[Abandoned] - Chess

[killerpit4e]

Also if the dark squares will be textured as in the latest draft then the white ones should be too. Pick a very light grain of wood running perpendicular to the dark squares and it will look fantastic!

i agree 100% with ya sully

[john9blue]

Draft 12

Large:

Click image to enlarge.

Small:

Click image to enlarge.

Although I didn't use any of mibi's material, I was fuxing around with the color scheme and decided to go from black/white to dark brown/light brown. I tried to keep the good aspects of both drafts. Let me know what you think.

[n00blet]

Yay! Now the pieces are purtyfull

[the.killing.44]

Everything looks great, but I preferred the marble kind of texture over the wood.

.44

[john9blue]

Everything looks great, but I preferred the marble kind of texture over the wood.

.44

You mean like this?

Click image to enlarge.

No problem. I'll start a poll.

[RjBeals]

I liked the original stone the best, just the pieces needed more work. (sorry mibi)

[sully800]

I definitely like the latest wood background the best. It seems to stand out much more from the pieces, and gives a richer feel to the map IMO.

I also think the centering looks great! Now it seems like each piece could be enlarged a bit to fill the squares if you wanted.

[tlane]

i like the stone better.
but if it is chosen could you decrease the opacity of it a very little(not to much!)

tlane

[john9blue]

I'll leave them both up for now, although it seems more people prefer wood. Any other changes you guys want to make?

[Jase26]

Here another Idea I will throw out there.
You must own a square to be able to move onto it.
You can attack squares via other squares next (all directions diagonal and adjacent) to them and also via pieces that can move onto those squares (ranged attack not bombardment).
Pieces and squares are distinct from each other.

I like the idea of the 4 player chess board, however find the pawn movements to culminate in a painfully cluttered board.
Also what happens when pieces are captured?
Should they be held in a ransom area, to re-enter the game once a ransom can be made (not to a player but to a banker say) or can cards be used to get pieces back on the board? Also, If a pawn makes it to the opposite side of the board can they be queened?

Wow, the more I get in to it the more amazing this project turns out to be!!!

J

[john9blue]

Here another Idea I will throw out there.
You must own a square to be able to move onto it.
You can attack squares via other squares next (all directions diagonal and adjacent) to them and also via pieces that can move onto those squares (ranged attack not bombardment).
Pieces and squares are distinct from each other.

I like the idea of the 4 player chess board, however find the pawn movements to culminate in a painfully cluttered board.
Also what happens when pieces are captured?
Should they be held in a ransom area, to re-enter the game once a ransom can be made (not to a player but to a banker say) or can cards be used to get pieces back on the board? Also, If a pawn makes it to the opposite side of the board can they be queened?

Wow, the more I get in to it the more amazing this project turns out to be!!!

J

A lot of that stuff sounds awesome, but unfortunately some of it isn't possible with the way this game is coded. As far as I know, there's no way to do "conditionals". Like, you can't say "if I own this space" or "if I have these cards" or "if a piece is captured", etc. This would be a lot more awesome if we could do stuff like that, but for now I am sticking with the way the game currently works.

[DarthBlood]

i voted for different stone...marble.

how about glass? i like glass pieces too...

[iancanton]

i have a slight preference for the wooden board, though the stone board looks really good too.

Sorry guys, but in my opinion having more than 3 bonus armies for a single territory is too much. I've seen Conquer Man games won by camping on the cupcake.

since the kings are part of the objectives, i'll revise my previous opinion that the kings' bonuses are rather small. in fact, i'd like the bonuses for the kings and queens to be reduced to only +2. this is especially important for the queens, which have a huge advantage of being able to one-way attack numerous squares on the board.

in updates from now on, can u show the number of starting neutrals on each piece, in white?

ian.

[HeavyHitta432]

I agree with mibi. It would be good if there was more critical thinking involved like playing chess itself. And how chess pieces attack other peices in a certain path. it would be even better if the chess pieces were movable somehow.

[jyor0385]

Regarding the poll, I like the wood, but can you add some lighting effects, like reflectivity?

[john9blue]

Okay, new draft.

Large

Click image to enlarge.

Small

Click image to enlarge.

Large with lighting effects

Click image to enlarge.

Changes:
- Put neutrals
- Changed instructions
- Changed signature
- Added potential lighting effects in the third image

I've never used lighting effects before. Let me know if you like what you see.

Also...

I will be leaving college in a few weeks and won't have access to Photoshop. I could download the demo, but I don't know if it would work, and it only lasts for a month (out of the 3 or so for summer). I would like to see this map progress fast, but if it doesn't, time might run out and it may have to go on vacation for a while. The only changes I could make would be with GIMP, and my knowledge of that program is limited. Just to let you know.

[sailorseal]

I think the objective should be changed to, "Hold both kings for 1 round to win" but the kings start with a large neutral and maybe they should decay? or become easily assaulted? I like the board style a lot, I say keep the wood it looks nice!
I would remove the +1 for a pawn because it is just a pawn.
I like this idea

[n00blet]

I will be leaving college in a few weeks and won't have access to Photoshop. I could download the demo, but I don't know if it would work, and it only lasts for a month (out of the 3 or so for summer). I would like to see this map progress fast, but if it doesn't, time might run out and it may have to go on vacation for a while. The only changes I could make would be with GIMP, and my knowledge of that program is limited. Just to let you know.

Got utorrent? I could seed the crack until you've got it

[Skitzobarber12]

Perhaps you could make it so that the queen gets an autodeploy of +3? And holding the King and Queen would be +1

And perhaps Holding a Castle (Rook and King of same color) would give +2

[john9blue]

I think the objective should be changed to, "Hold both kings for 1 round to win" but the kings start with a large neutral and maybe they should decay? or become easily assaulted?

I don't want it to be one of those things where somebody goes for it and kills the neutrals, and then someone else kills them, and so on until the last person wins. I'd rather have the objective be a bit harder.

I like the board style a lot, I say keep the wood it looks nice!
I would remove the +1 for a pawn because it is just a pawn.
I like this idea

Thanks! The reason I put +1 for a pawn is so that people can have something easy to take before going onto the other pieces. If all bonuses require killing 5 neutrals, then people will just attack each other instead.

Got utorrent? I could seed the crack until you've got it

I have BitComet, but torrent traffic is monitored here. Maybe over the summer. I promise to use it for good and not for evil.

Perhaps you could make it so that the queen gets an autodeploy of +3? And holding the King and Queen would be +1

And perhaps Holding a Castle (Rook and King of same color) would give +2

King and Queen used to give +3, but we decided that was too much. King + Queen and King + Rook seem kind of random, too...

I just had an idea, btw. We should autodeploy 1 troop on each piece, and give all pieces except the pawn +1 not autodeployed. Or, get +1 not autodeployed for each piece of a color, but only for one color.

[Incandenza]

So I've been talking a bit with iancanton about this, and I've been keeping tabs on the development, and I think you're really close to a gameplay stamp here. I think keeping the bonuses autodeploy is a better idea than skimming an army off the top as a deployable, given that the pieces are the power terits on the board I think the bonus structure should reflect that.

But I have a stupid question that would be easily asked by the newcomer to the map, something that could be pretty easily remedied with a line in the legend: can pieces attack on the far side of other pieces? i.e. can D-7 attack D-5, or even D-2? Can E-5 attack C-3? and so on. If yes, then you're probably okay, since that's implied by the fact that the only notation in the legend about what line-of-fire terits that pieces can take refers to the same-color thing. If not, then you might want to add a little something like "Pieces cannot attack past other pieces" to the legend.

[yeti_c]

Wha - Inc I'm hoping you're having a blonde moment - but I would've thought it was fairly obvious on a chess board that pieces can't attack through pieces - unless it's a knight/horse?

C.

[rishaed]

Wha - Inc I'm hoping you're having a blonde moment - but I would've thought it was fairly obvious on a chess board that pieces can't attack through pieces - unless it's a knight/horse?

C.

correct.

[john9blue]

There are some pretty stupid people on this site though.

I'll put in on the next draft.

[Incandenza]

It's not a blonde moment... this is CC, not chess, and that seems like a reasonably easy thing for people to mistake, plus it presupposes a familiarity with chess. I know it seems like excessive idiot-proofing, but this is already a complex map to begin with, and since there's nothing in the legend about attacking on the far side of pieces, seems like it couldn't hurt to put a quick notation in the legend (especially since that's pretty much the last thing before a gameplay stamp).