Robber's maps: Diplomacy 8/9/2020

[Robber]

I completely missed Typhon's post. Sorry



This is much better, but how do I make it bigger?

[Typhon2222]

Heya Robber,

Sorry if I get some things wrong here. I use a Mac, so when I want to use VirtualScape, I have to reboot my whole machine in Windows, which is a pain. (I installed Windows on my Mac solely to use VS — sure sign of a 'Scape addict!) So I'm just going from memory here....

You can remove the table from the view by using the Configuration menu. Go Configuration>Preferences. There you'll find a box (titled "Display table" I think) which you can click to toggle whether the table appears under your map or not. (Personally I prefer no table, so the map appears to hover in space.)

After creating the 3D view of your map, you can click the "Shadows" icon at top to produce basic shadows. Only after that's done does the "High quality" (looks like a camera) icon become available. (Until you turn Shadows on, the High Quality option remains grayed out.). Press this, and watch VS do its magic.

You can control the Quality and Brightness of the High Quality rendering by going back to Configuration>Preferences. You'll see sliders there for both. I crank both Quality and Brightness up to max. It takes longer to render this way, but the results are amazing, and retina-searing bright.

As for the size of the image, I guess it depends on the size of your monitor, and the size of your VS window. You'll want to maximize the window.


If you already know all this already, please ignore!

[Robber]

@Typhon- Thanks for the advice! It looks way better without the black background and table. I've already figured out the quality and brightness, but the laptop I use isn't incredibly powerful. It works, but it won't display the map in color if I render it in the high quality setting. It just makes a weird shadow- the map, but it is all black.

Anyway, I cranked up the quality and brightness settings as far as it will go, and learned that by clicking the picture it enlarges it So I'm good to go. Thanks!!!

I want to get in 1 or 2 more games on the map- I'll get the battle report up for my last battle on Shadow Rifts soon. It was an epic game.

[Robber]

Battle Report on Shadow Rifts-
Armies-

Major Q9- 180
Deathreavers x3- 300
Krav Maga Agents- 400

This army was used by my neighbor, a novice who gets how to play, but isn’t as strategic as he could be. Instead of making a formal screen during the game, he just engaged all of his rats willy-nilly. He rushed Q9 into battle without positioning him carefully. This hurt him a lot, although my army was decimated.

Marro Stingers x4- 240
Su-Bak-Na- 400

I used this army, and took care to “capture” locations that couldn’t be bogged down by rats. At first, I was scared of the many possible choke points on the map, but the battlements made the rats less effective. They now couldn’t engage everything because they were shorter than the battlements and couldn’t engage figures on the other side.

I started off the game by piling my markers on the stingers, occasionally dropping an “x” on Su-Bak-Na if markers were put on Q9. Of course, the first few rounds were purely my opponent’s rats, but later in the game Q9 was used more. I won initiative for the first round and camped on the “bridge” extending into the starting zone. As the rats came and claimed the defense glyph, I swarmed the bridge and blocked off the entrances to the front and side of the bridge. It was basically screening the screeners. This left the 3 stingers on the level 3 swamp tiles unengaged and let me snipe the rats while they were forced to come around into my starting zone.

Rats claimed the defense glyph. This made it very annoying to attack them, as they could survive and scatter most of the time. However, the rats were spread thinly and I still kept dominance on my bridge. Stingers were killed every once and a while, and I think I lost 3 total to the rats. Q9 advanced every couple of turns. The other order markers were mainly used to adjust the rats and bring forward any idling behind the line of action. I had a nice turn where I rolled stinger drain and killed the rat on the glyph. He scattered the “backup” rat onto the glyph, and moved another into engagement. I killed the new rat with my second stinger, and there was no rat close enough to hop back on to the glyph. Q9 moved a little bit close to my stingers to queglix me. 2 stingers fell.

I used the next turn to hop on the glyph and engage Q9. I got stinger drain and height on Q9 (he was stuck on the road. I engaged him and he basically was stuck on level 2 unless he disengaged- he didn’t take the risk…) and managed to score 2 wounds on him! Q9 killed the engaged stinger, but couldn’t move afterwards because of the attack. I kept engaging him and focused more on clearing the rats engaged to Su-Bak-Na.

Late-game came after I had killed all but 4 of the rats. All but 3 of my stingers were dead- engaging Q9 took a heavy toll. I finally cleared Su-Bak-Na and got an initiative switch. I one-shotted Q9 after his Deathwalker roll of 5 skulls and 2 blanks, scoring what would have been 3 wounds. Only 2 counted, but he still died. Yay! An order marker was lost, but somehow my neighbor was smart enough to put his other 2 markers on the krav. He advanced too quickly again, and I engaged the krav with Su-Bak-Na the next turn. They gave him 2 wounds, but I managed to kill them. I still had to take care of 2 rats, and made short work of them. Stingers FTW!

I won with 3 stingers and a 3-life Su-Bak-Na left.

Edit- To clarify, here is where I screened with my stingers. The orange ones kept rats out (luckily, they don't have phantom walk!) and engaged the Major. The shadow helped a lot. Purple dots were the attacking stingers, who adjusted a little later in the game to hit the Major. The cyan dots are Q9, who pivoted onto shadow the next turn.



The level 4 points on each far side of the map (Sand tiles) never saw action, which surprised me. With me camping, there wasn't much need to go there. I may put a treasure glyph (ugh... I've had enough of them...) on each high point to get more action there.

[Robber]

New Map!!! Fallcrest Stronghold



I'm still playtesting, but it looks good so far. Comments appreciated!

[Dad_Scaper]

Huh. Off the top of my head, I am wondering why you made it such a chore to walk out of the start zone. Also I'm wondering why you used the FotA but none of the wall walk hexes, which would make it much easier for units to move from one part of this map, which seems to have a considerable footprint, to another. Maybe find a way to track road from the 6:00 position to the 12:00 position?

There's my .

[dok]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

Also I'm wondering why you used the FotA but none of the wall walk hexes, which would make it much easier for units to move from one part of this map, which seems to have a considerable footprint, to another.

It's just a guess, but my guess is that the idea is to use the spare battlements from an FotA after the other pieces have been used to build another map.

[Robber]

The starting zone is very open- I added some battlements to keep height to be gained too easily, because in my earlier playtesting this caused severe camping. I still am working out the glyphs, but they are going on the water to the sides of the map (by the sand).

The path through the middle was widened considerably, but it still takes 8 move to get from the starting zone to the 4 shadow spaces in the center.

The outside paths are easy and quick to travel, and it eases figure "congestion" so the map doesn't get choked up.

I don't know why I didn't use wall walks as roads- maybe I'm just weird... But IMO adding roads would make the scene less natural, which I was going for. The battlements are out of place in the map, but they were necessary to aid gameplay.

Edit- I made the map focused on aesthetics, not gameplay, at first. Then with playtesting I worked out the kinks. It looks nice and plays just as well. The last problem is that the center is a sniping range. I plan to add more shadow there so that it is more balanced. Correct glyphs should help as well.

Any glyph suggestions?

[Killometer]

Maybe Valda? Extra speed will help with the size (27 hexes tip-to-tip, if I counted correctly) and will weaken the sniping positions, since it will help melee close in on range.

[Robber]

I tested for Valda. It allowed for a quick army to get to the other starting zone too fast, and I wanted to have the armies meet near the middle...

I'm thinking 2 glyphs that aren't too powerful. Wound, Initiative and Defense+1 are up there, and so is Unique attack +1.

Also being considered is Intercept order and Negation. Heck, I might even write up a special rule...

[Robber]

How about this? I have 2 temporary brandar glyphs. Each has this special rule-

If this glyph is activated, roll the 20-sided die.

If you roll a 1-4, nothing happens. Discard the glyph.

If you roll a 5-13, your opponent recieves 1 wound marker to distribute to any common, uncommon, or unique unit(s). Then discard the glyph.

If you roll a 14-18, your opponent recieves 2 wound markers to distribute to any common, uncommon, or unique unit(s). Then discard the glyph.

If you roll a 19 or above, your opponent recieves 3 wound markers to distribute to any common, uncommon, or unique unit(s). Then discard the glyph.

Once this glyph is activated, you may recieve 1 wound marker to distribute to any common, uncommon, or unique unit(s). If you do this, place the glyph in its origional position at the beginning of the next round. If a figure occupies the space at the beginning of the round this glyph is brought back into play, it must be placed in its starting zone by the player who controls it.

[Robber]

New Map- Thormun's Passage



This map was a joint effort between Marroking1 and I. I made the original prototype and sent it to Marroking. Some changes were made, specifically with height, shadow, and jungle placement. There were also some aesthetic changes involving the dungeon.

I feel like this was an awesome success, and we're going to continue to modify it based on your suggestions.

Edit- and yes, before you bug me about it, the starting zones don't accommodate the marro hive.