Korea Japan

caps...
http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/185/koreajapancaps.jpg

403 Forbidden - it sais you removed the image...?

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/185/koreajapancaps.jpg

can i just say that this is easily one of my top 3 favorite looking maps? keep up the good work

I've taken a look at the caps and have some criticisms. I don't currently have the time to come up with counter suggestions. The best I can do is tell you where you went wrong and hope you can fix it. If you get stuck on any of them though, just leave it for me to do later.

2p - unfair because one cap has 2 ways out and the other has 4

3p - seems balanced at first until you notice that they are on borders which gives an advantage to the cap that is in the smaller region, Mie. Would like to see a solution with either each cap in a region of similar size or value or none of the caps on borders. If such a solution is impossible to find then this setup will do.

4p - Mie has an advantage with paths and access to ports. Having the caps on borders gives a further advantage to Mie.

5p - the two caps in Korea are too close to each other. Also N. Pyongan has only two paths out.

6p - the caps in Korea are too close to each other and Pyongyang has only two paths out. You may have to put 4 caps in japan and 2 in korea to get it perfectly balanced.

7p - Looks like fun! everyone can kill everyone else easy and there are multiple attack paths. Shizuoka is the best cap and Hakodate is the worst. But some might also see Hakodate as an advantage. It's debatable but I think 7p is good to go.

8p - seems to be ok. I am not a fan of Pyongyang as a capital because there are only 2 ways out but I haven't come up with anything better yet.

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/185/koreajapancaps.jpg

Try these, other than that ...I need help!

I like this map, but I have one point I would like to bring forward right now. Namely the super region called "Korea". I have seen three games already where it happens that one of the player takes over the whole of Korea and only has to defend two territories (namely the ports) to get a bonus of +18 or so. You can say this is due to the other players not paying attention and also the map structure allows for it, but I have seen this in 3 games already over the last week and that makes it clear to me that this is something that happens often, too often.

Despite the fact that the gameplay of this map in general is very good, because with the ports you can jump around the map really easily, it does create a superregion that in my opinion is just too overpowered. I can already tell I will be losing those games where it happen, unless players really team up against the player, which usually just does not happen (in one of the games I took the initiative to weaken the player, resulting in my death).

So, long story short: I think there is some additional balancing to be done on this map to try and make Korea either less attractive, less overpowered or just harder to defend. The whole of Japan for example is way harder to defend because of the significantly more ports it has than Korea. Thus the easiest solution would probably be to add more ports to Korea (or at least more way to reach it from Japan).

That is what I had before Vexer changed it...more ports in Korea

I have disabled the map until we can figure out how to improve it. The map is still in test phase so we can makes whatever changes we want. All changes will immediately affect current games.

Players who lose because of the change can get their points back by asking an admin. The winners can keep the points they won, however.

So Cireon where should the port be? Or do you want more than one?

Haha, I am not really an expert on this stuff. I have been looking at additional places for an extra port, put that usually results in two ports next to each other or adding a new boundary for one of the existing regions. However, as South Korea has a bonus of 5 and only 3 borders, I think it would not be a bad idea to add an extra port in South Chuncheong (extra border) or Gyeonggy (not an extra border though). I the ports need to be spread out more, you might want to move the port from N Gyeongsang down to S Gyeongsang or even S Jeolia.

However, like I said: I am not really a gameplay expert, I was just sharing my findings. You should probably also ask other people that have more experience than me

Just a small remark here (before I read everything, I heared the main discussion from Cireon just now): There always was a discussion about the topmost region in Korea, Vexer thought it should be 3, I thought it should be 2 (I know muzuanne agrees with me)

How are other players on this?
We have played this map for a while now, so I think now would be a good time to talk about this as well.



About a good port location, somewhere in the top of the +5 region, right next to the +2 (+3????) region in the center of korea.

I guess the left one would do besst for gameplay and the right one best for looks / logic.

Yes Matty, I agree.

Actually I think the problem it's that region and not the number of ports. The Northest region has a big bonus and it's easy to defend and the other 2 regions are quite difficult to control, so most players don't fight for them.

My suggestion it's to create another region in Korea, so there would be more people trying to control those bonus (which I think it will improve a lot Fog games).
 
The new region would be N. and S Pyongan and Pyongyang (and in one of those provinces could be the "extra" port). And now, Gyeonggi and Gangwon would be in Hwanghae region. Anyway I think this in not the best solution because the easiest regions to control are in the North.

Another posibility would be to create a second new region in the South of South Korea: Jaju, N. Jeolla, S. Jeolla and S. Gyeongsang (with another port in Jaju?)

And while you are looking...Caps?
This is a nice looking map, fun for deathmatches, so I it will be played a lot...so lets get this one right.

If we can not get any good caps then maybe this will be just for deathmatches.