South Africa 1885

[Industrial Helix]

@rbelgrod - hopefully beta testing is around the corner then

and it looks like this is stickied, hooray!

[Evil DIMwit]

do the forts replace the standard troop circles, or are the forts additional regions? for example, is pretoria just one region that happens to be a fort, or are there two regions, normal pretoria and fort pretoria?

Forts are separate regions, just like ships.

[Foreverman]

Cool idea. I love the border! If the color scheme on the map could reflect that a little I'd like that. Would also like to see a darker cast, something like we see in Nordic Countries, but with brighter colors in the ornamentation.

[mpjh]

I am not much on details in map, but I like this, can't wait to play.

[brianpregan]

My 2 cents for what it is worth - I do not think you can do a South Africa map in late 19th century without having some angle relating to gold and diamonds. Minimally an auto-deploy bonus for Kimberly and/or Johannesburg. Another option (probably more realistic) would be to do something like the Iraq map where you get penalized for fragmented control and super-bonus for consolidating them all (basically the rationale behind Rhodes' consolidation of De Beers).

[Commander9]

Map looks great and while I've hoped to be able to contribute a bit more than I will, I just can't. Here are few of my thoughts (admitedly, I haven't looked through the thread, so if my ideas have been suggested and rejected, sorry):

1) At +2, Stellaland looks overrated. All of the other +2 have either 1 additional territory or 1 additional attack route. If you've got Stelland, you can easily just build Potchef-Stroom and have to protect just that. Basically, if someone gets that bonus, he gets a HUGE advantage. (Possible solution - add a way to Rustenberg?)

2) Not sure if it wouldn't interfere with the gameplay, but I'd like to see more spirit of Dutch vs England

3) Ships and forts will be very rarely used in 2,3,4 players games, I think. IMO, they'll actually only be used enough during 5+ players games. IF that's what you've intended, then it's great. If not, well, a penny for your thoughts

Anyways, can't think off anything else. Looks like a great map - congrats

[Evil DIMwit]

3) Ships and forts will be very rarely used in 2,3,4 players games, I think. IMO, they'll actually only be used enough during 5+ players games. IF that's what you've intended, then it's great. If not, well, a penny for your thoughts

I'm interested to know why you think that.

[Industrial Helix]

@Foreverman - I'll keep this in mind during the next stage. I'm not 100% happy with the graphics, and I'll be making lots of revisions in the graphics workshop.

@mpjh - thanks!

@brianpregan - It's an interesting point you make. I think in having the bonuses for a certain region does in fact reflect its wealth, whether in diamonds or trade or what have you. So in that sense, Stellaland's bonus reflects the gold and diamonds there which made it a valuable place to have. I'm shying away from the battle for Iraq idea because I want to keep the gameplay relatively simple and the map open to many types of game players. Whereas maps like Battle for Iraq, with its complicated rules, attract only a certain type of game player. Thanks for your thoughts though!

@Commander9 -
1) Hmm... good point. Though I think a connection to Kimberly might work out nicely as it keeps the two small bonuses in check with each other. On the other hand, with Potchefstroom, the number equals to 4 for 2 extra men, much like the Aussie bonus in Classic (which I think is what I had in mind when I designed it). I'm pretty hesitant to change the political borders of the time for gameplay sake, but I'm more amiable to reducing the bonus to 1. Let me know what you think.
2) Dutch = Natal, Transvaal and Orange Free State vs. English = East, West and North Cape. It's there, just under the mask of the state names.
3)To me, I think that it's not so much the number of players that will bring the forts/ships into play but rather the type of cards. In escalating games the forts and ship might as well not be there because its all about eliminating players. But in a flat rate or no spoils game, a player with a longer term strategy can use the doubling of bonuses to secure the game. As Evil Dimwit said, I'm curious to know why you think this. Thanks for your thoughts!

[Industrial Helix]

OK, reduced Stella Land to 1.

Click image to enlarge.

[Evil DIMwit]

I think the territory count and neutral list in the first post hasn't been updated in a while.
That said, as Ian points out to me, 38 is not a good starting territory count. Better to add a starting territory to make it 39 (or remove 3 to make it 35).

[Industrial Helix]

Ka-Kow! 39 Territories appear like magic!

And a mountain range as well.

Click image to enlarge.

[Evil DIMwit]

That works. Now let's just hope no one spots another issue before this gets stamped.

[Industrial Helix]

Well, if there is an issue I'd rather it be spotted than finding out about it too late.

[dolomite13]

So I didn't feel like reading the entire thread however I had a few questions sorry if it has been asked and answered somewhere.

1) are forts inside the territory they are in. meaning do i need to conquer "Pretoria" and then conquer the "fort" inside it? or can they be attacked from adjacent territories... for instance would "Amsterdam" be able to attack the fort inside "Pretoria" not?

2) do the forts and ships double any bonus you have anywhere? or do they just double the bonus if the "continent" that they are part of?

3) there are no forts or ships for 4 of the smaller continents. I assume that you cannot double their bonus.

Just an observation ... Seems really easy to get the double continent bonus. You might consider lowering the continent bonus or simply having the forts and ships be autodeploy +2 or +3 to simulate shipments of weapons.

Looking forward to seeing this one advance

Just my 2 cents worth =)

=D=

[Industrial Helix]

No problem, I don't like reading entire threads as well...

1) The forts and ships sit on top of the territories they occupy.
2 and 3) Yes, they double all bonuses. So you can hold a ship and hold Basutoland as well... and its just occurred to me that its going to be a ton of XMLing to write that

and on your observation: Well, the idea behind the doubled bonuses is to a) do something different than autodeploy and b) simulate the power of a population of people in the region and then show how much more powerful they are as an armed people. I'm trying to play off the various wars in the regions where the situation was for the British is that they had a bunch of angry Boers or Zulus on their hands and then all of a sudden the British find out they're armed and ready for war. So I'm trying to create a situation for players where the nature of the game is precarious as it is, but then can change in a round where one player is very powerful and must be dealt with.

[ender516]

I think the most straightforward way to deal with the XML is to create a continent called "a source of weapons", which contains all ships and forts, but only one territory required, and zero bonus. Then each bonus will require two continents, e.g. "Basutoland", with a bonus of +1, and "Basutoland with a source of weapons", with the obvious component continents and with an overriding bonus of +2.

[isaiah40]

Looking great IH!! I don't see anything that is jumping out at me right now, so let's get this thing into graphics!!

[Industrial Helix]

@Ender - Hmm... very good idea. I was sitting here thinking I would have to code each continent combination! Thanks!

@Isaiah - Thanks man!

[saraith]

Looks good to me... Stamp it!

I have only one question, though... Where's Stellaland?

[Industrial Helix]

Stellaland would be that triangle looking thing that resembles a fetal conjoined twin to the Transvaal.

[Evil DIMwit]

Looks like everybody's cool now. About time to move on.



Congrats.

[isaiah40]

Congratulations IH!!!

[natty dread]

Congrats

[Industrial Helix]

Oh hey... the graphics workshop.

Welp guys... let the criticism come in. I want to get a feel for how you guys think the map ought to look before I go about spending my time messing with the graphics. I'm not too committed to this current version, so if anyone wants to suggest a massive overhaul, now is the time.

Do you guys like this version? Do you want a style more like old paper? Something more realistic? Something more African?

So I'm going to give it a week before I start to move on this, all crits, feedback, ect. is welcome.

[natty dread]

let the criticism come in.

Ok... where should I start.

The linework on the mountains looks shoddy. It's pixelated and looks too obviously computer-made... there's no variation to the line thickness, you can see the size of paintbrush they were drawn on. I suggest making the lines look more "natural", like they were drawn with actual pen & ink + getting rid of the pixelation... Also the background colour of the mountains could use some "blotchiness" - give them a more worn-out look.

The map in general could use some grunge. This is supposed to be an old map, right? So make it scratchy, worn, faded out... take a bumpy old paper texture and spice it up with random scratches...

Then of course you'll need to change the forts & ships but I don't need to tell you that. But overall, the visual style of the map is very nice - try to retain that clean style of the map while adding some dirtyness and grunge to it... I know, I seem to contradict myself here...

What I mean is, keep the clean style of the borders, text, bonus colours & other features, but add some worn-out & dirty "feel" to them... I hope I'm making sense