Europa [Quenched]

[Ruben Cassar]

I know the islands are being discussed... Hellenics are good for gameplay as is I guess with the little bonus. Note that Benelux is the same size and leads to easier expansion but gives a +2 bonus. Baltics also give +2 but have nowhere to go really.

British Isles would be a better +3 if it had one more border... even allowing denmark to hit england or scotland would slow a player's march out of the Isles. Seems like the British Isles-Benelux combo is best start on the map... take either and you can get the other, then central europe presents a nice target with the +4, and ta-da you have a +9 bonus with only four borders when you take France.

Another impassable somewhere in eastern europe would be nice... a river that does what the Danube does down south? I don't now the region well so maybe this is a bad idea.

Ah you got me thinking on this one. I think Baltics, Hellenics and Benelux should have the same bonus, perhaps a +2.

Central Europe's bonus is too much. It should be +3 not +4. After all there are only 4 territories, one more than the ones mentioned above.

Or perhaps the Baltics, Hellenics and Benelux could become +1 and Central Europe +2? Of course you would have to look at the other bonuses if you did this. I'm just thinking that since this is a map with many regions someone could get lucky and start with one or more of the Baltics, Hellenics and Benelux bonuses. A +1 would do less harm than a +2 in that circumstance. Just a thought of course.

[MrBenn]

Update!

Here's another update - I've made several small changes, and a couple of not-so small ones!

• Added more mountains to the Alps, including one to the border between Austria/Slovenia
• The Oder-Neisse river between Germany and Poland has been added
• I've changed the legend text for the impassables so there is no overlapping, and the Danube/Alps names have been removed
• The British Isles have been nudged about and enlarged to help the army numbers fit
• Ocean routes have been tweaked, and some overlapping dots have been taken out (which is why some looked bigger)
• The label line to Liechtenstein has been moved to go the the army number
• Army numbers have been shuffled around in various places - the Greek one now covers the land-peninsular
• The Balkan region has been made a shade darker again to help differentiate the colours
• The bonus for the Hellenics has been upped to +2

[Kaplowitz]

mini-map needs fixing
Germany and BeNeLux need to switch colors

[MrBenn]

Thanks Kap - you beat me to my 'other comments' post!

Anyway, here is my 'comments' post, where I try to address some of the concerns that have been brought up:

• Yes, I forgot to update the minimap This will be updated soon.
• Russia... I toyed with adding Kaliningrad (the stray brown bit) again; but I've decided to leave Russia how it is for the following reasons: a) It will be obvious from the attack menus that Russia can attack/be attacked in lots of places, even without an explanation. b)Adding Kgd as an exclave will definitely require an explanation on the map, and I'm not keen to add too much clutter. c)There isn't room for the word 'Kaliningrad' and an army number, and there isn't space in Africa for me to add another abbreviation to the key. d) It can stay transcontinental by being part of the Fatherland (or is Russia a Motherland?)
• The rivers are quite wide, but I feel this helps to enforce their purpose - to seperate the land.
• The colour-scheme is deliberately balanced to have similar colours adjacent to one another. I like the aesthetics of it, and I have tried to make them different enough to be distinct to our colour-blind friends.

The only thing I've left off my list is gameplay... I'm still trying to digest the balance of powers here... all suggestions are welcome at this stage

[snufkin]

I think having gibraltar as a separate country is a bit silly.. it is a british enclave (like kaliningrad is to russia) not a separate country.. I was there less than two months ago.. it has a governor not its own head of state.

greenland is at least autonomous and has its own prime minister

ceuta or canary islands or melilla are more like countries than the tiny rock of gibraltar..
seems to me like the inclusion of that little rock makes the map biased towards britain

[MrBenn]

OK.... there has been some discussion about Gibraltar/Greenland, so I'm putting up a poll.

I have no favouritism about whether Gibraltar remains on the map or not; with Greenland, I'd quite like to keep it on, but lets see what the poll shows!

[Ruben Cassar]

OK.... there has been some discussion about Gibraltar/Greenland, so I'm putting up a poll.

I have no favouritism about whether Gibraltar remains on the map or not; with Greenland, I'd quite like to keep it on, but lets see what the poll shows!

Why put up a poll Ben?

Just keep them in there. It's your map at the end of the day. Corsica, Sicily, Crete or the Balearics are not countries on their own, but parts of other countries and they are still on the map so I don't see what the problem is with Gibraltar or Greenland.

I would have liked to see a sea route from Britain to Gibraltar though.

[MrBenn]

I've put up the poll as it will help to settle the debate about whether they should be there or not.

As for the attack route between Britian and Gibraltar - I llike the idea, but am not sure if there's enough space for it...

[MrBenn]

Hmmm... The poll gives the general impression that people are generally indifferent about Greenland/Gibraltar, with a slight majority in favour of keeping them.

On a side note - it's been nearly a week since I featured in the foundry newsletter, and have not had a single post here since it went out Oh well...

Anyway, I've been working on an update, and am just getting it uploaded.... watch this space...

[yeti_c]

You have had 35 votes in that time though... that shows a fair bit of interest...

C.

[MrBenn]

Update
Changes:

• Fixed the minimap colours
• Added the mountains between France/Spain - utilises Andorra as the stepping stone between the two
• Modified Central Europe from +4 to +3 bonus
• Played around with a sea path from England<>Gibraltar... couldn't quite squeeze it in past Portugal, so have added an England<>Spain path along a ferry route!

[ZeakCytho]

[*]Added the Alps between France/Spain - utilises Andorra as the stepping stone between the two

No Alps are there



This update looks very good to me. I think you've solved the problem of Western Europe being too easy to hold with those new routes.

[MrBenn]

Whoops... my mistake - the Alps of course are at the North of Italy.... those are the Pyreneese (sp?).... amended my post

[oaktown]

I voted no on whether or not to keep both Gibraltar and Greenland. Since both have only one attack route out neither really add anything to gameplay, but they also don't negatively affect play so whatever. I agree with ruben - your map, your call.

Not so wild about making Andorra the only way to get from France to Spain; I know you've been striving to make this as true-to-life as possible with all of the tiny Balkan states, so closing the border between France and Spain seems unrealistic. Plus, you already have so many other territories in that area that kinda stuff up gameplay - portugal and gibraltar with only one border, the bottleneck from France to Sardinia - I say open it up and let people play.

England to Spain is a good route that helps open things up - the Armada lives again!

I still think that the segmented piece of Russia will need a line of explanation, especially since that region is such a flat color. At first I thought that was an out-of-play region.

[oaktown]

Poll results:

Territories: on/off the map...

Gibraltar: On: 14 votes, 31%
Gibraltar: Off: 8 votes, 18%

Greenland: On: 12 votes, 27%
Greenland: Off: 10 votes, 22%

Total votes : 44

[InkL0sed]

Surely you could extend the image by a few pixels for the England/Gibraltar route?

[Androidz]

I dont like you useing Keys instead of the whole names...other than that this map looks great. But then again its just another Europe map alots of them both outside and inside the Map Foundry:D

[MrBenn]

Surely you could extend the image by a few pixels for the England/Gibraltar route?

I'm already at the 630px limit.... I might see if I can adjust the border at the bottom of portugal to give a bit more space?

[1]I dont like you useing Keys instead of the whole names... [2]other than that this map looks great. [3]But then again its just another Europe map alots of them both outside and inside the Map Foundry:D

[1] If you can suggest a way of getting all the Balkan territory names on the map in full, and maintaining legibility/clarity, be my guest.
[2] Thanks.
[3] Whatever.

[a]I voted no on whether or not to keep both Gibraltar and Greenland. Since both have only one attack route out neither really add anything to gameplay, but they also don't negatively affect play so whatever. I agree with ruben - your map, your call.

[b]Not so wild about making Andorra the only way to get from France to Spain; I know you've been striving to make this as true-to-life as possible with all of the tiny Balkan states, so closing the border between France and Spain seems unrealistic. Plus, you already have so many other territories in that area that kinda stuff up gameplay - portugal and gibraltar with only one border, the bottleneck from France to Sardinia - I say open it up and let people play.

[c] England to Spain is a good route that helps open things up - the Armada lives again!

[d] I still think that the segmented piece of Russia will need a line of explanation, especially since that region is such a flat color. At first I thought that was an out-of-play region.

[a] I'm pretty impartial; although I'd be inclined to leave them on to boost the number of starting territories to 61 (In my mind I'm going to start Switzerland neutral).
[b] I'm undecided on this... I liked the suggestion, and am pleased with the look - I hadn't considered the bottleneck effect in too much detail though. More feedback on this would be useful while I reconsider this change
[c] Good old Drake! The Armada is the first thing I thought of when drawing this attack route!
[d] I'm not too sure whether it will need an explanation, or whether it will be clear from the attack selection. Again, more feedback would be helpful.

[MrBenn]

So how much further am I from the GFX/GP stamps?

[oaktown]

So how much further am I from the GFX/GP stamps?

Can't speak for graphics, but there are clearly gameplay issues still being worked out. But they are smaller issues than you had a few weeks ago.

As for the Russia territory being split - the implications of this are that Poland, for example, can conquer all of Russia and then roll on into Azerbiajan even though there are countries between Poland and Russia? Think about that one for a minute.

The river between Germany and Poland needs some twists and turns so it doesn't just look like the continent is split in half.

[AndyDufresne]

Not so wild about making Andorra the only way to get from France to Spain; I know you've been striving to make this as true-to-life as possible with all of the tiny Balkan states, so closing the border between France and Spain seems unrealistic. Plus, you already have so many other territories in that area that kinda stuff up gameplay - portugal and gibraltar with only one border, the bottleneck from France to Sardinia - I say open it up and let people play.

I think I might be with Oaktown on this.

As for the Kalin., I mentioned it in my post back a few pages. It is pretty significant in game play, as Oaktown pointed out. I think I am more inclined to make it nonplayable area.


--Andy

[t-o-m]

i really think the russia thing is going to confuse people.

[MrBenn]

Update!
OK, I've had a play around with Kaliningrad/Russia, and come up with a solution that I am happy with...
Kaliningrad (Kgd) isnow a territory of its own in the Trancontinental region. The Transcontinental bonus has been left at +4 for the time being, but I have added a +1 'Fatherland' bonus for holding Russia+Kgd, effectively making Trans a +5.

I have tweaked the 'key' on Africa to include Kgd. I preferred the 'two columns' appearance I had before, but couldn't get them all to fit, hence the 'three columns' now.

A couple of sea routes have been shifted slightly (can't remember if they were on the last update) - I'm still considering an England-Gibraltar route instead of England-Spain.


As well as feedback about the Russia/Kgd solution, I would like to move discussion to the Western Europe region, specifically the addition/removal of the Pyrenees (sp) Mountains between Spain/France.

[yeti_c]

Can I suggest you grow the map a bit longer - to give you more of Africa for your abbreviations - it looks a bit cramped in there.

KGD being back makes me happy - I think that's a good idea.

I'm not sure I like numbers for the Balkans - could it be done with letters - like your other abbvs

C.

[MrBenn]

1. Can I suggest you grow the map a bit longer - to give you more of Africa for your abbreviations - it looks a bit cramped in there.

2. KGD being back makes me happy - I think that's a good idea.

3. I'm not sure I like numbers for the Balkans - could it be done with letters - like your other abbvs

C.

1. That isn't something I'd ever thought about - but is a VERY good suggestion... I think I can stretch a few more pixels onto the bottom

2. I aim to please

3. I originally used letter abbreviations, and then switched to numbers to save space. Since then I have made a bit more room in the Balkans, so might be able to fit something in...