ROME: CIVIL WAR v31

[iancanton]

the new bonus structure of +4 for every 3 gates in excess of 3 is an improvement, as it means that we have the freedom to let players start with up to 4 gates without potentially giving an obvious advantage to the first player.

previous foundry work has established that classic has a 0.89% chance of the first player starting with the oceania bonus in a 1v1 game. to be better than classic in this respect, we need our figure to be 0.44% or less, given that the gate bonus is twice as valuable.

viewtopic.php?f=649&t=84998

ian.

[Minister X]

previous foundry work has established that classic has a 0.89% chance of the first player starting with the oceania bonus in a 1v1 game. to be better than classic in this respect, we need our figure to be 0.44% or less, given that the gate bonus is twice as valuable.

viewtopic.php?f=649&t=84998

ian.

I followed your link and looked at several other threads that bear on this question. I'm sorry, but there is no way I'm going to be able to calculate drop odds with any semblance of accuracy or reliability. Neither my math skills or XML skills are up to the task -- not by a long shot. Maybe HitRed can help out here.

Currently the map shows all gates and thematic terts starting neutral. In previous discussion it was mentioned that it would be nice if some could be available for the drop. When I asked HitRed to take charge of this I supplied the following guidance: :"3) If gates are awarded, an equal number to each player and no more than two per player." That is now obsolete since the bonus rules have changed. I'd now ask HitRed to see what can be done in XML based on the following:

Gates and thematic terts to be made non-neutral (available on the drop) to the maximum extent possible without allowing any bonus to have a greater than 0.44% of probability. If calculating this accurately is too difficult, limit drop possibilities so there is ZERO percent chance of a drop yielding a bonus. Furthermore, as it takes six gates to earn a bonus, allowing a player to start with five should be avoided so that earning a bonus on the first turn isn't so easy.

HitRed: sound good? Can you work with this? Or can you suggest an alternative way to satisfy Ian that bonus-on-drop will be next to impossible?

NOTE: For convenience I reproduce here the stats from the first post in this thread:

STATISTICS
There are 74 territories of which 30 are "gates"
Of the 44 non-gates, 15 are "special"
All gates and special terts start with neutral troops
Drops for the remaining 29 terts:
2 players: 14 each
3 players: 9 each
4 players: 7 each
5 players: 5 each
6 players: 4 each
7 players: 4 each
8 players: 3 each

Questions: even if all these bonus terts (gates and "special" [which I've also called "thematic"] start neutral, are there really too few left for the drop? Fourteen maps have 29 or fewer terts to begin with. Which is worse, having just four per player drop in a six-player game or allowing some tiny chance of a bonus drop on the first turn? I ask these questions sincerely; I don't know the answers.

I understand that starting all the bonus terts neutral might be a problem; players would just go after each other and ignore the neutrals. Maybe. But to remedy this we just need a small number of bonus terts to be awarded. Can that number be kept low enough that there's zero chance of a bonus drop but still enough to encourage the quest for bonuses?

[HitRed]

I find the text in the lower right hand corner confusing. I think you are saying own 6 gates get +4.

Is that correct?

I will work on it Monday night.

[Minister X]

Yes. The first three get you nothing (except the standard for any three), then for each additional three you get four troops bonus. I included the examples for 6, 9 and 12 to avoid any confusion. Apparently that's not good enough. I'll try to think up better wording.

[HitRed]

Yes. The first three get you nothing (except the standard for any three), then for each additional three you get four troops bonus. I included the examples for 6, 9 and 12 to avoid any confusion. Apparently that's not good enough. I'll try to think up better wording.

I thought the black text was 2 sentences. The red in the middle is continuation.

[Minister X]

V 29: wording lower right for gate bonuses changed (is it an improvement?) and main title coloring made less neon.

[HitRed]

[quote="Minister X"]V 29: wording lower right for gate bonuses changed (is it an improvement?) and main title coloring made less neon.

Remove the sentence.

Gate Bonuses:

Hold 6: +4
Hold 9: +8

[Minister X]

v30: adopting HitRed's suggestion immediately above and adding the coins for decoration.

But now, seeing it posted, the text is much larger than it needs to be. Next version I'll shrink everything in that lower right box and just have more "empty" space. It will look nicer.

[HitRed]

The answer to your question is found in starting positions. 12 gates/specials will be starting positions. 8 will be gates and 1 each of the specials. Using LIMITS we can control the number of gates/specials each player starts with. So everyone starts with the same total number of gates/specials and not one player has 1 and the other has 3.

Option 1

7 or 8 players 1 each
5 or 6 players 2 each
This is where coding jets...
4 players 2 each
3 players 2 each
2 players 2 each

We could make gates easier by giving 3 gates/specials to each player in four players or less.

Option 2

7 or 8 players 1 each
5 or 6 players 2 each
This is where coding jets...
4 players 3 each
3 players 3 each
2 players 3 each

Thankfully gates and specials are only neutral 2 defense so easy targets compared to attacking the other players stack of 3 troops.

If player A starts with 2 gates and can take 1 per turn then by turn 5 gets +4 bonus.
If player B starts with 1 gate and 1 special the player must choose which way to go.
If player C starts with 2 different specials the player must choose which way to go. Taking 1 per turn by turn 4 gets +4 bonus if you are lucky to start next to all of them.


“Limit the number of positions for each player:
We said that starting positions are always divided evenly between players. But there's a way to have more control on the number of starting positions that are given out at the start.
If we want to control the maximum number of positions (NOTE: not the number of components) that is given to each player, we can use the max="" options into the <positions> tag.
But look at this example for better understanding:
Kings Court map has 8 starting positions. And although games on this map will start with two positions for each player for 3- and 4-player games, the XML prevents 1v1 games from starting with 4 positions (8 divided by 2) by setting the maximum number of positions to 2.”

[HitRed]

We can shift the number of starting areas up or down during beta testing. Choose the one you think is best.

In the future-
I will need from you a PERFECT LIST of all the territory names.

We still have no XML check

[Minister X]

Option 2 sounds best, though I'd love to hear Ian's take on that. In any case, it seems we can award some gates/specials without risking a bonus-on-drop and that's great. Offhand, it seems to me that the extra drop opportunities raises the total number of starting terts to a very acceptable level.

We still have no XML check

I don't understand this. I probably don't need to understand this, but in case I do...

And now let me raise a new issue, though I may regret doing so. Are the +4 bonuses for holding any group of three thematics appropriate? I have run the bonus spreadsheet but that's of limited utility. It was designed for bonus regions (such as Europe in Classic) where the terts are clumped together. There are some maps where a bonus region (continent) consists of something like four terts in a clump plus one that's a bit removed. For instance Baltic Crusades has two such continents. American Civil War has one. And in Napoleonic Europe you get a bonus for holding "battle sites" that are spread throughout the map. There are others of this ilk. But this Rome map might be unique in that the majority of "continents" are these dispersed groups. Even a number of gates are "stand-alone" terts that border no other gate tert.

Temples: the three terts are bordered by 15 potential attacking terts. That's a LOT. Markets are bordered by just ten, the fewest of any of these thematics but still a large number compared to the universe of three-tert continents at CC. The spreadsheet requires a number for "Adjacent Bonuses" (i.e. Africa borders Europe, Asia and South America in Classic). That's impossible to specify for this map because continents aren't set up like that. I used 2 in the spreadsheet. Also 1. Also 3. Here are the results when using 2:

Gov't +3.49
Theaters +3.6
Military +3.39
Markets +3.28
Temples +3.81

Altering the number of adjacent bonuses causes a shift of just 0.2 in these results, down for 1 adjacent, up for 3.

The reason these results ought to be taken with a huge grain of salt is that a typical continent (i.e. Europe in Classic) can be cross-defended. If I hold Europe and someone takes Moscow, I can re-attack it from Stockholm, Berlin or Istanbul. When someone is thinking about taking Moscow they have to worry that their armies there will soon be destroyed. On this Rome map I might very well hold a thematic bonus but one of my terts may be surrounded by nothing but neutrals and enemies. And the Flavian Amphitheater, for instance, is surrounded by NINE other terts. I might hold just one of them. On the Classic map the most connections to any one tert is six for Chicago, Nairobi and Dakar. And due to the nature of gameplay, most or all of them will be mine if I have the North America or Africa bonus.

So at best, I think we can conclude that the bonus spreadsheet, as further interpreted, indicates that a bonus of 3 for these thematics would be too low. The question is how much should be added above 3? Is 4 enough? Maybe 5 would be better.

Another consideration: in most games you want to conquer one solid area and expand out from there, not own a bit here, a bit there, widely separated. This is simple tactics. By holding a corner or a nice clump of terts you can leave those not bordering enemies garrisoned by a single army. Going after a thematic on this map is contrary to that most basic strategy, and thus will be avoided unless the reward is large enough to overcome the advantages of consolidation.

One strategy I sometimes follow in games is to ignore bonus continents to a large degree (let others fight over them) and just conquer as many easily-defended terts as possible to garner the standard tert-count bonus without having to worry much about defending any one tert. This often works quite well. We don't want this Rome map to become one where all players follow that strategy, hoping for as many gate terts as happen to fall to them but ignoring the thematics. So maybe the bonus for thematics should be SIX?!

The thematics are an important element of this map. The graphical symbols add a lot of Roman flavor visually, the themes make CCer's think about the nature of historical Rome, and the separated geography has the potential to make this map strategically unusual, and maybe unique.

For all these reasons on the next revision I'm going to up the bonuses to 6. We can discuss this at length but playtest will ultimately (I hope) prove whether 6 is too much (or perhaps even too little).

[HitRed]

Bonuses are always the hardest part of the map. It depends on forecasting drops, number of players, styles of play, player's familiar-ness with all the complexities of the map. Don't chase a dogs tail on this. In Beta testing it will show and it is easy to change. +6 might be justified but sounds like a nuclear bomb to me. +4 sounds better to test with.

Your other controls are picking which Gates and Thematics start in player control. And more importantly which don't.

The three Temples connect directly to 6 gates. Get the Temples and you are likely to get the gate bonus quickly.

[iancanton]

Gate Bonuses:

Hold 6: +4
Hold 9: +8

this works. however, even though it's an ancient rome map, i think and so on sounds more natural than et cetera.

as an alternative, clandemonium uses "region number bonus: 1 troop for every 2 regions above 6", which is analogous to "gate bonus: 4 troops for every 3 gates above 3". this might or might not be better than what we currently have.

ian.

[Minister X]

v31

• Increased thematic (special) bonuses from 4 to 6
• Modified gate bonuses block (lower right) - changed "et cetera" to "and so on..." and reduced size of everything
• Changed "Port of Augustus Gate" to "Portine Gate" (see discussion below)
• Slight modification of wall and border darkness - you'd never notice if I didn't mention it
• Moved a couple of gate names and attendant army numbers to make nicer use of space

as an alternative, clandemonium uses "region number bonus: 1 troop for every 2 regions above 6", which is analogous to "gate bonus: 4 troops for every 3 gates above 3". this might or might not be better than what we currently have.

I considered this carefully and have to agree that it may or may not be an improvement. Kind of a toss-up. Some people might more readily grasp one wording, some the other. I retain the wording that relies on using examples because I'm guessing it might be just a touch more universally understood, but I could go either way.

In looking over the whole map prior to finishing this version the name "Port of Augustus Gate" struck me as questionable because "port" is Latin for "door" or "gate" and thus the name might be repetitive. If not repetitive, it would refer to an actual shipping port, and I was curious about that. I couldn't recall there being a "port" in Rome. The incorporation of gates into this map was first done in August of 2011. I searched my files to try to find the original source for this name but was unsuccessful so I searched the net for maps that might have led me to name this tert. I also researched ports and roads and gates generally.

At the mouth of the Tiber is the port of Ostia. Shipments bound for Rome on large ships were unloaded there and then brought upriver either in carts or barges. The barges were unloaded in Rome near where this gate lies. Was that unloading point called the "Port of Augustus"? I could find no evidence for that.

The gate connects to a road called the "Via Portuensis" which was a later alternative to the Via Ostiensis, which departs Rome from the Ostian Gate (as it is named on my map) and leads to the port of Ostia. Was Ostia ever called the "Port of Augustus"? Apparently not. The Emperor Augustus built many ports around the empire but Ostia predates him. On a reliable map of ancient Rome this gate is named "Porta Portuensis" (after the road?) Many other gates employ this -sis suffix. In all cases I have transformed that to an -ine or -ian suffix, as in "Ostian Gate" or "Salutarine Gate".

Almost all terts are named in English, such as "The Senate" instead of "Senatus" or "Baths of Caracalla" instead of "De Thermae Caracalla". There are some exceptions where the Latin is very recognizable or appropriate, such as "Campus Martius" or "Emporium". The idea is to make the geography of Rome accessible to CCers and communicate something of the flavor of the times. When it comes to the gates this gets tricky. To me, "Portine Gate" seems the most appropriate translation of "Porta Portuensis" so that's what I've used. An alternative would be "Portian Gate" but that just doesn't seem right. I can't say why. It just doesn't. I don't think there's any right or wrong here, it's an esthetic judgement.

HitRed says the +6 bonus for the thematics sounds like a "nuclear bomb". I understand his concern but I suspect it will be VERY hard to hold these bonuses and making them even larger means they will be even harder to hold since opponents will be more motivated to attack. If a player concentrates troops on these widely separated terts he'll be dispersing his forces and leaving himself open to easier attacks elsewhere. In any case, only extensive playtest will reveal the truth.

[Fuchsia tude]

The top right bonus text is unnecessarily wordy. All you need to say is +6; no "=" or "bonus". You already implemented that simplification below.

Also, the top left text is weirdly sized. I would undo that vertical stretching; it's ugly and harder to read, to no benefit. Then, you either have extra space to use for something else, or you could just change the text justification settings so it fills the rectangle again. Or, just add a second pair of gladii above the text, for symmetry.

[Nucker]

My vote is to revive it.

We need a new map