[Abandoned] - A Volatile Earth

by **initus** on Tue Jul 13, 2010 11:44 pm

Mod Note:Abandoned - If resurrected, this one must be checked again.

Hello everyone,

Skillfusniper33 and I are working on a map (our first), so if you could leave some feedback and/or constructive criticism.

These graphics are only a draft, everything will change with the next update.
Current Draft:

Click image to enlarge.

show: A draft of the small version

show: Setting

show: gameplay

show: Map Data

show: Notes

show: Gameplay Workshop Requirements

by **skillfusniper33** on Tue Jul 13, 2010 11:45 pm

Reserved for Updates, and original posts

1st Page will be the current version, 2nd will be all the updates in order.

Thanks for the help everyone, in advance.

show: Original Post

show: 15-7-10

show: 27-7-2010

show: 6-8-10

show: 8-17-10

show: 9-12-10

show: 9-25-2010

by **natty dread** on Wed Jul 14, 2010 2:02 am

Interesting. This has potential.

by **Blinkadyblink** on Wed Jul 14, 2010 2:08 am

I know nothing about mapmaking, but I would totally play this. Good luck!

by **initus** on Thu Jul 15, 2010 2:48 pm

Draft was updated, changed a few things.

Some of the text reads a little differently and played around with bonus amounts. Five more territories were added so that the number of player start territories is divisible by 8. Bonuses for the currents were also added, with a rough amount for their bonus. The transitional territories were made to start a low neutral. Every territory was was color coded (gray and red for neutral, orange for player). Some graphical changes, like the big mass of the core was removed, mostly because I was looking at some real Earth sectionals and it is usually split up into the core, outer core, and mantel. The subtitle of the map was also removed to streamline the name and a rough estimate of the time frame was added instead so that people could more easily understand where this was taking place.

by **john9blue** on Thu Jul 15, 2010 3:55 pm

This has potential. I like the idea of traveling along the streams of magma.

by **initus** on Thu Jul 15, 2010 5:39 pm

Thanks, we wanted to go for something different, and I believe the interconnecting currents of one-way attacks does just that. Anyone have any suggestions on the game play, something that we could implement, or a certain aspect that you are unsure of?

by **TaCktiX** on Thu Jul 15, 2010 6:00 pm

It's a pretty interesting take on the earth when it was little more than a huge ball of flaming rock that kept on getting pummeled by more flaming rock. That and it could work as a primer in geology. So good on you for a solid (and unique) theme. Graphics...we both know they'll need a lot of work, but this is obvious draft work to get a feel for the gameplay, so no true complaint. Gameplay is original, with a mix between Draknor's total one-way, standard attack mechanics, and some conquer-theme to it. Other than the core/stagnant magma gameplay role, I didn't have to search for anything to understand what goes where. Definite good start, get a brief on this one ASAP.

by **initus** on Thu Jul 15, 2010 6:31 pm

Alright, thanks, we will definitely do that.

by **Magiw** on Thu Jul 15, 2010 8:47 pm

I think it's a pretty fun idea with the various one-ways. It has a bit going on, but it has a straight forward layout. Will watch and see how it develops visually. Can't wait to try it out!

by **Kilazul** on Thu Jul 15, 2010 10:04 pm

Looks good so far.

-Not sure what the colored circles are for on the top right.
-I like the stagnant lava. Interesting attack paths from there
- I like the bonus values. Think they are all pretty good minus the core. By holding only 6 territories, only 3 of which can be attacked you get a pretty good bonus.
- Like that you have a neutral in all bonuses so no lucky starts. Also like that you made it evenly divisible by 8.

Nice start!!!

by **phantomzero** on Thu Jul 15, 2010 10:07 pm

I really like the idea. Should make for some interesting gameplay.

by **Bob XIII** on Thu Jul 15, 2010 10:48 pm

i'd play this map for sure! : )

by **skillfusniper33** on Thu Jul 15, 2010 11:05 pm

Kilazul wrote:Looks good so far.

-Not sure what the colored circles are for on the top right.
-I like the stagnant lava. Interesting attack paths from there
- I like the bonus values. Think they are all pretty good minus the core. By holding only 6 territories, only 3 of which can be attacked you get a pretty good bonus.
- Like that you have a neutral in all bonuses so no lucky starts. Also like that you made it evenly divisible by 8.

Nice start!!!

The colored circles are the areas for the territory bonuses. They are working themselves from the outside in.

So if you owned 3 areas on the Crust you would get a bonus of +1.

Thanks everyone else for the liking. Hopefully we will be moving onto gameplay shortly, and can figure out how to make this works best.

by **Kalano Sanchin** on Fri Jul 16, 2010 3:40 am

Hey guys good start and love the concept.

How long are you expecting an average game to go for? Will it be a relatively quickish average or will it beastly to play like The Hive (obviously not that bad)?

by **Industrial Helix** on Fri Jul 16, 2010 7:38 am

I did not do well in my science classes so this map tends to make my head hurt a tad. But I think I get the basic gameplay.

My advice when doing these preliminary maps is to work in the small version first.

by **skillfusniper33** on Fri Jul 16, 2010 12:05 pm

Thanks Industrial, But why the small version first? For spacing of regions and to make sure it's not to clustered?

by **initus** on Fri Jul 16, 2010 2:17 pm

Main post updated with a draft of the small version of the map:

show: small draft

The small draft shows that a few tweaking to the placement of the territories will be necessary, as long as some text will have to be increased in font size, though the blurriness could be attributed to me scaling down the map, I will probably need to talk to someone who has scaled this stuff down before to see if they just did a straight scale down (with the text) or redid the text for the smaller version.

Kal, on the time that this map will take. Well, we don't really know

. We did put in a "failsafe" territory for each player (the meteor) so that even if you are eliminated in the middle, you can still make your way back into the game, and it also adds some more strategy of where you will secure your own bonuses, but other than that, :?:

. It shouldn't be as bad as the Hive, stacking wise, I believe that the current system in place will encourage aggressiveness.

Another thing to mention for all is that this isn't meant to be a representation of the time period, as it isn't going to be completely accurate (well, we really don't know exactly what the earth looked liked, some things are probably going to be out of proportion, and the currents the way they are are a bunch of made up crap) so will probably be more of an interpretation than anything. But it will roughly represent the Earth at that time period and the composition of the Earth at least.

The colored circles in the top right represent the color of each layer, there are currently four layers: the crust, the mantle, the outer core, and the inner core, all in various shades of brown and orange at the moment.

Kila: The thought for the core being a bonus of 5 is that it will be sought after, and, including the stagnant magma, actually has 6 territories that can be attacked, as you can jump from current to current using the stagnant magma as well.

Thanks for your input and questions, everyone.

by **theBastard** on Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:10 pm

nice idea. just for interest, from what you made names of territories? because some of them sounds as Hungarian, some as Slovak and some as Czech.

by **initus** on Sat Jul 17, 2010 3:38 pm

Thanks! We decided given the time frame of the map was what is was, that words relating to fire and translated into a relatively random assortment of languages was the best thing to do. We wanted a different letter to start each word for the region because it would make it easier to name each individual territory (letter followed by number) so we tried different languages and words until we got some that fit. Though now that I look at it, it looks like Hungarian was used twice, so one of those words will be changed into a different language.

Here is the list we used with the key: word translated - language - translation
Fire-Polish-Pożar
Fire-Czech-oheň
Fire-Hungarian-Tűz
Fire-Romanian- foc
fire - latin - ignis
fire - Pinyin - huǒ
fire - german - Brennend
Inferno--Welsh-Dante
Burning - Greek - kafteros
Fire - Afrikaan - vuur
Flame - Galacian - Chama
Flame - Finnish - liekki
Fiery - Arabic - Nāry
Flame - Azerbaijani - Alov
Inferno - Korean - jiog
Burning - Russian - goryashchiĭ
Fire - Turkish - yangın
Burning - Hungarian - égő

by **carlpgoodrich** on Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:49 pm

How do the surface territories attack? The map doesn't say, unless I missed something.

by **initus** on Sun Jul 18, 2010 3:10 pm

Hmm, yes, perhaps it isn't immediately apparent. The surface territories border and attack each other adjacently, but can't attack to or past a volcano. They also can't attack over the lakes of lava, they just follow the arrows from the edge of those.

by **carlpgoodrich** on Sun Jul 18, 2010 4:26 pm

initus wrote:Hmm, yes, perhaps it isn't immediately apparent. The surface territories border and attack each other adjacently, but can't attack to or past a volcano. They also can't attack over the lakes of lava, they just follow the arrows from the edge of those.

Ok, thats what I thought. In that case, there are some fair-play issues that will need to be worked out. For example, the player starting at the 4:00 meteor needs to take 3 surface territs before they can get inside the earth, while the one above it only has to take one. Also, the one at 8:00 has to go through a territ that the one at 7:00 can attack on its first turn. I don't think you can simply put higher neutral counts for some because that will make it harder to get first turn cards. Easiest will probably be to move the entrances...

by **initus** on Sun Jul 18, 2010 4:56 pm

Thanks, though I had known about those issues. I never said nor meant to put in higher neutral counts as some kind of compensation for a shorter path to the mantle, it is just a draft after all, and I was waiting until the gameplay department before dealing with them. Another thing to consider is that the crust is also a "layer" and factors into the tiered layer bonus, so the people (at the moment) that have a longer way to travel, will end up with a slightly higher territory count on the layer, and theoretically a slightly higher bonus to compensate for the lost troops. Also, people don't just start in the meteors, they start with one meteor each, and then a random assortment of the "orange circle" territories, so this possible fair-play issue would only come into effect if people want to break away from the safety of their meteor. Though this isn't an excuse for not dealing with it, it just sounded like you thought that people only started in the meteors, I could be wrong though. But yeah, that issue will need to be addressed/talked about.

by **skillfusniper33** on Mon Jul 19, 2010 12:23 am

carlpgoodrich wrote:How do the surface territories attack? The map doesn't say, unless I missed something.

We will probably be also adding faint arrows between the regions on the surface, to make it perfectly clear. We must have just forgot about them when we had the first update. Thanks for pointing this out.

And to say something on your second post, We didn't want this to be perfectly symmetrical either. More regions also means a larger bonus, which in my opinion completely coincides with having to travel farther to reach the middle, loose a few troops early, and gain a bunch back over time. It will also allow you to reach your 12 territory bonus, or even more.

[Abandoned] - A Volatile Earth

[Abandoned] - A Volatile Earth

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