by rappel on Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:31 pm
I think that this idea has a lot going for it as a theme. To me the important thing is whether the map gives you good gameplay and opportunities to carry out different tactics depending where and how you start on a map. I'm afraid that I don't agree with the comments about there's no fun in it if you can't win through killing off opposition on a geographical map. I'm a relative newcomer but one of my favourite maps to date is actually RailEurope because the way the tracks join at stations mean that you have the an intertwining set of territories, i.e. you can't just look at areas because there are other ways of getting into territories than the obvious neighbours.
Part of the reason I came through the forum today was to see if anyone was working on something perhaps more 3D i.e. links are not just 2 dimensional. This has the capability if you went to atomic particles as a couple of people have suggested.
On another note about design, I agree that it should look appealing and the theme contributes a lot to that. One of the things that I find frustrating with some of the maps though is the glut of similar pastel shades. I've got a mild specific form of colour blindness with red and grey but never had a problem before with colours really - been using electronics colour codes for many years and love gardening but on an LCD screen with a slight angle many of the colours on some maps can be difficult to tell apart. For me light blue through turqoise & cyan blur very effectively on screen. I'm not saying that maps should be all garish primary colours but a little more care to make the map easier on the eye greatly increases the enjoyment because you can concentrate on the game itself rather than working out where your pieces are.
Now I don't know what capabilities can be built into maps but are there any possibilities along the lines of representing both the atoms and the links as territories and where atoms are bound together through links you get a defensive bonus of some kind for links where you have the correct number of armies for the links at the start of the turn. e.g. in the Caffeine molecule some of the links are single and some double so if you have 1 on a single link you get a notional equivalent of 3 armies to start, if you have 2 you get 4 or 5. Clearly this reverts to 1 or 2 in reality when you come to start your own turn. This might address the criticism that someone made about it playing too fast becasue it's a small number of territories a) because you would effectively double the number of territories b) because by increasing defence it will take longer to work through. You can still have all the bonuses etc that have been suggested, indeed you might need a few more, to counter the defnce stuff. This gives some different gameplay and would maybe appeal to those that like gathering large numbers of armies before ploughing off on a destructive trail - because they'd need to.
Anyway, my ten penn'th. Hope it's useful.
from the crater map suggestion
