Well done on the wiki M57.  And I was gathering that you were hesitant to encourage a new designer to get too complicated, but rest assured I'm still having fun.  Thanks for your sensitivity.

Dubitty wrote:

Well done on the wiki M57.  And I was gathering that you were hesitant to encourage a new designer to get too complicated, but rest assured I'm still having fun.  Thanks for your sensitivity.

You're welcome :) Get ready for a lot of debugging.  Also, just learning your way around the designer can be testy.  There's an order to doing things that is not always intuitive. I don't doubt you will figure them out.  I just know I had the luxury of figuring them out on a case by case basis.. I.e, I had already gotten pretty comfortable with auto-capture and it's nuances before tom added auto capture neutral, etc..

Certainly, as you run into problems, feel free to post here.. I haven't designed a board in a few years now - I'm on a self-imposed vacation - possibly retirement ;) from design, but there are still a number of veteran designers here who have a pretty good handle on how things work.  

Dubitty wrote: [1] once a continent is secured, any song can be attacked -- and subsequently the respective temple can be attacked through that song. [2]  And songs revert to neutral at the end of the turn.

It looks like you've already figured out how to use auto-capture factories to accomplish [1]. To accomplish [2], simply make each song a continent that targets itself as the factory territory with a negative bonus equal to the max units for the song territory, which we'll call X. What will happen is that once the players control the necessary continent on the board, they'll capture the song with X units, so long as you set the continent bonus to also be X (this is part [1]). The player will then get to use those X units for that turn in the way particular to that specific song. At the start of the next turn, the negative bonus will kick in and knock the units on the song down to zero (this is part [2]). So long as the rules are set to allow abandon and revert to neutral immediately, this will produce the effect that you want, namely that players only get to use a song ifs they control the continent that allows them access to the song's power.

NOTE: Name the negative continent beginning with a 'z', as the continents are applied in alphabetical order I believe, and you want the negative bonus to apply last.

Kjeld wrote:

Dubitty wrote: [1] once a continent is secured, any song can be attacked -- and subsequently the respective temple can be attacked through that song. [2]  And songs revert to neutral at the end of the turn.

It looks like you've already figured out how to use auto-capture factories to accomplish [1]. To accomplish [2], simply make each song a continent that targets itself as the factory territory with a negative bonus equal to the max units for the song territory, which we'll call X. What will happen is that once the players control the necessary continent on the board, they'll capture the song with X units, so long as you set the continent bonus to also be X (this is part [1]). The player will then get to use those X units for that turn in the way particular to that specific song. At the start of the next turn, the negative bonus will kick in and knock the units on the song down to zero (this is part [2]). So long as the rules are set to allow abandon and revert to neutral immediately, this will produce the effect that you want, namely that players only get to use a song ifs they control the continent that allows them access to the song's power.

 

NOTE: Name the negative continent beginning with a 'z', as the continents are applied in alphabetical order I believe, and you want the negative bonus to apply last.

Also note however that if you allow 'Abandon with Immediate Revert to Neutral' as suggested above - it will result in very un-risklike gameplay on the map proper.  E.g., Attacking with "T" will result in abandonment of the attacking territory, potentially encouraging players to run larger stacks around the board. This is not atypical of the types of issues that arise when you try to leverage factories in creative ways.

M57 wrote:

Also note however that if the if you allow 'Abandon with Immediate Revert to Neutral' as suggested above - it will result in very un-risklike gameplay on the map proper.  E.g., Attacking with "T" will result in abandonment of the attacking territory, potentially encouraging players to run larger stacks around the board. This is not atypical of the types of issues that arise when you try to leverage factories in creative ways.

Yep, this is currently the primary limitation of factories. If we could set per-territory minimums (we can set maximums!!), it would completely resolve this limitation.

M57 wrote:

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.

My recommendation is to make two scenarios.  A "basic" one with no factories, and maybe no songs.  And then an 'advanced' one with the factories, etc.

This will not only allow you as a designer to get something done that is fun to play without pulling your hair out, it will also provide a gentle introduction to players who want to try out your map.

You can even publish the map with just the basic version and then later add an advanced scenario and republish.  This can be nice if you find the advanced scenario is taking longer to get right than you expect.  It can be tempting to rush a map to publication (especially your first one), but anything complicated really deserves dozens of test games to make sure it all works right, is balanced well, and most importantly is fun to play.

Ozyman wrote:

My recommendation is to make two scenarios.  A "basic" one with no factories, and maybe no songs.  And then an 'advanced' one with the factories, etc.

This will not only allow you as a designer to get something done that is fun to play without pulling your hair out, it will also provide a gentle introduction to players who want to try out your map.

You can even publish the map with just the basic version and then later add an advanced scenario and republish.  This can be nice if you find the advanced scenario is taking longer to get right than you expect.  It can be tempting to rush a map to publication (especially your first one), but anything complicated really deserves dozens of test games to make sure it all works right, is balanced well, and most importantly is fun to play.

+1  Get a somewhat basic board working with solid game-play.  Scenarios are allowed to have different images, borders, territories, continents, rules, ..you name it.

M57 wrote:

Ozyman wrote:

My recommendation is to make two scenarios.  A "basic" one with no factories, and maybe no songs.  And then an 'advanced' one with the factories, etc.

This will not only allow you as a designer to get something done that is fun to play without pulling your hair out, it will also provide a gentle introduction to players who want to try out your map.

You can even publish the map with just the basic version and then later add an advanced scenario and republish.  This can be nice if you find the advanced scenario is taking longer to get right than you expect.  It can be tempting to rush a map to publication (especially your first one), but anything complicated really deserves dozens of test games to make sure it all works right, is balanced well, and most importantly is fun to play.

+1  Get a somewhat basic board working with solid game-play.  Scenarios are allowed to have different images, borders, territories, continents, rules, ..you name it.

Good idea, thanks.  I don't even know if a basic no-songs game would be unplayable after all, it's worth a try.

For now, I've opened a new 4 player game -- anyone's welcome to join to help test this complex version.  Ocarina & songs should be working (thanks kjeld); magic spells are under construction.

Very good advise. Perhaps the best approach is to build the functionality in phases. Get the basic game out there as a dev game and then keep updating/experimenting as needed. There are plenty of players here ready to assist in that process and won't take exception to the game having to be restarted many times.

Dubitty, will you be putting some more dev games out there?  If so, you might put a more explicit link out there.  The original was kinda buried in the verbiage, which is why I think it took a bit to fill.  btw - I really like how the Ocarina functions.  Excellent job by you and Kjeld on that.

Sorry for the delay, was out backpacking in CO.

New update: Shadow Temple > Graveyard is now one-way, as per the original game.  Only accessible through warping.  Should put up a difficulty barrier in securing such a small territorry.

I intend to modify the Ocarina territories so that they revert to neutral: if they don't, a player might camp there and avoid elimination.  I just don't want players surviving off-board.  Other than that I'm pretty happy with the Ocarina functions.

I'm also getting rid of abandon.  Off-board tools will just have to revert to neutral -- I'll be experimenting with this later today.

I have some very elaborate factory ideas for the magic powers -- I intend to start on those this week.  As always, I'll take suggestions/criticism.  

As for scenarios, I'm thinking three:

1. Traditional Risk: no Ocarina/magic, no abandon.  Just the board and built-in warps
2. Ocarina functions (the way the game is set up as of this post) 
3. Ocarina + magic functions 

Thoughts?

I'm starting some new games later today -- I'll make the post more explicit this time, Thingol.

NEW OPEN GAMES

Traditional scenario

4 player http://www.wargear.net/games/join/535814
5 player http://www.wargear.net/games/join/535815
6 player http://www.wargear.net/games/join/535816

Ocarina functions scenario

4 player http://www.wargear.net/games/join/535809
5 player http://www.wargear.net/games/join/535811
6 player http://www.wargear.net/games/join/535818

Feel free to join multiple games.  Please be prepared to give feedback.