Seeking Your Input for a New Alamaze Map!

[RELLGAR]

New maps and variety is always good.

To get more players I think..
Enhance the order input page. Give a popup of each order or a sidebar popup that explains each order in detail. This would speed up game play, especially for new players to start playing immediately.

Then advertise across social media. Whatever the game fees decide to be, give a amount in credit back if you played the game until the end or until kingdom was destroyed, nothing if 3 turns of no orders entered.

[Brekk]

There are a lot of great suggestions here. Stay tuned for more updates.

[Brekk]

How about randomly generated maps so no two games are the same?  I have asked before why no one ever chooses the random city placement option and I never got an answer.

Wookie, in short, the main limitations we're facing are time and money. Allow me to break it down as I understand it, and Mike can correct any mistakes I may make.

Our maps are constructed on a 26x26 grid. Initially, Mike overlays an image onto this grid, with each grid piece representing a specific land type. From there, Mike meticulously draws the boundaries, effectively defining regions. Once these basic elements are in place, regions are then assigned various bonuses and attributes, such as the Untamed region's ability to recruit units at half price.

The original system wasn't intended for randomness; rather, it involves a considerable amount of work to create the map and implement all the necessary code. Although OMG is working on a solution to automate this process, it's still a work in progress and may take some time to develop fully.

I hope this clarifies things for you.
John

[Wookie Panz]

How about randomly generated maps so no two games are the same?  I have asked before why no one ever chooses the random city placement option and I never got an answer.

Wookie, in short, the main limitations we're facing are time and money. Allow me to break it down as I understand it, and Mike can correct any mistakes I may make.

Our maps are constructed on a 26x26 grid. Initially, Mike overlays an image onto this grid, with each grid piece representing a specific land type. From there, Mike meticulously draws the boundaries, effectively defining regions. Once these basic elements are in place, regions are then assigned various bonuses and attributes, such as the Untamed region's ability to recruit units at half price.

The original system wasn't intended for randomness; rather, it involves a considerable amount of work to create the map and implement all the necessary code. Although OMG is working on a solution to automate this process, it's still a work in progress and may take some time to develop fully.

I hope this clarifies things for you.
John

Thanks for explaining Mr. Brekk
I would still like to see an occasional random cities game and don't understand why this option is never used?

[Olorin]

Hello Alamaze Community,

I'm excited about the prospect of creating a new map for Alamaze and want your input to make it the best it can be! Your feedback is crucial in shaping a game environment that you’ll find engaging and enjoyable. We have a few key areas where your opinions and ideas would be incredibly valuable:

1. **Number of Regions**: What’s your ideal map size for Alamaze? We’re considering options of 8, 10, 12, or 14 regions. Please share your preference and the reasons behind it, focusing on factors like strategic depth and playtime.

2. **Number of Players**: How many players should the new map accommodate? The options are 8, 10, or 12 players. Let us know what you think would create the best balance of interaction and competition.

3. **Map Features**: What unique features or elements would you love to see on the new map? Think about things that could add flavor and depth to your gaming experience, such as unique landmarks, special resources, hidden territories, or lore-specific elements.

Your insights will play a significant role in the development of this new map. We’re looking for ideas that will not only enhance the gameplay but also make the world of Alamaze more vibrant and intriguing.

Please reply with your feedback, ideas, and any other suggestions you have. We’re eager to hear what you envision for the future of Alamaze!

Thank you for your participation and continued support!

Best,
John

I am too new to Alamaze to comment on #3, so I will leave that to the experienced players. I may have more to add later after I have played longer. In the meantime I can add a bit for #1 and #2. I was a game designer back in the day ( before Alamaze) and occasionally work at it nowadays. My suggestions are based more on that then the specifics to Alamaze.

First the number of players; What you are looking for is the sweet spot between too predictable and too complex. I am not talking about the number of possible types of Kingdoms and Regions, those are chosen before the game starts. Those may add unpredictability to the beginning but once the game starts, it is still the same number of players.

1v1 is as simple as it gets, mano-a-mano, etc. but there is no real interaction between players. Great for a face-to-face board game. But for all intents and purposes it is just complicated chess. Yes, you can build community that way but interactions are slowly built and will mostly break down to best moves on the board. Having 50 players means huge amounts of interactions but corresponding amount of work for the moderator. My usual suggestion for a game with the intent of building interactions and diplomacy between players is between 12 and 36 or so. The more players, the longer the game. The intent here is to allow enough players for competition at the end of the game, which is the 12 of the lower end.

Most units (I will call them Kingdoms as it is easier to understand) of organization have between 3 and 7 neighbors they interact with and another 10 those neighbors touch. Those are the primary interaction areas a kingdom would have. Any outside that range are likely to only get intense interaction after the Kingdom expands enough to add them. With the size of area you are looking at, I would suggest about 12 players, so as to add as much complexity for the players as possible without overloading the designer.
12 is also a good number for team game splits as you can have 2,3,4 or 6 kingdoms in a team or combined games.

Next, number of regions. My preference is slightly more than the number of players, so I would go with 14 regions. The idea would be to give the players an area to fight over, outside their home region. Either a no-man's land or computer run couple of Kingdoms not chosen by the players, picked at random. Depends on how much effort you want to put into programming. Since players can pick their Region, this increases the things they need to consider as where the neutral regions would end up based on other players selection of regions will affect if you have access to those areas easily. A bit more complexity for the players without burdening the moderator anything additional.

[Maximus Dominus]

How about randomly generated maps so no two games are the same?  I have asked before why no one ever chooses the random city placement option and I never got an answer.

If memory serves me correctly, I tried that option, but it basically doesn't work. Either that, or you can only use it with a particular map.

If it doesn't work right, no one is going to choose it, or if it is only limited to certain maps, then it narrows the range of choices down, so people would choose it less, if it wasn't available/functioning for the map/scenario/variant that they prefer to play.

[Maximus Dominus]

I always tried to convince Rick to add a new terrain type called, Void. It's an empty square that may only be accessed magically (e.g., a teleport). Impassable travel otherwise. Caused by powerful wizard magic that went awry. Could be cool to be surrounded by a circle or such formation on the map. Perhaps, prized possessions within the protected Voided area...

Impassable terrain should not be limited to just a new terrain type called Void.

Reading about the Void suggestion made a couple of things come to mind. One, long ago, when I was working on a back story for Alamaze, the concept that I latched onto was the Mist of Creation. basically, all life and all magic and all mutations, the entirety of creation, in fact, was traceable to the Mist of Creation - kind of like a fog, but also kind of like the Force in Star Wars (a perpetually creative energy source, one that could be tapped into and manipulated to a degree, but also one that had its own creative will. A god, perhaps, or a combination of gods, or possibly even an impersonal amorphous and ever-changing "entity."

From that, one line that kind of sticks in my head is, "Elves appeared in the Mist walking with Trees in the Dawn of Creation" (or something similar to that).

Tonight, though, your Void concept made me thing of Fortnite, and that loving storm of it. What if the Void wasn't limited to just one area? What if it appeared and grew and move and shrank and disappeared and reappeared, continuously? An unpredictable force, of sorts. When one thinks in terms of randomness in maps, randomness can take many forms and operate at different levels.

There was a movie from many years back called The Final Countdown. Itw as a movie about the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz encounters an energy storm/vortex, and the premise of the movie was a What if? scenario about that aircraft carrier finding itself back in World War II the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Instead of this Void of Mike's only being accessible magically, what if, instead, it would magically teleport stuff/things (groups/characters) randomly to elsewhere - either immediately or within a random number of turns (say, a range of one to three, or whatever suits your taste buds.

Just tossing it out there, since reading about the Void concept sent my mind wandering about possibilities. I see it as an unpredictable things, as a force, as a power, that lies beyond the control of event the most powerful wizards and kingdoms.

Also, larger regions (and fewer) would be tougher to conquer and more satisfying as a player. Would there be a new victory condition with this map? The reason is that the default Rex condition would be affected by the total number of regions on the map.

The way that the concept of regions is currently implemented in Alamaze is in a rigid manner. They're always the same. Having less regions than players incentivizes competition and power struggles.

Programming-wise, will be some work to get this done. May want to add 2-3 maps at the same time if possible. Then greater replayability with more maps available that lasts longer for the amount of work being done for them. Go big or go home :>

The primary function of a new map should be to wow the viewer. The map system in Alamaze was "chained" to a rigid, precise design philosophy. It probably would make sense to go with multiple different maps, but if each one is not individually programmed/chained, then it's basically window dressing.

[Maximus Dominus]

Our maps are constructed on a 26x26 grid. Initially, Mike overlays an image onto this grid, with each grid piece representing a specific land type. From there, Mike meticulously draws the boundaries, effectively defining regions. Once these basic elements are in place, regions are then assigned various bonuses and attributes, such as the Untamed region's ability to recruit units at half price.

I don't know how far that you guys are into this whole new map undertaking, but one possibility to consider is that instead of tying each area/image, you could do something more along the lines of what Hyborian War does with its provinces. Namely, in that game, each province (Hyborian War uses a province-based map for conquest purposes) has five different terrain types in it, and armies seek to maneuver to the terrain that's more favorable to their troops and wizards. One benefit of a multi-terrain approach is that it injects a greater degree of "random feeling" into the game, and that terrain is not slave to images, per se. It wouldn't have to be five different terrain types that a given image gets tied to. Even in the current maelstrom map, there are numerous areas where more than one terrain type is visible.

It's really about changing the way that one looks at maps, as a concept, rather than how one looks at any one map, specifically. I can't speak to the programming challenges that such would entail, but it might provide you with more flexibility going forward into Alamaze's future development cycles.

The original system wasn't intended for randomness; rather, it involves a considerable amount of work to create the map and implement all the necessary code. Although OMG is working on a solution to automate this process, it's still a work in progress and may take some time to develop fully.

Working on a solution to automate the existing process will still leave you with one hand tied behind Alamaze's back. The time and money dilemma is understood. Real world limitations always play a role in game design and development. I don't know what OMG is, but is what they're working on what you actually want, and how flexible is the automated process that they are working on? Is it gonna just give you the same underlying thing that you currently have, only faster? Or is their automated approach going to provide you what you're actually after or happy with?

Improvement is improvement, but even with improvements, one is many times left in the same basic place where they were at, with only an increase in efficiency to show for it. Not knowing what you want Alamaze to be, as an entertainment space, it may be that an increase in efficiency will suffice, even if it doesn't also deliver an increase in possibilities.