Greetings all! I am new to this forum, but have been a Wargear player for just about 11 years as of later this month.

I wanted to first thank everyone who has created a board or participated in making the boards better as I wouldn't be a member of this community for so long without you all.

As of about two weeks ago, I was prompted by some friends who also play to create my own board, and after a few jokes, I stopped and thought to myself, that is actually not an awful idea.

It has been an amazing two weeks, where I taught myself how to use paint.net, dived into the xml for hours learning what goes into a board, brainstormed mechanics, strategies, and redesigns, but I am just about ready to share my board with the wider community.

I am reaching out to see who might be interested in joining in the discussions with me and my close group of 10 friends who all play together, to improve upon my vision, poke holes in my strategies, and craft good counters so that this map can really shine bright.

I am using several mechanics that most people who have been around long enough would recognize, but I tried my best to put a fun new spin on them and make it interesting to play.

I have a few small things that I want to fix after the first two playtests are completed, but after those are addressed, I would love to get this out into the community so they can tell me what they think and offer any feedback regarding their games.

The board is called "Peak Knowledge" and it's in Dev status at the moment. I have written up a wiki for the board but it's still a work in progress.

Is there anyone out here willing to join in on the "fun" (read as work)?

https://www.wargear.net/wiki/doku.php?id=boards:peak_knowledge:peak_knowledge

What an incredibly ambitious first board! It looks beautiful and it also looks like you have a clear vision regarding game-play and mechanics. Please keep us posted on your progress and let us know when you need additional play testers! How are you coming along with the factories?

Wow - Looks awesome -

Would certainly help you playtest a game - but know that I am one of those people that reads directions as a last resort

Amidon37 wrote:Wow - Looks awesome -

Would certainly help you playtest a game - but know that I am one of those people that reads directions as a last resort

My friend group has a running joke about people like you, so much so, that I made one of the cards a a "joke" (read as jab) about it. Will drop you an invite in the near future

I can not believe you did all of that in 2 weeks! Invite me if you want to a game.

> know that I am one of those people that reads directions as a last resort

My first advice for a board is to take this to heart - as most players will be like this. If you just want a great board that you and your friends play, you can make it as complicated as you want, but complicated boards have a tendency to turn people away. If you are hoping for wide adoption, think about what you really need and if you can simplify things (or maybe have a simple and advanced scenario). Think about making things as intuitive as possible to people who will only skim the instructions. For example, for Invention when I went to version 2.0, I dropped the tech names and replaced them with icons - I see you've already done a good job with icons on your board, so not specific advice to you, but an example of trying to keep things as intuitive as possible.

Ozyman wrote:I can not believe you did all of that in 2 weeks! Invite me if you want to a game.

> know that I am one of those people that reads directions as a last resort

My first advice for a board is to take this to heart - as most players will be like this. If you just want a great board that you and your friends play, you can make it as complicated as you want, but complicated boards have a tendency to turn people away. If you are hoping for wide adoption, think about what you really need and if you can simplify things (or maybe have a simple and advanced scenario). Think about making things as intuitive as possible to people who will only skim the instructions. For example, for Invention when I went to version 2.0, I dropped the tech names and replaced them with icons - I see you've already done a good job with icons on your board, so not specific advice to you, but an example of trying to keep things as intuitive as possible.

You could not ask for better advice from anyone else on this site. This one is right in O's wheelhouse.

M57 wrote:Ozyman wrote:I can not believe you did all of that in 2 weeks! Invite me if you want to a game.

> know that I am one of those people that reads directions as a last resort

My first advice for a board is to take this to heart - as most players will be like this. If you just want a great board that you and your friends play, you can make it as complicated as you want, but complicated boards have a tendency to turn people away. If you are hoping for wide adoption, think about what you really need and if you can simplify things (or maybe have a simple and advanced scenario). Think about making things as intuitive as possible to people who will only skim the instructions. For example, for Invention when I went to version 2.0, I dropped the tech names and replaced them with icons - I see you've already done a good job with icons on your board, so not specific advice to you, but an example of trying to keep things as intuitive as possible.

You could not ask for better advice from anyone else on this site. This one is right in O's wheelhouse.

I reached out to Ozy as soon as the first play testing was ready, and I whole heartedly agree!

The factories seem set. Only issue I found is when a neutral starts with 0, and is conquered, instead of reseting to 0, it resets to 1. I am currently testing it as a -1 bonus instead of 0 bonus to see if that make it behave correctly.

Other than that, we are seeing how troops per territory and looking for overpowered strats to balance as well as valid counters to make sure it stays fun.

Appreciate all the feedback so far!

If anyone is interested in following along or delving back into the past few week's worth of discussion and versions, I have a discord setup: https://discord.gg/kJvqt9M3

I looked back at my Facebook group chat and I started working on it Jan 19th and flipped over to Discord (mainly to stop pestering the group with tons of updates and comments) on Jan 21, so it was 2 weeks and a few days!

What is the development phases for the board release? I see it's in DEV mode, which i can see is restricted to only me being able to create games.... but what happens when I move it to the next stage? Are there restrictions that go into place? I see that there was something about scenarios not being able to be added to live maps??

Once you are happy with the board, you submit it for review. You play a game with some of the more experienced WarGear players. If there are no problems the board goes live.

You can not add scenarios or modify a live map in any way. Instead, once it is live, you can make a copy of the board (a new version), edit that copy and republish the board yourself without having to go through review again.

Hope that made sense.

Before you send it for review, you can allow for public beta? Seems like with public beta, you cannot push updates to the XML while games are live, like I am able to do with dev games.

The board is now open for public beta testing, if anyone is interested in playing with their groups or publicly.

I implemented a few scenarios together with the base game. Let me know what you all think!

The next development phase is testing nicely. Should have some of the major mechanics sorted out, and re-implement the scenarios soon, then release the next version for beta.

https://www.wargear.net/boards/view/9665

New version is in open beta.

Incredibly good work! I wish I had the time to join in the testing.

Johasi Vidad wrote:Incredibly good work! I wish I had the time to join in the testing.

I'm playing 8 at a time, but if you are interested, I am completely open to joining more and am eager for new eyes and feedback

I love all the tech, I'll keep an eye out and looking forward to trying it at some point.

Andernut wrote:I love all the tech, I'll keep an eye out and looking forward to trying it at some point.

we have a few maps open in public, come join us!

Game is live! Thanks to all the people who messaged, helped, and tested with me!

I started a 10-player public Barb game and welcome anyone to join us!