Author Topic: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...  (Read 22298 times)

Chenier

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If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Topic Start: November 28, 2016, 10:11:14 PM »
  • Maintaining occupied territory as untouched as possible
  • Snipping out excess territories that make realms too far from each other
  • Adding land to allow previously isolated realms to interact with others
  • Adding cities and strongholds to locations of vast emptiness to allow regions to fight over, or establish oneself on
  • Lessening some of the chokepoints that only stiffled competition by creating "natural" borders
  • Tweaking some borders to make travel time more representative
  • Removing 1-region doughnuts that add needless travel time to everything

If...

First draft.

« Last Edit: November 28, 2016, 10:16:42 PM by Chenier »
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Zakilevo

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #1: November 28, 2016, 10:19:05 PM »
If I were to redesign Dwilight, I would not put any strongholds by the coasts. There is no navy in this game. No point on placing strongholds in the deadend. They should be placed in choke points or strategically important areas.

Also, I wouldn't just turn the inner sea into a giant lake like this map.

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #2: November 28, 2016, 10:22:00 PM »
Personally I would either remove the deserts or the moutains as you now still split those areas a lot from north/south and the deserts are useless. Would rather then still 2 mountain ranges with a path through the center with a city (surrounded by a townsland) as the path gate (lvl 2 walls as the city can be bypassed).

But I like the idea, but will we ever redraw it, doubt it?
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Chenier

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #3: November 28, 2016, 10:35:25 PM »
Could you clarify some of these statements?

Which strongholds, specifically, would you remove? The coastal ones either guard a chokepoint and/or a sea passage, don't they?

For the deserts, indeed, their stats tend to suck. I meant to stay true to occupied lands as much as possible, so I did not change that in this draft. This does create a lot more desert regions than there were, this much is true, but they are smaller, so it's less likely to generate 30+h travel times. I also added 3 strongholds and 1 city to that area to increase potential. They could be changed to other region types, but I'm under the impression that we will never recover enough population to recover all those lands anyways, and thus they are likely to remain rogue for a while. These are also mostly regions that could be quickly annexed by neighboring states, and I didn't want to appear to try to specifically help any. I'll give it more thought.
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Zakilevo

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #4: November 28, 2016, 10:40:12 PM »
I'd move all the coastal fortresses. Not just one and place them all in either choke points or strategically important areas or even around the inner sea.

Not sure what is the point of talking about the map changes though. It just won't happen.

Chenier

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #5: November 28, 2016, 11:01:28 PM »
But I can't think of any stronghold in worthless locations? Valkyrja is kind of weird, being at a choke without actually blocking anything, but others guard sea routes (Qubel Lighthouse, Tower Fatmilak), serve as potential capitals (Balance's Retreat), watch over important locations (Shrine of Seeklander, most of what I added, Valkyrja, somewhat, I guess).

Alright, there's Storms Keep which matches your description... Plus Dragon Song and Ruins of Walfurgisnacht, but these two are Zuma are will probably never be colonized, so who knows why those forts were built?

Also occured to me that I made Port Nebel no longer a port, so I guess I'd make a small bay on the south side for it.

As for the deserts, a more drastic solution could be cutting out even more land, cramming Fissoa/Luria even further North. Could work.
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Chenier

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #6: November 28, 2016, 11:15:02 PM »
What about just cramming Madina further into the Eastern subcontinent? Fissoa could be adapted/projected a bit further. This would mostly remove the island part of Madina, though, which they likely consider to be a defining feature of themselves. Rivers could be added with some bridges, perhaps.

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Chenier

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #7: November 29, 2016, 12:33:29 AM »
With more regions removed, and Madina made more of an island again

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Zakilevo

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #8: November 29, 2016, 12:56:37 AM »
I'd disconnect the land between Ammando and its new eastern region and connect it with a bridge so it doesn't block the sea zones.

Chenier

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #9: November 29, 2016, 01:36:04 AM »
I'd disconnect the land between Ammando and its new eastern region and connect it with a bridge so it doesn't block the sea zones.

Talking of Storms Keep, adding a bridge to Rye would fix that "fortress to nowhere" issue for that one. For Valkyrja, it could be merged with Yggdramir.

The sea zones... an interesting point. Does anyone use them? For that region in particular, I mean. A bridge would work, though 3 might seem silly: are there sea zones we absolutely want connected to any specific other zone? It could definately be done, though.

As for why bother? I don't know. Personally, I think a large part of Dwi's problems are due to its maps. As are/were a huge part of BT's problems post-blight, the hasty map changes had made large parts of it largely unplayable. But Dwilight was a player initiative to begin with: players drew the original map, not devs. Of course, it required a lot of dev work, but the players contributed hugely to it. Aside from the map, the players were tasked with choosing the names of the realms, the banners, contests were held, playes got to pick the initial themes, etc. It was a largely player-driven initiative and it yielded a lot of hype.

I think revisiting that could only be beneficial. If the players are consulted, I'm sure we could agree on something that will be more fun for everyone. I've got ideas, I presented some of them, but these are rough sketches and I don't think it'd be ideal for one person to do it solo anyways. Hence why I brought the idea here, where others have already pitched in good ideas and contributions. Will it be used? I don't know. If yes, when? I don't know. Many wars on Dwilight right now, so there's no rush, but imo best to have something ready before things dull than only start working then.
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Chenier

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #10: November 29, 2016, 01:58:04 AM »
So for the sea zones, something plus like this? (+ fixed a few borders, added a some bridges, fixed sea routes)

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Zakilevo

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #11: November 29, 2016, 02:00:12 AM »
So for the sea zones, something plus like this? (+ fixed a few borders, added a some bridges, fixed sea routes)



I'd push the southern western dwilight part closer to madina or to eastern dwilight. No point on having to so far away from the rest of the map.

Chenier

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #12: November 29, 2016, 02:14:27 AM »
That seems harder to pull off, though.

I could displace a big chunk of it, basically all of the marroccidens, next to Madina, but I'm not sure this is best. Madina would already have a large core, probably wouldn't be able to take many more regions while maintaining density, and it'd have a land path to expand towards Swordfell/D'Hara or Fissoa/Luria. The Bol bridge could be modified for this.

I did remove Candiels, though, which I forgot was held by Madina. But there is a new stronghold added at their border, which acts much as a substitute.

Do Madinians even like PvE? A sea route could to Paisly, but I don't think that'd be a good idea.

That corner is a bit far-off from everyone, but 1) the zuma are (were) there, and them being far-off isn't a bad thing imo, and 2) it'd allow to concentrate colonization efforts, if they ever were to be (or new realms for sunken continents) in a more dynamic location, such as Golden Farrow, while still leaving "vast wilderness" Dwi is known for.
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Zakilevo

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #13: November 29, 2016, 02:19:34 AM »
Four cities so far away from the center of the map will not be good. You don't want 4 cities at the bottom of the map like that. I will most likely get the Riombara treatment and die out slowly.

Chenier

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Re: If Dwilight was to be redrawn...
« Reply #14: November 29, 2016, 02:30:42 AM »
Four cities so far away from the center of the map will not be good. You don't want 4 cities at the bottom of the map like that. I will most likely get the Riombara treatment and die out slowly.

There's no one there, though. If they were populated, I'd strongly agree with you. Cutting Riombara off from the world wasn't great for anyone. But as it is, there's no one there, and there will likely never be.

I'm also reluctant because of the Zuma, wouldn't feel right to mess with that area any more than I did without an explicit mention that the Zuma are never ever coming back or that it's otherwise fine to redo the area.

That being said, it's true it's a rather poorly configurated area. It's way too linear. A bunch of cities on top of each other, water to the East, nothing to the West. Unless Nightmarch was colonizable, as that would make a decent capital. On the other hand, it is city/townsland rich, so highly fortifiable, so it would offer an alternative Westgardian PvE experience if realms were to sponsor the effort considerably. Think of it as a backup frontier, should Westgard ever become too successful. It's roaming with rogues, possibly more than anywhere, possibly even daimons, add the distance on top of that, and you've got your ultimate colonization challenge. "Too hard"? Maybe. But that's kind of the point, shouldn't be feasible unless we get a ton more nobles, because the density rules wouldn't allow it anyways. Is it a bit more isolated? Perhaps, but that doesn't bore everyone. And there's a huge difference between "isolated frontier players try to conquer" and "realm that becomes isolated in the middle of nowhere due to realms collapsing around them because of player decay and/or dev intervention". Though the idea is to bring people closer together, it's not to make the whole homogenous.

If we ever run out of land (which I don't see happening unless we dump every player on Dwilight), we could always add a large island/continent between Madina and the Maroccidens.
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