I ran a few starts to see how the terrain selector works. Nice addition.
However:
Having chosen "Very Open," when I got initiative, I was still faced with a selection of very dense, rough maps (the one with the mini-lake in the centre surrounded on all sides by layers of hills, the one with the steep hills on both sides and a narrow pass in the centre, etc).
While it was better than the old totally random system, and I could choose the least of the worst, could there not be some maps included or the generator select from some that are actually more "open" than the heavily terrained choices?
I will keep trying it to see what pops up, but this is one of the main grumbles about the game: not being able to fight on wide open ground with pikes and such.
Its a combination of what you choose and what your opponent choses, but maybe there is a bug. Maybe we can get it to show what it thinks the density of the map is in the beta version.
A bit like the table top wanting an open table and getting an open table are two seperate things. There are 225 different DAG maps and some are blank, no terrain at all! The system randomly 1 map to display from 4 pre-defined groups to give a good spread. ut there are no guarentees. Remember rough going is good going for a range of troops so can appear quite often on a relatively open battlefield. Keith
Could you tweak the choosing system slightly so that if both players choose very open it picks more very open maps? Our little test gave usually one very open map out of 4, with the others mildly or heavily terrained when we both chose very open.
But it is better.
Could you eventually turn this system into:
Player A gets to choose 2 maps from all the choices.
Player B gets to choose 2 maps from all the choices.
Initiative is then rolled.
How do you get to select which side of the map you are on ?
i selected the map i wanted with a small hill to the bottom but when the
game i ended up on the bottom on of the hill instead ........
I'm not sure the change to showing your map side is a good idea.
Some maps hugely favour one side - not because crowded vs open, but because you start at the top of a huge hill for example.
If you can see your side, many more of these maps are going to be chosen. And they are no fun to play against - when you open up your game and are on the sh****y side, you get a sinking feeling.
As it is currently implemented, you pick one of those maps at your peril, because you could end up on the sticky side of it.
I think the random element will help us play on balanced maps - yes, the type of terrain will favour the initiative winner, but they won't be helped by the inbalance of placement of features. More like TT.
As I see it now, the terrain feature in LT:
Problems solved
1) Some maps classified as “Very Open” look like the Himalayas. Since you get 4 to pick from, you are guaranteed at least one will be OK if you win initiative
2) It is now worth winning the initiative, since you can choose a more exact match – e.g. do you want forests, hills or scrub/lakes in your crowded map? Initiative loser still goes first, so if you pick a map with a big hill in the middle, you know the other side will get there first, and can take this into account in map selection.
Problems remaining
1) Map balance.
a) There will be more "unplayable" games, where the initiative winner has terrain that suits their army so well, the loser will just camp, ask for a draw or go home.
b) This will be made worse if the side selection change is made as suggested
2) Variety
100 maps might sound like a lot, but a regular player will have used all 4 that come up before. Variety should be a huge advantage for the PC game - new maps are free! My suggestion is that Slitherine should open-source this – players create additional maps using the scenario builder, upload to Slitherine, quality control from Slitherine or player votes, then added to next patch.
