iancanton wrote:i think this disruption to the gameplay is not only entirely unnecessary (except in rhodesia, where the change is good and logical), but threatens to tip the scales in a way that will turn out not to be beneficial.
i've analysed the last 10 2-player casual public sequential games that have actually finished as at time of writing... the outstanding fact of these finished games is the sheer variety of winning methods, none of which involves securing the chinese bonus. also contrary to expectation, the oceania and japanese bonuses are at least as much in evidence on the loser’s side as the winner’s.
I would contend that a two player game has far less to do with scoring the ideal part of the map than do games with more players. Two player games are going to be all about where the 21 neutrals are on the map and who can lay into their opponent most effectively. In the 1v1 game that I played asia happened to start largely neutral, so the only action that took place there was last round mop-up.
Larger games that I have been in have seen it extremely hard to break Asia, since the routes into/out of Asia are all bottlenecks (as they geographically should be). A single bombardment reflects the historical British influence in the region, which is really what this map is about - European influence abroad and what it takes to break it.
That said, I'm open to further discussion on this matter.
iancanton wrote:incidentally, the start positions do not work as i expected, so that each player receives 24 regions to start, instead of the intended 23. do u know why? is there an easy fix?
The eight coded neutrals change the formula. None of those eight are assigned neutral, thus the # of starts in a 1v1 will be ((69-8)÷3) + (8÷2) = 24. Coding 16 more territories as start positions really screws this up even more - I hadn't thought about that. I may drop that to 8 additional asian starts, which should be just enough to mix up Japan, Oceania, and China, and still provide the possibility of some neutral drops. The new numbers will be ((69-16)÷3) + (16÷2) = 25... a slightly better start number, but anybody who plays 1v1 on a big map is asking for hurt anyway. Expect an update/edit soon.
Edit: And here it is; 16 starting positions, paired as follows:
<positions>
<position>
<territory>Great Britain</territory>
<territory>Australia</territory>
</position>
<position>
<territory>Germany</territory>
<territory>New Guinea</territory>
</position>
<position>
<territory>Netherlands</territory>
<territory>Shanghai</territory>
</position>
<position>
<territory>Austria-Hungary</territory>
<territory>Korea</territory>
</position>
<position>
<territory>Italy</territory>
<territory>Karafuto</territory>
</position>
<position>
<territory>France</territory>
<territory>Borneo</territory>
</position>
<position>
<territory>Portugal</territory>
<territory>Manchuria</territory>
</position>
<position>
<territory>Spain</territory>
<territory>Philippine Islands</territory>
</position>
</positions>
The new file has been uploaded to the same file location, so if lack hasn't downloaded the file yet we're golden... but I'll let andy know about the change.