Salem's Switch V36 [Quenched]

[ender516]

The Elizabeth Parris / J Whipple fence is much the same.

[TaCktiX]

Could you copy the Daniel Rae / Benjamin Porter fence style across all of them? That one has terrific definition to it and doesn't get all muddy in single colors.

[ender516]

That one does seem to have an additional dark glow behind it which improves the contrast. Most of the fences against the gray are fine, but that one is a bit better, and the contrast is what is needed against the colour of the Accusers.

[cairnswk]

The fence between William Good and Elizabeth Proctor is very hard to see.

The Elizabeth Parris / J Whipple fence is much the same.

Thanks guys, working on solving that issue.

Could you copy the Daniel Rae / Benjamin Porter fence style across all of them? That one has terrific definition to it and doesn't get all muddy in single colors.

That one does seem to have an additional dark glow behind it which improves the contrast. Most of the fences against the gray are fine, but that one is a bit better, and the contrast is what is needed against the colour of the Accusers.

Thanks guys
To be truthful, the DR/BP fence style is on all of them, as it is the brush template used.
But each brush section of the fence (two outside posts plus is distorted and rotated to align with the boundary lines, so this is why it shows up better in some places than in others.
All the others don't have the black drop shadow yet.
Because of the angles, you won't get the same definition of the DR/BP fence on some of the other, but i'll reduce and lengthen remaining sections to see if that helps define them better.

[cairnswk]

Version 18a
I have redone the fences:

• Lot Connant/Henery Herrick
• Thomas Gage/Dorcas Hoare
• Blake/Trask-Dodge Grist's Mill
• Elizabeth Parris/J Whipple is now trees and thicket
• Parris-Whipple-Putnam/Lewis-Martin-Osbourne

Are these any better before i proceed further?

[ender516]

The trees do make an effective alternative to the fences, by virtue of their contrast. Good choice.

Is Daniel Rae's neighbour's name really Banjamin Porter, or is that a typo?

[cairnswk]

The trees do make an effective alternative to the fences, by virtue of their contrast. Good choice.

But do the new fences work as mentioned above.

Is Daniel Rae's neighbour's name really Banjamin Porter, or is that a typo?

Typo. Fixed for next version. Thanks.

[isaiah40]

The trees do make an effective alternative to the fences, by virtue of their contrast. Good choice.

But do the new fences work as mentioned above.

Except in the legend

[cairnswk]

The trees do make an effective alternative to the fences, by virtue of their contrast. Good choice.

But do the new fences work as mentioned above.

Except in the legend

Ah...hadn't done the legend yhet, and it wasn't mentioned in the above map post of mine as being done.
but thanks for repsonding that you think the others are OK.

[MarshalNey]

OK, the starting positions look mostly fine, but there's an XML question to which I'll be getting an answer by tomorrow that should clear things up for me.

The XML question involves coding start positions so that bonuses can't be dropped. Right now, the map has 5 Accusers, 7 Accused (2 hanged) and 12 Townsfolk as starting positions if I'm counting correctly. If the positions are left up to random deployment, bonuses could be dropped. By far the most likely bonus to drop will be an Accuser + Accused pair. There's also a very small chance on 2p and 3p games that the townsfolk bonus [7] can be dropped.

However I'm guessing that the start positions won't be random but grouped, however I'm not 100% certain how that works, thus the question that I've PMed out. Once that is answered, I'll know how to proceed.

---------------------

There are however 2 starting positions that need some clarification.

Elizabeth Parris can only attack Rev. Parris, which is shown as neutral 2 instead of 4. Is that a mistake, or is it for the sake of the starting position so that it isn't more 'blocked in' than the others?

Joseph Buxton in the center of the map appears to have no exit. I'm pretty certain that this is a graphical oops with the fence and that he's supposed to be adjacent to the B15 Buggy Stop.

----------------------

Finally, the bonuses for the Reverends and Judges might need a little boost, considering the higher neutral values. I realize that the bombardment capability (particularly with the Judges) and the other bonuses that they factor into will make them attractive, but only for a single; as a group there is very little incentive to them. Therefore I suggest increasing the Reverends bonus (with 16 neutrals to kill) to +4 or +5 (I lean toward the latter), and the Judges bonus (with 20 neutrals to kill) to at least +4, possibly +6.

Finally I think that in light of this being a conquest map, the bonus for the Accused is unattainable, and should probably be either erased entirely or the requirement shrunk. There are 15 Accused I think, and they are spread all over the map. It'll just never happen, except maybe at the very end of the game. Certainly at +5 it's not worth pursuing intentionally (one can only get 10 Accused/Accuser pairs, and if I've got that then who needs the Accused bonus from the 5 extra regions?). Perhaps something like the Landowners here, such as Accused[6] for +3 or some similar ratio that's roughly in line with the Accusers? (the Accusers bonus gives +5 for 10)

-- Marshal Ney

[cairnswk]

Nice discection MarshalNey. You can visit anytime

OK, the starting positions look mostly fine, but there's an XML question to which I'll be getting an answer by tomorrow that should clear things up for me.

The XML question involves coding start positions so that bonuses can't be dropped. Right now, the map has 5 Accusers, 7 Accused (2 hanged) and 12 Townsfolk as starting positions if I'm counting correctly. If the positions are left up to random deployment, bonuses could be dropped. By far the most likely bonus to drop will be an Accuser + Accused pair. There's also a very small chance on 2p and 3p games that the townsfolk bonus [7] can be dropped.

However I'm guessing that the start positions won't be random but grouped, however I'm not 100% certain how that works, thus the question that I've PMed out. Once that is answered, I'll know how to proceed.

OK.see what your results produce.

There are however 2 starting positions that need some clarification...
Joseph Buxton in the center of the map appears to have no exit. I'm pretty certain that this is a graphical oops with the fence and that he's supposed to be adjacent to the B15 Buggy Stop.

My bad, i left a copied fence on his property ... he has access to B13.

Elizabeth Parris can only attack Rev. Parris, which is shown as neutral 2 instead of 4. Is that a mistake, or is it for the sake of the starting position so that it isn't more 'blocked in' than the others?

No, my bad once again...

Finally, the bonuses for the Reverends and Judges might need a little boost, considering the higher neutral values. I realize that the bombardment capability (particularly with the Judges) and the other bonuses that they factor into will make them attractive, but only for a single; as a group there is very little incentive to them. Therefore I suggest increasing the Reverends bonus (with 16 neutrals to kill) to +4 or +5 (I lean toward the latter), and the Judges bonus (with 20 neutrals to kill) to at least +4, possibly +6.

Understand. the good Reverends, no probs.
But with the judges, there are two starting positions in town. If there is a battle over them and one player wins, that could become an easy bonus to attain even with such a high number of neutrals to conquer. So my question is:
should the judges bonus be made less accessible with a fence between Gedney and Hathorne?

Finally I think that in light of this being a conquest map, the bonus for the Accused is unattainable, and should probably be either erased entirely or the requirement shrunk. There are 15 Accused I think, and they are spread all over the map. It'll just never happen, except maybe at the very end of the game. Certainly at +5 it's not worth pursuing intentionally (one can only get 10 Accused/Accuser pairs, and if I've got that then who needs the Accused bonus from the 5 extra regions?). Perhaps something like the Landowners here, such as Accused[6] for +3 or some similar ratio that's roughly in line with the Accusers? (the Accusers bonus gives +5 for 10)
-- Marshal Ney

I'd be happy to make that a +6/7 to make it worthwhile rather than drop it.

[TaCktiX]

The change in the fences is good, but several of the connected fences strangely change from white to gray as they change territory. It doesn't look quite right. I would be fine with fully gray fences and fully white fences, but the gray/white we-ran-out-of-paint-for-your-fence setup is odd.

[ender516]

The trees do make an effective alternative to the fences, by virtue of their contrast. Good choice.

But do the new fences work as mentioned above.

Sorry, my silence was assent. The fences all look good.

EDIT: I took a close look at the old map on the Project Gutenberg link and confirmed my suspicion: it was "Dodge's Grist Mill", not "Dodge Grist's Mill".

[cairnswk]

The change in the fences is good, but several of the connected fences strangely change from white to gray as they change territory. It doesn't look quite right. I would be fine with fully gray fences and fully white fences, but the gray/white we-ran-out-of-paint-for-your-fence setup is odd.

OK, thanks TaCktiX...i hear you, and will check all the colours for uniformity as i get these finalised.

The trees do make an effective alternative to the fences, by virtue of their contrast. Good choice.

But do the new fences work as mentioned above.

Sorry, my silence was assent. The fences all look good.

EDIT: I took a close look at the old map on the Project Gutenberg link and confirmed my suspicion: it was "Dodge's Grist Mill", not "Dodge Grist's Mill".

Gee,s i can read somethings in horror. i didnt' even know what a "grist" was (but now do) Fixed next version.
Thanks for the fences.

[ender516]

One could justify the colour changes on the fences by saying some landowners kept up their property better than others, but really, TaCktiX is right, they should be uniform.

[MarshalNey]

So my anonymous XML source tells me that it might be best to use the 'max' command to limit the number of starting position 'batches' to 1, so that smaller games (i.e., 2-player, 3-player & 4-player games) won't have a distribution problem.

In this case, I'm thinking that organizing the starting positions into groups of 3- essentially for the 8-player format- might work best. Then setting the max number of groups per player to 1, that way in all types, 2-player thru 8-player, each player would start with 3 regions. This would eliminate any chance of dropping a bonus and also provide a relatively balanced game for any number of players.

Ender, from your experience does this sound like the smartest route to take?

-------------------

My bad, i left a copied fence on his property ... he has access to B13.

Aheh... whoops, yeah B13. That's what I meant. Must've hit the '5' key by accident.

Understand. the good Reverends, no probs.

I'd be happy to make that a +6/7 to make it worthwhile rather than drop it.

Awesome. I was about to say that +6 for 7 Accused was too high of a payout, but then I realized (again) that Judges can bombard any part of this bonus.

But with the judges, there are two starting positions in town. If there is a battle over them and one player wins, that could become an easy bonus to attain even with such a high number of neutrals to conquer. So my question is:
should the judges bonus be made less accessible with a fence between Gedney and Hathorne?

Hmmm, well there are a couple of things to consider here.

First, if the starting positions are grouped as mentioned above, then the starting positions in town might not be dealt out in every game except for 8-player games. Also, they would be grouped with other regions that would almost certainly provide easier and better bonuses to grab (less neutrals and a higher payout). At +2 for 20 neutrals, it's a very hard sell if I was playing the game. I'd definitely want one Judge, so that I could disrupt Accuser +Accused pairs of other players and have an outside shot at the Witch Hill + Prison + Hanged bonus. But no more than that.

Second, the Reverends can bombard the Judges, which makes holding all of them more difficult. Even if I didn't start in town, I'd still be able to disrupt that bonus from a Reverend. I honestly don't think that the Reverend bombardment ability will come into play too often, but when it does I think it will be used against a player who is making a nuisance of themselves by bombarding from a Judge. (It's a delightful bomabrdment food chain that you have in this map, btw!)

That said, it's obviously up to you as to how desirable you want the bonus to be, since it won't imbalance the map if it turns out to be undesirable during beta testing. But I have a strong feeling that right now the Judges bonus will be a non-factor.

-- Marshal Ney

[ender516]

So my anonymous XML source tells me that it might be best to use the 'max' command to limit the number of starting position 'batches' to 1, so that smaller games (i.e., 2-player, 3-player & 4-player games) won't have a distribution problem.

In this case, I'm thinking that organizing the starting positions into groups of 3- essentially for the 8-player format- might work best. Then setting the max number of groups per player to 1, that way in all types, 2-player thru 8-player, each player would start with 3 regions. This would eliminate any chance of dropping a bonus and also provide a relatively balanced game for any number of players.

Ender, from your experience does this sound like the smartest route to take?

Absolutely. To be honest, with the conquest style and the 2-region zones (accuser/accused pairs), I don't see any other way.

One starting position right now, though, has a problem. The blue group includes Elizabeth Parris, an accuser, and William Hobbs, an accused, which will earn an immediate bonus.

A minor tweak, mostly graphical, but important to explaining gameplay: the little maplet which illustrates roads and buggy stops is clearly a copy of the stretch of road between B12 and B16, but is labelled with B11 and B15. This small correction would remove a visible flaw from a gem of an illustration.

[cairnswk]

...
One starting position right now, though, has a problem. The blue group includes Elizabeth Parris, an accuser, and William Hobbs, an accused, which will earn an immediate bonus.

A minor tweak, mostly graphical, but important to explaining gameplay: the little maplet which illustrates roads and buggy stops is clearly a copy of the stretch of road between B12 and B16, but is labelled with B11 and B15. This small correction would remove a visible flaw from a gem of an illustration.

Thanks ender516...both of those aspects have been attended to next version.

[cairnswk]

So my anonymous XML source tells me that it might be best to use the 'max' command to limit the number of starting position 'batches' to 1, so that smaller games (i.e., 2-player, 3-player & 4-player games) won't have a distribution problem.

In this case, I'm thinking that organizing the starting positions into groups of 3- essentially for the 8-player format- might work best. Then setting the max number of groups per player to 1, that way in all types, 2-player thru 8-player, each player would start with 3 regions. This would eliminate any chance of dropping a bonus and also provide a relatively balanced game for any number of players.

Ender, from your experience does this sound like the smartest route to take?

-------------------

My bad, i left a copied fence on his property ... he has access to B13.

Aheh... whoops, yeah B13. That's what I meant. Must've hit the '5' key by accident.

Understand. the good Reverends, no probs.

I'd be happy to make that a +6/7 to make it worthwhile rather than drop it.

Awesome. I was about to say that +6 for 7 Accused was too high of a payout, but then I realized (again) that Judges can bombard any part of this bonus.

But with the judges, there are two starting positions in town. If there is a battle over them and one player wins, that could become an easy bonus to attain even with such a high number of neutrals to conquer. So my question is:
should the judges bonus be made less accessible with a fence between Gedney and Hathorne?

Hmmm, well there are a couple of things to consider here.

First, if the starting positions are grouped as mentioned above, then the starting positions in town might not be dealt out in every game except for 8-player games. Also, they would be grouped with other regions that would almost certainly provide easier and better bonuses to grab (less neutrals and a higher payout). At +2 for 20 neutrals, it's a very hard sell if I was playing the game. I'd definitely want one Judge, so that I could disrupt Accuser +Accused pairs of other players and have an outside shot at the Witch Hill + Prison + Hanged bonus. But no more than that.

Second, the Reverends can bombard the Judges, which makes holding all of them more difficult. Even if I didn't start in town, I'd still be able to disrupt that bonus from a Reverend. I honestly don't think that the Reverend bombardment ability will come into play too often, but when it does I think it will be used against a player who is making a nuisance of themselves by bombarding from a Judge. (It's a delightful bomabrdment food chain that you have in this map, btw!)

That said, it's obviously up to you as to how desirable you want the bonus to be, since it won't imbalance the map if it turns out to be undesirable during beta testing. But I have a strong feeling that right now the Judges bonus will be a non-factor.

-- Marshal Ney

...
Absolutely. To be honest, with the conquest style and the 2-region zones (accuser/accused pairs), I don't see any other way.

OK. I understand what you are both saying in regards to starting positions...but I am concerned (and it could be of my limited understanding of starting positions for a complicated map like this) that having grouped starts would allow players (after a couple of attempts) to target certain player positions (like 1,3,5, 7 in larger games) to gain an advantage and thus almost farm the map.
Is this an issue?

[cairnswk]

Version 19

Changes:
1. All fences have been standardised except thos around the OLd Meeting House region.
2. All fences have drop shadow and same colour, including legend.
3. Legend Buggystop IDs have been renamed same as map
4. Some fences have been replaced by trees/thicket where the fence did not work graphically.
5. E Parris start colour has been swapped with another to disallow the pair bonus in start positions
6. Judges bonus increased to +6
7. Accused bonus increased to +7
8. The Reverends bonus is at +5
9. jonathon Putnam's name is different colour - experimenting with something there.

[ender516]

OK. I understand what you are both saying in regards to starting positions...but I am concerned (and it could be of my limited understanding of starting positions for a complicated map like this) that having grouped starts would allow players (after a couple of attempts) to target certain player positions (like 1,3,5, 7 in larger games) to gain an advantage and thus almost farm the map.
Is this an issue?

Unfortunately, I don't understand the specifics of your concern. The starting positions are distributed randomly, so I don't understand what you mean by "certain player positions".

Here is my concern. The player starting with Thomas Beadle is quite close to the judge Johnathan Corwin. This could give him bombardment capabilities against the accused early on. One or both of the following would fix this:

1. Move that starting region further from that judge
2. Do not use the accused as starting regions

Point two would also be useful if we were considering allowing more than one starting position per player, which I believe we should. (Otherwise, 1v1 games will start very slowly.) By keeping the accused out of the starting positions, we avoid handing out an instant accuser/accused bonus on the drop. We could allow a maximum of two starting positions, so that 4 player games would start with as many active regions as 8 player games, and even 2 player games would have half of them active.

[cairnswk]

OK. I understand what you are both saying in regards to starting positions...but I am concerned (and it could be of my limited understanding of starting positions for a complicated map like this) that having grouped starts would allow players (after a couple of attempts) to target certain player positions (like 1,3,5, 7 in larger games) to gain an advantage and thus almost farm the map.
Is this an issue?

Unfortunately, I don't understand the specifics of your concern. The starting positions are distributed randomly, so I don't understand what you mean by "certain player positions".

This is what i was trying to say

This is the code that would be in place for player 1 (red) as the map stands now.

Code: Select all

<positions>
   <position>
      <territory>Ann Putnam Jr</territory>
      <territory>Samuel Brabrook</territory>
      <territory>Alice Shaflin</territory>
   </position>
....
</positions>

If beta play showed there was some kind of advantage of gaining early bonuses/wins by starting as red, it could lead to lots of players creating the map is they knew they were going to win. That has always been a prime concern of mine in any of map taht have starting positions. In Das SchloSS it wasn't an issue because there were three areas to start on.
But here is different.

Here is my concern. The player starting with Thomas Beadle is quite close to the judge Johnathan Corwin. This could give him bombardment capabilities against the accused early on. One or both of the following would fix this:

1. Move that starting region further from that judge
2. Do not use the accused as starting regions

Point two would also be useful if we were considering allowing more than one starting position per player, which I believe we should. (Otherwise, 1v1 games will start very slowly.) By keeping the accused out of the starting positions, we avoid handing out an instant accuser/accused bonus on the drop. We could allow a maximum of two starting positions, so that 4 player games would start with as many active regions as 8 player games, and even 2 player games would have half of them active.

Well yes, Thomas Beadle starting position could be moved.
Or the accused not started as starting positions as you state.
I wouldn't want to drop the starting positions to max 2. Just doesn't feel right and gives the feeling that the population has to grow more than necessary. I think 24 is a good number.
I think moving the starting is good idea rather than restrictions, the map is restricted enough by gameplay.

[MarshalNey]

Hmmmm, I think that either one or both of us is confused about the nature of starting positions as proposed... I confess that it may be me

As I understand it, starting positions as you showed in the XML psuedocode below-

Code: Select all
<positions>
<position>
<territory>Ann Putnam Jr</territory>
<territory>Samuel Brabrook</territory>
<territory>Alice Shaflin</territory>
</position>
....
</positions>

-would have a 'batch' of three starting positions that would be distributed to a random player along with the other batches (of three). It would not automatically get assigned to the 1st (red) player.

What I think Ender was proposing was to raise the number of max starting positions per player from 1 to 2, with the understanding that each "starting position" is actually a batch of three (so in reality he was proposing to raise the max starting positions per player from 3 to 6). This would allow smaller numbers of players (2, 3 and 4-player games) to have 6 starting positions each, while large games (5 players or more) would still have 3 starting positions per player.

-- Marshal Ney

[Victor Sullivan]

Hmmmm, I think that either one or both of us is confused about the nature of starting positions as proposed... I confess that it may be me

As I understand it, starting positions as you showed in the XML psuedocode below-

Code: Select all
<positions>
<position>
<territory>Ann Putnam Jr</territory>
<territory>Samuel Brabrook</territory>
<territory>Alice Shaflin</territory>
</position>
....
</positions>

-would have a 'batch' of three starting positions that would be distributed to a random player along with the other batches (of three). It would not automatically get assigned to the 1st (red) player.

Correct

What I think Ender was proposing was to raise the number of max starting positions per player from 1 to 2, with the understanding that each "starting position" is actually a batch of three (so in reality he was proposing to raise the max starting positions per player from 3 to 6). This would allow smaller numbers of players (2, 3 and 4-player games) to have 6 starting positions each, while large games (5 players or more) would still have 3 starting positions per player.

-- Marshal Ney

Well, 6 and 3 territories (2 and 1 starting positions), technically But, yes.

-Sully

[ender516]

MarshalNey and Victor Sullivan have got my ideas precisely.