Tribal War - Ancient Israel v16.1 [2014-05-22] pg23 Quenched

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2012-11-15:
- I think I made 90% of the changes BluU recommended. Thank you so much for your time. There were a couple I went in another direction with, such as adding Elon instead of Kerioth. And keeping Mt Tabor, which although it is not a city was in that area and helps reinforce the geographical mountain ranges.
- Added a bridge from Dibon to Heshbon, to give players a way around having to go though the neutral 3.
- Redid the order of the text in the middle legend, which I think breaks it out a little better. (Based on silversun's comment.)
- Added a few of the colored 888's. Will continue to fill in the rest but wanted to get this version up for review.
- Added neutrals to terts that will start neutral.

Need to do:
- Finish adding drop shadows to all icons.
- Finish adding the rest of the colored 888's.

Thoughts on:
- My colors kind of suck for the color blind test, but each territory has an identifying symbol, will that be enough to keep me from having to change the colors? Someone with color deficiency should be able to easily determine which region is which based on those symbols. - This was actually indirectly confirmed by Nolefan to be the case. Not that that means anything.

CURRENT MAP VERSION:

v6.0 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

Seamus, the colours need to be CB friendly. When you place your colours on the board, try to go dark light dark again. This helps with the CB test. Also, go to the CB filters in GIMP and turn them on. You can then play around with the colours. I am not a fan of the mini map for this map as it was not on TW-Florida. On the right, you have 2 strong colours next to each other with a softer colour for the war zone. Another way that might help would be to darken some of the bonus zones 3 different shades of dark.

[Seamus76]

Hope all our players in Israel are ok.

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2012-11-18:
[spoiler]-
- Redid a couple of the colors to help with the colorblind versions, but I think they still need a little work. I would like more gameplay and bonus feedback at the moment, rather than graphics stuff, but I don't mind that either I just want to get all of the gameplay hammered out sooner than later.
- Finished adding all of the colored 888's.
- Added neutrals to terts that will start neutral.
- Added a bridge from Ijon to Hazor to keep that corner from being blocked in by the river and neutral tert.

Need to do:
- Finish adding drop shadows to all icons.
- Finalize colors and post colorblind versions.

CURRENT MAP VERSION:

v7.0 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

Asher +2 as it is in the corner
Nephtali is good
Zebulun +1
Issachar +2
Ephram +3
Dan +2
Benjamin +1
Judah is good
Simeon +3
Gad +6
Reuben +3

But I am not bonus expert so you need to wait for the others. As for the layout, I would add a bridge between Gaza and Raphia. Also, have that river branch of to the south and block all of Sharuhen from Judah.

[Seamus76]

I like the bridge in Gaza. Let me look at adding the river and see how it feels.

Nolefan should be providing some thoughts on bonuses, but one thing I can say based on the last map is that Zebulun should be +2. We had a pretty good discussion back then about a tert like that (Miccosukee) needing to at least be the same as a sword or sling shot (bow and tomahawk), or it would be unlikely that a player would take it.

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2012-11-19:
- Added the bridge at Gaza
- Branched the southern river so that Sharuhen is blocked more. I did leave it open to Mt Halak instead of closing it off from Judah completely. Let me know some thoughts and if it's better to extend the river more. (Also, extension isn't really geographically accurate. I know this is more about game play, but to be accurate there could be an extension coming down between Sharuhen and Hezron, cutting them off from each other, but I'm not sure what that adds.)

Need to do:
- Finish adding drop shadows to all icons.
- Finalize colors and post colorblind versions.

CURRENT MAP VERSION:

v8.0 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

I think that works really well. It not really to stop it being attacked, but more to cut of the attacks from it. How would you feel about doing the same for Ziklag?

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2012-11-19:
- Added the bridge at Gaza
- Branched the southern river so that Sharuhen is blocked more. I did leave it open to Mt Halak instead of closing it off from Judah completely. Let me know some thoughts and if it's better to extend the river more. (Also, extension isn't really geographically accurate. I know this is more about game play, but to be accurate there could be an extension coming down between Sharuhen and Hezron, cutting them off from each other, but I'm not sure what that adds.)
-Branched the river Northeast to block Zilag. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet, as it seems a pretty far deviation from the natural geography. I would ask that BluU or Silversun take a look and let us know there thoughts, but I went ahead and put it together for this version. I'm not sure if mountains were a bigger part of that location, but that might be a possibility instead of the river.

Need to do:
- Finish adding drop shadows to all icons.
- Finalize colors and post colorblind versions.[/spoiler]

CURRENT MAP VERSION:

v8.1 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[Seamus76]

Yeah, I don't really like that river at ziklag, I'll try mountains instead and see how it feels.

[koontz1973]

When you do, cover the whole border. So Beer can still attack Lachish but Ziklag cannot.

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2012-11-21:
Personally I feel like the gameplay is pretty solid. At the moment I do not want to add any more impassables, so please let me know some thoughts on final bonus numbers, and if the layout of territories and their border territories is acceptable. Otherwise I'd like to lock this down and start finalizing graphics so I can set up the small version.

- Added mountains to Ziklag, instead of the river I had in the last update (v.8.1).

Need to do:
- Finish adding drop shadows to all icons.
- Finalize colors and post colorblind versions.

CURRENT MAP VERSION:

v8.2 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

Call me quaint, call me old fashioned, but I like it. Gibeon and Beth Shemesh, any chance of mountains there? You could always carry the mountains down from Gezer. I ask this as a player who likes multiple route decisions.

Then I reckon you are done till you get the bonuses sorted out.

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2012-11-21:
Please let me know some thoughts on final bonus numbers, and if the layout of territories and their border territories is acceptable. Otherwise I'd like to lock this down and start finalizing graphics so I can set up the small version.

- Extended the mountains down from Bethel to Beth Shemesh based on Koontz's suggestion. I think it too works pretty well, thanks buddy, keep them coming. Anyone else have some thoughts on this one?

Need to do:
- Finish adding drop shadows to all icons.
- Finalize colors and post colorblind versions.

CURRENT MAP VERSION:

v8.3 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

Seamus, I think I am a happy bunny. Why not start with the graphics whilst you wait on nole or ian for the bonus numbers. I am sure you can see a thousand things (maybe not that many) that need doing so why wait.

[x-raider]

• Manahaim in Gad should be Mahanaim.
• I suggest the area containing "The Jordan River and Sea of Galilee" should have diagonal stripes to emphasize the impassibility.
  If you don't like that you could just give it the same (or similar) effect as the rivers.
• Maybe add a danger symbol to each of the dead sea territs.
• Perhaps change the colour of Reuben. It looks too similar to the special zones (war zones and dead sea).

[BluU]

I hope this doesn't sound stupid, But the shade of purple used for Rimmon with the combination of the Ship symbol of Zebulun and a River going out in the west side of that terit, might cause people to mistake this terit as a lake.
Can more earth tone be used for it?

[nolefan5311]

A few suggested bonus changes:

Asher needs to be reduced to a +2. You're also going to need to place a starting neutral in one of these territories to prevent a bonus being dropped.

Zebulon -- something doesn't sit right with me that 1 territory can yield a +2 bonus. I also don't like that it is the only way to get into Asher from the Warzone because of the river. So you have the tough decision of either keeping the starting neutral low to allow easy access into Asher but making it too easy to take, or keeping the neutral high to make it harder to take, but then reducing movement into Asher. What do you think?

Issachar is probably too high, but it does border the warzone, so it's not going to be an easy bonus to hold. I am probably fine with it as is, but I will run it by the guru, iancanton, to see what he thinks. Also, you're going to need a starting neutral placed here to keep a bonus from being dropped.

I don't see the Manasseh symbol in the Eastern Warzone.

For Dan, you can probably increase the bonus to a +3, since it does border the Warzone. You will also need a starting neutral placed here.

Benjamin at +3 is way too high. This should be a +1 at most, maybe a +2 if you remove the impassable between Jerusalem and the Warzone. And a starting neutral will need to be placed here.

Simeon should be reduced to a +2.

Gad can probably upped to a +5 as well. Are you opposed to adding another crossing between Jerusalem and Beth-Nimrah, or maybe extending the Dead Sea up to accomodate this?

After you've taken into account all the starting neutrals you'll need, update the starting region count to see where we are and if the golden numbers are going to be good.

Overall this maps looks awesome. The mountains are amazing. The Dead Seas could use a little work (they actually look like they're "higher" than the land territories they border, if that makes sense), and I don't think anything would change if you just made it Dead Sea (1 region instead of 2).

The capital bonus also has me a little worried as well. They will all need to start as neutral to prevent bonus dropping, which takes care of the starting neutral issue for the smaller continents. How strongly do you feel about leaving that bonus in? Are you ok with reducing it somewhat (maybe +2 for 4 or something like that)?

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2012-11-28:
Thanks Nolefan for the great info. I tried to make as many changes as I could.

- Updated bonus numbers according to Nolefan's feedback.

Zebulon -- something doesn't sit right with me that 1 territory can yield a +2 bonus. I also don't like that it is the only way to get into Asher from the Warzone because of the river. So you have the tough decision of either keeping the starting neutral low to allow easy access into Asher but making it too easy to take, or keeping the neutral high to make it harder to take, but then reducing movement into Asher. What do you think?

- Personally I don't think the movement into Asher is really reduced. Players are still only 1 tert away from that region, it's just once they take Rimmon they get a bonus. This makes for a strategy decision of moving more guys into Asher or leaving a large number to protect the bonus. The bonus, as pointed out, can then be attacked by the War Zone, which makes it pretty hard to hold, but so are the Swords and Sling Shots. Which is why Zebulun can not be more than those weapons. I would like to keep it the way it is, unless there is strong opposition or we get into Beta play and there is negative feedback.
- Added a bridge from Jerusalem to Beth-nimrah

Benjamin at +3 is way too high. This should be a +1 at most, maybe a +2 if you remove the impassable between Jerusalem and the Warzone. And a starting neutral will need to be placed here.

- I lowered Benjamin to a +1, but with the addition of the bridge from Jerusalem, it can now be attacked by 4 terts. I think it should prob go up to +2 instead. Thoughts?
- Added the capital Edrei to the Eastern War Zone.
- Adjusted the Capital Bonus from +2 for 3 to +2 for 4

The capital bonus also has me a little worried as well. They will all need to start as neutral to prevent bonus dropping, which takes care of the starting neutral issue for the smaller continents. How strongly do you feel about leaving that bonus in? Are you ok with reducing it somewhat (maybe +2 for 4 or something like that)?

- Are making the capitals starting neutral a must? Personally I think leaving them as possible starting positions brings them into play more. If they all start neutral I don't think anyone would purposefully take them to achieve the bonus, but rather would take them only to move around the map if need be. Instead, would it be better to make it a rather low bonus, something like +1 for 4?
- Updated all borders and glows to fit within my background image.

Need to do:
- Finish adding drop shadows to all icons.
- Finalize colors and post colorblind versions.

CURRENT MAP VERSION:

v9.0 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

Seamus, found this on the web one day

and though you might like to look at the colours for your map. This is what I took the colours from for Vertex and Austrum so they work for the colour blind people really well.

As for the glows, some seem stronger than others, did you use colours from all over the spectrum or keep the colours within the same cords?

[Seamus76]

Seamus, found this on the web one day

and though you might like to look at the colours for your map. This is what I took the colours from for Vertex and Austrum so they work for the colour blind people really well.

As for the glows, some seem stronger than others, did you use colours from all over the spectrum or keep the colours within the same cords?

I tried using some of the same colors from TW-Fla, but I need 11 colors which makes it a little challenging. It's not an area I know much about so I basically just used colors from this site http://www.toledo-bend.com/colorblind/colortable.asp, and played around with them a bit to try to get them to be different under the color blind filters. I don't know what cords are, which might be part of the problem. Any help is greatly appreciated. One color that I will still use for this map is the War Zone Color to keep them consistent across maps.

[koontz1973]

In gimps colour selector, you have a box and a slider. When you found a colour that works, use the slider to change the colour. Gimps colours are 6 digits (x/y cords). This will give you different colours of the same type. Rueben looks really dark whilst Judah is very light. If you are going to keep the war zone colour, use the slider next to the box to change the colour.

[Seamus76]

Ok, colors I can work on. Does anyone else have any gameplay suggestions? I'm thinking with one or two tweaks to the bonus values the gameplay should pretty much be done. Thoughts?

[nolefan5311]

Zebulon -- something doesn't sit right with me that 1 territory can yield a +2 bonus. I also don't like that it is the only way to get into Asher from the Warzone because of the river. So you have the tough decision of either keeping the starting neutral low to allow easy access into Asher but making it too easy to take, or keeping the neutral high to make it harder to take, but then reducing movement into Asher. What do you think?

- Personally I don't think the movement into Asher is really reduced. Players are still only 1 tert away from that region, it's just once they take Rimmon they get a bonus. This makes for a strategy decision of moving more guys into Asher or leaving a large number to protect the bonus. The bonus, as pointed out, can then be attacked by the War Zone, which makes it pretty hard to hold, but so are the Swords and Sling Shots. Which is why Zebulun can not be more than those weapons. I would like to keep it the way it is, unless there is strong opposition or we get into Beta play and there is negative feedback.

The issue here is that I can place a stack on Rimmon, have the same number of borders to defend as I did holding Asher, and have my bonus doubled from +2 (for Asher) to +4. I think it would be safer to reduce it to a +1, and if Beta testing shows it should be more, than you can increase it at that time. And in addition, it's a capital, so that potential bonus is going to come into play.

Benjamin at +3 is way too high. This should be a +1 at most, maybe a +2 if you remove the impassable between Jerusalem and the Warzone. And a starting neutral will need to be placed here.

- I lowered Benjamin to a +1, but with the addition of the bridge from Jerusalem, it can now be attacked by 4 terts. I think it should prob go up to +2 instead. Thoughts?

I still think it should remain a +1. We'll see what ian thinks though.

- Adjusted the Capital Bonus from +2 for 3 to +2 for 4

The capital bonus also has me a little worried as well. They will all need to start as neutral to prevent bonus dropping, which takes care of the starting neutral issue for the smaller continents. How strongly do you feel about leaving that bonus in? Are you ok with reducing it somewhat (maybe +2 for 4 or something like that)?

- Are making the capitals starting neutral a must? Personally I think leaving them as possible starting positions brings them into play more. If they all start neutral I don't think anyone would purposefully take them to achieve the bonus, but rather would take them only to move around the map if need be. Instead, would it be better to make it a rather low bonus, something like +1 for 4?

This is a good solution, but you will have to figure it out so that the likelihood of dropping a bonus is less than 2.5%. I suggest that all capitals that are in continents which need a starting neutral placed there anyway to prevent the continent bonus being dropped (Asher, Rimmon, Bethshan, Beth Shemesh, Gibeon) start off as neutral 3's, and all other capitals start as neutrals 2's.

Once you've determined the above, please post an image in the first post with all starting neutrals so we can determine the amount of territories distributed at the drop.

[Seamus76]

nolefan5311 wrote:

Zebulon -- something doesn't sit right with me that 1 territory can yield a +2 bonus. I also don't like that it is the only way to get into Asher from the Warzone because of the river. So you have the tough decision of either keeping the starting neutral low to allow easy access into Asher but making it too easy to take, or keeping the neutral high to make it harder to take, but then reducing movement into Asher. What do you think?

- Personally I don't think the movement into Asher is really reduced. Players are still only 1 tert away from that region, it's just once they take Rimmon they get a bonus. This makes for a strategy decision of moving more guys into Asher or leaving a large number to protect the bonus. The bonus, as pointed out, can then be attacked by the War Zone, which makes it pretty hard to hold, but so are the Swords and Sling Shots. Which is why Zebulun can not be more than those weapons. I would like to keep it the way it is, unless there is strong opposition or we get into Beta play and there is negative feedback.

The issue here is that I can place a stack on Rimmon, have the same number of borders to defend as I did holding Asher, and have my bonus doubled from +2 (for Asher) to +4. I think it would be safer to reduce it to a +1, and if Beta testing shows it should be more, than you can increase it at that time. And in addition, it's a capital, so that potential bonus is going to come into play.

Ok, I think I can live with it being +1, since it is a little different than Muccosukee in TW-Fla, which was originally only attacked by 2 terts but I changed to 3 during beta. I wouldn't ever want to add a bridge from the war zone into Asher, which would defeat the purpose of the river altogether.

nolefan5311 wrote:

Benjamin at +3 is way too high. This should be a +1 at most, maybe a +2 if you remove the impassable between Jerusalem and the Warzone. And a starting neutral will need to be placed here.

- I lowered Benjamin to a +1, but with the addition of the bridge from Jerusalem, it can now be attacked by 4 terts. I think it should prob go up to +2 instead. Thoughts?

I still think it should remain a +1. We'll see what ian thinks though.

Sounds good. My vote is +2, but hopefully we'll hear back soon.

nolefan5311 wrote:

- Adjusted the Capital Bonus from +2 for 3 to +2 for 4

The capital bonus also has me a little worried as well. They will all need to start as neutral to prevent bonus dropping, which takes care of the starting neutral issue for the smaller continents. How strongly do you feel about leaving that bonus in? Are you ok with reducing it somewhat (maybe +2 for 4 or something like that)?

- Are making the capitals starting neutral a must? Personally I think leaving them as possible starting positions brings them into play more. If they all start neutral I don't think anyone would purposefully take them to achieve the bonus, but rather would take them only to move around the map if need be. Instead, would it be better to make it a rather low bonus, something like +1 for 4?

This is a good solution, but you will have to figure it out so that the likelihood of dropping a bonus is less than 2.5%. I suggest that all capitals that are in continents which need a starting neutral placed there anyway to prevent the continent bonus being dropped (Asher, Rimmon, Bethshan, Beth Shemesh, Gibeon) start off as neutral 3's, and all other capitals start as neutrals 2's.

Once you've determined the above, please post an image in the first post with all starting neutrals so we can determine the amount of territories distributed at the drop.

So you're still saying that all of them should be neutral, which I would like to avoid somehow. Even if only three of them were in the pot for distribution that might mean one player would get 1 or 2 and try for the bonus. I still think even if 8 of the 13 were neutral 2 players wouldn't be inclined to go for them. There are plenty of maps where larger bonuses are dropped and games are lost in the first round (England for example, or Pearl Harbor, [which I know is supposed to be part of the theme, etc.]). Also, how is the 2.5% calculated so I can play around with the numbers to possibly come up with a solution? Thanks for the feedback.