Maximizing your maps?

Not only that, but they should houserule (maprule?) the asphalt to be shadow. I've got a work-in-progress with this rule but with SotM/Marvel rather than BftU/Marvel.

The curse of the nontrivial map-making material...Which is now offset by sites like Auggies, where one can obtain terrain in piecemeal (ROTV, BTFU, SOTM). BTFU also seems fairly easy to find (either at Auggies, or at my local Wal-mart, which still has about 3 of them). I wish this was the case with TT or VW; the only place that I can find these is on Ebay, and usually for prices that would make a grown man cry.

Congrats on (finally) getting a RotV set, dok. I'm kinda surprised to hear that you're just getting it now. Makes me wonder which other veteran members have holes in their collections.

Asphalt-as-shadow is a good idea. It falls into roughly the same category as uncapped FotA columns. I think it's a bit more likely to cause confusion, though - people sitting down at an uncapped column map at a tournament can't really misinterpret the point of the columns, whereas that can easily happen with asphalt/shadow.

Yeah, Auggies does help. I've been able to build RotV maps for testing purposes for a while now, but only because I had bought a couple extra 24-hexers and a set of ruins, and I was able to cobble together hideous false-color versions of RotV maps by combining my entire collection.

Yeah. I promised myself when I first got into this game that I wasn't going to submit to price-gouging. I've assembled a very good collection without breaking that rule yet, so I'm going to stay patient and wait for a re-release.

Given my prolific posting habits, it's easy to forget that I've only been playing the game for about two years, and I've only been really into it for about a year and a half.

I think this does go to a broader point about collections, though. This might be starting to change a little bit, but in general, mapmaking is still very slanted towards the relatively hard-to-find RotV/TT/VW sets. This is probably OK if your goal is to satisfy the major tournament organizers and the other veterans around the site, but if the goal is to allow new players to get the most out of the game, it falls short.

I know what you mean Dok. I have 1 RotV, 1 SotM, 1 BftU (getting a second for my birthday later this month), 1 TJ, 1 TT, and 1 RtFF. Maximizing my maps is something I do all the time, which is probably why I still have never played Common Ground yet (It's on my to do list!) because I like to use a smuch of my terrain as possible. I usually can only put two maps together, a SotM and a RotV. Right now, for example I have Breach by Dignan and Crystal Watch by Panopticon on my table.

Hey dok, I have a map that uses DnD + Marvel. Have you tried it out yet? It's called UnMarvelous.

MegaSilver

Megasilver - it's an interesting map, but I find that BftU+Marvel alone has a hard time producing a good tournament-style map. I think of the two together as a bit more versatile than SotM, but not quite as strong of a standalone option as RotV.

Freezie - with TT at your disposal, you could get three maps out of your current set. Something like Ticalla Sunrise + Frozen Cavern + Just Passing Through. There aren't any good BftU+RttFF+TT maps that I've seen, but if you can put one together, that gives you some other options.

I really like the idea of spreadsheeting out your available terrain and map combination options. This would be great for those that run lots of tournaments (like me), to know which combinations of maps you can build with your available terrain. For instance - it would be great if I could squeeze 10 maps out of this:

RotV x3 (I think I have 3... I at least have 2)
SotM x4
FotA x2
BtfU x3
VW x1
TT x2
Marvel x1
RttFF x4
TJ x3

I have TJ, SotM x2 (although I may have terrain for only 1 and some fraction as small as 0/0), BtfU, FotA, and Marvel and terrain I bought separately to simulate RotV (2 sets of ruins, for instance). But I keep it all mixed up in a couple containers, and build all my maps out of whole cloth right before play. I've made some bad maps, but over time I have learned enough to keep things fair and interesting (for the most part). One of the things that has recently become clear to me, with regards to map-making, is "less is more".

Your wish is my command:

Hard Eight
Jagged Causeway
Vorago
Common Ground
Ticalla Sunrise
Fossil
Elswin Plateau (Tournament Director's Edition)
The Hive Nest
Tyvol's Passage
Just Passing Through

I started by using whatever was available to make decent maps with the three BftUs without using any RotV/SotM. At that point there was just RttFFs and TJs left to spice up the RotV/SotM maps. I had to get a bit creative to keep it from getting stale, but in the end there are only two maps (Ticalla Sunraise and Tyvol's Passage) that use identical material.

You can see my work here.

Wow, thanks dok! I didn't actually expect you to do that, but it will help immensely the next time I run a tournament.

I just realized that I had put you down for only one TT on the spreadsheet... with two, you can turn "The Hive Nest" and "Just Passing Through" into "Ice Blossom" and "Sentinel", or just turn "Common Ground" into "Sidewinder". I certainly wouldn't want to leave a TT in the box.

You know what - that's OK because I think Mechabeast and I have some of our TT terrain combined, so who knows who has what. Ever since I tried to give a TT set as a prize at NHSD last year I've been all screwed up with snow. I have a million extra snow tiles though and can probably throw together another set of glaciers, so I'll keep that as a possibility. I know I still own 2 sets though since I have 2 squads of Dzu-Teh. Again, thanks for hooking me up!

Nice job dok! I like your spreadsheet example for KC. I have everything KC has except two SoTM sets. So this will help me when damja and I start picking maps for NHSD.

Cool idea, I never thought of using a spreadsheet, I always did it by paper and pencil...

Oh, and it's a lot more limiting when you have 3 SotM to work with but no TJ, so no whining from you