Siege II -new map-

[porkenbeans]

V2

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

A few have been calling for a sequel to the popular Siege map. For shits and giggles I mocked up a first draft of what I think would be an interesting way to go with it. It seems that RJ likes it, and to my surprise, so does mibi.
I have not worked out any of the gameplay yet, so I am opening up a GP challenge to those that are interested.

Take this draft and create territs, and or borders, along with all of the various accouterments, that relate to attack routes, bombardments, etc...

This is just a first draft, so additional items such as boats, siege engines, catapults, etc. can be added.

I will post a poll to determine the winning entry. Then we will, together, get to work at pushing this project through the Foundry.

link to original thread. viewtopic.php?f=358&t=15025&p=2545166#p2543933

[fumandomuerte]

Castle lands was like a sequel to Siege I imo. I'll see if I can come back with some interesting ideas, like "hold the king and the princess" or "control the babrarians leaders" to win the game.
Nice start porkens, glad to hear that mibi and you agreed on something

[porkenbeans]

Thanx fum,
Maybe I will add steps from the wall to the cannons.

[MrBenn]

Before fiddling around with the graphics, you need to work out what you what to accomplish with the gameplay. At the moment it looks very very good, but has obvious similarity to the exisiting Siege map in terms of the tunnel, throne room etc... How do you intend this to be different?

edit: By the way, please could you take the CAPS out of the thread title

[fumandomuerte]

maybe you could add a tower to the castle with a room for the pricess I mentioned Or a lab on the basement for Merlin or the kingdom's favourite alchemist.

[porkenbeans]

Before fiddling around with the graphics, you need to work out what you what to accomplish with the gameplay. At the moment it looks very very good, but has obvious similarity to the exisiting Siege map in terms of the tunnel, throne room etc... How do you intend this to be different?

Just as the AOR maps have some of the same elements, this Siege II will also have an element or two that is similar to what is found on Siege I.

There will be many differences between them however.
1.) size.
2.) number of territs.
3.) different bonus regions.
4.) game play.

The castle and tunnel is really the only things that are on both maps, and they are not actually the same.

Also, this IS my attempt at working on the "game play". It's just that my rough drafts are not very rough looking. Sorry about that. But you can be rest assured that anything can be changed to accommodate for the game play.

[porkenbeans]

Some more possible addons-

Click image to enlarge.

[natty dread]

All I can say, is that this is looking good. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

[00iCon]

maybe you could add a tower to the castle with a room for the pricess I mentioned Or a lab on the basement for Merlin or the kingdom's favourite alchemist.

Oh ma gad! why not have a tunnel/cave network underground as an inset, rather than the simplistic tunnel. You could put merlin's lab and some dungeons there.
Also, take inspiration from Battle fro Iraq and maybe add some loyalty bonuses, rather than plain region bonuses. Making the map a larger scale, with villages or huts, wouldn't hurt i think.

[Evil DIMwit]

How about water infiltrations? Players can sneak in and out of the moat through water territories, but one-way flows make it easier to swim out than in.

[porkenbeans]

I am very happy to see all of the interesting ideas.

The possibilities are endless, and I am anxious to see some completed game play drafts proposed. You do NOT need to be any kind of an artist to do this. Just use this current draft as your template. You can scribble anything that you want on it. I in turn, will do my best to incorporate your ideas into a presentable submission, and then we can hold a community poll to determine the best GP entry. We will then have everything we need to get the ball rolling with a design brief.

I see people all the time, commenting on, and offering ideas for other peoples maps. This is your chance to show what you got. And, get your name on a map as well. I can produce anything that you have in mind, from additions to deletions, to even moving existing things around. I can make items larger or smaller. The entire canvas is putty, so just scribble your idea over the top of this "rough" draft. ...I will make it so.

[captainwalrus]

I don't like the cannon tower thing as part of the map. It looks nice, but not as a playable thing. Maybe for the title or something, but it is out of the regular scale.

Also, I am not a fan of the water you chose for your moat. First off, I have never seen water that much of a saturated light blue. Secondly, from the several castles or whatever that I happened to have visited in my travels, they have always been brown, if not very dark blue-green. Realistically, water is not like that when it is so still and when the bottom is mud.

That being said, I like your map a lot.

[porkenbeans]

@ cw,
1.) The cannon tower is higher elevation and the bricks will eventually be enlarged to make it more clear.

2.) the castle IS brown.

3.) The color of the water in the moat is darker because it is deeper and also receives less light.

That being said, I am glad that you like it.

[Industrial Helix]

It looks pretty snazzy but I've got some concerns about gameplay. It looks a lot like siege. Too much like Siege. If we've got a Siege map then why do we need this map? Keep that question in mind as you develop this.

I know you've still got some plans up your sleeve and you've been getting some excellent advice.

Here's what I'd think would be cool. Start adding people to this map, it would give it a dynamic rarely encountered on CC. Perhaps archers, a sieging army, a king and queen. Perhaps the artillery men in the tower? Hold an artillery man and cannon for +1?

Speaking of people, you could make for some unique bonus systems. Hold a cannon, artillery man for +1 hold the artillery man, cannon AND the king and make it +3.

Or something like King doubles all bonuses.

Hold sieging king and defending king for the win.

Hold a spy and the entrance for the secret passage for +3?

The graphics are pretty good, but there's some weird oddities going on. For example, when water touches land, it doesn't look like a blue bubble. Add some surf and white foamy looking stuff, like waves on the beach.

The inner castle doesn't seem to match the rest of the map. I love how you did the floor of the tower, perhaps something like that would work?

The bridges seem very... animated. Whereas the rest of the map looks photo-realistic. And the passage looks like you just put color over the trees. Hell... perhaps you could do a secret trail instead of passage?

[AndyDufresne]

A siege tower is needed!

==============

So, lets pretend that Siege I is all about assaulting the Castle---the main focus seems to be geared towards that. Why not have Siege II be oriented toward the defense of the castle? Maybe more Castle territories, and less outside territories? I don't know. You could even flip the graphics (turn it 180*, have the castle on the bottom, and the assault lands at the top of the map).


--Andy

[grifftron]

All I can say, is that this is looking good. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.

what what what? natty with nothing to say but looking good? must be on the right track...

I like the map too, siege has always been a fun map to play, can you do something different with the tunnel tho? maybe have it connect to somewhere else on the other side of the board, or the cannons up in the top left?

-griff

[Teflon Kris]

Now then, now then.

Amazing draft as commented above.

The map's graphical quality will be an appeal for players, so I'm glad you've opened up the gameplay discussion so much - let's hope we can make gameplay to match the graphics and make a hit map.

Here's my idea:

Starting Position Gameplay
A popular format, here's how I see it could be applied to this map (maybe a few amendments might be needed though):

The Starts
8 starts on the bottom of the map - some, or all, from boats.

The starts are invading hoards, with auto-deploys. As they would be relatively close together, they would not be able to attack each other (to prevent kills too early in the game).

So, how would the starting hoards be killed? From the canons in the top tower. As getting to the canons would be a long journey through neutrals this would be something late in the game (see below).

Beaches / Battleground
Looking at the layout currently, these start positions would lead to a battleground in front of the castle. To eliminate potential advantages for different start positions due to proximity to the bridge etc, all 8 starts could be boats which can land at any of 8 landing points. In fact, each landing point could be killer-neutral quicksand.

Within the battleground there could be small bonuses available (maybe like the camps in Siege 1).

Accessing the Castle
From the battleground, players would be vying to gain access to the castle at two points (drawbridge and tunnel).

This would require some changes. If we stuck at the two access points we would have a situation similar to the Danelaw map idea (now in the recycling bin) - the thinking there was that foolish players would go first and then get attacked by everyone else before they could progress far. On this map, this could create an early-game boring semi-stalemate waiting game when relatively intelligent players are playing. Therefore it is maybe worth considering additional access routes (maybe through the moat (which would have decay) or by amending the layout to have hills to the side, or a completely encircling moat with more drawbridges, maybe more, shorter tunnels etc.).

Inside The Castle
Once inside the castle, players could battle over various small zonal bonuses, including significant auto-deploy bonuses for King & Queen.

The King & Queen could start with significant neutrals and be part of an objective? Maybe a third significant region could be part of an objective (great hall for example)?

For extra interest, the castle walls could bombard the battleground and landing points and maybe even within the castle (archers bombarding regions close to them, bombarding like the 'range' horses in Waterloo).

The Canon Tower
Then the upper tower - could either be accessed via stairs from the wall (as shown in version 2) or by going up a steep hill / accross a swamp / more quicksand (some kind of decay / killer neutral). The upper tower canons could then bombard starting boats and maybe the battleground and maybe parts of the castle (but not the objective regions as this could create stalemate).

I think that's my idea - hope it makes sense.

I'd be happy to make some sort of diagram - stick a layer on top of the current image(s) to explain.

[porkenbeans]

Yes, I like the sound of that, DJ.

If you could scribble something out for me, I will render it up.
I was thinking that maybe a catapult down on the beach could make for that extra castle entry.

[Teflon Kris]

I like the catapult idea - I'll get a diagram sorted over the next couple of days

[mibi]

you can take mine and colemans name off this map. we don't have time to participate in its creation and its not a revamp, its a new map.

[porkenbeans]

you can take mine and colemans name off this map. we don't have time to participate in its creation and its not a revamp, its a new map.

Will do.

[army of nobunaga]

dj kinda stole my thunder. This is a beautiful start and even though I suck at siege, its a great map.

But this one could go in a lot of different directions, like siege engines. A dam that controls the moat. Catapult areas. How about even making the gate a friggin death ally entry- meaning entering the castle on the gangway has all sorts of perils (spots that attack it one way)

the tunnel could have one or two dead ends.. I dunno.

Maybe even controlling all the areas that butt up against the moat could be a +4 bonus of "Castle siege" as no food or water can go in.

[shakeycat]

Siege II: Revenge of the King

After years of being pummeled by forces from the South, North King gathered his army and set off to seek his revenge. As he approached the Great Southern Forest/River/Mountains/Desert, the king mysteriously vanished. One Northman claimed he saw one of Southern Queen's warriors waiting in the woods on that fateful night. Eight search parties have spread out across the Southlands to find the King. ...who is inside the castle being held prisoner ... yadda yadda

(therefore, the map must be oriented with the castle on the south - a 180, like Andy suggested. It could even be in the lower left corner, with a guard tower on each side. The king would be made obvious, held in the castle. Each party would have a path, paths would cross, join, be equal, and all lead to castle.)

[porkenbeans]

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

OK so I was trying to come up with some ways to make Siege II different from Siege I. This lead me to start eliminating various items from the map. I was eventually left with just the castle. So I decided that I would just start over.

This time instead of laying out any items such as castles, roads, territs, beaches, cannons, siege engines ...etc., I would only lay out a basic "lay of the land" template.

From this template we can create a map with countless possibilities. It can be a Siege II, or it can be a Feudal themed map. It can be a cowboy and Indian theme, or anything that floats your boat. You are only limited by the breadth of your imagine.

So, how about a group effort to come up with something that is unique in the way of CC maps ?

The style is unique in that it is less of a "flat" map, and more of a diorama, that is set at a slight angle to show the 3D topography.

Anything CAN be altered as this is just a rough draft, so as to have a starting point. So, you all are invited to knock yourselves out. Lets see who can come up with the best idea. Take this template and do what ever you want. You do NOT need to be an artist. We are only looking for a solid game play to start off with, such as the territs and connections. You can use circles and squares and other basic shapes to represent castles, cannons, impasses ...etc.

I can not wait to see what all of you bright people come up with.

[00iCon]

mmkay DJ teflon... but i think there are too many of these "starting point vs neutrals" type maps around...
On the other hand Third crusade had an excellent idea, combining the normal troops spread evenly with capital cities starting with more troops.