Battle of the Bulge
Creator: doucoo || First Published: 05/26/2020 || Players: 4 || Size: 36x36
Categories: None
Rating: 0 in 0 ratings
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Comments:
Shadow Star (05/26/2020 06:52pm | Edited: 05/26/2020 06:54pm):
So, I see a lot of things going on here. I'm just going to list off a few things that I see, they aren't necessarily things that have
to be changed, and there can be a variety of different ways to handle fixing them if you do choose to go with the various
things I mention.

First, turn order, Currently you have the players in bottom right, clockwise. for a map that's 4 players it's better to have the
two players going first in opposite corners, and the FTA counters on player 3 and 4. (In this case, Swapping Brown Desert
with Pink Cosmo would fix that.)

Currently each player starts with a single base. This will make the early part of the game quite slow. It's suggested to start
with two bases. It's not required, but it does help speed up the game, and makes balancing a little easier.

Most of the property is not contested, meaning that players will spend time capturing their property before moving forward.
which really brings me up to the next point. balance.

The way property is spread out there's a fair amount of balance issues with how long it takes to get to the neutral bases.
Grey Sky for example will get his property a fair amount faster than Brown Desert. and the same is true for Pink Cosmo
getting their property a lot faster than Teal Galaxy.

The sea is really not very open, making navy units not very important here. The Silos in the middle are theoretically a big
incentive, but again, balance makes it less likely for some players to get to it before others.

Combat. Currently the only ground combat that's going to take place are between the left and right sides. The paths to get
from top to bottom really aren't likely to happen at all. This is from a few different problems, first, there are almost no shoals
to land landers on, so invading via the ocean is nearly impossible. The land bridges (the little 1 tile wide narrow travels
between the top and bottom) are too narrow for units to create much combat options there. You could change the land travel
quite a lot, open up the path a bit, add some more property along there to incentivize people to travel along there.

The combat from left to right are also quite hampered with almost all of the avenues of combat hampered by trees. this
means there's an emphasis on infantry, and air units. Wheeled units aren't going to be doing much because of the forests.
and a lot of the tread units won't be doing a whole lot either. You might want to open up the forests a little.

Dead space. There are a lot of spots that have no real incentive to travel to. (I'll just point out a few spots.) on the bottom left
(and top right) there is a big patch of forest where it's really empty, as in only forest. Sure there's cities around the forest, but
all the space in there, there's nothing. The same can be said for the big patch of forest on the bottom right (and top left)

of course some of these suggestions are only assuming it's FFA. if it's teams (say, ABBA for example) then a lot of the
problems aren't quite as pronounced. I'm seeing a lot of similarities with the official Cartridge map Badlands. Too much
clumped forest, most property isn't contested much. there's balance issues with how long it takes to get property.
doucoo (05/27/2020 05:49am):
thanks for the tips, will have a look



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