[Abandoned] - Divine Meteo Condition

[Industrial Helix]

Glad to see this back as well.

[FarangDemon]

Anything in Southeast Asia would have the Indian gods, as from the first kingdom in the historical record, the indianized Funan, until the spread of Buddhism, the whole region worshipped Hindu gods. Even now, the Hindu gods are still worshipped in many of these countries.

You could try to build something from the remnants of surviving indigenous belief systems.
Like the Thai ngueak, which sometimes translates as merely mermaid, but those in the Mekong are still believed by locals to be vampire mermaids that are blamed for drownings. However, I don't think you'll be able to come up with any deities that are widely recognized for each of the types you need: Sky, War, Death, Trickster.

[Evil DIMwit]

I think both for structure, and for deity name recognition, Europe seems to be the best spot to set a map like this. Sad, but true.

[natty dread]

The setup: There are eight starting positions, each consisting of one pantheon and its associated sky god. The other gods are neutral. The underworld consists entirely of neutral 1s. There is no way to attack from between the underworld and the Earth, or from either to the Heavens. There is a losing condition that a player who owns no territories on the Earth is instantly eliminated.

The earth starts with a random drop?

[Evil DIMwit]

Yes. Random drop. The temples might start neutral.

[Evil DIMwit]

Submitted a brief for this. What do you think of these neutral values:
War, death, trickster gods: 2 each
Each temple: 2
Underworld territories: 1 each, except for altars, which are 3

[Riskismy]

I couldn't find it in the first post, so please remind me, what are the starting territories?

Also, is that a working title, or is that really the name you're going for?
Just seems to have precious little to do with meteorology to me.

[ender516]

I believe the name is an attempt to reference an existing game without breaking copyright or trademark laws. I think I figured it out from the first few pages of the topic, but I have since forgotten.

[natty dread]

it's a pun on "godstorm"

[Evil DIMwit]

I thought I'd put gameplay information in the first post, but it seems I forgot to submit. Here's what it says now:


8 neutral-coded starting positions, each consisting of a pantheon and a sky god
Other deities start at 2 neutrals each
8 Temples start at 2 neutrals; other earthly territories are random drop
Underworld territories all start at 1 except for altars which start at 3

40 Heavenly territories (8 pantheons, 32 deities)
61 Earthly territories (8 temples, 53 random drop)
24 Underworld territories (8 portals, 8 crypts, 3 altars)


Thoughts:
- Not sure which deities should be part of the starting territories, if at all.
- Might reduce the number of underworld portals to 4 or 5. What do you guys think?

[Riskismy]

8 neutral-coded starting positions, each consisting of a pantheon and a sky god

That means that in a two-player game, they get a pantheon each, not 4 each - correct?

re: Stating deities:
I think the sky god is an excellent choice, hastens the access from gods to mortal realm.

re: portals:
Have no strong feeling on this. AS long as the death god can attack any of them you could have just 1 portal. Wouldn't do that though, should be some room to move around in.
If you reduce the number, I'd get rid of the ones not on the edge first.

Lastly, could I have you darken the text in the legend? It's kinda hard to read with this little contrast to the background.

[Evil DIMwit]

8 neutral-coded starting positions, each consisting of a pantheon and a sky god

That means that in a two-player game, they get a pantheon each, not 4 each - correct?

No, sadly it just means that if any pantheons are left over (for 3, 5, 6, and 7-player games) the remaining pantheons won't be used. 4 and 3 player games will have two pantheons each, and 2p games will have four pantheons each.

Lastly, could I have you darken the text in the legend? It's kinda hard to read with this little contrast to the background.

I have done this.

Click image to enlarge.

[Riskismy]

Legend is much better now, thanks.

At first I thought the +2 bonus for holding 'your homeland' referred to the areas in the mortal realm, but then I noticed the picture in the lower left (those bonuses look well balanced to me, btw). But now I can't figure what you mean by 'your homeland'?

Other than that, I can only think of suggesting you move the eastern Altar to the territory above. This way it would more closely mirror the western (which doesn't border a Portal).

This should move on to gameplay forum soon imo, though you do lack the territory names.

[Evil DIMwit]

"Your homeland" means the bonus region(s) corresponding to your pantheon. Therefore whoever has the Roman pantheon would get +2 for holding the Roman Empire; whoever has the Celtic pantheon would get +2 for both Celtic regions together, and so on.

Moving the altar is fine, though I don't know that it makes much difference.

[Riskismy]

"Your homeland" means the bonus region(s) corresponding to your pantheon. Therefore whoever has the Roman pantheon would get +2 for holding the Roman Empire; whoever has the Celtic pantheon would get +2 for both Celtic regions together, and so on.

Ah. I see, but I think you need to clarify that on the legend. Perhaps add 'homeland' to each of the names in the picture on the lower left. So 'Egypt' would read 'Egyptian Homeland'. Or maybe colour the pantheons accordingly.
Whatever the solution, I think it should be made clearer.

Thinking on it, I quite like how one bonus area can be worth more to one player than the others. Very nice!
Didn't think that was even possible, have to re-visit that XML thread.

Moving the altar is fine, though I don't know that it makes much difference.

No, not much difference, but 3 more neutrals is a difference to be reckoned with imo.
I guess, though, that this is just my preference to symmetry shining through. No real problem in some gates being more attractive than others.

[Evil DIMwit]

A few changes in this one:

Click image to enlarge.

One, I've taken the starting positions into account and recalculated the number of earthly territories so that no one starts with a multiple of 2. Accordingly, some continents have fewer territories, so I've taken their bonus down. In addition, players will be limited to 2 starting positions each. This only affects 2p games, but I think it makes the pantheons more manageable.
Also note that all the territories are now named.

One thing I'm considering is adding an Italia-Hellas connection, and bringing Italia's value back up to 5.
I could make the homeland value balance a bit more interesting by merging Libu and Meshwesh, merging Kemet and Sinai, putting an extra territory in the Babylonian area, making the Egypt bonus +2 and Babylon bonus +4.

Ah. I see, but I think you need to clarify that on the legend. Perhaps add 'homeland' to each of the names in the picture on the lower left. So 'Egypt' would read 'Egyptian Homeland'. Or maybe colour the pantheons accordingly.
Whatever the solution, I think it should be made clearer.

I've added 'Homelands' to the minimap. I'm not going to put it after every single label. Color isn't a solution since it's hard to make 8 distinct ones for colorblind people.

Thinking on it, I quite like how one bonus area can be worth more to one player than the others. Very nice!
Didn't think that was even possible, have to re-visit that XML thread.

Well, it's all artificially done using starting positions that can't be reassigned. That way, when a player holds their homeland, they own an overriding continent consisting of the homeland and the native pantheon, which is worth 2 more than the homeland alone.

[Riskismy]

A few changes in this one:

Click image to enlarge.

One, I've taken the starting positions into account and recalculated the number of earthly territories so that no one starts with a multiple of 2. Accordingly, some continents have fewer territories, so I've taken their bonus down. In addition, players will be limited to 2 starting positions each. This only affects 2p games, but I think it makes the pantheons more manageable.
Also note that all the territories are now named.

Except underworld

Ah. I see, but I think you need to clarify that on the legend. Perhaps add 'homeland' to each of the names in the picture on the lower left. So 'Egypt' would read 'Egyptian Homeland'. Or maybe colour the pantheons accordingly.
Whatever the solution, I think it should be made clearer.

I've added 'Homelands' to the minimap. I'm not going to put it after every single label. Color isn't a solution since it's hard to make 8 distinct ones for colorblind people.

Great, much clearer.
What I meant by color was that you should apply the respective colors to the gods' areas. Something like that, to visually make the connection.

[ender516]

Yes, colour the ovals behind the god circles so that they match the Homelands.

[Evil DIMwit]

Well, this isn't quite the graphical stage yet, but ultimately not a bad idea.

[ender516]

Well, at the risk of pushing my luck too far, another basically graphical suggestion:

It will cost some space, but arrange each set of gods around the pantheon like the 5 dots on a die (a quincunx, to be precise)

Code: Select all

     S     W
        P
     T     D


(Sky, War, Pantheon, Trickster, Death).
This layout gives more room for larger troop numbers without running over each other. In fact, it could be rotated so that no one number is in a horizontal line with any other.

Code: Select all

      S     
            W
        P
    T
          D


[natty dread]

I agree with nowhere man

[Evil DIMwit]

Something like this then?

Click image to enlarge.

[Riskismy]

Looks great! Let's move this sucker!

[Evil DIMwit]

Here's a somewhat alternative gameplay arrangement:

Click image to enlarge.

[Industrial Helix]

Jus throwing this out there... but why not omit Russia (given its lateness to the ancient gods thing) and use supersize to head east to India. Too often the basic Med/European map is used on CC, it might be a nice to include India for a change and skip Russia.