[Abandoned] - Maze Craze

[cicero]

Also just wondering, does the neutral killer restart at the beginning of your turn, or just the next turn in general?

That's a really good point - since it affects gameplay a great deal ...

The killer neutrals respawn at the beginning of your turn and so any holes you punch through walls won't seal up (immediately) and protect you in a helpful way ...

Hmm interestinger and interestinger.

[edbeard]

It happens at the beginning of the turn of whoever holds the territory. So, if we keep conquering it from each other, it'll never respawn to the 30 neutrals.

[WidowMakers]

At first I was not interested in this map, but It's starting to look a little appealing to me now. I like the sub bonus structure. I didn't understand what the stars were, since there is nothing on the acutal map to explain them. I looked at the map first, then read your update post, which explains the stars. Not sure if it will confuse others as well. And the star graphic has a squished bottom? Maybe instead of a star, a gray outline on the circle? Or a deeper shade of the maze section color?

I dont think the stars are going to be there, they are just to show us where the neutral 3's will be at the start of the game.

Correct

It happens at the beginning of the turn of whoever holds the territory. So, if we keep conquering it from each other, it'll never respawn to the 30 neutrals.

Correct

Are there any other suggestions or concerns? I just want to make sure we all talk this through so I don't have to redo both the large and the small map with reconfigurations.

Do the bonuses look ok?
How about the colors?
How about the layout?
How about the legend?
How about anything?

WM

[gimil]

WM im wondering if making the neutral terrs back in color would make everything a little more distinquished. I may be talking balls but would it hurt to try?

[WidowMakers]

WM im wondering if making the neutral terrs back in color would make everything a little more distinquished. I may be talking balls but would it hurt to try?

THE STARS WILL NOT BE ON THE FINAL MAP.

Everyone.

-Each subgroup will have a starting neutral so that no one can get a bonus on the drop.
-And I made the neutral territories STARS so you could see where they were.
-White 3's are much harder to see that BIG STARS.
-That way if anyone has suggestions on different placement, it is easier to discuss.

REPEAT, THE STARS WILL NOT BE ON THE FINAL MAP.

WM

[gimil]

WM im wondering if making the neutral terrs back in color would make everything a little more distinquished. I may be talking balls but would it hurt to try?

THE STARS WILL NOT BE ON THE FINAL MAP.

Everyone.

-Each subgroup will have a starting neutral so that no one can get a bonus on the drop.
-And I made the neutral territories STARS so you could see where they were.
-White 3's are much harder to see that BIG STARS.
-That way if anyone has suggestions on different placement, it is easier to discuss.

REPEAT, THE STARS WILL NOT BE ON THE FINAL MAP.

WM

I dont recall saying anything anout the stars. Im talking about the neutral WALLS. The big long grey bits all over the map

[WidowMakers]

I dont recall saying anything anout the stars. Im talking about the neutral WALLS. The big long gray bits all over the map

Sorry.

You just want the walls to be darker? I will look into that. Just want to make sure they don't blend into the black.

WM

[yeti_c]

Consider removing the adjacent neutral squares for the start and finish blocks...

i.e. (C2, C3, B3) & (V18, U18, U20)

So that you can ONLY get to the start/finish - by means of the maze?

Otherwise - I reckon this is looking sweet - the neutral placements are nice and even... and I reckon it looks good.

C.

[zimmah]

Consider removing the adjacent neutral squares for the start and finish blocks...

i.e. (C2, C3, B3) & (V18, U18, U20)

So that you can ONLY get to the start/finish - by means of the maze?

Otherwise - I reckon this is looking sweet - the neutral placements are nice and even... and I reckon it looks good.

C.

or you could make them impassable, or start with like 150 neutrals or whatever, a really high amount, and of course killing (back to 150+ armies) considering the high bonusses.

[WidowMakers]

OK here is version 13

Updates:

-Legend reworked to fit more text
-Added +150 for shortest path to Start/Finish. I am not planning on saying what the path is just that it is there. It is easy to figure out with the XML anyway. (please discuss)
-Start and Finish have 8 neutrals to start
-Updated the colors. I could not make the gray to dark. The map got really too dark and blended with the black too much. This keeps the colors easy to see and not a dark map.

Consider removing the adjacent neutral squares for the start and finish blocks...

i.e. (C2, C3, B3) & (V18, U18, U20)

So that you can ONLY get to the start/finish - by means of the maze?

Otherwise - I reckon this is looking sweet - the neutral placements are nice and even... and I reckon it looks good.

C.

or you could make them impassable, or start with like 150 neutrals or whatever, a really high amount, and of course killing (back to 150+ armies) considering the high bonuses.

I am not sure if I like this. With the addition of the +150, those border terts will not really be that important. Plus the will respawn to +30 anyway. making them a pretty good wall.

AGAIN: THE STARS ARE THERE TO SHOW THE POSITION OF THE STARING NEUTRALS IN THE COLORED REGIONS.
THIS IS TO ELIMINATE THE POSSIBILITY OF ANYONE EVER STARTING WITH A BONUS.
THE FINAL MAP WILL NOT HAVE STARS!!!!!


WM

[laci_mae]

I like it. I think there are a few gameplay issues that will arise after it goes live because the map is so unique. Unfortunately, I won't be able to spot these or have a constructive opinion until I've played a few games.

LMR

[cicero]

WM

Nice update

Space is at a premium in the legend ...
Consider removing:
territories are named by column letter and row number
I think that even for people who have never seen the map before this is bordering on obvious ?

Consider changing :
bonus for color group
this bonus overides all subgroup bonuses
to:
bonus for color group
(overrides all subgroup bonuses)
Note the correction to the spelling of "overrides". Also consider making these two lines the same colour.
This reduction in text should allow the neutral territory in the key to be restored to full size.

The route from start to finish bonus ...
Hurrah for the introduction of this particularly brilliant gameplay idea! ... Ahem.
Consider implementing bonus for any route from start to finish ...
Note that only routes via coloured territories are valid (and hence need to be coded in XML) since the respawning neutrals will preclude any other route from ever being held.
With this in mind consider repositioning/removing one or more territories so that it is only possible for one player to hold the start to finish bonus at a time ... As it stands one player could start in yellow and complete the route in pink. Another player could start in grey and complete the route in red [I am colourblind so hopefully you guys can see what I think I'm saying ].
For example removing any one of A3, C1, U19 or W18 would make it so that only one player could ever hold the start to finish bonus. It maybe that for wider gameplay balance a more complex set of changes should be considered.

Oh and ...
... thanks for removing dotted lines between subgroups where these borders are also between colour groups. I realise you did this a few updates back, but I only just noticed

[laci_mae]

The route from start to finish bonus ...
Hurrah for the introduction of this particularly brilliant gameplay idea! ... Ahem.
Consider implementing bonus for any route from start to finish ...
Note that only routes via coloured territories are valid (and hence need to be coded in XML) since the respawning neutrals will preclude any other route from ever being held.
With this in mind consider repositioning/removing one or more territories so that it is only possible for one player to hold the start to finish bonus at a time ... As it stands one player could start in yellow and complete the route in pink. Another player could start in grey and complete the route in red [I am colourblind so hopefully you guys can see what I think I'm saying ].
For example removing any one of A3, C1, U19 or W18 would make it so that only one player could ever hold the start to finish bonus. It maybe that for wider gameplay balance a more complex set of changes should be considered.

I like the addition of a bonus for "completing the maze", but I was thinking that a player would need to hold start and finish as well as a complete connection between them. If this is the case, only one player at a time could hold this bonus.

LMR

[cicero]

I like the addition of a bonus for "completing the maze", but I was thinking that a player would need to hold start and finish as well as a complete connection between them. If this is the case, only one player at a time could hold this bonus.

Good point.
And much more elegant than messing about with colour groups now.

[yeti_c]

I discussed this with WM...

We decided that to code *all* of the possible routes to the maze would take a lot of XML (it can be done but...) also - with the very low chance of actually holding this bonus - is there really a point in having all of these routes coded into the XML (a making the XML big, b making BOB slow) thus we thought that it would be better to have either

a) 1 route (shortest) (I'd need to work that out!)
b) 5 "good" routes that aren't massively publicised but are in the XML for all to find.

C.

[zimmah]

i'd go with the 5 'good' routes then

[zimmah]

also something worth taking into consideration:

since every continent is ALREADY placed into both a continent AND a subcontinent. maybe it's possible to use those continents/subcontinents as a route (sometimes you need 1 or 2 more extra territories with a dead end, but hey, have you ever solved a maze the first time you tried it, without running into at least 1 wall?)

like for example holding the complete yellow color group (or at least the 3 on the right), as well as holding the 4 right cyan color groups, and holding the far right purple and the far right orange color groups and holding the three brown ones connecting them to the start, would give you the bonus you want.

it might sound a bit complicated maybe but i think it will work fine.

individual territories won't count, you just need to hold an entire 'lane' or a color group and use them to 'walk' i think it would be fun and XML-wise it would be MUCH shorter then adding complete routes. correct me if i'm wrong.

[TaCktiX]

Here we are, 4 pretty short routes. By my (likely inaccurate) count, the red route is shortest at 40 territories (including start and finish). I think the idea of the start/finish bonus is a terrifically good one.

[cicero]

Consider implementing bonus for any route from start to finish ...
Note that only routes via coloured territories are valid (and hence need to be coded in XML) since the respawning neutrals will preclude any other route from ever being held.

I like the addition of a bonus for "completing the maze", but I was thinking that a player would need to hold start and finish as well as a complete connection between them. If this is the case, only one player at a time could hold this bonus.

I discussed this with WM...

We decided that to code *all* of the possible routes to the maze would take a lot of XML (it can be done but...) also - with the very low chance of actually holding this bonus - is there really a point in having all of these routes coded into the XML (a making the XML big, & making BOB slow)

since every continent is ALREADY placed into both a continent AND a subcontinent. maybe it's possible to use those continents/subcontinents as a route (sometimes you need 1 or 2 more extra territories with a dead end, but hey)

Taking all the above into account.
Cicero - only routes via colours need to be considered.
Zimmah - let's use the subgroups as the building blocks of a route. Still looking to code all routes this technique should considerably reduce XML size and hence BOB issues I think yeti ?
laci_mae - if we still need to reduce XML size further perhaps an extension on this point: Create a new "centre" point for the maze by combining K10, K11, L10, L11 into a square just like "start" and "finish" ... give it a +5 bonus too. Then only code routes which run through the centre hence reducing the number of possible routes, XML and BOB issues further ... ?

For the "route bonus" to "make sense" it really needs to be all routes (that fit the given criteria).

[yeti_c]

since every continent is ALREADY placed into both a continent AND a subcontinent. maybe it's possible to use those continents/subcontinents as a route (sometimes you need 1 or 2 more extra territories with a dead end, but hey)

Zimmah - let's use the subgroups as the building blocks of a route. Still looking to code all routes this technique should considerably reduce XML size and hence BOB issues I think yeti ?

Yes - and No...

As you can see from looking at the map - some pieces of the map would be easily used... (Consider I12->I16->K16) however - a lot of them wouldn't work too... (Consider for example - E16 -> H16)

C.

[yeti_c]

laci_mae - if we still need to reduce XML size further perhaps an extension on this point: Create a new "centre" point for the maze by combining K10, K11, L10, L11 into a square just like "start" and "finish" ... give it a +5 bonus too. Then only code routes which run through the centre hence reducing the number of possible routes, XML and BOB issues further ... ?

Actually - this could make the XML harder to code...

As now you have to consider 2 sets of routes...

Set 1 -> Start <-> Centre
Set 2 -> Centre <-> Finish

C.

[MrBenn]

The 'bonus route' idea is a good one, but results in the coloured regions becoming unbalanced...
ie Brown suddenly becomes crucially important, as all the shortest paths go through it.
The green and purple regions are on the periphery, and so will be less contested (possibly).

I'm not too sure what to suggest though...

[MrBenn]

... somebody would need to sit down and look at the 'pinch points' for the shortest routes... perhaps these could start neutral, with a high number on them??

[WidowMakers]

... somebody would need to sit down and look at the 'pinch points' for the shortest routes... perhaps these could start neutral, with a high number on them??

Here is the deal. If someone actually gets this bonus, the game is over. +150 does a lot of damage. Holding a bonus group with 40 territories, 11 colored borders and over 40 neutral borders will not happen in round 10. This will take a lot of time. If someone does finally get this bonus, they will most likely also control the bonuses on either side of the line as well. Meaning they will already me getting a huge bonus anyway.

laci_mae - if we still need to reduce XML size further perhaps an extension on this point: Create a new "centre" point for the maze by combining K10, K11, L10, L11 into a square just like "start" and "finish" ... give it a +5 bonus too. Then only code routes which run through the centre hence reducing the number of possible routes, XML and BOB issues further ... ?

Actually - this could make the XML harder to code...

As now you have to consider 2 sets of routes...

Set 1 -> Start <-> Centre
Set 2 -> Centre <-> Finish

C.

I don't want a center point. Mazes don't have that. I know this is not a real maze but I don't want a center point.

I am leaning towards the single shortest line (which is shown in TaCktiX image). This is easy to code(it only has 40 territories for 1 cont bonus) , it gives that map a huge bonus (maybe make it larger) and it gives the maze, a "mazey" feel. And it is going to be virtually impossible to hold this unless a player is already in the lead.

So I think the best single shortest line with a very large bonus (maybe +454 for the number of territories)

WM

[yeti_c]

The 'bonus route' idea is a good one, but results in the coloured regions becoming unbalanced...
ie Brown suddenly becomes crucially important, as all the shortest paths go through it.
The green and purple regions are on the periphery, and so will be less contested (possibly).

I'm not too sure what to suggest though...

I think a better idea - would be to make 4 or 5 routes that don't intersect...



C.