto-deploy conditions

descriptions: we have territory with +1 auto-deploy each turn, but if player holds one special territory (capital, holy place) the territory with +1 auto-deploy will has +2 auto-deploy.

why it should be considered: more possibilities for auto-deploy and balance between manual-deploy and auto-deploy (because there are many options how make manual-deploy higher but no one for auto-deploy).



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Re: XML Suggestions and Modifications II
by MrBenn on Wed Jul 28, 2010 10:05 am

You're right, it would be a great thing to have. Conditional Autodeploy has been at/near the top of my wish list for over a year now