[Abandoned] - Switzerland

by **Evil DIMwit** on Sat Oct 31, 2009 3:25 pm

Hmm. If you hold Zurich and Sankt Gallen, you can get a +5 bonus with only 7 territories and only 2 borders. That may be a bit of an unbalanced point.

by **isaiah40** on Sun Nov 01, 2009 10:29 pm

Evil DIMwit wrote:Hmm. If you hold Zurich and Sankt Gallen, you can get a +5 bonus with only 7 territories and only 2 borders. That may be a bit of an unbalanced point.

I agree with Evil on this point.

There is one thing that could possibly be a problem when you do the small map. That is Stuttgart, Strasbourg, Geneve and Lyon may need to be moved up or down to make sure the army numbers don't cover those names up. Also you may want to consider moving Appenzell and Herisau down and away from each other for the same reason. The army numbers might cover up/blend in with each other including Sankt Gallen.

For now that is all I have. Keep up the good work!

by **pamoa** on Mon Nov 02, 2009 1:25 am

Evil DIMwit wrote:Hmm. If you hold Zurich and Sankt Gallen, you can get a +5 bonus with only 7 territories and only 2 borders. That may be a bit of an unbalanced point.

good point two solutions possible
either adding a road from Herisau to a mid point between Zug and Glarus
or increasing the bonus +7 each 11 territories

isaiah40 wrote:There is one thing that could possibly be a problem when you do the small map. That is Stuttgart, Strasbourg, Geneve and Lyon may need to be moved up or down to make sure the army numbers don't cover those names up. Also you may want to consider moving Appenzell and Herisau down and away from each other for the same reason. The army numbers might cover up/blend in with each other including Sankt Gallen.

I know I will have to make some small adjustments for the small map
but thanks for pointing it out
for the moment I'm concentrating on the gameplay

by **a.sub** on Sat Nov 21, 2009 7:58 pm

my main advice for now is to tone down the red, its blinding. and up the contrast on the white areas because you have a gorgeous texture, but its hidden because i am distracted by the red and its hard to see anyway.

show: example

maybe not as extreme as i have it here, but it gets the idea across

by **cairnswk** on Sat Nov 21, 2009 8:36 pm

a.sub wrote:my main advice for now is to tone down the red, its blinding. and up the contrast on the white areas because you have a gorgeous texture, but its hidden because i am distracted by the red and its hard to see anyway...
maybe not as extreme as i have it here, but it gets the idea across

pamoa, i kinda agree with a.sub on this one.
the red needs toning down (darkening) just a fraction, that way also the white glow on the texts on that red might make those words stand out a little more.
After that, i can't see why this shouldn't be on it's way to quench. It's been long enough in the field here....i beleive.

by **the.killing.44** on Sat Nov 21, 2009 8:41 pm

The map is very nice, but the surrounding area is just … meh. There's nothing exciting. You have the most boring sans serif font, plainest color in its plainest form, and no decor. Find some sort of decorative font (Europe is such a great subject for nice fonts); get rid of your "CC Swiss map by pamoa" from the timeline (c'mon, really?); and find someway to make everything work cohesively (that means making the country labels fit in, toning down the red, etc.) and you'll be with a much better project. In its current form it looks like a white fill of Switzerland over a red background with some boring fonts and lines stuck on top of it.

by **pamoa** on Sun Nov 22, 2009 7:05 am

a Swiss map by a Swiss SWITZERLAND v05 new features : German cities bonus +7, red bg less bright, signature

Click image to enlarge.

oh btw killing the plain boring font is called Helvetica
you can now see why I used it

by **the.killing.44** on Sun Nov 22, 2009 1:23 pm

pamoa wrote:oh btw killing the plain boring font is called Helvetica
you can now see why I used it

Yes I can, but it doesn't mean it makes the map look better. Plus, how many people are going to recognize that's Helvetica?

by **captainwalrus** on Sun Nov 22, 2009 5:52 pm

Someone I know can recognize tons of fonts right away, he is crazy. Most people, however, are not like that, and until you said something, I don't really think anyone knew.

(woot, 700th post)

by **ghirrindin** on Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:06 pm

Quite a few people will notice that the font is Helvetica, actually. It's a Swiss invention and fits perfectly with the map. Go with it!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0847817/

by **the.killing.44** on Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:07 pm

ghirrindin wrote:Quite a few people will notice that the font is Helvetica, actually. It's a Swiss invention and fits perfectly with the map. Go with it!

Out of 20,000, how many do you predict? Less than 100.

by **ghirrindin** on Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:21 pm

Do you really want to argue about numbers?

Look, the map depicts contemporary Switzerland, and I think Helvetica appropriately captures late twentieth/early twenty-first century Swiss aesthetics.

by **the.killing.44** on Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:25 pm

ghirrindin wrote:Do you really want to argue about numbers?

Look, the map depicts contemporary Switzerland, and I think Helvetica appropriately captures late twentieth/early twenty-first century Swiss aesthetics.

And it looks boring as shit! The point is, if a huge majority of people don't recognize the font and what it means, it just looks boring. Using it for tert names? Fine. For every single aspect of the map? Just boring.

by **ghirrindin** on Sun Nov 22, 2009 6:43 pm

I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree on the matter then. I get what he's going for and appreciate it, and I don't think he should worry about a couple of people being bored by the font on the map.

Incidentally, this argument is quite humorous, especially considering the discussion that surrounded the last map of Switzerland by Kaplowitz. That map was ruthlessly attacked for not being Swiss enough. Here we have Pamoa's rendition with a Swiss font and Swiss national colors, and yet the foundry community ripped those elements apart.

Although, I will admit that the really bright red was hard on the eyes.

by **Evil DIMwit** on Wed Nov 25, 2009 3:55 pm

The more I look at this map the more solid the gameplay seems. Time for a stamp, that's what I say.

by **jefjef** on Fri Dec 04, 2009 8:40 pm

Hi Pomoa!

Thought I'd stop and look real quick.

I have to wonder how this map would look with diff colors for the neighboring countries. Germ. France. Italy. Instead of just a kinda bland red.

by **pamoa** on Sat Dec 05, 2009 12:08 pm

jefjef wrote:Hi pamoa!
Thought I'd stop and look real quick.
I have to wonder how this map would look with diff colors for the neighbouring countries. Germ. France. Italy. Instead of just a kinda bland red.

thanks for dropping
the graphic concept is the Swiss flag white cross in a red square
so sorry but I'll stick to this
and I'm still waiting for my gameplay stamp :-s

by **Incandenza** on Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:55 am

So having looked thru the thread, I can't help but notice that no one's said anything about what, to me, seems like a large gameplay issue: the dead ends. I count 8, 9 if you include Geneve (which is behind Lausanne). That's a lot, tho solving the problem might be difficult (i.e. adding roads to resort towns, or having all foreign cities be able to attack each other, or something). It's not a deal-breaker, but it's worth talking about, since maps with a substantial percentage of dead-end terits have been generally considered a Bad Thing.

by **pamoa** on Sun Dec 06, 2009 10:35 am

Incandenza wrote:So having looked thru the thread, I can't help but notice that no one's said anything about what, to me, seems like a large gameplay issue: the dead ends. I count 8, 9 if you include Geneve (which is behind Lausanne). That's a lot, to solving the problem might be difficult (i.e. adding roads to resort towns, or having all foreign cities be able to attack each other, or something). It's not a deal-breaker, but it's worth talking about, since maps with a substantial percentage of dead-end terits have been generally considered a Bad Thing.

for me having all foreign cities connected is fine
it's only an instruction string in the legend
if you think it will help the gameplay making it more open
on the opposite adding roads make no sense for me
but maybe inventing some helicopter connection between touristic resorts
it may be an aerial connection theme:

by **Evil DIMwit** on Sun Dec 06, 2009 1:19 pm

Incandenza wrote:So having looked thru the thread, I can't help but notice that no one's said anything about what, to me, seems like a large gameplay issue: the dead ends. I count 8, 9 if you include Geneve (which is behind Lausanne). That's a lot, tho solving the problem might be difficult (i.e. adding roads to resort towns, or having all foreign cities be able to attack each other, or something). It's not a deal-breaker, but it's worth talking about, since maps with a substantial percentage of dead-end terits have been generally considered a Bad Thing.

Really, shallow dead ends -- dead ends with a depth of one -- are all right. You can conquer them, not transfer any troops onto them, and move on from the territory they're attached to. That's not so bad, particularly in a map like this with collector-style gameplay. It's the deeper dead ends that disrupts a player from conquering on through. I only count two of those -- Lyon and Stuttgart. Resolve those as you might, but the other 'dead ends' are fine in my mind.

pamoa wrote:
airplanes connects all foreign cities
helicopters connects all touristic resorts

That changes gameplay quite a bit; it turns each set of collectible territories into a continent of sorts. It'd make the bonuses for external cities and resorts easier to take and harder to hold -- I think that's a negative effect.

by **pamoa** on Mon Dec 07, 2009 6:18 am

sure it change the gameplay
what I see is that my proposition make it more like a whirlpool :lol:

but I must admit I'm not good at evaluating the real impact of the 2 options
maybe should I make a poll
even if until now I had very few answers

by **Evil DIMwit** on Thu Jan 07, 2010 4:46 pm

pamoa wrote:sure it change the gameplay
what I see is that my proposition make it more like a whirlpool
but I must admit I'm not good at evaluating the real impact of the 2 options
maybe should I make a poll
even if until now I had very few answers

I don't think a whirlpool is really what you want to go for -- then it becomes more a contest of luck than strategy. You've already got a fairly open map and there'll probably be a good amount of back-and-forth as it is.

by **pamoa** on Fri Jan 08, 2010 6:00 am

so I should leave it as it is ?
for me it's fine because it was the original design
I don't really like maps where you always have to watch your back to prevent any intruders :lol:

by **Evil DIMwit** on Mon Jan 18, 2010 5:52 pm

A couple of major issues have shown up in cartographer discussions:

A) The number of territories in the map, 47, means that in 3-player games, each player starts with 15 territories, which gives the first player a significant advantage. The nearest territory counts that mitigate such advantages are 44 and 52; 39-43 and 53 do as well.

B) More importantly, in 3-player games, it's more likely than not that some player will start the game with a French cities bonus and that some player (possibly the same one) will start with a foreign cities bonus. Moreover, it is guaranteed that at least one player will start out with a resort bonus. This is not a good thing for game balance.

As far as solutions for B... It's hard to say straight away. Maybe increasing the number of territories needed for a bonus; decreasing the bonus values; and some combination of starting positions. Coming up with a scheme that maximizes the start fairness for this map (without changing the gameplay radically) stands to be no mean feat.

by **pamoa** on Tue Jan 19, 2010 2:53 am

I'm sorry but I'm not good about gameplay issue
and as english is not my mother tongue I'm not sure to understand your last sentence
do you see any solution about what you said

[Abandoned] - Switzerland

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