long connections over water


The actuall length of the Icelandic connection routes is unrealistic.

^ I thought that too, and then I figured he might've been referring to connections that skip territories in the middle. Like the weird ones in some Europe maps where you connect a corner of Spain with a corner of France, or in the maps where some territories are "ports" and connected to territories that are far away, skipping closer territories in the process.

From Piggy

If your map includes one of the following feautres it is cancer:
1 territory: 1 income bonuses
bonuses have similar income:territory ratio
bonuses are similar size
bonuses within bonuses
territories have the same number of connections
few choke points
large variations in territory size
long connections over water

Behold the one true europe and its adherance to the rules of noncancer:

From Knyte

"The thing is that the current Europe map is the only one that doesn't make for boring or overly imbalanced 3v3's. The cancer symptoms piggy described are all pretty important for an interesting/playable/good map to not have. The issue is that these cancer symptoms are also standard rules that people obey when making maps because they don't know any better and because they're already way too common."

Correct me if I understand wrong! First of all I am not saying the Standard Europe is bad! I like it, a lot people play it and it has definitely strategic value - as a lot players take it seriously, they have analyzed in depth. I have not played other maps so my evaluation might be biased. After all I do not like those maps, so I wont even bother with them. The standard Europe is definitely easy to understand, not overlayed bonuses like others have. But!

Basically every map can be imbalanced with poor settings. I would not call all of them cancer settings. (Leaving out the other Europe maps as they seem poor to me as well)
- 1 Territory, 1 income bonus! - Nothing wrong with it. That it does not fit for "standard gameplay" does not make it un-strategic or cancer with other settings.
- Similar Bonuse/territory ratio - Like wtf? If one makes similar ratio map (presume same borders and other balance functions) it is cancer? Greatest bias I have heard.
- Bonuses within bonuses - I tend to agree over all. But I would not claim it to always be like that. Take for example Jerusalem map - the tower-castle or whatever it is called insude bonus and walls. Works fine and creates different strategic value.
- Similar size? Cant even understand what he/she means? Like if they are same size in physical terms on screen, so they would create good view of map and distance? It is bad? Or i understand it wrong? I assume he/she means Bonus/territory ratio. Same critique as second one!
- Few choke points. I have learned to call those "Bottlenecks". They are create strategic element. But it is not must have in good map! So many different playstyles-Templates-game-modes that do not need them and would de-value the overall functionality of it.
- Same Nr. of connecting territories - again! It is not one-way-street. How cant he/she look the broader picture.
- Long connections over water - Generally, yes bad, as it distorts the image and understanding of map-territory distance. But again it can balance the map by creating a circular movement option to eliminate the map border-value due to fact being in corner and better protected.

What I am trying to say is how come such a high-ranked ladder player (not saying I am better - I am a rookie here) would think that there is only one way to play this game. After all has not the developer given such a broad setting options for us to play with them and suit for our game-play? Why preach about your personal style and call it superior? It leaves, at least to me, rather bad image of oneself. I would have imagined such player to have higher reasoning skills. Even random order has its strategic effect if used with right map-template. Every above mentioned factor of a map gives a Host option to create different style-strategy and gameplay. Calling one of maps - which would be really unbalanced with wrong settings to be superior seems not adequate.

Well so there's two core issues with the things piggy's calling out:

- Some things (like perfectly consistent ratios) make the map bland and uninteresting. Not all 2's should be equal. You should be forced to make trade-offs frequently- because that's what's needed for strategy. It's not because it's not standard/widely done (on the contrary, most maps display at least one of these cancer symptoms); it's because it makes a potentially interesting game rather bland/vanilla and takes out the basis for strategy in many cases. You shouldn't be able to classify bonuses that easily- i.e., "All 2's are the same" but instead have somewhat unique advantages/disadvantages to each decision, because that's what requires you think, calculate, and strategize.

- Others (like weird long-distance connections, 1 territory bonuses, bonuses within bonuses/superbonuses) are imbalancing and again, make decisions in the game too easy instead of presenting interesting tradeoffs and allowing for different strategies to flourish. "Should I start here or there?" "Well the second place is way more OP. Start there."

Basically, the cancer symptoms all limit strategic decision-making in some way, leading to uninteresting games.

That said, there probably are exceptions. Superbonuses don't always ruin maps, for example. But I don't think piggy made this post in perfect seriousness; he just seems to be vocalizing the common (among strategic players) view that no map so far has come close to matching Europe.

Edited 7/22/2015 20:23:54

You want some really f***ed up cancer? Try this one out for size. I give you....

God. before this, I thought my first (abandoned) map was the worst possible thing out there.

"Why preach about your personal style and call it superior?"

Its entertaining. Its a rhetoric device to establish voice. It stimulates conversation and hopefullly some of these objections will resonate because they evoke an emotional response. And when you come to make a map you will smile to yourself and think "no i wont connect southern france and scotland, not today" and the world will be a better place.

Filling my post with equivocations and qualifiers makes it boring. I like snappy posts. I rate yours a 3/10 it could easily have just been the one sentence i quoted.

Edited 7/22/2015 20:48:03

Well in this case either Piggys or overall Warlight communities definitions of Strategy is rather narrow.

- "Some things (like perfectly consistent ratios) make the map bland and uninteresting." Yes and again absolutely no as well. For many reasons. It looses trade-offs and value of certain territories, but will raise the value of position of territory - place to expand or counter opponent. In team games higher emphasis on positioning so everyone would fight and have expansion area and so on. Strategic factors a lot if carefully thought over. Trade off are not necessary for Strategy it is just one and sole-one ability to show strategy. I can rather find arguments against unique advantage/disadvantage as it reduces strategy by creating unbalance due to factor of First-Pick - unless you want to place all strategy in picking phase.

- Again Trade-offs are just one variable amongs many. Not required for interesting game. Long-distance connections do not make decisions easy! They make it harder due to fact you have more possibilities and you must calculate more your moves.

- Rather the OP is limit to strategic decision making. And these are not exception, unless there exists a written-down guide to standard game, which is claimed to be TRUE and other false - leaving out ladder at moment from discussion.

- Strategy lies on the system you create. Starting with Map (and its options-functions-variables) linked with optional-settings. It does not come down to few factors mentioned above and OP. Yes you can limit and broaden it by offering or reducing. I mean make it complex or easier to understand in sense of what effect it has for example using 1 card or all cards. But saying that No-Card game is less strategic is absurd.

https://www.warlight.net/wiki/Map_guidelines

"One property of a great map is that players can tell at a glance, without doing an analysis, approximately how many turns it takes to get from one territory to another. For example, on the Earth map, all territories are approximately the same size, and all connections between territories over water happen between territories that are relatively close to begin with. Long connections make it harder to spatially visualize the map layout. A similar effect can happen when territories are drastically uneven in size"

You're wrong the Ottoman map is much better.

I also believe that all connections should be obvious. I should not have to click on territories to see what they connect to, or VERY rarely. Sometimes in real world ones it is harder because you'd have to exaggerate some borders.

^ I think that's a requirement for all maps now.

I agree with Latnox, I actually don't like the map at all. What Europe does correctly is this:

1. There are big bonuses that encourage more of a brawl in the smaller bonuses. If there are a lot of small bonuses that have nice ratios, then there is too many picks to adequately cover an area. Also elimination from a certain area assuming no large bonuses are around it means that you can capture more income while moving into the next hotspot area. In Europe if you want to threaten Central from Russia, then it is very difficult to make the move economically viable. There are large bonuses that you have to ignore taking in order to move to the Central area faster. This is good strategically speaking as we have clear separation from where we fight. Medium Earth is much like this in a 1v1 setting.

2. The positioning of the hot spots makes sense. Top left corner, Central, Top right corner are the main hot spots. Corners by shape alone encourage safer bonuses. If big bonuses are in the corners then we have to focus more on the center. The center of the map should house the best bonuses because each area of the map can affect it. That's what makes this map so prominent in its strategic value, however it could be better if the southeastern corner was also sort of a hotspot, less so than Russia. Same goes for Portugal.

3. The size. The amount of bonuses and territories make for a good 3v3 map. It could use 2-3 more bonuses, but I think that's about it. There are very, very few maps that have the bonus:territory ratio that Europe has. When I was trying to create a new 3v3 template with Szew and others, I actually was unable to find a map. There are few that are the right size, and the few that are lack what I talked about in points 1 and 2.

What Europe does wrong:

1. It looks horrible. Really, it does. Zoom in on the borders they're awful. I don't know how Troll did the map. I'll try not to rip into him since this was one of the first maps on this game, but the borders are really, really strange.

2. Denmark. Why is there a 2-bonus on this map? Ugh. Please. Make it more territories or something.

3. Some of the large bonuses just don't have viable picks in them. This is mainly in reference to Italy, Ukraine, and Romania. There's only 1-2 territories I'd ever pick in those bonuses. It's unlike France that has 3-4, Germany has 3-4, and so on. Most of the large bonuses do have 3-4 pickable territories, except for those 3.

4. Southeastern area needs a little buff. Turkey is another almost never picked bonus, it could become viable by getting rid of a territory or something.

I also just generally dislike the shape of the map and flow. Europe is a brawl 3v3. It's Turkey 1v1 turned into a 3v3 with more separation. I'd like to see a more strategic 3v3, but I don't think people are interested in making a map that would do it.

I agree fully with Latnox and Lolowut (Don't forget that Greece is a useless bonus also). I recently tested an East Asia 3v3 with my clan, and I would rate gameplay 8.5/10. I've said before EU is a 9.9/10. I would try to make a 3v3 map, but can't think of any balanced countries/regions that aren't already taken with decent maps. Another option would be a remake of Europe with it looking a lot better, but we already have too many of those.

Edited 7/22/2015 23:39:45

@Benjamin
It is not just about looking good. Europe has quite a lot of countries. There are Euroregions, Historical countris-borders, economic zones, neighbouring options etc. Its more of endless list of variations.

I encourage you and everyone else to re-draw, make Europe maps. The problem is that everyone tries to make them same: divide countries into same amount if territories or bonuses like previous maps (or make capitals worth one or high-income which creates real imbalance in the big Europe map). Russia to create big and strong and middle-europe full of tiny scrabble. Thats why they are so unbalanced + the border problems. Historically-geographically accurate maps are not exactly best for good gameplay always. Or if you take one country-region do not stick onyl with real administrative division.

I would suggest to pick some nice looking border-terrain part to make the outline and to draw the inside for your favoured preferences to make it unique, interesting, playable. I doubt much people really care what the territory is called or how accurate it is.

This would play exactly the same as Europe. And honestly I liked it a lot to have to analyze the map closely the first time I approached it, to understand which parts of it were viable and which weren't (same thing I had to do for China, which I think is as valuable for 2v2s as Europe is for 3v3s).

@lolowut: what are your suggestions to make a more strategic 3v3 map?

Edited 7/23/2015 13:11:32

A strategic 3v3 map would have these characteristics:

1. Each corner has at least 1 good bonus, but usually 2-3.

2. Middle has at least 4 good bonuses.

3. Each corner cannot progress towards the center without hitting bonuses that may not be viable to take.

4. Each corner can progress towards each other and take inefficient, but viable bonuses. (Think Russia taking Finland/Baltic states on the way to Norway --> Islands)

5. Sprinkle some good bonuses wrapped around huge bonuses. (Think Netherlands, Bulgaria, Portugal despite it technically being a corner)

There's probably a couple more, but those are important ones.

Europe is a bad map.

Primarily because it isn't Medium Earth.

Would anyone like to collaborate and make a new 3v3 map? If so, send me a mail.

If you don't want to collaborate or don't have the time, give me some regions that would make good 3v3 maps, I have a few already:

- Latin America (If done right)
- USA (River crossings can be choke points, like Mississippi River and stuff)
- Mediterannean World

Edited 7/23/2015 20:11:15