Eight Thoughts [Quenched]

[Jedimika]

^ I concur with his concise comment on the concentric circles.

[kclborat]

I seriously love this map. Visually, it is astounding.

[Keredrex]

Amazing ... Love the map Can't wait to play it

[Captain Crash]

I love the graphics!

As to the enemy concept, I think it is a little confusing as until:

Enemies are connected by the red line.

It was my understanding that the enemies were in 'thoughts' separated by one 'thought', not neighboring 'thoughts'.

So confirm for me please:

Demise and Mandate are enemies = -1
Mandate and Charity are enemies also = -1
so holding Demise, Mandate and Charity = -2

or
Only Demise and Charity are the enemies
so holding Demise, Mandate and Charity = -1

[Great Pretender]

map looks great, I noticed that you've spelt "border" wrong
you've written boarder

[WidowMakers]

I love the graphics!

As to the enemy concept, I think it is a little confusing as until:

Enemies are connected by the red line.

It was my understanding that the enemies were in 'thoughts' separated by one 'thought', not neighboring 'thoughts'.

So confirm for me please:

Demise and Mandate are enemies = -1
Mandate and Charity are enemies also = -1
so holding Demise, Mandate and Charity = -2
CORRECT

or
Only Demise and Charity are the enemies
so holding Demise, Mandate and Charity = -1

The first is correct. I am going to try and explain the ally/enemy thing better. The next update will hopefully work.

And I will spell border correctly also.

[Molacole]

the one problem I see left is the center piece...

It's a crucial stronghold and anyone who controls it is going to have a very strong advantage on this map. If they get a lucky start it could prove even more of a problem. Would it be at all possible to have the outer rim of the center piece a -1 to prevent people from walking away with an easy win because of placement?

in trips and doubs it could get even more out of control once people start forting to it. They could take the early advantage and abuse the hell out of it. If team 1 has good placement towards the center they could fort it up heavy before anyone has a chance to break it up. Then they'll just work on taking whichever bonus they decide while preventing any other thought bonus to be held.

There's other options for a bonus, but those will be pretty hard to hold though. The way I see it is if the center gives a -1 people are going to consider alternate routes of attack. Anyone challenging another player will have to pay the price of the -1 while going through the middle, but at the same time people aren't going to want to hold the middle to protect their border. It would be like coming to a decision before you've thought about it!

That will give others more of a chance to build up on a tight quarters type of map and nobody will be able to easily gain 2 thought bonuses in a couple of rounds because of placement.

Right now the way I would play this map would be to go for the center and work outwards. Then I would grab any ally bonuses that looked easy to hold while at the same time trying to gain another adjacent bonus, while saving the symbols to take over last to prevent a negative bonus before I gain a second thought. OK I'm kind of rambling... what I mean is

if I held mind I would build it up enough to prevent anyone from gaining a bonus and also taking over reason. Then I would pick whichever bonus I had good placement in. for the sake of debate I've got good placement in war so I work at taking over the symbol and play it slow while I work on taking it over. A few round go buy and I grab war while being in the position to break up any bonus from the middle. Once I'm able to hold war and the center piece it's pretty much over. I'd only have 5 thought bonuses to worry about breaking up from the center piece and be in a great position to prevent an ally bonusfrom my borders. I'd be right next to charity and fact...

explination below:

law - wealth - knowledge
death - war - inspiration
harmony - compassion - knowledge
wealth - law - war
inspiration - death - compassion
knowledge - harmony - law
war - death - wealth
compassion - inspiration - harmony

I would be in prime position (the borders of war thought) to prevent the bold bonuses from being held. The bold/underlined would already be prevented because I held war. Yeah it would create a negative, but I would also have the option to gain an ally bonus as well and I would lose 1, but they wouldn't gain 2 so it evens itself out. So if I managed to hold war thought it would immediately eliminate any possibility of the war combination from being held. I just think that center peice gives you too much of an advantage.

[Coleman]

I guess your game play vision for the map is different from ours.

The scenario you described is how we expected intelligent players to play the map... I admit I skimmed through it but I'll come back and read more later when I have the time, I have to go to class.

EDIT: I've come back and read it. You know it is funny because we were worried people just wouldn't use the center and were even thinking about giving a +1 for holding both the center territories.

Once Andy deletes my poll I'll put a new one up and see what people think.

[sully800]

Problem: I don't think the enemy bonus system will work.

If you start with any 5 neighboring symbol territories, and no other bonus, you will get +3 men for your countries, and -4 men for the enemy bonus. This was basically what KEYOGI pointed out, but a bigger problem. I don't know what the game engine would do if you had to deploy -1 armies.

Perhaps you could make lack's home pc explode, in which case carry on!

[Coleman]

Problem: I don't think the enemy bonus system will work.

If you start with any 5 neighboring symbol territories, and no other bonus, you will get +3 men for your countries, and -4 men for the enemy bonus. This was basically what KEYOGI pointed out, but a bigger problem. I don't know what the game engine would do if you had to deploy -1 armies.

Perhaps you could make lack's home pc explode, in which case carry on!

Yeah you are right... Maybe we ought to just scrap it... I'll wait tell WidowMakers is on and see what he thinks.

[Nikolai]

No, no no, don't scrap it - it's a good idea.

[WidowMakers]

Here is the latest update.

1. I fixed the gradient
2.I modified the circle to have the symbols not just the colors.
3. I moved the red enemy line and added another green ally line and red enemy line to show what were are talking about. Hope it works.



As far as keeping or removing the ally/enemy bonuses, the map is getting very cluttered. I don't want to keep putting more text on it just to explain stuff.

As far as the negative deployment goes, I have no idea. The main purpose of this map when Coleman started it was to have the ally bonus system. I feel it still needs it. Maybe we can get rid of the enemy -1 bonus though.

[Coleman]

Yeah, we should just scrap the -1, he's completely right if someone rolls 5 adjacent they are in really bad shape, especially if the other players are smart enough not to bail them out. And we really don't know what negative armies would do to lack's systems. We also already dropped from +4 and +3 to +3 and +2 so the negative armies aren't as needed to slow domination down if someone gets two of the continents as in the current system it would be +6 instead of +8.

[EvilOtto]

Yeah, we should just scrap the -1, he's completely right if someone rolls 5 adjacent they are in really bad shape, especially if the other players are smart enough not to bail them out. And we really don't know what negative armies would do to lack's systems. We also already dropped from +4 and +3 to +3 and +2 so the negative armies aren't as needed to slow domination down if someone gets two of the continents as in the current system it would be +6 instead of +8.

The problem is that if someone holds 3 allied territories they get a +2... if they add just one more territory they have two overlapping allied sets for a +4, and so on up to a bonus of +16 for holding just 8 territories. The enemy penalty was to counter that.

My vote is that you drop the enemy idea but say that you can only hold ONE allied set. To do this in the XML you would need a -2 for every double set (I think there are like 28 ways to combine the 8 allied sets? someone check me on that). A little extra XML work, but a lot easier to explain and understand.

[sfhbballnut]

negative armies work ok, see usa apocalypse, but I don't think this map needs them

[Pro_Snowboarder]

Yeah, we should just scrap the -1, he's completely right if someone rolls 5 adjacent they are in really bad shape, especially if the other players are smart enough not to bail them out. And we really don't know what negative armies would do to lack's systems. We also already dropped from +4 and +3 to +3 and +2 so the negative armies aren't as needed to slow domination down if someone gets two of the continents as in the current system it would be +6 instead of +8.

The problem is that if someone holds 3 allied territories they get a +2... if they add just one more territory they have two overlapping allied sets for a +4, and so on up to a bonus of +16 for holding just 8 territories. The enemy penalty was to counter that.

thats not all true. the part about adding only one territory is not true. you need to add at least 2 more to get another allied set. after that it starts growing faster. if you think about it its not that bad with +16 for 8 territories. i mean everyone is a boarder, so to actualy hold all of them, and get the entire +16 is unlikly.

[EvilOtto]

thats not all true. the part about adding only one territory is not true. you need to add at least 2 more to get another allied set. after that it starts growing faster.

say you have: demise, conflict, revelation. +2
now add one territory: charity, a second +2 (revelation, death, charity).

what part isn't true?

[KEYOGI]

negative armies work ok, see usa apocalypse, but I don't think this map needs them

This maps negative bonus works differently to USApocolypse though, where you can only get -1. I think scraping the Enemy bonus is the way to go and it'll give you more room to provide an explanation of the Allied system.

[Pro_Snowboarder]

thats not all true. the part about adding only one territory is not true. you need to add at least 2 more to get another allied set. after that it starts growing faster.

say you have: demise, conflict, revelation. +2
now add one territory: charity, a second +2 (revelation, death, charity).

what part isn't true?

Touché

[WidowMakers]

I will update the map today.

Removing the Enemy -1 Bonus and stating that a player cannot receive more than one ally bonus.

Or we could go and make the ally system this way. +2 for holding any set. No overlapping allies. So the max bonus you can have is +4. Once you have 3 allies there are only 3 other combos that allow a set without overlapping and once you have one of those 3 there are no more without overlapping.

????

[Coleman]

I don't really agree that the system needs to be changed as far as preventing people from having 8 +2 bonuses... Frankly I don't think anyone could do it unless they are already winning...

[Marvaddin]

Excuse me if there is something already suggested.

Really... no need to change the system. Someone will need at least 4 continents to get 2 +2 bonuses, and this is not really a problem, when compared to the +12 from the continents.

I also think that the enemy idea is not worthy. And, why would inspiration be an enemy of knowledge?

Things I would change if possible:
1st, the small symbols near the continents names on the legend, specially wealth, war, law and knowledge, because they dont match properly the contis textures.
2nd, the way the skull seems to be smiling.
3rd, the position of the unpassable border, in the top left corner, maybe exchanging with the title.
4th, the title itself. We will anyway need a shorter name to the create your game page... I think just the 8 thought is ok, once they are note really centers
5th, the way the yellow conti (and maybe the pink one) is too bright.
6th, your signature, very hidden that way.

Is there really a way to force the deployment of allied bonuses to the territories with symbols?

[Nikolai]

Yes, that explanation works well. I really think the enemy bonus is a good feature of this map. Can I suggest play-testing it again with the modified bonuses? There've been enough changes made I was thinking about play-testing again anyway.

[WidowMakers]

Here are the updates.

1) Remove the enemy bonus.
2) Make the ally bonus explanation better.




HERE ARE THINGS FOR THE NEXT UPDATE. ANY MORE?

Things I would change if possible:
1st, the small symbols near the continents names on the legend, specially wealth, war, law and knowledge, because they dont match properly the contis textures.

They do match. They are the same layer as the territories only samller and a square.

2nd, the way the skull seems to be smiling.

I will fix this

3rd, the position of the unpassable border, in the top left corner, maybe exchanging with the title.
4th, the title itself. We will anyway need a shorter name to the create your game page... I think just the 8 thought is ok, once they are note really centers

What does everyone else think?

5th, the way the yellow conti (and maybe the pink one) is too bright.

Will try to tone it down

6th, your signature, very hidden that way.

Should it be less visible or more?

[unriggable]

I think you should change the territory 'coin' to 'commonwealth' or 'luxury'.

HERE ARE THINGS FOR THE NEXT UPDATE. ANY MORE?

6th, your signature, very hidden that way.

Should it be less visible or more?

More legible...