Chokepoint and Province Access Map

[frogbeastegg]

Great work. The final version has pulled together into an excellent resource.

Without the routes, though, would that information even be useful? There are many bridges and ambush sites that are totally useless because the AI never goes anywhere near them. The key would be to list only the ones that are worth giving some strategic consideration to, which to me requires being able to see where they are places with respect to the access routes.

Here's another suggestion to add to my earlier ones on that subject: make a second map, include the roads and province names, drop the landing zones, add the roadside ambush zones as shaded areas. You could also add the bridges to this second map if you are still interested in displaying them. Without the sea zones and with this larger base image, that should work without becoming crowded.

It's not vital to make a second map though. The current map shows the most useful information for strategic pondering outside of the game.

[TinCow]

Here's another suggestion to add to my earlier ones on that subject: make a second map, include the roads and province names, drop the landing zones, add the roadside ambush zones as shaded areas. You could also add the bridges to this second map if you are still interested in displaying them. Without the sea zones and with this larger base image, that should work without becoming crowded.

It's not vital to make a second map though. The current map shows the most useful information for strategic pondering outside of the game.

I don't see how that would help though, as the landing zones wouldn't really overlap with the ambush areas. The clutter would be from adding the ambush zones into the road/castle mix, but I don't see a way to separate those as information about the ambush zones locations would be useless without the road/castle locations alongside it.

I'll add the ambush zones onto the existing map as a new layer to see how they look. If it seems acceptable to me, I'll post it.

[frogbeastegg]

I don't see how that would help though, as the landing zones wouldn't really overlap with the ambush areas. The clutter would be from adding the ambush zones into the road/castle mix, but I don't see a way to separate those as information about the ambush zones locations would be useless without the road/castle locations alongside it.

Two colours of blobs plus parchment background will result in a rioting patchwork, a cluttered colour-scape which is harder for the eye to fade into background awareness. That in turn will make the road lines harder to pick out without viewer concentration.

Pick an opaque, quite pale colour for the ambush spots. Then it will be visual background for the bolder road lines, same as the landing zones are now. You'll be aware of them when you look at the map, but will need to focus to bring them sharply into contrast to the point where they stand out to the same level as the roads. If you are focusing like that on an area then it's one you are keenly interested in, and so you don't need to see the wider road network. It's the principle of repeating a trick which has worked once instead of trying to extend it to the point where it risks overreaching.

If you don't see the map in the same fashion, maybe this derives from the way my dodgy vision works? Hope the explanation makes some sense.

[TinCow]

One other option that might work would be to use small icons instead of color sprays. Perhaps a small pine tree or a pair of cross swords or something.

Nevermind, I just loaded up the map and looked at it. There are ambush spots near roads absolutely everywhere. No matter what representation method I chose, I'd end up covering half the lines on the map with it. That wouldn't be useful.

[Lord Preston]

Maybe use a different colour/shade for parts of the routes that can be reached from ambush points ?

[Jacobin]

Brilliant map.

Makes me realise that in some respects the map is too small and that gameplay is in many ways closer to STW1 than to the more recent TW games from RTW onwards.

That is to say there is far less movement on the map - once roads have been built and generals have movement bonuses only the castles up in the north east are more than one turn from their neighbour.

And there is little point holding bridges and mountain passes when your army can get beaten and the castle behind them still get taken in the same turn - much safer to keep your armies in castles.

So you see a lot less proper battles in the open field between cities and a lot more siege battles which the AI is still crap at.

Add in that you seem to be constantly battling on the same battlemap and battles get boring really quickly and you reach for the autoresolve button more often.

What it really needs is a big map mod - quadruple the campaign map size and have one month turns (and a later starting date - 1545 was too early and 1560 would have been better historically) and it would be very much more interesting game.

But without moddable maps - or pretty much moddable anything - they're going to lose me much sooner than in any of the other TW games.

[andrewt]

I'm not sure what you are talking about. This is the first TW game since Medieval 1 where I actually had some bridge battles. As seen from the map, Japan actually has chokepoints, unlike Europe. You can hold bridges and mountain passes without opposing factions just bypassing you and going straight for your cities.