South Africa 1885

[Industrial Helix]

Ah ahh...

Well its something to consider. I'm worried with a neutral level of 7 that the forts/ships would never come into play. 6 is possible though, maybe 5-6

[natty dread]

5-6 would be ok.

[Evil DIMwit]

Bringing the neutral value up to 6 would mean that more likely than not a player will have to already hold a bonus for a couple of turns before they can go for weapons. Is that the sort of gameplay you were imagining, Helix?

[natty dread]

Bringing the neutral value up to 6 would mean that more likely than not a player will have to already hold a bonus for a couple of turns before they can go for weapons. Is that the sort of gameplay you were imagining, Helix?

Well in my opinion this would make sense. The forts won't be any use anyway unless you already hold a bonus...

[Industrial Helix]

Well yeah... I guess the forts wouldn't do much for you unless you held the bonus first anyway. I suppose there is the threat of a player taking the fort and then grabbing the bonus... but even with a higher neutral number, the same principle applies.

I'm thinking the scenario is that a player has gathered the support of the people of the region, symbolized by holding the bonus, and then takes the weapons and launches a war, the forts/ships.

Although for the British areas, it has the potential to be more like they've got the port and can secure the weapons and are advancing further into the area.

[Industrial Helix]

ANyone got any more suggestions for this map or can we start closing in on finishing up its time in the gameplay workshop?

[Evil DIMwit]

Well, have you settled on a new neutral value or does it stay at 3?

[Industrial Helix]

! I forgot about that. I had settled it in my mind at 5 but I guess I never posted it... I'll post a new map illustrating it soon.

[Evil DIMwit]

Well, do that and I've no real complaints.

[Industrial Helix]

Updated

Click image to enlarge.

[iancanton]

change the neutral-4 on amatonga, which no longer needs it, to a neutral-2 on motito to prevent someone from dropping the +2 stellaland bonus. consider using 3 start positions on griquatown (not griguatown), lakatlong and kheis to deal with the 3-region griqualand bonus. reduce west cape from +4 to +2, since it has only 2 border regions.

swaziland's neutral seems a bit high at 4, considering it's only a +1 bonus - the castle in castle lands, which is also a neutral-4, has an auto-deploy of +2 and it isn't always taken. similarly, i've a feeling that we'll be reducing the forts (which are much more accessible than the ships and therefore riskier to capture) to neutral-4 after the map reaches beta, but the difference between neutral-5 and neutral-4 isn't a big issue at this stage.

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

Thanks for the feed back... I'll make the changes.

[Industrial Helix]

change the neutral-4 on amatonga, which no longer needs it, to a neutral-2 on motito to prevent someone from dropping the +2 stellaland bonus. consider using 3 start positions on griquatown (not griguatown), lakatlong and kheis to deal with the 3-region griqualand bonus. reduce west cape from +4 to +2, since it has only 2 border regions.

swaziland's neutral seems a bit high at 4, considering it's only a +1 bonus - the castle in castle lands, which is also a neutral-4, has an auto-deploy of +2 and it isn't always taken. similarly, i've a feeling that we'll be reducing the forts (which are much more accessible than the ships and therefore riskier to capture) to neutral-4 after the map reaches beta, but the difference between neutral-5 and neutral-4 isn't a big issue at this stage.

ian.

See the first page to indicate that the suggested changes have been made.

[iancanton]

the neutral locations are better now. i'd still like to see west cape drop from +4 to at most +3, unless u open up a gap in the mountains to caledon.

i suggest several changes to region names: grahamstown to either port elizabeth (the largest city in the area) or uitenhage (the name of port elizabeth's region), cathcart to east london (the major port located there because of the connection to the ship), middleburg to middelburg (typo), port nolleth to port nolloth (typo), de tuin (a minor settlement which isn't even shown on most maps) to great bushman land, lakatlong to kimberley (where the recent discovery of diamonds and resultant arrival of tens of thousands of miners led to kimberley becoming the second largest town in south africa by 1873 - see wikipedia) and urntata to transkei, tembuland or pondoland (the town of umtata, not urntata, was in the transkei-tembuland area, which had a largely tribal population, while pondoland was not yet fully under colonial administration). umtata, transkei, tembuland and (later) pondoland were part of cape colony, not of natal, so the colour needs to be changed from pink to blue.

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

Awesome! Thank you so much. Basically, when I did this map I copied an old map I had found, but I see your suggestions are spot on. I looked at a map of the Boer War as well and found that most of the suggestions you made were in line with many of the battles during that war as well. Thanks a ton!

I also lowered West cape and North cape as well.. they should be more agreeable now.

The only thing I didn't change was moving Transkei to Cape Land control as the map I followed had it as part of Natal...
http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofEn ... 85_000.jpg

Click image to enlarge.

[Evil DIMwit]

This isn't necessarily a legitimate complaint, but how about changing Port Elizabeth to Uitenhage on account of Port Elizabeth isn't actually a port on this map?

[Industrial Helix]

Hmm... well, the British did land at Port Elizabeth during the Boer War, so I feel kind of inclined to leave it.

[iancanton]

Awesome! Thank you so much. Basically, when I did this map I copied an old map I had found, but I see your suggestions are spot on. I looked at a map of the Boer War as well and found that most of the suggestions you made were in line with many of the battles during that war as well. Thanks a ton!

glad to have been of help! talking of famous battles, it's a pity there isn't enough room to put in ladysmith and i have a feeling that, in 1885, mafeking didn't yet exist as a place worth besieging.

I also lowered West cape and North cape as well.. they should be more agreeable now.

they are indeed.

The only thing I didn't change was moving Transkei to Cape Land control as the map I followed had it as part of Natal...

actually, it doesn't! if u look closely, u'll see a thick pink border between natal and amapondo, just to the west of harding.

this article gives a blow-by-blow account of the expansion of cape colony in those parts.

http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/places/villages/easternCape/transkei.htm

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

Click image to enlarge.

Transkei is now part of East Cape.

[Evil DIMwit]

Maybe Natal's bonus should go down a bit now that it has fewer territories to protect from and no port.

[Industrial Helix]

Well, it has the fort, which is basically the same as the port. But yeah, Natal at 2 looks better than at 4.

[Industrial Helix]

I actually changed a few of the bonuses a bit. Zululand, Orange Free State and Natal went down, Transvaal went up 1.

Click image to enlarge.

[iancanton]

do the forts replace the standard troop circles, or are the forts additional regions? for example, is pretoria just one region that happens to be a fort, or are there two regions, normal pretoria and fort pretoria?

colesburg ought to be colesberg, with berg meaning mountain.

http://www.colesberginfo.co.za/

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

Click image to enlarge.

Fixed... I also removed the lat and long. lines.

[Mageplunka69]

I like it, lets do a demo run , ill join