Das Schloß [QUENCHED #2]

[Capitino]

hmmm, my first suggestion would be making it far more difficult to take AA in your second turn by increasing the amount of armies on it.
another option could be removing the bonus of 1 army for each territory C1-Y2 you get to deploy, but that will have bigger effects on the rest of the gameplay. It could be +2 autodeploy on them leaving the amount of armies you get the same, but you cannot deploy 16 to go for AA.

[AAFitz]

hmmm, my first suggestion would be making it far more difficult to take AA in your second turn by increasing the amount of armies on it.
another option could be removing the bonus of 1 army for each territory C1-Y2 you get to deploy, but that will have bigger effects on the rest of the gameplay. It could be +2 autodeploy on them leaving the amount of armies you get the same, but you cannot deploy 16 to go for AA.

actually, when it was first released, there was no bonus for c1-y2 and it opened up may possibilities for game play.

the addition of the bonus for them, at least on 1v1 play, essentially means that AA is only point of game, and while dice can give second player a chance, mostly going first, or simply playing it well and going second with good dice means game.

Its usually over on round 2.

Without that bonus, it meant you could either go for AA or castle on upper left. Or drop down below and go for castle on left after player one killed all the bonuses...

what is out of balance, is the the bonuses on the right, that simply do not give enough to counter AA, or upper left castle...so anyone deploying over theres chances, is simply minimal...not to say nonexistent.

What would help, would be revert c1-y2 as simply auto deploys, which is just a great aspect of the game. keep upper castle bonus as is

but increase the upper right bonus somehow, and the lower right bonus how, to be in the 5 or 6 range, which exactly equals the bonus on chutes, and the upper castle bonus.

The goal should be, that if on manual...its easier to guage....you drop upper left, and can have a drop of 15 with reasonable dice, lower right, around 11 or 12 upper right, maybe 14 or 15... the reason you dont want lower right to be too high, is because it is in the proximity of the AA, which is a bonus in and of itself. You dont want a bonus too close to the AA, because while AA is fun, you dont want it to be the objective defacto...which is exactly what it is right now.

if all four corners give you an equal shot at it, then the game play is opened up to easily the most unique on CC. Its still right up there. That extra deploy bonus just simplified it temporarily.

What I can say is the upper castle and AA areas were perfectly balanced. you could win from either spot...and I tested that often. If you make it possible to win from one of the all four corners, that would be the ultimate goal I would think.

It would mean that all parts of the map are important, which simply is not the case right now. Before the bonus, the upper corner/chutte area was all that mattered.... and now AA is the only territory of the game that matters...again, on 1v1 games.

but since 3/4 of the games played have been 1v1, I think thats the best place to start.

By making it balanced for 1v1, you immediately balance all team games, and multiplayer games, will find their own set of balance and rules, but a balanced 1v1 board is the key to interesting strategy... and the unique layout of this board, just begs to be the best 1v1 fight on CC. there is nothing that compares to complexity or strategic options....but right now, its just too heavily dependent on AA spot, and dice.

[AAFitz]

I've been playing several 1vs1 games on it and it found a very effective way to take a huge advantage when you start. The tactics are like this:
- you get 5 troops, spread them evenly over the paratroopers (1 each and 1 to place where you like)
- from every paratrooper, take the next two countries, this gives a huge bonus
- your opponent will probably do the same, since it is by far the best thing to do
- now you get 16 troops to deploy, find the territory next to the access point that has the most armies and put them all on it
- from here you take access point, Sdt Gerd, DD3, AA and you destroy all C1-Y2 of you opponent
You'll probably get pretty far with destroying your opponents bonusses and this gives you a huge benefit, already in round 2. Maybe this is something to consider.

OK, so what would you recommend Capitino?

I believe he learned this as I killed him, doing that exactly.

Any player after increased bonus that dropped in castle i killed.

any player after increased bonus that dropped in upper right, I killed

almost every player that dropped in lower right bonus...if they went for it, i killed.
**they sometimes did go for AA from there, and it did have some success. I dont prefer it, but at least its a viable strategy.
but still the focus is all on AA.

the only way to play now is get AA, kill chuttes, and game is almost always over.

I think what I explained, with some tweaking, will give 4 areas for deployment and conquest, and, especially on fog, allow for players to not have a solely dice shoot out.

the key to the fun of the map before the deploy bonus was added, was figuring out where your opponent dropped.

I changed my deploy on nearly every game, depending upon the opponent, what games i had played with them before, and what I thought they might do.

now, on every game, its drop 2 on chutes, rest on one chute, and head for AA. Maybe you win the dice battle, maybe you dont. going first gives you a 15 army advantage, so as long as you dont go for AA on turn one, you almost cant lose.

I have, but only, and I mean only because of tragic dice...

I know my suggestion on the other bonuses may not be perfect, but thats because in 100 games, they were pointless, so I honestly dont even know what the areas are, they are just fodder in the way of the objective, after the game is already won...or presently... a nice distraction so I can farm the unfortunate player that happens to drop in there...again, with the one exception of dropping in lower right corner and going for AA...which can work, but has its own risks.

[fumandomuerte]

Been trying 1vs1 and I agree with what Capitino and AAFitz noticed. I think that the +1 for every parachute is too much, maybe +1 for each 2 parachutes could make the game less unbalanced... But still, 1vs1 games are all about getting AA, the rest of the map is only to distract the opponent that is being pounded.
The other option is that AA can only bombard parachutes next to the access point (C2-Y2), the rest (C1-Y1) will be bombarded the same way Casey-Yves: via the Hubschrauber. That way you still can get a fair amount of troops to drop and start a conquering campaing elsewhere while you can keep stacking on your parachutes (C1-Y1) and the other player (the owner of AA) must be very careful because he can be attacked anytime from the stacked parachutes.

[Winged Cat]

I don't see this addressed in the last few pages...

I think I may have found a logic bug in the Das Schlob reinforcements. You get +13 if you hold all 19 - but, those 19 include Landeplatz B, which resets at the start of your turn. So...is it possible to claim that +13, or will any attempt inevitably break (down to the +7 for 11 held bonus) when Landeplatz B reduces the territories held to 18?

Even if it doesn't, this isn't a bonus that can be maintained, without (on average) feeding more armies to the neutrals than one gets back.

The fix would be to exclude Landeplatz B, just like the Flughafen bonus excludes Landeplatz A.

[AAFitz]

I don't see this addressed in the last few pages...

I think I may have found a logic bug in the Das Schlob reinforcements. You get +13 if you hold all 19 - but, those 19 include Landeplatz B, which resets at the start of your turn. So...is it possible to claim that +13, or will any attempt inevitably break (down to the +7 for 11 held bonus) when Landeplatz B reduces the territories held to 18?

Even if it doesn't, this isn't a bonus that can be maintained, without (on average) feeding more armies to the neutrals than one gets back.

The fix would be to exclude Landeplatz B, just like the Flughafen bonus excludes Landeplatz A.

I dont believe that is the 19th region in the bonus. I believe the region at the left side...the essential door is the 19th region, not landeplatz.

Ive never taken the whole thing, so Im not sure, but im pretty sure thats the case

[fumandomuerte]

I believe the 19th region of Das Schloss is the door of the castle on the left (Wache Tomas).

Click image to enlarge.

[cairnswk]

OK here is V42.

As you can see I have moved some stuff around to accommodate some people's concerns about things...

Extra Bonus C1-Y2
I appreciate AA Fitz has played 90 odds maps, but I am still in favour of having the C1-Y2 bonus addition to the C1-Y2 autodeploys. From my own couple of games ( i don't have time to sit down and play 90 games in about 3-4 days) I have seen how powerful the AA has become in the lower sector and somewhat taken away from the other areas. The reason for giving this axtra bonus was that games would be too slow to complete.

Proposal:
To counter this now so that the AA is not as powerful, i propose a reset each turn to 5 neutrals for the AA. This will cause them to act somewhat like the other reset on Access Point and disuade people from leaving armies on them each turn. And because of there strategic position, I think this will cause more battle around that area of Das Dorf to maintain/keep that bonus. This will also allow more players in larger games to get armies through the Access Point.

Das Schloß Bonus
LandePlatz B is in the xml as being part of the the castle bonus.
As pointed out by Winged Cat (thank you) this will disallow the +13 castle bonus. Therefore I will change the xml to exclude Landeplatz B and include Wache Tomas as part of the Castle bonus. This has also been amended graphically so that Wache Tomas has castle walls around that territory.

Parachute Positions
The top four positions casey Jones, Mills, Neal have been moved slightly so that their names more identify with the territories.

Legend Rework
As you can see the legend has been reworked/re-worded so that some things are clearer.
The top legend around the Eagle has also been re-worked.

Going forward:
If people are happy with these changes then i will put forward the larger map and the adjusted xml.

[fumandomuerte]

Great update

[00iCon]

2 neutrals on AA, just like Access Point. The main problem with AA is the ability to leave massive amounts of troops on it.

[fumandomuerte]

I prefer the 5+ neutrals idea

[AAFitz]

Its still very unbalanced.

AA is still the only point of the game.

and im not at 90 games, im at 130

the first 90 were just awesome.

the last 40 were insanely boring. Im not trying to be negative here. On the contrary, Im being positive. The map was simply awesome before the update.

that extra bonus for the chuttes ruined it. If you need, I can go into at least 7-10 games with other players saying the same thing.

The map needs more balance, so AA is not the only focal point. Otherwise, you might as well just delete the entire right hand side of the board.

Those bonuses need more power. The chuttes give you 8 auto deploy, and 8 to drop. Thats a 16 bonus, with the other ones being at 7, or 4 or 5

Resetting the AA to 5 will help, but it will be the same.

I will simply hit the AA, demolish the other player...move out of AA...and then the other player has to not only hit my stack....but even hit the AA too

It will help, but it wont balance the map.

3/4 of the games played on it are 1v1. A good 1v1 map makes for a good map.

It is slow, but now its still slow, but now its also boring, because AA is the only point of the entire game.

Do not let this opportunity slip by to use the potential this map provides. Its clear you dont believe me, because you entirely ignored my suggestions after a couple of slow games.

I myself am not even basing it on my games, but the other players that have complained about the same thing....who all have played it more than you.

Again, the first one was near perfect...it just needed a little more balance. It just needs to give a chance for a drop in the upper right, and the lower right...the bonuses are so low right now as to be pointless.

but on turn one, a 16 extra bonus just makes the map unbalanced, or at the very least a dice shootout.

It gives player one an advantage to a ridiculous degree.

If I have to, Ill find all the comments Ive had in the recent games to back it up...or... just assume I simply not making it up, and not guessing...and am basing it on 130 games, on nearly all the same settings.

Im sorry if im being too passionate here, but its only because the map was just so awesome when it was re-released. Being able to win from more than one spot and more than one area, just made it awesome, and required some serious guessing as to what the other player will do. Now, there is no question what the other player will do. They will aim every single army at AA, and wipe out the chutte area, because it is virtually the only possible way to win. Player one then gets an extra 16 armies to work with, so its essentially a game on doodle, when it could be a game of stratego instead.

[ManBungalow]

I'll make clear some of my own concerns about this map here.

AAFitz raises some critical points about this map, most importantly about the two right-hand bonus sets being greatly under-scored. Right now, it seems to me that whoever first dominates the castle will win one way or another.
I think that the best thing to do about that is to simply increase the bonus values of those right-hand areas. Making the neutrals there weaker will give too much of an advantage to any lucky first player.

The over-focus on the AA region is also important. I'm fine with its position and the fact that there is only one AA. However, to combat the unbalance I'd like to suggest a troop decay of 5 troops or so to make stack-building on the region more difficult.

There are some great improvements on Cairns' latest image (CLICKY for those who havn't seen it). Spreading the parachutes out makes that corner look a lot less stressed and the legend is definitely a lot clearer now. On picky little thing though is to say that I'm not a big fan of the new graphics on the Militärlager region.

Also, I realise that the map is primarily based around objective gameplay, but the Hubschrauber regions are still really overloaded.

[Winged Cat]

Das Schloß Bonus
LandePlatz B is in the xml as being part of the the castle bonus.
As pointed out by Winged Cat (thank you) this will disallow the +13 castle bonus. Therefore I will change the xml to exclude Landeplatz B and include Wache Tomas as part of the Castle bonus. This has also been amended graphically so that Wache Tomas has castle walls around that territory.

You're welcome. (I thought that was a typo at first, including LB and not including WT.)

[J to the D]

Hi cairnswk,

I just started my first game on Das Schloss, and I will certainly be making a run for AA, but I didn't go first, so I hope my opponent doesn't know how important that is. In any case, the game is foggy, and I had to reference this thread to find out how many neutral territories were in each spot. I wanted to make a dash for the Hubschraeuber until I found out it was covered by a giant neutral stack. I don't know if there is any way to eliminate this problem, and I am sure it is shared by other maps that have a lot of neutrals on them, but I just through I'd let you know.

-Joe

[cairnswk]

Hi cairnswk,

I just started my first game on Das Schloss, and I will certainly be making a run for AA, but I didn't go first, so I hope my opponent doesn't know how important that is. In any case, the game is foggy, and I had to reference this thread to find out how many neutral territories were in each spot. I wanted to make a dash for the Hubschraeuber until I found out it was covered by a giant neutral stack. I don't know if there is any way to eliminate this problem, and I am sure it is shared by other maps that have a lot of neutrals on them, but I just through I'd let you know.

-Joe

First page of this thread has a copy of the map with neutral starts on it.

[MrBenn]

I've been meaning to request this for some time, but I have just added the following text to the guidelines for the Forge:

While the map is nearing the end of the Beta phase, the mapmaker(s) will be asked to populate the Map Portal Database.

I'd be grateful if you (or your representative) could oblige, and also notify in this thread once it's done

[cairnswk]

That's very thoughtful of you fumandomuerte, thank-you.

[cairnswk]

I've been meaning to request this for some time, but I have just added the following text to the guidelines for the Forge:

While the map is nearing the end of the Beta phase, the mapmaker(s) will be asked to populate the Map Portal Database.

I'd be grateful if you (or your representative) could oblige, and also notify in this thread once it's done

I've made a start, but having trouble finding links to put in.

[AndrewB]

It was way more balanced in the original XML version.

That +1 free deploy in the fields kills the map and makes this a matter of dice and who goes first... (as the only way to kill that huge bonus is by controlling AA and that makes the AA pretty much the only territory to work for)...

[AndrewB]

Just mentioned AAFitz's post. I 100% agree with him. Why was that free deploy in the chutes was added???

[ManBungalow]

That +1 free deploy in the fields kills the map and makes this a matter of dice and who goes first... (as the only way to kill that huge bonus is by controlling AA and that makes the AA pretty much the only territory to work for)...

Yes, the AA remains the most unbalancing aspect of this map. I'd like the idea of a hefty troop decay on that region to be considered.

[cairnswk]

Its still very unbalanced.

AA is still the only point of the game.

and im not at 90 games, im at 130

the first 90 were just awesome.

the last 40 were insanely boring. Im not trying to be negative here. On the contrary, Im being positive. The map was simply awesome before the update.

that extra bonus for the chuttes ruined it. If you need, I can go into at least 7-10 games with other players saying the same thing.

The map needs more balance, so AA is not the only focal point. Otherwise, you might as well just delete the entire right hand side of the board.

Those bonuses need more power. The chuttes give you 8 auto deploy, and 8 to drop. Thats a 16 bonus, with the other ones being at 7, or 4 or 5

Resetting the AA to 5 will help, but it will be the same.

I will simply hit the AA, demolish the other player...move out of AA...and then the other player has to not only hit my stack....but even hit the AA too

It will help, but it wont balance the map.

3/4 of the games played on it are 1v1. A good 1v1 map makes for a good map.

It is slow, but now its still slow, but now its also boring, because AA is the only point of the entire game.

Do not let this opportunity slip by to use the potential this map provides. Its clear you dont believe me, because you entirely ignored my suggestions after a couple of slow games.

I myself am not even basing it on my games, but the other players that have complained about the same thing....who all have played it more than you.

Again, the first one was near perfect...it just needed a little more balance. It just needs to give a chance for a drop in the upper right, and the lower right...the bonuses are so low right now as to be pointless.

but on turn one, a 16 extra bonus just makes the map unbalanced, or at the very least a dice shootout.

It gives player one an advantage to a ridiculous degree.

If I have to, Ill find all the comments Ive had in the recent games to back it up...or... just assume I simply not making it up, and not guessing...and am basing it on 130 games, on nearly all the same settings.

Im sorry if im being too passionate here, but its only because the map was just so awesome when it was re-released. Being able to win from more than one spot and more than one area, just made it awesome, and required some serious guessing as to what the other player will do. Now, there is no question what the other player will do. They will aim every single army at AA, and wipe out the chutte area, because it is virtually the only possible way to win. Player one then gets an extra 16 armies to work with, so its essentially a game on doodle, when it could be a game of stratego instead.

AAFitz, i told you before that i repsect your opinion, however 1v1 is not the only type of game played on this map.

It is not that i don't beleive you because i do, but don't you think it would be nice that I as mapmaker get an opportunity to experience the gameplay myself. Afterall this is Beta and this is where things are tested.
And then there is the opinion of others to be considered. Afterall you also are not the only player in CC.

Just mentioned AAFitz's post. I 100% agree with him. Why was that free deploy in the chutes was added???

So to all, bare with me please...I did make a judgement call that appears to be wrong in inserting the C1-y2 extra bonus. So it will be removed.

Here is the new Version 43....if this is more acceptable, please let me know.

[Tiller]

Just to throw in my two cents again...
I've now had games on the map that were completely in the old style, and in the revamp style with the map change before and after the change of the extra armies on the two territories after the parachutes, and team games that lasted through all three styles and the subsequent chaos and strategy alterations of the changeovers (going from one map to the other completely changed everything due to random replacements everywhere and is slowly giving us the win in our remaining active game when we were losing badly before). I don't have AAFitz's level of experience with single player, but I've only lost one game on the map in any style so far, and that was to him in a freestyle assassin game that was very close all around (and was also affected by the 2nd changeover).
I agree, mostly, with AAFitz's review of the unbalancing that the post-parachute armies did to to 2-3 player games and how absurdly powerful the AA gun is there. I also agree with Cairns' initial assessment that games with more than 3 people badly need the extra general income available to everyone otherwise they'll take forever to finish. If the AA gun is made so it resets to neutral or loses armies every turn, that makes it more of a free-for-all again with many players, but it's still imbalanced in 1-vs-1 (though far more so with manual settings, it's not nearly over on turn 2 with auto). Right now, in multiplayer, you want a big stack on the AA to protect your post-parachute bonuses but you don't dare use it much if everything else is balanced and many people have large stacks there, otherwise you lose it and your bonuses. Reducing or eliminating the ability to stack on the AA makes everyone need to defend all their post-parachutes all the more, and the ones who don't get hammered, which then gives the advantage to anyone who just sat there and defended through the initial fight for the AA unless the winner was massively lucky and hit them hard enough too. I do like the idea of giving other areas bigger bonuses, the lower right (which used to be so awesome with 3 AA guns) is especially pointless to take that huge undefendable ring for a mere +3. Also to take into consideration is that the smallness of the bonuses in general makes whether you have cards (especially escalating) so important, no-card games made even that +1 in the FS area an eventual massive advantage by using it to take other areas in my current remaining team game, nobody expected that to be a wedge into everywhere else, though the mixup of the changeover and mistakes by other teams helped a lot there too. A no-card, non-manual 6+ multiplayer game that starts off with an impossible to hold resetting AA gun and less income from parachutes is going to be a massively long game or stalemate unless there's someone making a mistake to unbalance it in someone else's favour and get things going again. And yes there's got to be a lot of people who make those mistakes because it's such a complicated map, and therefore the stalemates will be between the people who understand importance and unimportance of various areas of the map and settings. So I guess I'm with those who are saying to increase the lesser bonuses so it's more equal in all quadrants, not necessarily get rid of the extra armies from the southwest or change the AA (though both will balance/unbalance things in other ways depending on settings and the people involved).

[the.killing.44]

Paragraphs were an excellent invention.