[Abandoned] - CUBA

[Industrial Helix]

Ok... I added a load of sea connections on the grounds that the cities are ports to begin with and would have such power should either side chose to use it. Given that the revolution was a land war, I want to somehow restrict their use... not sure how.

One possibility would be to use the commanders to create more flow in the map and reduce the sea connections to as they were. Perhaps if the Rep. de Cuba commanders could attack any city and the revolutionaries could hit any of the 4 provinces specified?

Click image to enlarge.

[Victor Sullivan]

Ok... I added a load of sea connections on the grounds that the cities are ports to begin with and would have such power should either side chose to use it. Given that the revolution was a land war, I want to somehow restrict their use... not sure how.

One possibility would be to use the commanders to create more flow in the map and reduce the sea connections to as they were. Perhaps if the Rep. de Cuba commanders could attack any city and the revolutionaries could hit any of the 4 provinces specified?

The sea connections look and seem ridiculous to me. The only ones that look reasonable are Habana<--->Santa Clara<--->Nuevitas. Is the Isla de la Juventude new? It's a nice addition, as long as you drop the Habana<--->Isla and Isla<--->Santiago attack routes. I'd go with integrating the commanders more like you said. That seems better than the city sea routes.

-Sully

[theBastard]

what means commanders "Assault"?
it means that if Fidel Castro will start in for example Holguín he can directly assault Matanzas?
or it means that Fidel Castro will start in Matanzas and can/must attack Habana?

about sea connections, I agree with Victor Sullivan.

[Industrial Helix]

Basically it means that Castro will have a set amount of men, probably 6 or 8, and the player holding them can attack matanzas. The same thing applies to Batista, who's over in Havana.

[theBastard]

commanders will be the starting positions, yes? where they will start? in which regions?

[Industrial Helix]

Commanders will be starting positions, but the rest of the map is open deploy... if you look beneath the commanders at the right hand side, you'll see where they attack.

[Teflon Kris]

I think the commanders are the key to making this map work (getting over the linear island shape), and potentially be a gameplay hit. The extra sea connections are good but maybe you want to go with Sully's suggestion to cut a couple of the long ones out.

I would personally advise making it difficult for players to attack one another's commanders early on in the game (or it will just be a race and big advantage to going first) and adding extra, neutral start commanders, that are easily accessible from a range of start positions (via one or two terits first) - a bit like the extra commanders in WWII Poland. You could have Castro and Batista as neutral starts (and some other guys to replace them as the starting position commanders).

Maybe these extra commanders could actually be something else? Something to do with people-power.

In fact, going back to my earlier suggestion, you could have a key terit of 'Public Support' or 'The Workers' or 'Batista's Base' (or a few key terits along these lines) that play a key gameplay role - for example, they have high neutrals, a bonus, and are the only terits that can attack the commanders (like the PAF in WWII Poland).

[Industrial Helix]

Ok, I followed Vic's suggetion of reducing the sea links... though they make the Rep. De Cuba commanders quite close together and I'm weighing doing away with them all. I also headed DJ's suggestion and brought back the popular support option. This option will be balanced with strong neutrals to encourage playing on the map, yet still give an opportunity for movement.

I also added the Infantry symbols to help link up where the commanders are bordering... hopefully this will make things clearer.

I also added the province of Sierra Maestra... which isn't a real province, but was Fidel Castro's HQ during the revolution.

Click image to enlarge.

[theBastard]

now it is clear
I think that new province "Sierra Maestra" could be kicked off. the version without it looks more balanced.

[natty dread]

I would prefer to see more territories on this one.

[theBastard]

I would prefer to see more territories on this one.

nothing against this. just they must be added balanced.

[Industrial Helix]

Yeah, it's at 29 territories now and I wouldn't mind seeing it around 34. The trouble is that the revolution wasn't all that huge in terms of space or numbers. Castros men numbered around 300 and while Batista barely had a division, there weren't giant battles or great campaigns.

[Victor Sullivan]

Upon further examination, I think the sea routes should be dropped. Like you said, IH, it's too easy to access all the Rep de Cuba commanders. Unfortunately, this brings us back to more linear play, but it's unbalanced otherwise.

I'm still having problems with the legend (with the commanders and info and whatnot). It's larger than Cuba itself - by quite a margin More territories would be nice. I mean, I'm a fan of small maps, but one of this caliber definitely needs more territories.

I did a research paper on Fidel Castro back in college, and I've always considered him to be a cool guy Now, I don't recall his being in Matanzas much. In fact, now that you've brought up Sierra Maestra, I'm pretty sure he and his brother Raúl worked together closely in that area (please correct me if I'm wrong - it's been many years). Anyways, needless to say, I'm excited about this map.

-Sully

P.S. Idk if any of you looked at my profile a while back, but I'm a big Call of Duty Zombies enthusiast and you can't imagine how ecstatic I was about Castro's being a playable character on the "Five" map

[theBastard]

yes it was not great conflict. I will try to follow revolution and write some important regions:

Bayamo (first attacks of Castro) - city in Granma provincion (in last version you divided this province to two)
Yaguajay (important victory of Castro) - city in Sancti Spiritus

what about yacht from which Castro landed at Granma? - it could be near Granma coast and connect Isla de la Juventude through this yacht?

maybe you could add Escambray Mountains - between Sancti Spiritus and Cienfugeos

look here http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cub ... lution.htm or here for provinces http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriente_Province

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[Industrial Helix]

Wow guys, thanks for so much to work with here... I'll be giving it a good look through tomorrow.

In the meantime... lets do away with the sea routes and find some more ways to add some mobility to the territories. One option would be to add more territories, though, the map would start to stray from the provincial break down... but that's alright. When in war are legal boundaries recognized?

The thing about Fidel is that I took some liberties with his troop placement. As Vic noted, Fidel wasn't in Matanzas much and was in fact at Sierra Maesta overseeing operations there. Cienfuegos and Guevarra did most of the campaigning over the length of the island until victory at Santa Clara. Upon this, Batista packed his money bags and fled to the Dominican Republic. There was no fight over Havana, and I believe Fidel just walked into the city and seized the vacant power. So in a way, he ought to be more oriented towards Havana as that was his final destination, but he historically did not fight there. I'm somewhat comfortable with the gameplay compromise, I'd like for it to be as historically accurate as possible, but CC has many limitations. Raúl Castro, however, is in this game just about where he was historically working. He ran a campaign around Santiago and Guantanamo.

So anyway, adding more territories is one option... the other is to add cities, which would work out perhaps as a nice balance between the bonuses of the territories and cities. Thoughts?

And thanks again guys for the interest and effort you've been showing, i definitely appreciate it!

[fumandomuerte]

two things: is Revolución not Revolutión and República not Republíca
Nice idea btw.

[theBastard]

Helix, what about to "write up" all Revolution. I mean use also "landing in Bay of Pigs"? the idea about movement of Castro is great, but as you mentioned it was small conflict with few battles.

here some more maps

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and my quick try

Click image to enlarge.

[Teflon Kris]

So in a way, he ought to be more oriented towards Havana as that was his final destination, but he historically did not fight there. I'm somewhat comfortable with the gameplay compromise, I'd like for it to be as historically accurate as possible, but CC has many limitations.

Maybe have Havana as some kind of auto-deploy / bonus terit?

Gamplay-wise, do you want the commanders to be attackable by the support and from their connecting regions? I'm just thinking about making sure players dont get easily taken out early-on. I guess the support neutral values can sort this, but at the same time you dont want to render them too difficult. Tricky balance.

Another though on the support - how about auto-deploy +1 for each support and the bonus for both?

[Industrial Helix]

Fumandomuerte - Thanks for the spell check
Bastard - check the latest version, its got a few more battle named territories but I think, as you've pointed out, there's room for more.
Teflon - Well, I'm going to hike up the neutrals on the class support so as to prevent players from eliminating each other too quickly. I want this to be a war tied to the land, not so much an 8 man gun fight. But I do want the class support to be there as an option, I mean, what if Guevarra thought he might take over the revolution himself and eliminated his rivals to gain full support from the people. So in short, its a desirable element.

As for the bonus, well, I think if a commander had full support of the people he's rewarded with power (bonus) but if only half the people support him, well, then he needs victory in the field or something else to secure power. So that's what I'm thinking.

[Industrial Helix]

Now with 36 territories!

I tried to get them all based on some sort of historical event, but some places, such as to the west, got broken up because they had room to spare. There are 4 new cities as well and the commanders are a bit more evenly distributed from each other so as to ensure some fair beginnings. Also notice, the sea links are gone. As stated before, this was a land war and the map will reflect that... save for Isla de la Juventude which now replicates the path of Fidel from his prison term there to landing at Bayamo to reignite the revolution. I'm open to a change in the one way attack.

Click image to enlarge.

[theBastard]

looks good now. just maybe you could delete town Neuvitas and replace it with Yaguajay (for example). because each town lies in separate region, just Neuvitas and Camaguey lie in the same region. if Neuvitas will be replaced by Yaguajay each town will "has" own region.

than get back name of region Yaguajay to Sancti Spiritus and add there town Yaguajay.

[Industrial Helix]

Hmm yeah, good point.

[Victor Sullivan]

Ah, I think we've achieved near-perfection as far as the concept and rough gameplay are concerned. My only nitpick is still the oversized legend and organization of the commanders (i.e. the blockiness).

-Sully

[Bruceswar]

Alright, so your preference is noted that you'd rather have a standard Cuba map over one depicting the rise of Castro's government. Well, to take it towards that direction would be contrary to the whole Rise of Communism series where a bunch of people voted to see this one next. However, I would concede that perhaps many who voted for it wanted to see any Cuba map at all... not necessarily the revolution. Perhaps a poll would be necessary?

Out of curiosity, why don't you like this whole commander aspect? What could be done to enhance the importance of having competent commanders leading armies than the system I'm proposing?

Call me old fashion, but I like simple maps. Not every map needs gimmicks or other things for the map to be a success. The whole commander idea, just seems like a waste of space to me, but what I do know.

[Victor Sullivan]

Well, you know how to mod in SoC and pick a cute avatar, for starters

I think the commanders are rather pivotal for this map, and a feature that was implemented in the other Communism map IH is working on, thus I would think he's including it in all of his RoC maps.

-Sully