Afon Weindio
Creator: Scurge || First Published: 04/03/2016 || Players: 2 || Size: 31x15
Categories: C-Rank, Standard
Rating: 9.20 in 5 ratings
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Comments:
Scurge (04/03/2016 10:53am):
First map done on and for this site, please let me know what you think. I was trying to go
for very fair & balanced but not symmetrical or boring :-) YC should go first according to
country turn order so CI get to start with an infantry unit (PENGUIN! XD) to
eliminate/mitigate FTA. The neutral base is in the dead-centre of the map, and each side
has a complete road (cities making up a couple of those squares) to it that also meander
around some mild obstacles on both sides. I was going for a similar thing with the radars
and comm towers, with the exception of most of the road being for the south couple and
most of the movement-hindering terrain being around the north.
countsuperc (04/06/2016 09:27pm):
The building next to the comm tower is a lab, not a radar, and it has a very different purpose. Labs allow you to set
specific "lab units" that the players can not build unless they control a lab. Radars were not added until Days of
Ruin and are not on this site. Otherwise, it looks like a pretty good map to me. 8/10
Jimmy(Payne) (04/20/2016 09:57pm | Edited: 04/20/2016 09:59pm):
Nice map, bruh.
Jackie Milton (04/21/2016 06:05am):
The FTA counter is good, but the two preowned cities (one on each side) need to be neutral
for the counter to be corract and therefore "fair & balanced" or "Fox News", as Fox News
would say. Other than that, having a single base in the middle is not good for balanced
play; someone will get there first, and the person who does, wins: They will have a
greater unit count, making the other player unable to keep up. I might suggest having two
neutral bases away from the front or remove it completely. Otherwise, looks like a dynamic
asymmetrical map. I haven't looked to close at the balance there, but one can never
perfectly balance such a map. Good work.

-J.C.M.
(The "C" stands for "oh, it's pretty Choked up in the middle too, might want to widen that
out.")
Scurge (05/28/2016 07:23am | Edited: 05/28/2016 07:27am):
UPDATED! Change Log:

Corrected FTA counter by changing the two pre-owned cities to neutral;

Replaced base/factory in middle with a city and added bases 5 spaces away from the centre
instead (YC's base replacing one of the cities, but added a city on their side of the river
down towards the bottom so each country still has 16 neutral cities for capture on their side
of the map);

Kept the labs (my apologies for mistaking them for the radars in Dark Conflict; had been
playing that game quite a bit before I joined this site ^^;..) but moved the one at the
top more towards YC, whilst moving the comm towers a little more so that the one at the
bottom is the other side of the lab there and so closer to CI, and the comm tower at the
top I moved along
with the lab to be as much towards YC.

Following the movement of the aforementioned buildings I tidied up the resulting blank
spaces and those around them to keep the general aethetic of the map and/or each area, and
moved some forests inside each country's base areas so that terrain there is a little more
forgiving when one wants to move vehicles around within those areas, and lastly added some
shores on YC's side to make that area look less plain (LOL; get it‽ Like it was a plain area
because of all the plains, hahahah- Ok I'll see myself out ^^; XD)


But yeah, if you're viewing this map after today's changes let me know what you think of it
in general, and if you also saw it before the update then please let me know what you
think of the changes that have been made :-)
Xmo5 (05/31/2016 10:05am):
I highly highly highly recommend symmetry here. 50% of the issues on this map are symmetry
related; I recommend rotational because it generally gives the most dynamic gameplay.

The other 50% of the issues are pretty much all due to chokepoints and heavy terrain. Lay
off on the mountains and forests and try to give more (and bigger) routes through the main
areas. You can have some chokey spots, but use them in moderation.
Scurge (06/01/2016 07:18am):
After the current game on ths map is over I'll do a complete redesign of most of it,
making it less chockey whilst also changing the whole thing from asymmetrical to
rotational symmetry :-) I may need to practice some rotation-based symmetry in the
meantime as it hurts my brain a lot more than it probably should, though looks good once
it's done ^^; Of course any map-making I do to practice it I won't publish.
Scurge (07/08/2016 07:56am):
Guess who has learned rotational symmetry‽ =D Complete redesign finished, please let me
know what you think and if you notice any symmetry errors/irregulations please point them
out. Hopefully I've done good by/with this map now :-)
Xmo5 (07/11/2016 03:06pm):
This map looks much better, very nice job with the edits. A couple of minor things I'll
suggest before we move onto the advanced course: First, I'd put a couple more cities near
the neutral base. It looks a bit empty and it needs to have something nearby to start
capturing. You wouldn't want infantry to walk too far without food and water, would you?
:P Second, you could probably stand to widen the bridges across the center, most notably
the ones directly N/S of the neutral bases. I'd take out that mountain next to the road
and add another bridge there.

Now, the advanced course, as promised >=]

Okay, so first thing I think this map could benefit a lot from is an airport. The river
crossings are just begging for bcopters to abuse them to dodge in and out of range,
threatening the opponent from getting to cozy with the river being a defensive line
against land units. They'd really add a lot to gameplay both from a dynamics standpoint
and also by helping to keep a broader area of active combat, especially if they're well
placed.

Now, before we talk about where to put the airport, we should move onto advanced topic #2-
subtleties of the FTA counter. Unfortunately, but maybe unsurprisingly, balancing FTA
isn't as simple as it sounds. Giving the second player an infantry definitely does most of
the leg work in most cases, but not always. Generally, the goal of the infantry is to give
the 2nd player a half-turn advantage. With 2 bases and 3k income, nobody gets anything but
2 infantry on Day 1, so it's very easy to predict and account for half of that, so that
each player is ahead and behind equal amounts on their turn. The catch is that, for this
to work, the infantry have to be of equal importance, which means the base they start on
has to be as valuable and responsible as the other. In the extreme case of one island base
and one mainland base, an infantry would be useless on the island and be equivalent to an
entire first turn on the mainland, which obviously isn't fair either way. So how do we
make the bases equal? Common practice is to make one starting base responsible for
capturing the neutral base, and the other responsible for the airport and potentially
tower as well. Bases should also be responsible for about the same amount of
cities/funding and have equally important roles in the battle. By convention, the infantry
is placed on the base responsible for neutral base capture but, in theory, if everything
is done right, it shouldn't matter.

So how does that translate to this map? I recommend moving the base that has no infantry
on it so that it's closer to the neutral base. I'd probably aim for that clump of forests
by the circle of shoals; it would be nice to have the neutral base 2 moves away. Once you
move the base, switch the FTA counter to that base instead. Then, I would consider
swapping the lab and tower positions, though you could afford to make the tower slightly
more contested than the current lab location. I'd then add an airport that can access the
bends in the river in about 2 moves. I personally like the spot with the city, 4 spaces
away from the HQ, or somewhere nearby, but I'll leave that up to you. Just make sure it
doesn't "belong" to the same base that captures the neutral base.

Alright, I've probably bored you enough for one sitting so I'll leave it there for now.
I'm happy to take another look and comment on any other edits you make, so just let me know!
Scurge (07/21/2016 11:42am):
I can think of 2 good places to add cities near the neutral bases, especially if I move
the city close-ish too it, diagonal to the shores :-) They do have 99 'fuel' so they're
nicely stocked-up on rations, but I remember the long hikes; a few go-ahead bars are good
to have along the way X3 Aye, I think I will add another 2 bridges after the current test
game is over.

An airport would be good to add, and I agree with the placement you're suggesting for it;
I do usually like them to be far-to-far-ish from the fronts so that their
fuel-consumption-based weakness actually impacts them and, thereby, the game, at the very
least in making APCs nicely important( I like APCs XD) ^¥^

I never really thought about base importance in regards to FTA ^^; Thank you for the
in-depth feedback, and I found it much more fascinating than boring =D Once the current
game on this map is over I'll definitely move the base and then FTA counter as you
suggested, and switch the tower and lab positions. As for making the one of them more
contested, I'll likely then switch the tower in the now-lab's position with the city five
spaces away, across the shores from it, if that sounds like a good square to place it
in(?) :-)

Again, many thanks for the feedback and I shall let you know about future updates as and
when I undertake them ^¥^
Scurge (04/26/2017 04:50am):
Change log:
Added two cities to either side close to the neutral bases/factories;

Moved pre-owned bases so as to have better positioning for FTA counter (as detailed by
Xmo5 above);

Moved HQs so that they are still nicely near and between bases, which also brought them
slightly closer to both the centre of the map and some mountains and forests, potentially
adding more importance and tactics regarding those tiles, especially in FoW. Added cities
in the HQs' former locations;

Replaced cities four tiles away from former HQ positions with airports;

Switched lab and comm-tower positions, then switched the comm-towers with the cities that
were diagonally across the shores from the towers..
..and, lastly;
Moved the positions of some mountains and forests on the other side of the labs to the
neutral bases and added shores to the tiles adjacent to the bridges nearby, effectively
widening said bridges, making the river in those areas more accessible/crossable( if that
were a word! =P) by land units.

So, it's been a looong time coming, but hopefully this map is now super-special-awesome,
as a certain protagonist might say XD Let me know what you think :-)
Xmo5 (05/05/2017 11:37pm):
I think the base locations leave the tower area a bit out of the way... I'm not sure a lot of combat will take
place there. Also, the towers are a little too contested, I think, so I would move them back towards the
airport side a couple spaces just to be safe. I'm also not sure the airport location is optimal, but I don't
know where I'd put it.



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