Dragon War - Official Thread

[Cernel]

@prastle said in Dragon War - Official Thread:

Or connecting through the south the 2 sz through the ice pack. just a thought. The north needs to be connected as well or wrapped.

On any kind of representation for this map, assuming the planet is spheroidal (as it should), you surely cannot both be able to wrap X and Y, or even only going north to south (Y wrapping akin, if I understand correctly your proposal here) through the sea zones left and right of the ice packs, that, in this last case (if it Y-wraps), would actually be not two ice packs, but only one and the same; either you wrap only X or only Y: you can't have both, not even partially, as it would be not realistic.
However, as long as we totally exclude any X-wrapping for it, having any kind of Y-wrapping may be at least thinkable. Especially, as noted, since the ice territories appear to never touch the right nor the left side of the map (which, if this is a map on a style of our common global maps of the Earth, this can only represent some big ice free gulf on the arctic (that, of course, would not allow to teleport you from one pole to the other, but only eventually crash on that part of the ice-pack that has been cut out, in the map), this map may either represent a world with two (as per norm for Earth's maps) or one icecap. In case of two icecaps, the map would have cut a sizeable extreme part of the poles out of representation (as it usually happens in Earth's map on TripleA (for example, you rarely see Antarctica in any maps)), as only this can justify the absence of ice left and right (so, it would be just like our normal global maps of the Earth, maybe wrapping on X and maybe not) while, in case of one icecap, the map would have, either, cut two likely big oceans (maybe having some other lands) out, around the equator, or all sea zones on left and right border are connected with the same border's ones, but not wrapping east-west (meaning that would would be able to go to and from any sea zones in the right side or in the left side, but not going to or from any sea zones in the right side to any sea zone in the left side), while the up and down borders of the map would be the same one ice-covered pole, and, of course, the centre of the map (about where Fairy Islet is) would be the other ice-less pole.
To avoid misunderstandings, what I'm saying is that the map can be seen only as wrapping on X or on Y or on none, surely not on both. Having the map wrapping both X and Y (like Hexglobe, which is for sure not a globe (something like Hexglobe is not representing a globe at all, but rather a doughnut-shaped object, and preferably having a relatively very big hole, to minimise distortions, and, of course, the gravity normal to said donought-planet superficie, not towards its void centre)) would be not realistic, as the only way a map representing a globe may wrap X and Y alike is that 1 single territory touches all the perimeter, encircling the whole map (which would also imply being greatly distorted).
So, again, if anything, you may choose to wrap only X or only Y (not both!). Wrapping on the Y axis only, under the current map design (ice on north and south of the map alike), would imply that the ice-covered territories you see are just the two halves of the same ice-cap (either the north or the south pole, if we assume this planet is actually rotating on its own axis, and not always facing its sun, unlike, for example, in the case of the Moon with respect to the Earth) represent a world in which only one of the two poles is cold enough to have solid water, which may be the case of a very tilted planet with a very long orbital period, at least relatively to the game's timespan (it would eventually undergo precession, and have the ice only at the centre of the map (of course, in between of these states, you will have both polar caps, as per always on our own planet, for most of the time); so, as I was saying, the state depicted would last only for a relatively short timeframe around the planet being at its perihelion or aphelion, which means, if the war is going to last up to 10 years, we would assume an orbital period of 100 Earth-years or more (likely safer to go for 200 years or more); practically something like our planet Neptune orbiting around a much bigger star than the Sun (to not be too cold, as only particularly distant bodies have very long "years") and with bit greater (not necessarily too much) axial tilt (as long as it is not too tilted, only a relatively minor (yet quite extensive) X-stripe at the centre of the map would be continually on daylight while, of course, the north-south edge would be under continual darkness, aside mostly from what light can be deflected by some moons. It is worth mentioning that theorically, and more radically, you can have it like our planet Uranus, with an axial tilt about parallel to its solar orbit and, in this case, for all the duration of the game, the central part of the map would be supposed to be continually in sunlight and the north and south of it continually in darkness (but maybe you have some bright enough moon, to not make a big difference for battles), while two more or less extended stripes, at 1/4 and 3/4 of the map up-down, would experience day-night cycling (no such cycle anywhere at all if tilted of exactly 90 degrees to its sun, of course); however, I think this would be not really feasible with respect to the map's drawing, as half the world or almost so being in perennial darkness would likely imply an ice-covered (if any ice at all!) portion of the map much more extensive than what we see here.
However, since an Y wrap only would represent 1 single icecap, you should, then, be able to navigate with ships wrapping on the Y axis on both the rightside and the leftside of the map, which is actually what the map appears to be showing (so, all good here), as it seems that, for whatever reasons, the ice territories don't touch the right nor the left of the map, which would make this map feasible as being interpreted as a Y only wrapping representation as I've just described (of course, in this case, the ice-caps would not be represented as in our usual maps of the Earth, otherwise any territories north - south of the map, not only those facing each other, would be connected, which is not what I'm saying). Of course, in this case, you would need to assume that you can't wrap on X axis, and this can be, in turn, interpreted in two ways. First of all, you may have the map representing a planet in which you can go north-south around the poles, but you are not able to circle west-east (for this second case, somewhat like it was before the Modern age in the Earth) because there are two big oceans that have not yet been explored or navigated through, at least consistently; however, still assuming a regularly shaped planet (close to being a sphere), this hypothesis has to be discarded, under the currently drawn territory borders, as such a drawing would imply the map being very long on the Y and very short on the X (as we have to cut two big circles out of the planes, centred on the equator and opposite to each other, to justify both the sea zones drawings and the no X-wrap ability), which is surely what we are not seeing here. Another way would be assuming that the map is representing the whole planet, and, in this case, all sea zones to the left of the map should be connected with each other and all the same for the ones on the right (but not X wrapping!), but this has to be discarded, as well, as it would be incredibly distortive to assume that so many sea zones are being contiguous, and it would also make for an extremely weirdly oblong shape of the single icecap.
It is worth mentioning that we can also assume the map having two icecaps, but being drawn in such a weird way as to have the normally left-right only wrapping extended some on the up-down borders, and this would give an explanation for the curious absence of solid (ice) land territories in all of its corners (as said, the other explanation would be the presence of a couple of arctic and antarctic gulps right there, being unreachable by ships, because, at this point, it is just too cold, thus impassable).
Of course, while the map might, to some extent, be interpreted as Y wrapping only, beside being more traditionally interpreted as either X wrapping or not wrapping at all (in this last case, we would have to assume at least one big continent, like America, is left out of the map, likely for it being yet undiscovered), the original creator most likely intended it to be akin to a normal Earth's representation, meaning that those ice caps north and south would be not one and the same, thus, if so (only the original creator of the map may tell what kind of planet and portion of it this map is representing), you would never be able to perform any kind of Y wrapping movements.
To sum it up, I can see only 2 possible realistic representation of wrapping connections, based on both the map and the current drawing by Frostion:

1. (as it is currently) The map does not wrap at all, and it is representing only part of a normal world (with likely a too big Ocean in between, probably having a yet undiscovered continent in it, like in the case of America before the Modern Age), with two impassable ice-caps, partially cut out, up and down.
2. (as Hepps suggested) The map wraps on the X axis only (no up-down connections at all).

As per current drawing, whatever connections up-down or an Y wrapping or even only the ability to go from up-lef to up-right or down-left to down-right in a not X-wrapping way (for example, a connection between Sea Zone 2 and Sea Zone 63) I believe has to be excluded (as it is, Y wrapping would be like, in an Earth map, if you sail north of Norway and, then, you reappear south of South Africa, while, instead, you should reappear north of Alaska), but it may be indeed possible to have it (as per the case of a planet with only 1 ice-cap I talked previously), if the territory drawing is remade (starting from the original map that Frostion utilised) and, yet, in this case, if you have Y wrapping, you should not have X wrapping, or having both would be possible only if you have 1 single territory being the fully perimetral border of the entire map.

This in an example of a map in which, if you distort it enough to be square-like, you can wrap both X and Y and, in this case, the needed single territory, encompassing the entire perimeter of the map, would be the centre of Antarctica.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azimuthal_equidistant_projection

@Frostion As well as in Age of Tribes, I really dislike all those thiny lines you cut between some islands, like in Sea Zon 62? Why did you do that? Just because you wanted to have "Sea Zone 1" instead of "1 Sea Zone"? Also, I suggest it rather being "01 Sea Zone" etc. (01 to 09 instead of 1 to 9). If you can, I suggest you fix that, and rename all sea zones as "01 Sea Zone" to "62 Sea Zone", like I did in WAW (well, except that redrum wanted "1 Sea Zone" etc., instead as "001 Sea Zone" etc.). Especially on a map of such graphical quality, I really dislike to see all those hacky island lines, scarring it.

[Frostion]

It’s a fantasy map, set in a fantasy ”world” rather than on a ”planet”. For the people who live there, the world is more like never-ending terrain and it is probably not viewed upon as round globe. I agree that a map does become more dynamic and adds options and opportunities for the players if the map wraps, but after testing it out in Dragon War with X-wrapping, it just feels wrong.

I actually wrote some back-story for some of the nations as part of development, but it did not make it into the notes. So I guess it is up to the players what the history of this world is. But I wanted the Undead to be historically close to the red humans, and the evil blue Crowton humans are meant to be a long distance away from the good red Lionia humans that they fled from a long time ago because of a power struggle within their royal house.

The Dragon War prolog talks about a “first age” where there were more dragons, and hints that this map starts out in a later age. If someone wants to make a new map based on another age, like with another geography or based on another map, with wrapping, new nation setup, new dice and rules, or whatever, I will be happy to join in the development and assist in the construction of the map. That could actually be a lot of fun.

@Cernel – I guess you mean the thin island lines that show up during battle? They are drawn by the outlining of the polygon borders as I never got the “island mode” to work. During polygon grabbing the sea zone always seemed to overlap all islands in the sea zone, making the islands not selectable. Are you saying that if the sea zones are called “1 Sea Zone”, instead of “Sea Zone 1”, this problem in the map maker tools would not occur? That would be a big unnecessary limitation build into the tools. It should be enough that the phrase “sea zone” was in the territory name.

[prastle]

@Frostion We were contemplating a specific sz that reached west east in 2 moves and the lowest sz fo elves having a south west passage to the inner sz through the ice. With a gate on either side possibly. Or maybe even sea gates? Only because it would be nice for balance to have elves be able to hurt the undead. Or for them to challenge the inner sz easier against the greenskins. It was just our thoughts. We also felt the first few dragons were not random enough in where they appear. Those were the only issues other than perhaps the 5 and 6 dragons a little to powerfull. Other than that we played it quite a bit. Another thought was dragon eggs that get raised from hatchlings or the existing dragons have have a food upkeep.

[prastle]

@prastle a copy of some of zods work on those ideas. I believe he lost interest since many did not want to play it in lobby. New is frightening ?

0_1491441045272_dragonwar gz.tsvg

Hopefully he glances in at this thread
@General_Zod

[Cernel]

@Frostion
A world has to be a globe anyways, hasn't it?

Territories with the name ending in "Sea Zone" are deproritised. This is how you handle islands in all properly made maps since World War II Classic, as long as one of the zones involved is not a territory, like the fake hole (lake) in Kazakh S.S.R..
You misunderstood what the island mode is. That is just a visual aid while you work; it doesn't change the output and, no, territory definitions can't have holes in them.
Maybe I should have told you this before, as I noticed all those island scars since a while, but sort of kept forgetting raising the argument. If you have still the originals, consider redrawing the territories surrounding islands, and the skin related elements, as per norm.
Besides, in my mind, "01 Sea Zone" makes more sense and it is better than "Sea Zone 01" since, this way, all sea zones are, either, packed at start (not in the middle of the names starting with "S"), if numbered, or properly ordered, if named, and, anyways, the name of something (in this case, a number) should stay at start (in English, at least); you say "Mediterranean Sea", not "Sea Mediterranean", don't you? For example, in WWII Classic, you have "Central Mediterranean Sea Zone", which sounds better to me than "Sea Zone Central Mediterranean". Maybe, in your country, instead, you first say "Sea" and then "Mediterranean" (however it's called)?
Also, I prefer having 01, if total 10 to 99; 001, if total 100 to 999; etc..

In D&D, dragons eat not only food, but also metal and other stuff. And of course, hoarding gold and pretties.

[Cernel]

But this thing of the island scars is really a minor thing. Probably most people will hardly notice, so don't get bogged down on it anyways; was just a suggestion, but very marginal. It is fine as it is and those little line can stay as they are. May be even not worth the effort to consider it. Very much of a side note.

[Cernel]

Aside from the minor details and tweaks that may still be needed, the general concept itself is very interesting; hopefully more maps in TripleA will head the way this one is going.

Cheers

[Hepps]

@Frostion It was just a thought. I kind of figured that due to the fact it was a fantasy map that this was only a portion of the world. The only reason it popped into my head was because there were such distinct polar regions at both the top and bottom of the map... so it feels like the known world is in fact... the entire world.

I get why you would not want to add it. It just seemed to me it would open up more options for game-play.

[Black_Elk]

Will all the forces of darkness, I have necro'd this thread!

Beating a dead dragon here, since this is what the AI was created to do. I figure its probably the best way to figure out what's what. I'm almost certain that I'm kicking ass, and about to work these dwarves...

0_1543571337486_elk evil vs hard AI good round 5.tsvg

[redrum]

@Frostion So I opened up the map, read through the notes, and played around with things a bit. One thing that irks me is it seems there are multiple separate "AI" players (pirates, barbs, etc) but they are all the same color and often have multiple different locations. So its really hard to differentiate between them and understand their individual attack potential as they each have their own move/combat phases. I'm a little confused one why they each don't have their own color?

[Black_Elk]

I got bum rushed by ogres hehe.

Having messed around for an hour or two, I think I could probably manage an actual game. Although I think for PBF play it may require a lot of back and forth. It's 6 exchanges per round, which is the same as Iron War, but with less going on in a given exchange and a fairly slow build-up in early rounds. I think this one would be better in the lobby, at least at the start.

[redrum]

I did a quick take on setting better player colors and changed the following:
color.Pirates=28310F
color.Barbarians=394514
color.Murlocs=49581A
color.Kobolds=596C20
color.Gnolls=698026
color.Ogres=79932C
color.Elves=BBBB12

[Hepps]

@redrum What no colour previews? Slacker.

[redrum]

@Hepps Figure someone can do better. Just needed something to be able to tell them apart

@Frostion Also a technical improvement for end of turn triggers would be to move them earlier as when you post a PBF turn it is before the "after" end turn triggers fire so you don't see the triggered units: https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/1118/dragon-war-1-2-3-redrum-evil-vs-black_elk-good/3

Current

        <attachment name="triggerAttachment_Auxiliaries_in_Stormwood" attachTo="Crowton" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment" type="player">
            <option name="conditions" value="conditionAttachment_New_Auxiliaries_in_Stormwood"/>
            <option name="placement" value="Stormwood:Auxiliaries"/>
            <option name="when" value="after:CrowtonEndTurn"/>
        </attachment>

Should Be

        <attachment name="triggerAttachment_Auxiliaries_in_Stormwood" attachTo="Crowton" javaClass="games.strategy.triplea.attachments.TriggerAttachment" type="player">
            <option name="conditions" value="conditionAttachment_New_Auxiliaries_in_Stormwood"/>
            <option name="placement" value="Stormwood:Auxiliaries"/>
            <option name="when" value="before:CrowtonEndTurn"/>
        </attachment>

[Frostion]

The AI faction colors are all the same they are really small participants, not really supposed to beat the players, not be dangerous but only a nuisance (cant imagine how @Black_Elk got bum rushed by ogres!? ). So when they are all green it is really to not confuse the player's while they are land grabbing, expanding their territories and closing in on each other.

I can change the placements to before instead of after end turn.

When I made Dragon War, I did not really think about the backside of having a turn order as evil, good, evil, good, evil, good. Yes that is 6 turns. I could make it evil, evil, evil, good, good, good. That would fit better when playing PBF. But at the same time I feel it would be more fitting when playing live/lobby to have the 6 turn evil good order?

[redrum]

@Frostion Especially for the Pirates, having a separate color is important to be able to more quickly see where their land units are that could then potentially be transported. Given the high movement of ships and the low number of starting units sniping territories is a very real threat.

I think switching it to 3xevil then 3xgood would be better since turns are pretty short and its meant to last a lot of rounds. That would probably be better for both live and PBF/PBEM.

I think dragons are probably not balanced very well but I think we'll see that pretty quickly during the game we started. I also think a lot of land units are too similar, for example light vs heavy inf are pretty much the same.

I like a lot of the concepts and ideas in the map but I think balance and polish probably could use some improvement.

[prastle]

@Frostion Ya I think we talked a while ago about the random dragon placements being a bit more random :). Another thought about the dragons was to make eggs that were capturable and had to be hand raised for a few turns. I seem to recall @General_Zod adding an upkeep to the dragons in one mod we made of it. I still enjoy the map

[redrum]

@Frostion Here is a quick write up of feedback:

The Good

• Really cool map from both a visual standpoint and unique land forms with territory effects.
• Love the multiple resources.
• Like the concept of competing to capture powerful dragons and then trying to defeat the opposing side.
• I like the limited battle rounds.
• Having purchase/place together at the end makes turn order smoother.
• Categories of unit types (inf, cav, art, etc) is nice.
• National advantages give some nice flavor and uniqueness to each nation.

Things to Improve

• Need to have less randomness in dragon placement and ensure they are relatively balanced in placement for good vs evil.
• Dragons are a bit too strong as it becomes whoever gets the most dragons essentially wins and this also makes it very snowbally where you get one dragon then chain that into getting the next one. Probably need to make them a bit weaker and have less movement.
• Ships are very strong with high movement that threaten amphib across a large area and combined with the fact they are about the same price as a land unit, means mostly its best to buy ships and win the naval war.
• Air units are very strong since they all are "isKamikaze" so can use all movement and can land on water.
• Capital territory ownership penalty is too harsh and other territories that generate free units are worth a lot more: https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/1118/dragon-war-1-2-3-redrum-evil-vs-black_elk-good/72
• AI is very passive because of high PU cost of units making TUV of battles uneven for them vs good/evil units. Setting TUV on units should help make the AI play more aggressively and intelligently. The downside of doing this is then the neutrals are fairly strong early game especially the pirates and the game could turn into who can manipulate the AI the most wins.
• Unit costs are very uniform and always require some of all resources. Would probably be better if most units only require 2-3 resources rather than all of them.
• Many units are very similar in cost and attributes. Would be better to have a smaller, more diverse unit set. Example is there is almost no difference between light inf, heavy inf, and spearmen.
• Would be good to have slightly different colors for each of the neutrals so the player can more easily tell which territories/factories are owned by each neutral type.
• After the first few rounds, most nations seem to lack enough resources vs PUs for buying units. I think non-PU resource cost probably needs to be turned down a bit otherwise players end up having to spend a lot of PU buying resources. Could also just have more non-PU resource income across the map.
• Visually the map looks cool but its hard to tell all the different neutrals and player owned territories apart. I usually play with "Map Details" off which makes me a bit sad and makes bridges hard to see: https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/74/dragon-war-official-thread/17
• Territory effects are interesting though feels like mountains should have some sort of defensive bonus not just blitz block.
• The snow territories along the top and bottom of the map seem visually kind of out of place and don't really seem to add anything to the game.
• Forts/castles/siege don't really seem to matter much as they don't have enough impact.
• Would be good to order all the nations on the same side turns together to speed the game up as it seems that its meant to last 20-30 rounds and each player turn is pretty quick.
• Should move free unit generation triggers to before instead of after end turn: https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/74/dragon-war-official-thread/19
• More uniqueness for each nation. Maybe each having more of their own unit types and less generic unit types that they all can build.

[Frostion]

Here is a new version of Dragon War with some needed adjustments.

Dragons are now a bit less powerful, but they are still important and strong units that a player should try to obtain. The on map harassing AI players now act more aggressively, so players might have to expand their domain with more caution. But both AI and Humans should however still easily be able to kick the minor AI nations’ behinds and wipe them of the map. The small nations are still much weaker than the primary six nations.

v1.2.3 to v1.2.4:
• Player order changed so Evil now has 3 turns followed by 3 Good turns.
• Many units have had their TUV changed in the XML, so now the AI should act less defensively.
• Air units lowered in move and power.
• Sea units lowered in move.
• Dragons lowered in move and power.
• General now supports 5 allied units attack and defense, not 10.
• Wizard and Priestess now properly support 10 allied units. They do no longer suppress 10 enemies as this was never intended.
• Some other minor changes.

[redrum]

@Frostion seems like some good updates. Any other planned changes at this point?