[Abandoned] Pixel World

[DiM]

Hi BelJoDoe, I havent been keping up to well with your map becasue ive been busy, but here what i think of hte latest image.

1. Make the sea area darker to help the land area stick out better. At the moment its all to balanced and confusing (for me at least)

if the sea is darker it will tend to catch the all the attention. (imho)

2. Are the sea areas playable? If not would you consider taking out the seas grip lines, this will again clear things up a little and may even reduce the need to darken the sea area.

nope they aren't playable. but i think the little dots in the sea should stay. they help locating the markers. perhaps dampen them a bit but not removed.

[/quote]

[BelJoDoe]

Hey Gimil, I did as you suggested and made a version of the map to show the effect.
Personally, I'm not too happy with the way the guide-lines look over land (I widened the land-based lines but kept the sea-lines thinner, this should further differentiate the two). I'm thinking that when the map is actually in use, most of these problems will disappear because the numbers themselves -arranged in tight lines going across and down the map- should help people to judge the territory locations.

Here's the map that Gimil suggested:

[gimil]

for tines i ment a constant grey line with low opacity at only 2-3px.

not at bits of the map lol

EDIT: the sea looks much better now and i feel the map is easier to undestand.

[BelJoDoe]

I took away the cyan lines and replaced them with the grey ones, you requested.


Personally, I think I preferred the original, very thin cyan lines, only passing through the sea tiles. I do like the look of the 'new' sea though. I think taking out the black bits in the sea looks quite nice. I'll wait to see what others think about the guide lines and the sea however, and then adjust appropriately.

I'm still of the opinion that we won't need guides on-land simply because every territory will have a number in position and these should act as a neat line, helping players to read the map. Also, I think that any lines drawn on will mostly be obscured, when the numbers are in place.
When I've got time, later, I'll try out some numbers on the map and see how it looks with/without the guides.

Keep the suggestions coming

[gimil]

im ot a fan of the lines either . . . .

lol

but the cyan ones werent much better. i think its an issue better resolved with a fuller image

Could i request a version with hte thick black lines with a little opacity. set it at maybe about 80-90%?

[insomniacdude]

Now that the sea grid is out (looks MUCH cleaner that way, brilliant) than I don't think there will be a need for guide lines. Teh whole map is cleaner and clearer without the sea dots. However, if you still want to include a guide, I like the second one you threw out the best - a thin cyan line in the seas and a very opaque fat line on land.

As for gameplay -

If players are starting in the bonus regions, and the wastelands start neutral, don't have a 5 border and 1 behind them. I'd say make everything even - 2 if possible. But I would have to agree with whoever said that players should start off in the wastelands and the bonuses should be neutralized. Again, maybe with 2 on each square. 20 neutral armies for a bonus of 6 is more balanced than 30, I think.

I also like the idea of giving a bonus for a whole continent. Say leave each bonus region valued at six, and then a whole continent at 18. So, 1 bonus region = 6, two bonus regions = 12, and the whole thing = 18. That would give balance a lot in Europe's favor, though, with such little wasteland. And that leaves a big question about Asia and how to split that up. Perhaps divide that into two continent: northern Asia and southern Asia? Hm. I do think a player should get some incentive for taking a whole continent - they would have to work hard to do it. Some palyers are going to do it naturally simply to consolidate borders.

I think you should give more countries to Antartcica. Take a cue from World 2.1. Maybe put 3-5 squares in there instead of just one. I don't think I like how Australia can get to South America in 2 attacks.

I think the idea of making the seas playable should be visited. Thoughts everyone?

[mibi]

whats 'paired' mean? I dont get it.

[Coleman]

whats 'paired' mean? I dont get it.

There are two regions of each (or a very similar) color, if you have all of both you get the paired bonus.

I do think that would need to be made clearer if people like mibi don't immediately understand. I don't have any good ideas as to how at the moment that doesn't involve a wall of text, something this map lacks the room for.

[BelJoDoe]

Well, I doubt he has a problem with the word itself because the past-tense verb of 'pair' is fairly common, standard English. I guess the problem must be associating the verb to the shapes in the legend. I'll see what I can do to correct that, perhaps moving the paired shapes closer together, while at the same time moving the shape groups further apart from each other, a little.

I'm just adding some numbers at the moment, to try teach people -at-a-glance- what the titles "Sea of Grey" and "Islands of Grey" mean. I'll make the neutrals size 2, for now.

[Coleman]

Oh, you have enough support, have done enough drafts and revisions, and fit within the size guidelines for a small map. So I feel okay with moving this to Map Foundry. Congratulations!

Keep up the good work and please keep improving the map.

[edbeard]

by paired you mean 2 regions of the same colour right? so just put that there

[BelJoDoe]

Thanks, Coleman. May your reign of benevolent terror result in many such statements

Good point EdBeard, I'll make the colours match still further and then I think the problem will be cleared up. Thanks.

[klinlin]

Just a point.

Do you want people to hold the oceans as well?

If not why bother with thepixels

[mibi]

I think the problem is you have shades which are too similar. You have 4 shades in the red gamut, so which are the pairs? I suggest pairs be exactly the same hue.

[oaktown]

could you show us another sample of the current version with 1, 2, and 3 digit army counts so we can see what we'd be dealing with? The last one was a bit tight, but it looks as if it's a bit roomier. It will also give us a sense of whether or not the current color scheme will work without army shadows.

[BelJoDoe]

Mibi: The red regions aren't paired... they don't pair up. I had seperated them in the legend to differentiate the red regions from the others and wrote "No paired bonus". It's deliberate. The other regions, on the left, are paired. I've tried to make this a little more apparent in this update (below).

Oaktown: Here's your sample:

This sample was taken from the south of South America. I chose to make the sample here because it has a nice mixture of sea and land tiles, as well as a 'thick' black border.
The sample and both maps below show the SMALL size map. With the larger size, there will be even less cramping.


Update:
1) I reduced the opacity of the thick black lines slightly, as requested.
2) I fiddled with the legend slightly and added a new tag to further highlight which regions are 'pairable' and so aid players in understanding the map's bonuses.
3) I altered the colours of some of the bonus regions, making them more similar and therefore more like they are linked to the similarly coloured region that completes the 'pair'. Hopefully this should avoid further confusion.
4) I made a visual representation of the "Isles of Grey" and the "Sea of Grey". At the moment, these also demonstrate the changes detailed above...
(NOTE, the numbers were added by hand and I haven't lined them up perfectly, yet. Their positions will be altered slightly, when the time comes to write the XML file, so please don't request that I move any numbers one pixel or two pixels in any given directions... thanks).

Sea of Grey
Here, the players begin in the bonus regions and must wade through the 'grey', neutral territories to reach other bonus regions. The neutrals should act as both a slowing influence (allowing players to see in advance when their enemy approaches) as well as hampering the attacker, causing him to lose armies before the final approach. (I used size 2 armies for Neutral but the actual number that would be used is still under consideration)


Isles of Grey
This time, the players begin in the non-bonus region. Players will however begin with more armies on the first turn (10) but players control none of the territories in the bonus regions.

[mibi]

I think instead of pairs you should due a capital type bonus, since you can pinpoint cities fairly accurately. Also the 10+ territory bonuses will be tough to get in the first place, id imagine a pair would be next to impossible, especially with all the borders.

[Coleman]

I think when it does start to happen it will be 2 or more people achieving it at around the same time. So it probably isn't unbalanced or unreasonable. The high rewards help. This is something that may be hard to prove will or will not work without some sort of testing, but there is no way I could fit real pieces on something like that.

[mibi]

I think when it does start to happen it will be 2 or more people achieving it at around the same time. So it probably isn't unbalanced or unreasonable. The high rewards help. This is something that may be hard to prove will or will not work without some sort of testing, but there is no way I could fit real pieces on something like that.

do you think someone can defend 15-20 borders against other players starting with 20-45 armies per turn? The high bonuses make it an impossibility. I'm afraid you will never see a pair bonus until its too late, in the end game.

Capitals is better and what world 2.0 and all the other world clones lack.

[yeti_c]

But like most maps - you can pick and choose your borders... and narrow down the defence points...

C.

[Coleman]

I think regardless the standard risk rules won't work here. Players moving first would always have a huge advance with their higher territory count. More so then any map before this one.

So the neutral territories seems to be the only workable option. Unless the rules were to be changed so that it is 1 army for every 9 territories or something else, which is very possible with the current xml.

[yeti_c]

I'd forgotten about that idea - we were gonna do that for Doodle Earth...

But of course - this sort of query wasn't considered for World 2.0? You always start with at least 8 armies on that map - and can quite easily carve out an area straight up?!

C.

[BelJoDoe]

I quite like the idea of players conquering parts of the 'wastes' in order to gain territory bonuses but if we reduce the territory bonus to 1 from 9, this might effectively stop players from pursuing that course.

Perhaps if I made some borders size 5, so that players have the choice of defending in other places and trusting in the neutral country next-door to protect them?

[yeti_c]

Hmmm it'll be tricky to balance... but of course you could have something like

9 = 1
12 = 2
15 = 4
18 = 6 <- carry on back to normal...

So this will ensure that the first go is not too over powered and further rewards people for carving out their territories... (What was the number of territories to start with on IoG?)

C.

[DiM]

Hmmm it'll be tricky to balance... but of course you could have something like

9 = 1
12 = 2
15 = 4
18 = 6 <- carry on back to normal...

So this will ensure that the first go is not too over powered and further rewards people for carving out their territories... (What was the number of territories to start with on IoG?)

C.

good idea. it gives you an incentive to take neutrals but still nullifies the advantage of going first.

PS: what's IoG?