Korrun wrote:

I'd be all for some sort of "factory" that can add to or take away from number of attacks, fortifies, cards... Cards would be fun. Take this territory get an extra card, take that territory lose all of your cards... Token territories should probably be higher on the new feature list though...

Koran, That's an interesting feature that hasn't been suggest before, but I was referring to something that I think is more powerful in terms of functionality - allowing cards to be members of factories..

http://www.wargear.net/wiki/doku.php?id=designer_workshop:proposed:card_membership

weathertop wrote:

berickf wrote:

CTF.

got any ideas on gameplay? 

First off all, you need to normalize all the coloured crap in the top left to be the standard terrain types of the rest of the board.  It would be cool if you could get one player to get any one of the three dark red spot on the top (to be their 'flag' territory), and the other player any one of the three on the bottom, such that the game is a bit more variable and not a set routine each time as BoW & BoB largely are.  It could be random for both players between all six territories, but, I'd worry on the situation of both players ending up adjacent on the same side of the river.  That could make for quick unsatisfactory games.  Probably best if the win mechanism were holding the flag territory at the beginning of the turn, but, I don't like how Tom steals 'elimination' stats from win mechanisms as it shouldn't in any two player scenario.  Alternatively it could be a capital mechanism, which would actually be more realistic as far as 'capture' the flag is concerned, but probably more difficult to program in an adequate defence on the board considering the random start would make it a bit of a feeling in the dark situation.  Anyway, random capitals are not available as a designing tool and I don't think that win mechanisms can be random either, so, I guess what pops into my mind is not even possible to make, so, still shelfed with regard to how I envision it unless someone can come up with a good elimination mechanism.  Otherwise, I love the variable terrain dynamics.  You not only have plains, rock, mud, river, towers, road, trees, etc, but you also have up and down hill.  Like a mixture of BoB and Iwo.  If someone can put forth a good territory allocation and elimination mechanism, I'll put more thought into the terrain dynamics.  It could be made less variable and just have one player start top left and the other bottom right, but then  you'd lose the mystery of it and have a lot less variability between games... But, it would be a heck of a lot easier to program considering the strategy would be more 'constant'.  Then there are questions of abandon on versus off, supply or placement models, visibility having to hold towers/trees versus a more accessible visibility model.  It could be made in a thousand different ways and their are tens if not hundreds of good game models that could result.

Maybe you should give us a better idea of how you envision it playing out and we can brainstorm from that perspective?

In response to your description ideas...

thinking of territory hindrinces
- can only get to the river from the beaches

I say get into the rivers from anywhere adjacent, but, you can only come out at the beaches.  It needs to be more inhibiting to cross the river, but not so much that players only try to stick to the path/bridge consistently.

- the stone pathway would be easily travelled (maybe -2 defence)

Yes, the path should be easily traveled and easily ambushed from stone, grass & trees.  Then, you also need to consider the mods for going uphill on the path versus downhill on the path.

- the muddy grey areas defence +2 (maybe bonus army for holding them)

I think I see the grey areas as stone not mud.  Still, defensive bonuses would make sense being able to hide behind rock as opposed to being out in the open.

- swampy grass with attack bonus (concealed attack)

Sounds good.

- towers of the bridge act as distance artililery

+ visibility.  Maybe something like total fog then 1 space visibility for road/grass if held at the beginning of a turn, then two spaces looking downhill and none looking up.  stone, maybe two spaces visibility, but +/- 1 going u/down hill.  Trees 3 spaces irregardless of up/down hill and towers 4 spaces irregardless of hills, but neither can see to the opposite side of a tree/tower in their direct line of site... something like that.

- hordes? prolly need some starting advantages to the two in the prarie if i keep the red as defined starting locations.

Hordes to hand, or hordes to board?  It could be good having hordes to board so that by owning around your flag armies build up to form a natural defence then there would be the cost of fortifying away to put those units to attack or to maintain them as defence (supply chain model)  But, as each flag has different terrain around it, it could be difficult working out fair advantages/disadvantages for different starting spots.

One weakness for this board is that each side of the river is mirrored and the only differences are those blocked in visibility by the terrain.  As such, both sides have a mirrored strategy and lose any uniqueness to which side one is on.  Balancing 1st/2nd looks more to be an equation rather then creating a situation where one should play to one's best strategy as all the top ranked battle boards currently employ.

I've updated the Aliens image to be smaller. will start to think about game play mechanics 

For Pellets, which way should I proceed with for territories: large pellets or open space

berickf wrote:

First off all, you need to normalize all the coloured crap in the top left to be the standard terrain types of the rest of the board. 

Those are/were tests to see if the translucency would show the player colors through the image overlay. they'll get removed when/if i proceed with the board. 

Maybe you should give us a better idea of how you envision it playing out and we can brainstorm from that perspective?

that's the problem, I haven't given it much thought past creating the image... 

And thanks for the rest of your thoughts, they'll be put to good use if/when i pursue this one!

weathertop wrote:

For Pellets, which way should I proceed with for territories: large pellets or open space

It might be interesting if you went with the normal-sized small pellets to show the player color, but then offset the unit number for the pellet onto the adjacent black space. If the text color were white, it should work nicely.

weathertop wrote:

I've updated the Aliens image to be smaller. will start to think about game play mechanics 

Territories 216 and 191 came out oddly, it seems.

Kjeld wrote:

weathertop wrote:

I've updated the Aliens image to be smaller. will start to think about game play mechanics 

Territories 216 and 191 came out oddly, it seems.

oh yeah. that's 'somewhat' intentional. 

when i redid the image, i missed those two connecting territories. there was originally a territory that bridged that gap, but when remaking the image i forgot them. I didn't want to delete the territory out of the designer until i figured out what i wanted. 

- delete them as there doesn't need to be another way in/out of that central area up there
- keep them (and fix the image to include them because it *does* need another way in/out
- keep them as "hidden" vents somehow 

Kjeld wrote:

weathertop wrote:

For Pellets, which way should I proceed with for territories: large pellets or open space

It might be interesting if you went with the normal-sized small pellets to show the player color, but then offset the unit number for the pellet onto the adjacent black space. If the text color were white, it should work nicely.

can you do that? Play with text position that is...i thought the text was right on top of the territory placement in the designer?

while waiting for a reply, and just in case...i made a small pellet version

weathertop wrote:

Kjeld wrote: It might be interesting if you went with the normal-sized small pellets to show the player color, but then offset the unit number for the pellet onto the adjacent black space. If the text color were white, it should work nicely.

can you do that? Play with text position that is...i thought the text was right on top of the territory placement in the designer?

Yeah, you can. Just make the fill territory bigger on the fill layer than the transparent window (i.e. the pellet) on the board image layer. You can then place the text on top of the part of the fill territory that is hidden by the non-transparent part of the board image, but the color will still show through the transparent pellet. Raptor used the same trick on this board with the pirate ships: http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/Pirates+of+Pangea

I think you get better theme adherence with the small pellets.

So looking at it again today, I don't know if there's enough room to put text anywhere with the small pellets...unfortunately; cus I agree, it has better theme adherence.