King's Court 2 [Quenched]

[JustCallMeStupid]

Hi
Still playing this map alot and really enjoying it. but now finding it is much better as a team game. In the standard game the fighting tends to rotate in a clockwise or an anti clockwise way if you are lucky, if you are unlucky you may have both neighbours attacking you. but what i think may open the game up more would be to encourage attacking across the lake. at the moment the ports seem to be a very defensive role and not usually used to attack until later in the game and usually a neighbour. if ports conected with an opposing port across the lake, gained a significant bonus i think it would encourage people to take them earlier and provoke attacks with others, rather than just fighting your imediate neighbours.
Robert The Red

In my team games I have seen more fighting against neighbors as you suggest, but changing the ports in any way will not likely encourage attacks on opposite ends of the map. The reality is that the Trebuchets, knights and archers all give you incentive to secure close borders first before traveling across map. Also, taking ur own port gives ur opponents information as to where you are (I play mostly fog on this map) which opens you up to potential counter attacks. Im not sure it be that easy to modify bonus structure and add a key for it and I dont think it will vary the more common strategies of taking Councillors and attacking neighbors adjacent to your castle.

EDIT: Hey Keban, '?' on the HH castle Why is HH6 a 3 starting and HH5 a 4 I would think they would be reversed because of Treb counter attacking, no need to change it just a thought. However, what about on HG6 since that is one of the only Catapults that can be attacked by a Trebuchet should it be a 3 to make it easier for HG to take it and get it stacking up so it is defended?

EDIT2: If someone owns no castle and 2 counselors, I assume it is a +5 per counselor = to a +10 in my example? I hope its not just a flat +5.

EDIT3: To comment below, I think the island is silly and should be just connected to land so that Castle HB has a cathedral access but I think it is mostly for aesthetics. I was thinking about HA, another potential solution is to add a neutral territory behind the Knight and just label it N00 or make it a road call it R00. The reason i like a road idea better is at 3 unit deploy if u deploy somewhere to take back ur spot u just have to go balls out cause ull lose any left overs.

[Robert The Red]

is there any reason to have a blank hex at n40 on the island as no body will ever take it unless they are stupid.

[JustCallMeStupid]

Best starting locations from best to last.
1. HI HH
3. HD
4. HF
5. HE *
6. HC
7. HG
8. HB
You prob dont want the last two spots although, HJ is workable.
9. HJ
10. HA

*this location could potentially also be one of the worst locations, need to hear other opinions though, because my experiences have all shown this location to hold pretty strong.

Advantages over other locations:
HI: Great access to double knights, very safe from double treb bombards. Port access from distance, aka knight.
HH: Treb cannot reach knight. Knight has easy access to all bonuses. 3 turn access to K08 knight. Port access from distance, aka knight.
HD: Double knights close. Very isolated. No archer bombardments is probably this castles greatest strength and can arguably be ranked as #1 due to this factor alone.
HF: Somewhat isolated. One of the highest manual deploy and auto deploy locations.
HE: Knight has good ranged access. From K06 one can attack either near ports. Because surrounding areas are generally stronger as well, for some reason be trebbed early is less likely then it is at HA.
HC: Knight cant be Trebbed.
HG: Knight cant be Trebbed.
HB: Easy access to 2 villages and knight all from castle.
HJ: Not much, maybe some decent access to a lot of archers via the knight as well as other decent bonus access.
HA: It is next to HJ, one of the weakest spots.

Disadvantages compared to other location:
HI: HH nearby is a strong location.
HH: HI nearby is strong location. 2nd knight take 3 attacks to access.
HD: First and 2nd turn bonuses are harder, knights have 3, mines are 3 and 4 attacks away, but can be accessed via knights. Going to K05 exposes oneself, HE is strong and nearby location.
HF: Slow to get out into battles. No knights anywhere nearby. Only path to unexposed at port involves a -2 neutral in trench mode. Can be hammered by field marshall access to archers.
HE: No protection from being trebbed, ur most likely stuck w an archer and catapult or worse just an archer. Axx archer is close
HC: Bad movement access to early bonuses and a second knight. Knight horribly positioned for gaining any bonuses. Bonuses in general for the location are below average.
HG: Easily attacked by HH
HB: Easy access to 2 villages and knight all from castle. A13 blocks easy access to 2nd knight as well as any kind of surprise access to port unless one wants to go around A13 to get to the knight.
HJ: Easily bombarded, very accessible from field marshall, no surprise attacks on nearest ports. Near HI one of the strongest spots.
HA: Can be annihilated by Treb alone leaving it with only archer and catapult. Access to bonuses are weak. Access to 2nd knight involves neutral attack if going quickest rout and involves exposal to Port if one takes roads. can easily be crushed by Axx archers more than anywhere. Treb that can bombard 99% of HA areas is located directly next to a port.

Like to hear some other opinions on this, maybe Im mistaken on a few of the locations, and in reality the best 6 castles are all fairly equal and dont effect game outcome too much (aside from HD not being accessible from archers like the 9 others), but I have always noticed that most games I tend to see the best strategy focused around killing the bottom 4 ranked castles. Most my game experience is 4v4 3v3 and 2v2v2v2 games. I dont play 1v1 games and would prefer feedback from all games other than 1v1 opinions.

I wrote this to help encourage more solid feedback b4 map is squelched potentially allowing for improvements. I really enjoy this map and appreciate the hard work of Keban creating it. I prob dont appreciate Keban's hard work enough because I have no idea how much time such a large complicated map takes to design.

[random21]

In my view HB is one of the weaker positions to start.

There are no woods or mines nearby for easy pickings.

The two villages at 2 neutral can really stump you when you fail to capture them, and lose men instantly.

I think HB could use a mine or woods to help. Am I just not seeing the strat for this position?

(In response to above post about strengths of all positions, ... to the lowest 3 ...)

HJ strength is in the Knight. Assault the Knight. Attack the Knight right above, and you have a two move access to the port. The Knight is key here I think.

I have found HJ to be playable.

HA in corner, not sure. Seem easy enough to expand to the bonuses, and villages.

It's HB by far in my view that needs work.

Of course, overall, the map seems quite well done. It may be misleading to just give complaints like 'this one starting position is terrible, I don't understand it at all!' , but you've made a map I've played at least a dozen times, and probably more in a few days - so nothing wrong with that. Like a lot of the concepts as well.

In 1 v 1 , close starting positions makes for incredibly short game. But that might be necessary problem for chance drops.

[random21]

oops. mistook HJ for HI. yes, HJ isn't fantastic, but I think HB is quite a bit worse. HJ you still have easy pickings.

[SirJohn13]

In my opinion HF is by far the worst position. Has very little access to bonuses (only a village) and it takes a long while to expand from there due to absence of a knight. In a trench game especially it is catastrophic.

HB is fine I think. Truth is it is quite vulnerable to attack from 2 catapults (but so are all but the 4 corner castles), but it has great attacking potential, plus 2 villages next to it.

Overall, all other positions are playable I think (some might be a little better, but nothing great)

These comments concern 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 games. Multiplayer games are a whole different story and I haven't played enough to be able to judge if starting position matters and to what extent.

Also, I have found absolutely no use for the Cathedrals or the College of Cardinals so far, after quite a few games.

[random21]

Really? HF is a pretty strong position in my experience. You have 1 village, and 4 woods.

I suppose HB I have had bad dice experience in beginning with trying to take villages. Even waiting and letting the castle build first for extra troops. Still, HB has no easy pickings i.e. Mines or Woods... and I believe it is the only one.

HF lack of Knight is made up for by 4 woods and a village, with a very accessible port. HF is a backbone for your troop income.

Although, ... I never play trench. And so I can't say for that gameplay mode. But yes, perhaps Knights are much more powerful in Trench.

In any setting but trench though.

For trench, I sort of see the argument here. Because everything is right next to HB castle, it is easily accessible. But then it only works for trench.

[Kabanellas]

Very interesting analyses JCMS

...anyway I'm not really expecting to make all castles completely equal in terms of predominance/importance in the game.

Truth is that they're different, as they should be, with different characteristics from one another. Actually, there's no map where that possibility of unbalance start doesn't happen (unless a totally symmetric map - which I personally don't like), even in maps with no starting positions. There's always that particular continent/bonus zone that everybody wants, which the guy with the most favorable drop is more likely to get.

I really enjoy playing this map as it is... honestly Of course that there's a lot of possibilities when it comes to change the gameplay here..... and that's because there's so many sides to it. I really had to choose when I was conceiving this map, and that was freaking hard!! because you just can't have the best of all worlds on one.... and there's always sooooo many options

That said, I'm about to make the following changes:

-Switch HA3 Knight with HA1 Archer (Graphics and XML change)
-Reduce HB2 Knight neutrals from 4 to 3 as it should (XML change)

[Kabanellas]

I was working on the XML, when something occurred to me concerning the Archer/Knight swap.

Currently A01 is on a midpoint between HA1 Archer and HJ6 Archer. With the swap HJ Castle will have an easy (more direct) control over A01, which means some predominance over HA castle.

I could suggest some changes to compensate one of those options. Swapping or maintaining things as they are.

1- Leave HA1 Archer as it is, but reduce HA3 Knight neutrals fro 3 to 1. Making it easier for HA castle to expand.
or
2- Swap positions between HA1 Archer and HA3 Knight , but reducing the Archer neutrals from 2 to 1 and possibly A02 from 3 to 2.

[JustCallMeStupid]

Hey Keban,
I see your concern with Castle HJ having an advantage over HA castle via the archer but that archer has a 4 on it and is extremely discouraging to take. I still think the swap of the knight and archer would benefit HA more than it would hinder it. And again allow the quick bombard move to be overcome by using the knight to come back. I like suggestion 1 best and I would also suggest that the catapult could be reduced to a 3 so that at least theyd have a 1 unit retaliation advantage.

Ive played about 12+ games on the map and I have never seen anyone ever take A01 before round 10 in any game. I just realized I have to play that map some more I have no games on it right now.

[greenoaks]

Also, I have found absolutely no use for the Cathedrals or the College of Cardinals so far, after quite a few games.

with 54 games on this map i didn't even notice the Collage of Cardinals and have never taken a Cathedral until a few games ago when someone else took one so i had to to take them out.

[SirJohn13]

Update: I was playing a trench game and managed to dominate the council and gain access to the king.......Opponent smartly got hold of a cathedral and was able to bombard my council members in the next round. So in this case it was actually really useful.

But in non-trench you just attack head-on from your nobles

[Robert The Red]

Hi
Can anyone explain the hex numbering, though it looks to be random i am sure there is some logic to it. R hexes i assume indicate road so would that mean an N hex indicates no road?
Robert the red

[Kabanellas]

N hexes are all the Non-important hexes. They will give no bonus, and they will make you lose 2 armies for every round.

[Robert The Red]

Just noticed archer a16 jumps to a14 witout having to go through a15. not sure you meant it like that.

[HardAttack]

Kabanelas mate, really one another nice art you put up on here, congradulations

There is little point i would like to make, it is the size if it can be made %70 / %70 resized down ?
playing nuclear card games now, and i can not see north territories flashes using BOB.

all the bests.

[HardAttack]

house of finwe has 2 archers but not cavalary,
house of doriath has 2 cavalaries but no archer,

other starting positions are given 1 archer and 1 cavalary...

wondering if it is a mistake ?

cheers,
ha.

[Kabanellas]

Just noticed archer a16 jumps to a14 witout having to go through a15. not sure you meant it like that.

it ended up working like that... But no real harm coming from it.

[Kabanellas]

Kabanelas mate, really one another nice art you put up on here, congradulations

There is little point i would like to make, it is the size if it can be made %70 / %70 resized down ?
playing nuclear card games now, and i can not see north territories flashes using BOB.

all the bests.

Hi HA!!!

The small map version was the best I could do considering space vs legibility. As for the differences between Houses/Castles they're part of the concept. Different characteristics for different game-play.

[mano]

I found out that Knight D5 can not attack n43. It is supposed to, right?

[Kabanellas]

I found out that Knight D5 can not attack n43. It is supposed to, right?

oops!

It should! I'll correct it

[mano]

Thank you. Great job on the map btw!

[mano]

Because Kings Court II is a 'beta', you can change the map during the play right? I don't mean to pressure you, but I'd really appreciate it if the move from D5 Knight to n43 could be added. Thanks in advance, mano.

[thenobodies80]

Kab, the Community is calling, do the few adjustaments needed, then we're done with this map.

Nobodies

[Kabanellas]

http://www.freewebs.com/kabanellas/KC2_Version3.2.xml

Last update (V3.2):

HA3 Knight - Neutrals reduced from 3 to 2
HB2 Knight - Neutrals reduced from 4 to 3
HD5 Knight - Can now assault N43