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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:37 am 
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Greetings to all!
And I at all do not understand as it is possible to appreciate complexity of a map:) For me all maps are equal. And complexity of a party depends on that with whom play:) and from distribution of allies.
By the way developers and position all maps, how well balanced :) So in what then complexity :)?
It is possible to speak only about quantity of courses and time of game for maps.


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 4:34 am 
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Shadow_D wrote:
Greetings to all!
And I at all do not understand as it is possible to appreciate complexity of a map:) For me all maps are equal. And complexity of a party depends on that with whom play:) and from distribution of allies.


I think that the luck factor happening with the distribution of initial allies is less important on bigger maps because there is more countries.
With smaller maps (take for example V6 demo), the initial position of allies has a major impact and so, even a highly skilled player can lose against a medium player with a bad initial setting.
Moreover, i agree with Storm440 that some maps (Wasserland is a perfect example) are more complex because one need to diversify a lot his units.
For these reasons, i think that smaller maps should give less points than bigger maps in case of victory. Now, i wouldn't try to give some scoring to these maps as i find it really hard to give an objective measure. Maybe it could be possible to define some 'objective' formulae to measure this (as for exemple a formulae taking into account important parameters for a map such as the number of countries, the number of 'islands', the diversity of terrain...)


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 5:59 am 
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And what for in general to try to estimate maps on difficulty? Unless the account of their size suffices?
I all the same count, that for clever players there are favourite and unloved maps :) but difficult are not present.
Pitor for example, I know that likes to play on Wasserland and for him it will be easier under strategic decisions :) than any small map.
If you wish to enter any factors it is possible to make very simply.
For example :
Bizarria - 8 countries, sea swiss - 35 countries, factor = 4.375, etc......

Only what for these estimations will be necessary?


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 6:34 am 
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I agree with Pitor about role of bad initial setting on the small planets and these maps should give (or take) less points for victory (or losing), but I don't think that Wasserland is best complex map. On this planet you almost can't use large land troops and naval units is too important. No one other map don't need so many amphibians. I think Sea Switzerland and Trinity are best variant of complex map. My variant of order:

1 Micronesia
2 Bizarria
3 Butterfly
4 Brimstone
5 V6 demo
6 V6
6 San Fernando
8 Station "Thunder"
9 Emerald
10 Lion's Eye
11 Antarcticus
12 Crateus
13 Treasure Island
14 Midgard
15 Eden
16 Beotorum
17 Noble Rust
18 Inferno
19 Anubis
20 Wasserland
21 Swamp
22 Twin Islands
23 New Paradise
24 Trinity
25 Sea Switzerland

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 7:07 am 
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Sea Wolf
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Hi,

Considering that factor-luck (so called layout) still plays a decisive role, sometimes letal, especially when the player starts as PL on little/medium maps, could be a good thing to give to the players the chance to discard (with a proper button) the challenge at the first turn every time layout seem to be too unbalanced.
Of course, game server will immediately send to the players a new challenge with the same condictions (time limit, ingame limit, side ecc..)
but with a different layout.
I think this way will draw up much more players to play on little/medium maps and finally, this could be moreover implemented in tournaments/clan war just to grant a privilege to player's skill with a right limit to factor-luck.

anyway, this is my list:

group 1: V6demo,V6,Micronesia,Bizzarria,San Fernando

group 2: Butterfly,Brimstone,Emerald,Lion's eye

group 3: Antarticus,StationThunder,Treas.Island,Midgard

group 4: Crateus,Eden,Beoturum,Inferno

group 5: NobleRust,Swamp

group 6: Anubis,Tw.Islands,NewParadise

group 7: Wasserland,Trinity,SeaSwitz.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 9:30 am 
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Sea Wolf
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After hearing some of your comments, I'd like to revise my suggested list:

0.3 Bizarria
0.5 Brimstone
0.5 Emerald
0.6 Butterfly
0.8 Antarticus
0.9 Crateus
1.0 Noble Rust
1.3 Twin Islands
1.3 Anubis
1.5 Wasserland
1.6 Trinity
1.8 New Paradise

First of all, I agree with storm that the spread for the large maps should be pretty big, because a victory on Wasserland for example is many more times more important to determining skill than Bizzaria, which rides so much on initial deployment.

I've taken off a couple others because I just haven't played them enough to rate them in this way.

As far as New Paradise vs Wasserland and Trinity, I see New Paradise as the premier battlefield for determining skill over the others, because to be successful you need to consider nearly all the major skills involved in massive assault. Trinity just has so many SAs that it becomes a madhouse in my opinion, so I don't think a victory there holds quite as much weight.

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 2:08 pm 
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all great suggestions, it is always interesting to see the different way the game and maps are viewed. Each of us has a personal perference as to which map we really like and why. Personally, I love NP, I agree with Maelstrom in that the map calls for a "total" game. Naval units can not dominate the shore countries as they can in sea swiss or trinity and because of the really large size of the countries they usually can not be invaded and taken over in 1 or 2 turns, as they can on trinity or sea swiss. This is not to say that NP is better than trinity or sea swiss, just different--some will like the difference and some will not. As for wasserland, i still think it is, at least for me, the most difficult--too much sea and you will lose on land, too much land and you lose on the sea--the large spread of the map means you often have to choose not what you really want but what you can bring to battle (before the battle is over) and if your initial choice is wrong there is very little chance to make it up later in the game, but this is just my opinion and I am just as happy with it being lumped in with NP trinity and sea swiss.

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PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 5:26 pm 
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NICK: Will the scaling for maps affect the "skill" based ranking system as well as the "experienced" based system?

I agree that the larger maps should be worth a LOT more than smaller maps. If we are talking about experience.. The amount of troops you have to move, and the number of turns you have to make to win on Sea Switzerland is probably 10 times or more than say Station thunder. (by that I mean number of units x turn). So I think you get a lot more experience by playing a large map.

Some of the large maps can take 3-4 months to finish (or more)


Here is my modified version of Strom440 rankings (I have added in missing maps and made a few changes).

I agree that V6 demo is worth least as you only use half the units. I move micronesia because it is too dependant on SA's. I added in station thunder (my favorite small map) and swapped SeaSwiss with wasserland - but they could be all worth the same.


.3 V6 demo, Micronesia
.5 v6, bizarria, Butterfly
.75 brimstone, emerald, treasure island and antarticus, StationThunder, Crateus .
1 beotrum, eden, San Fernando, and Lion's eye
1.5 inferno, midgard, noble rust, twin islands
2 the swamp, anubis
3 trinity, new paradise and wasserland
3.5 sea swiss


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:33 pm 
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don't know why i placed Micronaisia so high--you are right, it belongs much lower in the list.

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 5:18 am 
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For the most part I agree with ravermeister/storms ratings, but there are a couple of exceptions:

You really think New Paradise is twice as much a measure of skill/experience than Noble Rust for example?

Good point about the number of units involved, but just because there are more units doesn't mean that it a bigger map is multiple times the value of a medium map, in my opinion, so I don't quite agree with that large of a spread. Some of the Medium maps provide the same strategic questions as posed as the large maps of the same type, but just on a smaller scale. That is, they involve all the major skills of Massive Assault except for large scale persistance and resource control.

I do agree with how the planets are grouped, except for the fact that antarticus and crateus are the same value as brimstone and emerald. I'd break that group into a .65 and .8 (though I don't know where StationThunder/Treasure Island would fit)

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 10:06 am 
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Sea Wolf
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I look at the maps more with a view to what chance a player has to pull the game out if they have a bad layout. With the larger maps such as NP, trinity, sea swiss and the swamp, you have a much better chance of employing some sort of long term stratigy that may help you recover from a bad layout. Personally, i have played many players on large maps who start very strong but then seem to get lost as the game becomes more complex and involved and when this happens they make mistakes that alow me to gain back the advantage. On a map such as noble rust, there is much less chance of this happening so once your opponent starts rolling it is almost impossible to stop them, unless they are really bad. Now consider that if you are playing someone that is very good, it really does not matter what size the map is since once an advantage is gained, by either side, it is rarely lost. If you look at it from this prospective the main difference in the maps is the time it takes to play each and since NP, sea swiss, trinity, the swamp, and wasserland all take at least 2 to 3 times as long to play as noble rust, in my opinion they should be worth 2 to 3 times as many points.

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PostPosted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 11:51 am 
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Sea Wolf
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Very good defense. I conceed. I can stand behind the values stated by Storm and refined by Ravermeister.

My only concern remaining is that Antarticus and Crateus are in the same category as Emerald and Brimstone.

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NWO website:
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Clan War website:
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 12:53 pm 
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This is my list.

.25 V6 demo

.5 v6, bizarria, brimstone, emerald

1 beotrum, eden, San Fernando, Lion's eye, noble rust, twin islands, anubis, micronesia

1.5 butterfly, treasure island, station thunder, antarticus, crateus

2 the swamp, midgard, inferno,

3 trinity, sea swiss

3.5 wasserland, new paradise


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PostPosted: Sat Apr 28, 2007 1:33 pm 
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Sea Wolf
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it is interesting that you placed, treasure island, station thunder, antarticus and crateus ahead of Anubis and noble rust. I would like to know your reasoning. Perhaps a case can be made with regards to noble rust but anubis is one of the more challanging maps and i have a hard time seeing why you would place it so low.

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 7:28 am 
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Sea Wolf
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Perhaps it is possible that a ranking system could automatically rank maps in terms of their variance ("luck" factor) by using a formula that computes all the data available from completed games, looking to see which maps are most consistently won/lost by each player and which maps tend to have a more scattered record...

This way, the maps that are most consistently dominated by some players and most consistently lost by others, are then given the highest "skill" value in the ranking system. The maps that are least consistently won by overall winning players and most frequently won by overall losing players, are given the lowest skill values.

According to this idea, no one would have to "guess" the order of skill level for the maps; the numbers would speak for themselves over a large (and growing) sample size, and they should be quite accurate - better then even the estimates of top players. Some of the results may even surprise us, i.e.. a smaller map may in some case(s) be more skill-oriented than a slightly larger map due to its terrain/layout!

Anyway, what do you think?

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PostPosted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 9:22 am 
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Sea Wolf
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As one of the best stratigest in the game, i was hoping you would add your ideas to the mix. I think your suggestion is excellent and should be looked into. But, if you had to choose, what would be your initial ranking of the maps?

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PostPosted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 12:26 pm 
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I agree to Tiger's list though I would swop Wasserland and Swamp with New Paradise and Twin Island


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 12:37 pm 
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Levy

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In my opinion the time factor should be put into account for the rating of the maps.
1 turn on Sea Switzerland takes as much time as 10 turns on a small map.
To finish Sea Switzerland takes also many more turns than finishing a small map.
The question is how many games on small maps I can finish and how many points I can gain in the same time I finish one large or XL map and how many points I will gain therefor


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PostPosted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:14 pm 
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I welcome all again :)
Having read through new messages of a forum, I see that though my messages and ignore:), but all the same my ideas repeat.
Storm440 has repeated my idea that complexity of a map depends on that with whom play:) and from quantity of time / courses which need to be made. And the quantity of courses (and multi-variant approach of development) depends on quantity of territories on which is divided a map. In it that also is complexity of a map.

Imagine, that sea Switzerland will be divided not into 35 countries, and for example all on 15, but very much big:) Unless it will be complex? Time of game thus is not enough to change (because while will reach from one corner of a map to another..... :)) And here variants of an arrangement of allies thus become minimal. Unless the map then will be complex?

Therefore I on former hold the opinion, that factors of maps need to be put down proceeding from quantity of territories on it.


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PostPosted: Tue May 01, 2007 4:02 am 
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Sea Wolf
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In order to rank a map, in my opinion, should be considered:
1. size of the map, 2. total number of its countries, 3. number of SA in connexion with size of the map, 3. nature of the ground (important for units movement) and sea space.
It should be also considered the game played with standard units and the game played with extended mode...this one could sensibly balance the destiny of a game affected by a bad layout.
Finally, needs a right assignation of victory points in connextion with player experience (number of games played) and personal rank.

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