District of Alaska - v14.1 [2015-25-05] pg16 [QUENCHED]

[RjBeals]

yeah something needs to be done about those port cities. Maybe a dotted line - or, I know you don't want to introduce more colors, but it may work.? Or how about a unique flag? each ship fly's a flag, match it to the anchor.

[isaiah40]

yeah something needs to be done about those port cities. Maybe a dotted line - or, I know you don't want to introduce more colors, but it may work.? Or how about a unique flag? each ship fly's a flag, match it to the anchor.

+1

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2013-05-03:
Thanks for the recent feedback everyone. I had already started down the path of adding the body of water names to the grid lines and rearranging the ship sets. Here's what I did:

- Added body of water names on each side of the separating grid lines. Also added a second layer to make that portion a little darker.
- Moved some of the ship sets around.
- Redid the Expedition Routes to run through the army circles, this meant I had to redo some of the territory lines.
- Added names to each of the Base Camps. My thought was they would be Base Camps Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie.
- Added the port back to Point Hope, and moved the one from Nome back to St Lawrence.
- Removed the reference to "Reinforcements" from the ship legend.

Need thoughts on:
- Bethel Port - Right now the line kind of runs through the top of the tert, does that port need to be moved so people don't think it can be attacked by ships in the Chukchi Sea? It would need to be moved to Nunivak or Kwethluk. Thoughts?
- Ports - Are there enough? (I think so) Are they on the best terts? Etc.

Things to do.
- Tone down ship set text and arrows.

CURRENT MAP VERSION

v5.0 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

- Bethel Port - Right now the line kind of runs through the top of the tert,

Just move the line up a few pixels so it does not run through the region.

You can remove the larger sea names now. No need to duplicate information and you may need the room later.

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2013-05-03:
- Moved the 60 degree line up so Bethel would be totally in the Bearing Sea. This involved moving St. Lawrence up a bit.
- Reduced the opacity of the large body of water labels (ex. Bering Sea, etc).

Things to do.
- Tone down ship set text and arrows.
- Fix colors around the mountains.

CURRENT MAP VERSION

v5.1 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[thenobodies80]

Sorry for keeping this one into the DR too long.

[koontz1973]

Congrats Seamus. Give me a couple of days to go over this.

[Seamus76]

Congrats Seamus. Give me a couple of days to go over this.

Thanks koontz.

[koontz1973]

Is that a hint. I need to look at R&C for isaiah first. So let me have the weekend. Sorry for being slow but I need to get my head around that one. But I will say, you are mostly there now.

[Seamus76]

Is that a hint. I need to look at R&C for isaiah first. So let me have the weekend. Sorry for being slow but I need to get my head around that one. But I will say, you are mostly there now.

Maybe. I certainly understand though, see you when I see you.

[koontz1973]

Seamus, some notes for you.

Far North, you will never hold this. I would suggesting a split up of this region. The reason for this is anyone who starts in the south has won the game.
North 4 borders
Point hope, Franklin point, point barrow, nigalek, coleville, kaktovik
North West 3 borders
Noatak, Koyukak, Nome, Nualto hills, St lawrence.

The base camps and routes all look solid. You can put those to bed now.

Ports.
Gulf of Alaska - 3
Bearing Sea - 2
Chukchi sea - 2
Move the one from Sitka to Valdes. This will do the same job but allow South central access to one.
Ships auto deploys, consider lowering this to a 2 with a 4 neutral. Small boats can have a 1 going in and a two heading out.
SS Polaris - 4 neutrals
Clark- 1 neutral
Pryor - 2 neutral

One way boat lines of attack.

Change this to

One way supply routes

Can you fill in the starts for me and add a neutrals map to the first post. I will grab the bonuses for you later toady for all regions including a far north whole and the split up far north.

[Seamus76]

Far North, you will never hold this. I would suggesting a split up of this region. The reason for this is anyone who starts in the south has won the game.
North 4 borders
Point hope, Franklin point, point barrow, nigalek, coleville, kaktovik
North West 3 borders
Noatak, Koyukak, Nome, Nualto hills, St lawrence.

I'm not sold on this just yet. I see that it will be difficult to hold the Far North bonus, but I'm not sure that should be the criteria for splitting regions up. Is it a damn hard bonus to hold? Yes it is, but that's also why it's a +8, making it worth fighting for if the situation is right. If not players should focus on other bonuses and use the Far North as a battle ground instead of a bonus. Another main reason, as of now the graphics (regions and colors) are very well balanced IMO, from an optical standpoint, and I see the split as potentially throwing that off. I'll give it a shot though, as you have never lead me astray, but then it will mean more crowding of the legend to add in another line of text, etc. As for actually breaking the region up, my idea would be to use the same purple, but go lighter or darker for one of the new regions.

The base camps and routes all look solid. You can put those to bed now.

Yeah, thanks.

Ports.
Gulf of Alaska - 3
Bearing Sea - 2
Chukchi sea - 2
Move the one from Sitka to Valdes. This will do the same job but allow South central access to one.

Not a problem, makes sense.

Ships auto deploys, consider lowering this to a 2 with a 4 neutral. Small boats can have a 1 going in and a two heading out.
SS Polaris - 4 neutrals
Clark- 1 neutral
Pryor - 2 neutral

I get lowering the auto-deploy to +2, and having any large ships that start neutral be 4n, but why have the 2n on the outbound small boat, instead of the other way, where the inbound small boat is 2n which makes it harder for someone to easily see what is sitting on the ship. Then the outbound small boat would be 1n, to make it easier to get out from the large ship. But to that point, personally I would rather them both be 2n, rather than 1n each, or each one different (1n and 2n). Also keep in mind each player will start with at least 1 large ship, depending on number of players. I would love your thoughts on that as well. In 1v1, each player should start with 2 I would say, and 8 players games each player would start with 1.

One way boat lines of attack.

Change this to

One way supply routes

Makes sense.

Can you fill in the starts for me and add a neutrals map to the first post. I will grab the bonuses for you later toady for all regions including a far north whole and the split up far north.

Will start mocking that up. Thanks.

[koontz1973]

Is it a damn hard bonus to hold? Yes it is, but that's also why it's a +8

Because it is so large and hard to get hold of, it will be ignored completely. Even at +8. You could make it +15 and still have it ignored. Why go for a bonus if by the time you get it, others have gained the smaller ones in the south and won the game. Central is fine as it as it becomes a wasteland fitting the exploration theme of the map.

I get lowering the auto-deploy to +2, and having any large ships that start neutral be 4n, but why have the 2n on the outbound small boat, instead of the other way, where the inbound small boat is 2n which makes it harder for someone to easily see what is sitting on the ship.

The reason for the lowering of the auto is this. Hold it for 3 rounds you have 6 troops instead of 9, 5 rounds you have 10 instead of 15. The payback is high for the amount of neutrals you have to fight through to get it (5). The reason the extra single (2) going out is this, it locks the autos up a bit. You have to wait for 3 or 4 rounds to get anything worth having. The single means you can come out every other turn. So you want the neutrals to be low enough for players to want to get the auto deploys whilst high enough to make them think about coming out. Hence the reason for the different neutrals.

[Seamus76]

Is it a damn hard bonus to hold? Yes it is, but that's also why it's a +8

Because it is so large and hard to get hold of, it will be ignored completely. Even at +8. You could make it +15 and still have it ignored. Why go for a bonus if by the time you get it, others have gained the smaller ones in the south and won the game. Central is fine as it as it becomes a wasteland fitting the exploration theme of the map.

Ok, I'll see what I can do.

I get lowering the auto-deploy to +2, and having any large ships that start neutral be 4n, but why have the 2n on the outbound small boat, instead of the other way, where the inbound small boat is 2n which makes it harder for someone to easily see what is sitting on the ship.

The reason for the lowering of the auto is this. Hold it for 3 rounds you have 6 troops instead of 9, 5 rounds you have 10 instead of 15. The payback is high for the amount of neutrals you have to fight through to get it (5). The reason the extra single (2) going out is this, it locks the autos up a bit. You have to wait for 3 or 4 rounds to get anything worth having. The single means you can come out every other turn. So you want the neutrals to be low enough for players to want to get the auto deploys whilst high enough to make them think about coming out. Hence the reason for the different neutrals.

I understood the idea to lower the auto-deploy to +2 (and was your thought to have all of the large ships start with 4 troops?), I'm ok with that, I just didn't understand about the neutrals on the small boats. I still don't actually, but not that I completely have to.

To sum up the boats & questions:
- You think inbound small boats should be 1n, and outbound small boats should be 2n? Not sure I really care either way, but my initial preference would be to have both inbound and outbound small boats be 2n, but I'll lean on your expertise to make the final call.
- Lower the large ship auto-deploy to +2
- Should Large ships start with 4 troops, whether neutral or not, and then receive +2 auto-deploy?
- How many large ships should players start with, in games less than 5 players since there are only 8 ships?
- Should ports all start neutral?

[koontz1973]

Large ships should all start with a 4 neutral.
Did you want them to be handed out as positions as well? If so, then a max of two with an underlying neutral to make the others start neutral.
Aleutians needs a neutral so you can code that post as one.

The idea I was thinking behind the boats is this. When you go to a ship, you go empty handed. But leaving your boat heavily laden with supplies makes the voyage a bit more tricky. Seems to be in keeping with the theme.

[Seamus76]

Large ships should all start with a 4 neutral.
Did you want them to be handed out as positions as well? If so, then a max of two with an underlying neutral to make the others start neutral.
Aleutians needs a neutral so you can code that post as one.

I did want them handed out as starting positions. So 1-4 player games would each start with 2 large ships per player, and 5-8 player games would each get 1 per player. So my question, the non-distributed ships would start 4n, but the others being handed would they also start with 4 troops (or basically 2, and then on the first turn get +2 auto-deploy to equal 4)?

The idea I was thinking behind the boats is this. When you go to a ship, you go empty handed. But leaving your boat heavily laden with supplies makes the voyage a bit more tricky. Seems to be in keeping with the theme.

I get it, I'm not sure players will really think about it that way, and by giving players large ships as starting positions I think having the inbound ships be 2n keeps them a little more protected from someone attacking from a port. Although it is just 1 more neutral, I like having both small ships consistent with each other at 2n. Of course it's still early, so we can see what discussion there might be on the matter. (Not that there has been much discussion except between the two of us ).

[koontz1973]

OK, code the ships as 2 positions max with an underlying neutral of 4. No need to do anything else with these so players will start with the normal 3 and as soon a they start, they get a 5 to play with.

OK, keep the neutrals the same for the small boats. 1 or 2 is OK.

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2013-05-16:
- Broke up the large Far North region as proposed by koontz. The bonus numbers are just place holders. But, I couldn't have the top part called Far North, and the lower Northwest since that is a pretty far departure from the actual "Far North" region. So I kind of went in a best of both worlds direction and broke it up, but added the complete Far North as an additional bonus opportunity. (Which is really just a way to keep the original Far North region represented on the map, which I feel is a must).
- Updated the Large ship info to reflect +2 auto-deploy instead of +3.
- Updated Small boat info in the OP to reflect they will start 2n and revert to 2n if held.
- Changed the legend Arrow description from "attack" to supply line.
- Moved the port from Sitka to Valdez.

Thoughts?

Things to do.
- Tone down ship set text and arrows.
- Add light outer glow to all tert names to help bring them out.

CURRENT MAP VERSION

v6.0 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[koontz1973]

I like the north now. Much more interesting. How about:
North combined +10
South combined +14
Aleutian and Inside passage +9 (extra one as they are apart)

Drop the s from Aleutians and add islands in the legend. They are know as the Aleutian islands.

Apart from this, I think you are done.

[Seamus76]

I like the north now. Much more interesting. How about:
North combined +10
South combined +14
Aleutian and Inside passage +9 (extra one as they are apart)

Drop the s from Aleutians and add islands in the legend. They are know as the Aleutian islands.

Apart from this, I think you are done.

Thanks. Ok, so your saying to do smaller combined maps and bonuses for the two South regions, and the Inside Passage plus Aleutian, as I did for the full Far North? That's not bad but I will have to decrease the fonts of the large bonuses names which could lead to issues with the small map. Also adding in "Islands" to Aleutian will definitely take up a lot more room. But if that's the direction you're talking about let me know and I'll give it a shot I guess.

So, you think the other bonuses are okay as is for now?

[koontz1973]

Bonuses I still need to run.

[Seamus76]

Bonuses I still need to run.

But the other confirms what your idea was, yes?

[koontz1973]

Bonuses I still need to run.

But the other confirms what your idea was, yes?

Yes. Each bonus zone stays the same, but with the doubling up bonuses, you bring over what you started in China with the super bonuses.

[Seamus76]

CURRENT UPDATE INFO - 2013-05-17:
- Added in the "All South" and "Inside Passage + Aleutians" super regions.
- To do the above I had to make the other bonus text smaller.

Things to do.
- Tone down ship set text and arrows.
- Add light outer glow to all tert names to help bring them out.

CURRENT MAP VERSION

v6.1 - Large (840x800)

Click image to enlarge.

[RedBaron0]

Graphically, and its early I would go crazy with this, the map is pretty polished. Only things that really pop out at me at this point is that its very weird for me to see Chukchi Sea upside-down along the 60N line, but its cosmetic. AN to me some texts are a little too sharp for an "old-timie" map, mostly the title and the ships. The text in the Inner Passage may actually be a tad bit too light. That light glow around Yakutat might need to be on all those territory names going across the red of the territory.