Massachusetts

Thanks Aero for the nice wording! I delayed a bit to translate "holds no punches" though... :D I don't know if you can find some significant impassable in that area. Except maybe the Hudson River if you consider to include part of the State of New York as I suggested, but that river is not worth for improving any regional defensibility (supposing to draw regions more-or-less corresponding with the states in place). Then I think that in my draft regions were already defensible considering the cases of 8-10 territories with only 4 borders as a good defensibility. And what is cool is that it's based on real counties, this avoids the drawing of strange shapes or unrealistic counties. New York or not in any case the map name should be changed if it includes also Rhode Island and Connecticut rather than the simply Massachusetts. The only good name I can find is Southern New England. (?) Honestly I got pretty excited by my own draft and I could not resist to go ahead with that, finalizing the design better. If it cannot be called an excellent game-play, I think it is at least good, and it's geographically accurate. But I think Clarke feels like I have stolen him the area he wanted to represent, since I don't know what to do. Knowing Clarke's graphic ability, shown in many of his map attempts, I'm inclined to propose a collaboration as it was between Aero and I for the Italia map: one caring about game-play and geographical representation and the other one caring all that concerns the graphic realization. As a matter of fact is something that makes the work less intensive for both. As I said it would be too hard for me to draw the map by myself and probably I would never reach the quality required, but I think Clarke can hit the target in that department! ;)

I agree Bishop. However, I have just begun my busy time at work for this month. But in about a week, my work slows down and I have more time for maps. So give me a little time & I will post a rough draft here of what I have come up with based on all feedback.

I think this collaboration is a good idea and I believe it is a good combination of graphic ability and game-play vision. Good luck guys, I can't wait to see how this develops!

Okay, thanks for accepting my collaboration Clarke! ;) I'm also having a hard week at work really... but I think my vision is almost completed, I just need to 'graphicize' it a bit, as I cannot use telepathy to communicate. [b]But wait, a question first.[/b] Are we allowed to make a map with 45 territories? Because I know it's in the forbidden range, but what can I do if I got a 45-territory vision? [i]The forbidden range is to avoid the starts with a number of territories that is multiple of 3, being unfair for the players that are not first in turn.[/i] But I don't think 45 is so bad. Because the problem is only for 2-3p games. I mean there's a very large choice among maps from 24 up to 44 territories, one must be a bit dumb to chose a 45-territory map for 2-3p games. I think 48 is worse and we have one map in that range even if forbidden, and also 60 is much worse in my opinion but it is not forbidden at all. It's not that I want to encourage the production of maps with 45 territories but I think at least 1 or 2 of them can stay as there is no other way to set 5x9 games (I mean 5 players with 9 territories each). What do you guys think? Clarke do you agree with me?

For 45, 46 & 47 territories, as you say it is only 2 & 3 player that is affected by 15 starting troops. However, here's what I read into the restriction... The forbidden amounts are for those territory amounts that give at least 1 additional reinforcement to all the players in a low player game such as 2 or 3 players, but where the first player to play has the ability to reduce at least 1 of the other players by 1 reinforcement by conquering one of their territories. When reinforcements are so critical to the game, this first move would be one that was exploited by any average player giving them the ability to have the upper hand just by going first. The advantage is not so critical as reinforcements get much larger, but when they are between 3 & 5 reinforcements, this is critical to winning and losing the game from turn 1. Having said that, I believe it is just the 2 player games that can be exploited in this way, because in a 3 player game, it is difficult to take 2 players down by 1 territory unless you are adjacent to both with your reinforced territory and don't lose any on the first player, giving you the possibility of a 2nd attack on the 2nd player, but even then after conquering 2 territories, they have to then be defended with sufficient troops. If all 2 player games were 1v1 (with rematch), the restrictions on the map territory amounts wouldn't be so critical. But alas, the restrictions are there for a very good reason and from experience I have seen players exploit any tiny advantage they can, because of a glitch or discontinued map or reinforcement advantage such as (36 - 38 & 45 - 47). I don't believe 48 - 51 are too bad because they only affect 4 player games and apart from the new consecutive 2v2 team game, there is no overall advantage. I would say please try for a fairer territory quantity that still gives similar starting reinforcement amounts such as 52 - 54 territories. (Edit): I put up a spread sheet of territory amounts for just such a reference as this: http://www.dominating12.com/forum/?cmd=topic&id=2026

What aero says is true but it's not a mechanic. I mean, each game the first player changes. It would be great if our programmers could implement that if there are 12 or 15 starting territories for below X players, the system automatically reduces by one the number of assigned territories for each player and cover the rest with neutrals. It would enable some interesting set ups like the one Bishop mentioned.

If you want to make a map in the forbidden range, make it but just know it won't get released until the code gets modified like Psymon suggested. Maybe if there was such a map waiting to get released we might be more motivated to do this.

Bishop (and everyone) here is a rough layout of Southern New England based on the actual county lines as they exist in 2015. I only had to move 2 tiny parts to avoid 4 corners. So if we use this as a staring point, where do we go from here Bishop? Take your time and turn this into something worth playing. If you want, I can "zoom out" even more showing more of the north and west. But I wanted to see what you can do with this first. [spoiler] [IMG]http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e277/Richard_B_Clarke/SouthernNewEngland_zps6994dee6.jpg[/IMG][/spoiler]

Okay, thanks Clarke, I'm studying the thing...

Okay, here I am! @Clarke - I'm really sorry with you for my long absence and I don't know exactly how to apologize. Let me just say that unfortunately my busy period has been being much longer than predicted. So here the file that I produced. Substantially the same design of the previous one, but connections and nomenclature have been adjusted. Every thing redrew better in solid colours so that you can easy work on it. Also added minimap, title and windrose to get an idea of the general layout. [spoiler=Southern New England Draft][img]http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/new-england-05_zpssvjpr146.png[/img][/spoiler] This is just for showing to the public but obviously I can provide a file with layers. So now please Clarke let me see how you can transform this draught in a wonderful map. Because I know you have the capabilities to do it! If you are still intentioned, of course. [b][i]Map Description[/i][/b] You can just comment the image as you see it. But I'm adding some more descriptions in order to share all my thoughts and feelings about this map. [spoiler=Title]Southern New England. Considering that New York is not part of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England]New England[/url], then the complete name should be like [b][i]"Southern New England and the Hudson Valley, including Long Island and the metropolitan area of New York City".[/i][/b] But it was too long! I found the Hudson Valley sometimes referred as the [b]New Netherland[/b] since I suppose [url=http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/kingston/colonization.htm]Duch Colonies[/url] and British Colonies had a similar and common hystory. And also nowadays I think New York is strictly related to the Southern New England that it seems right to me to include it in the map. The Northern part of what is called New England is a less populated area compared to the Southern, and also I could not add it without getting the map very scrolly. Then in some sense I wanted to represent the whole New England and I prefer the word "Southern" in the title to stay smaller than the rest. (Casually I have just found an almost identical concept [url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1929_New_England_road_map.jpg]here[/url]) [/spoiler] [spoiler=Cut]Related to the previous subject, this map started with Clarke which wanted to make a map of Massachusetts, but the shape looked a bit weird for a game board. Since Aeronautic suggested to expand it to include Connecticut and Rhode Island; also in consideration of the historical meaning of this area, where the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party]tea revolution[/url] was one of the factors that bring the English colonies to the Independence of the United States of America. Then I suggested to expand it even more to include Long Island and part of New York (I didn't mention before, also a small portion of New Jersey) Really I was lucky to encounter [url=http://www.nws.noaa.gov/os/water/hydromaps/ct-hydro.gif]that map[/url] that inspired me to this cut. Getting satisfied in gameplay having at least 1 peninsula (the southern Massachusetts) and 1 islands forming a sort of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_sea_%28oceanography%29]mediterranean sea[/url] (Long Islands). Plus the use of the real counties seems to naturally form defensible regions without using debatable impassables like rivers. [/spoiler] [spoiler=Bevels]As I said it is based on real counties but in some cases I had to adjust them a bit, mostly to avoid 4-corner problems and double names. In few cases dividers have been slightly adjusted to be more clear even if they didn't create an actual 4-corner problem. 5 counties belong to New York City corresponding to the [url=http://wikitravel.org/en/New_York_City]5 boroughs[/url] of the town, but with different names: - Bronx county (=Bronx); - New York county (=Manhattan); - Queens county (=Queens); - Kings county (=Brooklin); - Richmond county (=Staten Island); They all are merged in a unique territory taking the name from the second of them. But I don't know, perhaps it's better to call it New York City (rather then simply New York) or maybe also NYC can be cool (and short). Same for the New Jersey part. that mostly belongs to the New York metropolitan area, so Essex, Hudson and Union have been merged to form a single territory, as well as Passaic and Bergen. Two big counties have been halved. One is Worcester (MA) divided in Upper and Lower; the other is Suffolk (NY) where I added a new territory called [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hamptons]The Hamptons[/url]. That's a very peculiar area of Long Island and in my opinion it deserved to have its own territory. The county of Boston also is called Suffolk, but I preferred to name it as the city and also I enlarged it a bit to fit the game marker (aka "circle"). The small Bristol county (RI) -- bordering with the larger Bristol county (MA) -- has been eliminated from the game and merged to New Port. The remaining double name, Middlesex (MA) and Middlesex (CT) has been solved naming the second as the main town of the area: Middletown -- that still reminds to the actual county name. I added sea connection just where I felt they were logical. I intentionally avoided to connect Kent and New Port in Rhode Island, so that region is formed by 4 territories with a circular connectivity. It's intended to be representative of the discontinuity of this State (with many islands and coast meanders). And also +3 is a great bonus for a small region, since I wanted to make its shape a bit harder: as you can see you cannot bunch all your troops in one territory to indirectly defend all the region borders. I also avoided to connect Fairfield (CT) to somewhere on Long Island to not ruin the Southern New York defensibility. [/spoiler] [spoiler=Regions]Regions are based on the real States, but Massachusetts has been divided in two, as well as New York. Then I propose the following names and bonuses: - Northern New York (+4); - Continental Massachusetts (+5); - Southern New York (+5); - Connecticut (+6); - Rhode Island (+3); - Peninsular Massachusetts (+2). Two New Jersey territories belong to Southern New York. I thought to create a small +1 region but it gave more problems than benefits to the general design. Plus I never liked 2 territory regions, they are too much luck based for me. [/spoiler] [spoiler=Size]45 territories. This is a critical point because it's a forbidden size due to the multiple-of-3 problem. Really it only effects 2 and 3 player games and still is a good size for 4 and 5 and not bad for 6 and 7. Mostly I want a map of this size to be able to set 5p games with 9 territories each one. Vexer already gave his response on this subject and the map will be activated only when the anti-multiple-of-3 function will be implemented by one of the programmers. Since we need to convince them that it's the case to spend some energy more to make this map available. Since I need you to make a good job Clarke! In the end eventually we'll feel proud for being the authors of the map that caused the [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrY9eHkXTa4]redemption[/url] from the forbidden range, so that every mapmaker in the future will be free to create maps of every size without restrictions. And eventually we'll celebrate with a famous Bob Marley's song! (off-topic) [/spoiler] [spoiler=Gameplay]Nothing special, just standard, but this is why it's special, because nobody want to do standards. Like Word Classic, only few regions look feasible. It is a condition that force players to do rough evaluations from the start of the game: <<I can take the continent, but someone will try to stop me, it's the case to fight or not? Maybe is better not, but also it is not the case to give it for free... >> and so on, with strategy and psychology involved. But still the larger regions have a role in the game and sometimes someone achieve to conquer one of them. People tend to make maps with many feasible regions so that players can build everywhere on the board. But here I want to be a bit in counter-tendency to balance things out. I think a map somehow similar to this one is the old [url=http://www.dominating12.com/image/map/3.large.jpg]USA map[/url], nowadays deactivated. My feedback from one game played is that I had a great fun on that map. This one has the same size and a similar region partition. [/spoiler] [spoiler=Capitals][url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/NewEngland-2caps_zpspl6bmvv7.png]2 Caps:[/url] Boston, New York. New York has more adjacencies and ways out, but Boston has a great vicinity with the small regions. They have 2 separated paths between each other and what is more cool is that they actually are the 2 major cities of the area. [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/NewEngland-3caps_zpsuvxbcivu.png]3 Caps:[/url] Albany, Boston, New York. Just added another important city on the map. They are not perfectly distanced but I think it can work finely. Boston is a bit more a part but with a greater possibility to hold some bonuses. [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/NewEngland-4caps_zpsa6bqg9ke.png]4 Caps:[/url] Albany, Middlesex, New York, Middletown. Pretty well distanced with a good tetrahedrical path scheme. They all are inside a large region and they all have exactly 3 ways out, it doesn't happen in every map! And also notice that the crossing paths don't touch the other cap adjacencies so you are not forced to unlock someone's cap to reach to another's one. A cool note: they are just the "two New York capitals" (Albany and NYC) and the two Middlesex counties (MA and CT) -- which in some sense are intended to substitute Boston and Hartford in the role of capitals. [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/NewEngland-5caps_zpstjfo3yht.png]5 Caps:[/url] Greene, Upper Worcester, New York, Middletown, Dukes. Poor Dukes a bit more a part with 2 ways out only. But I couldn't find anything better. [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/NewEngland-6caps_zpswjnc0ihq.png]6 Caps:[/url] Greene, Franklin, Boston, Rockland, Middletown, New Port. New Port is the only on a region border. But notice in case he will try to conquer the region he will stay with one way out only -- not so smart in a 6p game -- and also he will not be able to indirectly control all the region borders from his cap because someone can break him in Kent still leaving him almost blocked. These are the conditions with in my opinion one can sometimes mix internal caps with on-border caps. The same for the next placements with 7, 8 and 9 caps. But with 7 and higher on-border caps are less of a problem. In case of 9p it is not only New Port but also Ulster, but always respecting the same conditions of one way out only after conquering the region and no complete control on region borders. [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/NewEngland-7caps_zpsk9gyhdad.png]7 Caps:[/url] Greene, Franklin, Boston, Middletown, New Port, Bergen, Suffolk. [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/NewEngland-8caps_zpspmhwqpnb.png]8 Caps:[/url] Greene, Hampshire, Boston, Rockland, Middletown, New Port, Barnstable, Suffolk. [url=http://i1354.photobucket.com/albums/q700/Photo_Bishop/NewEngland-9caps_zpsg9y80q5f.png]9 Caps:[/url] Schenectady, Hampshire, Boston, Ulster, Middletown, New Port, Hudson, Suffolk. [/spoiler] That's all. I know Clarke is already overloaded of work for finishing the Hawaii Double map. Since I cannot push him to start this one immediately, but I hope in the next future. By the way for the moment I am not pressed because my busy period didn't end yet and unfortunately it will go on another couple of weeks. But in any case I'm going to do my best to follow the progress.

I understand your desire for a less common gameplay, with harder-to-defend regions, but I feel there is a flaw: The two obtainable regions are right next to each other. I feel that whoever gains the first SE region will easily gain the other, and since the other regions are much harder, it would be a victory for that player (of course not in all cases, but in most). In World Classic the easy regions are far away from each other. I feel that Long Island could possibly be made into its own region to give another small region to go for. The overall gameplay would still have large regions. Just a comment and suggestion, not thoroughly thought out - just be initial thoughts. Remember that I support the desire for a map with overall larger regions. :)

As always Bishop you are very thorough in research, description, provision of backup plans, analysis, game-play & set up. (Size Spoiler above) I applaud your tenacity to try to force the programmers to make changes to the game program in order to automatically reduce forbidden numbers, but I very much doubt they will be able to fulfill the task by the release of the map, due to their very long list and being in the middle of lobby changes. Therefore, what will happen if we get to the point of Beta and it is still in the forbidden range? My best guess is, that it will be pounced on by advantage seekers & teamers and exploited as much as it can be. Perhaps you should consider dropping 1 territory or adding 7 more, as a backup plan ready for Clarke to work with graphically, so have 2 versions ready?

@Virtuosity - I can conquer the +4 region much faster than you conquering +2 and +3, and then you'll be the target for the other players, you got the higher bonus and they can steal from you one of your small regions. Also South New York region doesn't look so hard, I mean large region, but with an easy shape to be conquered and preotected. @Aeronautic - Thanks for your appreciation. I don't think to change the number of terriotories. In case I can add a legend with a warnign like this: [b]"Avoid to play this map with 2 or 3 players, may be an unfair game!!"[/b]

@The_Bishop that warning would be like a TV Advert for Teamers. If you are not changing the territory quantity, I would say nothing and we'll monitor it for exploitation until the program is changed.

I think you're all being a bit exaggerated. Maybe I'm too optimistic but the first player won't be always the same.