OliverFA wrote:I think that hexes really fit this kind of map. In fact I don't understand why there are no more hexes maps in CC... In any case, this map is perfect with hexes.
I agree.
OliverFA wrote:About starting positions, why do you want to make some neutral towns? If you have 16 towns, make all of them playable. Then on each game there will be 8 player towns and 8 neutral towns, but they will be pick randomnly among the 16 towns, which will make for a lot more varied and interesting games.
No, see, starting positions are divided equally. If there's 16 starting positions, then in an 8-player game each player gets 2 cities.
However, that might not be a bad thing. I'm still living in the hope that we'll get 12 player games some day... so I'm thinking the maps should at least have 12 starting positions. Maybe all 16. It could be nice to start with 2 cities, then you'd have to strategize more - for example, you start with one city that is easier to defend, and one that can get easier bonuses, which one will you deploy on...
OliverFA wrote:I suppose you want to require holding at least one city to stay alive. Otherwise you will have problem with players having no cities but still owning buildings.
Well, not the cities really. Because barracks can assault back to the city, that function would be useless if you would die without a city.
My last post had some ideas about this. Basically, there's 2 ways to go about this... either we keep the buildings (except barracks) unable to assault back to the city, and have a losing condition that kills you if you hold only those buildings, or only buildings that cannot assault or bombard anywhere.
Another option is to allow all the buildings to assault back to their own city. This would make sense in a way... deploying on your buildings is kinda like assigning soldiers to defend the buildings, so they're harder to bombard... so these soldiers could take back the main city if an enemy has taken it. However... this would eliminate a strategic element, where you have to consider how many troops you want to assign to your buildings, since they are stuck there if you do. With this option there would be no losing condition.
I haven't decided either way. Both options have their ups and downs.
OliverFA wrote:You will have also to think about neutrals. I understand this comes as a second phase after working out buildings. But do you have an idea how do you want them to be? Do you want neutrals to be in big numbers to slow development? Or want them to be small so it' more open war?
Well, I wouldn't want to go to either extreme... but I think the land area neutrals should be designed to allow reasonably easy expansion to the resource territories, although the resource territories themselves should maybe be slightly higher. Villages should have the highest neutrals - this makes sense both thematically and gameplay-wise: villages have people defending them, and they have an autodeploy so they are most valuable in the beginning.
The positions of the resources wrt. the cities may have to be tweaked also. I've designed the layout so that each city is at least 5 territories away from every other city. But the resources may not be balanced yet... I don't want them to be absolutely equal, so that every city would have the exact same resources, but they should be fair - so that if a city has a worse access to one resource, it should be balanced with a better access to another.
One question that I think it's important. How did you figure the bonus numbers? And how many neutrals will every building have? That will be important in the tweaking phase.
The neutrals of the buildings will be varied. I want the neutral amounts on them to simulate the effort/resources necessary to build them, so taking down the neutrals would be analogous to the building process. I also want the neutrals to be balanced according to the value/benefit gained from the said building. They will very likely require lots of tweaking.
I am not sure that you should get +2 per each factory and each mine you have. After all, the rough materials are in the mine. Having more factories won't increase mine production. Maybe it would make more sense with something like "you get +x per each mine if you also have at least one factory". The you can raise that +2 to +3 or +4 to compensate that only the first factory is useful.
Ok, this is an issue where there's two perspectives... gameplay perspective and thematic perspective.
To answer the thematic point you raise... you could look at it this way: having more mines increases the available bulk materials, but having more factories increases the speed you are able to process them.
In the gameplay perspective, I want to keep the buildings cumulative because this way the player has incentive to take other cities, and benefits from it, but the player can also benefit from taking more mines.
Perhaps a limit could be placed, something like "building bonuses are cumulative up to 6 cities" or something like that. So that only the first 6 buildings of the same type would be useful.
- It's a good idea that of getting bonuses for additional cities, that comes with transport station. But this is too similar to barracks. I think you want to make numbers matter here, so "the union makes the force". Then, what about making it in a way the 4 transport stations provide a higher bonus than 4 barracks? The actual numbers would have to be worked out. But something like this.
The idea is good, but the problem is fitting that table of bonuses on an already crowded map.
Maybe we can think of something more feasible for this. We could change the function of the building to something entirely different.
- Recruitment center: Well, I dont want to repeat again the same comment.
Well, I don't want to repeat again the same answer
See the factories answer.
Defense Turret / Missile Base: I like them a lot. Those buildings alone would be reason enough for having hexes in the map. Maybe cost will need to be adjusted, but concept is great. One question. Are you going to require defense turret for missile base to work?
No, they are independent. The player can choose which one to take. One allows longer range but with a higher cost. There's strategy involved... will you go for the defense turret and get a low-range bombardment, or will you wait until you can afford the upkeep of the missile base? If you take the defense turret, then you're stuck with it (unless your teammate or an enemy bombards it for you) so if you want to take the missile base then, you'll have to pay both upkeeps... I think it's a neat dynamic, here.
Oh and yeah, the hexes are definitely needed for this kind of functionality.
- Technology: I personally think it would be better if it doubled Factory and Food Refiney bonuses instead of giving a flat +2.
Hmm, depends on how we end up making the factory & refinery bonuses. I think it's better to figure them out first, then figure out how the tech center can best complement them.
- Air base: The problem with the building is that it is very powerful. The building pretty nullifies everything else. It's good to have some counter method to balance things, but in my opinion it needs to be pretty much in control. My suggestion is for this building to be killer neutral. This would allow players to attack other players buildings from time to time, but not to continue doing it forever once the building is "operative". I would make it come after Missile base, so if a player want to use the Air Base it shold be a long term commitment. And I would place barracks safe from this.
It already has a high cost involved. You lose -10 from your deployment. And the ability bombard buildings is necessary: some buildings have upkeep, so if you take them from your enemy, then you get stuck with the upkeep costs. Bombardment allows to neutralize them without screwing yourself.
But yeah, I'm thinking of placing a range limit on this.
- Military academy: The problem with this building is that if a player conquers it and later has bad luck, he has very big malus to his economy.
Yes, that's the risk involved. The risk is proportional to the benefit. After all, if you hold, say, 6 cities, this thing can give you a 60-10 = +45 bonus. But it can require some tweaking, yes.
I hope you don't get angry with me for making so many comments.
On the contrary! It's great to have this much feedback. I Hope you'll have the energy to keep discussing these things during the gameplay development. It's good to have different viewpoints on things, in fact it's probably necessary for a map this complex.
-- since you posted another post while I was writing this, I'm going to answer that one here too --
You could use it to have more varied buildings. For example, what about if your "Recruitment center" worked this way:
- Define an area of influence for the city (radious 3,4,5, or 6. For the actual number the sweet spot would have to be found).
- Once you have the recruitment center for that city, each x territories in the influence area of the city provide +1 bonus.
So the recruitment center would do what its name suggest. It would recruit soldiers from city's surrounding area. But without that recruitment center the bonus would be a lot smaller or maybe even 0.
That's a neat idea in principle, only it has a few practical problems...
- what about cities on the edge? They would get less bonus.
- this would render the villages less useful. I would like each resource to be something that can be used by a building.
Also a thematic issue: this is a dystopic world, where there isn't much people around. Basically, all the "regular" territories are useless wasteland, with no people living on them. Only the farms have fertile land, which makes them valuable.
I don't want to disable the territory bonus alltogether, because having lots of secure land is also beneficial to a city, for logistical reasons. But there's a limit to the usefulness of useless wasteland, therefore, the max 10 cap.
Very nice idea, but I think you'd better concentrate on developing this version with what we have, and then use conditional deploys for v2.
Yes, for now I'm developing this on the XML features we have. I'm just saying, if conditional autodeploys get implemented before this map gets the gp stamp, then I'm going to use them. One can always hope, right?
It's my opinion that this map needs losing conditions to work.
Why? I'd like to hear your reasoning on this...
Personally I don't really see why this map would need one. If you still have armies outside a city, what stops you from taking back your city and rebuilding?
Maybe we could instead have a losing condition that kills you off if you only have territories that cannot assault anywhere or territories that can only bombard. Ie. Hold at least one city, land territory or barracks to stay in the game.
I also suggest making it the third of the "air buildings" (making them some sort of mini-tech tree. So if you want to bombard you must commit to it conquering all three buildings).
Well, I want all the buildings to be buildable independently. I want to stress the conceptual differences between this map and R&C... so that the buildings are not just "researches with a different name", they actually act like buildings. And for buildings, IMO, it makes more sense that you don't have to build one building to be able to build another... I want the players to be able to make the choice.
About the killer neutral thing, I think it would be hard to balance. With lots of neutrals, it would be hard enough to take, but nobody would want to take all those neutrals again and again... with few neutrals, it would be too easy. And a killer neutral would destroy the concept of upkeep cost that I want to keep consistent for the buildings.
I think I'd rather go with the range solution. We'll just have to choose the optimal range, that makes it useful but not too powerful. Maybe only the nearest cities? With a range of 6, the nearest cities could be bombarded.
About leaving barracks immune... I'm not sure about that either. Think of it this way: the cities are immune to bombardments, so if your buildings get bombarded, then you can use the city to take them back. If your city gets taken by assault, then you can use the barracks to take it back. Therefore, the most effective assault would be a combination of assault and bombardment. This seems like a neat (and realistic) concept, IMO.
Whoa, that was a lot of text. Let me again say that I appreciate your various well thought-out opinions, even if I disagree with some of them. I hope you'll keep giving your feedback for this map, particularly on things you disagree with - disagreements, if handled right, often produce the best end results, when both parties have to think extra hard to defend their side of the argument.
, and I think the "techs" should be organized so that buildings come first, and military stuff comes second.
