Map: The Eight Gates

[Zylithan]

EDIT - THIS POST HAS THE FILE AS A .ZIP INSTEAD OF A .RAR!


Yes. The AI should do much better on this map. It'll use the gates better than it uses the desert.

Yeah, I thought some about the ports idea, or having a a river map where the river provinces are long and thin.. because (maybe?) you can travel quickly on water in real life compared to land (well.. if you go the right way.. but ignore this).so river provinces would be important.

--------

I'm interested in how different connectivity maps play out. Like, two maps could have an average of 4 neighbors per province, right. But if one has all provinces with 4 neighbors exactly, it would play very differently from one that had half 2 neighbors, and half with 6. You think think about how many nearest neighor,s 2nd nearest neighbors, etc. each province has.

One thing I realized, is in most maps, if you have a province W, with neighbors X, Y, and Z, X, Y and Z are usually close. For example, if W,X,Y,Z each had 3 neighbors, you could have something like

NOTE - Somehow my "ASCII" is all messed up... putting periods as placeholders helps? ignore them please

..........X......
........./.|.\....
A--Z--W--Y--B

So, from W, in two moves or less, you can get to any of 5 provinces.

But if you have some provinces that connect provinces that do not connect to eachother and have 3 neighbors.


.....A--X--B....
...........|.......
C--Z--W--Y--D.
......|.........|....
......E.......F....

In this scenario, with all provinces having 3 neighbors, just as before, in two moves or less, you can now get to
9 provinces (almost twice as many).

---------------
I think when I return to map making I'll use an easier/simpler system for making the graphical parts of maps, and play around more with this aspect perhaps. These maps take too long, and I'm not even sure if I like their look. They seem not grand enough a scope (like, seeing individual mountains instead of a huge mountain range.)