Flaming Skies (Draft v 0.0.0.2) {Poll added, please vote!}

[b00kw0rm]

Ok, so here's my (very badly drawn, I'm no artist) idea for a map. There are 8 floating castles, 4 dragons of each color flying around, and a floating tower. The top room (throne room) of each castle starts off controlled by a player, with the rest of the rooms neutral 1s. The dragons start out neutral 3, and the wizard's tower starts neutral 75.
[bigimg]http://lh6.ggpht.com/_nWl28b9M6Hg/S8c2JChS04I/AAAAAAAAAGo/ZGfx9EvQWiw/s720/mapyay2.png[/bigimg]

105 total territories
4 of each color dragon
9 rooms per castle
1 Wizard's Tower

Holding your entire castle grants a +2 troop bonus. The caves (small rooms coming off the bottom floor of each castle) can attack the dragon of the castle's color. Two of the four dragons per color can attack other color dragons.


You win by killing all your opponent's troops, or by holding all 8 throne rooms.

Factions:




previous draft:
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_nWl28b9M6Hg/S8TEb3QG2qI/AAAAAAAAAGg/GBmHoZIKdrQ/s576/mapyay.png

[Domovoi]

And the +2 troop bonus will be sufficient for conquering a 75 troop tower?
Or do I understand it wrong?

Anyway, not a lot of people will be excited because of the graphics, but I like the idea I hope someone is willing to turn this into a draft.

[b00kw0rm]

The +2 is in addition to the normal troop bonus. And you get spoils, and you'll be taking over other castles. The point in the 75 is to keep this from coming in to play early, when you can wipe out a player quickly, since it bombards the objective.

[lurkerleader]

Took me a double read - I believe the tower is a separate area then all of the castles - If you look closely It may be near the center of the map, near the silver dragon...

From this tower, you can attack all the castles from the top and work your way down - otherwise your stuck attacking dragons and caves at the bottom of the castles (That is just my understanding, you did not say the castles are one way attacking the caves below them)

Edit - The red castle seems to show the caves a bit better then your other castles - If you choose to update your graphic in the near future, you may want to use this one as a guideline, your other castles seem to have caves sitting next to them and above ground.

For now you may want to temporarily change the name of your Tower territory to something else, I can see how it is easily confused for your castles. Furthermore, you may want to call it some sort of weapon or transportation hub because I do not understand why a single floating tower connects all the castles to their roofs. Also try to come up with some sort of map stats, such as a territory count (from memory I think you had 6 rooms, 1 starting territory, 2 caves, and 2 dragons per colour and 1 neutral tower = 89 territories), number of bombarding territories (1, the tower), starting territories (8, 1 for each player) and anything else unique about your map idea

[MarshalNey]

This idea has a lot of potential. If you could make a bare-bones drawing- just use geometic shapes, don't both drawing- that involves territory count and the stuff that lurkleader mentioned, there might be more to comment upon.

[00iCon]

It sounds like another City Mogul, but I'd support you from the graphics viewpoint. I can see how exciting this map can look.
Idea: The castles could be based on different national architechtures and the dragons can also vary in style!

[b00kw0rm]

It sounds like another City Mogul, but I'd support you from the graphics viewpoint. I can see how exciting this map can look.
Idea: The castles could be based on different national architechtures and the dragons can also vary in style!

This was one of my base ideas. Each castle could also have a crest that would appear on each dragon somewhere and on the castle building itself.

[Industrial Helix]

Perhaps just one dragon per castle? Having five of the seems redundant.

[b00kw0rm]

Perhaps just one dragon per castle? Having five of the seems redundant.

If you're gonna have an air force you're not going to want to stop at one fighter.

[TaCktiX]

Thanks for posting some sort of image to give us an idea of what you're thinking. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.

I'll be honest, when I read the title I hoped someone had a WWI dogfight map on the other side of the click. The title does not quite fit the source material. Yes, thar be dragons here, but you've got more to draw from to make a cool title, like the castles THAT FLY, the Wizard's Tower of OBSCENE POWER, and the Throne Room of DOOM (I'm exaggerating a little bit).

One argument you're going to run into is the "symmetry is baed." Generally speaking, it is. With exception to a few tactical moves, the gameplay can boil down to who has more awesome dice. Great for the St. Patrick's Day map, bad for most maps. I would suggest partial symmetry. Everyone starts out with the same castle, but there are other floating islands, varying routes from dragon to dragon, etc. Keep the "all dragons can attack the wizard's tower" element, as the Power of the Tower (poet and I didn't know it) should be available to all and a threat to all in the late game.

Hope these help toward developing this idea further. Go out and hit up GIMP or Paint.NET and see if you can spruce the draft up a bit. You'd be amazed with what a little creativity and a lot of determination can create.

[b00kw0rm]

Poll added to see which theme more people like.