Click on the picture to check out the board.

I have a 3-player public game open if you'd like to try it out.  I'm open to any and all suggestions.  

HYRULE

by Dubitty

 
Welcome back to Hyrule!

Move about the board as you would in the original game.  
Continent bonus = # of territories.

• Hyrule Field=10
• Gerudo Valley=5
• Kokiri Woods=4
• Lake Hylia=4
• Zora's Domain=4
• Death Mountain=4
• Kakariko=3
• Castle Town=3
• Lon Lon Ranch=2

One-way borders:

• Jump Epona from Race Track to S Hyrule Field
• Swim the Zora River from Gerudo Valley to Lakeside Laboratory.
• Fly with Kaepora Gaebora from Death Mountain to Kakariko Village.
• Fly with Kaepora Gaebora from the Water Temple to the Drawbridge.

Warp to & from:

• Lost Woods/Goron City
• Lost Woods/Upper Zora River
• Lake Hylia/Zora's Domain

Ooo... pretty! 

Looks really nice.

I might suggest using that space in the lower left to put the continent bonuses

and maybe even the special movements directly on the map to see

On it, Johasi.

And thanks!

Folks, let me know if you want me to start another game for you to try.

Good suggestions by Johasi.  It is a beautiful map Dubitty.  Great color scheme.

Looks great - but I don't understand or see how the buttons on the left do anything. Also, the continental bonuses are not clear to me.  E.g. How do I know where Zora's domain is?

The buttons on the left are brand new as of last night and don't have purposes yet -- I'm brainstorming on what they ought to be to bring more balance to the game.  So far I think I'll have them accessible only through their respective 'temples' but I'm not sure what possessing them will accomplish.  When I do I anticipate adding a small note next to each.

Options:

• Each song can attack another song, and another temple through it (so it's a roundabout warp)
• Each song can artillery another temple
• The songs have powers a la 7 wonders map
• Somehow combat the multiple-australia chokepoint problem

Thoughts?

Thanks for pointing out continent borders -- I'll color them in.

I like the sound of some form of that 4th option as the map does have a ton of 'australia chokepoints'

I like the 2nd and/or 3rd options best.  Always good to have special attacks to spice up the gameplay.

How about this: once a continent is secured, any song can be attacked -- and subsequently the respective temple can be attacked through that song.  And songs revert to neutral at the end of the turn.

I'm pretty sure I can make that happen with the board options.

If the board needs 'special attacks' I could always incorporate the 'magic' attacks -- Farore's Wind, Din's Fire, Nayru's Love.

Dubitty wrote:

How about this: once a continent is secured, any song can be attacked --

You can't use factories to create borders.  However, you can have factories capture territories, so I can think of one or two ways you can use that feature to indirectly do what you describe.

M57 wrote:

Dubitty wrote:

How about this: once a continent is secured, any song can be attacked --

You can't use factories to create borders.  However, you can have factories capture territories, so I can think of one or two ways you can use that feature to indirectly do what you describe.

I'm new to factories and it's honestly pretty unclear.  Could you walk me through what you're thinking?

Also, to everyone else: I've set up the magic spells, and

1. I'm open to suggestions for 'powers' or special attacks to assign.  
2. Should I make them reset to neutral, or have them be capturable? 
3. For that matter, should the Songs be capturable after all?

I like the idea of the songs reverting to neutral and for their attacks to the Temples, how about artillery attack with offensive advantage?  You also might want to limit the unit count max on the Songs.  Just my 2 cents.  Others may have better or more clever ideas.

Dubitty wrote:

M57 wrote:

Dubitty wrote:

How about this: once a continent is secured, any song can be attacked --

You can't use factories to create borders.  However, you can have factories capture territories, so I can think of one or two ways you can use that feature to indirectly do what you describe.

I'm new to factories and it's honestly pretty unclear.  Could you walk me through what you're thinking?

Also, to everyone else: I've set up the magic spells, and

1. I'm open to suggestions for 'powers' or special attacks to assign.  
2. Should I make them reset to neutral, or have them be capturable? 
3. For that matter, should the Songs be capturable after all?

 

If you're new to factories, I would highly recommend keeping it simple. Factories can be powerful, but they can also be complicated and they don't always work the way you expect them to when you first work with them - and other game-play related problems enter into the equation. For instance , if songs can't be captured, then you have to consider how the game can be won. If you use capitals, then certain other functionalities must be considered.  Factories can do a lot, but often there is give and take - creating one set of functionalities often means losing others.

M, if he was going to have the Songs revert to neutral at player's turn end (to force the unit count to 0), he could use some hidden (off-playing area) factories to do this, correct?

Let us know when you have another public game open -- I'd be interested in play-testing.

Thingol wrote:

M, if he was going to have the Songs revert to neutral at player's turn end (to force the unit count to 0), he could use some hidden (off-playing area) factories to do this, correct?

Yes, but it would probably have to be at the behest of a factory driven by the following player - and because you can't control player order (actually you can, but that would invoke a whole new set of restrictions), every player would have to have a 'continent' that neutralized the Song's factory.  Not beginner stuff, and potentially awkward in play - these are the kinds of things that I would recommend a first time board player stay away from.  There are other, easier things he could do with Songs.  For instance, he could make it such that each player has different win conditions, where the each song (which either can or can't be attacked) is a part of a different 'continent.'  When that continent is achieved,  the board is Auto captured - or easier - an off board "win condition" territory is captured.

Much of my confusion with factories was due to that I thought this was the definitive guide to them -- I only discovered this today.   Thanks for the ideas, everyone.

For now, I've set up autocapture factories for each continent on the ocarina, which can then attack any song and subsequent territory.  So continent bonuses just show up on the ocarina.  A developing concern is usefulness of the Song warp features:

• if songs don't revert to 0 after a turn, players can build up troops on a song without intention of going anywhere -- and it would be hard to take it back with just occasional continent bonuses.  
• Possible solution: enable placement on the ocarina territories.

Does anyone have any less inelegant ideas to accomplish what I'm going for?

Also: will it be possible to layer on duplicate continents so that players can add a regular continent bonus to the map in addition to their ocarina units?  Or will I need to experiment with this one?  This way I could make all ocarina bonuses an equal value.

Now, for the magic powers:  Din's fire should have an offensive advantage, and Nayru's Love should have a defensive advantage.  Farore's Wind could either facilitate fortifying or bust through fog, but I'm leaning toward designing a board that doesn't rely on fog for any key feature. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for how best to implement this?  I'd love to make it so these would revert to neutral after the turn too, if possible.

Kjeld, I've opened a 4 player public game. Others feel free to join but please leave a space for Kjeld.

Dubitty wrote:

Also: will it be possible to layer on duplicate continents so that players can add a regular continent bonus to the map in addition to their ocarina units?  Or will I need to experiment with this one?  This way I could make all ocarina bonuses an equal value.

Layering your continents like that should work just fine. 

I authored the a good part of the top side of the second link you posted - and it's based on my experience as a designer. There really is no definitive rule. We asked for a feature and tom delivered - sometimes with unexpected results, sometimes with bugs, but he delivered.  Results vary. And you are right ..many solutions will be inelegant - and some will just not work the way you think they will.. That's why I usually recommend starting with something a bit less complex on your first board design, and worry about things like game-play as it pertains to choke-points and continental values, and perhaps some dice mods.  You know, the basics.  I just think you're throwing yourself into the fire, and I don't want to see you get discouraged when it ends up not working for reasons that you overlooked.

Just my 02 cents.