Hey fanatics!
I made a new map specially drafted to be 6 player PBEM located in Italy. Because I designed it to be PBEM I post it here first for commentary. The concept of the map comes from Great Wars of Italy which was series of conflicts between city-states of Italy. More can be found in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Wars
Players will be starting in a place of 6 capitals of some of the most important city-states: Kingdom of Naples, Papal States, Kingdom of Sicily, Republic of Florence, Duchy of Milan and Republic of Venice.
Atm, I am thinking that I don't want this to be prebuild scenario with customised everything (that is also build already by someone I think). Also it should be also noted that I am not aiming for full historical or geographical accuracy. Mostly I am concerned about possibilities of interesting gameplay. Size of the map is rather small because I myself dont enjoy the long expanding phase of some huge maps.
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About the game itself, I am still very open for new ideas but here are some of the original thoughts behind the map:
Only predefined or customised setting are the starting locations and names of first cities. So players are then able to choose any civ they wish and will be playing them as if this is a normal epic PBEM with some exceptions on the role of the Papal States.
Victory conditions are the standard five (with maybe some twist).
Players are able to pick the civilization and a starting location they wish but players will also be asked to ban one civilization from the game to get some of the most used and powerfull civs out of the picture. You can see the differences between the starting locations if you download the map but I will something about the possibilites of different states:
-Northern States of Milan, Florence and Venice will benefit from huge amout of BG tiles and resources of the mountains but they are located close to each others which will lead probably quicker to some problems with neigbours.
-Naples will have the biggest possibilites to expand peacefully and will have huge amounts of food in the bottom of the peninsula, but will not have the same "industrial" benefits of big amount of BG and resources.
-Sicily will benefit for the easy defence but will suffer from the limited ability to scout and expand because of island location.
Because the special position of the holy seat the Papal States will have some different rules:
1. the Papal States can never be an aggressor in a war. Holy seat can fight wars with all their skills and capture cities and such but can never be the one declaring.
2. Other states are never allowed to cross boarders of Papal States if they are not at war with him. Also If you declare war to Papal States you are not allowed to cross the boarder at the same turn.
3. All units of the Papal States are allowed to move to other states at anytime and formal (free) RoP is mandatory if the holder of holy seat so wishes. (rule #2 still aplies)
4. If some state does declares war to Papal States, pope will threaten all the other states (with eternal pain in hell) to declare war on the aggressor in the next turn. This will not affect states already in war with Papal States since they have already taken the gamble of eternal pain
-This will make joint war effort the most likely way to fight Papal States
5. Victory conditions are still same for Papal States as of any other state but because of the nature of rule 1, conquest and domination are very unlikely.
Long post but hopefully someone have the time read and commentate!
I would be very pleased with any feedback/criticism.
I will post screenshots and the actual map later.. my winrar is not working properly and its getting late at night..zzzzz
Picture of the map as gif attachment.
I made a new map specially drafted to be 6 player PBEM located in Italy. Because I designed it to be PBEM I post it here first for commentary. The concept of the map comes from Great Wars of Italy which was series of conflicts between city-states of Italy. More can be found in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Wars
Players will be starting in a place of 6 capitals of some of the most important city-states: Kingdom of Naples, Papal States, Kingdom of Sicily, Republic of Florence, Duchy of Milan and Republic of Venice.
Atm, I am thinking that I don't want this to be prebuild scenario with customised everything (that is also build already by someone I think). Also it should be also noted that I am not aiming for full historical or geographical accuracy. Mostly I am concerned about possibilities of interesting gameplay. Size of the map is rather small because I myself dont enjoy the long expanding phase of some huge maps.
--
About the game itself, I am still very open for new ideas but here are some of the original thoughts behind the map:
Only predefined or customised setting are the starting locations and names of first cities. So players are then able to choose any civ they wish and will be playing them as if this is a normal epic PBEM with some exceptions on the role of the Papal States.
Victory conditions are the standard five (with maybe some twist).
Players are able to pick the civilization and a starting location they wish but players will also be asked to ban one civilization from the game to get some of the most used and powerfull civs out of the picture. You can see the differences between the starting locations if you download the map but I will something about the possibilites of different states:
-Northern States of Milan, Florence and Venice will benefit from huge amout of BG tiles and resources of the mountains but they are located close to each others which will lead probably quicker to some problems with neigbours.
-Naples will have the biggest possibilites to expand peacefully and will have huge amounts of food in the bottom of the peninsula, but will not have the same "industrial" benefits of big amount of BG and resources.
-Sicily will benefit for the easy defence but will suffer from the limited ability to scout and expand because of island location.
Because the special position of the holy seat the Papal States will have some different rules:
1. the Papal States can never be an aggressor in a war. Holy seat can fight wars with all their skills and capture cities and such but can never be the one declaring.
2. Other states are never allowed to cross boarders of Papal States if they are not at war with him. Also If you declare war to Papal States you are not allowed to cross the boarder at the same turn.
3. All units of the Papal States are allowed to move to other states at anytime and formal (free) RoP is mandatory if the holder of holy seat so wishes. (rule #2 still aplies)
4. If some state does declares war to Papal States, pope will threaten all the other states (with eternal pain in hell) to declare war on the aggressor in the next turn. This will not affect states already in war with Papal States since they have already taken the gamble of eternal pain
-This will make joint war effort the most likely way to fight Papal States
5. Victory conditions are still same for Papal States as of any other state but because of the nature of rule 1, conquest and domination are very unlikely.
Long post but hopefully someone have the time read and commentate!
I would be very pleased with any feedback/criticism.
I will post screenshots and the actual map later.. my winrar is not working properly and its getting late at night..zzzzz
Picture of the map as gif attachment.
of us like to take their time.
