I was just thinking the other day about maps... considering the 40 player games, it wouldbe pretty interesting to have a historical type map... IE: on simulating the shape, say... of europe? With the british isles and ireland and so forth.

one castle could be ireland, 1 scotland, 1 england, some shallows for water for passage to normandy (maybe the chunnel? LOL)

then castes on europe for the other nationalities... ir would be interesting and fresh.

then maybe some varience in troops could be added for nationalities if it wasnt too much trouble... say the Swiss Pikemen are +5 or +10 attack compared to other naionalities, or english archers better, something historically oriented such as that.

I just noted that the ONLY race is Mideval of campaign. and all the maps are kind of random looking puzzle piece type... if there was a map and race editor we could submit our work to Req and he wouldnt have to do the work on such a project.

I like this idea. It is historically based.

I like the idea of an "historical map" also but it has been suggested before (i.e. not exactly as suggested here but basicly suggested).
I forget why but I think the biggest concern is that the map would be too difficult to balance for fair play and then there is all that open sea area where castles can't even be placed of course.
Also there is the problem of a ship unit at least for transport of troops which is not as yet available not that there has been any mention of one being available in the future either though.

TR

The map would be very hard to balance. You could never have completely fair starting positions, which we are pretty close to having on the current maps. But if people are willing to accept that some positions have certain advantages and disadvantages the map could be balanced by adjusting terrain and resources. One position may have a good easily defended position, but may lack some resources.

It would require a lot of playtesting to get a fairly balanced map. So far Req has made all of the maps, but if he wants to he could leave most of the work to the players. A group of player could post suggestions in the forum and discuss how to improve them, and vote on which to submit to Req. He then adds the map for playtesting. Changes are discussed and submitted again to Req after voting. Soon we'll have a new fairly balanced map.

The water problem could possibly be solved with passages of shallow water. Maybe not the most realistic solution, but it would do the trick for now.

A race editor would be harder to implement imo. A lot more balancing issues are involved.

First we'd need a good size map gif. Probably a pretty large one. I tried one that's 360x360. Maybe that's too big, but on a smaller one the castles hardly fit.

hem.spray.se/robert_porschke/map_europe_test01.gif

...hmm, maybe I should wait to see if there is any interest in this before doing any more work... and ask Req what he thinks.

what about luxemborg and lichtenstien? Or The vatican? these countries are too small.... plus someone who say is in france, has more kingdom than someone who is say in Ireland.... and that water = bad mobility so if your water bound = your SoL.

True, but from a defensive stand-point water is a good thing.

I like this idea and think it's pretty intriguing, but as dby said, it will be awfully tricky to get this balanced correctly. I'm somewhat doubtful that we would be able to balance it enough to ultimately make it playable (also as dby said, we could never completely balance this, but people would have to come to grips with the fact that there are positives and negatives to each castle location--even still I don't think we could get it to THAT point).

Possibly worth a try in terms of development, but I would probably bet against it ever coming to fruition (though, I'll be the first to admit that I'm a pessimist).

Ok, I knew I couldn't resist. Here's the same map gif with terrain: hem.spray.se/robert_porschke/map_europe_test02.gif

I also doubt that it would be possible to balance enough to make it a ranked campaign. But I think it's possible to make it fairly balanced for a fun unranked game. The gif image is the easy part, now it needs castles, resources and other blocking terrain. I wouldn't put one castle for each present day country though, borders and such looked a lot differen i the dark ages - but I think it would be better to concentrate on making a balanced map than a historically accurate one.

If there is enough interest we could ask Req to add the map gif to the map editor, after some critique and improvements of course - or perhaps an entirely different gif.

Yes, it could be fun for an unranked game....

I agree that putting castles in the place of every country is not reasonable, but rather trying to sparse the castles evenly (or somewhat) would work better. I'm thinking of this campaign as "historical fiction," where what would you do if you controlled X area in a medievil Europe (or something like that).

I like the idea as dby has framed it.

if we will play "historical" scen its no problem with to many place for one player, just divide the kingdoms to baronies, duchy and so. its lso historical
Dorw there was no Vatican City in middle ages, there was a Papal state wchich have from 1/6 to 1/2 of todays italy

I like this idea, but it would take to long to cross through the water. Maybe the movement cost could be lowered in those games?

Nice map "dby"
and yes we did discuss the idea that the "balance of fairness" could be assessed somewhere between "natural defences and available resources" before also.
Again I like that idea as well even though it would take considerable time to determine a fair balance because (e.g. it can be argued that although the Italian peninsula was lacking in mineral resources, it had rich volcanic soil for farming and plenty of stone).

It can also be argued that Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica which islands tended to provide a supplement of minerals and especially wood from Sicily to the Italian peninsula are not all shown;
and I'm not really sure if it can be argued that because most of Scandinavia is not shown it should have more resources because I understand that most of that land is subject to extreme cold much of the year and anyone who has tried to work "frozen ground" knows it is next to impossible and at best extremely slow.

In any event I think the map is well done and even the water crossings should work well except that I understand I think that a "three space bridge" may possibly be available in the future and I wonder if it will be able to span the "English channel".
I don't think it would really detract from the scene though to be honest.
Again I do like it and I'm anxious to see just how big it is with castles on it. Will more than one or two castles fit on the Italian peninsula and also on the British isles and just how many spaces is it across the English channel?

PS:
If you "search the forum" under "Suggestions" and type "historical map" into the "blank field" you should be able to find a thread entitled something like "How I'd like to see Waronline evolve" by "ReV".
I would "bump it up" except that has not been encouraged either but those interested might want to read what has been discussed there.

TR

Last Edited : Thursday, 25 November 2004 - 03:36

You can see a castle on the first map, the red square just above London. But I've made anotherone just for you, TR ...and I got a bit curious myself. I could fit 44 castles with roughly the same distances between'em as in the 10-player map:

hem.spray.se/robert_porschke/map_europe_test03.gif

At the narrowest point (dover-calais?) it's only 4 squares of shallow water across.

Here's Req's answer to that old thread you mentioned TR:

Requiem [R]
Posted : Wednesday, August 06, 2003 - 01:53
"Maps resembling Europe, etc arent very practicle.
First,the maps arent that large to show all of europe, or even a single country. The scale isnt that large.
Second, real maps have lots of useless terrain like water, sea, etc, which ruin GAMING maps.

The maps here are for Gaming, not realism.
They have to be designed to be balanced for ALL players, and to fit as many players without wasting space trying to make the map look like a pretty map of europe.

All nice-to-haves, but really dont improve the game at all, but rather just make things far more complicated."

He sure is right about the scale - but does it really matter?

Water is also a problem - just as it was in real life. Enemies of England have sure had some trouble crossing that 4 hex channel. I don't really know if the large "useless" areas of water present any technical problems. Some players like Scottland, Norway and Rome are pretty isolated - that can work to your advantage or disadvantage depending on your approach. It's really easy to defend your resources, but some political skill is probably nessecary.

I won't push this much further if there isn't popular support for the idea - and it's useless if we don't get the approvement of Req.

Last Edited : Thursday, 25 November 2004 - 08:46

Maybe the shallow water should be dispersed like this instead?
hem.spray.se/robert_porschke/map_europe_test04.gif

It's hard enough to make a crossing and this would provide a bit more freedom. A bit easier to make a sneak attack. I also thought about a waterway between Norway and Scottland, but it would take an entire game to cross.

Thanks "dby"
It sure looks great.
I didn't see the castle in the first map the first time I looked. I guess I looked too soon.
I sure hope we can give it a "go" but
"well no comment".

TR

PS:
Some of the sea area could be eliminated even more (i.e.):
a) take another 20 spaces off of the bottom edge
b) take another 20 spaces off of the western edge
c) take 10 spaces off of the top edge
d) take 10 spaces off of the easten edge
e) from the east coast of Britain take 20 to 30 spaces right out of the middle of the map

I know some castles will be lost but I think a slight shift of all the castles can replace them.
Also the map has a great appearance as is but I think a slight contour of the Alps, the northern coast of France/Netherlands and the south coast of France won't detract so much from the appearance and at the top the land passage can be lowered a little between Norway and Sweden without any great loss.

Actually also I know you have put a lot of effort into this map "dby" and as I said it looks great
So I really don't mean to sound as if I'm trying to make improvements on it. I'm just thinking that if the sea area can be reduced to a minimum that maybe you can get a "greenlight" on it.
I'm not sure but I think Denmark and all of Scandinavia can be moved much closer to Britain and I do mean very much closer which could eliminate even more sea space and of course the eastern edge would also have to be reduced to compensate.

PPS:
Well I looked at an an atlas and I guess I have been looking at too many game maps because the locations you have for Denmark and Scandinavia are accurate but I still think the locations can be "cheated" closer to Britain for the sake of gameplay and elimination of unusable sea area.

TR

Last Edited : Friday, 26 November 2004 - 05:32

WOW!

I want to play that map already!

Just a few observations in referance to Req's 2003 post on historic maps:
(1) When I first joined I looked at the maps and said "what the heck is this mess?" the jumbled and unnatural organization of terrain types in a puzzle piece style confused me for the first few games... now I just find it completly unrealistic and garish but I deal with it because I like the game (no offense to req)
(2) I think back then the game maps WERE to small to make a good european map... I only recently have seen 40 player maps, WHICH HONESTLY would be MUCH MORE BALANCED in a european map due to the severe NEED for diplomacy. In the 40 player map now, if you get a bad placement your just jacked up! (on the europe map I'd love to be on the british isles! The water would make it great to defend!

In my opinion WATER isnt "useless space" or whatever. No more useless ant forrest or mountains. Water is a strategic factor ABSENT for the most part in the current maps except for the silly artificial map edge boundary (what use is this anyway? it just makes walls semi-useless to the edge players)

another point, 44 castles might be a bit much so I agree with taurus's idea about shaving it down... sometimes ALOT of players ends up spelling doom for alot of people right off the bat... it wouls be cool though.

also: Balancing resources... I think each castle should have the standard compliment of resources and not try to similate reality... THAT would be the biggest detriment to playes since allies cant "trade" or share resources as was historically the case. Thus each person should get a full plate of resources