Krazy Kingdoms [Quenched]

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Looks great, can't see anything that's amiss with the graphics. I'm really looking forward to the XML getting completed and this map getting to Beta. I think this is the map I've most anticipated in a long time. I can totally see this being one of the few maps that sticks around in regular play. It's relatively small in size, fairly easy to learn the basics, and seems like it will provide piles of different gameplay options with its unique gameplay

[dolomite13]

I see a small problem where the border seems to have moved up by a pixel. I will fix that this evening and update one more time. Although if we get that graphics stamp this fix won't stand in the way of starting on XML.

=D13=

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Gilligan, any idea how long the XML should take for this? It seems like it would probably be a pretty complicated XML file.

[dolomite13]

Gilligan, any idea how long the XML should take for this? It seems like it would probably be a pretty complicated XML file.

Probably a month ... not really sure... it is extremely complicated.

=D13=

[dolomite13]

OK fixed that pixel issue this is latest images

=D13=

SMALL
http://imageshack.us/a/img703/6027/li9.png


LARGE
http://imageshack.us/a/img547/4804/ige1.png

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Gilligan, any idea how long the XML should take for this? It seems like it would probably be a pretty complicated XML file.

Probably a month ... not really sure... it is extremely complicated.

=D13=

A month wouldn't be too bad. Better than the 3+ years that I've been waiting for Research and Conquer My premium will probably be gone by then, but I can at least still play the map in casual games.

[RedBaron0]

After a krazy amount to time to the final check, this is most deserved:

[cairnswk]

Congrats dolomite13

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Congrats dolomite, onwards to XML once Gilligan returns from vacation, yay!

[dolomite13]

=) Yea!

Soon my Fanatical Undead Wizard Murklords will be ready for battle.

=D13=

[dolomite13]

So it may not be possible to have aquatic function as it is currently designed based on XML and the game engine. If we cannot have both borders and bombards from territory A to territory B at the same time then I will have to redesign it a bit.

Solution will most likely be to take away the bombard of seas from bordering territories and make seas killer 3

And to change aquatic from.

==assault==> seas
seas +1 each
seas +4 if you have all 4 seas

to this

==assault==> seas
territories that borders seas are +1 for every 2 up to a max of +8

=D13=

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

So it may not be possible to have aquatic function as it is currently designed based on XML and the game engine. If we cannot have both borders and bombards from territory A to territory B at the same time then I will have to redesign it a bit.

Solution will most likely be to take away the bombard of seas from bordering territories and make seas killer 3

And to change aquatic from.

==assault==> seas
seas +1 each
seas +4 if you have all 4 seas

to this

==assault==> seas
territories that borders seas are +1 for every 2 up to a max of +8

=D13=

I think that's a better option than the few I was able to come up with, none of which really seemed right.

I also noticed an error in gameplay balance. I believe the J2/F4 and J4/F2 pairs need to have their territory names/types swapped. Everyone else has a territory every 3 away from the next, whereas Treefolk and Lizardmen both have 4 territories in between their first and second favored territory, which gives them a distinct disadvantage. Swapping those two pairs will make it so they've also got their favored territories 3 away from each other.

I'll leave it up to dolomite as to whether he thinks it's worth changing these this late in design, but if it doesn't cause too big of a headache, I think it would be worth balancing the gameplay out that little bit more.

[dolomite13]

Unfortunately that will result in broken "personal continents" and 1 less adjacent-to-favored territory for each. I would rather have them the way they are as I don;t see the same issue you do. And if their is a slight advantage here then it's really slight as the map is so small.

This image shows each player's "personal continent".



=D13=

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Unfortunately that will result in broken "personal continents" and 1 less adjacent-to-favored territory for each. I would rather have them the way they are as I don;t see the same issue you do. And if their is a slight advantage here then it's really slight as the map is so small.

This image shows each player's "personal continent".



=D13=

The problem that you're missing is for Treefolk and Lizardman to have their second favored territory only 3 spots away, they have to be able to cross the chasm, which means they have to move forward one extra spot at the beginning to be able to take the chasm as their second territory, hence their second favored territory is 4 away unless they own the two sides of the chasm beside their start territory later in the game.

If you take another look at what I suggested, you'll find it doesn't disrupt the personal continents of the Treefolk or Lizardmen, all the territories are still 3 spots away from one another, so the various continent parts will all still connect. Or is there some other part of the continents that is concerning you other than their remaining connected?

[dolomite13]

Unfortunately that will result in broken "personal continents" and 1 less adjacent-to-favored territory for each. I would rather have them the way they are as I don;t see the same issue you do. And if their is a slight advantage here then it's really slight as the map is so small.

This image shows each player's "personal continent".

http://img802.imageshack.us/img802/4143/pcchasms.png

=D13=

The problem that you're missing is for Treefolk and Lizardman to have their second favored territory only 3 spots away, they have to be able to cross the chasm, which means they have to move forward one extra spot at the beginning to be able to take the chasm as their second territory, hence their second favored territory is 4 away unless they own the two sides of the chasm beside their start territory later in the game.

If you take another look at what I suggested, you'll find it doesn't disrupt the personal continents of the Treefolk or Lizardmen, all the territories are still 3 spots away from one another, so the various continent parts will all still connect. Or is there some other part of the continents that is concerning you other than their remaining connected?

I see but here is what your proposed change does. It decreases the number of "adjacent to favored" territories for Lizardmen and Treefolk by 1 each from 13 to 12 and creates a territory that is doubled up on (S4 and M4).



I have a different proposal ... swapping F3 and J3 would keep the 13, make a fully connected continent for each player and grant the same distance to the 2nd favored territory that you were suggesting should be there for balance.



It is a pain in the ass to make the change but it makes sense so I will need to make that update asap.

Thanks

=D13=

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I have a different proposal ... swapping F3 and J3 would keep the 13, make a fully connected continent for each player and grant the same distance to the 2nd favored territory that you were suggesting should be there for balance.



It is a pain in the ass to make the change but it makes sense so I will need to make that update asap.

Thanks

=D13=

I think that'll work well. I figured it would be a pain in the ass to fix it graphically at least, and I'm hoping we caught this before any, or at least too much, of the XML had been created since I'm sure that'll even be a bigger pain to fix. You're welcome for catching it, though I'm sorry for all the extra work it's caused and hope it doesn't set the release date of the map back too much.

[dolomite13]

I wrote about 1500 lines of xml thus far. Mostly just territories and borders, starting neutrals, starting positions, basic continents so it's not too hard to swap two territories. I hope to pass it off to Gilligan this weekend to do the hard part with the bonuses that are making my head spin.

=D13=

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I wrote about 1500 lines of xml thus far. Mostly just territories and borders, starting neutrals, starting positions, basic continents so it's not too hard to swap two territories. I hope to pass it off to Gilligan this weekend to do the hard part with the bonuses that are making my head spin.

=D13=

Yikes, 1500 lines sounds like a lot. Hopefully there was a fair bit of copy and pasting you were able to do for that. In any case, I'm glad it's minimal work to swap the territories and also that the XML is on it's way

[dolomite13]

OK here are the new maps and a list of changes.

I would love for the Gameplay and Graphics foundry people to give this a once over.

=D13=

=============================================================================

Graphics
* swapped land type and name for territories J3 and F3 as per the above conversation for better balance

Gameplay
* changed Aquatic to "gain a +1 bonus for every 3 territories that are adjacent to a sea" and "may assault seas"
* changes seas to be KILLER 3 (start 3 neutral) and can assault adjacent territories.
* added adjacent to sea to the key with a note they cannot assault seas (aquatic overrides this)

Small
http://imageshack.com/a/img10/886/vjid.png


Large
http://imageshack.com/a/img802/2204/y66s.png

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

OK here are the new maps and a list of changes.

I would love for the Gameplay and Graphics foundry people to give this a once over.

=D13=

At the risk of being shot and hung for being a pain in the butt, especially since I pointed out the balance issue in the first place... the colours for J3 and F3 should also be swapped. Everything else lines up and it's easy to tell which territories you're supposed to be going for. Visually people with the Lizardmen or Treefolk may end up going for the other's third favored territory instead of their own because of the current colour difference. I hope the change doesn't create a lot of extra work graphically

Looking at the two territories, I think the background etchings of forest/jungle are similar enough that just switchng the colour itself over should work well enough... I'm probably being overly optimistic and Photoshop noobish, but hopefully it's just a matter of eyedropping the dark green colour onto the J3 territory and the light green colour onto the F3 territory and a couple minutes of tweaks to fix any minor artifacting.

On a positive note, I really like the new aquatics bonus and think it will work out nicely. It allows for the potential of a large bonus of +8, but realistically will give a reasonable bonus while offering some nice tactical advantages of getting around stacks and being able to get across the map much quicker in trench games. I could be mistaken, but it also seems like it should require a little less work on the XML end of things, which is always a nice bonus

Overall great work, dolomite. I must say, this is one of the few maps I've really been looking forward to playing through its development. Not including Research and Conquer, which has been in development forever, I think the last map I've been looking this forward to playing was King's Court. I really see this map being one of the few maps that stands the test of time and still gets regular play a year after its release

[dolomite13]

OK here are the new maps and a list of changes.

I would love for the Gameplay and Graphics foundry people to give this a once over.

=D13=

At the risk of being shot and hung for being a pain in the butt, especially since I pointed out the balance issue in the first place... the colours for J3 and F3 should also be swapped. Everything else lines up and it's easy to tell which territories you're supposed to be going for. Visually people with the Lizardmen or Treefolk may end up going for the other's third favored territory instead of their own because of the current colour difference. I hope the change doesn't create a lot of extra work graphically

Looking at the two territories, I think the background etchings of forest/jungle are similar enough that just switchng the colour itself over should work well enough... I'm probably being overly optimistic and Photoshop noobish, but hopefully it's just a matter of eyedropping the dark green colour onto the J3 territory and the light green colour onto the F3 territory and a couple minutes of tweaks to fix any minor artifacting.

On a positive note, I really like the new aquatics bonus and think it will work out nicely. It allows for the potential of a large bonus of +8, but realistically will give a reasonable bonus while offering some nice tactical advantages of getting around stacks and being able to get across the map much quicker in trench games. I could be mistaken, but it also seems like it should require a little less work on the XML end of things, which is always a nice bonus

Overall great work, dolomite. I must say, this is one of the few maps I've really been looking forward to playing through its development. Not including Research and Conquer, which has been in development forever, I think the last map I've been looking this forward to playing was King's Court. I really see this map being one of the few maps that stands the test of time and still gets regular play a year after its release

I linked the wrong map with the wrong territory names. They should be correct now. And I think that there are 22 territories around seas so that wuld be a max of +7 but with the ability to use seas to hop across them it seems balanced. We will need to see it in action I guess.

=D13=

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I linked the wrong map with the wrong territory names. They should be correct now. And I think that there are 22 territories around seas so that wuld be a max of +7 but with the ability to use seas to hop across them it seems balanced. We will need to see it in action I guess.

=D13=

Good to hear it didn't cause any additional problems I only counted them around a couple of the seas and presumed they were the same around the other two, so my count was off. Still, +7 seems like a good potential bonus as well. And yeah, it's one of those things you need to see actually in beta play to know for sure.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I wrote about 1500 lines of xml thus far. Mostly just territories and borders, starting neutrals, starting positions, basic continents so it's not too hard to swap two territories. I hope to pass it off to Gilligan this weekend to do the hard part with the bonuses that are making my head spin.

=D13=

Are you having difficulty figuring out how to create some of the bonuses using the XML? I've never written XML, but have reviewed some and have an understanding of code in general, so perhaps I can help figure it out if you are having difficulty? I tend to be pretty good with sorting out the logistics of code. If it will even help the process along.

[dolomite13]

I wrote about 1500 lines of xml thus far. Mostly just territories and borders, starting neutrals, starting positions, basic continents so it's not too hard to swap two territories. I hope to pass it off to Gilligan this weekend to do the hard part with the bonuses that are making my head spin.

=D13=

Are you having difficulty figuring out how to create some of the bonuses using the XML? I've never written XML, but have reviewed some and have an understanding of code in general, so perhaps I can help figure it out if you are having difficulty? I tend to be pretty good with sorting out the logistics of code. If it will even help the process along.

Gilligan is on board for the XML I just set up the basics with the territories, coordinates, reinforcements, requirements, and starting droops/neutrals to get things rolling. I'm not even going to attempt the complex xml that will be needed for the bonus structure on this one.

=D13=

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I wrote about 1500 lines of xml thus far. Mostly just territories and borders, starting neutrals, starting positions, basic continents so it's not too hard to swap two territories. I hope to pass it off to Gilligan this weekend to do the hard part with the bonuses that are making my head spin.

=D13=

Are you having difficulty figuring out how to create some of the bonuses using the XML? I've never written XML, but have reviewed some and have an understanding of code in general, so perhaps I can help figure it out if you are having difficulty? I tend to be pretty good with sorting out the logistics of code. If it will even help the process along.

Gilligan is on board for the XML I just set up the basics with the territories, coordinates, reinforcements, requirements, and starting droops/neutrals to get things rolling. I'm not even going to attempt the complex xml that will be needed for the bonus structure on this one.

=D13=

I think if you've covered all of those parts of the XML, you'll have given Gilligan a nice head start. From what I understand the coordinates part can be a time consuming pain in the butt to deal with. Have you taken care of the bonuses (just bonuses, not extra features) for the different special abilities except for Barbarians and Fanatics? Since they're not starting race dependent, the others seem like they should just be straight forward collections and/or required tag bonuses with an auto-deploy for Demons. There's certainly some more complicated aspects of some of them with the conditional borders and other features, but the bonus end of them seem rather straight forward.