Age of Discoveries [24/10] [P5] [V9]

[Armandolas]

A couple comments and questions:
1) I don't see names listed anywhere for the territories that attack clergy, nobility, and bourgeoisie. I suggest something like Priests, Conquistadors, and Merchants/Ports/Ships.
I had it in the legend before but decided to remove because that info was not relevant and occupied precious space. Those were the names u got it right
2) Is it true that, for example, Priests in red territories attack Spanish clergy but not Portugal Clergy?
No. That is not true. Would u think that could be a nice idea?
3) Does a given ship attack all other ships within the same colored sea route, or just the adjacent ones?
Just the adjacent
4) From the legend, it appears that someone controlling the 4 Portugal territories only can never attack anything except the pope. Do you intend for the home countries to attack out to either adjacent or all ports along the sea routes?
Portugal attacks Cabo Verde and Spain attacks Cuba
5) The pope seems very weak to me. Would it be too powerful to allow the pope to attack all priests on the map? That would make it more worthwhile to get to the pope and be able to get to anywhere on the map. It would better represent the Pope's authority to actually divide up the world. Making all those connections would probably require the Pope to reset to 10+ neutrals again though.
That sounds like a good idea making the pope more desirable
6) What are the intended connections for the Spain and Portugal Sovereigns? They're attacked by the social classes, and they can attack the Pope. But that appears to be it. If the Pope can only attack the two sovereigns (plus bombard a few other territories), the Sovereigns are basically dead ends, and the +1 auto isn't worth much.
That makes sense.In the same line of thought about having the pope attacking the priests we could have portugal and spain attacking either the ports or the nobles/conquistadores
7) It looks like your intention is to have all resources, social classes, sovereigns, and the Pope start as neutrals, correct? The only starting territories are Priests, Conquistadors, and Ships (using the terms I proposed - let me know what to call them)?Yes you are right
Some of the territory names are tough to read (especially Guinc Bissau and Filipinas).
Ill look into it

That's probably enough for now!

Thanks for your questions and comments

[Doc_Brown]

A couple comments and questions:
1) I don't see names listed anywhere for the territories that attack clergy, nobility, and bourgeoisie. I suggest something like Priests, Conquistadors, and Merchants/Ports/Ships.
I had it in the legend before but decided to remove because that info was not relevant and occupied precious space. Those were the names u got it right

Got it. I'd recommend adding the names back to the legend if possible. Maybe there's a way to combine the names under the social classes section with the bombard/attack section from the lower right part of the map?

3) Does a given ship attack all other ships within the same colored sea route, or just the adjacent ones?
Just the adjacent

Ok. I'd recommend adding the word adjacent to the text about the ports in the upper right to be consistent with the note about the priests and conquistadors.

4) From the legend, it appears that someone controlling the 4 Portugal territories only can never attack anything except the pope. Do you intend for the home countries to attack out to either adjacent or all ports along the sea routes?
Portugal attacks Cabo Verde and Spain attacks Cuba

I'm assuming this means that Spain Clergy attack Cuba Priests, Spain Nobles attack Cube Conquistadors, etc...? It would be nice to have a note about that in the upper right as well (e.g. Bourgeoisie,Nobility,Clergy attack adjacent Ports,Conquistadors,Priests connected by sea route).

Can you also upload a large and small version of the map with no numbers present so I can try the XML with it?

2) Is it true that, for example, Priests in red territories attack Spanish clergy but not Portugal Clergy?
No. That is not true. Would u think that could be a nice idea?
5) The pope seems very weak to me. Would it be too powerful to allow the pope to attack all priests on the map? That would make it more worthwhile to get to the pope and be able to get to anywhere on the map. It would better represent the Pope's authority to actually divide up the world. Making all those connections would probably require the Pope to reset to 10+ neutrals again though.
That sounds like a good idea making the pope more desirable
6) What are the intended connections for the Spain and Portugal Sovereigns? They're attacked by the social classes, and they can attack the Pope. But that appears to be it. If the Pope can only attack the two sovereigns (plus bombard a few other territories), the Sovereigns are basically dead ends, and the +1 auto isn't worth much.
That makes sense.In the same line of thought about having the pope attacking the priests we could have portugal and spain attacking either the ports or the nobles/conquistadores

I'm combining all these into one comment since they're all related. I definitely like the idea of the pope attacking all priests. I think the pope should be the only one that can attack throughout the world. It would be worthwhile having the sovereigns able to attack within their own designated territory (Spain Sovereign attacks red Conquistadors and Portugal Sovereign attacks green conquistadors). I also think it would be interesting to have the priests, conquistadors, and ports have very different uses. Priests are attacked by the pope, conquistadors are attacked by the sovereigns. What do you think about having priests able to attack the clergy only of their own nation, and conquistadors able to attack the nobility only from their own nation, but ports can attack either Bourgeoisie. It kind of follow the hierarchical structures: conquistadors cause trouble for their own nobility, but not so much for those from a different country, and priests report to specific bishops, whereas ports can impact the profits of merchants around the world. What do you think?

[Kabanellas]

The idea of relating attacks within realms seems good and conceptually coherent.
I'd not make Bourgeoisie stronger than the other 2 features ( Clergy & Nobility) by allowing them to assault any Port, independently from whatever realm/empire they belong. Also, Doc's idea of making both realms more powerful seems good, just don't know if they should be able to assault or just bombard conquistadors (and eventually any other feature)

[Doc_Brown]

The idea of relating attacks within realms seems good and conceptually coherent.
I'd not make Bourgeoisie stronger than the other 2 features ( Clergy & Nobility) by allowing them to assault any Port, independently from whatever realm/empire they belong. Also, Doc's idea of making both realms more powerful seems good, just don't know if they should be able to assault or just bombard conquistadors (and eventually any other feature)

Actually, on the Bourgeoisie, I meant the other way around: Any port can attack either Bourgeoisie territory. I'd favor just allowing the Sovereign to attack conquistadors. The Nobility only attacks adjacent conquistadors, Clergy -> Adjacent priests, and Bourgeoisie -> adjacent ports. That makes an attack on the Sovereign fairly important, to be able to spread out more quickly. And you have to go through the Pope to be able to attack anywhere in the world.

[Kabanellas]

Doc, from what I can understand from the legend, Clergy can bombard any Priest and it's attacked by any priest (no mention to all this being valid inside realms though), Nobility and Bourgeoisie work within the same mechanics as the Clergy.

The one thing that might be worth to mention in legend, is that the 3 powers (clergy, nobility and bourgeoisie) are only able to bombard and be assaulted within each respective realm.

[Armandolas]

Hi guys. Thanks for your time.

Regarding some of your questions and suggestions:
- I think that adding priest, ports and conquistadores to the legend is not needed. They are never mentioned and represented by the correpondent icons.
- Agree, adjacent looks better in the ports legend. Fixed
-No mate. In the legend u can read : all sea routes start at portugal and spain. So Portugal and spain can attack the first port after setting the sails off

-I like the idea of having the classes attacked only by sovereign territs. portuguese priest can only attack/be bombarded by portuguese clergy and spanish conquistador can only attack/be bombarded by spanish nobility The idea of making ports able to go for any country burgoisie is a case to study. The concept is good and tottally fits historically.
Ive changed the colour of Portugal and Spain stroke so its clear to understand that green territs are portuguese colonies and red are spanish. I will need your help...How can i make the legend nice to fit this new sovereign attacks rule?

-I believe if we want to have sovereigns to interact with nobles than it must be bombardment(taking his noble title but not killing him )

Doc i dont have a small version avaliable right now, just an outdated one. But take the latest big version without the numbers.
If you really need the smal to test it, then let me know and i will work on it

[Kabanellas]

- I think that adding priest, ports and conquistadores to the legend is not needed. They are never mentioned and represented by the correpondent icons.

I don't quite agree Aramandolas, I think that every icon on map should be named on legend (at least once)

I will need your help...How can i make the legend nice to fit this new sovereign attacks rule?

How about adding a line in the bottom of those 3 lines "bombards/attacked by" saying: within the same realm or valid within the same realm

[iAmCaffeine]

How important are the boxes for the troops? In my opinion they look out of place, too uniform.

[Armandolas]

- I think that adding priest, ports and conquistadores to the legend is not needed. They are never mentioned and represented by the correpondent icons.

I don't quite agree Aramandolas, I think that every icon on map should be named on legend (at least once)

I will need your help...How can i make the legend nice to fit this new sovereign attacks rule?

How about adding a line in the bottom of those 3 lines "bombards/attacked by" saying: within the same realm or valid within the same realm

Ill work on it

[Armandolas]

How important are the boxes for the troops? In my opinion they look out of place, too uniform.

What do u mean cofee man? They are out of place relative to what?

[koontz1973]

How important are the boxes for the troops? In my opinion they look out of place, too uniform.

What do u mean cofee man? They are out of place relative to what?

The rest of the map. The whole map looks splendid but you have these boxes that are accurate to the pixel all over the map. No drawn map from the time would be as neat. While not a huge problem, it might be nice to see a slight variation to them.

Solution - find an area with lots of the boxes, then draw them with slightly different sizes. One pixel should be more than enough on the length or height. These can then be randomly mixed into the current ones. The corners are too sharp, try to deface them slightly.

[iAmCaffeine]

How important are the boxes for the troops? In my opinion they look out of place, too uniform.

What do u mean cofee man? They are out of place relative to what?

The rest of the map. The whole map looks splendid but you have these boxes that are accurate to the pixel all over the map. No drawn map from the time would be as neat. While not a huge problem, it might be nice to see a slight variation to them.

Solution - find an area with lots of the boxes, then draw them with slightly different sizes. One pixel should be more than enough on the length or height. These can then be randomly mixed into the current ones. The corners are too sharp, try to deface them slightly.

That^.

[Doc_Brown]

How important are the boxes for the troops? In my opinion they look out of place, too uniform.

What do u mean cofee man? They are out of place relative to what?

The rest of the map. The whole map looks splendid but you have these boxes that are accurate to the pixel all over the map. No drawn map from the time would be as neat. While not a huge problem, it might be nice to see a slight variation to them.

Solution - find an area with lots of the boxes, then draw them with slightly different sizes. One pixel should be more than enough on the length or height. These can then be randomly mixed into the current ones. The corners are too sharp, try to deface them slightly.

Now wait a minute. I just got through creating an XML file with all the territories in the right locations and you want him to go and start shifting them around????

Lol. It is a good suggestion though. I can handle to the XML tweaks to work with whatever comes out of it.

[Doc_Brown]

So, I'm working through the XML, and I have some new questions and thoughts:
1. It looks like Spain borders both Cuba and Rio de la Plata. Is this correct? Do you think there are any map balancing issues caused by this? I think it's fine since you don't have a Spanish player and a Portugal player.
2. Should the Social Classes border each other (within one nationality of course)? I was originally thinking no to force people to go out to the colonies first, but that doesn't seem very realistic.
3. For the XML draft I'm working on, I went ahead and set it up so the connections between priests/clergy and conquistadors/nobles are only within a single nationality (e.g. Spain priests attack/are bombarded by Spain clergy) - I can change this if you'd like. I did go ahead and allow any port to attack either Bourgeoisie. However, I'm thinking that the bourgeoisie should only bombard ports within their nationality. What do you think?
4. I currently have the pope attacking all priests. Let me know if you want me to change this.
5. I have the Sovereigns attacking all conquistadors within their realms. Also happy to change this if you like.
6. What numbers do you want for starting troops? I'm guessing 3s in all colony territories. Maybe 5s for the Social Classes, and 10 for the Sovereigns? If you want to go with the pope attacking all priests, should it be a killer-8 or something instead of killer-5?
7. For the resource bonuses, I think your intention is that you only need one of a given resource somewhere in the world to make it available for conditional borders and bonuses. So, for example, there is no advantage to holding gold territory in both Peru and Brazil (apart from territory count). Is this correct?
8. Should the resource bonus be +1 for each resource pair (as in, holding 3 resources makes 3 pairs, so you get +3), or is it +1 for every two resources held (3 resources still gives +1, 4 resources gives +2)?
9. Use standard reinforcements (min 3, and 1 for every 3 territories)?
10. There are 47 start positions, which means in a 2 or a 3 player game, each player starts with 15. That's going to give the first player an advantage (deploy of 5 and chance to make the other player get an initial deploy of 4). I'll have to look into whether there is a way to force starting territories to max out at 14 without forcing a couple extra territories to start as neutrals.

I'll probably find some other questions once these are dealt with. Otherwise, the first full draft of the XML is getting pretty close.

[DiM]

How important are the boxes for the troops? In my opinion they look out of place, too uniform.

What do u mean cofee man? They are out of place relative to what?

The rest of the map. The whole map looks splendid but you have these boxes that are accurate to the pixel all over the map. No drawn map from the time would be as neat. While not a huge problem, it might be nice to see a slight variation to them.

Solution - find an area with lots of the boxes, then draw them with slightly different sizes. One pixel should be more than enough on the length or height. These can then be randomly mixed into the current ones. The corners are too sharp, try to deface them slightly.

i like this suggestion.
if you use a graphics tablet it would be very easy to simply draw each box by hand using the stylus. you'll get nice little boxes with minor differences from one to another, just enough to make them look more natural and fit better with the rest of the map.

[Armandolas]

Regarding the boxes. I now get what u are all saying. My creativity its not at its best now, but i will try to iwork on that, since i think it can be a design improvement.

The corners are too sharp, try to deface them slightly.

Will work on that. Thanks

if you use a graphics tablet it would be very easy to simply draw each box by hand using the stylus. you'll get nice little boxes with minor differences from one to another, just enough to make them look more natural and fit better with the rest of the map.

I dont have that kind of tablet. Thanks for suggestion

[Armandolas]

So, I'm working through the XML, and I have some new questions and thoughts:
1. It looks like Spain borders both Cuba and Rio de la Plata. Is this correct? Do you think there are any map balancing issues caused by this? I think it's fine since you don't have a Spanish player and a Portugal player.
Spain borders Cuba and cabo verde..portugal borders brasil and cabo verde
2. Should the Social Classes border each other (within one nationality of course)? I was originally thinking no to force people to go out to the colonies first, but that doesn't seem very realistic.
I dont think they should border. Story wise it wont fit. But i think Portugal and spain should attack them.what do u think?
3. For the XML draft I'm working on, I went ahead and set it up so the connections between priests/clergy and conquistadors/nobles are only within a single nationality (e.g. Spain priests attack/are bombarded by Spain clergy) - I can change this if you'd like. I did go ahead and allow any port to attack either Bourgeoisie. However, I'm thinking that the bourgeoisie should only bombard ports within their nationality. What do you think?
I definitly like that. Great job. I think bourgeoisie should bombard every port as well. After all money buys everything ..thats what bourgeoisie does.
4. I currently have the pope attacking all priests. Let me know if you want me to change this.
I prefer bombardments/taking his clergy title and previleges). Do you believe attacking makes the map more interesting gameplay wise?
5. I have the Sovereigns attacking all conquistadors within their realms. Also happy to change this if you like.
I prefer bombardments/taking his noble title and previleges). Do you believe attacking makes the map more interesting gameplay wise?
6. What numbers do you want for starting troops? I'm guessing 3s in all colony territories. Maybe 5s for the Social Classes, and 10 for the Sovereigns? If you want to go with the pope attacking all priests, should it be a killer-8 or something instead of killer-5?
I had all resources with a neutral 2.Social classes with a neut 5, sovereign 10. and Pope 5. I also believe pope should be raised if it can do attacks on the priests. 8/10 seems good.
Starting positions maybe best to stick with 3
7. For the resource bonuses, I think your intention is that you only need one of a given resource somewhere in the world to make it available for conditional borders and bonuses. So, for example, there is no advantage to holding gold territory in both Peru and Brazil (apart from territory count). Is this correct?
Absolutely correct. U just need to have a great variety of resources to control worlds commerce and become a superpower.Thats the idea behind it. If u hold pair, then better for you..u grow even stronger
8. Should the resource bonus be +1 for each resource pair (as in, holding 3 resources makes 3 pairs, so you get +3), or is it +1 for every two resources held (3 resources still gives +1, 4 resources gives +2)?
correct. 3 golds = +1 / 4 golds = +2
9. Use standard reinforcements (min 3, and 1 for every 3 territories)?
Im a fan of non territ bonus ( conquer rome style) and believe it makes sense in this map.Controlling the resources were the important thing. Controling territs just for the sake of it was wasting money( a very different colonialist view from the british for ex.)
10. There are 47 start positions, which means in a 2 or a 3 player game, each player starts with 15. That's going to give the first player an advantage (deploy of 5 and chance to make the other player get an initial deploy of 4). I'll have to look into whether there is a way to force starting territories to max out at 14 without forcing a couple extra territories to start as neutrals.
See post above for answer
(your idea is great, but i dont think it works. initial deployement have been discussed over the years. And that idea is not implemented. You might open a new page on CC here )

I'll probably find some other questions once these are dealt with. Otherwise, the first full draft of the XML is getting pretty close.
Thanks for your great job and help

Made a few changes, check it out:

Click image to enlarge.

[Doc_Brown]

4. I currently have the pope attacking all priests. Let me know if you want me to change this.
I prefer bombardments/taking his clergy title and previleges). Do you believe attacking makes the map more interesting gameplay wise?
5. I have the Sovereigns attacking all conquistadors within their realms. Also happy to change this if you like.
I prefer bombardments/taking his noble title and previleges). Do you believe attacking makes the map more interesting gameplay wise?

I wanted to follow up on this point. Clergy can already bombard priests, so giving the Pope the exact same ability (except he can bombard priests on both sides) doesn't seem very powerful for someone like the Pope. This seems kind of like the Emperor in Conquer Rome where he should be able to attack into various parts of the world. The same is true of the Sovereigns. They seem to only have the same power as the Nobles. By giving them the power to attack out, they become a lot more useful.
I'm fine either way for both the Pope and Sovereigns. If we choose wrong now, I'm sure it will get changed during beta testing! I just wanted to go with whatever made the most sense for the first full XML submission.

7. For the resource bonuses, I think your intention is that you only need one of a given resource somewhere in the world to make it available for conditional borders and bonuses. So, for example, there is no advantage to holding gold territory in both Peru and Brazil (apart from territory count). Is this correct?
Absolutely correct. U just need to have a great variety of resources to control worlds commerce and become a superpower.Thats the idea behind it. If u hold pair, then better for you..u grow even stronger
8. Should the resource bonus be +1 for each resource pair (as in, holding 3 resources makes 3 pairs, so you get +3), or is it +1 for every two resources held (3 resources still gives +1, 4 resources gives +2)?
correct. 3 golds = +1 / 4 golds = +2
9. Use standard reinforcements (min 3, and 1 for every 3 territories)?
Im a fan of non territ bonus ( conquer rome style) and believe it makes sense in this map.Controlling the resources were the important thing. Controling territs just for the sake of it was wasting money( a very different colonialist view from the british for ex.)
[/color]

I think I'm a bit confused on this point. Does two gold constitute a resource pair for the purposes of a +1 bonus? I thought you had to hold two different resources to form a pair. Thus, 2 gold gives no bonus, 2 gold+1 silver gives +1, and 2 gold + 2 silver also gives +1 (gold + silver resource pair). However, this also means that you can get a maximum resource bonus of +5 if you hold each available type on the map. If this is the correct interpretation, I think you need to give a +1 for every 3 (or maybe for every 4). It might also be worth changing the bonus to +1 for each resource type held.
The other way to interpret this is that any two resource territories give a +1. So 2 gold gives +1, 2 gold+2 silver gives +2, etc... In that case, I would recommend changing the wording to something like "+1 for any 2 resources held". The proximity of "pair" to the list of resource types makes it seem like you have to hold a pair of resource types to get a bonus, not a pair of any resource territories.

[Armandolas]

i allways believed that the word pair" imediatly implied two of the same kind. If u are playing poker u dont hold a pair when u only have a queen and a jack

U got me confused now..lol
If u have this like u suggested: "+1 for any 2 resources held"
it gives me the impression thet i just need any 2 different resources to get a +1
What i want is to hold a pair does nopt matter if is a pair of gold or cotton. it must be a pair.

About what u suggested before(the pope abilities), i think i have to agree with u and totally open to that. I just need to look at it better and change the legend

[DiM]

i allways believed that the word pair" imediatly implied two of the same kind. If u are playing poker u dont hold a pair when u only have a queen and a jack

U got me confused now..lol
If u have this like u suggested: "+1 for any 2 resources held"
it gives me the impression thet i just need any 2 different resources to get a +1
What i want is to hold a pair does nopt matter if is a pair of gold or cotton. it must be a pair.

it does need some clarification.

pair doesn't necessarily mean 2 of the same kind. it can mean 2 items that have a logical connection between themselves. at first glance i thought cattle pairs up with cereals cause cattle eat cereals, and cotton pairs up with slaves but that was it as i couldn't see any correlation between the rest.

for example in my Age of Merchants map i have pairs of different resources connected logically. but to avoid any confusion i have them listed and explained in the legend.

since on your map pair = 2 of the same kind then maybe it;s for the best if you word it something like:
hold 2 identical resources for +1



also on a non-related issue, your map is supposed to be drawn on an old parchment thus making the bevel on the legend boxes look out of place. also the top center box should be made a bit taller to fit the names on top (portugal/pope/spain).

if you really want to add a 3d element on the map, then a nice thing would be to add 2 vertical creases on the map and on one side add like the remains of a broken wax seal.

[Doc_Brown]

Here's an initial version of the XML. I'll have to tweak the territory positions once they're finalized. I'll also have to add the positions for the small version of the map once it's done.

AOD_XML4.xml

(48.16 KiB) Downloaded 1140 times

[Armandolas]

Here's an initial version of the XML. I'll have to tweak the territory positions once they're finalized. I'll also have to add the positions for the small version of the map once it's done.

AOD_XML4.xml

Thanks Doc. Not sure whats the next step, but good job

[disismyid]

Looks awesome

[Lindax]

Nothing to do with the map as such, but if you say: "What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: Important part of world history."

Why make subjective and exaggerated comments like: "....the exploratory leaders of the time, Portugal and Spain", and ".... dividing the world in two".

I understand you may be proud of your heritage, if you're indeed from Portugal, but those words are misleading.

Lx

[Armandolas]

Nothing to do with the map as such, but if you say: "What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: Important part of world history."

Why make subjective and exaggerated comments like: "....the exploratory leaders of the time, Portugal and Spain", and ".... dividing the world in two".

I understand you may be proud of your heritage, if you're indeed from Portugal, but those words are misleading.

Lx

If u know a bit about history, then you would know why.
A bit of google or wiki and you will find exactly the same words