World 2.0/1 Map [Quenched]

[gavin_sidhu]

Question: Isnt there going to be Any Bonus for holding Antarctica?!? everything else has gone from continents to subcontinents, yet i believe you're completely excluding our 7th continent.

I think antartica is neutral.

[mightyal]

It's hard to tell what sub/continent some islands belong to. Tierra Del Fuego, Cuba, Caribbean, Iceland, New Caledonia are all unclear. Hawaii appears to be part of Indonesia which seems strange. Either increase transparancy on the circles or tint them the colour of their sub-continent.

BTW, how many countries are there? I tried to count but kept going bug-eyed.

[Lupo]

In my opinion, Russia should be rewarded with a bigger subcontinental bonus than China.

[gavin_sidhu]

It's hard to tell what sub/continent some islands belong to. Tierra Del Fuego, Cuba, Caribbean, Iceland, New Caledonia are all unclear. Hawaii appears to be part of Indonesia which seems strange. Either increase transparancy on the circles or tint them the colour of their sub-continent.

BTW, how many countries are there? I tried to count but kept going bug-eyed.

I figure out what subcontinent they belong too by looking at the minimap.

[zim]

Made the army circles more transparent, I think it's clearer thanks for the suggestion.


Changed 'Stans for Turkmenistan.

Made white letters black for clarity where possible.


Cheers,

Zim

[AndyDufresne]

Doing a quick look over the map, a few concerns of mine pop up.

• 1. The army shadows seem to be too smally for two digit army coordinates. The shadows need to comfortably house the numbers, and it looks like yours may not.
  
  2. A few areas...the names are clustered and cluttered, and it may be hard to know what name goes where, especially in the Atlantic Ocean area.

--Andy

[happysadfun]

Doing a quick look over the map, a few concerns of mine pop up.

• 1. The army shadows seem to be too smally for two digit army coordinates. The shadows need to comfortably house the numbers, and it looks like yours may not.
  
  2. A few areas...the names are clustered and cluttered, and it may be hard to know what name goes where, especially in the Atlantic Ocean area.

--Andy

When Andy starts getting really picky with only a few concerns, that means it's close to Final Forge time

[AndyDufresne]

So you think! Perhaps I'm just trying to trick you all! I'm going to have to look much closer at this map, due to the complexity of it.


--Andy

[zim]

Doing a quick look over the map, a few concerns of mine pop up.

• 1. The army shadows seem to be too smally for two digit army coordinates. The shadows need to comfortably house the numbers, and it looks like yours may not.
  
  2. A few areas...the names are clustered and cluttered, and it may be hard to know what name goes where, especially in the Atlantic Ocean area.

--Andy

Andy,



I've got some fine tuning to do to get the numbers perfectly centred in all cases but do you think the size is OK?

On the name clutter, I've moved the African and South American names closer to the land to minimize the congestion. I'll publish a revised version once I've made any other changes.

Cheers,

Zim

[AndyDufresne]

It still seems like 2 digit numbers are tightly fit, without any buffer zone, which I would like to see added.


--Andy

[spiesr]

[/quote]

I've got some fine tuning to do to get the numbers perfectly centred in all cases but do you think the size is OK?

On the name clutter, I've moved the African and South American names closer to the land to minimize the congestion. I'll publish a revised version once I've made any other changes.

Cheers,

Zim[/quote]
numbers 20 or higher will not fit

[zim]

numbers 20 or higher will not fit

and

It still seems like 2 digit numbers are tightly fit, without any buffer zone, which I would like to see added.

I've made them as large as I can without having to rework the text and graphics significantly. It's still tight but I think there is just enough buffer, what do you think?




Cheers,

Zim

[happysadfun]

The numbers, especially towards the south, are off-centre.

[zim]

The numbers, especially towards the south, are off-centre.

Happy,

Agreed, the centering needs tuning, posted this one just to get agreement that we're OK for size before I spend a few hours adjusting a pixel here and a pixel there


Zim

[Marvaddin]

Well, as we got little feedback to our discussion, I believe you decided already, Zim. I admit, each update Im more disgusting about this map. Again, the subcontinents are poorly designed (a Canada with 6 territories and 6 borders? Argh!), and countries not in subs are clustered. But this is my opinion and you have yours. Im sure no one can design a good map without opinions. The problem is, we have no one to help you with other continents like I tried to do with South America, and instead of elevate the level of our discussion about playability, all suggestions you are getting are about cosmetic things. Other members are wasting the chance of produce the better map of this site... Im very disappointed. We post 2 simple questions anyone could answer with some words, and the thread is almost abandoned for days, then we have a new version and we get tons of cosmetic stupid posts in hours. When will people stop to say "you should rename area X" and will discuss playability?

[zim]

Well, as we got little feedback to our discussion, I believe you decided already, Zim. I admit, each update Im more disgusting about this map. Again, the subcontinents are poorly designed (a Canada with 6 territories and 6 borders? Argh!), and countries not in subs are clustered. But this is my opinion and you have yours. Im sure no one can design a good map without opinions. The problem is, we have no one to help you with other continents like I tried to do with South America, and instead of elevate the level of our discussion about playability, all suggestions you are getting are about cosmetic things. Other members are wasting the chance of produce the better map of this site... Im very disappointed. We post 2 simple questions anyone could answer with some words, and the thread is almost abandoned for days, then we have a new version and we get tons of cosmetic stupid posts in hours. When will people stop to say "you should rename area X" and will discuss playability?

Marv,

Sorry you are disgusted with the current state of the map. I appreciated your well reasoned input on South America and the map as a whole. I agree that I hoped we'd get more specific input on the continent size issue. However since we didn't I need to use my best judgement and move forward. My premise remains that the border richness of the sub-continents is not an issue given that:
A) they are stepping stones to full continents (which have fewer borders per bonus paid),
B) there are many more sub-continents than their will be players so they need not all be contested in the early game, and
C) that a wise player will extend her/his borders to decrease the number of territories he/she needs to defend, i.e. a player aiming to hold Amazon will take Guyanas to turn Venezuala from a border into an interior country

I don't think you and I are going to get aligned on the continet size/design issue and I don't think either of us (nor anyone else on the board) is likely to accurately forsee how people will play on a map of this size and complexity. I believe that the strategies that emerge will be substantially different depending on the number of players and that we will all be surprised at what proves to be optimal.

Anyway, thanks for your contributions so far and going forward if you're so inclined.

Hope you'll be pleasantly surprised with the playability of the map when it goes live.

Regards,

Zim

[zim]

Small with minor tweaks:


And the same content in large:


Cheers,

Zim

[tomatoman25]

any chance you could explain Antarctica for me? i was hoping it'd be an actual continent (probably with the bonus of a sub continent) rather than being neutral, which seems to be the general regard so far. just wondering if you had anything planned.
~T

[zim]

any chance you could explain Antarctica for me? i was hoping it'd be an actual continent (probably with the bonus of a sub continent) rather than being neutral, which seems to be the general regard so far. just wondering if you had anything planned.
~T

Tomato,

The rationale for including it was mainly as a better way to create a southern attack route versus connecting South Africa, Australia, etc., by long sea lanes. The no bonus is mainly to prevent someone holding it and using it to disrupt all three southern hemisphere continents.

If you want to follow the original discussion I believe it starts on "page" 4 of this thread with:

How about to use Antartic? It will not be an accurate one without it! The territories can be named France possession or something alike.

Let me know what you think once you've read through the history for context.

Cheers,

Zim

[gavin_sidhu]

not necessary but since antartica is a circle all countries in it should be able to attack each other. That would, however, render the british claim useless.

[AndyDufresne]

Okay, I've spent time looking much deeper into the map now... Some thoughts on gameplay first. I may have counted wrong...but is the map total 115 countries?


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

So, do we all agree with South America is finished, and is the template for the rest of the map? That seems to be what I am gathering.

===South America===
(14 Total)


~~Amazon -- 6, 5 Borders

~~La Plata -- 4, 3 Borders

~~Nons -- 4, *****

It does seem that SA is pretty balanced. The borders seem to be pretty proportional to countries, with the 'Nons' thrown in. Lets take a closer look at the next area, North America.


===North America===
(17 Total)


~~Canada -- 6, 6 Borders

~~United States -- 4, 4 Borders

~~Central America -- 3, 2 Borders

~~Nons -- 4, *****

Using the template, North America seems to be struggling in playability fairness. Canada, 6 countries, all of which are borders. Granted, you can take Greenland and Alaska, but you still end up with 6 borders and 8 countries. Perhaps if possible, look into removing an attack route from Greenland to Nunavut. That would make for 6 countries, 5 borders. It seems the nons, at least here, have little strategic vaule, other than the larger eventual bonus. Did you create it that way on purpose?

Now for United States, 4 countries and 4 borders. Again, it seems to be struggling also. There doesn't seem to be much you can do here, unless you re do what 'countries' the regions make up. I suggest though taking a look into perhaps a few other dispersions.

Central America, 3 countries and 2 borders. It seems to be actually alright, well sort of.

It seems the two strategies I see are either a 'Central America-USA' Exspansion (or flip flop the starting points), or the 'Canada Down', where you sweep down. The 'Central-USA' expansion seems to be one where there is less initial risk, especially if you start in Central America and move up. The 'Canada Down' is much more risky due to the number of borders and the number of needed conquered countries, but you will reap much more reward for the 'Canada Down', 4 borders for a bonus 7 armies. Flip that to the 'Central-USA', 5 borders for a bonus 5 armies.

I think USA will be a battle ground, perhaps, especially if you rework canada a bit. If canada can have a little less borders, and have a chance to limit borders (by perhaps reworking countries in USA), I think that would make North America much more balanced.


--Andy

[happysadfun]

Central Canada=Prairie Provinces
North East USA= New England
Mid-West USA= Midwest
Southern USA= Southern Bayou as long as you add texas and okie to west
there needeth be a bonus for antarctica, albeit one or two (unless you make each claim part of the continent of the country its holder is in... that could get interesting)
thailand=burma or siam
moskva=muscovy (maybe?)
it's hard to tell that taiwan is in the far east
make poland light green and call those light greeners "eastern europe" and then add baltics to scandinavia and increase its bonus to 3, increasing the west to 5, then increasing europe overall because europe is strategically important in real life, so it should be in this too.
connexion-italy-greece
iberia-italy
britisles-norway or germany
finland-baltics
sweden-baltics
making europe an allout slugfest
madagascar=part of south
hawaii=instead of connecting to taiwan and mexico, connect it to japan and the usa. that's more historical and more playable.
split mexico into "pacifica" and "mexico"
make egypt, libya, sudan overlaps of africa/mideast(since it's a warzone in real life it could be a warzone here too)
moskva=overlap of russia/east europe
there's gotta be a better name for northeast brazil
indonesia+brunei+papua+philippines=indies

[zim]

not necessary but since antartica is a circle all countries in it should be able to attack each other. That would, however, render the british claim useless.

While this would be technically more accurate I think the added complexity and possibility of player misunderstanding doesn't make it worthwhile. Let's just say it's too cold and dangerous to take the interior route over the south pole, you need to hug the coast so that your troops can be supplied/rescued by sea

Okay, I've spent time looking much deeper into the map now... Some thoughts on gameplay first. I may have counted wrong...but is the map total 115 countries?

113 by my count. See the info view I've attached.

So, do we all agree with South America is finished, and is the template for the rest of the map? That seems to be what I am gathering.... Using the template, North America seems to be struggling in playability fairness. Canada, 6 countries, all of which are borders. Granted, you can take Greenland and Alaska, but you still end up with 6 borders and 8 countries. Perhaps if possible, look into removing an attack route from Greenland to Nunavut. That would make for 6 countries, 5 borders. It seems the nons, at least here, have little strategic vaule, other than the larger eventual bonus. Did you create it that way on purpose?...I think USA will be a battle ground, perhaps, especially if you rework canada a bit. If canada can have a little less borders, and have a chance to limit borders (by perhaps reworking countries in USA), I think that would make North America much more balanced.
--Andy

I didn't locate the nons with any particular purpose in mind in North America, they are where they are as that is where they are in reality. I could have included Alaska in USA by this rationale but that would have gummed up playability significantly. I tried to a quick exercise to give Canada fewer borders directly by moving the Yukon/BC border south so that Alaska only bordered Yukon and merging BC and Central Canada however I don't think it improves the playability and it's less culturally/geo-politically accurate. That version is below.



I also thought about redoing the nothern US so that a single US territory bordered BC and Central/Canada and/or making North East US 'wider' so that it bordered both Upper and Lower Canada. Neither approach makes Canada any less 'border' rich unless a player also takes the US (the "Canada Down" strategy you describe) in which case the existing US layout already allows a player to take their four southern borders and turn them into three by taking Western, Mid-West and North East US or two by adding Southern US.

So I'm open to suggestions but I don't see a way to rework NA that preserves geo-political accuracy while reducing borders appreciably.

In the course of thinking this through (and double checking the territory counts) I created this overlay which I hope will be useful in discussing the right number of bonus armies for the sub and full territories.



Cheers,

Zim

P.S. Happy, this long winded post crossed paths with your last message. I'll review and comment later today. Thanks.

[zim]

Central Canada=Prairie Provinces

Done...

North East USA= New England

New York is in there so it's not all technically New England but I like it. Will do.

Mid-West USA= Midwest

I'm OK to remove the hyphen; I'd like to keep the USA as "Midwest" is also sometimes used in describing Centre-West Brazil and the Mid West region of Australia.

Southern USA= Southern Bayou as long as you add texas and okie to west

Texas and Oklahoma 'belong' in the "south" rather than the west. With them in I don't think Bayou is appropriate.

there needeth be a bonus for antarctica, albeit one or two (unless you make each claim part of the continent of the country its holder is in... that could get interesting)

I could align to giving Antarctica a small bonus if that's the consensus, though I like it as a zero given the neutral status of Antarctia, it's sparce settlement, harsh environment, etc. I think including the claims in the continent of the country is complex and doesn't add to the realism of the map given that the ownerships are disputed and not of significant strategic importance to their holders.

thailand=burma or siam
moskva=muscovy (maybe?)

Burma is now Myanmar and Siam is now Thailand why the historic names versus the contemporary ones? I prefer Moskva (Moscow) as being more contemporary but the archaic (14-17th century) Muscovy better reflects the area in question. I'm not fussed about it either way. Opinions?

it's hard to tell that taiwan is in the far east

I've added a line to make it's connection to "far east" clearer, it isn't all that pretty but should avoid confusion.

make poland light green and call those light greeners "eastern europe" and then add baltics to scandinavia and increase its bonus to 3, increasing the west to 5, then increasing europe overall because europe is strategically important in real life, so it should be in this too.

If I do this only Iceland and Greece remain non aligned in Europe, I don't think this is the right balance for the continent. Europe's certainly has significant strategic importance but I don't think that is the right criteria for the bonus armies which I've based on their 'geography' in the game i.e., number of borders, number of other countries that can attack them, adjacency to another sub-continent or full continent.

connexion-italy-greece
iberia-italy
britisles-norway or germany
finland-baltics
sweden-baltics
making europe an allout slugfest

I could do iberia to italy, the others however increase the number of borders for the sub-continents which I don't think improves playability.

madagascar=part of south

I'm not wedded to Madagascar being seperate though I do think it makes that part of the world more interesting. The UN does include it in it's definition of Southern Africa and it's part of the Southern Africa development community so it is more accurate for it to be in. If you feel strongly about it I'll add it to the Southern Africa sub-continent and recalculate the bonus (though I suspect it's still a four at 8/3 versus 7/4).

hawaii=instead of connecting to taiwan and mexico, connect it to japan and the usa. that's more historical and more playable.

I can see the historical significance of the Japan/Hawaii link and the contemporary appropriateness of Hawaii/USA but geographically it's incorrect given the lattitude of Hawaii. Changing Taiwan for Japan doesn't have much of an impact on the structure of the sub/full continents so I could do it if that's the general preference. Changing Mexico for Western USA I think changes the playability of both the USA and Central America sub-continents for the worse.

split mexico into "pacifica" and "mexico"

Not sure which parts of the current Mexico you'd like to see in which of the proposed two new conuntries though I'm presuming an east/west split given the name 'pacifica' which I think would be difficult given the shape of the territory but show me what you intend and I'll see how it might work.

make egypt, libya, sudan overlaps of africa/mideast(since it's a warzone in real life it could be a warzone here too)
moskva=overlap of russia/east europe

We've discussed the one territory belonging to two sub or full continents before and as before while I think the concept is intriguing I think this map is already sufficiently complex with neutral territories, sub/full continents and it's scale. I'd like to see this concept deployed however (perhaps in the Eurasia map being discussed?)

there's gotta be a better name for northeast brazil

Marvaddin coined it and he's the only Brazillian on CC I know of so I'm inclined to defer to him. If he's got another suggestion that isn't a cardinal direction name I'm all for it.

indonesia+brunei+papua+philippines=indies

Not sure I'm clear on this, I assume you mean Central Indonesia+Brunei+Papua NG+Phillipines and that you also meant to include Sorong with Sumatra and Java becoming unaligned? If I've got it right then I think it could work though I'd rather have Indonesia represented given it's population and importance in the region.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Cheers,

Zim

[Triforce]

Keep all those countries in Indonesia seperate. It always bothered me in the classic map, thirty countries balled up into a 'siam' or a 'kamachkata', and thats what makes this map awesome: one-hundred and thirteen countries. Keep it the way it is, and split up as many others as readability and gameplay will allow.