ROME: CIVIL WAR v31

[isaiah40]

This is looking better.

A couple of things that can be changed:
1. The title can be shrunk down quite a bit, and changed to Rome: Civil War like you where thinking. In so doing you can shrink the canvas size - NOT THE MAP ITSELF - down to 950x800. That will leave 200px on the top of the playable area for the title. On the left side bring everything in by those 50 pixels as you have plenty of room to do so.
2. Just my personal taste, I'd remove the dagger from the title area altogether.
3. the arch ways, can you remove the background to them as you can see it in a few spots.

Again, looking good and looking forward to your next update!

[Nola_Lifer]

One more thing, where are the Forums???

[Minister X]

One more thing, where are the Forums???

What icon would you use that everyone would associate with a forum? Guy in a toga is the only one I can think of. Which forums would you name, and what would they replace?

[Nola_Lifer]

One more thing, where are the Forums???

What icon would you use that everyone would associate with a forum? Guy in a toga is the only one I can think of. Which forums would you name, and what would they replace?

I'd say the Tomb of Augusta with the Forum Magnum. The Senators look good.

[Minister X]

One more thing, where are the Forums???

What icon would you use that everyone would associate with a forum? Guy in a toga is the only one I can think of. Which forums would you name, and what would they replace?

I'd say the Tomb of Augusta with the Forum Magnum. The Senators look good.

But the Forum Magnum, the main forum, is located where I currently have the Senate and Vestal Virgins. I'm confused. What three terts would you make forums and what would you name the three? The Forum Caesarum and Forum Boarium are right next to the main forum, where I now have Sanqualine Gate and Carmentine Gate. You wouldn't want all three fora right together, would you? It would make the center of the map too important. Besides, I do want to show every known gate. There was a small Forum Olitor at one time but it was directly adjacent to Forum Boarium so that doesn't help.

Perhaps the solution is simply to rename "Senate" and call it "The Forum"???

I'm not at all against fora being used instead of a more arbitrary "aristocracy" designation, but I don't think it's worth harming gameplay or overriding the gates theme to do so.

Isaiah40: can I wait to see how many people like which title before changing it? I prefer this one, as does mviola, and some day someone (maybe even me!) might want to map one of the specific civil wars, identifying Octavian, Lepidus and Antony, or Julius Caesar and Pompey. This name avoids any future confusion. On the dagger: would it help if it were bloody, and dripping blood? Or would that be too gruesome? On the map size: I'll get to work and see if I can get all the pixels you don't like out of there.
On the archways: which ones are you talking about? They are all opaque as far as I know.

Making the tert names all the same color assumes that just having the word "gate" in the name is enough to ID it as one because while there's a 1:1 correspondence with the graphic gates it's not always obvious. I doubt having just the one color for tert names would hold up. Example: Metronian Gate in the SE corner: one can figure it out but it's easier with colored names. Perhaps the color difference I have now is enough, or at least close.

Nola Lifer: I'll create your idea for the symbol bonuses and see what it looks like - sounds like it much be much better, especially for those with English as a second language.

mviola: I like the new title, too. Caesar: I'm familiar with the anachronism problem; check out the first map, where I have a note which I later removed to save space, that read: "Locations are not historically precise; they’re close. ... Features date from between 400 BC and 330 AD." My purpose was twofold: to not mislead anyone about what was where when, and to avoid the very criticism/comment you just made. There are not enough features dating to 49 BC (when Caesar crossed the Rubicon) to populate the map - I have to use several centuries worth unless I just want to invent things. And I know you don't want me to remove all mention of Caesar, so we're sort of stuck, y'know. Or have you an idea on how to get around this?

[Minister X]

Ninth Draft. The map is now 927 wide by 944 high. The icons bonus legend has been altered, the blurb top left slightly altered, the color of non-gate tert labels altered, and some other tiny changes. The two big ones are size and the icons legend top right.

Can I hear a stamp-pad being inked up? (Or am I lacking some essential?)

Ninth Draft since replaced

Click image to enlarge.

[isaiah40]

I still think the title is too big. It detracts from the map. Maybe half the size. At any rate I'm going to sticky this and I'll have one of the FA's move this into the Main Foundry here shortly!

[Minister X]

I still think the title is too big. It detracts from the map. Maybe half the size. At any rate I'm going to sticky this and I'll have one of the FA's move this into the Main Foundry here shortly!

Thanks for the sticky. I've made the title half or less it's original size and reduced the map height accordingly, fixed some borders, altered the gates graphic, altered the color a touch, and added the bottom center map note.

Tenth draft:

since superseded

Click image to enlarge.

[isaiah40]

Much better!! Give me a couple of days to figure out what your small map size should be so we can approve your supersize application.

[mviola]

mviola: I like the new title, too. Caesar: I'm familiar with the anachronism problem; check out the first map, where I have a note which I later removed to save space, that read: "Locations are not historically precise; they’re close. ... Features date from between 400 BC and 330 AD." My purpose was twofold: to not mislead anyone about what was where when, and to avoid the very criticism/comment you just made. There are not enough features dating to 49 BC (when Caesar crossed the Rubicon) to populate the map - I have to use several centuries worth unless I just want to invent things. And I know you don't want me to remove all mention of Caesar, so we're sort of stuck, y'know. Or have you an idea on how to get around this?

I was going to suggest what you did. Switch "caesar" to "the caesar" in the description on the left. It makes it sound like it could be any emperor when all of this stuff was built, and not just Julius Caesar was dictator. Nice job.

[ironsij0287]

STAMPED!

Nice work. Now it's on to the main foundry.

[cairnswk]

Congrats MinisterX

[Minister X]

Thank-you both.

[Gillipig]

I didn't see this map until now. Looks really cool! It's got it's own look isn't trying to look like some other map.
So now that I've posted my support for the map I though I'd give you some feedback! You get a bonus for the gates and they're marked with a red text but I thought adding a red text to them only confuses. When I read that I immediately thought the bonus gates where those that had a red bridge on them.
Also what does Gate of the She-Ass mean ?

[Minister X]

You get a bonus for the gates and they're marked with a red text but I thought adding a red text to them only confuses. When I read that I immediately thought the bonus gates where those that had a red bridge on them.
Also what does Gate of the She-Ass mean ?

Good catch. I'll turn the bridges green. That should solve the problem.

Gate of the She-Ass? It's named after the road that passes under it and which pre-dates the gate: the Via Asinaria. The translation isn't a sure thing but it makes sense (?) that some very ancient road might be named after the pack animals that were driven down it.

[MarshalNey]

The overall gameplay, clarity and concept for this attractive map seem sound.

My only real concern is the likelihood of a player dropping a bonus. I truly appreciate your 1st post descriptions (the Designer's Notes are particularly helpful), however could you be so kind as to add which places might have neutrals, if any, and how strong? Also list the number of regions that each player will recieve in different size games (e.g., 25 regions per player in 2p or 3p games).

Once I know the starting setup, things should go fairly quickly in balancing the drop; it shouldn't require any major change to the gameplay elements.

-- Marshal Ney

[Minister X]

The overall gameplay, clarity and concept for this attractive map seem sound.

My only real concern is the likelihood of a player dropping a bonus. I truly appreciate your 1st post descriptions (the Designer's Notes are particularly helpful), however could you be so kind as to add which places might have neutrals, if any, and how strong? Also list the number of regions that each player will recieve in different size games (e.g., 25 regions per player in 2p or 3p games).

Once I know the starting setup, things should go fairly quickly in balancing the drop; it shouldn't require any major change to the gameplay elements.

-- Marshal Ney

Excellent points/questions. For instance, if there were no neutral starts, in a two-player game whoever went first would have a huge advantage because they're likely to have a bonus in the region of 25-30 and be able to break their opponent's bonuses significantly. The clear solution is to start all gates and special icon areas neutral.

Has there ever been a game where the neutrals start at two instead of three or more, just to prevent a fortuitous drop and first turn blitzkrieg? I can see starting all my bonus spots neutral, with a mix of twos and threes. Plain icon spots and plain gates: 2, combined icon/gates: 3. Yes, I could go with that easily enough. It means there are 33 terts to be distributed at game start. Then in a two-player game the initial bonus would be 4, which is perfect. And I love that even the first player gets a shot at a two, which makes getting a card less onerous.

Drops if there are 33 terts:
2 players: 16 each
3 players: 11 each
4 players: 8 each
5 players: 6 each
6 players: 5 each
7 players: 4 each
8 players: 4 each

If that's too few starting spots, I can add back the 15 special icon terts. You need a match of three to get a bonus. Any statisticians here? I have to rely on trial-by-spreadsheet, which should be fine. I calculate that in an average two-person game there will be 1.2 bonuses among the 15 special terts. 3 players: average .6 (meaning there will be a bonus in 60% of games played with three players). More detail? I ran a large number of trials and here are the likelihoods for two players:

zero bonuses awarded: 21% of the time
one bonus awarded: 43%
two bonuses awarded: 30%
three bonuses awarded: 6%
four bonuses awarded: 0%
all five bonuses awarded: 0%

Can we assign these 15 terts or should they start neutral? If we assign them, there will be 48 assignable at the start, which means:

Drops if there are 48 terts:
2 players: 16 each
3 players: 11 each
4 players: 8 each
5 players: 6 each
6 players: 5 each
7 players: 4 each
8 players: 4 each

What happens with three players? I simulated 60 three-player games with the 15 special terts assignable. The number of cases of the 60:

zero bonuses awarded: 32 of the 60
one bonus awarded: 22
two bonuses awarded: 5
three bonuses awarded: 1
four bonuses awarded: 0
all five bonuses awarded: 0

With four players roughly 3/4ths of the games would start with no bonus on the drop. With five players: about one game in six.

Frankly, I think that starting with only a handful of terts is less of an evil than players starting with bonuses. I'm going to make all bonus terts start neutral - twos and threes as mentioned above. Then there is ZERO chance of dropping onto a bonus, and that's perfect. New map to be posted shortly.

[TaCktiX]

I'm going to go on a different tack (no pun intended, I swear!): clarity needs some work.

- The introduction paragraph just says "blah" to me. Perhaps instead of the current wording, the following:
"The emperor lies dead in the forum. Civil war is erupting across the city. Control of the gates are vital to controlling the rampant mob. Will you fall become the next Caesar? Or will you fall as another bloody corpse?"
Lots of graphical words to really evoke some emotion in there. Likely need some tweaking myself, but hey, spur of the moment, yes?
- What's the point of the Note: Main Gates are also gates? There are no words on the map otherwise that use the words "Main Gates", only a bigger gate symbol being used in a purely image context.
- Why the use of Plus-Four? You used +4 at the top right of the map for the other bonuses, so the change is A: inconsistent, and B: confusing, as not a single map on CC uses spelled-out bonuses like that (watch someone find an example where I'm wrong and forgot ). Furthermore, with all that spelling-out the description comes off as extremely unwieldy.
- Finally, the center of the map looks REALLY plain. I realize this is a pot calling the kettle black moment (what are 90% of the feedback comments on R&C dealing with? The plain terrain), but see if you can spruce it up from the drab black/white something blob.

[Minister X]

Eleventh Draft: Neutral starters shown and bridge repairs completed:

replaced

Click image to enlarge.

New summary designer notes:
When we think of ancient Rome different things come to mind, but high on the list for most people: politics and civil strife, gladiators and the theater, public baths, monumental architecture. This game seeks to stimulate as many of those iconic images as possible while using as a central theme the walls and gates of Rome. All but a few ancient cities had walls, and where you have walls you have gates. To the people at the time these were major geographical landmarks, and to traffic flow were of course critical. The Battle of the Colline Gate is famous. • The walls make excellent impassables. Without the gates they'd of course be too restrictive; it's unusual having such extensive impassables interrupted by "passables" (gates) instead of the other way around. This gives the map a unique flavor. • The non-gate terts reflect the most important landmarks known to have existed between the construction of the inner (Servian) wall and the construction of the outer (Aurelian) walls and addition of some gates; this covers from 400 BC to 330 AD. For obvious reasons, most of what's known is what's been left standing to this day. Most reconstructions center on the late republic and early imperial periods. I used these types of sources. The only tert that I invented from whole cloth is "Houses of Ill Repute". No map I could find showed anything at all in this locale. • To draw attention to various landmarks, incorporate the use of mood-setting icons, and spread the critical areas of the map beyond the gates, I created five distinctive icons and since I'm not an artist I must admit to being proud of how nicely they make use of so few pixels. They are arranged geographically with gameplay in mind: not overly concentrated - in differing orientations. • With no real continents and all bonuses at plus 4, gameplay should be a bit more democratic than usual. There are not one or two small continents that can be claimed early by just one or two players; everyone has a more or less equal shot at a first bonus. But that's not to say that there's no room for strategy. The impassables make it possible to defend certain bonus zones with greater than average economy. Certain terts border more bonus terts than others. For instance, Temple to Venus up at the top of the map borders a set of swords and three gates, one of which is a main gate. Right next to it is Gardens of Sallust, which borders zero bonus areas. • The two daggers under the title and the mosaic border are authentic to the period and IMHO help set the mood/feel of Rome. The title (still not a sure thing) is unusual but ties in with the "theme" expressed in the top left map panel. There are other ways to map the city, and this preserves "Rome" as a name for some future map. The alternative to "Caesar is Dead" would be "Rome: Civil War", which might be better in all respects except creativity. [I await more opinions on this.]

NOTE: cross-posting with TaCktiX - will reply to him in next post.

[natty dread]

According to google translate, "asinaria" means "hanged". So maybe it's "road of the hanged"...

[Minister X]

I'm going to go on a different tack (no pun intended, I swear!): clarity needs some work.

- The introduction paragraph just says "blah" to me. Perhaps instead of the current wording, the following:
"The emperor lies dead in the forum. Civil war is erupting across the city. Control of the gates are vital to controlling the rampant mob. Will you fall become the next Caesar? Or will you fall as another bloody corpse?"
Lots of graphical words to really evoke some emotion in there. Likely need some tweaking myself, but hey, spur of the moment, yes?
- What's the point of the Note: Main Gates are also gates? There are no words on the map otherwise that use the words "Main Gates", only a bigger gate symbol being used in a purely image context.
- Why the use of Plus-Four? You used +4 at the top right of the map for the other bonuses, so the change is A: inconsistent, and B: confusing, as not a single map on CC uses spelled-out bonuses like that (watch someone find an example where I'm wrong and forgot ). Furthermore, with all that spelling-out the description comes off as extremely unwieldy.
- Finally, the center of the map looks REALLY plain. I realize this is a pot calling the kettle black moment (what are 90% of the feedback comments on R&C dealing with? The plain terrain), but see if you can spruce it up from the drab black/white something blob.

I like your wording and with one minor change have adopted it for the blurb top left. I removed "Main gates count as gates" and am glad to be rid of it; I just hope there's now no confusion over what is or is not a gate. I changed the bonus wording as wished. I've changed graphics as follows: removed the two daggers from the title area and instead placed one big dagger through the center of the image, then found and altered an image of the dead Caesar and placed him near the title.

How's that for responsiveness to comments?

Note: the Caesar image is from an old drawing held in the collection of the (USA) National Gallery. I added the daggers and blood. I don't think there should be any worries about copyright. The drawing dates to the 1860's.

Note: Changed "Gate of the She-Ass" to "Asinarian Gate", which is more consistent with all the others.

TWELFTH DRAFT:

replaced

Click image to enlarge.

[TaCktiX]

Anything before 1923 in the US is public domain, so you are free to use it as much as you wish.

[MarshalNey]

Frankly, I think that starting with only a handful of terts is less of an evil than players starting with bonuses. I'm going to make all bonus terts start neutral - twos and threes as mentioned above. Then there is ZERO chance of dropping onto a bonus, and that's perfect. New map to be posted shortly.

I am in 100% agreement.

I'm going to take a moment to post some guidelines, since your post touched upon so many good ones that perhaps haven't been stated anywhere (despite best efforts)... I apologize if I am stating the obvious. So to clarify on the points you made that lead you to this conclusion-

(1) Generally, as long as 8-player games provide at least 3 regions per player at the drop, it's not considered a problem (unless custom starting bonuses/values make a quick elimination likely).

(2) Also in general, I like to see the percentage for bonuses on the drop at or below 5% (1 in 20 games), particularly if they are greater than a +1 bonus. For something like a +4, the percentage should be 1% or lower. That may sound harsh, but consider that many thousands of games will likely be played on the map, and every time players see an opponent get a whopping +4 on the drop, they'll howl and scream at the Foundry and CC (plus they'll foe the map... well, they would if they could anyway). Obviously, this is guideline and not a rule, as dropping bonuses can work if the map is meant to distribute dropped bonuses among players. However, balance on the drop is the ultimate goal in every case.

(3) I saw that you used empirical trials to arrive at statistical probabilities. Impressive and it saves us CAs time However, if you don't mind using mathematical formulae instead of simulation, there is a quick and easy tool on CC for just such a purpose. It's Mr.Benn's Bonus Calculator that can be found in the Tools forum of the Foundry.

(4) Although starting neutral values of 3 or higher are very common on CC maps, neutral values of 1 or 2 are perfectly acceptable! In many cases, the actual value comes down to the personal concept of the mapmaker and their tastes in CC gameplay. For instance, I personally like lower neutral values because I prefer to see troops being used rather than stacked in games.

OK, end of guidelines.
-----------------

Your choices for neutral 2s and 3s and their placement looks good. Your update speed was frightening.

Your flavor text has a rogue word in it, here, "... Will you fall become the next Caesar? Or will you fall as another bloody corpse?" (italics added)
Remove the word fall in the first question. Also, I think it might read better if the two questions were combined, as in, "... Will you become the next Caesar... or just another bloody corpse?"

Also, it might be even clearer/more explicit to state in the lower right corner...
"Earn a +4 bonus for every 4 Gates..." rather than "any 4 Gates". That way, the examples below are reinforcing this single rule, rather than expanding it by stating that 8 Gates, etc. give additional bonuses.

Overall, I'm pretty comfortable with the gameplay. Great work

-- Marshal Ney

[Minister X]

Drops if there are 33 terts:
2 players: 16 each
3 players: 11 each
4 players: 8 each
5 players: 6 each
6 players: 5 each
7 players: 4 each
8 players: 4 each

...

Drops if there are 48 terts:
2 players: 16 each
3 players: 11 each
4 players: 8 each
5 players: 6 each
6 players: 5 each
7 players: 4 each
8 players: 4 each

I obviously forgot to recalculate the numbers in the second set for 48 terts. It should be:
Drops if there are 48 terts:
2 players: 24 each
3 players: 16 each
4 players: 12 each
5 players: 9 each
6 players: 8 each
7 players: 6 each
8 players: 6 each

But this question has pretty much been rendered irrelevant since the decision to go with just the 33 assignable is all but irrevocable.

I thank MarshalNey for catching those errors and will fix them at the next opportunity. I ask whether in fact I have to do any statistics since now there is ZERO chance of any bonus on the drop? [Besides, I downloaded the spreadsheet and find that it does not work for this map - not even close]

[MarshalNey]

I ask whether in fact I have to do any statistics since now there is ZERO chance of any bonus on the drop? [Besides, I downloaded the spreadsheet and find that it does not work for this map - not even close]

No, no need to do any statistics for the reasons you stated, just included the link to the tool for general info.