Ancient Realm

Well, I don't think this map is going to be player by more than 5 (?) players, so are those high numbers of players supported with capitals, because finding 9p caps might be a bit hard on this map. I could always try and find some capitals, but I don't think I am very good with it...

Well I don't expect to be that busy at work today Vexer so I will definitely take a look at the map and see what I can come up with for Capitals on this map. I will have to use my phone to look at the map though unless you can send it to me through an email so I can look at it on my work computer. I would really like to see this get finished as I believe we need more maps from the imagination.

Ok so I'm writing this from my phone so please bare with me on the spelling and punctuation. I came up with a rough draft of Capital positions for 2 player games through 9 player games. Believe me I thought the same thing when I thought playing a 9 player game on this map is madness but I did it anyway. 2 player cap territories - Anosis, and Arum 3 player cap territories - Utis, Engona, Antas 4 player cap territories - Utis, Anosis, Engona, Antas 5 player cap territories - Utis, Anosis, Engona, Antas, Agrona 6 player cap territories - Ethano, Terraga, Engona, Bythasul, Afrius, Agrona 7 player cap terrtories - Ethano, Terraga, Engona, Bythasul, Afrius, Agrona, Eulia 8 player cap territories - Utis, Ethano, Eulia, Terraga, Engona, Bythasul, Afrius, Coreta 9 player caps territories - Utis, Eulia, Ethano, Oland, Terraga, Engona, Bythasul, Afrius, Coreta Remember this is a rough draft for them and is open for discussion just would like to help get this map finished soon as the bottleneck gameplay seems interesting. Any input on these would be helpful.

2 player I had terragon and estalon in mind, but I guess this is also fine? 3 player Not spread apart equally. From Utis to Engona is 5 steps while the others are 4 steps. Also there are two completely different paths between Utis and Antas, while the other paths all can be blocked with one territory 4 player Again not spread apart equally. Moving the cap from Anosis to Oland will make it a bit more fair, but then there is still a shorter distance between Oland and Utis. Counterproposal: Coreta, Olmana, Amoris, Ibenas 5 player Same as above, but I don't have an improvement right now. 6/7 player Terraga is further apart from the other capitals than the rest. 8/9 player Bythasul and Engona are again further away. This is just what I think about it, maybe you can do something with it. Also Engona blocks off two territories, I guess that also counts for something.

The problem with making caps on this is that with the bottleneck nature of the map the higher amount of caps you get the harder it gets to spread them out to where you don't have one of them on a temple space and also don't have one of them blocking a path along with making sure they have more than one way out from their capital. Like I said though those territories I had listed were a very rough draft.

Any other ideas on Cap positions for this map from anyone?

No, but isnt it an idea to put caps on all temples for much players?

All premium members and map beta testers can now create deathmatch games on this map. I only had time to input it, I didn't have time to look at the capitals.

https://mattiasbeimers.nl/assets/img/extern/d12/ancient-realm-caps-matty.jpg My main goal was that every cap was reachable from every other cap, and with two completely different (not overlapping) paths. Apart from that the spacing is somehow the same (exactly the same like Cireon wanted is not really possible alas). I took Holt's caps as a basis, but changed alot. 6p, 8p and 9p has caps on borders, but then there is another cap in that region as well. So no region is an easy prey. Overall i'm really happy with them. [b]Explanation:[/b] 2p: I thought, why not use the two corners, seemed the obvious thing to do. Not sure why Cireon and Holt took caps so close to eachother. Many combinations are possible though, I prefer this one, but others are ok to me as well. 3p: Moved Utis outside the center region, to get some more spacing, and better paths. Moved Engona accordingly. 4p: Utis blocks a path to Engalius (by far the most important territory for caps in this map). By moving this one every cap has two paths to all others. Moved Anosis to Agrona to get the distances between caps right. I looked at Cireon's suggestion here, but he had caps on borders and caps off borders. I guess that will become unfair in fixed card games. 5p: Moved Utis for the same reason, moved Anosis to get better distances to other caps. 6p: Again I could get there to be two paths from each cap to each other cap. The spacing ranges from 3-7 now though :S A possible improvement could be to move Terraga to Agrevon. I didn't do it because It would make alot paths longer from Terraga, and Engona - Bythasul is 3 long anyway. 7-9p: This is painful, there is a path from every cap to every other cap, and the spacing is not too bad, but owning the wrong terriroty can screw your game here. The cap in Ethano has a short path to everyone, while the others have some short and some long paths. Still, not too bad for such a small map I guess. I moved caps from Afrius to Antas because alot of the paths go through Engalius, and this way there is one unlucky territory less to own to block the path through that one. [b]Plain text capitals:[/b] [spoiler] 2p: Bahar, Paresova 3p: Anosis, Antas, Agrona 4p: Ethano, Engona, Antas, Agrona 5p: Agrevon, Ethano, Engona, Antas, Agrona 6p: Terraga, Ethano, Engona, Bythasul, Estalon, Etribus 7p: Terraga, Engona, Bythasul, Antas, Agrona, Ethano, Anglova 8p: Oland, Terraga, Engona, Bythasul, Antas, Agrona, Ethano, Anglova 9p: Oland, Terraga, Amoris, Osur, Ethano, Bythasul, Antas, Estalon, Etribus [/spoiler]

You got me to play two live games on this map and I love it. Its absolutely beautiful and has a neat gameplay. Thanks Vexer!!!

Nice work Matty on the caps, there are however some things that bother me a bit (sorry..) 2p caps: I can understand what you mean by this and I can see your point but in my opinion, I dont think it could work because of various reasons. One being that you would not be able to kill the enemies cap without some sort of bonus and if you ever tried going for the kill from your cap, you would most likely end up losing more than half of your troops along the way before reaching the other corner. The game would become more like deathmatch rather than a capital game. 8p caps: The cap on Argona is a bit unfair since it can only reach Anglova that is 2 territories away. Anglova is also a bit unfair since it also has to pass through 2 territories to reach the closest caps while most caps on the board only have to pass through 1 territory. 9p caps: I dont really like that Etribus has 2 territories between it and the closest cap while others have 1. I have also come up with some cap suggestions for this map. http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/8026/ancientrealmriskcaps29.jpg Granted, not all are fair..But this was the closest I could get.

I agree on my 2p caps being too deathmatch like. Maybe its because if I play 2p games its always deathmatch :) Apart from that the difference between Fendi's caps and mine is that in Fendi's caps the spacing is better. Every cap has a short path to at least one other cap. But sometimes its not possible to reach another cap. Where in my cap its possible to reach every other cap from yours, but sometimes they are further away. Not sure what is most important, personally I think the ability to reach all others is. An example on 8p: My agrona cap is unfair, because its shortest path to another cap takes three steps, while for most other caps it only takes two. Fendi's Coreta cap is unfair because it has no possiblility at all to reach Ethano (and alot of others) without ploughing through another cap.

For 2p to 5p i like Fendi's capitals but i think her 3p is not good enough. My suggestion: ENGONA, ETHANO and AFRIUS. 8P Caps i like matty's. i couldn't make 8p capitals with 2 territories between. BAHAR, AMORIS, AGREVON, IBENAS, UTIS, AGRONA, AFRIUS and AMATRAS.

Your 3p suggestion gives an advantage to Afrius because it is on a border while the others aren't =)

None of the two player suggestions adhere fully to the guidlines. Since this is primarily a 2p map the 2p caps must be right. The most important thing to consider in 2p cap games is how much land you can 'clear out' using the troops from your cap. If you can eliminate all of your opponent troops that are near your cap then neutral will protect your cap and you will start getting an advantage in number of territories. For the caps to be fair, each cap must have an equal number of adjacent territories to make it more likely that each cap will have the same opportunity to clear out the enemy troops that are near the cap. It's best to maximize the number of territories that are adjacent to the capital. This will increase the role of skill, which is important because 2p games require so much luck. It increases the role of skill because a skilled player will know to clear the enemy from around their cap. The priority order for 2p is a little different than 3p-9p so I will list them for you: [list type=decimal] [*]Same number of adjacencies [*]Similar regions [*]Both caps on borders or neither cap on borders [*]At least 4 hops away [/list] They need to be at least 4 hops away because if they are any closer then it could be the case that Player 1 has a path to Player 2 but Player 2 does not have a path to Player 1 because its own troops are in the way. Analysis of the suggestions: Holt - Anosis/Arum - Different number of adjacencies, not similar regions, only Arum is a border Cireon - Terraga/Estalon - Regions are more similar but not good enough (there is a better choice), only Estalon is a border Fendi - Oland/Afrius - Different number of adjacencies, but the regions are good. Matty - Paresova/Bahar - Different number of adjacencies, Zanopia is a better region, Bahar can push out to Engona. My Suggestion: Anosis/Olmana - 4 adjacencies each. The Ordiatova Region has the advantage of being able to take it's entire region using troops from it's cap but it's only worth 2. Arilion has the disadvantage of an extra territory and the region can be broken from 4 different places but is worth 3. You may think that the Zanopia and Ordiatova regions would be a better choice because they are more similar but there are problems. There are only two options to get the same number of adjacencies. Terraga/Engona and Osur/Oland. The problem with Terraga/Engona is that they are only 3 hops from each other. The problem with Osur/Oland is that they only have two adjacencies and It's not ideal to have caps in adjacent regions anyway. Therefore I think the best solution is Anosis/Olmana. I'll be working on 3p-9p next but I don't expect to spend much time on any above 4p because this map is too small for that many players so it's not like that I will be satisfied with any solution so why spend forever just to get a poor solution.