hellenic wars, bin it

[koontz1973]

Oneyed, here are some more thoughts and ideas for you.

I think it was natty who said forget the small version for now and do the large one. Do this, it will make your life easier later on and also it will make issues with the map easier for everyone else to see earlier.

Lose the colour. Give everything a nice sandy look to it (like the original map). You can then use ways to make each territ stand apart (glows, icons). This will give the map a less cluttered feel to it.

Your capitals have not got even spacing, so payers will start with an advantage or a disadvantage. This needs to be dealt with. One way would be to have the capitals start neutral and give them a different bonus system. 1 capital +1, 2 capitals +2 but put an auto deploy onto each as well. This will solve the majority of GP issues right away.

Winning condition, right now, you need to hold 4 enemy capitals and 2 of your own (league). Make it simple for people to understand and just hold all capitals or any six like you have it now.

Your cut out (top left), this can be removed if you draw that section larger on the map itself. You have the room for it and will make it easier for players.

Fleet legend (first letter is league, second letter sea), this is not needed as each ship has a different name so this can come out. This gives more room.

Rework your legend, it is very spaced out. You should be able to get everything at the bottom. This way, everything that is above the winning condition text can become territs.

On the second map, you have the cut out for the sea. Lose this completely but you can keep the lines and text for bombard/attack. Just out these onto the map, or even better would be to hold a sea region to get a bonus. Sea regions can only be attacked by the ports in that region. Again, easier for players to understand.

Lose the neutral areas. No area was neutral, back then. Just not conquered. More room for the legend.

[Oneyed]

I think it was natty who said forget the small version for now and do the large one. Do this, it will make your life easier later on and also it will make issues with the map easier for everyone else to see earlier.

no problem. the large map could be done in two days...

Lose the colour. Give everything a nice sandy look to it (like the original map). You can then use ways to make each territ stand apart (glows, icons). This will give the map a less cluttered feel to it.

forgot "original" map. I changed map name. this is totaly diferent map and gameplay, thereofre the colours are needed. is here another way how to differentiate continents bonuses? cluttered feel? this sounds as each coloured map is cluttered...

Your capitals have not got even spacing, so payers will start with an advantage or a disadvantage. This needs to be dealt with. One way would be to have the capitals start neutral and give them a different bonus system.

I will lok what is possible to do here. but except totaly symmetric maps the most of maps have problems with advantage/disadvantage from the start. and players will not start only with capital, there are 8 capitals and 36 regions to distribute between players. maybe I will kick off losing conditions...

1 capital +1, 2 capitals +2 but put an auto deploy onto each as well. This will solve the majority of GP issues right away.

this will not works toether with victory conditions...

Winning condition, right now, you need to hold 4 enemy capitals and 2 of your own (league). Make it simple for people to understand and just hold all capitals or any six like you have it now.

any 6 sounds fine to me. maybe also as I had it before: Hold your capital and all enemy capitals.

Your cut out (top left), this can be removed if you draw that section larger on the map itself. You have the room for it and will make it easier for players.

I can not see enough space on the map for this. when I played Peloponnesian wars the first time I had no problem to understand Corinth box...

Rework your legend, it is very spaced out. You should be able to get everything at the bottom. This way, everything that is above the winning condition text can become territs.

I reworked it 100 times. to be honest, all legend is in bottom and a little in the right side. each help here is welcome

On the second map, you have the cut out for the sea. Lose this completely but you can keep the lines and text for bombard/attack. Just out these onto the map, or even better would be to hold a sea region to get a bonus. Sea regions can only be attacked by the ports in that region. Again, easier for players to understand.

you mean to add attack and bombard lines to the map? impossible with so much attack/bombard routes. or you mean to add them only in one part of map as example?
no sea regions. this will totaly ignore fleet...

Lose the neutral areas. No area was neutral, back then. Just not conquered. More room for the legend.

these areas were neutral. these were not membes of any League and many of them were neutral during all war.

thanks for input. you hit some nails

Oneyed

[koontz1973]

Look at the colours used for Berlin and Middle East maps.

But the cut out is with the legend and not stuck in a corner some where. As for putting it on the map, just move the large sticking out part further into the sea. I checked and you do have more than enough room for it to go into the main map.

Legend, if you are able to put that large cut out of the sea in there, you can move the legend around some more.

No, do not add the lines to the map, but it might be wise to have a think about the ships part of the game play. Maybe make it simpler. Remember, not everyone knows English like you and me so they must be able to play the game without google translate.

[Teflon Kris]

Lose the colour. Give everything a nice sandy look to it (like the original map). You can then use ways to make each territ stand apart (glows, icons). This will give the map a less cluttered feel to it.

forgot "original" map. I changed map name. this is totaly diferent map and gameplay, thereofre the colours are needed. is here another way how to differentiate continents bonuses? cluttered feel? this sounds as each coloured map is cluttered...

The clutter can be a combination of coloured regions and other features.

An alternative could be coloured region names? Different types of army circle?

Your capitals have not got even spacing, so payers will start with an advantage or a disadvantage. This needs to be dealt with. One way would be to have the capitals start neutral and give them a different bonus system.

I will lok what is possible to do here. but except totaly symmetric maps the most of maps have problems with advantage/disadvantage from the start. and players will not start only with capital, there are 8 capitals and 36 regions to distribute between players. maybe I will kick off losing conditions...

You could perhaps somehow not have some of the capitals too close together - is there anywhere on the turkish coast that could be used? Any of the western islands? Or are the capitals all essential to the historical context?

If the capitals aren'ttoo close together and you have plenty of carefully placed regions that start neutral in between then the losing condition could still work- it is a great feature. The details could be worked-out later for neutral cvalues and which regions start together etc.

1 capital +1, 2 capitals +2 but put an auto deploy onto each as well. This will solve the majority of GP issues right away.

this will not works toether with victory conditions...

Interesting point - you are meaning that if a player gains these capital bonuses then it makes the victory condition more and more likely and reduces the strategic options to win the game?

On the second map, you have the cut out for the sea. Lose this completely but you can keep the lines and text for bombard/attack. Just out these onto the map, or even better would be to hold a sea region to get a bonus. Sea regions can only be attacked by the ports in that region. Again, easier for players to understand.

you mean to add attack and bombard lines to the map? impossible with so much attack/bombard routes. or you mean to add them only in one part of map as example?
no sea regions. this will totaly ignore fleet...

I think you are intending for the ships of the same fleet to connect?

One way of explaining could be to have a text explanation along the following lines: "Ships two way assault ports in the same sea and ships of the same fleet in an adjacent sea. Ships also bombard ships of the enemy fleet within the same sea." (this text could be improved though)

Or, the graphic to explain could be smaller without using a section of the map, just one / two of each region type (one port, two green and two red ships)?

Lose the neutral areas. No area was neutral, back then. Just not conquered. More room for the legend.

these areas were neutral. these were not membes of any League and many of them were neutral during all war.

Referring to the point above, its maybe the neutral colour that gives a little colour-clutter - anyway, if you go for using one background colour and coloured region names or similar then I dont see anything wrong with 'neutral' regions - although it would be best to call them something different if you need some of the regions of the leagues to also start neutral as discussed above. So maybe, call them "non affiliated", "non aligned", or something?

[Oneyed]

The clutter can be a combination of coloured regions and other features.

I will try to find better colours. the other features, the Capitals could be different maybe... please be more presentive here

An alternative could be coloured region names? Different types of army circle?

do not frogot that I need 8 different colours/shapes. and this is not end - 4 must be alike and 4 must be alike... what is bad on coloured maps?

You could perhaps somehow not have some of the capitals too close together - is there anywhere on the turkish coast that could be used? Any of the western islands? Or are the capitals all essential to the historical context?

yes, most of capitals are made by importance of towns. for me is unimaginable that for example Delphi will be capital for Thebai. towns in Asia were not so important, but Ephesus is one possibility. but the main problem is area Athenai - Thebai and Sparta - Elis. the Korinthos was changed to Elis.

If the capitals aren'ttoo close together and you have plenty of carefully placed regions that start neutral in between then the losing condition could still work- it is a great feature. The details could be worked-out later for neutral cvalues and which regions start together etc.

there are 36 regions (except capitals and independent reagions) which could be used. I think we need only two to start as neutral - Mantineia and D (Delion).

Interesting point - you are meaning that if a player gains these capital bonuses then it makes the victory condition more and more likely and reduces the strategic options to win the game?

I think that if capitals have autodeploy bonus mentioned by koontz will realy do much easy to take objective.

One way of explaining could be to have a text explanation along the following lines: "Ships two way assault ports in the same sea and ships of the same fleet in an adjacent sea. Ships also bombard ships of the enemy fleet within the same sea." (this text could be improved though)

Or, the graphic to explain could be smaller without using a section of the map, just one / two of each region type (one port, two green and two red ships)?

I made text legend. with help from any englishmen the text could be short and clear as possible. about problems with english knowledge, my english is poor so when I am able to write legend everybody could understand it.

Referring to the point above, its maybe the neutral colour that gives a little colour-clutter - anyway, if you go for using one background colour and coloured region names or similar then I dont see anything wrong with 'neutral' regions - although it would be best to call them something different if you need some of the regions of the leagues to also start neutral as discussed above. So maybe, call them "non affiliated", "non aligned", or something?

as I mentioned - to do 8 continents different and 4 of them must be alike and others 4 also must be alike it is (for me) impossible to do without colouring regions...

I renamed them to Independent regions. fine?

thank you guys for advices.

Oneyed

[GoranZ]

Making the map SuperSize can give you more space between capitals. And additionally you can set all territories around a capital to be neutral with 5 units for example.

Just an idea that I don't know if it will work... You might wait for others opinion on this.

[Oneyed]

Making the map SuperSize can give you more space between capitals.

what I know the SuperSize is not allowed for any time.

And additionally you can set all territories around a capital to be neutral with 5 units for example.

Just an idea that I don't know if it will work... You might wait for others opinion on this.

I think not all regions around capitals must be set as neutral. there are at last 2 regions between capitals. just the problem is Athenai - Thebai and Sparta - Elis. so if Delion (D) between Athenai - Thebai and Mantineia between Sparta - Elis will be coded as neutral it could works...

yes, more opinions are welcome

another version with different colour scheme.

Click image to enlarge.

Oneyed

EDIT: it looks that imageshack anyway changed posted images. this one for example has pink tint... could anybody tell me about another site for posting images?
thanks.

[nolefan5311]

photobucket is a good one

[Oneyed]

thanks nolefan.

except independent regions and fleet there are 44 regions. 8 are capitals, so 36 to distribute between players. in 8 game = 4 and 4 neutrals. in 7 game = 4 and 8 neutrals. in 6 game = 5 and 6 neutrals. and so on...

now I can see one big problem: between Athenai and Thebai is only 1 region on both attack ways: Athenai - Delion - Thebai or Athenai - Megara - Thebai. so if both will start as 3 neutrals will this solve problem?

Click image to enlarge.

Oneyed

[Oneyed]

could we discus more about starting positions. there are some problems because some capitals are too close to each others. all Independent regions and all fleet will start as neutral in each game. than there could be at least 4 regions codded as neutrals. there is also idea about move some capitals and I am opened to this. but also historic view is important for me...

PS: I still support Foundry protest (as shown my avatar), but I can work on my maps...

Oneyed

[koontz1973]

PS: I still support Foundry protest (as shown my avatar), but I can work on my maps...

this is your right.

OK, with the starting positions, have you gone through all of the options as it stands now?
Trapped territs - Have each of the capitals as a starting position with 10 troops on it. Capitals cannot attack or fort out so these ten troops are stuck there. Surrounding territs can attack the capitals so the losing condition can be applied. For this one though, you would need to get rid of the one territ starts and have random drops.

Move capitals - move the capitals to the legend like conquer rome. This gives more room for extra territs and another layer of gameplay.

Oneyed, as for the map, your legend is still too large. It is taking up to much room and can be shrunk (unless you move the capitals to it). This does need to be addressed.
The cutout, you do not need it. You have more than enough room on the map to draw it in. It will confuse some players, put others of playing the map, but for what ever reason, it is not needed. Please try to remove it. If you post a version with that area redrawn and it looks ugly, then fine, it can go back in.
Large map, did you just do a scale up of the small? If so, you will need to redraw the map from scratch as scaling up does not give good enough results. This is the reason we all start with the large.

[nolefan5311]

I don't like the idea of having capitals start with ten troops that cannot be used in any way other than to protect from the losing condition. The simple fix with the capitals is to make sure that each capital is the same distance from the closest capital. This might not be possible, so the other option is to make sure that the same number of neutrals is between the capitals (i.e., if two capitals have only one region between them like Myrcinos, then that region should have 4 neutrals, whereas if two capitals have two regions between them, make those two regions two neutrals each). It's a simple fix.

[koontz1973]

No, the +10 trapped was just an idea. Get the discussion flowing and try to see if we can get this map better.

[Oneyed]

this is your right.

yes. but reading RIP Foundry Avatars take my enthusiasm... unfortunately.

OK, with the starting positions, have you gone through all of the options as it stands now?
Trapped territs - Have each of the capitals as a starting position with 10 troops on it. Capitals cannot attack or fort out so these ten troops are stuck there. Surrounding territs can attack the capitals so the losing condition can be applied. For this one though, you would need to get rid of the one territ starts and have random drops.

I do not much like this idea.

Move capitals - move the capitals to the legend like conquer rome. This gives more room for extra territs and another layer of gameplay.

will think about this.

Oneyed, as for the map, your legend is still too large. It is taking up to much room and can be shrunk (unless you move the capitals to it). This does need to be addressed.

I do not think that legend is too large. I found several maps with alike legend. the point is that I can not use are where is legend - there is sea (and Crete which was not important).

The cutout, you do not need it. You have more than enough room on the map to draw it in. It will confuse some players, put others of playing the map, but for what ever reason, it is not needed. Please try to remove it. If you post a version with that area redrawn and it looks ugly, then fine, it can go back in.

believe me I tried this. there is not enough space there...

Large map, did you just do a scale up of the small? If so, you will need to redraw the map from scratch as scaling up does not give good enough results. This is the reason we all start with the large.

yes, large map is just enlarge small one. I will do new big one...

I don't like the idea of having capitals start with ten troops that cannot be used in any way other than to protect from the losing condition.

me too

The simple fix with the capitals is to make sure that each capital is the same distance from the closest capital.

much depends on how close to history we could be...

This might not be possible, so the other option is to make sure that the same number of neutrals is between the capitals (i.e., if two capitals have only one region between them like Myrcinos, then that region should have 4 neutrals, whereas if two capitals have two regions between them, make those two regions two neutrals each). It's a simple fix.

attacking 2 region with 2 neutrals is different as attacking one region with 4 neutrals, I think.

Get the discussion flowing and try to see if we can get this map better.

yes

thanks guys.

Oneyed

[nolefan5311]

This might not be possible, so the other option is to make sure that the same number of neutrals is between the capitals (i.e., if two capitals have only one region between them like Myrcinos, then that region should have 4 neutrals, whereas if two capitals have two regions between them, make those two regions two neutrals each). It's a simple fix.

attacking 2 region with 2 neutrals is different as attacking one region with 4 neutrals, I think.
Oneyed

It is, better odds attacking the 4 than twu 2's, but it was just a suggestion if you don't want to have the capitals the same amount of regions away from each other. If you want exactly identical attack odds, then you will need to do some math (and perhaps change the amount of troops that each capital begins with, etc).

[Oneyed]

ok. I changed positions of capitals. sometimes must history submit to gameplay

Oneyed

[koontz1973]

Oneyed, here are a few points.

Your font size is small and in places is very hard to read/understand. This needs to be addressed.
You have abbreviations on the right but it is missing some. I know they are in the cut out but if you are going to have a key for abbreviations, they need to go in as well.
Lastly, get the large one done. You state you like to start with the small one for sizing, but you have got everything in and now is the time for the large one to be brought up to this level.

koontz

[cairnswk]

...
It would be nice to have a map that reflects the real strategic issues in the Pelo War. Good work!

Didn't Qwert do it well enough?

[Oneyed]

Your font size is small and in places is very hard to read/understand. This needs to be addressed.

I could try to add outer glow around font. especialy where is hard to read (borders...)

You have abbreviations on the right but it is missing some. I know they are in the cut out but if you are going to have a key for abbreviations, they need to go in as well.

you mean to emphasize it somehow?

...
It would be nice to have a map that reflects the real strategic issues in the Pelo War. Good work!

Didn't Qwert do it well enough?

qwert has maps with great themes and I like his maps. but to be candid here, no his Peloponnesian war does not show Greece dividing to two Leagues and does not show conflict between them.

Oneyed

[koontz1973]

Adding the glow may or may not work. It looks to be the font you are using, so you could either go for a new font or increase it by one size.
No, not to make the abbreviations stand out more, but to get all of them in. If you want a key for something, you need to fit all of the info in it. Not have it spread around the board. It just makes it easier to find.

[Nola_Lifer]

Why is this still in drafts?

[koontz1973]

Why is this still in drafts?

Because I have not stamped it yet.

[charmir]

...
It would be nice to have a map that reflects the real strategic issues in the Pelo War. Good work!

Didn't Qwert do it well enough?

Yes he did. Sorry to the map maker as this looks like a nice start but it does look a little inferior to qwerts map. Would like to see if he would give his thoughts on this one.

[Oneyed]

Yes he did.

qwert did nice graphic and geographic map with nice simple gameplay. my map has another gameplay, which is more complex and which shows two sides of conlict.

Sorry to the map maker as this looks like a nice start but it does look a little inferior to qwerts map.

yes? in what?

Oneyed

[charmir]

Here are three to think about then.

The gameplay seems to be overly complicated for such a small map. Even your legend takes up a third of the map.
The capitals are very close together. This will stifle the larger games.
You have very limited attack routes on this map. This means the strategy for the map is very basic and each starting position only has limited ways to go.

qwerts map may of been simple in game play, but because of these three alone, no matter how well you do the graphics, this is likely to be an inferior copy. Sorry oneyed, but I have to tell it as I see it.