New World Map Concept

is this map being planned around the future ability to upgrade non-bonus regions?

just curious as to what kinds of construction we can expect, or if it will be in a different tier compared to bonus regions.

Metalsiagon wrote:

is this map being planned around the future ability to upgrade non-bonus regions?

just curious as to what kinds of construction we can expect, or if it will be in a different tier compared to bonus regions.

Upgrading Regions without Regional Bonuses is a totally new function and has really no relation to the new world map.

Definitely something that we want to implement, but it won't be introduced with the new world map.

An alternate way of winning influence(AI Faction), I like very much! If you somehow could also make these "quests" winnable for the new players, who have just joined, It would most likely help cure the building upgrade scenario(not enough gold and resources to upgrade further).

I believe the upgrading sometimes scares new players off. If the game somehow could hold their hand and lead them on without them noticing it, new players would log on more often, they would feel they contributed more and made the game progress.

Excellent ideas posted here.

Two thumbs up for a new map every time somebody wins!

^Me and photoshop butchered yer map up a bit, Rune, but here is a visual example of what I mean. Imaginary squares was too confusing, in retrospect lol.

I removed the two leftmost columns of tiles, shifted the Capital over the same. This gave me 17 extra tiles to play with, which I added to the outside of the map. I then replaced the two bonus regions that had been there, trying to maintain the distances from the capital. I shifted several bonus tiles outward towards the edge as well, and added another tile to the middle chokepoint so it's three across.

I left the light side of the map untouched for visual comparison and because it took long enough to do once! ;D

Intentions:

Moved Training Grounds slightly further from capital towards middle of map to make them more vulnerable and encourage guilds to not settle right in front of capital.

Widened choke point in mid to three tiles and moved associated Mercenary to outside of map. This gives the map two types of chokepoints, one wider and constantly fought over in mid and another smaller one protecting the direct route to capital.

Iron and Gold mine were both moved to the outside to make for more choice in guild settlement and add more benefit to striking at the outside of map instead of driving towards capital. (I think of this as skirmishing/attacking supply lines instead of blitzkrieg).

One merc from the cluster around the Mountain in middle of faction side has been moved towards the northern region to promote fighting here as well. It is still the same distance from the correlating closest merc as on the original map.

New map looks great but I'm with Tibr on the placement of the regional bonuses. If both factions will be of similar strength (and I think everyone wants their opponent to provide a challenge) the arguably best regional bonus - the ancient forge will never be fully utilized.

LSLarry wrote:

Widened choke point in mid to three tiles...

I like the idea of having the choke points in the middle expanded to 3 hexes rather than 2.   

Would u be able to see each factions contribution to the Mercs, and therefore be able to try to snipe the opposing faction at the last second? Or maybe if a Faction/Guild offered a big enough "lump sum" bribe the Mercs would instantly become "theirs" no matter what the other side offered later?

Not that you need suggestions, but if contributions are going to be visible to all, two possible options are:

1. Have a time period, let's say 6 hours, between which the bribing will end, but is entirely random...it could end in 1 second or 6 hours. (I prefer a smaller window, but it matches with 1 cycle)

2. Cap contributions within a specific number of bribing windows. For instance, either Faction may contribute up to 250K/resource/6 hours for 5 days.

Or... don't show faction contributions at all. If I were a mercenary troop (fightin for hire) I certainly wouldn't go about telling people about competing offers, ya know?

LSLarry wrote:

Or... don't show faction contributions at all.  If I were a mercenary troop (fightin for hire) I certainly wouldn't go about telling people about competing offers, ya know?

completely agree.

Sorry for the delay, only just got around to reading this.

I haven't read through all of posts in this thread yet.

Firstly, love the new map. Like the size increase.

However I've done some looking and counting.

(Correct me if I'm wrong).

Current Erevos Map
Tiles = 97
Bonuses = 30

New Map
Tiles = 244
Bonuses = 40

So while there are 'more' bonuses in total, the hex to bonus ratio is significantly worse.

We are now looking at 6.1 hexes for every bonus
Compared to the previous 3.23.

This is almost half as many bonuses for available tiles. I'm not sure I'm too fond of the idea.

I also share Tibr's concerns about the middle bonuses. There are only two forges, and 1 each of Troll/Giant. These will never get used or upgraded due to the inherent risk (cost & time) involved in doing so.

I would place 2 more forges and 1 of both troll & giant on the map. I would also place less valuable bonuses in the centre to be fought over. (Unless you consider a cost/time reduction modifier for center/risky hexes).

I like the new look, but I would also like to see an increase in bonus regions.

ST

I would suggest that the bidding for Mercs be completely secret, even inside the faction. Whomever 'loses' the bid is given a ??% refund. I would suggest an 80-100% refund (randomized)

So, if Dark Player X, Y, Z send in 500k, 250k, and 250k resources to the Mercs and Light Player A,B,C send in 501k, 250k, 250k resources to the Mercs; then the Dark side players get 800k to 1M back (based on how much they donated).

One side or the other will be able to keep the mercs employed for a time, but not indefinitely because the other faction will be building up resources quickly.

THAN0S wrote:

I would suggest that the bidding for Mercs be completely secret, even inside the faction. Whomever 'loses' the bid is given a ??% refund. I would suggest an 80-100% refund (randomized)

So, if Dark Player X, Y, Z send in 500k, 250k, and 250k resources to the Mercs and Light Player A,B,C send in 501k, 250k, 250k resources to the Mercs; then the Dark side players get 800k to 1M back (based on how much they donated).

One side or the other will be able to keep the mercs employed for a time, but not indefinitely because the other faction will be building up resources quickly.

I prefer the secret donations...but, I would like to be able to see the donations that people made after all the bribery business is finished...

THAN0S wrote:

I would suggest that the bidding for Mercs be completely secret, even inside the faction. Whomever 'loses' the bid is given a ??% refund. I would suggest an 80-100% refund (randomized)

So, if Dark Player X, Y, Z send in 500k, 250k, and 250k resources to the Mercs and Light Player A,B,C send in 501k, 250k, 250k resources to the Mercs; then the Dark side players get 800k to 1M back (based on how much they donated).

One side or the other will be able to keep the mercs employed for a time, but not indefinitely because the other faction will be building up resources quickly.

Well, the general idea is that the bribes by players will be hidden BUT the overall bribes by each faction (total amount derived by the whole population of each Faction) visible to everyone.

Rune, how about:

- bribes are entirely secret
- the surplus of donations to the enemy faction gives the mercs a performance boost - more armies or harder to defeat or lower attack cycle!

Firstly that would ensure that everyone is literally in the dark   and gives a mega surprise every week. Secondly if one side payd the mercs extraordinally more - they also get more performance for their buck.

Tibr wrote:

Rune, how about:

- bribes are entirely secret
- the surplus of donations to the enemy faction gives the mercs a performance boost - more armies or harder to defeat or lower attack cycle!

Firstly that would ensure that everyone is literally in the dark   and gives a mega surprise every week. Secondly if one side payd the mercs extraordinally more - they also get more performance for their buck.

The 2nd one is already in the design (upgrade of the armies etc.)

What you suggest regarding the "surprise" is something that could be done....We will see

My map proposition:
http://prntscr.com/30j609

Changes:
- corrected position of Ogres on dark side;
- 1 wide "tunnels" in mountains :> so there will be no safe bays and alternative second path to capitol.
- added more forges near center
- added Rich Area in center (probably front line) so it will be harder to take it and attack forge
- general reorganization in center

Rune, can u say if this can be official new map? Maybe poll to choose which one is better?

ami wrote:

My map proposition:
http://prntscr.com/30j609

Changes:
- corrected position of Ogres on dark side;
- 1 wide "tunnels" in mountains :> so there will be no safe bays and alternative second path to capitol.
- added more forges near center
- added Rich Area in center (probably front line) so it will be harder to take it and attack forge
- general reorganization in center

Rune, can u say if this can be official new map? Maybe poll to choose which one is better?

Has Thumbs up from me! I think the additions are all positive.
I'd also like to see more bonuses placed in the marked hexes too.

that is a pretty dope layout, but how much work is it to redesign world maps? seems like the devs have a lot on the plate right now.

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LSLarry wrote:
3) More regional bonuses just makes sense w/more tiles. A quick look makes me wonder if the % of tiles with a bonus has actually decreased though? If map size doubled and so did #regions w/a bonus it didn't really change at all. Regarding regional bonuses I think the top priorities should be fixing the RoI for guilds (already mentioned, yay!) and increasing the effects of the mine regions. If the mines provided a smaller %bonus to battle rewards (can't be a large bonus, some people never stop playing!) they would be much more valuable. Res buildings represent a very small portion of an active players income.

I would also like to see a quarry and logging operation bonus region, to balance out the input of stone and wood into the economy. A quick thought; make these LESS valuable than mines but more frequent. ie right now on your new map each 'side' has three of each mine. If this became two of each mine and three of each quarry/logging camp It would add 4 (8 total) regions with bonuses.

There is a thought having Regions produce resources which are stored in the Guild's Vault. The more Regions you have, the more resources are being produced. Still WIP....

For Tibr and Xviper; this was Rune's original response to me question about bonus region numbers actually changing. Since one of you so kindly did the actual math... I can now say the % of tiles with a bonus is DEFINITELY down. However if there is WIP to have all regions function essentially as a source of income to guild vaults then they probably won't want to add any more bonus regions, just a thought.

That being said; what bonus regions actually make sense to add? My short list would be; another forge and training grounds to either side.

I know being able to use ANY hex as a resource upgrade system had been discussed, but no details have really been given on that front.
I also FULLY support this feature.

IF that is the case, it seems entirely redundant to have Gold & Iron mines at all. Unless they will work differently to the bonus hexes in their current form. (% increase for all members).

"Supply Rich" bonuses are also more or less useless in their current form until the mechanic has been revamped/completed.

Perhaps it may be worth considering the introduction of some NEW bonuses?
A workshop to decrease construction time and cost of buildings?
An alchemy lab or similar to decrease research time and cost of technologies?
If we are going to keep Gold & Iron mines, why not also have Wood & Stone bonuses too?

Perhaps add one or two dynamic bonuses to the world, that maintain their 'level', but the 'bonus' it provides rotates every 3 days. (between all bonuses excluding Mercs).

Personally I'd like to do away with all 'resource' bonuses, let all guilds upgrade this internally, and make Mercenaries much more attainable. So variety on the battlefield would be a welcome sight.

Several things:
About the map Ami created, I think this would be really good especially if the lines of regions behind the mountains had a smaller CP container than others thus allowing more strategy.
I think the bonuses in the region should have a fixed level, no way to upgrade them but they don't lose any levels when transferring ownership, this will make the regions heavily fought over and encourage guilds other than the main few to go for them as they do not need tons of resources to be useful.
It would be good if the supplies from a guild's regions were pooled and upgrading supplies more expensive, this will encourage guilds not to take all the bonus regions due to the increased cost of upgrading supplies and give a reason to own normal regions instead of walls or to connect.

I like the concept of new war > new map, this adds more strategy and more fun.

Im curious about neutral spawn armies.

I like the idea to keep the upgrades (maybe damaged) in a region when it changes owner. Maybe if it is taken by neutrals, it should be destroyed, but if taken after a long battle would be interesting to be kept for the winner. The loser could still downgrade it before losing the hexes, but with soe limitations, as for example if there is still a link to the capital.

This just to make the hex conquest even ore interesting.

And, with a wider map, the 10th level and 10 region control seems to be more little now. What about increasing the guild cap level?