MAPS recommended for Full Duels

Talk about the two player Standard WoK variant

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Hannibal
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MAPS recommended for Full Duels

Post by Hannibal » Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:34 am

I wrote this list elsewhere on a different thread, so I'll repeat it here where it's easier to find.

I'd better write the list somewhere I can find again. Searchword: Duelmaps.

And maybe it's worth sharing it here, as 4 GM's are setting up 24 Duels for the Group-stage, and others are GM'ing Duels too, so they might be glad of it.

Starting with the positive:

I heartily recommend for Duels:

Suburbia
Feudal
Skandinavia
Penta
Crossland
Forest Lake

I'm OK about, or looks likely to be OK:

Center Island
WOK Islettes
Gardenic

I'm less keen on/I'll avoid:

Original/Classic (too few narrowings for Duel)
Austria (same)
South America (same)
Water-Crossing (less so, but same)
Colonial (wrong neighbourings)
Skull Islands (same, but on probation)
Cross Islands (too hard to make fairly even)
Three Worlds (a prov with zero Pop - great for Standard, ruins a Robo)
Missilemania (too tedious searching the map for where you can bomb, when playing 3 colours)
And any that have lots of provs too small to write in! (Lots of us run off hard copy and write in)
Caribbean *
The World *
Business District
Lava Land
Risk World *
Homelands *
And any that have lots of provs filled with pics so you can't write in!
Monster Island *
South Westeros


* = Probably OK if your two players don't tend to run off hard copy and write on the map. Homelands looks especially good for Duels if you don't tend to write in

Oh, and some of the above are too generous on Pop, so it's too easy to have Pop and armies, not worth fighting for yet more Pop. But I can't remember which ones.

(It wd be nice if somebody with too much time on their hands might visit all maps and calculate or Excel the average Pop per prov in each map, if only for interest, for Standard as well as Duels ... and as a guide to people creating NEW maps? Saladin used to complain that some maps were too generous on starting-pop, and of course he was right).

Just my view and learning from GM'ing quite a few. It might help someone starting to GM Duels.

Han
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Post by Dragonette » Sat Nov 17, 2007 11:49 am

where does my map the eye come in to the equation.

d

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Post by korexus » Sat Nov 17, 2007 2:04 pm

Take out the two about the neighbours, please. They might require some re-runs in the short term, but if someone uses the map, we can find the bugs and fix them...

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Post by Hannibal » Sun Nov 18, 2007 2:30 am

I'd rather not.

You have this view that the best way to de-bug wrong-neighbourings on a clearly-faulty map like Colonial is to play it and gradually correct what faults it throws up each time. But that means that nearly every turn will have to have a re-run as the game progresses! Not just the first turn or two, but probably every turn, as the Robos progress with new illegal jumps each turn ...

Think of the pain to the players and GM. EVERY turn is faulty and needs a re-run! With the usual pain of different attack results, different spying results etc. That HAS to be a serious waste of effort for players who just want to have fun? And for the GM who doesn't want to have to re-run every turn and take flak for doing so ...

There has to be a better way.

Either somebody looks through its design just once, there must be a statement of what each prov regards as a neighbour, and corrects it and declares it cured.

OR, we just simply avoid using it for Duels. Simple. We are not short of maps to pick from. Why go to the trouble of ruining a game just to rescue this map?? Not worth the pain, easy.

So my list stands, as a help to GM's and a guide to players who are asked by their GM to suggest a map. The list HELPS; stop regarding it as some kind of whim or refusal? Pls?

Han

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Post by Brykovian » Sun Nov 18, 2007 3:47 am

I looked over Colonial with the Map Assistant (downloading the INI from the old Map Central) and only found 1 neighbor issue (6 and 29 were setup as neighbors). So, if you saw others, please point them out to me so that I can confirm them.

kor -- I will send you my updated INI files once I'm done looking at all of them.

-Bryk
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Post by Brykovian » Sun Nov 18, 2007 3:59 am

I looked over Skull Islands and found only 1 error there as well (34 and 36 were shown as neighbors).

For fun, I checked out Caribean, since we recently needed a re-run due to a missing neighbor link ... and that original INI file *had* that proper link in place -- so it seems it was just the WOK-ON DB info where it was missing.

-Bryk
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Post by Dragonette » Sun Nov 18, 2007 10:51 am

i now know why hanibal hasnt put my map o the list, and im honoured, as he actually has to read my posts propaly to know that i dont like long posts. Yippee someone listens to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:shock:

dragonette

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