Nice new map!  Again, having only played South America I can only speak to my experience there, and I suspect that many of the other powers had similar concerns - but SA does seem more than others to have the potential to get stuck in mid game or easily crushed by an early WA/SA push west - by end of the first year its probably that alliance could take the Sandwich, St Helena, and Ascencion Seas and maybe even drop an army into the Amazon.  That happens and South America is effectively done year 2 - and there's not really anyone who can directly help.  And since WA and SA look to me to be natural allies as long as they have any trust, I think they could pull that off and be in amazingly good position versus everyone else.
 
Any way there could be an additional sea space south of ARG - maybe allow transit of the Antarctic waters?  If we're talking global warming perhaps even Antarctica as a ownable space could pull Oceania, South Africa, and South America into an interesting triangle...
 
Maybe Sudan could be an SC for South Africa in place of Luanda or Dar Es Salaam?  Might allow for a bit more tension in Africa and entice South Africa to look more north?  Would make the Red Sea awful fun
 
I actually didn't get that frustrated with playing SA - just once the Africas were under control and Mexico was allied, my choices of outlets were few.  But hey, I got to influence in a minor way the war over China so hey, can't complain!
 
Just thoughts though - I've zero experience building these maps (though I'm getting tempted to try my hand).
 
Thanks again!
 
Andrew
 
On 6/19/09, Ian Shaw <ianxshaw(at)gmail.com ([email]ianxshaw(at)gmail.com[/email])> wrote:

Thank you all, gentlemen, for an intriguing game.  I'm not as experienced as most of you guys seem to be, and I thought I made a few avoidable errors - so I was happy to have survived at all.  The Russian/Persian/W African alliance worked very well at the start, but then I got into a fight with S Africa (which I tried to avoid, and then had to dive into with a fatal compromise with S Am).  Persia was propping me up at the end.

Favourite moment was landing in Mexica.  Nice burritos.

Really enjoyed it, so thanks to everyone for playing, and I raise a glass in appreciation for Mike's excellent GM work.  Like the new map as well, and I agree on the unit differentiation.

Well done to the big four.  West Africa signing off.

Ian

On Jun 19, 2009, at 07:33, F Bielschowsky wrote:

[quote:664eb97dba]Wow, that map has so much improved.
I like the idea of the Artic Ocean; what I like in particular is that its ownership gives control over the only northern passageway but at the same time make that person very vulnerable to joint attacks; no fewer than 13 (!) spaces border the Arctic Ocean.
Just as nice is the new setup for N-Am and Mex. Only downside I see is for Mexico as it will be hard to move east from its home soil with N-Am in control of Miami and Havana. Perhaps a swap of Nunavut to N-Am and Havana to Mex offers a better balance.

The colours of the map are fine; it's the units I was struggling with . The smaller the image the more the various units' colours were starting to look alike.
If the colours alone don't work then perhaps add a letter to each unit's image representing its Power?

When we can we test-play the new map?

Frank

2009/6/19 Diplomacy Gamemaster <worldwidegm(at)gmail.com ([email]worldwidegm(at)gmail.com[/email])>
[quote:664eb97dba]Hey there everyone, now that I have time to actually put forth some of my thoughts I think I will do so...

First of all, thanks for helping me test the map.  It's still a work in progress and the latest version is much different.  Any comments/suggestions are quite welcome.

Wow... sucks to be the guy that sees three people gang up on you (Austria in the standard, Europe in the this particular game).  I have to admit, there were certain powers for whom I was cheering, simply because I've played this map a few times and there are some who always seem to get the short end of the stick.  I'm starting to think that's the map and not the players. 

Good job by Mexico in getting armies all over the place... you're right, it's tough to get yourself into places, but you were starting to get there.

South America: I might agree with you on needing more ocean spaces.  We kept the big ones on purpose because we wanted the game to get off to a quick start... don't think I'll change those.  But it might be a good idea to add some small shoreline spaces... we'll see.  Mid-game I got to play SAm for the first time and got kinda frustrated myself.

Africa: Too bad you two couldn't get along.  WAf was making good progress into Europe and I thought SAf had SAm on the ropes, but it wasn't meant to be, I suppose.

Oceania: That spot holds a special place in my heart because I actually managed to solo from there once... it's a tough place to defend though... not sure how to fix that.

Russia & China: Another place where I was convinced you would eventually work together, after meeting over NAm, but my prediction definitely never came to pass there.

Persia: Well done on the diplomacy... Persia can have many enemies, but also many allies... you balanced it well.

North America: Tough playing this game when you don't have allies... eventually people start eating away at your territory... but I know Dan, and he's used to that by now...

I certainly enjoyed GMing most of the time... toward the end it got a little tedious because nothing was really happening.  Rules say I can't tell you what was actually going on, but maybe it'll come out in an EOG somewhere.

A quick question about the colours... I've tried to make them as distinct as I can... but it's kinda tough to find 10 distinct colours... any suggestions?

mvp

ps. I'll attach the newest version of the map... a few things to note:

1) it solves the problem of Mexico being stuck between NAm and SAm right away, but makes it tough to come up with names for those powers.
2) Global warming has made it easier to attack using the Arctic Ocean, which goes across the entire north of the map.
 3) I've made more attempts to try to help Europe in the attempt to hold off Russia... don't know if it'll work.

This map has yet to be played.

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