gameID=20562

Hey Tom, try to settle down. Your claims as the designer are growing tiresome - even more so when you seek to discredit all opinion that you disagree with, and worse when you call them stupid. There are some pretty good players that play this map regularly, and I think that they have something to offer. If you want to call everyone stupid, it's going to hurt your ability to comment on the next revision. It also bears pointing out that you are not the designer of the sealanes variant, and you screamed in opposition of it being implemented in the first place. It's getting old listening to you call people stupid.

You have made some helpful suggestions, but there is no harm in balancing them against those of other players. I do not see anything wrong with looking at the game played a few times before making changes, and cannot fathom how that affects you. I'm playing in this game so I'm posting anon here, but I am done reading this thread, and will send all my information directly to kaner406. I would like them to be considered before being trashed as irrelevant become you did not consider them.

Sorry man, but you need to chill.

nope, I did not discredit any opinions other than we need to continue to test despite seeing areas that are in need of fixing. That claim was incorrect and foolish. I don't care how many people play the game regularly, they are not game designers and most have already agreed on the problems we spelled out already. I am not saying these few tweaks will be the final answer and it will take several playtests to get things right. But to ignore the obvious and not make the minor fixes as they are seen is in fact stupid!

I am suggesting we get ALL areas on even footing, then you can compare how the lanes are used across the board, you simply can not do so as the map is now! That is a fact, that does not take repeated plays to figure out. There is no need to balance an obvious flaw against other players input. If you have a handful see the obvious error and 30 who don't does that make the uneducated majority correct? Nope, not at all. The mistakes are clear and should be fixed before we waste time running again and again. Yet that is the suggestion here, to refuse a simple tweak and wait for a major overhaul and that sir is DUMB!

And I need not "chill" not if I know I am right. Your suggestion to play on and on while listening to the majority is foolish and the opinion of one uneducated in how a successful variant is developed. You simply can not listen to the majority and fixes should be made when errors are found. You can claim whatever you like but those claims are flat out wrong wrong wrong, of that I know whereof I speak.

gameID=20562

Tom always thinks he is right... As a 30+ year software designer (started designin software for Mead Paper in the early 80s), I can say with absolute cetainty that more data even from a "broken" product can help improve the product and the process. Take a course in Six Sigma, Statistical Process Control, Quality Improvement Fundamentals, or even just participate in a Kaizen then get back to me, K?

@Tom - You are equating a game in beta with a released product. considering nothing is bought or sold here and everyone knows these are test games, that is a false equivalency. Your second mistake is comparing software (what this is) with a physical product. There is no recall in the software world nor is there a batch size when dealing with downloaded software. This environment is my expertise: my bread and butter as it were. From a *software* developer point of view, the approach of continuing testing while the next version is tweaked is the *correct* and *established* approach.

As far as the "simple" changes you present, they aren't so simple when a map needs recreated to accommodate them.

Finally, as has been pointed out, this variant is *not* your variant. Sea lanes is a variant you have bitched about not wanting done since it's inception and you should honestly stay out of it.

Unfortunately we are all wrong!
I am correct on the game being revised in steps far easier than by playing it out several times and attempting large overhauls. You design a large game like this and try both methods and get back to me on that. I have done so for about 15 years now and I did both ways. Trust me, I know the small steps made play by play work FAR better. Until you do that, you are simply assuming. It was not me who made the original comparison to a physical product so don't correct me for making the bad example. I was showing how that was faulty to begin with!
As far as attempting to argue with me on this, are you serious? Please state your game design experience and then tell me your experience with such massive game sizes, go on to show me how the game has evolved and how successful that progression had been. Until then, you are talking out of your ass. You speak as if you know what you are talking about yet have NOTHING to back up your statements while I give real life examples from this and other large games!

You want to claim this is not my variant?
The sea lane part absolutely is not mine! But that's like saying WW4 is not mine, it's a diplomacy variant. The base game is certainly mine, the land spaces have not changed have they? The power bases or even the overall map spaces, trying to claim I know nothing is again speaking out of your ass.

Where I am wrong...
I spoke to Kaner (the Sea Lane variant designer) and he explained to me that even a tiny change results in massive changes that trickle through the entire program. I was speaking from my actual game design experience and running it by hand. When run by hand, small changes are absolutely the way to go (as stated above) but with this programming issue, it simply is not feasible to make such small changes from run to run.

That's too bad because it really does make for a far far more smooth evolution and more trouble free as well. I stand by everything i said as far as the best way to go about designing and tweaking the game but i bow to his programming knowledge and if he says the programming is intense, then this is not as easily done! Too bad nobody here knows how to run a game by hand, THAT would be the way to go! Heck, that is how the base game Diplomacy was created, play test by play test all in person and no programming required, it was easy to alter a map and play again.

gameID=20562

Tomahaha, you are sadly wrong across the board, figuratively and literally. You claim you created this WW4 variant, but who really cares? You want a pat on the back? Okay, good job Tommyboy. WW4 was fun, but it's got problems that need fixing. The reality is that we're not playing WW4 anymore, and you obviously disagree with the attempts to revise the design.

Sealanes is a concept evolving from WW4, and feedback from dozens of players that find the game to be too static. The primary location of the stagnation exists with the ocean spaces, but there may be other areas that need adjusting too. Sealanes attempts to provide alternatives to the existing map, and does so within the parameters of the coding that will be implemented here at VDip.

Until this time no one had ever really attempted to catalogue the many areas of clusterf*(k across the map or attempted to change them. We played the map because it was fun even with the flaws. But conversations continued in EOG debates about the map and the relative ease which mediocre powers could create impenetrable stalemate lines with very modest resources. This kind of play stagnates the game and discourages diplomacy because players can hide on the map and are not force to interact with each other.

Changes need to be made, and by all accounts you have really have no experience playing it here. Maybe you played it somewhere else, and maybe you liked it there. That's beside the point. People here want something else, and Sealanes is a result of that. You are screaming for your view of changes to be implemented before the first test game is completed. That's just insane. Every change made to the map has an effect on the way the games in the future will be played, and these changes need to be evaluated across the period of an entire game. Relax, man! Maybe you have good ideas. If you do post them here. Your posts here so far are just a lot of uber-defensive ranting and semi-private bickering. You are not contributing to the process. It looks like you probably got your but kicked in the Sealanes game, and are here to cry about it. That's fine. Maybe you have good points, but from this reader's view, you have a very narrow image of what is going on.

nope, nice try Randy
I want no pat on the back but I do want my experience acknowledged and it understood that I do know more than those who have no idea what they are looking at or how they hope to solve any problems. You yourself have made all sorts of claims that the game is broken and needs to be fixed, You said we need more sea spaces (before the sea lane idea) and when called on exactly how you would do that without making cross oceanic attacks possible in the earlier stages you had no answers other than you knew how to fix things. You claim to be an expert at the game including the game design. That is a flat out falsehood, You can play it well, I am not trying to disparage your play but your design skills are lacking and your claims that stalemates are some sort of curse also are a bit ignorant as well. Can the map be tweaked to reduce them? Certainly! The game has been altered after every single running (you guys stopped at an earlier rev but it has been changed every time I ran it) to help this. Your claims that the ocean stalemates are wrong while ignoring the land stalemates that also set up is a bit lacking any vision or common sense. Your claim also ignores the basic game that also (when played by good players) also stalemates the vast majority of the time. The game indeed does run quite similar to the standard game in that regard. When we compare variants we normally compare how it plays with the standard game, in the standard game (that we all generally accept as the gold standard?) we find situations where a few small powers join together to thwart a larger power, that is considered quality play and good defense in the face of a powerful board leader. Why is it quality play in that game but here you want to claim it's a fault in this variant? You detest defense as was evidenced by the last game where the German player set up a strong wall of defense with his buddies. You went ballistic when I did not do as you wished, it was all about breaking through his defense (your way) do you act the same way in the standard game? It happens and it should be encouraged!

The game here does no such thing as you want to claim, allows people to avoid diplomacy with others, it actually requires strong diplomacy with ones neighbors. True, a smaller German player may not interact much with a strong Oceania power but in the far smaller basic game, a small Turk does not interact much with the English player in many many games either, again the similarities are strikingly alike yet you continue to insist you know better while your examples fall flat. Your lack of examples on how to improve things may be lost in your tirades to others but to date you have made many claims that you could fix things yet also to date you have given ZERO exact suggestions, zero, not a few but NONE! Yet you know better?

The claim that the game should end at 100 centers is not a fair comparison, the game dynamics are such that this would never happen (or damn near never) and the real answer is to find a better sweet spot for a SC victory level.

Now, back to the sea lanes idea.
I have not dismissed it at all have I?
I have stated it has a few places that are in obvious need of some tweaks and I did state the game heavily favors offense while diminishing defense. This is not my cup of tea but I did state often that this may very well be something others can enjoy (but this offensive nature should be pointed out as well).
I am indeed getting my butt kicked in this game, but a large reason for this is the sea lanes as they are being used. To claim I have a narrow view is an insult, I take a greater interest in how these are playing out and I am looking far closer than likely any other player other than Kaner (who developed the idea). Simply making a claim and posing it as some sort of fact is your MO, I am in fact looking at things very closely and when you leaked your power in-game I can tell you have no freaking clue how these lanes are working. Are you looking at them elsewhere? hey, maybe, but I know you have not experimented first hand so your claims are a joke! Again, my experience playing the game is dismissed by yourself as you attempt to paint me as some sort of newbie and my knowledge of the game is not as great as your own. Because you have played more you know more? If you know so much more, once again, give a unique example of how you would make it better? Please explain your many suggestions to fix things you claim are broken, that you have claimed you can fix, please explain how any of the suggestions I have made regarding this game are wrong. What did I say that is wrong? Nothing, absolutely NOTHING stated was wrong. Including where I stated the suggestions made are not the be-all end-all to fixing the sea lanes. Your saying I said what was not said does not make it so. I made some very good suggestions, they were agreed to by many, yet now you claim I said otherwise.

Please drop your accusations based on your opinions. Please base your claims on what was actually stated! Spell out what was actually said and refute my actual statements.

I said the game shows promise
I said it heavily favors offense
I said we had a few areas where the lanes were not applied equally

Please refute these if you can,m the rest of your rants are and continue to be pure drivel and obvious nonsense!

My game design experience? I worked for GSI and worked on MePBM. Does a highly successful PBM game turned PBEM turned PBWEB game that is still running and making money hand over fist count?

What game do you speak of?
Is it a diplomacy variant?
Depending on the game depends on how much your experience in this would matter.

If this were a dip variant, then of course, absolutely
(but say a poker game or candy land or some "other" game would give no experience in this matter while a "strategy" game might lend you some?)
we are talking about review and analysis of how this Diplomacy variant is playing out. Honestly, MOST don't fully know what they are looking at. I can speak from experience here, after new game design and somewhat new game revisions I would get a lot of input. I would listen to everything but found incredibly few really understood game design. They know how to play the game but not how to design a game. They had "brilliant" ideas that would solve an immediate problem but would cause future "other" problems. I mentioned how Randy above had complained about stalemates (of which I disagree on the extent of the "problem") he claimed he had an answer, "Add more Sea spaces" and he wanted a lot more spaces. That would solve his late game stalemate issue but would make getting to such attacking positions much more difficult and early, even mid game interaction between continents would be reduced to nothing. It was an ill conceived solution. Kaner on the other hand solved that part of the problem with this very ingenious sea lane idea. I never said it was a bad idea here, I am not completely sold it's a good idea but i did not say it was bad, it DOES have promise and should be tweaked as stated to be applied more evenly to all areas. I think the tweaks should be made and further experimented with. Why are so may claiming I said this idea is bad? Does anyone actually read what people say? It has promise, it might work well, it does favor offense, a better answer MIGHT be a map tweak or two, this idea needs a few tweaks. Never did I say it's bad did I?

and yes, Kaner understands game design as he has clearly demonstrated with this variant! Even he said it needs tweaks here and there this is a first run and the first run always needs to be tweaked. Has anyone seen the first rev of Diplomacy? It was chocked full of differences that were ironed out over a bit of time and testing. That is what I am suggesting here, we see certain problems, he sees them as well. Why did this devolve into bashing any who dare claim any mistakes are on the map is stupid and frankly what every discussion on this site devolves into.

MePBM - Think of it as Diplomacy in Middle Earth but with the added use of Characters and Spells and artifacts and, unfortunately, random rolls. But it is a concurrent turn game involving armies and fleets.

But more to thebpoijt, you didn't ask about Diplomacy variant design. You asked about game design experience. Period. Now you backtrack when faced with the truth and say "but I meant..." No, you thought you were high and mighty and discovered some of us *make/made a living* design in games. Oops, sucks to be you with egg on your face cooking as you get all hot under the collar.

I'm actually really interested in developing this variant further. I know that there are some glaring problems with some of the sea-lane borders as they stand, and can tweek these areas quite easily. At the same time I would like to include sea-lanes to some areas of the map that don't have them for instance the Med & EstCoast of NthAmerica and some spaces in Asia. However I would hesitate to include sea-lanes everywhere, and prefer to be selective in their locations a little bit.

I would also like to include land-lanes. Particularly in some of the regions that, more often than not, tend to develop stalemate lines. I'm thinking of areas in Central Asia etc.

I've had to do some visual changes to the map in order to actually accomodate any of this sort of development though. Basically I've 'un-squashed' the vertical dimension of the map as it stands, elongating both the north and southern hemispheres about 1000 pixels each.

So if anyone would like to have a look at the Vanilla map and make suggestions as to locations & changes, I personally would be very interested to hear from you. The map size at this point is slightly too large to post on the dev-forum, but please PM me with your e-mail and I will send you a copy and we can start to crowd-develop the next iteration of the WWIV<Lanes> variant.

Having said this folks, please don't expect the WWIV-Sealanes variant to be removed even remotely into the future. Please sign up to the WWIV-Sealanes game currently being recruited for, and start to get involved in the actual process. Make some notes and observations, and get involved in (what I hope to be) the first ever community developed variant on vDip.

YCHTT
No egg boiling on my face, when we discuss Diplomacy variants and I make reference to "game design" no kidding I mean Diplomacy variants. Your suggestion that I am "caught" is really dumb!

Kaner, you mention there has been no community driven variants here? That seems crazy. The WWIV game was developed this exact way. Yes it was my design and I did all the changes but the game was run on Redscape for over a decade and after (during) each run, people would both send me ideas and/or post them in the forums. The input helped the game evolve from game to game to game, that is the way a game SHOULD evolve! But with you as the designer know more than any other regarding the concept. Not all ideas will be implemented even if a bunch of people all agree, the majority is seldom right! They may be on to an idea and they can give you some direction but their ideas are not always correct (sometimes they are but not always) You need to control the reins and stick to your guns as far as maintaining your vision. The community can drive the changes but not determine them!

gameID=20562

This may have been touched on earlier in the conversation, but if so, the suggestion was lacking specifics. If changes are coming to the sealanes map, some ideas are creating more sealanes spaces in area like (this list is not complete, and testing these in a few games would definitely help to assess good bad or further tweeking).

1) WGM, EGM - creating the GOM sealane with 2-3 spaces
2) SEC, NEC - creating EC sealane with 2-4 spaces
3) HUD - creating the HUD sealane with 2 spaces
4) BAR - creating the BAR sealane with 2 spaces
5) WNS, ENS - creating the NS sealane with 2 spaces
6) BIS - creating the BIS sealane with 2 spaces, leave ENG between spaces #5 and #6
7) ARA - modify ARA and Nth ARA to have adjacency to BLC
8) Create Caspian Seas Space along with the Volga Canal, and consider both having the canal straddling VOL, ARM, and AZE or self contained in Volga.
9) SCS, NCS - create SCS sealane with 3 spaces, and give it adjacency to HK
10) OKH - create OKH sealane with 2 spaces

These are just a few ideas that jump out. Some of these have no had any relevance in this game because of the way the players have chosen to play, but these suggestions given them more options, and create more uniformity in coastal nations' exposure.

All fine ideas
My personal opinion on each of the suggestions:

1) WGM, EGM - creating the GOM sealane with 2-3 spaces
Split each in two

2) SEC, NEC - creating EC sealane with 2-4 spaces
Split each in two

3) HUD - creating the HUD sealane with 2 spaces
I see no need just yet, I would wait on this one

4) BAR - creating the BAR sealane with 2 spaces
again, best to wait

5) WNS, ENS - creating the NS sealane with 2 spaces
Yes

6) BIS - creating the BIS sealane with 2 spaces, leave ENG between spaces #5 and #6
not sure what the exact split is meant but yes to adding a sealane

7) ARA - modify ARA and Nth ARA to have adjacency to BLC
I would either wait on this one or if you see a need for this then wouldn't addinga sealane split in PEG be better? By moving the ARA Ocean to intersect with BLC you no longer have KAR as close to Iran and this can often be critical.
I would prefer to simply wait on this area for now.

8) Create Caspian Seas Space along with the Volga Canal, and consider both having the canal straddling VOL, ARM, and AZE or self contained in Volga.
I am always against such canals that do not (nor never will) exist
This would be a good area to use land lanes if/when that is considered but for fleets, I think they are too useless in the region and not a good idea.

10) OKH - create OKH sealane with 2 spaces
(going out of order for a reason)
Instead of OKH being split, would it not be better to split the more strategic SOJ instead?

9) SCS, NCS - create SCS sealane with 3 spaces, and give it adjacency to HK
NCS?
My suggestion in this whole arena leads to an even bigger overall suggestion to seriously consider, But this idea is no "tweak" but rather a major overhaul that I think may be the better answer to all the issues and could work REAL well.
For this region, redraw the "master" spaces. Fewer such master sea spaces and more sea lanes within them.
That leads to this being considered EVERYWHERE on the map doesn't it? Not now! but why not start thinking of this as a possibility, by having fewer such spaces, we reduce that aspect that makes things harder to defend while adding the creativity and ability to break stalemates later?

Again, please do not think this is any sort of demand or even any sort of assumption that this is the cure-all. But it seems to make some good sense and hey, maybe it is a real big winner idea??? (that would be a LOT more work than these tweaks suggested)

Tom, I'm not saying work should hold off. I'm saying we shouldn't *stop* playing waiting on a new release. There is more than can be learned from continuing to play while the first round of revisions take place. You advocate stopping and waiting for a new version. I say get working on the new version but keep playing the old as we may find some other fast revision that could end up in V 0.2 and really improve it instead 9f being in V 0.3 or later because we keep stoppin before getting through an entire game. More data is almost always a good thing and more testing of software (and in the end, game design shares a lot with software design) is always a good thing.

That was a long while ago I suggested that, Kaner had mentioned the tweaks are not easy fixes as i expected (and would be if run by hand as i had alwways done)

I was simply replying to the suggested fixes above only
I did not (above) suggest anything as you are attempting to claim!
We are discussing possible changes that we can see at this time, nobody is discussing anything else.
The 10 suggestions were answered as to what my opinion was. Could I be more clearer?

Then we are on the same page. So join in the gunboat game and help us learn more?

nooooo, one game at a time is my rule, not to mention I found faults and have learned from them. That's not to say I think the idea sucks, never have a said that!

In fact, of those that were suggested, I even suggested FEWER fixes than they suggested. But then again, I also said that complete overhaul idea with fewer/larger "master" spaces but more lanes would be a good idea and that is a huge undertaking! (but it's an idea only, something to ponder only and we could learn from the basic first run or two to give insight to even that larger undertaking)

Oh, and while I am closer in agreement than you had assumed. I still think more runs as the game is now is not necessarily the best idea. Running something in need of repair doesn't give an accurate idea of how fixes should be implemented. I suppose one more run would help some but do not start running several more, again, small fixes done often is usually the way to get things done effectively. so yes, I am indeed against running it again and again in its current form and do not want to take part in that. Besides, as said before, I am in my last game on the site, not to play again.

gameID=20562

More test games! Only three players left.

Gents, I have uploaded the vanilla map of the SeaLanes. You can also find the map with the first alterations made in red here as well.
follow:
http://imgur.com/a/UoHRt

If you would like to add ideas etc... you can download either the vanilla version or version1 and add your suggested alterations to the map and e-mail to me at kenrgordon@gmail.com - I will then begin to compile these changes onto a master copy that is recording these changes on layers.

Hope to hear from you soon!

hello, i want to bring a couple things up, not about the game, but about the maps starting positions. i dont feel a certain way about anything, i just wanted to mention things i have noticed

1.
take the southern tip of south america for example. in the original WWIV map, the supply center VAL (along the west coast) was very easily guarded if an ally fleet was stationed in CHB. Now it is bordered by CHB and SE CHB, even though, visually it is only borders by once ocean.

others like it:
KIN (west africa)
FOR (north east south america)
BLH (north east south america)


2.

very vulnerable:
DAK (bordered by 5 oceans) nigeria
MDR (bordered by 6 oceans) india
EDI (bordered by 6 oceans) UK
CAP (bordered by 5 oceans) South Africa


3.
discontinuities:
The med, thailand, cuban, japan and indonesian coasts deserve sealanes just as much as the indian, oceanian, australian, south african, incan, brazilian etc coasts


4.

has anyone attempted to create an unbiased way of viewing this map? like one where all territories are the same size? i imagine it gets a little complicated on the coasts, but i want to reiterate how

MAK (bordered by 7 total: 4 oceans, 2 scs and 1 land territory)

BND (bordered by 9 total: 5 oceans, 2 scs and 2 land territories)

CIO (bordered by 10 total: 5 oceans, 5 scs and 0 land territories)

SCP (bordered by 6 total: 3 oceans, 3 scs)


note the size difference. I am not sure why i am comparing them, or if what i am saying holds any merit or if comparing these oceans is relevant. just pointing out the facts


-so if there was a way to show each territory as equal size, it would be much easier to analyze

let me know what you think, MATLAB maybe?

regarding #3
I would add the East Coat of North America and some of Europe, not a bad idea to also add a small number of lanes in the Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico as well.

and in general, I like the idea of reducing most areas slightly, again, a GENERAL idea, if the ocean has 4 lanes then drop to 3, if it has 3 drop to 2. It would give the new lane benefit while making defense slightly easier, this may be a nice middle ground solution?

Hey Tom, out of curiosity what is the basis for reducing the number of lanes? Your posts throughout this conversation have stressed a defensive posture. Is there some basis for your recommendation aside from making things more defensive? The sea lanes concept was generated because the map was too defensively oriented, specifically at sea between the continents. Looking at the subject game, I have not seen any examples of the need to reduce lanes. We may not get a good look at the game until it enters the end game phase though. The sea lanes look pretty good as is so far. It looks like they are consistently applied for the most part in ocean spaces, and certain make it much more difficult to hide behind the continental stalemate lines, which were excessive on the original map. Is there some reason that.

Mfarb, it seems to me that looking at the first of your item is that the sea lanes were absolutely designed to make VAL more vulnerable by increasing the number of adjacencies. The same logic applies to KIN, BLH, and FOR. As noted in comments to Tom above the reason for this is because in the past it has been far too easy to site back along the shores of the continents and park for the duration of games. I think most of us who have played a few NWO games have seen and/or used this inherent defense, but having done so myself in a game that was going poor I have the say that the result was a cheaply bought and largely undeserved draw. Sea lanes so far appear to allow more playability on the map without major redesign.

Looking at your second observation, you may be on to something , noting that other spaces like DAK, MDR, EDI, and CAP have too many adjacencies (comparative to the first set of four mentioned). This is definitely worth looking at further to see if truly unfair advantages emerge as trends.

I like the idea of your third point, and think that adding some sea lanes in some of these spaces would be a good addition. Australia looks pretty good though. DWN still holds some old school defensive coastal security, but it has three water adjacencies, two coastal adjacencies, and one overland border. The continent also also has five sea lanes groups surrounding it.

I actually like the idea of having some spaces like you point out in item four. It's good to have pivotal non-SC spaces that lots of powers can spill into. But I have not looked into how these spaces are scatter around the map. Do you think that these present any clear advantages or disadvantage to nations on the map?

As i stated, the change seems to have gone too far in additional offense and defending sea spaces is difficult at best. But the general idea could work, it has great potential! So why not reign it in a bit?

First suggestion is to apply the lanes evenly across the map by adding in those additional spaces, next is to reign it in a touch by reducing the number. The lanes are still there and still add the offense you want and should still be able to make sea space stalemates a heck of a lot less likely, but it's not crazy either, things are then overall far better balanced.

So my two steps
add more areas with lanes
reduce the number of lanes in each area

Tom, I'm looking for examples of why you feel this way. The game has not even reached a true mid-game yet. I don't see a need to reign anything in. I have seen you suggest it several time, but no specifics on why. Not trying to be argumentative here, but your suggestion seems rooted in personal preference rather than a tangible reason. I'm looking at the map so far and do not see any evidence of a problem. It's pretty crazy on the high seas, particularly with retreats, but that looks like fun, and actually adds an element of additional defense to the map. It may not be defensive in the stalemate line sense of the word, but that's not the only way to defend or even the best way to. Aggressive defensive tactics, and staying on the move can sometimes lead to increased negotiations. I like the opening up of the map, because it adds an element of tactical discussion into the everyday negotiations. And maybe the best value is that it forces players to look at more than dot-grabbing. I do like the idea of adding lanes to some water territories in other areas mentioned.

I'm taking all suggestions on board (some via private channels and not in the forum). I will most likely do another revision either tonight - or tomorrow.