Conquer Club

Final Rough Draft (Updated 8/20/10)

Newer Rough Draft

Click image to enlarge.

Old Rough Draft

Click image to enlarge.

Bonus Regions: 112
Killer Neutral Regions: 38
Total Regions: 150

Terrain (Killer Neutral) Areas

• Terrain Neutrals: 10
  Courage Neutrals: 28
  Total Killer Neutral Regions: 38

Bonus Areas

• Total Starting Neutral: 8
  • Corps HQs: 2
    Army HQs: 2
    Round Top: 2
  Total Regions for the Drop: 104
  • Deployable Regions (randomly assigned): 96
    Starting Positions (Corps HQs): 8
  Total Regions: 112

The map has no impassibles, technically, but I use some low-level killer neutrals for the same purpose. In the case of the hills, I made a poor-man's one-way attack, where someone wishing to go uphill must first attack a killer neutral 2- which I call 'courage', while someone attack out from a hill may proceed normally. For stone walls and streams, I used a killer neutral 1, to indicate the impossibility of staying on such a place for long- the creeks are meant to be crossed quickly since any troops stationed there would be extremely vulnerable.

The cannon bombardments are the other major setpiece of the map. Any cannon can bombard any region within its own bonus area. In addition, the big black cannons can bombard any region in adjacent bonus areas. This is a bit like Waterloo, where a lot of the map is vulnerable to bombardment. However, about 1/3 of the map is immune- the Round Tops bonus area, Gettysburg, Devil's Den and the Federal Supply bonus area.

For region names, I used the commanders of the relevant regiment, brigade or Corps; or I used an abbreviation for a piece of terrain with a number.

The only starting neutrals on the map are the two sides' HQs- which are needed in order to collect a flags bonus- 2 Corps HQs (for balance purposes), and the top of Round Top hill, which was largely unoccupied due to an astounding lack of acumen on the part of the Confederate upper command in that sector.

I'm thinking of doing one or two other maps in the same vein and era, with "Secesh Heresy" as the current working title of the map pack. I definitely would do a Missouri map- depicting either the guerilla warfare statewide, the battle at Wilson's Creek, or the battle of Pea Ridge just over the border in Arkansas. The other map(s) I had in mind were Chickamauga, Atlanta, Shiloh (Day 1), Early's raid on D.C., Vicksburg, the WIlderness, Mufreesboro or the Seven Days.

Any comments or questions are welcome- sock it to me!

Marshal Ney

Like the idea. Run with it.

I really like the courage concept.

As for 49,000 confederates official estimates put their strength at over 70,000. On day 2 all units were on field with the exception of Picketts 5,700. Subtracting the 1st days 5,200 casualties the southern strength seems low. But By Not including cav units I suppose your number is close.

Nice work and unit placements.

Fredericksburg and both Bull runs would be good maps to also consider.

And I think it was Qwert that is/was working on a Antietam map.

First impression... this map is cool but the colors hurt my eyes. I hope you go for the faded map look on this one later on in graphics.

Now after reading through it... The bonuses seem a little high. I love the courage element and the charging a hill, very nice touch.

How'd you name the territories?

Overall, it looks like quite a fun map to play (now that I'm getting used to the battle maps on CC). I look forward to playing this one and hope you continue development!

nice ideas here. the graphic need any work, but gameplay looks intersting.

about "attack uphill thru" player must hold any of courages or all?

only one of them. The courage has the name of the territory you want to assault. Just pick one and go for it.
The thing is: the courage box can be assaulted by any territory?

Yeah, the colors need to be changed, to something more in line with the bloody battle of long ago. But once that stuff is worked out, I think that you will have a pretty nice map here.

Rih0 wrote:only one of them. The courage has the name of the territory you want to assault. Just pick one and go for it.
The thing is: the courage box can be assaulted by any territory?

No. IE. If you want to attack Hays from Avery you need to conquer the Hays courage first before you can proceed to attack Hays tert. I think the courages should only be ones though. Enough of a disadvantage to have to do the extra attack.

The courage mechanism is very clever. Whether they should be ones or twos is clearly an open question, worthy of analysis and discussion in the Gameplay Workshop, where I hope to see this map soon. But first, you will need a Design Brief. Bring it on with all speed!

Thanks for the warm response guys- and yes jefjef has it correct about the courage mechanism. If you hold a region adjacent to a "hill" region, you must first attack the courage region (killer neutral 2) and then can proceed to attack the intended hill region back on the map.

I'm in a hotel in Omaha this weekend, without a lot of time, but I'll see about toning down the colors- this was just a sketch of the idea, and I wanted to make the colors distinct for easy gameplay analysis. The graphics are really in their infancy on this one.

As for the 49K figure, I used Shelby Foote's overall excellent synopsis of the battle (although for the overall map, I used books written by several other historians, along with a few primary sources in my research). He deducted Pickett's division, practically all of the Confederate cavalry, and battle losses for the first day... like you said.

IHelix, the bonus values actually received some revision, but I agonized over balancing the size of the bonuses vs. the ease with which they can be bombarded. In Waterloo, for instance, the bonus values might seem high if you aren't aware of the sweeping power of the cannon. The cannon aren't as bad as in Waterloo, but they do sweep a wide swath.

Love the ideas of more Civil War maps. I like the game play idea, but the map itself I have some questions about:
I am brand new to this, but why couldn't you use this map as the background graphics then add the overlay of the gridwork of the territories??

why couldn't you use this map as the background graphics then add the overlay of the gridwork of the territories??

a) that's not how maps are made. Graphics need to be original artwork, we can't just rip off some random guy's work from the internet...

b) that map is too large, there's a size limit for CC maps

natty_dread wrote:

why couldn't you use this map as the background graphics then add the overlay of the gridwork of the territories??

a) that's not how maps are made. Graphics need to be original artwork, we can't just rip off some random guy's work from the internet...

b) that map is too large, there's a size limit for CC maps

I imagine he had considered something like this. You know he has poured over many of this type of map but has chosen to create his own. (I love the Austerlitz type map btw)

This is in it's early stages and will only get better.

btw. I see he has done this already but I would emphasize that bonus region colors remain grays - butternuts - browns for Confederate and blues - reds - greens for Union. (get rid of the pink plz. lolol)

Be nice to see cannon icons more civil war era style.

JP007 wrote:Love the ideas of more Civil War maps. I like the game play idea...

Thanks for the support and for coming in to take look Is the gameplay clear, and is there some aspect you liked in particular?

JP007 wrote:...but why couldn't you use this map as the background graphics then add the overlay of the gridwork of the territories??

I think natty answered this well:

natty_dread wrote:
a) that's not how maps are made. Graphics need to be original artwork, we can't just rip off some random guy's work from the internet...

b) that map is too large, there's a size limit for CC maps

a) Correct.

On the other hand, in the Melting Pot it's okay (and even common) to use Internet maps as starting points of information when posting, so that others can comment on an idea. And then later, one could use the information from said maps to create your own from scratch.

b) Incidentally, the size limit for CC maps is 800 x 840 pixels for the large map and 600 x 630 pixels for the small map.

jefjef wrote:I imagine he had considered something like this. You know he has poured over many of this type of map but has chosen to create his own. (I love the Austerlitz type map btw)

This is in it's early stages and will only get better

As jefjef says, this draft is really a concept sketch with a little graphics work put into it. I didn't want to get too carried away working on it until I was sure I was on the right track. Given the support so far, I'm definitely going ahead with this.

I hope you continue to follow the map, JP, and I greatly appreciate the feedback. Keep the questions and comments coming, and I'll be ready to answer.

jefjef wrote:btw. I see he has done this already but I would emphasize that bonus region colors remain grays - butternuts - browns for Confederate and blues - reds - greens for Union. (get rid of the pink plz. lolol)

Be nice to see cannon icons more civil war era style.

Ahhh, thanks for noticing, those 'warm' confederate grays and browns vs. the 'cold' blues and purples were indeed intentional. Really, though, I didn't pick the other colors for anything other than the clarity of being different from each other.

I'm surprised that you don't like the pink. What says 'bloodbath of steel' better than pink??

As for the cannon icons, well, I'll see what I can do. I prefer to use a top-down angle, which makes it hard to convey the distictive look that a silhouette can but will blend with the prespective that I'm using.

Thanks for sincere interest, jefjef, and the insightful comments.

That's a heck of a nice draft there, Marshall. Stay with it, could be a very cool map (tho I'd suggest changing "courage" to "Charge!")

Looking Good Marshal,

I noticed the cannons can bombard any territory with their bonus area. Does that include the adjacent territories too? Or will they be considered "border" territories? If they can only bombard, I am assuming you would not be able to advance or fort off the cannon?

I am assuming the HQ's will start as neutrals?

I like the aspect of the walls and stream reverting to neutrals.

I know its early but have you given any thought to how many starting territories each player will get?

Good Luck

SB

For the HQ personally I would like to see you to use the commanders names - LEE and MEADE instead of CSA HQ and USA HQ. I assume you will be using the actual battle flags too.

Incandenza wrote:That's a heck of a nice draft there, Marshall. Stay with it, could be a very cool map (tho I'd suggest changing "courage" to "Charge!")

Thanks Incandenza, and thanks for looking in! Hrmmm... "Charge!" has more spice, certainly. But it makes less sense to seize Charge! than Courage (not that it makes a huge heap of sense to begin with). I guess it just reads better in the instructions to my mind. Still.... maybe. I'll think on it.

shaneback wrote:Looking Good Marshal,
I noticed the cannons can bombard any territory with their bonus area. Does that include the adjacent territories too? Or will they be considered "border" territories? If they can only bombard, I am assuming you would not be able to advance or fort off the cannon?

The "small" red cannons can only bombard regions (the official name, also known as 'territories') that share the same color, and no others. So Slocum, for instance, up on Powell's Hill (not named on the map) in the Union Reserve can bombard any region in the Union Reserve, but not anywhere else- it can bombard Ruger, but not Newton.

The "big" black cannon can bombard regions that share the same color, as well as any regions with colors that border the bonus area. So, AP Hill can bombard anything in the Seminary Ridge bonus area, The Angle bonus area and The Peach Orchard bonus area.

As for advancing or reinforcing out of the cannon areas... that actually a very good question. I'd been think of the Waterloo method, but then I'd have to make sure to include an instruction in the legend somewhere prominent, as that's a big problem (and a nasty surprise!) in the Waterloo map in my opinion.

Although artillery battalions often drafted nearby infantry to work the cannons when things got messy, and even charged positions when things got desperate, they really weren't a good offensive force for taking ground... soooo.... yes, I think they should probably be 'dead end' regions... although I do hate such places as they allow players to linger in a living death every so once in awhile.

shaneback wrote:I am assuming the HQ's will start as neutrals?

I like the aspect of the walls and stream reverting to neutrals.

I know its early but have you given any thought to how many starting territories each player will get?

Yeah, the HQs start at the listed value of 4 at present.

Also, you'll be pleased to know that I have paid close attention to the starting number of regions- and the current count is a golden number of particular auspiciousness, so that players will start with some 'padding' to protect them from getting knocked down by enemies who go first.

jefjef wrote:For the HQ personally I would like to see you to use the commanders names - LEE and MEADE instead of CSA HQ and USA HQ. I assume you will be using the actual battle flags too.

I'd thought about it, but I chose USA and CSA more for the layman who might never have heard of General Meade (or maybe even Lee!) and wouldn't be aware of which side was Rebel or Union based upon the general's name alone.

I'm still planning on using expanded names in the XML for each region, so for instance "USA HQ" on the map will be referred to as "USA HQ (General Meade's Army of the Potomac)" (if that isn't too long ) and "CSA HQ" could be "CSA HQ (General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia)" when shown in the logs.

As for the battle flags, well, that's in the future in graphics, but yes it would be a nice touch that I hope to add Hopefully there will be room!


Thanks everyone again for the interest and comments. I was hoping to have an update posted this weekend, but business and a slight illness have delayed me. I'll probably post a minor update on Wednesday, and have a complete graphical overhaul in the works to be posted maybe a few days after that. In the meantime, if you have any thoughts, particularly on layout or gameplay, they will be very much appreciated.

I had one thought that's been sort of circulating in my mind... which is to put flags on all of the division commanders, and then make the Corps commanders into just a +1 autodeploy. This would still greatly expand the number of flags on the map- the number of flags would increase roughly by a factor of 3, even with the loss of the corps as flags.

The advantage would be twofold to my mind:
(1) Give more chances for bonus collection in a map where bombardment will make bonuses difficult.
(2) Better show the chain of command, and give a more thematic sense of where the major units started.

The disadvantage would also be twofold:
(1) Takes up more space in the legend
(2) Clutters up the map and makes the gameplay a little more complex

Overall, I'm in favor of doing it, but I thought I'd put it out there to see what everyone else thinks.

Hey, you wanna submit a design brief?

Marshal,

I grew up 20 min north of Gettysburg, and this is a map I think we've been missing for some time. I agree, I'd like to see some more Civil War maps. I fully support this one and hope to help out with some suggestions. First though, it's "Hanover Road", only one N in the American spelling.

Jake

Industrial Helix wrote:Hey, you wanna submit a design brief?

Whoops! I'll get right on that.

jakewilliams wrote:I grew up 20 min north of Gettysburg, and this is a map I think we've been missing for some time. I agree, I'd like to see some more Civil War maps. I fully support this one and hope to help out with some suggestions. First though, it's "Hanover Road", only one N in the American spelling.

Argh! My mistake, it's spelled with one 'n' on all the maps I've looked at...

Your personal knowledge of the terrain could be quite useful- thanks for the support and the help is much appreciated!

Marshal Ney

Here's the 'updated' rough draft, a makeover will be a little while yet. Sorry for being behind on this, I've got several other plates spinning right now.

For more information, see the first post, I've put up a breakdown of the region counts.
I went ahead and put in the Corps HQs idea, and made the flags denote division commanders. There are 7 Rebel Division flags and 18 Union Division flags. I was thinking of reducing the Union flags bonus to +2 for 3 flags.... thoughts?

Because the Corps HQs were autodeploy, and I didn't want to make them neutral, I went ahead and made 8 of the 10 starting positions, with the other 2 starting as neutral. To make up for the difference in the starting drop, I opened up 2 terts on Round Top for random deployment.

Fixed the spelling of Hanover Rd, changed the cannon icons slightly, and toned down the colors somewhat- although they're still garish hopefully they won't hurt anyone's eyes anymore

A full-fledged draft is probably about a week away, but I might find some time this weekend and get it out as early as Monday....

Thanks again everyone for the support, it was a pleasant surprise.

Marshal Ney

gameplay looks very interesting and "courage" is very unique.

my notice is that the colours of Union side of map are not fit with Confederate part (for me). the green one looks as neon and also blue ones and purple one looks peliculiar. maybe play with hue/saturation could helps?

about flags, did you thought about Union flag and Confederate flag? they could give more historical look and be more different from colours of territories...

This is going to be a very nice map , I predict. My thoughts to head it in the right direction, are as follows.

1.) The change in colors are an improvement, but I still do not get the right feel of the subject. Loose any, and all of the "neon". Gradients as well, seem out of place.

2.) the font is not the best choice.

3.) The flags can be stylized (with the proper colors) to make them seem a little more authentic.

4.) all of the icons are side view except the cannons. make them side view, to maintain cohesion in this respect.

5.) I do not see Stonewall Jackson at Little Round Top. Isn't that the place where he was mortally wounded, by friendly fire ?

6.) Once you get the right colors, Make them a washed out hue, the opposite of neon.

I plan on following this map, and I hope that I can help in its development. I am a fan so far.

Love the federal eagle concept for the union corps command.

For the confederate a brighter gold would really show up and perhaps a closer rendition of the CSA stars and wreath insignia would complement the graphics better.



In re of the font. I like it. The tert font works well. The map description italic font works well and the font switch in re of the rules is good. The bonus region value font should match the tert font. There are a couple fonts in the middle that do seem a bit out of place.

In re of pork n beans / Stonewall question he was already deceased and his command divided. Ewell took the 1st corps and AP Hill the newly formed 3rd corp.

Porkenbeans has brought up a lot of interesting points, so I will use his post to organize my own thoughts.

porkenbeans wrote:This is going to be a very nice map , I predict.

Agreed.

porkenbeans wrote:My thoughts to head it in the right direction, are as follows.

1.) The change in colors are an improvement, but I still do not get the right feel of the subject. Loose any, and all of the "neon". Gradients as well, seem out of place.

Some of the colours do seem bright, but they may help the colourblind issue which will arise eventually. Gradients, however, do give the sense of elevation in some places. Seminary Ridge confuses me, though. The shading suggests a downhill run to the boundary with the Peach Orchard, Plum Run and the Angle which are then marked as uphill. Was that actually the case?

porkenbeans wrote: 2.) the font is not the best choice.

I like the territory font, but I think there are far too many font changes in the legend.

porkenbeans wrote: 3.) The flags can be stylized (with the proper colors) to make them seem a little more authentic.

Fancier flags is a great idea, but I think it's a pipe dream. There is very little room for any of these flags now, so I think you are stuck with the current size. Given that, and looking at Lunar Wars as an example of tiny flags, what are the chances of making two flags which use the same red-white-and-blue which will be distinguishable? You won't get thirteen stripes in the Union flag, meaning you run the risk of making something that looks like the Confederate Stars and Bars. I suggest that you focus on your efforts on other issues.

porkenbeans wrote: 4.) all of the icons are side view except the cannons. make them side view, to maintain cohesion in this respect.

Good point, agreed.

porkenbeans wrote: 5.) I do not see Stonewall Jackson at Little Round Top. Isn't that the place where he was mortally wounded, by friendly fire ?

No comment from me here, it wasn't in my curriculum.

porkenbeans wrote: 6.) Once you get the right colors, Make them a washed out hue, the opposite of neon.

Maps in those days no doubt lacked bright colours, but function over form rules here.

porkenbeans wrote: I plan on following this map, and I hope that I can help in its development. I am a fan so far.

Once again, agreed.