South Africa 1885

[Industrial Helix]

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http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/11/14/2187148//SouthAfrica.xml

Hi all, got another map for you. 13 American colonies is stuck in some sort of limbo in the Main Foundry but there's little work left to be done on it. Wars for Italian and German unification have some work to be done, but at this point its the little tidbits. It advanced a lot quicker than I thought it would, so I messed around with a new map: South Africa 1885.

The map is based on some old British map I found on Wikipedia. I'd been thinking about a South Africa map or perhaps a Zululand map for a while. Africa is way underepresented on CC and needs some maps to focus on its areas. South Africa in 1885 had many different states and nations and this map reflects this. These states and nations also warred heavily throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which this map also reflects. I hope you enjoy it and look forward to playing on it in the near future!

INFO
Map Name :: South Africa 1885
Cartographer :: Industrial Helix
Map Type :: Standard
Territories :: 45
Continents :: 10
Special Features :: Kheis, Swaziland, Vryburg and Buthabuthe starts neutral 3. Forts and ships start at neutral 5.

V30

Click image to enlarge.

Click image to enlarge.

Previous discussed points:
p. 1
Change sea route - ACCEPTED
Change background - ACCEPTED
Der Groot Trek - DECLINED as it makes the map too complex and seemingly, people want a simple map for this region at the moment.
Mountains passes - DECLINED on the grounds that it defeats the purpose of the mountains.

p. 2
Bonus Values Adjusted on p. 2, p.3
Supercontinents - DECLINED makes the map overly complex and will rarely come into play.
South Africa 1885 for title - ACCEPTED over Southern Africa 1885

p.3
Adjust graphics quality of mountains - ACCEPTED
Anchors instead of sea routes - ACCEPTED
Pretoria as too strong a bottleneck - ONGOING DISCUSSION

p. 4
Keep standard Gameplay over trying anything unique as the region is unique enough. ACCEPTED
Move border inside the mountains - ACCEPTED w/ discussion

p. 5
Updated version with different anchors and adjusted borders with the mountains.

V7 New "clearer" version, new zulu borders, new map border, added color to the mountains, ship wheels instead of anchors, new key, ect.

P. 6 Minor changes in words and graphics... moved to gameplay workshop.

P. 7 Added the idea of forts and ships. Bonuses for the forts and ships include, doubling a land bonus in value, +1 for every territory, +4 autodeploy.

[AndyDufresne]

I like what you've got so far. Good initial draft to work from.

Some initial brief thoughts:

Visually, the background is a little too loud, distracting---try a softer approach (while still maintaining the background idea you are looking for).

The color border barrier idea is alright, though I'm curious to see how it will be developed as drafts progress.

The inset legend colors are kind of jarring---probably because the small blue ocean is flanked by the contrasting sand/brown color.

Game play wise, though I see you are taking measures to involve Cape Colony, because of its placement it'll probably devolve into an Asia-Wasteland continent---but perhaps to an even greater degree, because there is no necessity to go through the Wasteland to get an Oceania type continent. (I.E. South African Republic, the orange continent---works in the more traditional Asia way).

So it feels like a primary amount of action is shifted north and to the east, where bonuses will be more tightly fought for.

So things to consider---do what want this general shift, where though Cape Colony takes up 40% of the game board, it is heavily involved in only 10% of the play?

Best of luck.


--Andy

[natty dread]

Looks good. The sea routes are hard to see though.

[alexandrois]

i love the idea but the sea routes need to be more visable and i'm not to fond of the colours

[natty dread]

Changing the ocean to a darker blue would probably help.

[soundman]

The background is too busy. Try toning it down some.

[Raskholnikov]

I love the idea. The huge cape problem could be solved by dividing it into three regions: Northern, Western, Eastern, as below.

Eventually you could award a super-continent bonus if someone gets to hold all three Cape Parts.

[Industrial Helix]

Ok, I think this should address some concerns. The splitting up Cape colony was a good idea and I liked the idea of a supercontinent bonus to symbolize its unified state as a single colony. So I did that.

I touched up the graphics and desaturated some of the border colors.

I lowered the interference of the texture background as well.

'm a bit undecided on keeping the ocean in the key... I like it as its a mini-map but can kind of see where Andy is coming from... We'll see about it later.

I redid the sea connections which I might just forgo and put in little docks or something because essentially all port terr. connect to each other. I just find Sea Lanes much easier to understand the gameplay as its visualized. Thoughts? Maybe I'll do both.

Click image to enlarge.

[Raskholnikov]

Looks great. Cape is now a big improvment - and the southern range mountains are now being put to great use.

Not sure I quite understand the bonus scheme though - a plus three for one territory.... etc. Maybe you can explain how you decided on bonuses for various regions.

This may not be part of your game-play, but if you wish to make this a really different, historical map, I would integrate Die Groot Trek Route and use it in a similar way to the metro / train lines on various city maps. I think this would really enhance both the historical interest of the map and its playability.

Actually, maybe you could use this instead of the Sea Routes to create connections between non-adjacent territories. The sea-lanes have really little to do with South Africa or its history; Die Groot Trek, on the other hand, makes it all unique and special while accomplishing the same purpose essentially.



So it would look more or less like below. You could call each Groot Trek node a "Laager" and set as Game Win objective holding all Groot Trek Laagers. Each Laager circle could be placed at the intersection of 2 or 3 territories and could attack or be attacked by any of them. Anyway, just a thought- your call..

[Industrial Helix]

Hmm... it's an interesting idea for sure and I kind of like it, but a couple of things bother me... the map is already crowded quite a bit the way it is, the only way I can see it working is if it connects the territories together. Which brings in another problem, most of the territories are connected anyway and the only way it would work then is if it acts like a metro, say Grahamstown can attack Praetoria, which seems unrealistic for the time. The fact is that it was an immigration pattern and road, not a metro, it wasn't something that one went back and forth on... so it seems based on what I've read.

One possibility is that it can serve as a one way attack over mountain barriers. I can alter it and some borders slightly so that it makes more gameplay sense.

I don't want to make the gameplay something like conquer the trek because my intention was to focus on the various nations and states in the area at this time, not to show the immigration patterns of the Boers. So in that sense I think it kind of strays from my intended objective.

But I think it can work somehow... just have to figure it out. Excellent suggestion!

[Raskholnikov]

Perfect! Glad you like the basic idea! I'm sure you'll integrate it the best possible way in the map so that it will fit your conceptual and graphic ideas. I think it will give the map just a little bit of an extra touch both visually and game-play wise that will make it really attractive, especially for history buffs.

As to the Trek itself, you are right: it was a one-way immigration movement from the 1830s to the 1850s, which gathered the Trekkers from Cape Town and took them over the Orange River up in the Velt, as well as to Natal. The borders of the various South African states in 1885 were a direct consequence of this Trek, which led to the formation of the Orange Free State and of the South African Republic.

Now of course we need to adapt this to the game-play - my idea was to use it as a railway that can both pass over the mountain passes and connect territories at 2 or 3 intervals distance - both ways. But again, that really is up to you - whatever fits best with your vision.

Glad I could help - look forward to see this progress!

[AndyDufresne]

I like a more basic map----especially because it looks like this map will already have some unique features over other standard maps (I.E. a single overarching grouping for smaller bonus zones), in addition to a plethora of bonus zones...


--Andy

[Raskholnikov]

Hey it was just a thought. Either way it looks like it will be fun

[soundman]

I like a more basic map----especially because it looks like this map will already have some unique features over other standard maps (I.E. a single overarching grouping for smaller bonus zones), in addition to a plethora of bonus zones...


--Andy

I agree with Andy, keep it more on the basic side.

[jefjef]

All right! Another map I can pester IH about.

Consider a path connection between Natloping and Rustenburg AND Motito and Lakatlong.

Carry on!

[Incandenza]

Nice start.

I have issues with a few of the bonus values atm... Right off the bat, I don't think that 1-terit bonuses should ever be worth more than a +1. Heck, even two-terit ones should prolly be +1s... I'd recommend knocking Amatongaland and Basutoland down to +1s, and bump all the neutral starts to 3 or maybe even 2. Also, despite that it has 3 borders, Grigua Land West would be better as a +2.

And I'd ditch the "hold all cape colonies for +13" concept, it'll come into play so breathtakingly rarely that it's probably not worth the legend space.

There needs to be better differentiation in the colors in the cape colony bonuses... I get that they're thematically linked, but right now North Cape and East Cape look like one big bonus.

[natty dread]

And I'd ditch the "hold all cape colonies for +13" concept, it'll come into play so breathtakingly rarely that it's probably not worth the legend space.

I disagree, you should keep it, but add more two-tiered bonuses. You could incorporate some of the smaller bonus areas into the same one as that huge south african republic.. lets see:

- Hold all cape terits for +13 (+3 more)

- Hold:
{South african republic (+5)
Stellaland (+2) although this can be changed to +1
Swaziland (+1)}

for +10 (+2 more)

Orange free state, Grigua land west, Basutoland, for +14 (+2 more)

and natal + zululand would be the only ones which don't belong to a "supercontinent".

How about that!

[Incandenza]

The problem with huge supercontinents on a map this size is that they so rarely come into play. I've played a lot of games on classic, and I can count on one hand the number of times I've held Asia.

The only time these bonuses would really come into play is maybe at the very bitter end of a game, when it doesn't really matter anyway. If you hold all 3 cape bonuses, for instance, you're about to win all but the most intractable no cards games. Besides, the extra bonus for holding the supercontinent is pretty small compared to what you're getting by holding the individual bonuses.

My overall point is that the superbonuses would come into play so breathtakingly rarely, and make little enough difference in the grand scheme, that it seems a waste to even have them. It's not a huge thing, but I'm a crotchety old asshole and set in my ways...

[natty dread]

They could come in play in 1v1 games, possibly in 3 player games too...

[alexandrois]

I would leave the super bonus in but i would makew the orange free state 6 not 7

[Industrial Helix]

Rash. Well it's definitely a good idea but I think Andy and Soundman have a point in keeping it relatively simple.

jefjef- It's a possibility. Evidently there were mountain passes at the time used in Die Groot Trek... it's something I'll consider but like others have suggested, I want to keep it form getting too overly complicated.

Incandenza, natty and alex - I hear you on the bonuses, I just copied what the calculator told me, I'll knock them down. As for the overall bonus, I'm leaning towards getting rid of it as its kind of redundant and I don't want to add more superbonuses to the one already there. As for whether or not it would ocme into play in smaller games, well, I have my doubts. If I scrap the superbonus I'm going to up two of the cape bonuses by 1 as per suggestion of the calculator. Any further thoughts on this?

[AndyDufresne]

I'll just throw this out....one thing lackattack has always wanted to see in a map is where the supercontinent (like Asia) is variant objective to hold and win by...but only that specific continent (and you could still win by eliminating all opponents too). He seems to think it'd get more people to play in the wasteland.

I'm not sure it would be anything fitting for this map, but I thought I'd toss out the banana, since it is something lackattack has always told me he has wanted to see.


--Andy

[Industrial Helix]

Andy - Hmm... it's definitely an interesting concept that is worth playing with, however, I don't think it would be appropriate for this map as conquering Cape Colony seems kind of like a strange objective for the whole of Southern Africa.

Which bring me to my next point: Do you guys prefer South Africa 1885 or Southern Africa 1885?

Southern Africa seems more appropriate, but the region is South Africa even before the Union of South Africa was arranged. Thoughts?

[natty dread]

I'd say South Africa, don't know why though, it just sounds better.

[jefjef]

South Africa. Southern Africa encompasses a larger area.