Marooned (redux)

[ManBungalow]

Map Name: Marooned
Mapmaker(s): ManBungalow
Number of Territories: 86
Special Features:Conquest gameplay, I suppose.

Map Image:

Click image to enlarge.

Several of you will be familiar with my previous attempt at making this map:
viewtopic.php?f=242&t=146086
I completed overhauled the gameplay several times, to the point where it was changing so much that it didn't really belong in the main foundry workshop. I tried having simple gameplay, and I tried having complicated gameplay with lots of different bonuses. Some versions had more than 100 regions, and I was never happy with any version, and that was reflected in the multiple 'revamps'.
However, I've got a good feeling about this one.

The graphics will be noticeably different to anybody who ever saw the other read, thought a few elements are recycled.
(I'll no doubt trim some space off around the edges before long. I don't want it to be too cramped, and I've left space for the backstory, legend, and anything else which may appear).

SAFE REGIONS: are the starting positions
BONUS REGIONS: are bonus regions, start neutral
INTERMEDIATE REGIONS: also start neutral

The more important parts, bulleted for your enjoyment and ease of reading comprehension:

• Those circles and lines are quite obviously placeholders, waiting for me to design a suitable icon for each territory type/connector.
• The gameplay is based on simple aspects...(check out the legend complexity in this version for comparison).
• However, it's designed to be interesting (look what happened when I tried to make each region balanced and imagine how crap games on that map would be).
• Crucially, there are 16 starting positions. Even in an 8 player game, each player has 2 start regions, giving him/her a choice of strategy every time.
• Now is the time for suggesting structural changes. If there's a starting region which is too advantaged/disadvantaged, that needs pointing out.

That's about it; I look forward to reading your comments.

[DoomYoshi]

Nice, I am glad you give this another go. I will give you the usual rundown, but give me time. Feel free to remind me about this.

[sannemanrobinson]

Gameplay looks doable. Legend will need some work to explain bonus region (1 troop for every 2 regions?). 1 autodecay, 1 autodeploy?

Making the name safe region more interesting can be done by calling it 'camp'.
intermediates could be 'monster'
bonus region could be 'hunting place'

edit: the legend in your link seems to explain all this

[ManBungalow]

Gameplay looks doable. Legend will need some work to explain bonus region (1 troop for every 2 regions?). 1 autodecay, 1 autodeploy?

Making the name safe region more interesting can be done by calling it 'camp'.
intermediates could be 'monster'
bonus region could be 'hunting place'

I thought I might scale the bonuses up a little.

Instead of having 2 autodeploy, 1 autodecay, 2 bonus (or whatever), I'd like to have 6 autodeploy, 3 autodecy, 6 bonus etc. Everything would change proportionally, and it should make the dice slightly less frustrating when ploughing through any neutral chain with more than 1 troop on each region (case in hand, City Mogul).
It will be more clear when I make an update with bonuses actually shown in the legend and proposed neutral values about the place.

Also, I need a good backstory to explain how these castaways got to the islands and why they're so evenly spread about the place.
I thought it could have been a shipwreck, and the crew formed their own factions and now they're competing for resources, but I'll take anything better than that.

[koontz1973]

MB, keep it simple. Very simple. No funny bonuses etc. All I will say is that is where I think you went wrong over the first marooned. You tried to get in to much and tried to please everyone at the same time.
Come up with what you want to do, and stick with that. If people suggest to try adding a GP element, it is up to you to add it if you want but do not forget, this is your map.

[ManBungalow]

MB, keep it simple. Very simple. No funny bonuses etc. All I will say is that is where I think you went wrong over the first marooned. You tried to get in to much and tried to please everyone at the same time.
Come up with what you want to do, and stick with that. If people suggest to try adding a GP element, it is up to you to add it if you want but do not forget, this is your map.

You're right.

As I referenced in the initial post, it's very simple. When I tried simple in the past, it was boring. This is simple, but there's variety.

I did consider adding bombard regions on the top of mountains, trail regions which reset to neutral, winning conditions, and all sorts of other things while I was sketching the gameplay up. Unlike some of the very old versions, the graphics here were made after the gameplay, so it's not suited for huge changes anyway. As I posted somewhere above, changing some borders, or maybe adding/subtracting an intermediate region somewhere is fine by me. In fact, that's what I want to hear about.

[koontz1973]

Right now, you need to get one thing done before all else.
Your legend. Forgot about the rest. The legend now is the most important part of this map as it will let everyone know what you want on this map. Things may change and you may want to add something later, but that will give everyone looking at the map an idea on how to play and what you are wanting to discuss.

Forget choosing symbols, your army circles are good enough for now till you choose them.

Get that on and a title, and you will be good to go soon.

But I did like the old wood title you had on the last one.

[nolefan5311]

First off, your water looks amazing. Perhaps the most realistic I have seen on a map. The only issue is the islands look a little silly compared to such real looking water, lol.

Second, I agree with koontz about the legend. I can't analyze the gameplay until I have a better idea what's going on, so work on that until you get the draft stamp and then I can take a closer look at things.

[DiM]

First off, your water looks amazing. Perhaps the most realistic I have seen on a map.

funny thing, i was just prepared to say that the water looks completely fake. it looks nothing like real water should and it has a plastic feel to it.

first of all if you're high enough to see the islands like that then for sure you won't see all those waves on the water (unless you have a few thousand tsunamis).
second the water has a shiny center almost as if somebody in the sky has a huge flashlight pointing at it. there are no flashlights in the sky and the sun doesn't shine like that.
thirdly, the water has varying depth. this means the colour also varies. perhaps a light blue near the shores with white foam from the waves and then it gets progressively darker as you move away from the shore. but this progression is never smooth and consistent. in some places you could have a rift and go as deep as 500 meters just 50 meters away from the shoreline, in other places it could be steep incline. here you don't see anything like that. everything is the same regardless what your distance from the shoreline is.

but the water is not a big issue at this point. the first thing i see when i look at this map is bottlenecks. there are so many bottlenecks i'm not even counting. the center map can be held with 1 border. the 2 big islands (N and SE) each has just 2 borders that need to be defended. and movement is very linear.

[ManBungalow]

How does this mockup look to everybody?

Click image to enlarge.

I'll address specific concerns soon. Largely I just want to keep this thread alive and the comments flowing.

Also, wow, the red colour I used on those army numbers looks so washed out in the .jpg version.

[koontz1973]

Use the official numbers then. Save them.



your text in the upper right corner cannot be read. Just noticed the title as well.

Here are some placement ideas.
Move title top right. Change colour and place above all layers. Give it something to make it stand out above all else.
Story text. Bottom right. Again, move to the top.
All other text, place into boxes along the bottom.
Make all text the same colour, story, title and legend.
Make all text the same font. You have the room to use your fancy title text.

Text. Your current legend text. Use this for the territ text. Get that on ASAP.

Some wording for you.
Autodecay - Wild animals eat two of your men each turn.
Bonus - Natives agree to join you on your hunts.
Auto deploy - Natives build defences around your house.
This brings some extra theme to your map.

Graphics.
Got to agree with DiM and nole on the water. While it is nice, it has this leather look to it and does not suit the islands. But leave it for now.
White lines, replace these with paths like you had on the other map.
Red lines, put in a sea route a boat. (Extra territ for the boat).

Head on over to Dafont. Find your self some nice dingbats (make sure they are free to use)to use instead of army circles. Like the paths, make some clearings in the woods.

[AndyDufresne]

Glad to see this taken up again. I'll take a look at it soon hopefully.


--Andy

[ManBungalow]

Some wording for you.
Autodecay - Wild animals eat two of your men each turn.
Bonus - Natives agree to join you on your hunts.
Auto deploy - Natives build defences around your house.
This brings some extra theme to your map.

Graphics.
Got to agree with DiM and nole on the water. While it is nice, it has this leather look to it and does not suit the islands. But leave it for now.
White lines, replace these with paths like you had on the other map.
Red lines, put in a sea route a boat. (Extra territ for the boat).

Head on over to Dafont. Find your self some nice dingbats (make sure they are free to use)to use instead of army circles. Like the paths, make some clearings in the woods.

Best comment so far.
The suggested wording is very nice, and I hadn't thought about including natives before. I think I'll go with that.

Graphics obviously will come in the future. Not only is it a more serious theme than the playful graphics of the original, but my skills have improved since then also. And leather was the first thing I thought of when looking at the image in my first post, so I'm glad you said that.

On my agenda is to include territory names, paths and region icons. Also to fix up the legend, title, and all that jazz. Natty gave me some good advice about region icons, but I will check out those downloadable fonts and see if any fit the bill. Another good idea.

[koontz1973]

As this one is picking up steam, please provide all info in the thread title for me.
Name / date / version number / page number.

[DoomYoshi]

Top of first island - the first 2 starters suck if there are players on both, but if one player owns both, they are a potent combination. The third one in the top row is one of the best starters on the map.

The first one in the middle row is the second best starter in the game. The other middle one is nice too.

In the bottom row of the top island is the weakest single starting position (or maybe it is the one on the central island) -2 away from 2 foods, 4 away from a third.

The most strong position is the one on the east island, 1 away from the one-way attack. It has 2 foods within 1 attack range.

Overall, very nice map. It has some good variety.

[ManBungalow]

I've addressed some minor concerns with this update. The legend portrays the general gameplay I want to end up with.
The title, backstory, and presentation of the legend will all be subject to change. As will the region circles, territory names, boat/trail routes etc.

As I posted on the first page, I need comments about gameplay. Yoshi's comment was particularly useful because it referred to individual start positions and how they could be altered. Incidentally, I've added some temporary region names so that helpful commentators may refer to specific parts of the map (for the time being, you'll have to say "A3 on option B" etc).

I wasn't completely happy with the double-bonus at the top-left. It may be possible to code start positions so that no one player ever drops with the nearby start positions, but that's getting into a touchy area as far as I'm concerned with this map. Subsequently, I've come up with two maps.

Comments and justification are preferable, but voting in the poll will take only a few seconds and will be much appreciated.

Intermediate regions can be added/removed at will, but I'd like an opinion on these two proposals overall (the only difference is at the top left):

OPTION A

Click image to enlarge.

OPTION B

Click image to enlarge.

Oh, one important thing to consider when stating that "X is better because it's closer to Y bonuses" is how much stress is on each bonus region; how many other start positions can attack it and how likely they are to do so. Ideally, this would be played with fog of war, but I'll make sure it's compatible otherwise.

the first thing i see when i look at this map is bottlenecks. there are so many bottlenecks i'm not even counting. the center map can be held with 1 border. the 2 big islands (N and SE) each has just 2 borders that need to be defended. and movement is very linear.

I was waiting for this comment to pop up in this thread. A major aspect of this map is that linear-ness. You make several decisions in your first moves. You decide where you will deploy, and which way you will go with your troops. If you were to take away all of the intermediate regions, I think you'll find that the other regions fit together quite nicely. If you see a bottleneck, defend it. You may well leave your other side weak, but that's just it.

[koontz1973]

Here is some things to keep from each.

Option A, on the large island you have A4, there are 3 areas like that on the mountain, do the same for all 3.
Option B, the rocky outcropping route in the north.
The central island, remove the one way attacks and have either of the big islands attack A11 territ as it is on the map now.

If I am correct about this, orange are the starting positions, then get these down to 8. It will make all the rest far easier to do.

I fear as far as GP is concerned, you will always have problems with this one. Does not matter if it is played in fog or not, why would anyone hack through all of those neutrals? only to hit a base with +2 auto deploys on it. It might be better to go down the Antarctica route. +1 for every 2 territs on any island. Place the starting positions around and give these the auto deploy you have. You need an idea to give the starting positions security and a way to attack them. Just an idea.

[AndyDufresne]

I think I like B, since I can kind of see the movement around the map working better in the North. But I also kind of like in A how A1, A2, A4 are all sort of pitted against one another, similar to a few other areas on the map as well.


--Andy

[ManBungalow]

100% of voters so far go for version B!

All one of those voters...

Anyway, I think I'm going to pursue a simpler map project for the time being. There are already lots of maps with basic gameplay, but I'll scour the foundry archives for something slightly different.

This map is clearly too radical for somebody with no previously quenched maps to complete.

Move this to the recycling bin/map ideas/wherever it is you put these things, and I may come back to it one day.

[koontz1973]

[Moved]

Moved to the Melting Pot as no draft stamp has been given.

koontz.


P.S. Shame about this.

[AndyDufresne]

100% of voters so far go for version B!

All one of those voters...

Anyway, I think I'm going to pursue a simpler map project for the time being. There are already lots of maps with basic gameplay, but I'll scour the foundry archives for something slightly different.

This map is clearly too radical for somebody with no previously quenched maps to complete.

Move this to the recycling bin/map ideas/wherever it is you put these things, and I may come back to it one day.

I think you can do it! But if you heart is leaning toward something else for your first map, there are a lot of great theme ideas around.


--Andy