[Abandoned] - Scandinavia

[Gillipig]

Not much feedback here these days... but that may be expected after two years

I've made another update. Nothing gameplay changing but I thought readability needed to improve on the small map, so I restored the font width (space between letters). This caused some minor collisions with borders that couldn't be fixed by rearranging, but that will be fixed next version by redrawing borders to fit better. The change was definetely worth it, the text is much easier to read now.

Have experimented further with colored borders but I'm doubtful... did a bit of shadow on the borders for now instead. Will do similar shadowing for the text next version, which should both make things look better and make the text even easier to read. Another thing I'm not happy with is the army circles, which have to be visually improved, or removed.

The only idea I have for possible gameplay changes is removing a few areas in sweden and/or norway. But I can't see much improvement doing so, not that it's worth diverting from reality for. I may be wrong of course

Edit: I've realized the number of defensible territories for certain bonus areas must go down. That may require removing a few areas, but I think it could be done simply by rearranging the borders somewhat and adding a few more water impassables.

The way I see it there are too many territs in southern Norway, the bonus is big if you can get it but geez 11 territories? Way too many I would suggest you make it 9 territories large and worth 5 troops instead of 6.
Wonderful to hear that you've got plans to complete the map, I think you're map has a great outlook but that it might need some boundaries and bonus improvements! Here are my suggestions; Make Telemark and Buskerud 1 territ and make Åkerhus and Fold 1 territ. Lower southern Norway's bonus to 5 and make the entire norway bonus 10 instead of 11. Then make Östergötaland and Halland 1 territ and lower the south sweden bonus to 5, The entire Sweden bonus goes down to either 18 or 19. I also suggest you'll bring in an additional territ southeast of Finland (since it has been finish previously) and call it something appropriate. That territ could be neutral but when owned together with the entire Finland it raises the finish bonus to 9.

[Industrial Helix]

What's a Laponia?

The Denmark idea strikes me as a bad one. I think Denmark would fit much better as a single bonus area. I know superbonuses are kind of this map's thing, but Denmark is too small imo.

Lower southern sweden by 1, middle sweden by 2 and accordingly drop 3 from the superbonus.

Otherwise, the bonuses look pretty decent to me.... I dunno if the superbonuses will come into play so much except for Finland and Denmark.

Finland kind of scares me with its two border 8 man bonus, but it's really a ton of territories to take so I don't think its a problem. By the time a player took the whole thing then shame on you for not breaking it right?

[Evil DIMwit]

Finland kind of scares me with its two border 8 man bonus, but it's really a ton of territories to take so I don't think its a problem. By the time a player took the whole thing then shame on you for not breaking it right?

You might draw a connection between Pohjois-Pohjanmaa and Norrbotten. That way Finland as a whole has one more territory to defend, while none of the subcontinents gain any territories-to-defend.


On another note, it's a bit unclear whether Åland is part of Western Finland or not, particularly since the color is difficult to discern on a region that small.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Hey there,

Just dropped by quickly while skimming through the new foundry. Your map is looking like it's coming along quite nicely, keep up the good work

The one thing that stood out as something that could be fixed from a graphic standpoint is the Baltic Island bonus in the legend. I am guessing you need to hold all four ships, regardless of colour, to hold the bonus. It may be useful to sneak in a picture of the other two colours of ship on the line just to make it clear that you need to hold them all and not just the one blue ship. Either that or perhaps make the ships all the same colour instead of matching them with the continent colour.

[Gillipig]

Have you made any progress ?

[CoolC]

Thanks everyone for the feedback!

I have been on a short vacation in the Alps and managed to break my right wrist in a skiing accident so the next version will be slightly delayed until i can use my hand again (i'm right handed). It's not too bad, i only need to have the cast on for another week. I expect to have next version with your suggestions implemented (some of them anyway) out in slightly over a week. Should be able to do it first or second week of march. Maybe sooner if working with left hand only produce good results.

Trying to stay positive. Now I've got some internal bling-bling in the form of a titanium screw!

[iancanton]

hope u're back soon, coolc!

ian.

[CoolC]

What's a Laponia?

It's not a thing, it's the name of the area. More or less anyway.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laponia


While waiting for my hand to heal i've been thinking of possible solutions to get more varied and reasonable continents / bonus areas - without removing any areas. Geographical accuracy is kind of a theme for the map so I want to make as few changes to that as possible, while still having stellar gameplay as main priority. So, I think I'll go with either of following two options, combined with a few more impassables:

1. More areas outside sub-bonuses, but needed for the big bonus. Like the map World 2.1. This would affect south norway and sweden. Possibly also another area in finland besides Åland (which is the only such area on my map currently).

2. Split the super-bonuses up into more sub-bonuses. In other words, create new bonus areas so Norway has 3 sub-continents instead of 2 and Sweden goes from 3 to 4. This could perhaps be combined with option 1.

I will create a poll for it (if I can) and when I can use my hand again I'll publish a new version with the winning option!

[natty dread]

I still think scrapping denmark and zooming the map more into the scandinavian peninsula would be a good idea. You could have a more detailed representation of the area this way.

But other than that, I think more bonus areas would be suitable for the map.

[Gillipig]

What's a Laponia?

It's not a thing, it's the name of the area. More or less anyway.
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laponia


While waiting for my hand to heal i've been thinking of possible solutions to get more varied and reasonable continents / bonus areas - without removing any areas. Geographical accuracy is kind of a theme for the map so I want to make as few changes to that as possible, while still having stellar gameplay as main priority. So, I think I'll go with either of following two options, combined with a few more impassables:

1. More areas outside sub-bonuses, but needed for the big bonus. Like the map World 2.1. This would affect south norway and sweden. Possibly also another area in finland besides Åland (which is the only such area on my map currently).

2. Split the super-bonuses up into more sub-bonuses. In other words, create new bonus areas so Norway has 3 sub-continents instead of 2 and Sweden goes from 3 to 4. This could perhaps be combined with option 1.

I will create a poll for it (if I can) and when I can use my hand again I'll publish a new version with the winning option!

I've got some ideas! How about making neither of the islands a part of the regular bonuses and add an area south-west of finland? (that area have previously been finnish by the way) If you want you could also bring in some military stuff into the map! Like holding airfields, docks and army stations. I think that could add to the maps uniqueness. Especially since Natty is doing a map with a similar look. Not saying that anyone are copying the other though .

[iancanton]

The way I see it there are too many territs in southern Norway, the bonus is big if you can get it but geez 11 territories? Way too many I would suggest you make it 9 territories large and worth 5 troops instead of 6.

a relatively simple way of splitting southern norway without changing any region boundaries or creating too many extra border regions is to separate western norway (vestlandet) as a 4-region bonus.

http://www.vestlandsraadet.no/ir/public ... 8304017271

i'm not convinced that an extra bonus zone can be created sensibly for sweden, which falls historically into the existing three divisions, without making the superbonuses very awkward.

http://www.algonet.se/~hogman/swe_province-county.htm

I've realized the number of defensible territories for certain bonus areas must go down. That may require removing a few areas, but I think it could be done simply by rearranging the borders somewhat and adding a few more water impassables.

the main mountain range can certainly be extended southward, with openings to allow attacks from fold to dalsland and from hedmark to värmland. to reduce the linearity of northern norway, perhaps sør-trøndelag can be made adjacent to jämtland by removing the mountains there, since trøndheim was once part of sweden (during the time of gustav vasa) when the rest of norway was danish.

åland must be made a more distinct colour from western finland, perhaps by swapping the colours of åland and eastern finland.

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

I've got two suggestions for your bonus woes:

1) Cut your territory number in half and you'll be just fine.

2) Super-bonues. +4 for holding any 6 Swedish territories, ect...

[CoolC]

Hi folks. My wrist is pretty much healed and back to normal now. I will get a version with the new continents out in the next few days.

I will split south norway into two cont. and probably make 4 out of sweden. All current continents in sweden will be affected in that case. Then possibly split east finland into two, but not sure about that one... I will not remove any areas but a few more impassables will be added. The idea is to keep a few large hard-to-get continents with big bonuses but also get some smaller ones in between, not just denmark in the south.

The biggest problem is actually not the new continents, it's finding room for the legend on the small map... haven't solved that one yet, but i'm working on it

[CoolC]

Previous revision (12) changes:
- The entire map work ok with 3 digits now
- New icons for Laponia
- Changed name from middle to central sweden
- Decided to have two countries start neutral instead of lowering number of countries
- First test with colored borders (see thread page 10-11)

New revision 13 changes:
Poll is removed now. Only 7 ppl voted but of those 4 voted for splitting up further. 2 voted for more areas outside sub-bonuses and 1 voted for a combination. In the end I decided to only split South Norway. To balance the rest I've added impassables and then recalculated the bonuses with the spreadsheet tools from the foundry.

Following impassables have been added;
Närke / Västra Götaland
Dalarna / Härjedalen
Savo / Häme
Savo / Pirkanmaa
Pohjis-Pohjanma / Pirkanmaa
Also removed the border between Närke / Östergötland.

At this point I think it's pretty well balanced. Here is a chart;

Code: Select all

Name              Areas        Defend       Bonus

Sweden            25            9             25
N Sweden          7             4             6
C Sweden          8             5             7
S Sweden          10            4             7

Norway            16            4             18
N Norway          5             3             5
SW Norway         5             3             4
SE Norway         6             4             7

Finland           13            2             12
W Finland         6             5             6
E Finland         6             3             5

Denmark           7             3             6
C Denmark         3             2             2
I Denmark         4             3             3

Baltic Islands    4             4             5
Laponia           3             3             3


I'm not sure about a few things though:
- Should the impassable water also cover Häme / Kymenlaakso?
- Should the forest cover also the border Dalarna / Hedmark, i.e. making Dalarna a non-defendable area?
- Should the forest cover also the border Hälsingland / Härjedalen?

Other things done in this revision:
- Making Åland more green then blue
- All ships in legend
- Some minor corrections

I know the forest areas are not very pretty right now. It turned out worse then expected after I did border shadowing (same layer). It will be improved later, right now it's more the functionality that is a priority.

Here is current revision if you want it and don't want to go back to page 1:

Click image to enlarge.

[MrBenn]

I still like this map

[Ltd-Parker]

Any ideas when the map can be ready for some beta-gaming? Great work by the way!

[Industrial Helix]

I like this map but I'm starting to think that its too big... would a request for a reduction in territories be too much to ask or...

[Evil DIMwit]

I'm not sure about a few things though:
- Should the impassable water also cover Häme / Kymenlaakso?
- Should the forest cover also the border Dalarna / Hedmark, i.e. making Dalarna a non-defendable area?
- Should the forest cover also the border Hälsingland / Härjedalen?

I think covering Dalarna/Hedmark is good; the others aren't really necessary.

Overall, the bonus scheme does seem to be mostly quite well-balanced. However, two territories seems to be too few to defend 12-bonus Finland. I'd recommend a connection between Pohjois-Pohjanmaa and Norbotten, so that neither subcontinent has an extra border territory.

[edocsil]

Overall, the bonus scheme does seem to be mostly quite well-balanced. However, two territories seems to be too few to defend 12-bonus Finland. I'd recommend a connection between Pohjois-Pohjanmaa and Norbotten, so that neither subcontinent has an extra border territory.

That definitely needs to be implemented.

Beyond that are you certain that the abbreviations in the key are needed? It is the only thing marring the sleek lines of this map.

[MrBenn]

I'm not sure about a few things though:
- Should the impassable water also cover Häme / Kymenlaakso?
- Should the forest cover also the border Dalarna / Hedmark, i.e. making Dalarna a non-defendable area?
- Should the forest cover also the border Hälsingland / Härjedalen?

I think covering Dalarna/Hedmark is good; the others aren't really necessary.

Overall, the bonus scheme does seem to be mostly quite well-balanced. However, two territories seems to be too few to defend 12-bonus Finland. I'd recommend a connection between Pohjois-Pohjanmaa and Norbotten, so that neither subcontinent has an extra border territory.

Once that's done, I'd suggest polishing off the graphics... but there's not really too much left to do

[iancanton]

in studying the bonus zone table on the last page in conjunction with the shape of the map, i'm drawing some conclusions that hadn't occurred to me before.

sweden and norway each border 3 countries, while denmark and finland border only 2. sweden and norway must therefore have much bigger bonuses than denmark and finland, which they do.

the shape of finland strongly encourages holding the whole country to gain a strong defensive position; this is also true for denmark if u add skåne (our danish players can have fun with this bit of history). holding the whole of sweden or norway does not have defensive advantages compared with holding one of the sub-bonus zones, so there needs to be a large bonus to encourage holding the whole of sweden or norway (compared with holding zones from a mixtures of countries). so far, we have +5 extra for all sweden, which is good, but only +2 for all norway, which is not enough.

plugging some figures into a bonus spreadsheet, i'm finding that virtually all of the sub-bonuses in the three northern countries are overvalued by 1 and sometimes by 2, but u have denmark exactly right.

as mentioned above, finland is overvalued for a 2-border (or even 3-border) bonus zone, especially given the easy expansion to laponia. i suggest that the sub-bonuses for finland become +4 for western and +3 for eastern, with all finland being a total of +8 (only +1 extra, to reflect the security of the finnish position).

if we reduce by +1 each of the norway sub-bonuses, but retain the all norway bonus at +18, then the extra bonus for holding all norway becomes +5, which provides some incentive to hold all norway in preference to some combination of other zones.

i value the swedish sub-bonuses at +4 for north, +5 for central (assuming that a forest blocks the dalarna-hedmark route) and +6 for southern. retaining the +5 extra that u have will give a total of +20 for all sweden, which i believe gives a good reward for the entire country which is not always a winning advantage.

ian.

[CoolC]

Hello and thanks everyone for the feedback, especially iancanton!

Things done this revision:
- Covering Dalarna/Hedmark
- Connection Pohjois-Pohjanmaa/Norrbotten

I was going to adjust the bonus also but realised that it's kind of pointless before we've settled the matter. It doesn't require any real editing of the map to change so it can be done in seconds...

I like this map but I'm starting to think that its too big... would a request for a reduction in territories be too much to ask or...

Yes, sorry but it is. I have been thinking of making a test version of the suggestion you made earlier though (bonus like the conquer-style instead of regions). I'm not too hot on that idea either but maybe others are?

Beyond that are you certain that the abbreviations in the key are needed? It is the only thing marring the sleek lines of this map.

No, I'm not and i would also rather see them removed. But I opted for better understanding of the map. For example, it's not otherwise clear that Åland is needed for whole Finland bonus. But if the general consensus says that it's easy to understand anyway, I'll remove them.

the shape of finland strongly encourages holding the whole country to gain a strong defensive position; this is also true for denmark if u add skåne (our danish players can have fun with this bit of history). holding the whole of sweden or norway does not have defensive advantages compared with holding one of the sub-bonus zones, so there needs to be a large bonus to encourage holding the whole of sweden or norway (compared with holding zones from a mixtures of countries). so far, we have +5 extra for all sweden, which is good, but only +2 for all norway, which is not enough.

if we reduce by +1 each of the norway sub-bonuses, but retain the all norway bonus at +18, then the extra bonus for holding all norway becomes +5, which provides some incentive to hold all norway in preference to some combination of other zones.

I reasoned that it was enough for norway since it's both fewer areas in total and much fewer areas to defend compared to sweden. I suggest just raising the total bonus for norway by 1 to +3, to keep the contrast between them. Maybe also raise sweden by one?

plugging some figures into a bonus spreadsheet, i'm finding that virtually all of the sub-bonuses in the three northern countries are overvalued by 1 and sometimes by 2, but u have denmark exactly right.

Yeah, i got large fractions in the spreadsheet and rounded the values upwards, except for denmark which ended up with just .04 or something and was consequently rounded downwards.

as mentioned above, finland is overvalued for a 2-border (or even 3-border) bonus zone, especially given the easy expansion to laponia. i suggest that the sub-bonuses for finland become +4 for western and +3 for eastern, with all finland being a total of +8 (only +1 extra, to reflect the security of the finnish position).

Good reasoning and I initially fully agreed but now that I was making the change I saw that there is very little difference in bonus compared to denmark, even though finland have more then twice the amount of territories, while having the same number to defend. Maybe it's better with +5 / +4 ? Or perhaps go with +4/+3 but having the total bonus at 9 ?

i value the swedish sub-bonuses at +4 for north, +5 for central (assuming that a forest blocks the dalarna-hedmark route) and +6 for southern. retaining the +5 extra that u have will give a total of +20 for all sweden, which i believe gives a good reward for the entire country which is not always a winning advantage.

I'd rather see a bit higher sub-bonuses... how about 5, 6 and 7 respectivly for north, central and south?

[natty dread]

I actually like the idea of a conquest style map. You could have capitals and other large cities as starting points.

[CoolC]

Posted map on page 1 a bit later then planned, due to my internet connection going down right after editing the above post...

[Evil DIMwit]

It seems to me that your bonuses are overvalued, but they're overvalued across the board. For example, you can hold Western Finland for +6 with just 8 territories and 3 borders (if you hold Åland and Kymenlaakso); if you stitched this continent into Classic, I'd expect it would be valued at about +4. But Western Finland shares a map with Eastern Finland (6/3/+5), Southwest Norway (with Telemark, 6 territories with 2 borders for +4), Northern Norway and Laponia (together 7/3/+8), and Denmark (with Skåne, 8/2/+6).

What this all means is that it becomes even more important than usual to grab a smaller bonus early in order to stay competitive. That's why, I think, when you overvalue bonuses (and just in general) it's especially important to ensure that the smaller bonuses are fair. This goes back to what Ian said about lowering sub-bonuses. Just looking at the 5 possibilities above, I think either Northern Norway or Laponia is relatively overvalued by 1 (or both), and Denmark is overvalued by 1 (I think you can lower Danish Islands to 2).

If you want less of a penalty on players who can't grab a bonus early, you should look into lowering every sub-bonus by 1. That might lessen the impact of an imbalanced initial drop, particularly in Denmark's sub-bonuses. Otherwise I think people are likely to get screwed.