TRAFALGAR [12.4.2012] QUENCHED (V65)

[cairnswk]

Mmmmm. I've removed the red/blue/yellow gradient on the sea so that the Spanish connection lines can be seen better on the next update.

[cairnswk]

Mmmmm. I've removed the red/blue/yellow gradient on the sea so that the Spanish connection lines can be seen better on the next update.

Also added just a tad more rigging along the aftsail lower mast and on those ropes towering upwards.
Also changed the opacity of the background ship from 455 to 65% just show it shows a little more.

Click image to enlarge.

[yeti_c]

I like the new changes for connections that came from my post and your adaptation.

Good stuff.

C.

[cairnswk]

I like the new changes for connections that came from my post and your adaptation.

Good stuff.

C.

Cool.

[Incandenza]

Okay, I've been staring at this for some time now, and the main issue I have at this point are the trailing british ships in the NW. I would be in bfavor of making it as easy as possible to strike these ships, as they respresent a nice reservoir of out-of-the-way terits by which someone could build the 8 British ship bonus a bit easier.

Thus I'm thinking two changes: reorienting Heros a bit and allowing it to bombard Agamemnon, and shortening the spar in the legend graphic a bit and adding an Ajax-Polyphemous connection. That ensures that someone who has a nice little encampment there (usually on the drop) will have to vigorously defend it.

Also, I've been looking through the wikipedia entry on the battle and consulting my handy copy of Keegan's "The Price of Admiralty", and the following ships should probably have their names changed (I've deferred to Keegan in case of discrepancy) (in the interest of expedience, I've only listed the changed names):
San Francisco de Asis (or you could shorten it and just use San Francisco)
Duguay-Trouin
San Juan Nepomuceno
San Ildefonso
Montanes
Santa Ana
Algésiras
Intrépide
Héros
Téméraire

If you don't want to do accents, I understand, but the first five should be spelled properly.

[mibi]

I would like to see the images with compression residue replaced with something higher quality. It mars an otherwise clean looking map.

[cairnswk]

I would like to see the images with compression residue replaced with something higher quality. It mars an otherwise clean looking map.

Yeh mibi, i'll fix that for you.

[lt_oddball]

I am too late to make a concept gameplay comment, but maybe it is worthwhile for a next seabattle map;

In order to simulate the movement of vessels and moreso the movement choice a commander of a vessel has to make and be stuck(!) with that movement choice for the next hour, why not had the map made like this:

players start at a starting location of one big ship (up to 4 brits, up to 4 spanish/french). On the map a variety of the other ships (frigates etc) are positioned in the field.
From each starting ship location there are 3 (or 4 or 5) lines emanating with sequential one direction attack "territories" each line represents one certain sail manouevre. By chosing one direction you pretty much have chosen a certain attack (or defense) sailing strategy.
These lines can and will cross eachother so that at a certain moment one can "jump" to someone other's line (like circus maximus map).
Sometimes a territory can also allow a bombardment at other lines over a certain distance.
Especially in a fog map it will be realistic in that at each crossroads you'd have to decide to stay (and build up) or continue-but in which direction.

To prevent a player to begin with attacking each of his choice saillines and keep all his options open for a long time , you can think of disheartening measures;
like
a) starting position will automatically lose -2 (or -4 whatever) troops per turn, so that after turn 3 all starting ship locations have turned to neutral.
or b) bonusses can only be acquired if one controls a minimum of "a" territories of one line and not controlling the first territory of the other lines.

What do you think ?

[cairnswk]

^^^^^^ Mmmmm..discussion please. ^^^^^

[cairnswk]

Okay, I've been staring at this for some time now, and the main issue I have at this point are the trailing british ships in the NW. I would be in bfavor of making it as easy as possible to strike these ships, as they respresent a nice reservoir of out-of-the-way terits by which someone could build the 8 British ship bonus a bit easier.

Thus I'm thinking two changes: reorienting Heros a bit and allowing it to bombard Agamemnon,

OK, if i re-orient the Héros then i am removing the bombard from Neptune to Héros and of course Africa won't be able to be bombarded from Héros

and shortening the spar in the legend graphic a bit and adding an Ajax-Polyphemous connection. That ensures that someone who has a nice little encampment there (usually on the drop) will have to vigorously defend it.

there is no need to shorten that spar.

Also, I've been looking through the wikipedia entry on the battle and consulting my handy copy of Keegan's "The Price of Admiralty", and the following ships should probably have their names changed (I've deferred to Keegan in case of discrepancy) (in the interest of expedience, I've only listed the changed names):
San Francisco de Asis (or you could shorten it and just use San Francisco)
Duguay-Trouin
San Juan Nepomuceno
San Ildefonso
Montanes
Santa Ana
Algésiras
Intrépide
Héros
Téméraire

If you don't want to do accents, I understand, but the first five should be spelled properly.

Done.

[cairnswk]

I am too late to make a concept gameplay comment, but maybe it is worthwhile for a next seabattle map;

In order to simulate the movement of vessels and moreso the movement choice a commander of a vessel has to make and be stuck(!) with that movement choice for the next hour, why not had the map made like this:

players start at a starting location of one big ship (up to 4 brits, up to 4 spanish/french). On the map a variety of the other ships (frigates etc) are positioned in the field.
From each starting ship location there are 3 (or 4 or 5) lines emanating with sequential one direction attack "territories" each line represents one certain sail manouevre. By chosing one direction you pretty much have chosen a certain attack (or defense) sailing strategy.
These lines can and will cross eachother so that at a certain moment one can "jump" to someone other's line (like circus maximus map).
Sometimes a territory can also allow a bombardment at other lines over a certain distance.
Especially in a fog map it will be realistic in that at each crossroads you'd have to decide to stay (and build up) or continue-but in which direction.

To prevent a player to begin with attacking each of his choice saillines and keep all his options open for a long time , you can think of disheartening measures;
like
a) starting position will automatically lose -2 (or -4 whatever) troops per turn, so that after turn 3 all starting ship locations have turned to neutral.
or b) bonusses can only be acquired if one controls a minimum of "a" territories of one line and not controlling the first territory of the other lines.

What do you think ?

Seeing no-one else wants to reply lt_oddball....i think, yes it is a bit late for this one, but to keep watch if there is another seabattle map. Perhaps that could also be used by other mapmakers.

[cairnswk]

Version 29

[cairnswk]

Anything else here?

[The Neon Peon]

Actually, yes. will bring this back up now.

I do not like the partially outlined ship for the legend. Please either remove the outlines or outline the whole ship.

[Gypsys Kiss]

Actually, yes. will bring this back up now.

I do not like the partially outlined ship for the legend. Please either remove the outlines or outline the whole ship.

I disagree, but I suppose thats a matter of taste.

I'm thinking it looks pretty good. My one slight grumble would be the fact that I cant make out my 6x great uncle on board Swiftsure(the english one), but apart from that it is very good.

[the.killing.44]

I'm with Neon here — I'd get rid of the outline. On the other side it looks great, though.

.44

[cairnswk]

I'm with Neon here — I'd get rid of the outline. On the other side it looks great, though.

.44

Actually, yes. will bring this back up now.

I do not like the partially outlined ship for the legend. Please either remove the outlines or outline the whole ship.

You had better at this late stage explain what you are talking about better as i am inclined as mapmaker to disagree with you and the.killing.44 ....this design has been in effect for several weeks. and you are only raising it again now???!! Shame on you. If you didn't get any satisfaction before perhaps you need a lot more backing.

[The Neon Peon]

I do like what you have done with the outlines, and how about a simpler fix... only ropes are outlined, not any part of the ship. That means getting rid of one outlined segment (the one sticking out of the ship) and leaving the rest so that only ropes are outlined. It is a small change, but I think it would look much better.

[Incandenza]

So I've been playing around with eipi's 1v1 drop probability thingy, and I think you might have a bit of a problem for 1v1s. As it stands, the probabilities come out thusly ( please forgive the formatting):

Continent /Provinces /Held /Chance of Dropping
Br Windward 12 8 0.70%
Fr Windward 8 4 16.63%
Sp Windward 6 3 21.88%
Br Leeward 15 7 10.42%
Fr Leeward 9 4 20.96%
Sp Leeward 8 4 16.63%

That's four very (relatively speaking) high chances of dropping bonuses. Compare to the bonuses that are statistically relevant to the drop on Waterloo:

Continent /Provinces /Held /Chance of Dropping
Chasse 3 3 3.49%
Red Flags 4 3 9.58%
Blue Flags 4 3 9.58%

Also, compare to Gran Chaco on Triple Alliance (3.08%) or even Oceania on classic (.89%).

However, if you go through and bump up the # of ships required for all but the British Windward bonuses, you get this:

Continent /Provinces /Held /Chance of Dropping
Br Windward 12 8 0.70%
Fr Windward 8 5 5.54%
Sp Windward 6 4 7.10%
Br Leeward 15 8 3.91%
Fr Leeward 9 5 8.98%
Sp Leeward 8 5 5.54%

Those odds seems substantially fairer. Otherwise you run the risk of any 1v1 coming down to the drop and little else, which would be bad. I'm not sure what that should so to the actual bonuses (as the bonus calculation tools I have don't seem to be able to do build-a-bonus), but I suppoose at the very least French Windward, British Leeward, and Spanish Leeward could get bumped up one (I'd be disinclined to bump up French Leeward, as it still has the best chances for being dropped).

It's definitely something to chew on, as I can't imagine you'd want 1v1s on this to be essentially a crapshoot.

[yeti_c]

Problem with increasing number of ships - means that they cannot be doubled - and therefore they become a bit more unbalanced?!

C.

[cairnswk]

current Version 29

[the.killing.44]

How about aligning S. Francisco de Asis left, Royal Sovereign right, moving San Justo up, and moving the LoS symbol _._._ to the center of the text line? I know it's nitpicky, but if you turned down the outline thing I don't really know what else to say

.44

[Incandenza]

Problem with increasing number of ships - means that they cannot be doubled - and therefore they become a bit more unbalanced?!

C.

I realize that, but I'd say such a high incidence of dropping a bonus needs to be solved somehow, perhaps by turning one more ship per nation into a flagship and tying any bonus into holding an appropriate flagship. I dunno, someone probably had a better idea. It would be a shame to turn this map into a 1v1 drop crapshoot.

[yeti_c]

It would be a shame to turn this map into a 1v1 drop crapshoot.

Concur with that...

C.

[cairnswk]

so what's it going to be chaps.
1. up the requirements for the bonuses
2. identify another sub-commander ship (easy to do), for instance: i am thinking
english -> royal sovereign
french -> not sure. more research needed for this one
spanish -> santissima trinidad