Gary's MOPs and Maps

[yagyuninja]

I made myself a couple MOPs this past week, and I can't wait to play on em.

MOPs are real good for me, because if I leave one map sitting on the table without playing it for too long I get sick of it and have to tear it down. This way I can just shuffle MOPs around to make it all fresh and new!

I have noticed that I have a ton of 24-hex pieces left over after MOPping, though (I'm doing 5-siders also). I might have to give 7-siders a try. Anyway, thanks for the idea!

[GaryLASQ]

Originally Posted by YagyuNinja

This way I can just shuffle MOPs around to make it all fresh and new!

bingo! in fact, i'm in search of some kind of storge method for storing MOPs in drawers.

glad others are trying this out. and yep, the size 5 makes those 24-hex tiles a challenge, but that's half the fun of the "fun size".

i'm working on a little sort/filter online table for looking through my own collection.

[Agent Minivann]

I just told the kids about this and we each made a mop. We then joined the three and had a CTF type scenario, so each one of us had to go into both of the other mops to win. It was pretty fun. I see what you mean about the 24 hex tiles. There is a cap of 4 that can be squeezed into a single hex mop. I did that as the base of a mountain with streams going from the glacier on top to the center of each side. My Microcorps loved it.

My son made this ridiculous mop that was extremely difficult to navigate. All visible tiles were snow, ice, lava, molten lava, or road. To make matters worse he put all but one of the single hex glaciers in the center of the mop.

My daughter had a water intnesive mop that was a little tricky to get around for double spacers, but nowhere near as deadly as my son's.

[GaryLASQ]

neat. my son and i did a MOP game. so did my weekend gaming group (could have arranged the mops a little better but we were rushed to get started).

Originally Posted by Agent Minivann

I see what you mean about the 24 hex tiles. There is a cap of 4 that can be squeezed into a single hex mop.

right. this is why i set the max edge space height to 4 (if not an edge space, the height is unrestricted). i was thinking a max of 3 at first. then i built my first 1-hex mop with half a master set (4 24-hex tiles) and realized it would have to be max height of 4.

[GaryLASQ]

ok, now we're cooking...

there is a nifty MOP Table for looking them up. click on the MOP# on the table and it takes you to it's entry in the catalog. they are stored in an XML file now so adding in new MOPs is a snap!

speaking of new ones, MOP5109 and MOP5110 demonstrate the effective use of booster terrain in conjunction with a large terrain expansion (like Lava or Tundra).

these use just the right amount of Malliddon and Zanafor booster terrain with lava (1 lava set on each).

[GaryLASQ]

another new one. MOP5111. this is the first one to use a full master set. 480 points.

[GaryLASQ]

and another new one. MOP5112. this is one full master set plus 2 road/forest sets. the highest priced MOP so far at 640 points.

[yagyuninja]

Wow, that one's real nice. I like 5111 too.

[GaryLASQ]

Originally Posted by YagyuNinja

Wow, that one's real nice. I like 5111 too.

thanks YN. these last two were fun to build. 5112 and 5111 look even nicer when they are put together (the power of MOPs!)

jdtenor and i got together for a game yesterday. just three of us -- me, him and my son. i used these two MOPs along with 4 others. here's what i put together...



as you can see, the road at one end of the bridge dead ends. it was a bit tricky deciding which mops to use and how to arrange them into one big map. i need to keep making more so i have more choices.

i can also see i'll need a system for labeling edges and add that to each MOP's properties some how. this way on my MOP Table i can sort by edge types to help with arranging mops.

here's one more example my son and i tried a couple weeks ago.

[Agent Minivann]

Those look good. I'm really getting into this.

Maybe I'm over thinking this, but you could use some of the organic chemistry naming conventions for benzene rings when labelling the road/water/lava tiles. I can't remember all three, but two are meta- and para-. Para- the road goes straight through to the opposite side, Meta- IIRC will skip a side, so it goes from the 12 o'clock side to either the 7:30 side or the 4:30 side. On a list you could have a column for sides with water, sides with road, etc. Have in the water column the number of edges with water in the middle and, if more than one, where the second is in relation to the first. If adjacent sides nothing, if one blank side in between a M, if it goes straight through to the other side a P. Yeah, I'm probably over thinking this.

[srmalloy]

Originally Posted by Agent Minivann

Maybe I'm over thinking this, but you could use some of the organic chemistry naming conventions for benzene rings when labelling the road/water/lava tiles. I can't remember all three, but two are meta- and para-. Para- the road goes straight through to the opposite side, Meta- IIRC will skip a side, so it goes from the 12 o'clock side to either the 7:30 side or the 4:30 side. On a list you could have a column for sides with water, sides with road, etc. Have in the water column the number of edges with water in the middle and, if more than one, where the second is in relation to the first. If adjacent sides nothing, if one blank side in between a M, if it goes straight through to the other side a P. Yeah, I'm probably over thinking this.

Even simpler than trying to remember the prefixes is to number them. Take the 'trail' terrain types in alphabetical order -- Lava, Road, Water -- then turn the MOP so that a point faces away from you with the 'trail' terrain at the upper right edge, and call that '1'. Counting around clockwise is 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Now you just list the sides that have 'trail' edges. For example, this MOP:



would be identified as "1L/3,6R/2,4W", using any convenient separators (or none at all; since all the side numbers are single-digit, '1L36R24W' is just as identifiable.

[yagyuninja]

Man, if we could sit around talking about 1L36R24W and how it provides a bit mroe flexibility than 14L23W and 156L that would be...uhm...733+ I guess.