Czecho Slovak Fragmentation [Quenched]

[isaiah40]

Sorry Oneyed, looked at it on my phone and didn't see the grunge. The second one looks better as it doesn't make the map darker. I would be fine with either one, so I will leave that decision up to you. Of course my cohorts may have their opinions so ...

[chapcrap]

I voted for version 2.

I also notice on your new updates and versions that the latitude/longitude lines are no longer numbered.

[Dukasaur]

I voted for version 2.

I also notice on your new updates and versions that the latitude/longitude lines are no longer numbered.

ditto.

[Oneyed]

new update. what was changed:

the non playable area made less visible. the playable area made a little more visible.
numbered latitudes/longitudes.
underlined capitals.
and some little things.

Click image to enlarge.

and small version

Click image to enlarge.

Oneyed

[AndyDufresne]

A good step in the right direction I think, in terms of the background. Thumbs up.

On the small map, the text in the legend boxes could maybe use bold to be a little more prominent.


--Andy

[nolefan5311]

Is there any way you can have the latitude/longitude lines run behind the playable area? It's distracting that they run over the playable area.

The legends could be a little clearer and need some grammatical changes...what do you think about the suggestions below?

Czech Republic Box
Kraj = Region and 2 towns inside it's border
+4 for every TWO kraje
Praha is not included in town or Kraj bonus (I don't see the need to designate it as the capital since the word "capital" isn't used in any other explanation)
+1 with every THREE towns in CR
-1 with each Kraj in SR

SR Box
Kraj = Region and 3 towns inside it's border
+2 for each Kraj
Bratislava is not included in town or Kraj bonus (again, don't see the need to use the word capital)
+1 with every THREE towns in SR
-2 with every kraje in CR

Town/Region box
Regions attack bordering regions and towns inside their border.
Towns ONLY attack other towns inside their Kraj and the region they're located in (except via highways).
Highways connect adjacent towns.

[Oneyed]

A good step in the right direction I think, in terms of the background. Thumbs up.

thank you. I´m glad that you like it.

On the small map, the text in the legend boxes could maybe use bold to be a little more prominent.


--Andy

yes, I will try to do it bigger (1 or 2 pixels) or made it bold.

Is there any way you can have the latitude/longitude lines run behind the playable area? It's distracting that they run over the playable area.

ofcourse it is.

The legends could be a little clearer and need some grammatical changes...what do you think about the suggestions below?

Czech Republic Box
Kraj = Region and 2 towns inside it's border
+4 for every TWO kraje
Praha is not included in town or Kraj bonus (I don't see the need to designate it as the capital since the word "capital" isn't used in any other explanation)
+1 with every THREE towns in CR
-1 with each Kraj in SR

SR Box
Kraj = Region and 3 towns inside it's border
+2 for each Kraj
Bratislava is not included in town or Kraj bonus (again, don't see the need to use the word capital)
+1 with every THREE towns in SR
-2 with every kraje in CR

nothing against your text. it is fine, but is it needed to use THREE instead of 3? and word capital is used in Highway text.

Town/Region box
Regions attack bordering regions and towns inside their border.
Towns ONLY attack other towns inside their Kraj and the region they're located in (except via highways).
Highways connect adjacent towns.

here I need to have the text so short as is possible, because a little of space.
about Highways - why use adjacent and also connect? what is connected by highway it is also adjacent. and here is also important to use capital, I think.

thanks everybody for help. and be patient with my English

Oneyed

[Oneyed]

small version with text edits by nolefan´s advices. guys, who are natural English speakers, I had several advices for text and each one is different, so I am a little confused...

text in legend has more opacity.

Click image to enlarge.

Oneyed

[koontz1973]

First off, I am having trouble reading any of the small maps text. It has the room to go bigger.

It is not clear which of the boxes belong to which region. Can you swap them around as the Slovak on is closer to Czechoslovakia one, and vice versa. This will cause confusion with player.

Highways connect towns so can Poprad attack Zilina?

[Oneyed]

First off, I am having trouble reading any of the small maps text. It has the room to go bigger.

yes. I also tried bold font which is visible enough, but there is a little space. will enlarge it.

It is not clear which of the boxes belong to which region. Can you swap them around as the Slovak on is closer to Czechoslovakia one, and vice versa. This will cause confusion with player.

hm, this has any sense. will see what can I do if this will be realy big problem.

Highways connect towns so can Poprad attack Zilina?

correct. the Highway is more important in Slovak Republic, because this is the second way how to go from VSK (ot towns inside) to west. without Highway there will be just one way - from VSK to SSK.

Oneyed

[koontz1973]

Highways connect towns so can Poprad attack Zilina?

correct. the Highway is more important in Slovak Republic, because this is the second way how to go from VSK (ot towns inside) to west. without Highway there will be just one way - from VSK to SSK.

Oneyed

But then you only have one way in or out (SCK, JCK, VCK, SMK). These regions have the same amount of towns as the others but with the same bonus. From what I am reading, you are giving for the Czech rep a +4 bonus for 3 territories that only have one way in or out. Thats a tad steep? Even for the same with 2 borders, it seems steep. For the slovak side of things, you only give +2 for 4 territories with 2 borders. This seems lopsided.

[Oneyed]

But then you only have one way in or out (SCK, JCK, VCK, SMK).

but all these regions have more borders, so more possibilities where to attack.

These regions have the same amount of towns as the others but with the same bonus.

but no one Kraj in Czech republic (so also no one from these) have bonus alone. it is need to hold two Kraje for bonus in Czech republic.

From what I am reading, you are giving for the Czech rep a +4 bonus for 3 territories that only have one way in or out. Thats a tad steep? Even for the same with 2 borders, it seems steep.

yes, the Kraj with town connected by Highway has more borders to secure as Kraj without town connected by Highway. damned, the StCK and ZSK have 3 territories/borders to secure. StCK (Praha, region StCK, Benesov), ZSK (Bratislava, region ZSK, Trencin)...

For the slovak side of things, you only give +2 for 4 territories with 2 borders. This seems lopsided.

in Slovak republic it is +2 for 8 territories (6 towns and 2 regions) with 4 borders to secure. but if you hold region SSK and its towns + region VSK and its towns you need to secure just 2 borders - region SSK and town Trencin.

you have some good notices. hm, I will need to think about this. thanks.

Oneyed

[Oneyed]

koontz found some unbalanced things in gameplay. so I though about it and I found one solution.

main problem: some towns are connected by Highway, some towns not. bonus is for holding Kraj (region + towns inside its border), so Kraj without town connected by Highway is possible to secure with only one territory (region), but Kraj which has town connected by Highway needs to secure two territories (region and town with Highway connection).
I think this should not be so big problem, because in Slovak Republic each Kraj has one town connected by Highway, so player must secure his bonus with two territories. in Czech Republic there are four Kraje without any town connected by Highway and three Kraje with town connected by Highway. but I think in Czech Republic is much more place for tactics because each region has more borders with another regions.

so the biggest problem for me are Kraje StČK and ZSK with capitals (Praha, Bratislava). these are the next territories which are needed to secure for holding Kraj (bonus). capitals are not part of Kraj or Town bonus, so my solution is to do capitals attacked and attacks only by Highway.

all ideas are welcome. thanks.

Oneyed

[koontz1973]

Here is something to consider. Right now, and I made this mistake when posting last time, is that your bonuses are for one kraj in the Slovak area, but you need two kraj in the Czech area. This in my opinion will cause confusion for anyone who has never played the map. Also, with the highways, you are giving the same bonus for a region that has 6 territs and 2 borders and 6 territs and 4 borders.

Some random thoughts.
With the 2 capitals, unless I deploy Stck or ZSK, they will be very hard to grab. In small games with there good bonus, they will be grabbed quickly as they can be defended very easily.
Lose the capital bonus completely and place a +1 auto deploy instead. In chained and adjacent games, this will negate any benefit they give at the start of games. Makes room elsewhere and seems a more sensible bonus style for a capital.

The bonus in the south (+2) is for 4 territs and 2 borders, it is the same for all 3 kraj. In the north it is (+4) for 6 territs with 2,3 or 4 borders. This alone causes unbalanced games depending on the drop, and this is my main concern with games.
One solution would be to drop the town and region bonuses as they are completely for the map. You already have a mini map in the boxes and would be very easy to put bonus numbers into this. It would clear confusion between the two sides, allow bonuses to go up or down depending on the region, highways etc. You get to keep your highways, towns, regions without any changes, the only thing that would change is by making the mini map areas simpler to understand and allow bonuses to be adjusted for each region.

At the end of this, you can programme in positions and some neutrals to stop bonus drops happening in small games. You can speak to the gameplay mods to see if they has any ideas on how to do positions for this type of game.

As I said, this seems the most simple way to proceed if you do decide to change it.

EDIT: Another way to balance the game and keep everything you have now, just add another highway to the kraj that do not have one.

[nolefan5311]

I've reran the numbers and this is what I've come up with.

The capital bonuses probably could be dropped, but then I wonder whats the significance of having the capitals there at all? As is now, its impossible to drop those bonuses because both capitals start as neutrals, and they each have three regions that can attack them (Praha - StCK, Benesov, Plzen & Bratis - ZSK, Trencin, Brno). I don't feel this is too much of a bottleneck. And with the negative bonuses taken into effect I think it balances out pretty well. Every town on the map can be assaulted by at least 2 regions.

As far as the different bonus structures for the Slovak and Czech side, I think the legend clearly indicates that you need to hold 2 kraje in Czech to trigger the bonus, and 1 on the Slovak side to trigger the bonus. There are quite a bit of maps out there with significantly more complex bonus systems. I personally don't like the suggestion of making them identical, and altering the XML so that the Czech side is coded that a certain amount of territories begin neutral. WIth a map this small, I think the more regions in play the better. Dropping the distributed territories to just 31 (its currently at 33) means that in 7 and 8 player games players will be dropped 3 regions. If you're ok with this Oneyed, then that's fine, but I think it will get a lot more play on larger games if players start with 4 like they do now.

You might think about putting some sort of bold line between the Czech and Slovak sides to better distinguish them, because it is slightly hard to read from the minimaps. I didn't have a problem, but I could see where it might cause issues for others.

As far as the kraje bonus on the Czech side, there does appear to be issues with SCK, VCK, and SMK because there is only one region to defend, and if you end up taking a combination of those two, it will be a +4 for 6 regions of which only 2 need to be defended. For your reference:

SMK + SCK = yields a suggested bonus of 3.08
SMK + VCK = 3.08
SCK + VCK = 3.08 - These are all too low.

It's the same with the combo of JCK and any of the above 3.

These four continents are the only one causing me any issues, as the remaining 3 all have at least 2 regions that need to be defended, and all have at least 5 territories that can attack them. As koontz suggested, I think if you can just snake (spiderwebbing it wouldn't work I don't think) that highway to hit a town in every kraj on the map, I think your problem is solved. You've entirely eliminated the one region bottleneck issue. The numbers would change to below:

SCK + VCK = yields a suggested bonus of 4.92
SCK + SMK = 4.92 (6 total regions, 4 to defend, with 8 to attack if my math is right. With 7 to attack it drops to 4.75, which is still fine)
VCK + SMK = 5.08 (6 total regions, 4 to defend, with 9 to attack)

JCK and one of the above falls right in line with these.

Obviously, these are either right at or above the actual bonus of +4, so you'd be good to go.

As far as the Slovak side is concerned, the only bonus below the suggested value is VSK, but that's a 1.75 suggested bonus, only .25 below the 2 bonus it now has. We've let maps with a .25 differential pass through, so I think it's good. But just to be on the safe side, perhaps you might want to start the road in Lucenec and have it go through Poprad and then on to Zilina. There still would be only two defend points, but adding the extra attacking region would increase the suggested bonus to 1.92, .08 below the 2 it currently gets. That's miniscule.

Let me know what you'd like to do Oneyed. And thanks koontz for bringing this to my attention. Not sure how it got overlooked the first time.

[Oneyed]

This in my opinion will cause confusion for anyone who has never played the map.

each map is played one time the first time. there is legend which explain this, and I think there are several maps with more comlex bonuses.

Also, with the highways, you are giving the same bonus for a region that has 6 territs and 2 borders and 6 territs and 4 borders.

I know this. my first idea was to do it so. a little unbalanced things to the map. personaly I do not like schematic maps.

Some random thoughts.
With the 2 capitals, unless I deploy Stck or ZSK, they will be very hard to grab. In small games with there good bonus, they will be grabbed quickly as they can be defended very easily.

you mean that capitals can defended easy? yes, in small games should be this problem. but is small games will be more neutrals, so how big is chance that (for example) in 1v1 game will one player starts with 3 territories which could attack capital?

Lose the capital bonus completely and place a +1 auto deploy instead. In chained and adjacent games, this will negate any benefit they give at the start of games. Makes room elsewhere and seems a more sensible bonus style for a capital.

no, please . as nolefan said: for what there will be capitals? capitals (Praha for Czech republic, bratislava for Slovak republic) are very important and there are no more towns such these. +1 autodeploy does not sound bad, even if we do that capitals could not attack region and towns inside its Kraj. so they could only attack by Highway, but could be attacked by Highway and also from region and towns inside its Kraj. what do you think?

The bonus in the south (+2) is for 4 territs and 2 borders, it is the same for all 3 kraj. In the north it is (+4) for 6 territs with 2,3 or 4 borders. This alone causes unbalanced games depending on the drop, and this is my main concern with games.

ok. what about to add Highway also to town Hradec Kralove (VCK), so there will be only 3 Kraje in Czech republic without town connected by Highway and these will be good distibuted. these will be SCK, JCK, SMK and each one is pretty "besieged" by kraje with Highway. ?

One solution would be to drop the town and region bonuses as they are completely for the map. You already have a mini map in the boxes and would be very easy to put bonus numbers into this. It would clear confusion between the two sides, allow bonuses to go up or down depending on the region, highways etc. You get to keep your highways, towns, regions without any changes, the only thing that would change is by making the mini map areas simpler to understand and allow bonuses to be adjusted for each region.

you mean to add for each region different bonus? I do not like this so much, but it is also way how to solve problems...

At the end of this, you can programme in positions and some neutrals to stop bonus drops happening in small games. You can speak to the gameplay mods to see if they has any ideas on how to do positions for this type of game.

in previous pages I spoke with them and the result was that is is pretty possible to code what I need. also therefore I did not much care about some unbalanced things. will do any update and we will see.

EDIT: Another way to balance the game and keep everything you have now, just add another highway to the kraj that do not have one.

not each Kraj has Highway. but also railways could works. thank koontz for so nice analisation

The capital bonuses probably could be dropped, but then I wonder whats the significance of having the capitals there at all?

I realy want to have capital bonuses here. as I wrote thereinbefore they are realy important for their countries.

As is now, its impossible to drop those bonuses because both capitals start as neutrals, and they each have three regions that can attack them (Praha - StCK, Benesov, Plzen & Bratis - ZSK, Trencin, Brno). I don't feel this is too much of a bottleneck.

each capital has 4 territories that can attack it. I made it so. Praha (towns Kladno, Benesov, Plzen, region StCK), Bratislava (towns Trencin, Komarno, Nitra, Brno, region ZSK). Brno will be codded for every games as neutral.

And with the negative bonuses taken into effect I think it balances out pretty well. Every town on the map can be assaulted by at least 2 regions.

thanks. I like maps with negative bonuses and I hope this one is made good . except some things...

As far as the different bonus structures for the Slovak and Czech side, I think the legend clearly indicates that you need to hold 2 kraje in Czech to trigger the bonus, and 1 on the Slovak side to trigger the bonus. There are quite a bit of maps out there with significantly more complex bonus systems. I personally don't like the suggestion of making them identical, and altering the XML so that the Czech side is coded that a certain amount of territories begin neutral. WIth a map this small, I think the more regions in play the better.

this!

Dropping the distributed territories to just 31 (its currently at 33) means that in 7 and 8 player games players will be dropped 3 regions. If you're ok with this Oneyed, then that's fine, but I think it will get a lot more play on larger games if players start with 4 like they do now.

no. there are 35 territories (10 kraje, 23 towns, 2 capitals). in every game will start capitlas and town Brno neutral. so there are 4 regions for each player in 8 or 7 games.

You might think about putting some sort of bold line between the Czech and Slovak sides to better distinguish them, because it is slightly hard to read from the minimaps. I didn't have a problem, but I could see where it might cause issues for others.

the border between Czech and Slovak is not dashed as borders of Kraje... maybe I could do it with another colour?

As far as the Slovak side is concerned, the only bonus below the suggested value is VSK, but that's a 1.75 suggested bonus, only .25 below the 2 bonus it now has. We've let maps with a .25 differential pass through, so I think it's good. But just to be on the safe side, perhaps you might want to start the road in Lucenec and have it go through Poprad and then on to Zilina. There still would be only two defend points, but adding the extra attacking region would increase the suggested bonus to 1.92, .08 below the 2 it currently gets. That's miniscule.

hm, there is no Highway . if this is not huge problem I want to let it as it is.

Let me know what you'd like to do Oneyed.

I will do some changes.

And thanks koontz for bringing this to my attention. Not sure how it got overlooked the first time.

thank nolefan. extra thanks for "running numbers", because I can not do this.

thanks guys for help and interest.

Oneyed

[nolefan5311]

So there are 32 starting regions then? That still leaves it at 4 per player, which is better than 3 in my opinion.

As far as VSK, I understand you wanting to keep it accurate as possible, but gameplay is more important. Perhaps adding some sort of long distance connection of some sort would work, if you're completely opposed to adding the extra highway connection.

As far as the issues on the Czech side, the easiest way to do it would be to add the highway connections to each kraj. Those 4 kraje's can't stay the way they are.

[Oneyed]

ok. I changed Highway for Railway (there were not Highway everyhwere). what do you think?

Click image to enlarge.

Oneyed

[nolefan5311]

As far as gameplay is concerned, I think this solves all the issues. Well done. What do you think koontz?

[koontz1973]

Not good IMO. Now VSK and SSK have 3 open territs to attack to and from. When I said, add another highway, I was thinking this...

Keep the current one as it (either a highway or railway).
Add a new one running from Labem - Pardubice - Tabor & Olomouc.

This would then mean that every kraj has 2 ways in and out. It might be good to increase the bonus on the czech side to 5 as well.

[nolefan5311]

Not good IMO. Now VSK and SSK have 3 open territs to attack to and from.

Why is this a problem?

Keep the current one as it (either a highway or railway).
Add a new one running from Labem - Pardubice - Tabor & Olomouc.

A separate highway crisscrossing the previous one? You don't think that will overclutter it and lead to confusion?

This would then mean that every kraj has 2 ways in and out. It might be good to increase the bonus on the czech side to 5 as well.

From what I can see, every Kraj on the Slovak side has 3 ways in (including Bratislava for ZSK), and every Kraj on the Czech side has 2 ways in. And I disagree about increasing the bonus on the Czech side.

[koontz1973]

Bratislava is a starting neutral, in small games, these are not touched unless they have to be.

As for the criss cross, I am sure some combo can be found to have the two railways not crossing. How about keeping the bottom one as is and stopping the top one at Olomouc?

You have the balance while crossing over gives it that little hindrance. Sort of splitting the map into 3 parts.

[Oneyed]

Not good IMO. Now VSK and SSK have 3 open territs to attack to and from.

Why is this a problem?

I can not see any problem here. VSK, SSK and also ZSK have the same conditions. 3 ways to attack.

Keep the current one as it (either a highway or railway).
Add a new one running from Labem - Pardubice - Tabor & Olomouc.

A separate highway crisscrossing the previous one? You don't think that will overclutter it and lead to confusion?

at the first, there is no such connection. and I also agree with nolefan - there will be crossroad between highway Brno - Benesov and Pardubice - Tabor.

This would then mean that every kraj has 2 ways in and out. It might be good to increase the bonus on the czech side to 5 as well.

From what I can see, every Kraj on the Slovak side has 3 ways in (including Bratislava for ZSK), and every Kraj on the Czech side has 2 ways in. And I disagree about increasing the bonus on the Czech side.

[/quote]

yes. each kraj in Slovak republic has the same conditons, also each kraj in Czech republic has the same conditions. and why to increasing Czech Kraj bonus?

in Slovak republic the Kraj bonus looks like: +2 for each Kraj (hold 4 territories and secure 3).
in Czech republic the Kraj bonus looks like: +4 for 2 Kraje (hold 6 territories and secure 4).

I realy do not see another possibility how to do it better and still to have it simple.

Oneyed

[AndyDufresne]

From a graphics point of view, I like the look of most everything, except maybe the darkness / typed on feeling of the legend text that are not headers. Slovak Republic and Czech Republic's color (a more muted black / gray) integrate with the map more, and don't look like you've pasted microsoft office word text onto a the map, which the legend text sort of looks like.

Other than that, things are shaping up with my quick look over I think.

Keep up the good work.


--Andy

[RedBaron0]

I agree with Andy's assessment, have a banana Andy. The text can be grunged up a lil, maybe an increase to the grunge/crumpled effect across the whole map? I really dig the fold in the Czech legend corner! The feel of a common road map is pretty evident, but there is still room for a little something Czech/Slovak. Maybe something harkening back to Czechoslovakia? I'd say the flag... but the Czechs kept it., and the colors are the same for Slovaks. Maybe just the 2 flags crossed then in the NW corner?