This is my first attempt at a map. I'm really still in early building stages, but now that I have the hang of things I'm curious what adjustments would be smart before pouring toooooo much work into it.

https://www.warlight.net/SinglePlayer?PreviewMap=49997

One of the major thoughts I have is balance. The other being am I making this map too intricate (i.e. too many territories)?

The black lines throughout the rest are going to be regional bonuses.

The intention is to make a 3v3v3 or 2v2v2 map here if possible.

Open to all suggestions and criticisms, your opinions make my map better (hopefully).

Edited 11/26/2015 21:32:01

Finally a Cascadia map! You're doing a good thing.

I was saddened when there wasn't one yet. Figured there's no better time than the present.

One of the distribution modes will be Vancouver/Seattle/Portland.

Edited 11/26/2015 06:44:40

Starting out: it looks cool. Size doesnt seem to be that big of an issue for 3v3+ type games. Just eyeballing it at around 500-600 territories total, that shouldnt be prohibitive. Think that popular Game of Thrones map, but a little smaller. But since repeated compliments for what looks like a fairly interesting map would get boring, I'll go on with just a few thoughts on it.

The (-2) design for the bonuses will make it a little slower, thus essentially extending the map size for better or worse. Such a uniform application of (-2) may also end up a little boring (tough to keep a good balance and keep it interesting at the same time, but a few variations, even if it's used fairly sparingly to boost the messy middle might help?).

The Lunatic is OP currently. At the moment, whoever gets that starting point seems to have a MASSIVE edge on the opponents, particularly with the universal (-2). Sure things like this can be counterbalanced by a different number of picks being granted, but generally a player is given 3-5 picks, whether auto or manual. Is there a specific position you would *always* want your picks to be? And if not would it be a huge disadvantage? Indicates imbalance, if so. Some areas are much easier to defend than others, and that's okay, but the overall layout of the level gives natural benefits to certain easily defended areas already. Try to counterbalance it out to take the map shape into account (Think Italy in RoR. Some very lovely bonuses, but at the cost of being very hard to defend and difficult to quickly/quietly take. UK isnt a very strong bonus, but its positioning is gorgeous and it's fast to take--balancing it out to make it one of the more favorable superbonuses. Each of the superbonuses has some big territories, some small, but the naturally defensible ones are typically less powerful, at least until you take a neighboring superbonus to balance it out, and this is a good thing.)

In practice: Northern Coastal Forests has 5-5-3-1 (yikes) and has 11 potential fronts and 8 defense points. It also has two parts isolated by a secondary superbonus, and no current means of connecting them. Yukon Tundra has 3-3-2, far faster capturing, and the same superbonus value (4) while having 7 potential fronts and 6 defense, plus bordering the already gorgeous Coastal Icefields. Coastal Tundra can punt NCF around too. As the field grows wider, the balance inherently is going to stretch a little thinner. Sometimes you can counterbalance this by introducing super-super bonuses, but it's delicate.

Lastly, variance in movement. You have some nice bottlenecks etc, but as you get to the broader parts of the map it looks like it could get rather monotonous if it's so many large bonuses with so many fronts. Will just be a cascade from one tip or the other. No way to really tell yet, you've not drawn that in, but just be aware. Maps like large USA are agonizingly repetitious and have to be *HUGE* to work. Again I'd point out the Song of Fire and Ice map--it's big, but there are a load of natural features put in it to break it up.

Also: something is odd about the coloration on the unnamed territory above Skagway. Overlapping superbonuses and bonuses is cool, but the actual border coloring is wonky.

Cheers to the good looking map! And for Alaska. Should be interesting

Thank you, that's exactly the type of analysis and input/critique I need at this stage. I'm hoping to ensure this map works really well for intricate gameplay.

Couple further questions: 1) by 'Lunatic is OP' do you mean I'm a lunatic? (only interpretation of OP I can thing of is Original Poster in forum terms) :P 2) isn't there a way in distribution methods to prevent the Lunatic from ever being a start point? (I just thought it was a fun additional bonus for going the long route north) Though now that you get me thinking about easily defended territories, maybe the lunatic should be -5 or something rather than a positive bonus.

I'll certainly switch up the -2 method. The superbonus values are very much undetermined as of yet.

Can you think of any methods for creating large breaks in the middle? Possibly rivers. Maybe a Can/US border with only particular border crossings?

First of all, great looking map. I can't wait to play on it.

Secondly, no one is calling you a lunatic. Ysayell1 is referring to your lunatic in a raft.

Thirdly, OP stands for Over Powering. A person starting in Lunatic in a raft would have an unfair advantage over every other player.

Fourthly, you could define many distribution modes where lunatic is not a starting point, but most people aren't going to use your predefined distributions. They will just use the "all territories" option.

Once again, love the map and can't wait to play on it.

ONe thing that I noticed was that the territory 29 for the Haida gwai bonus is too small to contain the army number.

No idea what Cascadia is, but having a quick look at the map it looks like the number of territories will be fine, just don't go much higher :)

It's okay Fleecemaster, we know who we are. ;) For clarification though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascadia_%28independence_movement%29

It's also where three of the better North American footy clubs call home, making it a battleground for the Cascadia Cup. There's even a song https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=y9Bc_rK4Eio#t=38

I'll update the first post in the thread as the map makes significant advances.

Also, I was trying to figure out the best method for analysis of the map's balance and it dawned on me that if there was a simple feature for map creators, we could apply some basic graph theory analysis to help everyone make better maps. So I went and made this thing: https://warlight.uservoice.com/forums/77051-warlight-features/suggestions/10872177-allow-map-creators-to-better-analyze-their-map

Edited 11/26/2015 21:34:55

I wonder if the USA would ever split, feels like I hear more and more all the time like people want to... Texas, confederation, now this...

Ironic given that the EU mostly only exists because the USA wanted to encourage Europe to become 1 entity to make it easier to deal with...

Edited 11/26/2015 22:53:54