Eastern Hemisphere [Quenched]

[yeti_c]

Bit concerned about Somaliland's army circle - could you play with that to at least try and get it onto land somewhere - SUggest moving "Horn of Africa" label a bit to help.

C.

[asl80]

here's some thoughts which could be expanded on if there's interest ...

Seems like the problem is; trading companies and colonies are good, but don't incorporate the whole map.
Alternative way of looking at it;
1 - either find some internal "empire-like" gimics for russia and china (poss. socialist uprisings/overthrows etc.) (china was nationalising wasn't it ... this could be played on?) or;

2 - remove russia/china/japan (or parts thereof) from the map completely, put your legend and stuff in the top right, and have fun making all the bonuses and trading companies work from the new starting position.
(the entire americas are absent anyway)
(when did the modern british first go into the middle east?)
(your chinese and russian continents do look beautiful though and it would be a shame to lose them)

As you have them now, i'm a fan of option B, and you could almost get away with a "new-world" like starting position to europe ... i.e.
- Europe as a continent has no bonus
- everyone starts with one each (obviously you'd need at least 8 ... russia/china {capitals} could be starting positions too + portugal and persia perhaps)
- european powers cannot be attacked/cannot attack, except through trading co.s


anyway, just some ideas that'll hopefully kickstart some more of your own.
If none of these are anything like what your thinking, no prob, but i hope you keep reviewing your options at the moment to make it all work.
good luck, have fun.

[MrBenn]

2 - remove russia/china/japan (or parts thereof) from the map completely, put your legend and stuff in the top right, and have fun making all the bonuses and trading companies work from the new starting position.
(the entire americas are absent anyway)
(when did the modern british first go into the middle east?)
(your chinese and russian continents do look beautiful though and it would be a shame to lose them)

The original idea was to include the whole of the Eastern Hemisphere, and leaving out Russia/Chine would mean leaving out the largest landmasses from it...

[asl80]

k, guess my post was also to gauge what was fundamental to the map for oaktown, i.e. whether it was "eastern hemisphere" or "empires/imperial power and transition" or the "trading companies" or classic gameplay etc.
... from there we would know what would be revisable and what must stay and be worked around.

[mibi]

k, guess my post was also to gauge what was fundamental to the map for oaktown, i.e. whether it was "eastern hemisphere" or "empires/imperial power and transition" or the "trading companies" or classic gameplay etc.
... from there we would know what would be revisable and what must stay and be worked around.

right, oaktown nees to decide whether its an eastern hemisphere map or a trading companies empire map, because right now it's a bit of both, and the sum of those parts do not make a whole in this case.

my advice is to either spread out the trading companies all over the map, or get rid of the geographic dead space, asia, china, japan, which are vital to an eastern hemisphere map but a waste of space to a trading companies map.

[oaktown]

thanks for the comments, all... I appreciate the discussion regarding what this map is supposed to be.

At it's core, it's a map of the Eastern Hemisphere. That's where it started, and in looking for a time period in which to place the map I chose the decade of the first world was because that was the period in which the eastern hemisphere saw the most fighting - war in Europe, Africa, and the Near East, revolutions sweeping across Russia and China. If you look back at the first few versions there were no trading companies or flags - just a bunch of really big and difficult to hold regions.

The concerns then were that
1) the regions were really big and difficult to hold, and
2) the relative political/economic importance of the regions didn't make sense on a purely geographic map.

So we developed all of this craziness around bombardments and colonies and trading companies, which I think would be fun but it may be the stuff of another map. Right now I'm leaning toward making this map altogether more simple, and I think that the latest version without the Trading Co's is indeed more simple, but it may not actually be any better.

Perhaps the best thing would be to walk away from it for a couple of weeks. I encourage additional conversation around the direction of this map, and when I have a sense of where I want it to go I'll post a new version.

[benny profane]

It seems to me the direction of this map (eastern hemisphere/trading companies) could continue as is.
Couldn't it be seen as a response of sorts to the New World map?
Aside from it being different time periods.
I don't think it would necessarily need to include the rest of the world...

[gho]

Germany and Portugal only have colonies in africa in your map, which makes there bonus easier to get in the first option, and makes them less influential in the second. To improve this, make New Guinea a German Colony, and ad the territory of East Timor (east of Java) to be a portugese colony.

[iancanton]

i have no strong preference between the two voting options – both will work in their own way - though i'm maybe leaning slightly in favour of the trading companies (not the single boat between africa and india). another idea to throw into the ring is empire bonuses only (including the three land-based empires of china, russia and japan as well as the european maritime empires), with no trading companies and no continental bonuses.

irrespective of whether there are trading companies, i'd like the russian empire to be composed of territories that have some basis in history, such as the ones mentioned below.

our russian empire has 12 territories with somewhat arbitrary boundaries. have u considered using the 13 military districts of the empire as a basis for territories, but treating ukraine (kiev and odessa) as one district rather than two, so that the overall number doesn't change?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_d ... an_Empire)

the differences are listed below.

amur: amur plus kolyma (merged)
irkutsk: sakha plus taymyr (merged)
omsk: siberia
caucasus: stavropol
kazan: the southeastern part of perm
moscow (the glaringly-obvious omission!): the southwestern part of perm
warsaw: poland without the coastline, bordering vilno and ukraine
vilno: coastal poland plus southern st petersburg, bordering warsaw, ukraine, moscow and st petersburg, but not finland
st petersburg: central and northern st petersburg plus northern perm
turkestan, ukraine and finland: no change

the southern part of the ural mountains can be moved to the right to accommodate the extra western territories.

ian.

ian.

[oaktown]

Hey everybody, remember this map? Well, I'm back, and I intend to complete it.

For starters, I'm re-drawing the territories within Russia, taking into consideration ian's suggestions. My borders were based on just about nothing anyway.

Once that is done, I need to decide which way I want to go with the bonuses. The poll came out almost even, with almost a quarter of the respondents saying they didn't care either way - I think this means there's no consensus opinion and we should just do something. The options right now are these:

• Trading companies, as before, which influence the rest of the world.
• No trading companies, just classic regions. (bleh)
• No trading companies, but include Empires bonuses in addition to classic regions.
• iancanton's idea of having only Empire bonuses... I think this would require coding the European countries as starting locations so that everybody starts with one colonial power, and we'd probably need to devise some way to get a "foreign legion" directly from Europe to the colonies without having to pass through the rest of the world on land. I think that this system will ultimately be as difficult to manage as the Trading Company business, so I don't know that I want to open this door.

I hope to have an update today once I sort out in my head which way to take this... discussion welcome.

Poll results:
Choose from one of the gameplay versions at the top of page 1:

A. Classic gameplay, European powers are a part of global Empire bonuses.
17
41%

B. Trading Companies start neutral, can be conquered via European powers, can bombard/be bombarded by colonies of like flag.
14
34%

C. Polls are for losers - just finish the damn map.
10
24%

[foregone]

Happiness that its back.

My vote goes towards A, again. However, why not just go with the one you feel happiest with?

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

Alright, here's my latest effort... what you now see is, in my opinion, a melding of the best parts of both previous efforts. The Empire Bonuses are still intact, as that was the more popular option in the poll and I like the idea of an ongoing scramble for africa. The Trading Companies are gone, as they were too complicated, but they've replaced by a much simpler "Naval Superiority" space which has the powers of the old Tradings Co's - it can be taken only by the European powers and can bombard the colonies around the globe, thus giving Europe the tactical edge that it deserves as the world's center of military might at the time. The Navy will start neutral and reset to an even higher neutral value, making it more costly take as the game progresses... right now I'm thinking 3 and six, but I'm open to suggestions.

This layout will also, I believe, require that eight European powers are coded as starting territories so that nobody starts with a big European edge. I'm thinking Great Britain, Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austro-Hungary, and Netherlands - sure, they don't all have Empire powers, but it at least puts everybody within striking distance of the powers. This will help reflect history nicely as well, since Europe should begin with competing powers.

Russian territories have been redrawn as per ian's suggestions, though I took the liberty of not wrapping Vilno around Warsaw down to the ukraine - it's very crowded in there already, and will only be worse on the small map.

I have some work to do still on the battleship - it's close, but it will look more like the old Trading Co's did.

why not just go with the one you feel happiest with?

Yeah, well, that would require me being entirely happy with either of the previous efforts, which I wasn't.

[pamoa]

Nice solution. for me this map is perfect!

[yeti_c]

Note : differing levels of Neutals requires an XML upgrade (see Maze Craze) - so starting 3 resetting to 6 isn't currently possible if you want to get this map out anytime soon.

C.

[oaktown]

Note : differing levels of Neutals requires an XML upgrade (see Maze Craze) - so starting 3 resetting to 6 isn't currently possible if you want to get this map out anytime soon.

Well, it's waited this long!

Yeah, it would be sitting in the tank with your Maze Craze map, yeti. I do believe this is a decent solution to the problems we were having, but it might work just as well to just start it at five or six and have it reset to the same - really, who's going to have the guns to crash through a neutral three and then bombard the foreign defenses in the first few rounds anyway?

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

Lost the increased reset idea - now we're just a killer neutral at five. Chances are players won't be throwing armies at a killer neutral early in the game anyway, so the lower starting value doesn't really add anything to the gameplay.

Other little changes include new text in the title, a bit of work to the ship (simulating waves), rewrote the naval superiority text, and I bumped a few things back into the right place after the changes in russia.

[foregone]

Small graphical note: The waving British flag in the legend is much brighter than on the map. Any chance you could dull it a tad?

Gameplay: Portugese Empire seems quite easy to hold. Any chance of adding Macau (sp?) out in the East to form part of the Empire?

[oaktown]

Gameplay: Portugese Empire seems quite easy to hold. Any chance of adding Macau (sp?) out in the East to form part of the Empire?

Three territories, none of which are connected, with four territories and an entire region between them, seem easy to hold? I'd say that the Japanese Empire and the Netherlands Colonies both present easier +2s, but when we get a game going you go for it.

I actually like having a bunch of relatively easy small bonuses that players can go for early on - I'd say that the Colonial Empire bonuses might be very attractive early on as your armies are spread across the globe, but as the game progresses you'll want to create a defensible block from which you can expand. So while somebody might have the Portuguese Empire by round two, chances are they won't still have it come round six as they're faced with opponents trying to nab Southern Africa and/or Europe.

As for Macau, we've gone back and forth with some of the smaller European possessions and pretty much decided it's not worth trying to show them all... east timor, hong kong, the many tiny countries in west africa, etc. Macau rates lower than some other locales we've left off.

[foregone]

Gameplay: Portugese Empire seems quite easy to hold. Any chance of adding Macau (sp?) out in the East to form part of the Empire?

Three territories, none of which are connected, with four territories and an entire region between them, seem easy to hold? I'd say that the Japanese Empire and the Netherlands Colonies both present easier +2s, but when we get a game going you go for it.

I actually like having a bunch of relatively easy small bonuses that players can go for early on - I'd say that the Colonial Empire bonuses might be very attractive early on as your armies are spread across the globe, but as the game progresses you'll want to create a defensible block from which you can expand. So while somebody might have the Portuguese Empire by round two, chances are they won't still have it come round six as they're faced with opponents trying to nab Southern Africa and/or Europe.

As for Macau, we've gone back and forth with some of the smaller European possessions and pretty much decided it's not worth trying to show them all... east timor, hong kong, the many tiny countries in west africa, etc. Macau rates lower than some other locales we've left off.

No sweat.

[iancanton]

ah, russia looks much more familiar now: cities in the west and an empty expanse to the east.

is the number of neutrals on the ship a bit high at 5 rather than 3? i'd certainly avoid attacking 5 neutrals unless there was no other way, so the bonus regions in africa and oceania can almost be regarded as not having borders with the colonial powers during the opening and middlegame.

have u given a bit too much of sweden to norway? the southern part of the border looks too far east.

ian.

[oaktown]

is the number of neutrals on the ship a bit high at 5 rather than 3? i'd certainly avoid attacking 5 neutrals unless there was no other way, so the bonus regions in africa and oceania can almost be regarded as not having borders with the colonial powers during the opening and middlegame.

That was kind of the idea - it should take a fairly strong european power to control the seas and disrupt empires abroad. Perhaps it is enough that it's a killer neutral? Thoughts from the foundry faithful?

On the bright side, nobody has yet launched a diatribe about how this is an awful idea - perhaps I've actually found an acceptable solution?

[pamoa]

is the number of neutrals on the ship a bit high at 5 rather than 3? I'd certainly avoid attacking 5 neutrals unless there was no other way, so the bonus regions in Africa and Oceania can almost be regarded as not having borders with the colonial powers during the opening and midgame.

That was kind of the idea - it should take a fairly strong European power to control the seas and disrupt empires abroad. Perhaps it is enough that it's a killer neutral? Thoughts from the foundry faithful?On the bright side, nobody has yet launched a diatribe about how this is an awful idea - perhaps I've actually found an acceptable solution?

The solution IS very acceptable. As I see it, the killer neutral means that if any European power does want it, it can disrupt any opponent commercial line for a while then it should be killer neutral 3 and could also happen at the beginning of the game, if someone get a good drop by example. Or you want it more like if an European power is strong enough it can take control of the seas and dominate the world then it should be more a plain 15 neutral for mid/endgame.

[reggie_mac]

ok, i just check 22 pages to make sure this hasn't been mentioned...

The North Island of New Zealand is missing its top half, it is cut off from an earlier version of the map which had the text over it but never made it back in.

Some other interesting info, NZ was considered part of NSW colony of Australia until 1840, we were provisioned for representative government by England in 1854, and government first sat in 1856, and became an independent Dominion in1907.

Hope that helps.

[asl80]

sorry oak, just some quick, notverywellthoughtthrough and partially smug replies here ...

so far i;m thinking that you've made a good compromise with the boat ... but am leaning towards an increase in its nuetral value ... remembering the intense power that can be wielded by a bombard position ... i.e. waterloo and arms race.

also, south africa is plagued with colonisation and thus should be given, as a medical reparation, a continent bonus increase of somewhere between +1 and +47 ... or i'm sure you get the point (with it's 9 borders once the boat comes into play).

japan and chinese empire look like they can be held for +6 from 3 borders, hmmm.
s.e.asia, 4 borders for +3?
(not taking how many poss. attackers there are for each into account)

but, the map's still a gooden, looking very nice.

[oaktown]

The North Island of New Zealand is missing its top half, it is cut off from an earlier version of the map which had the text over it but never made it back in.

Noted and corrected.

so far i;m thinking that you've made a good compromise with the boat ... but am leaning towards an increase in its nuetral value ... remembering the intense power that can be wielded by a bombard position ... i.e. waterloo and arms race.

The difference here is that the boat is a killer neutral - you can't stack armies there to level people at will, and any armies that you do move in will either have to be used to attack or you lose them. This bombard action is going to be far less powerful than the bombardments in Waterloo. I do agree that the neutral value should be a bit high, but for different reasons (below).

salso, south africa is plagued with colonisation and thus should be given, as a medical reparation, a continent bonus increase of somewhere between +1 and +47 ... or i'm sure you get the point (with it's 9 borders once the boat comes into play).

Precisely why I'd like to keep the Naval Superiority neutral value high - I would rather make the bombard option a risky one than have to set half of the bonuses on this map extraordinarily high to account for how easily they can be broken.

japan and chinese empire look like they can be held for +6 from 3 borders, hmmm.
s.e.asia, 4 borders for +3?

We can play this game all across the map: you can hold SE Asia and Oceania with just two borders and three potential bombardment points for a +7. On classic you can hold Australia and Asia with just three borders for a +9, or North America/South America for a +8. Asia alone in classic can be held with four borders for a +7, which is in line with the three border +6 in Asia on this map. I say that if your opponents sit back and let you take those 12 territories without a fight, you deserve the +6 bonus; Japan is a good start on this map, but so is SE Asia, so it's likely that before you wrap up China you've got somebody with a bigger bonus at your doorstep.

The solution IS very acceptable. As I see it, the killer neutral means that if any European power does want it, it can disrupt any opponent commercial line for a while then it should be killer neutral 3 and could also happen at the beginning of the game, if someone get a good drop by example. Or you want it more like if an European power is strong enough it can take control of the seas and dominate the world then it should be more a plain 15 neutral for mid/endgame.

I don't actually foresee it being used in the first few rounds, because why would you? Nobody will have a bonus that can be broken until at least the third round, and most players at that point will be preoccupied with establishing some kind of footing rather than breaking an opponent.

Another idea would be to make it a higher value - say 9 - but instead of making it a killer neutral it bleeds armies, say two per turn. That way a European power could maintain naval superiority throughout the game, but at a cost. Trouble with this is that once it is broken, it will either be strong and pummeling the rest of the world, or it will be left at a minimum and anybody can move in from Europe and hit the rest of the world at will. In either case I'd feel compelled to increase the bonus of some of the other regions, because now every flag is effectively a border.

That's really my biggest issue with NOT making it a killer neutral - do we set the value of a region based on how many places it can be bombarded, thus over-valuing it early in the game, or do we set it low and leave those players at the mercy of the Europeans late in the game? At least by making it a set killer neutral - 3 or 5 or whatever - the value of the regions remains somewhat consistent throughout.