Baltic Crusades

[isaiah40]

Beta - Quenching

---The Final Forge period has concluded for the Baltic Crusades Map. All objections have had their time. The Foundry and I hereby brand this map with the Foundry Beta Brand. Let it be known that this map is now ready for BETA Play. After an extended period of time in BETA and once all quirks and issues have been resolved, the map will be put into Full Play (barring any vetoes).

Conquer Club, enjoy!

While the map is in BETA Play, there are a couple of administrative tasks that are required of the mapmaker(s) in addition to the initial gameplay testing:

1. Please ensure that the first post of the thread contains all the necessary information to help future visitors to the development thread; it's particularly important to ensure the most recent images are there, along with any helpful guides (such as gameplay quirks/nuances or the location/size of any starting neutrals etc.)
2. It is the responsibility of the mapmaker(s) to ensure that they respond to further feedback in a timely and constructive manner.
3. Write a "creative" map description and send it to the Foundry Foreman via PM. You're encouraged to post it into the first post of the thread as well; the description will be used to populate the maps database.

isaiah40

[isaiah40]

The map is now live!!

[ender516]

Wahoo! I wouldn't playing a game or two, if I wasn't swamped with the Team CC: Best In Show tournament. So, I guess what I am saying is, I might accept an invitation, but I will wait to create a game myself.

[tkr4lf]

Hey, glad to hear it's out!

I started up 5 different doubles games, if anybody is interested.

[tkr4lf]

So to be clear, the cities and Hanseatic cities are part of the bonuses, but the castles are not?

[ender516]

Correct: for example, Ragnit is not needed for the East Prussia bonus.

[Swimmerdude99]

I have a quick comment that is probably too late to be changed or count as input, but I would LOVE this map... if the text didn't have the white haze around it.... for some reason that is throwing my eyes of and making the map hard to look at. Was there a time when it didn't have that white haze? And is there a reason that the haze is there? If not maybe it should be either more faded or not there. Just my two cents. It like... dissorients me. I think it might be better to not have that on there.

[ender516]

The white haze is intended to improve the contrast between the dark text and the not quite so dark regions. Do you find it bothersome on all the backgrounds colours, or just some?

[thenobodies80]

swimmerdude99, I'll work on it as soon as I have a bit of free time. There's no problem from me in trying to have a more balanced result. What parts /text really annoy you?

Nobodies

[macbone]

Sweet map, nobodies!

[Swimmerdude99]

Thank you for you replies nobodies and ender,

I can see now why it is nice, but perhaps it could be faded slightly, maybe half the opacity? (if that is the right word... not sure if it should be doubled or halfed.... but whatever would make the white haze be a little less bold).

I think where it tends to bother me are the regions in Visby, Gotland, Riga Ship (looks like it has more than any othter territs) and most of the East prussian places. I feel like what it is doing is making the text harder to read. Perhaps you could make the text thicker and leave the haze there and that would look better? Just something about the haze seems disorienting. However I think it looks really great on the territs in Terra Mariana, Duchy of Estonia, and Duchy of Pomeralia.

Can you see what I'm talking about at least? Not sure if I'm crazy or way OCD or something haha

Basically I think either the txt thickness (boldness) could be changed a little to be thicker and stand out more, or the haze should be slightly toned down, I think there is too much going on, and it clashes a little. (I really do love the map, otherwise I could care less )

[Swimmerdude99]

Also, what kind of discussion has there been on the different nuetrals? I feel like there should only be 2 nuetrals maybe for the +1 bonuses?

[ender516]

Also, what kind of discussion has there been on the different nuetrals? I feel like there should only be 2 nuetrals maybe for the +1 bonuses?

There was an attempt at discussion regarding the bonuses back on page 52, but I don't know if we have ever discussed the neutral values.

Why would you want weaker neutrals for the +1 bonuses?

[Swimmerdude99]

Also, what kind of discussion has there been on the different nuetrals? I feel like there should only be 2 nuetrals maybe for the +1 bonuses?

There was an attempt at discussion regarding the bonuses back on page 52, but I don't know if we have ever discussed the neutral values.

Why would you want weaker neutrals for the +1 bonuses?

I don't see them every being used or coming in handy. Honestly if you have to hold all the autos as well as the normal territs no one will ever take a country bonus really either... so that might be considered... I know these are rather big changes, but I think the ships need to have nuetrals lowered or no one will use them until the game is already over, taking away any tactical usage or avoidance of them, as is, killing a 3 to go somewhere that won't potentially become a bonus since it is worth so little to kill the nuetrals means, no one has to pay the cost of getting across those ships really. I also think since the castles are THREE times as valuable as a city or whatever, then who in their right mind would go through a 3 nuetral to get +1 auto? its worth it for the +3 auto, but not for the +1 imo.

[ender516]

I guess it depends on how long you are willing to wait for a return on your investment.

[Swimmerdude99]

I guess it depends on how long you are willing to wait for a return on your investment.

But why would you ever go for them if there are castles on the map? Thats like saying someone offers me a job for 10$ an hour or 30$ an hour for the same work, hours etc. and I choose the 10$ an hour job...

[ender516]

Yes, but the castles are harder to hold, as they serve as river crossings, whereas the cities are embedded and thus easier to defend. You might never earn the troops from a castle you take, unless you can afford to keep it well fortified.

[puppydog85]

The castles are easy to get caught behind lines. Then all you can do is fort the men off of them onto the front lines. Usually that means they get eaten off in the attacking dice.

I really like the current setup. The neutral's are not too hard that they become irrelevant, but just hard enough that whoever goes first does not have an insurmountable advantage

(my experience on this map is limited to 3 1v1 sunny, no trench, esc games)

[Dukasaur]

I've been playing this mostly on Trench.

(I absolutely LOVE it, by the way. LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE it!)

In the non-trench games the +1s don't get used much, but in the trench games they do.

[ender516]

That's good to hear. We should expect different strategies under different settings. If the map works in some way or other for each setting, then we have a winner.

[nicarus]

definitely like this map on trench, thanks for the map.

[Swimmerdude99]

Oh btw, I notice the territory "kuyavia" its troop count ends up slightly in the territory above it, is there a way to shift that a little? Minor thing, but wasn't sure if it would look better if shifted a tiny bit.

[ender516]

I think if you shifted it down, it might start running into the label "Kuyavia", which I think would be worse. Perhaps the artist could move the border slightly?

[Funkyterrance]

Started a game on this map.
A few issues:

1. Map is too dark. Some borders are invisible and some territory colors indistinguishable due to the high level of saturation of the darker colors.

2. The buildings all look the same. Castles look like towns, towns look like cities, cities look like castles, etc..

3. It's a color-blind person's worst nightmare. Some of the zones are so close that I literally cannot tell which is which. The worst part is that the bonus situation entirely depends on your ability to have perfect color-vision. The key does not give any explanation beyond telling you what color=what bonus.

I like this map and think the overall layout is very interesting but if the color and building situation doesn't improve drastically I won't end up playing this map. It's just entirely too much work for me to simply read the map.

[puppydog85]

I will second the cities/towns issue.