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BattleMaster => Locals => Dwilight => Topic started by: Chenier on November 28, 2016, 10:11:14 PM
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- 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.
(http://i.imgur.com/paOihXJ.jpg)
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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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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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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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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.
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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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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.
(http://i.imgur.com/16klx3l.jpg)
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With more regions removed, and Madina made more of an island again
(http://i.imgur.com/AXnDp2B.jpg)
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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.
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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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So for the sea zones, something plus like this? (+ fixed a few borders, added a some bridges, fixed sea routes)
(http://i.imgur.com/gzmLvRH.jpg)
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So for the sea zones, something plus like this? (+ fixed a few borders, added a some bridges, fixed sea routes)
(http://i.imgur.com/gzmLvRH.jpg)
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.
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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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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.
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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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As long as you're poking at stuff, assume that if the Zuma are coming back, they can get used to whatever changes might be made.
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Honestly, overall, I like the first one better: I think that if we were to change the continent, we should do so to bring everything closer together, the continent more like a circle, and not have any big gaps like the one in the south of the subsequent versions.
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Me too. First one plus some water ways to allow the inner sea to be completely connected. I really like the whole inner sea idea allowing nobles to travel vast distances using sea zones. Wish the game supported river ways too but that is probably beyond what the game can handle or requires too much work.
I'd also bring cities closer to the center rather than keep them facing the outer ocean. Sure wouldn't mind having one or too but the map has too many outer cities.
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Me too. First one plus some water ways to allow the inner sea to be completely connected. I really like the whole inner sea idea allowing nobles to travel vast distances using sea zones. Wish the game supported river ways too but that is probably beyond what the game can handle or require too much work.
I'd also bring cities closer to the center rather than keep them facing the outer ocean. Sure wouldn't mind having one or too but the map has too many outer cities.
Yep, that all sounds pretty good.
(But what do I know, I'm sleep-deprived ;D )
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I'll look into it. The final one has a more spread-out shape, but that's only because the more civilized parts were crammed even closer together (no vast deserts), the only distant parts being the wild parts we weren't likely to claim anyways. Didn't really like those open areas to begin with, either, the last one has lands that is more likely to be envied by multiple realms.
As for river travel... that's really a non-issue I think. Nothing stops us from making thin sea zones for them.
For the eastern coastal cities... they could be moved further inland, or regions could be added around them? The main issue was not the presence of coastal cities in that area, I think, but rather the lack of inland ones. Already added one in Caylin for that purpose. I tend to favor addition when it comes to occupied lands, though I also try to limit additions overall.
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I tried moving the south-west to the east, but it just displaces the problem. Eventually, you just have a dead-end strip of land.
Unless...?
(http://i.imgur.com/11py5Ca.jpg)
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That new portion just ruined the map for me.
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Haha, yea, I don't like it either.
I'm thinking a new island might be better.
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This actually uses the old islands that had been scrapped
(http://i.imgur.com/kQJyxWm.jpg)
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A few tweaks and more sea routes, though I think that with the geography changes, sea routes could be removed completely from the map and have people rely on sea travel. Every realm that relied on sea routes for intra-realm travel would not have a land passage substitute.
(http://i.imgur.com/NEtqQy3.jpg)
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Loving that last map you made Chenier.
Also, Storm's Keep isn't a useless stronghold. Don't forget that it was the site of one of the largest battles in Dwilight history because of the conflict between the "Saxons" and Morek. Even if there were some shenanigans being pulled, I wouldn't write off Storm's Keep.
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But that wasn't because Storm's Keep is guarding anything in particular. It's because the group that angered practically the entire continent happened to have that as their last bastion of strength.
(And it was only such a huge battle because of the Saxons' propensity for both multicheating and abusing loopholes to drain family gold near-infinitely.)
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But that wasn't because Storm's Keep is guarding anything in particular. It's because the group that angered practically the entire continent happened to have that as their last bastion of strength.
(And it was only such a huge battle because of the Saxons' propensity for both multicheating and abusing loopholes to drain family gold near-infinitely.)
Why do you have to bring logic into the equation ;w; *cries in a corner*
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Again, BM doesn't have any navy so no point on having any strongholds by the coast lines. I'd either remove them or place them in more reasonable places where it makes sense to put one.
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Is this just theoretical or are we actually considering this? I can't say any of these really interest me. The ones that separate the southern land bridge are a very bad idea. It would just throw off the flow of the continent. I don't like the idea of eliminating donut regions either. I've always liked them because it makes it possible to have an actual siege, the extra travel time is worth it.
I can see how Storm's Keep serves as a refuge and little more, but what about adding a ferry lane from there to Cold Spring or Springdale? Then it will have a real choke point to defend and could be a rallying point for invasions. (Ferry lane attacks have better odds against a fortified region then attacking by sea correct?)
Also I've always thought it would be cool to turn those two little isolated uninhabited islands into island strongholds. Perfect for founding pirate realms.
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Is this just theoretical or are we actually considering this? I can't say any of these really interest me. The ones that separate the southern land bridge are a very bad idea. It would just throw off the flow of the continent. I don't like the idea of eliminating donut regions either. I've always liked them because it makes it possible to have an actual siege, the extra travel time is worth it.
I can see how Storm's Keep serves as a refuge and little more, but what about adding a ferry lane from there to Cold Spring or Springdale? Then it will have a real choke point to defend and could be a rallying point for invasions. (Ferry lane attacks have better odds against a fortified region then attacking by sea correct?)
Also I've always thought it would be cool to turn those two little isolated uninhabited islands into island strongholds. Perfect for founding pirate realms.
I'm not a dev, I'm just brainstorming for the sake of discussion.
For Storm's Keep, in the last versions I added a bridge to Rye. Makes both Strom's Keep and Springdale less isolated, and makes for potential conflict over who owns what there, given that the semi-isand of Nifel and Springdale are often held by different realms. Makes it a choke, and simpler to manage than ferry lanes.
Tiny islands were kind of cool, and there were many on Dwi's first draft, but they were all removed due to being very impractical. For one, you can only takeover regions you are adjacent to, so no one could claim them as is. Then, sea travel kind of assumes you'll eventually get access to a harbor somewhere if you travel far enough, unless ferries are installed you could literally get stranded on them. They are pretty much always, by definition, "far from the capital", making them inefficient. They would be either be too hard to defend, making them only suitable for overly pacifistic realms, or on the contrary too hard to invade, making them unfair. And that's just to name a few. Also, we've had "pirate" realms... they didn't really do any piracy. Granted, Madina's capital wasn't on the inner sea, but on the southern sea, and sea travel only came in much later, so that probably contributed to it. D'Hara did a bit of piracy, but hardly any, trade was too important to it. Mostly raiding rogue regions during a few very brief periods. It's kind of hard to project military might from islands to anywhere, and when your troops tend to get scattered to the smallest battle, you don't get to do much piracy. Distance to travel makes it hard to arrive together, provisions present a whole lot of headaches, sailing costs cut down on your recruitment funds, etc.
We've had the doughnuts for years now, and I don't remember a single meaningful siege. In BM, troops can hold out in a city much, much longer than invading troops can hold out at its border. It's also my understanding that sieges are the result of when the attackers have too many troops for the defender to defeat, but too few to breach the walls. This would remain fully possible with 2-region "doughnuts", which is what I went for in most cases.
Zakky, could you please mention which forts in particular you find to be a problem? Also, while we may not have naval combat, forts still serve as fortified sailing and landing locations. I don't really believe that they should exclusively be in choke points, and I'm not even sure they have ever been in choke points before Dwilight.
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http://postimg.org/image/zapv4x7x3/ (http://postimg.org/image/zapv4x7x3/)
Red: Terrible stronghold locations
Blue: Cities that need to be moved closer to the inner ocean. + too many southern cities overall
Yellow: need sea zones there
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http://postimg.org/image/zapv4x7x3/ (http://postimg.org/image/zapv4x7x3/)
Red: Terrible stronghold locations
Blue: Cities that need to be moved closer to the inner ocean. + too many southern cities overall
Yellow: need sea zones there
That's an older draft though.
Red: Vakyrja could be merged with Yggdramir, making it a very strategic chokepoint to monster lands. Seems like a great fort location. A bridge was added from Storm's Keep to Ryem making it, again, a valuable choke point. Balance's Rereat... we've had a realm there forever. And it's involved in wars right now. I don't really see how to remove it without crippling that realm and destroying one of Dwi's most iconic locations. I'll have to disagree with this one. As for Dragon Song and the Ruins, these are Zuma land, always were (even when the flag wasn't there). We were never allowed to colonize Zuma lands, so I see no reason to alter these iconic locations.
Blue: Also applicable to some of red: We need more inland cities, but I disagree that we need *only* inland cities. Coastal cities are useful to send armies to sea. Also helps to scatter them if one alternates between inland and coastal. That's why a city was added in Caylin. Maybe one could be added to Yaren too. Flow, I've added a bridge. Not sure what else to do, I don't love it, but I don't think it's dramatic to maintain a few such locations. South-eastern cities were redone a lot in latest drafts.
Yellow: sea zones were added in latest drafts.
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New take:
Many coastal cities had land added around them.
A new island by the Zuma forts that includes an island.
All rivers made navigable.
All ferry routes removed.
Nifelhold changed to a city.
Valkyrja island merged (mentionned before but wasn't actually redrawn yet)
Possibly a few more things.
(http://i.imgur.com/RbFShjK.jpg)
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The map is starting to become very cool.
Its already a huge improvement as it is.
Its getting hard to read though, i can barley see whats a city and how its called, even zoomed in.
The connection between Lairabina and east dwilight should be a bridge with a sea zone though.
This is a crucial connection, or you end up sailing all the way around the Madinan isle.
Also Giask has little competition, the city is either to large or to isolated.
If you have giask as capital you have to much of an advantage over this whole area.
Darfix should also be put somewhere, it was named after one of the two main creators of this map.
Darfix and Giask are named after them if i am not mistaken (are these guys still playing? they might have some good comments as well).
And if you really can mange to pull this map redrawing off the ground, there might be a Chenier city somewhere, someday :P
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The map is starting to become very cool.
Its already a huge improvement as it is.
Its getting hard to read though, i can barley see whats a city and how its called, even zoomed in.
The connection between Lairabina and east dwilight should be a bridge with a sea zone though.
This is a crucial connection, or you end up sailing all the way around the Madinan isle.
Also Giask has little competition, the city is either to large or to isolated.
If you have giask as capital you have to much of an advantage over this whole area.
Darfix should also be put somewhere, it was named after one of the two main creators of this map.
Darfix and Giask are named after them if i am not mistaken (are these guys still playing? they might have some good comments as well).
And if you really can mange to pull this map redrawing off the ground, there might be a Chenier city somewhere, someday :P
Yea, I'm doing quick jobs with GIMP because I presume any change I do is likely to be changed anew. Once more "set" borders and features are agreed upon I could make it look nice again.
The sea connections... something worth thinking about. As it is, the tower at Laraibina and Sallowtown both act as chokepoints that block the passage, both by land and by sea. Armies can land and set sail again on the other side, or sail all round the island altogether. I'm not sure how much of an impact the land bridge has around Laraibina, though the Sallowtown one does block off more vital areas. Not sure what the best avenue would be. I think we'd be better off without any ferry routes, but that would probably only work with more land connections (or bridges) or larger islands, but I don't want to remove the island feel of the islands.
I don't think Giask would make for the best capital. It's meant more as a jewel for realms based in other cities to fight over. While it'd still allow for a realm based there to project might to Madina, Fissoa, and Swordfell, antagonizing all three is likely to see it just starve itself to death.
Madina has kind of bad territory, too, with a city down south and no other. Switching fatmilak over and making them closer to the East lessens this, but maybe not enough. It could be shifted a bit south-east, though.
I think Darfix and Giask quit a very, very long time ago. The names could be recycled for other prominent features. I don't think these huge cities were a good thing, and I'd even consider removing Giask as well.
I've already got a Chenier's Coast, the probably least used sea zone in the whole game ;)
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That's an older draft though.
Red: Vakyrja could be merged with Yggdramir, making it a very strategic chokepoint to monster lands. Seems like a great fort location. A bridge was added from Storm's Keep to Ryem making it, again, a valuable choke point. Balance's Rereat... we've had a realm there forever. And it's involved in wars right now. I don't really see how to remove it without crippling that realm and destroying one of Dwi's most iconic locations. I'll have to disagree with this one. As for Dragon Song and the Ruins, these are Zuma land, always were (even when the flag wasn't there). We were never allowed to colonize Zuma lands, so I see no reason to alter these iconic locations.
Blue: Also applicable to some of red: We need more inland cities, but I disagree that we need *only* inland cities. Coastal cities are useful to send armies to sea. Also helps to scatter them if one alternates between inland and coastal. That's why a city was added in Caylin. Maybe one could be added to Yaren too. Flow, I've added a bridge. Not sure what else to do, I don't love it, but I don't think it's dramatic to maintain a few such locations. South-eastern cities were redone a lot in latest drafts.
Yellow: sea zones were added in latest drafts.
I am not a big fan of the new maps. I liked your first one.
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I thought the main differences were addressing stuff you mentioned, though. :P
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I thought the main differences were addressing stuff you mentioned, though. :P
Didn't you know? it's impossible to please Zakky.
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I'm thinking of shifting Madina a bit, maybe even inverting it so that Madina gives onto the inner sea. The volcano island could be moved to the ice island, maybe some tweaks to the new islands as well.
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the latest map,
you do realize the lurian area, geography is basically replicated in the north with the inland sea there surrounded by cities etc.
the dharan region is buffed massively and also dominates the surrounding lands with big cities around its waters and a landbridge choke point double.
Further rendering the ''lurian'' region a backwater much like present day darfix region. To me this redraw seems like a nice exercise and a potential spark for further inspiration but that's all it does for me.
Maybe play with the idea of fusing dhara with the sallow coast area and do in the south as is done with the north, few if any islands. Islands are incredibly hard to assault with the current mechanics. Same goes for the bridge / single entry point areas. Rather use travel time options with more possible approaches to a target rather than giving one or two options that are hard choke points.
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the latest map,
you do realize the lurian area, geography is basically replicated in the north with the inland sea there surrounded by cities etc.
the dharan region is buffed massively and also dominates the surrounding lands with big cities around its waters and a landbridge choke point double.
Further rendering the ''lurian'' region a backwater much like present day darfix region. To me this redraw seems like a nice exercise and a potential spark for further inspiration but that's all it does for me.
Maybe play with the idea of fusing dhara with the sallow coast area and do in the south as is done with the north, few if any islands. Islands are incredibly hard to assault with the current mechanics. Same goes for the bridge / single entry point areas. Rather use travel time options with more possible approaches to a target rather than giving one or two options that are hard choke points.
I'll review this further later, because I'm not quite sure to grasp everything you meant right now, but D'Hara is just made closer. It could make them stronger, or more vulnerable. They are invadable by Astrum much more easily, for example, with all new regions available to them being disputable with one realm or another.
The Lurian region is made much closer to Fissoa, Madina, Swordfell, and, to a lesser extent, D'Hara, making it less backwater regardless of its shape, I would believe.
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D'Hara is just made closer. It could make them stronger, or more vulnerable. They are invadable by Astrum much more easily, for example, with all new regions available to them being disputable with one realm or another.
D'haran lands as presented are larger than they current map. they are really close to a lot of 2 or 3 square cities. Have more access to food producing regions and the argument that they are more vulnerable is rubbish. There have been plenty of attacks on the D'haran islands and cities and lands in general in the past. It is firmly established that this is a deathwish operation. Armies that were triple the size of the defenders, well coordinated and all were woefully unable to even make a dent in the defenses of D'hara. The best that was accomplished was treachery of one city that was unable to be held by this much larger invading force.
Invasion by Astrum, or any other faction, will face the same problems. The only landbridge to the D'haran lands (desired by D'hara potentially) is guarded by a Stronghold that literally blocks the passage. Before you get there you must move through several bad land regions that have slow travel rates and there's a city dead smack in front of the stronghold to top things off. That's perhaps the best defense in all of battlemaster.
D'hara could (and has in the past) launched invasions from its island(s) to capture cities and food regions. It is perfectly poised to do so in the presented map you made. Not only is golden farrow perfectly situated to be captured, so are the farm lands around it.same for Eidub(sp?) and the southern (green) islands. Even Gelene, Mimer and the Madina regions are fine targets.
The Lurian region is made much closer to Fissoa, Madina, Swordfell, and, to a lesser extent, D'Hara, making it less backwater regardless of its shape, I would believe.
Lurian lands are utterly decimated. You recycled perhaps 1/3 of the current lands. Fused what did remain with Fissoa, it just has a namesake one square city and capped the region off with neigh impassible mountains which is ''swordfell''. Look at the massive, incredibly long travel time if you wanted to go north of map presented fissoa. This requires a naval move for armies that want to do anything which renders rations low to begin with. That means any invasion army will have low rations to operate in hostile lands further boxing the Luria / Fissoa in. Its a tomb that has Giask and Askileon only a 1 square region apart with barely enough food to keep going. The regions that are presented (going by the names I can read) produce little food compared to the ones you didn't recycle.
Indeed, Luria, as envisioned in the presented map would starve most likely and couldn't do anything to change that. Madina is an island that produces little food and to the north there are at least 4 regions of mountains or low food producing regions.
Any realm in the south would be forced to live on long distance trading, and that, is very precarious and servile.
The Nothern replica of the inner sea.
Aegis, Freke, City south of Nimh, Stronghold that is nameless north of Freke.
Those are all linked by an inner sea in the presented map. Sure they are small cities but comparable in wealth thus equal in might as the lurian region is currently. Perhaps it even surpasses the luria combination for it also has Muspelheim just around the corner (on the same sea area), lots and lots of food producing regions around it so it definitely won't have to go looking for food and just a bit further away you'll find even more big cities.
Fusing D'hara to the Sallow Coast
Literally crash the presented D'haran islands into the Sallow coast. Their natural barrier would be the bad lands (travel time). Their Cities would be bastions against the Madinan lands. the factions that arise there would have a much more dynamic area and many options to play around with. There would be a way for D'hara, Astrum, Westfold, Swordfell, Madina and even Fissoa to interact on a much grander scale than it does now. Heck, it would even be more encouraged to do so if that would be the case.
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How about numbering each of the provinces and then using the amount of cities we have and then using a random number generator of sorts to randomly place the allotted cities and then working from there by tweaking their positions?
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-snip-
You realize that D'hara's position currently is completely unassailable, except by monsters who don't follow the same recruitment rules as player realms, right? So I'd definitely take a stronger D'Hara that CAN be attacked to a weaker one that can't. It also works in reverse, D'Hara is hard pressed currently to take part in any offensive actions on land thanks to the desert just outside their mainland regions and the rest of the Island requiring them to sail over seas to attack.
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Alright, backtracking on comments a bit.
Renodin, what do you mean the Lurian area being like the Northern area? The new Lurian area would be much smaller than the North. Otherwise, being "like the North" is mostly a good thing, being that the North has many realms neighboring each other, and with the tweaks drafted would be even better than it is now.
D'Hara is "buffed" mostly by the addition of rurals between their cities and north of them. I used to really like handling the food scarcity back in the days, but to be honest I was probably about the only one. It was kind of ridiculous to hinge a realm's survival on an aspect of gameplay that nobody cared about, a ton of food was rotting in foreign warehouses as we starved because their lords just didn't give a !@#$. The price cap was hiked to incite lords to sell, I presume, but Port Raviel and Port Nebel are just way too poor to balance out their positions and ridiculous lack of food. Dwi has a bunch of cities that are both wealthier and have way more food nearby. Giving a few more rurals wouldn't break things, it would just make them a bit less absurd.
Its chokepoints already exist. There's already a ferry route from Qubel Lighthouse to Sallowtown. This only makes it a land connect, the main effect being to reduce distance in miles. So less travel times, and less distance from home penalties when on the continent. This change makes it easier for them to attack others, maybe, but it's mutual and not huge. For one, the addition of rurals makes it easier for foreign realms to land armies directly on the islands. As it is, those islands only have 1 region that doesn't have walls, now there'd be 6 (including Dizeddo). Plus, Astrum, and any realm friendly to it, could launch an invasion straight from Libidizedd. Alternatively, D'Hara and allies could try to take on the Astrumese Hegemony and take on Libidizedd themselves. Either way, it's potential for war and conflict to replace isolation. D'Hara needs to be able to interact with others more, and Astrum needs to be more vulnerable than it currently is (the same arguments about the 6 rurals to land in and friendly city that applied to D'Hara would to Astrum's insular holdings).
Making the Lurian region a backwater one is somewhat exaggerated, but somewhat intentional. It gets shrinked considerably, but it maintains a high wealth density. If it survives (with so few nobles it's basically dying on its own), it would now have greater ability and incentive to war Madina, Fissoa, or Swordfell, instead of being content with huge swaths of undisputed land and nothing to do with it. Otherwise, even if the realm was to collapse to whatever, it's high wealth density makes it fertile grounds for disputes between those three realms. It's remade in a way to make it viable to split up Luria among many realms as well as to host a realm or two there.
I tried to remove all ferries, in general. It's also to consider that Anaris is thinking of making rogues embark through sea travel. These 6 rurals on the D'Haran island would not just be vulnerable to human armies, but rogue incursions as well.
The Lurian region was "decimated" because almost all of it was rogue, and much of the rest was lordless regions. It is basically a huge black hole on the continent right now. The mountains aren't impenetrable. For one, they are a viable target themselves, being rich and belonging to a realm. Secondly, there's a land route along the eastern coast, one needs not pass through the mountains to go North. Then there's sea travel. Raplacing some of the land passes with bridges as has been suggested for a future draft would allow them to sail straight to just about anyone. Would they be immediate neighbors to everyone? Of course not, impossible for such a large map. But they would have considerably greater interaction potential than they do now.
I must also note I don't know what you mean when you talk about squares.
Luria already starved, with its current geography, on a number of times. They just focused it on Giask. It's not a huge change. As I said in an earlier post, though, I'm quite open to simply removing Giask Outright. I don't like the impact of those huge cities on the game.
"Northern replica": just having a few cities by a sea in no way makes it a replica. Luria has a bunch of cities, namely large and huge, in a tight concentration, in the middle of a vast expanse of nothingness. This, I do not think in any way comparable to have a few tiny cities around a lake in a vast inhabited area held by many quite different realms and more homogeneous territory. The Lurias were basically guaranteed to have no immediate neighbor due to the city placement, this area pretty much guarantees everyone will have multiple neighbors.
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So far every rendition you posted has the entire Candiels peninsula missing.
This troubles me since I am the Duke and Margrave of Candiels and it also serves as the seat of the VE with the largest temple. I am not saying this as a player who wants to keep his toys, but as a player who is concerned about the playability and reshuffling of the map. Either everyone or nobody should lose out to make it fair.
I could be mistaken, it is hard to read names on the maps but I could not see anything that resembles the area in question.
Also, it feels like you are taking tnt and blasting the south, the area feels rather scattered and disjointed in all the maps making it really hard to see how this will benefit Madina in any way and more of a punishment tossed on us after having to deal with month long siege of Beasts (another Thread entirely on that topic...).
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Madinans like PvE fine. What they don't like is fighting impossible odds and constant battles with no progress for the realm. Not long ago we had the most players on Dwilight. I understand that the continent has issues and understand that the way forward is problematic but as I've said before in the Monsters thread the majority of players in Madina at the moment won't continue to play if Madina is removed from the game or made into a monster haven. Many here are invested in the Realm and have history here. Personally I'd migrate Ulfang to another continent but several have said they would not continue to play if they were forced from Madina.
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Indeed, the Candiels peninsula was removed. It was almost all rogue, and its geography was poor, like the Fissoan peninsula that also got the knife.
Nothing against Candiels per say, though, and the goal is to impact played held lands as little as possible. Candiels could be "turned" into one of the new small island cities close to Madina, so as to not erase temples, followers, and such.
For Madina, the proposed changes here would remove the ferry route, thus alleviating the issue of monster concentration. Anaris wants to make them use sea travel, so I can't really predict how that will affect insular realms, though, but this would at least bring Madina closer to eastern realms and D'Hara (right now Madina has just about zero PvP potential) and give it fair avenues of expansion (should density allow).
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(old time player recently returned to BM to give it another shot)
I'm not sure how I feel about some of the bigger proposed changes to the map, but I do like the idea of getting rid of the donut regions around the cities. They seem to distort the travel times between regions. The travel time between Grodno and Outer Giask for example is based on the 'center' of Outer Giask which is on the east side of Giask.
I also like the idea of the fortresses being in strategic locations.
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Couldn't stop thinking about what changes I'd make if i could so with the power of microsoft paint: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-KkOZ4fglqCY1A0dTF5SGdtRTA/view?usp=sharing (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-KkOZ4fglqCY1A0dTF5SGdtRTA/view?usp=sharing)
I focused on the eastern continent since that is where almost all the realms are. summary:
Shift Springdale/Cold Spring south
Shift D'haran isles north (maybe make one island out of both of them and Libidizedd?)
Make a north-west passage from Balance's Retreat to Shyussei
Shift the Lurian lands north by removing Girich, Axewild and Flying Hongrns (along with smaller southern divides)
Remove Palm Sea and shift the Fissoa peninsula north
Shift Madina & Fatmilak isles north to about where the D'haran isles are currently.
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Most of these were already in my drafts I believe.