laughingcavalier wrote:Dukasaur wrote:ender516 wrote:I don't see the problem with the buildings. If you can look at the legend and not see the difference between a castle (blocky, probably four sided), a Hanseatic city (two or three large peaked roofs), and a town (three steeples), then I don't know what to tell you. Plus, the castles have one of two shields on them.
+1 There's no doubt the different types of buildings are in three clearly distinct styles.
I disagree - my only problem with the map is that playing on my mobile phone I couldn't tell the difference between castles and towns (though I could tell the difference when playing on my computer). The castles and towns are too similar to differentiate between them on a small low quality screen - the town's steeples simply disappear. I think they could be differentiated without radically changing the symbols, eg by giving the castle a bold outline.
Well, in the past, I don't think much consideration was given to low-res or tiny screens, but if this is important to many CC members, the policy may need updating. I wonder what statistics and guidance the new administration can provide us in this matter. I will flag this for rdsrds2120's attention.
laughingcavalier wrote:Just finishing a few team games and I have really enjoyed playing this map - thanks for developing it. The gameplay is heavily oriented toward taking and holding bonuses, expecially the +3 castle bonus. At first I thought this was a problem, but came to see that is what gives the map its interest. It's like playing a conquest map like Feudal where the person who holds the most castles wins - but with the twist that you don't start in possession of the castles, and that the castles are key to moving around the map. Quite possibly the importance of the castles is historically accurate too.
Glad to hear that the map provides you with fresh interest in playing. That is key to maintaining and growing the player base, which is why new maps are made.
I believe historical accuracy was important to the original developer of the map,
theBastard, who has withdrawn from CC. He had personal reasons (a hand injury limited his artwork and typing), but sadly, he also became frustrated with the Foundry and erased many of his posts.
laughingcavalier wrote:The islands seem to be a bit of a backwater and the Gotland bonus very hard to break - you may want to consider reducing the ships from 3 neutrals to 2 so they are easier to take. Similarly you might want to differentiate between the castles and the towns because you get +3 drop in the former and +1 drop in the latter. YOu could reduce the towns to 2 neutral troops or increase the castles to 4 neutral troops. At the moment there is no real incentive to take the towns.
I hope you have read the comments on bonuses starting at the top of page 55 from swimmerdude99, puppydog85, and Dukasaur. There are thoughts on both sides regarding neutrals, and clearly this is an open question still. The spreadsheet that I used to help me come up with the bonus values does not address the issue of the number of neutrals to use. I think reducing the town neutrals to 2 might be a good idea, but if they become too easy to get then players who drop the surrounding territories may get too much of an advantage. That might be correctable by making the surrounding territories starting positions to ensure a fairer drop. There are thirteen towns embedded in thirteen distinct areas, so there would always be at least one odd one left out. For this map, I don't know if I would want these starting positions to be underlying neutrals, as they would seal in a town and possibly partition the map. Of course, the underlying neutral could be a 1, which might make for some interesting land rushes.
Some people don't care what others think of their maps.
) a very bad eyesight. I can distinguish the borders easily, all those you listed. Anyway the latest version is lighter than the previous one, so let me know how it looks for you.
