Hello,

at the BGG „play by“-forum and at Sigmazeros webpage, I could take a look on the map layout of Ru Steppes. I would like to play Ru Steppes in my next Runewars-session, so I have some questions concerning this special map.

1) Ru Steppes is a fixed map. But are the starting positions of the homerealms also fixed or may they be chosen?

2) Are there any special setup-instructions that differ to a normal Runewars setup? For example, are there any neutrals that are placed on different areas than usual during setup?

3) Are the locations of the particular cities fixed, too, or will they be assigned randomly?

4) Sidenote: I recognized that in Ru Steppes, the game designer has decided to break with one of his rules: He placed two red borders adjacant to each other. As the rule that forbids such a placement is written to prevent unfair or inaccessable areas, this is allright in a premade, designed map – but I think it’s a little bit funny that this rule is broken in the first official bonus map.

5) @Sigmazero: What a great design of the units on your play-by-webpage. I was really getting nostalgic when I saw these graphics as they remind me of the early fantasy computer games in the 1980s. (like „Gauntlet“ or the early D&D computer games)
I really love those pixel-details. It’s obvious that they are made with love to the details.

Best regards

Graf

Graf said:

The starting realm areas were fixed on the official map, but I don't see why you couldn't just choose where you want them.

Graf said:

No, everything is as-written.

Graf said:

The cities were assigned randomly.

Graf said:

I can't find any illegal placement. The rule is that you can't have two PARALLEL adjacent borders - IE, a red border cannot be snug-up against another colored border. Making a long mountain chain is perfectly legal.

Graf said:

I can only take credit for the Neutrals. The other units were created by someone else. I will find the email with their names and post them here to give them credit.

Ok, for what it's worth, the names of those that created a lot of the graphics are: Anthony Pham, Michael Yi, and Jason Gentry.

I'm not quite sure who created what (apart from Jason Gentry creating the GIMP file and most of the layers within it that made my job a lot easier).

The parts I myself did are:

- The neutral units

- The heroes (all I did was cut their heads out in a circle, obviously)

- The exploration tokens

- The damage counters and the "X" battle marker.

Thank you for your response and for offering these informations about Ru Steppes. It really made my day to have access now to this map people are talking about so much.

Concerning the mountain chains:

I always thought that it is forbidden to place a mountain (or water) border next to another at all. I always thought this rule was written to prevent such long mountain-chains that could easily cut off some areas from the rest of the board. Well, it looks like I always was wrong.

Of course, you're right – the rules explicitly address only PARALLEL borders that are touching each other. But now I am a little bit confused about the sense of this ruling. Why should it be forbidden to place such parallel mountains? Of course, it doesn't look the best, but it doesn't endanger the game mechanics at all: For matters of gameplay, there is no difference between one mountain and two parallel touching mountains – it's just one barrier at the same place (All right, there might be a struggle with that tactic cards that allow crossing one mountain border, but there would not be a problem at all if these double-borders would be considered as one mountain) . I think the bigger threat are exactly those mountain chains that could split off the whole map, but of all things those chains are allowed...

Is this ruling just made to avoid the decrease of the number of mountain barriers on the board? (When you create such parallel double-borders, there are less borders at all on the map and the map gets a more opened style, maybe too much opened to be a "good map". However, this would not stop the game from working).

You see, I'm confused...

Well, I'm unforutnately not privy to the reason why the rule exists as-is. Probably to just outright avoid the issues of "does that count as one obstacle, or two?" And probably to make the borders more useful, or just add variety to the map.

I've never seen a map that was completely separated due to mountains or water. Water is not as big a deal, as you ignore water in the winter, but mountains could make things interesting. However, the worst I've ever seen is a mountain chain that causes a big chokepoint - and I have found those make the game more interesting because there is then one area that becomes a hotbed of fighting - because controlling the chokepoint gives you a big advantage.

Overall, I've yet to see the chains become any problem at all. I think they make the maps more interesting that way

I've seen such a divided map (it is possible to build such a map even without placing mountains next to each other, so this could happen even in my wrong played map setup – but with mountain chains it will be much easier).

I must confess that it was me who forced this split-off-layout in the setup phase: I played the elves and I wanted to create some areas to which only my Pegasi will have access to. So I finished my map setup by placing a map-tile behind a mountain in such a way that it could not be reached without flying creatures. However, the starting player cancelled my plans: He set a starting marker in such a manner that the home realm would create a way into the lost area. Nevertheless, I could force the starting player to place his home realm markers into this gap – in any other case all other players would have lost a part of the board to the elves before even starting the game.

I think I won't be the only elves' player who tries to create such lost areas behind the mountains. So I think these (at least partly) split maps will occur frequently.

(And no, it won't do this every time when I play the elves as I don't want to annoy my friends. But it was worth the try and the surprise when I did this the very first time. However, I think an elves' player who plays the game very biting – a player who tries to win with no regrets and no mercy – will try this nasty trick in every setup.)

Hmm, I'd like to see that map. I just can't see an easy way to pull that off, especially if the other players are paying attention.