The Balkan Peninsula [FF] --Feb 2nd 2010--

[natty dread]

Hm... where will you put the country names, on the minimap?

[MrBenn]

Hm... where will you put the country names, on the minimap?

The minimap is still in progress... I don;t really know what I'm doing with it yet - it got cropped a bit when I shrunk the height of the map down...

[iancanton]

Here's a quick update to show how things might work if I knock Crete off the bottom.

i rather like this change, which lets us fit the whole map on a 600 x 600 board without shrinking it.

Gameplay-wise I've bumped Romania back up to 6.

this is probably necessary, otherwise all of the action in head-to-head games (such as 1v1 or quads) will centre on the small western bonuses.

Keffalonia has been added to replace Crete (to keep the territory count the same), and I've shuffled some of the attack routes around a bit.

as already mentioned, this improves the visual shape of the map.

I was a little worried about Attica becoming the gateway to half of Greece, which is why I've got rid of the bottleneck there. How does this look now?

the attica bottleneck helps the greece player somewhat by letting him conquer the country in two stages.

Bosnia being worth +2 I'm not sure about, since there are a bunch of 3-territory bonuses worth +2 and some of them are even more central than Bosnia. It's all relative, right?

agreed. also, if we use 4 start positions, the existing bosnia +1 can already be dropped reasonably frequently in 1v1 and 3-player games (20% and 30% respectively). making it +2 necessitates a starting neutral there.

Greece has as good expansion potential as NA does -- it can expand from Thrace to Burgas to include European Turkey without gaining an extra border. Therefore I think Greece should be worth at most 5.

we can counter this with the fact that turkey will almost certainly be taken far earlier than greece, so it's turkey that's likely to be doing the expanding. i made the recommendation below a bit earlier, before the map was recycled. the idea is that bulgaria is made holdable by reducing it to 6 regions. to restore the region count to 52, i suggest adding corfu to greece (this island is already visible, but currently with no troop circle) as a dead-end from epirus, so that greece becomes a +6 bonus for 11 regions with 3 borders - slightly more difficult than classic north america.

kyustendil was given this name on our map when a bonus for holding capital cities was being considered and we split sofia province into 2 regions. now we know that there will be no capital bonuses, i consider that the map will be fairer for the eastern player if we merge these 2 regions back to the original sofia province, so that there is a bonus zone similar to classic africa in the east

ian.

[MrBenn]

There are a couple of small changes that have been made, which I'll try and remember to list here:

The Western side of the map offered very good expansion opportunities, which worked out at a +8 that could be defended with 2 territories. To help even this out, the river between Raska and Bosnia is no longer impassable - this doesn't alter the number of territories that need to be defended for any individual bonus, but helps to reduce the bloc. Additionally the bonus for Croatia has been dropped to 3. This makes the bloc bonus 12 terrs at +7 with 3 defending places; which is not as over-powered as previously.

On the Eastern side of the map, the bridge between Dobrudja and Varna has been changed to a path between Dobrudja and Burgas. This makes Bulgaria slightly easier to defend. It's a tough choice between dropping Bulgaria back to 6 terrs, but in the end I decided to leave it at 7, as adding an extra territory to Greece seemed to make it more like Asia but without the big bonus to go with it. Additionally, I think that Bulgaria needs to be +4 to make the West of the map balance with the East. On this Eastern side you can now get +6 bonus with 4 borders and 11 terrs; not quite as good as on the West, but there's likely to be a bit more competition over in the West from the start with the larger number of small bonuses.

As far as Greece goes, I've removed the sea route to Makedonia to reinstate the bottleneck, which I actually like- as Ian said, this offers the possibility for somebody to build within Greece and stand a chance of actually holding the bonus. Depending on territory numbers I might consider adding Corfu as a territory, although I would then want to bump Greece back up to a +6 bonus.

[The Bison King]

Looks like you put a lot of thought into this. I like the changes, although it's a shame Croatia had to be reduced to +3. If you could get away with keeping it a +4 I'd say go for it, but It's probably for the best that you changed it.

[Victor Sullivan]

What about the continent names?

[MrBenn]

What about the continent names?

I'll sort out the minimap go the graphics workshop... The minimap / legend area is (I think) the only area that I think needs any significant work.

[Victor Sullivan]

What about the continent names?

I'll sort out the minimap go the graphics workshop... The minimap / legend area is (I think) the only area that I think needs any significant work.

Alrighty, then. So... onward to Graphics?

[Evil DIMwit]

Give it a couple of days for people to comment on the most recent gameplay version.

That said... Bulgaria seems to be overvalued at 4 now that it only has three borders.

[Industrial Helix]

Give it a couple of days for people to comment on the most recent gameplay version.

That said... Bulgaria seems to be overvalued at 4 now that it only has three borders.

Yeah, but its huge. That many territories take up time to conquer. And I just noticed the mountains and the burgas border could be clarified a bit.

[Victor Sullivan]

Does the +4 Serbia bonus include Kosovo's +1 bonus?

[MrBenn]

Does the +4 Serbia bonus include Kosovo's +1 bonus?

No. It's a bit like the Motherland bonus on Europa

[Victor Sullivan]

Does the +4 Serbia bonus include Kosovo's +1 bonus?

No. It's a bit like the Motherland bonus on Europa

Don't you think there should be some clarification in the legend?

[MrBenn]

Does the +4 Serbia bonus include Kosovo's +1 bonus?

No. It's a bit like the Motherland bonus on Europa

Don't you think there should be some clarification in the legend?

Such as?????


Wait, let's put something like this on the legend:
"Kosovo alone gives a bonus of +1 however it is also part of Serbia"

[Victor Sullivan]

Does the +4 Serbia bonus include Kosovo's +1 bonus?

No. It's a bit like the Motherland bonus on Europa

Don't you think there should be some clarification in the legend?

Such as?????


Wait, let's put something like this on the legend:
"Kosovo alone gives a bonus of +1 however it is also part of Serbia"

It just make it seem like the +1 bonus is also apart of the Serbia's bonus.

[MrBenn]

I've been playing around with the legend area; I think it's less "stuck on" than previously, but I don;t know if the hex/flag motif is a bit overkill?
Is it slightly clearer to indicate the total bonus for Serbia as +5, and highlight the Kosovo +1 slightly differently? I've never been a fan of overly wordy text legends...
The border between Burgas and Thrace has been widened to make it more obvious.
The Bulgaria bonus could flit between a +3 and a +4; I'd prefer to leave it slightly higher, and if there is outcry once the map hits beta, knock it back down to 3.

[Victor Sullivan]

Your Albania bonuses don't agree.

[The Bison King]

I hate being the guy who doesn't follow along then asks stupid backtracking questions, buuuuuuuut..... what was the reason for changing the legend in the first place? I thought the legend that had the countries broken up and next to their name was much easier to understand at a glance.

[perchorin]

I hate being the guy who doesn't follow along then asks stupid backtracking questions, buuuuuuuut..... what was the reason for changing the legend in the first place? I thought the legend that had the countries broken up and next to their name was much easier to understand at a glance.

It's funny but I was just about to post the same question. What was wrong with the legend on the previous cartographer's version?

[Bruceswar]

Personally I also like the old title better. It was cleaner and looked nicer if you ask me.

[josko.ri]

it is one mistake. for albania on text it write plus 2 and on map it write plus 1.

anyway, I think plus 1 for both crna gora and BiH is not correct, as BiH has 1 region more and much easier way to break it. maybe you may dismiss mountains on crna gora- kosovo border to make it deserved bonus of 1 for crna gora. anyway, I will very like this map

[MrBenn]

I hate being the guy who doesn't follow along then asks stupid backtracking questions, buuuuuuuut..... what was the reason for changing the legend in the first place? I thought the legend that had the countries broken up and next to their name was much easier to understand at a glance.

It's funny but I was just about to post the same question. What was wrong with the legend on the previous cartographer's version?

The old legend doesn't actually fit in the gap, since I've knocked some of the height off to make it shorter and squarer.

Albania should be +2; I've made a typo while writing the country list; I'll correct it when I next make an update.

it is one mistake. for albania on text it write plus 2 and on map it write plus 1.

anyway, I think plus 1 for both crna gora and BiH is not correct, as BiH has 1 region more and much easier way to break it. maybe you may dismiss mountains on crna gora- kosovo border to make it deserved bonus of 1 for crna gora. anyway, I will very like this map

Thanks for the feedback - both Crna Gora and Kosovo will give a +1 bonus, and both will start neutral. Keeping the mountains between them helps to make it less of an obvious easy start.

As for BiH, it's probably halfway between 1 and 2; overall though, I think it should be lower as all the small bonuses are close to each other, and could mount up quite a bit.

Personally I also like the old title better. It was cleaner and looked nicer if you ask me.

From reading through the thread, there were mixed reviews of the old title/legend, and I was always under the impression that Zeak was going to try something else with them. I'm not convinced I've got it right yet, but personally I think the current title and legend look more like they are part of the map than the old ones which had a very "stuck on" feel to them.

[Victor Sullivan]

Okay, so you're definitely gonna need to place starting neutrals on the smaller bonuses so here are my suggestions:

3 neutrals on:
Crna Gora
Kosovo

2 neutrals on:
FBIH
Stajerska
Tirana
Tekirdag

Idk if this has already been addressed, but I thought I'd say something.

-Sully

[perchorin]

I can understand why Montenegro is called Crna Gora on the map, but might it not cause confusion when a one territory region has a different name in the legend then the one it has on the map. Kosovo is simply Kosovo after all. Anyway thanks for answering about the old legend, gotta make everything fit!

[MrBenn]

Okay, so you're definitely gonna need to place starting neutrals on the smaller bonuses so here are my suggestions:
...
Idk if this has already been addressed, but I thought I'd say something.

The 3-region bonuses can be split up using starting positions (4 groups of three territories), and the two single-territory areas will start neutral (with either 2 or three armies).