1066: The Battle of Hastings - Draft on p1

[pamoa]

Great idea MrBenn, but you are going to be strong and patient this will be very hard work.
Here is a suggestion for a work plan and believe me you will need it.
For me if you try to do thing in another order you will loose a huge amount of time and energy.

1 choosing the main theme
2 building the gameplay
3 doing graphics

THEME
You have to keep in mind that this game CC cannot be time linear and you can not reproduce a succesion of event. So your map has a background theme and then players just dive in and try to find the easiest way to kill eachother. Try to figure out clearly what story you want to tell to players.

Personally, I think that you should focus just on the battle at Senlac hill itself.
An alternative map could be called 'Claims to the throne in 1066' and could include Britain (Harold Godwin), Normandy (William) and Norway (Harald Hardrada)...

Seems tricky, if for no other reason a campaign map might end up being little different from a basic map of England from York southward...
UNLESS you folded the Danes and the Battle of Stamford Bridge into the equation, and just call the map "England 1066" or something...

1 frontal battle map (Hastings)
2 double battle map (Hastings & Stamford bridge)
3 campain map (anglosaxons vs normans)
4 treesome campain map (Harold Godwin vs William vs Harald Hardrada)

GAMEPLAY
The gameplay will be a direct consequence of the theme you choose.

1 frontal battle map: just a big melee like waterloo
2 double battle map: quite the same but more close to waterloo map with it's 2 half barely connected
3 campain map: like arms race as Incandenza said, Normandy and England as separated groups of territories connected by the battle field starting neutral
4 treesome campain map: the same but 3 groups of territories and 2 connecting battle field

Frankly I prefer the last one as it's a new type of game in CC and you will get that feeling of the historical situation of Harold skeezed between to opponent.

Some interesant links
normandy
england
norway

Could be something like that!

Click image to enlarge.

[MrBenn]

Thanks for your thoughts Pamoa.

THEME

You have to keep in mind that this game CC cannot be time linear and you can not reproduce a succesion of event. So your map has a background theme and then players just dive in and try to find the easiest way to kill eachother. Try to figure out clearly what story you want to tell to players.

The story that I want to tell, is that William (and the Normans) landed at/near Pevensey, while King Harold was fighting off a Viking invasion at Stamford Bridge. A short while layter, the two armies (Norman/Saxon) met and fought at the 'Battle of Hastings'

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay will be a direct consequence of the theme you choose.

1. Norman Landings
At the bottom of the map there will be a fleet of Norman ships arriving in the Pevensey/Hastings area. There will be 12 boats, all of which will be starting territories. There will be a couple of landing points that start neutral - these will link to the Norman battle-line.

There will be bonusses for holding a certain number of boats, and possibly landing points too.

2. Viking Invasion
At the top of the map, there will be a small skirmish between an invading Viking force, and defending Saxon forces. There will be 12 'armies' involved, all of which will be starting territories. There will be 1/2 links from this battle to the Saxon battle-line at Hastings.

There will be a bonus for occupying all the Viking territories, and another for holding the Saxon territories

I'm considering having a link between the Norman/Viking fleets - perhaps with a high-value neutral army?

3. The Battle of Hastings
The centrepiece of the map will be the Battle of Hastings. There will be 48 territories on the battlefield, all of which will starting territories. There will be a larger number of Norman territories, but the Saxon side will be stronger. In my mind, there will be limited bonuses available on the battlefield (perhaps just small bonusses for holding an individual clan/regiment/family/allegiance?), and a possible tweak to the territory-volume-army-bonus

The concept is that of the campaign - with the players able to choose their strategy. The general principal is that the easier bonusses at the start come from the mini-battles.... I envisage it a bit like arms race, but with a big battlefield in the middle!
I'd like to try and make the map doubles/triples friendly; possibly making more use of the 'build your own bonus' play, with bonusses for holding x of y territories...

[Incandenza]

How close would you conceptually be to posting a draft that exemplifies the entertaining notions described above?

[MrBenn]

How close would you conceptually be to posting a draft that exemplifies the entertaining notions described above?

The majority of this idea is still in my head... I'm working on it, but am not really rushing at the moment

[pamoa]

So as you are describing it you have 4 fighting areas connected to each other by neutral territories: 1 big, hastings and 3 small norvegians fleet, normans fleet and stamford bridge.

Suggestion:
make 5 areas: hastings 48 territs, stamford bridge 24 territs, england 8 territs and the two fleet 8 territs each. Then in between 1 neutral connecting territ (maybe killer neutral). So you have 4 linking points you can give the kings name: William, Harald, and twice Harold to each battlefield. Or only 3 and Harold lead to each battlefield.
The bonus structure will be like normal continent: each fleet, england, norman at hastings, saxons at hastings, saxons at stamford bridge and norvegians at stamford bridge.

Did you get the picture?

[Sir_Karl]

That is so awesome....good ole Willy is my gramps a few different ways!
Rock on!

[MrBenn]

I haven't spent a decent amount of time working on this; for now I'm putting it onto the back burner.

[theBastard]

still no more interest here? the idea is great, it needs any good gameplay. so Mr.Benn, what is with this awesome project?

[MrBenn]

still no more interest here? the idea is great, it needs any good gameplay. so Mr.Benn, what is with this awesome project?

Funny you should bring this back up; I found some of my old paper drafts/sketches for this not so long ago. I think my trouble before was trying to squeeze everything in - it might be worth trying to pick it up again now that we can get bigger maps? I'm not in any rush to work on it though - I have too much on my plate already!

[theBastard]

still no more interest here? the idea is great, it needs any good gameplay. so Mr.Benn, what is with this awesome project?

Funny you should bring this back up; I found some of my old paper drafts/sketches for this not so long ago. I think my trouble before was trying to squeeze everything in - it might be worth trying to pick it up again now that we can get bigger maps? I'm not in any rush to work on it though - I have too much on my plate already!

will think about this. but I have also some things to do here and now busy with RL...
so will be back here with any draft and will see if you like it...