13 Colonies Quenched!

[Kabanellas]

I like it. 3 regions in Georgia makes perfect sense.

Just a graphic thing about that new naval route in Savannah - I’d swap places between the ‘Tybee Roads’ legend and the line route, leaning it towards south instead of north. It will flow better with the rout coming from the north.

K

[Industrial Helix]

Yeah, I see what you mean about the route... I'll make the change and include it in the next update.

[jefjef]

Well the french fleet worth more than the english? Your trying to increas the value of the south but the south has more terts which will slightly increase the colony values. But to make the french fleet double the value of englands? I dont agree. Should go ahead and leave all as ship & its landing point as 1. (and england did land at charleston. Why not leave that one as english?) And having a ship at georgia and the indian route at georgia tends to put a bit much weight there. I'd land it at charleston again.

[MichelSableheart]

First of all, I like the general look of this map. It does a good job of covering it's period IMO. Graphically, my only concerns are the numbers in the legend. It seems to me that the 3 looks awfully close to an 8, and the 5 resembles a 6 too much.

I like the way the ships are set up now. The south can use the strenghtening, seeing that all the one territory states are in the north. You might want to cut the connection between Brooklyn Heights and Chesapeak Bay, making those bonusses slightly easier to defend, and ships of the same nation relatively equal. Currently, Chesapeak Bay is more difficult to defend then Tyber Roads, due to the extra connection going out.

Also, I'm not sure if the Shawnee territory should connect to Georgia. Georgia is already reachable by going over the french ships, whereas both Carolina's have only simple connections. Shouldn't the Shawnee territory go to Fort Prince George instead?

[Industrial Helix]

Yeah, might have to adjust the shawnee link back to s carolina if it stays this way.

Well, the problem is the mods don't seem like they're going to allow the map to go on if it has 4 additional, 2 terr. bonuses. The two in the south seems allowable though, because it aids a southern starting player. While I agree with you, the South is going to be strong on number of territories as well, the French fleet bonus helps a southern starting player get a good start.

You're right about the British fleet not worth enough tho, should I bump it up to 2? I think I will.

MichelSableheart - Thanks for your crits and comments... I'll keep them in mind about the numbers.

[iancanton]

the mods don't seem like they're going to allow the map to go on if it has 4 additional, 2 terr. bonuses.

that's true if it means player 1 starting with, for example, +1 bonus in 20% of games and +2 or more in an additional 5% of games (just throwing around some numbers).

The two in the south seems allowable though, because it aids a southern starting player.

unless, by roughly equal chance, they start in the hands of the northern player! u might be able to do something about it using start positions, once the basic structure has been worked out. by specifying that french fleet bonuses need a single southern state capital to be held in addition to a ship and its landing point, u will also increase the likelihood of players having to earn their bonuses and not have them handed over on a plate.

You're right about the British fleet not worth enough tho, should I bump it up to 2?

i agree with that one!

the large number of tiny bonus regions makes this map very difficult to program with both fair starts and historically-relevant gameplay at the same time. have u considered conquest-style gameplay, such as is used in feudal war or peloponnesian war?

ian.

[Industrial Helix]

Well... I'm not going to do an objective based game on this map... I just don't really like those maps all that much. I mean they're fun, I do play them, but I think it limits a map too much. But the notion of using starting positions might be a good idea.

I figure there's 4 ships and four landing points... couldn't I just assign a position to each player and let the rest fall at random? Thoughts on this everyone?

[Kabanellas]

I've posted about it before. And I think it might help you to solve some issues...

..If the problem was the easy landings and you’re not into making some more neutrals (which I agree), why don’t you make all those 8 terts (ships and landing points) fixed positions distributed by all players, maybe that could help a little. Of course that in a 3 player game they all would get 2 terts each (2x3) leaving the remaining 2 neutrals, which still doesn’t prevent one of them to get an easy landing, but in a 5,6,7 or 8 player game no one will have an easy landing. They will have one ship or one landing point, the remaining regions would be neutral.

K

..I meant - make all those 8 regions fixed starting positions and the rest to be randomly distributed (except for the indians terts and some other region on a small colony)

[Industrial Helix]

Kab, So you did say that... I think at that point I wanted to do anything in my power to prevent any starting positions from being on the map but to be honest... it seems like my only option. I'm gonna have to stew on how to go about it tho. Thanks for re-pointing that out!

[Industrial Helix]

Click image to enlarge.

New version in town. Nothing huge, changed the French tricolor to the monarchy's flag, raised the British bonus up to 2... thinking about raising it to 3 though, thoughts?

Moved the Shawnee link to S. Carolina.

Does everyone think that they chart is stable and good? No one is talking about it so I presume everyone is content, I just want to finalize that.

Lastly, the ships and landing points will now function with starting points, seems like the only way. The only thing I don't understand is that in a 1v1 game, how will the territories be allocated? 4 to player 1 and 4 to player 2? Seems like the potential to land a bonus is large, but not definite. Should be good though, thoughts?

Other than that, does anyone see any problems with other game types? I think it should be fine.

[MichelSableheart]

When you say that the ships and their landing points are starting points, does that mean that each player starts with only countries from that list, and the rest starts neutral?

Because if that is the case, I see a huge problem with any game which has at least 5 players. At least two players would start next to each other, with the huge risk that one player is eliminated before he even could start his turn. In a game with 8 players, someone who starts on a ship would have no choice but to take another player out.

If I misunderstood, and other positions are distributed randomly, my apologies.

Raising the british bonus to +3 seems a bit overkill to me. You want the focus to be on the colonies, IMO. Currently, you need to hold 4 countries with 3 borders for a +2 bonus through the british ships. To get bonus troops through the colonies, you'll need to take at least as many (non-connecting) territories with equally many borders for a +1, or you need to take on neutrals.

Personally, I think the chart might use a small boost. To get 2 colonies, you either need:

• to take out 2 neutral territories,
• take out 1 neutral territory, and hold 3 territories that all border to territories outside your colonies,
• hold 4 nonconnecting territories with at least 3 borders,
• or hold 5 or 6 territories.

That seems worthy of a +2 bonus to me.

[Industrial Helix]

Yeah, just to sum it up:

The Ships and their landing points will act as starting positions, everything else will be randomly distributed except Rhode Island and Connecticut which will start as a neutral 2 and the Indian Territories which start as a neutral 2 and revert to a neutral 2 after each round.


As for bumping up the 2 colony bonus from 1 to 2, it's possible. Let's see what everyone else says and then I'll decide.

[Kabanellas]

Apparently the bonus do need a boost… the only problem I see is with those easy +2 when holding Connecticut and Rhode island (comparing to other colonies). But what to do, they start neutral right? So you'd have to attack neutrals which gives a bit of a downside to it...

concerning ships and landing points - in a 1vs1 or in a 3 or 4 player game we might have lucky drops and start with a bonus… but I wouldn’t make such a big deal about it…

[MichelSableheart]

I thought Delaware started neutral too?

[Industrial Helix]

Yeah it does... I keep forgetting to list it

[RedBaron0]

I think you've got most of your bonus issues sorted out. The British ships I think you should keep at +2, it's a 4 territory bonus with 3 borders.

The only issue I see with the setup is the 2 player game. Starting points in a 2 player game will be evenly distributed, which gives a high probably of picking up a bonus on the drop, you'll get a lesser probability on 3 and 4 player games when each player gets 2 starting points.

As I'm reading through the starting position XML tutorial it's saying,

When the game begins these start positions will be split up amongst the players. If there is a remainder, the territories of those start positions are dealt out as normal territories.

Unless there is a way to set remainders to neutral and half of the starting positions in a 2 player game to neutral I don't know if the starting positions are going to be the way to go here.

The only alternative I can think of is have either the landing points or the ships start neutral, but then your starting with 7 territories as neutral, so that probably won't work either.

[Industrial Helix]

While this is true... I just started a 1v1 Peloponnesian War game which has starting positions and all the potential starting positions were not filled up by the two players. I don't know if this some sort of XML setting or if when starting a 1v1 game with starting positions not all starting positions are filled.

If anyone knows how this works, let m know. I'm gonna do some research and see what I can find myself.

[Kabanellas]

In a 1v1 game, all regions are divided by 3, being the 3rd part occupied by neutral troops.

I’m not sure, but maybe those 8 SP will also be divided by 3...

[Industrial Helix]

Hmm... that seems about right Kab... If they weren't included in the divide up, then theoretically I should have received 4 starting points in the peloponnesian game. I think worrying about a player in 1v1 game dropping 4 of the starting points might not be a problem cause of the 1v1 rules.

If anyone can refute this let me know.

[RedBaron0]

The problem you have to worry about here that is totally different than the Peloponnesian War map is that the starting positions are the only territories being distributed. Here the remainder will fall into the pool of remaining territories. So in a 2 player game the 8 starting positions will be 2 red, 2 green, 2 neutral, and 2 into the pool of remaining territories which if my math is right would make 30 territories available which will be divided equally between the 2 players and neutral. It would be a good chance that 1 player picks up another starting point, and an unlikely possibility of 1 player getting 2 extra starting positions or even 1 each.

Assuming of course I'm understanding the XML rules on start positions and territory distribution.

[Industrial Helix]

I see your point, though I partially suspect that those remaining 2 fixed positions will go to neutral as they have the special designation as starting points. I have nothing to back this up with though... gonna have to look through it.

Anyway, ran the number in the bonus probability calc. advertised in RedBaron's Japan thread.

For the two terr. bonuses in 1v1:
prob. of A player landing a bonus = 9.3%
prob. of any player receiving the bonus = 19%

For the two terr. bonus 1v1v1:
prob. of A player landing a bonus = 9.3%
prob. of any player receiving the bonus = 28.17%

Ok... the 1v1v1 game kind of worries me, nearly 1 in three games started will involve a player landing a bonus. However, there are five 2 terr. bonuses, is that going to balance things out at all?

Anyway, I'm terrible with numbers... I could be reading this all wrong. Comments?

Click image to enlarge.

[RedBaron0]

I think you got it right, and those numbers are concerning. I think you may have to do both ships and landing points for a bonus.

[Kabanellas]

Maybe not completely true RedBaron... Take a look at this thread:

http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=127&t=68154&start=15

--The only issue I see with the setup is the 2 player game. Starting points in a 2 player game will be evenly distributed, which gives a high probably of picking up a bonus on the drop, you'll get a lesser probability on 3 and 4 player games when each player gets 2 starting points.

As I'm reading through the starting position XML tutorial it's saying,

When the game begins these start positions will be split up amongst the players. If there is a remainder, the territories of those start positions are dealt out as normal territories.

Unless there is a way to set remainders to neutral and half of the starting positions in a 2 player game to neutral I don't know if the starting positions are going to be the way to go here.

The only alternative I can think of is have either the landing points or the ships start neutral, but then your starting with 7 territories as neutral, so that probably won't work either.

If you set those regions to start as neutral - they remainder (not distributed) will remain neutral.

[Industrial Helix]

I took a look at that thread and now am more confused than ever. Here's what I think I understand so far:

In a two player game, two starting positions will go to player 1, two starting positions to player 2, two starting positions to neutral, two starting positions which can be coded to fall neutral should they not be chosen as starting positions.

If this is true, then there should be no problem with a 1v1 game.

[Kabanellas]

Well, I’m still not sure about 1v1 games….

I think that the 8 SP will be equally divided by the 2 without inference of that ‘3rd Neutral faction’, that will only be applied to the rest of the territories. In a 3 player game, those 8 will be divided by 3, making each player get 2 ters and the remaining 2 will start neutral (as long as all SP begin identified as neutral in the XML)

..anyway, I’ll ask Andrew to comment on this – maybe he could enlighten things up a bit…