Parachute Fortify only along possible fortification lines

[Doc_Brown]

Concise description:
Modify the existing parachute fortification setting to allow fortifications between territories where a possible chained fortification could occur.

Specifics/Details:
Currently, parachute fortifications allow one to fort between any two owned territories on the map regardless of the map requirements. For most of the maps on this site, there is no problem. But for some of the more complicated maps, it results in some serious unintended consequences. A fair number of maps have been developed with bombard-only territories (usually as killer neutrals). The maps were designed with the intention that a player would have to carefully decide how many troops to advance to that spot since he can never get them back out and they could only be used to bombard other territories.

A good example of this is the catapults and trebuchets in King's Court 2. The catapults are designed with a +2 autodeploy and are designed to only bombard nearby territories and hit the trebuchets. One of the start locations has two catapults, while all the rest have only one. This was balanced during the map development because that start location doesn't have the same access to village bonuses that some of the others do, and the catapult autodeploys can only be used to bombard. With parachute fortifications, the catapults become an endless supply of troops that can be used anywhere, countermanding the original design goals of the map and resulting in the House Hareth start location becoming unbalanced compared to the others.

An easy fix for this situation is to add a simple check to the fortification possibilities: If the given player controlled every single territory on the map, could he execute a chained fort from territory A to territory B? If so, a parachute fort is possible between the two territories. If territory A cannot be forted off of with the other fortification settings, is also cannot be forted off of with parachute settings.

How this will benefit the site and/or other comments:
This change will allow the parachute setting to be consistent with the goals of map designers and with the text notes on the maps. It will make it tougher for experienced parachute players to surprise and take advantage of other players that have long experience with certain maps under conventional fortification settings. I suspect a change of this sort would also be necessary before this setting could start to be accepted in clan war play.

[spiesr]

I would like to hear from the Cartography guys on this one.
If implementing this proved difficult, would blocking Parachute Reinforcements from maps be sufficient/desirable? How many maps would be affected/need to be blocked?

[agentcom]

I can see your point, but I always just thought of this as another aspect of the parachute game. I use it in Waterloo games to fort off the cannons. I'd say leave it. For better or worse, I'd guess most people are fairly indifferent to this, and changing it now could cause problems. I know I'd be upset if all of a sudden the rules changed on me.

[Metsfanmax]

I can see your point, but I always just thought of this as another aspect of the parachute game.

I agree. It makes parachute games on King's Court substantially different, and the whole point of parachute was to make for interesting and different gameplay.

[Lord_Bremen]

This is a good suggestion.

[Foxglove]

I can see your point, but I always just thought of this as another aspect of the parachute game.

I agree. It makes parachute games on King's Court substantially different, and the whole point of parachute was to make for interesting and different gameplay.

Yes.

[Doc_Brown]

I can see your point, but I always just thought of this as another aspect of the parachute game.

I agree. It makes parachute games on King's Court substantially different, and the whole point of parachute was to make for interesting and different gameplay.

That's true, and this proposal still allows parachute spoils to introduce dramatically different gameplay and a new and interesting take on maps. What it restricts is the ability of a single setting to fundamentally override the structure and balance of a map. It would not change things for most maps. It's only an issue for maps with areas that are only able to bombard and do not attack other territories, or where there are sections of the map that are designed to not connect to each other. KC2 is the primary example I've experienced, though Arm's Race is another one that comes to mind. Krazy Kingsdoms is another one that would be dramatically different with parachute spoils. Again, parachute spoils, as envisioned in this proposal, would still offer an interesting new approach to the map without risking it becoming completely unbalanced.

[Metsfanmax]

I can see your point, but I always just thought of this as another aspect of the parachute game.

I agree. It makes parachute games on King's Court substantially different, and the whole point of parachute was to make for interesting and different gameplay.

That's true, and this proposal still allows parachute spoils to introduce dramatically different gameplay and a new and interesting take on maps. What it restricts is the ability of a single setting to fundamentally override the structure and balance of a map. It would not change things for most maps. It's only an issue for maps with areas that are only able to bombard and do not attack other territories, or where there are sections of the map that are designed to not connect to each other. KC2 is the primary example I've experienced, though Arm's Race is another one that comes to mind. Krazy Kingsdoms is another one that would be dramatically different with parachute spoils. Again, parachute spoils, as envisioned in this proposal, would still offer an interesting new approach to the map without risking it becoming completely unbalanced.

Philosophically speaking, the point of Parachute as a setting is that normally you have to make choices about where you deploy, because troops that go to one region are disconnected from other regions. On Classic if I drop in Australia, that means I won't be able to use those troops to fight my war in South America. Parachute largely offsets that problem by making you have to focus less on where deployments go. So I would argue that what happens for these normally bombard-only territories is exactly what parachute is designed to achieve. The problem here is, as you say, that the map becomes slightly unbalanced -- not that the setting itself is problematic. If all KC2 starting locations had the same number of catapults, this would be a non-issue.

The problem here is just that we added this setting after the map was in existence, and we can't balance it afterward. I do not desire to completely change the parachute rules just to fix up a couple maps from being unbalanced. I think we can only look to the future and design maps with this idea of parachute in mind (or block them from use with parachute).

[agentcom]

I'm not even sure that I see a huge problem with KC maps. As with any map, parachute settings make bombarding territs more powerful. Bombard territs originally had an attack advantage but a fort restriction. Parachute removes the fort restriction. BUT everybody in the game can take advantage of that (limited to once per turn). I'm in several Waterloo games right now with para forts. It's been interesting, but I wouldn't say that it made the game unbalanced. In KC maps everyone has access to trebuchets via their catapults. You just have to adjust your gameplay to accommodate the more powerful catapults and trebuchets.

[ChrisPond]

I'm not even sure that I see a huge problem with KC maps. As with any map, parachute settings make bombarding territs more powerful. Bombard territs originally had an attack advantage but a fort restriction. Parachute removes the fort restriction. BUT everybody in the game can take advantage of that (limited to once per turn). I'm in several Waterloo games right now with para forts. It's been interesting, but I wouldn't say that it made the game unbalanced. In KC maps everyone has access to trebuchets via their catapults. You just have to adjust your gameplay to accommodate the more powerful catapults and trebuchets.

I think you are missing the point that HH has 2 catapualts and every other starting point has 1.

i have not played parachute forts yet on that map but i assume you could also load up a catapult, hop up to a treubechet with a huge force, bomb the hell out of your neighbors, and then fort your leftovers back to a ter that does not reset to neutral so you don't lose them to the killer neutral. I have to say that changes the intent of all maps where killer neutrals have been designed into them and I would agree with this suggestion.

[Donelladan]

I fully agree with that suggestion.
On the labyrinth map also, in parachute fort you can take the mermaid and then fort out of it, while it was not designed that way. I was very surprised of this possibility.
Speaking of KC2 allowing you to fort from one of your castle to another from the beginning of the map or to your teammate already changes the gameplay. Allowing you to fort from archery, catapult, treb, college of cardinal, cathedrale because all of them are concerned I assume, seems a mistake from the implementation of the settings. They did not think about it because on classic-style map the problem does not exist.