Question about Location Values

[MrThing]

I wanted to ask about game world locations in TEW 2007.
One thing I found limited about TEW 2006 was that all the game locations seemed about equal in terms of how many fans you could draw.

For example, the Tri-State area is about 40 million while the population of Canada is about 36 million. In TWE, each region is about equal and can only be adujusted in very broad categories (low, medium, big, and huge, for each kind of fan base). So having a 60 overness in the Tri-State should be a valuable as having a 60 overness through all of Canada and better since travel expences will be lower touring the Tri-State region as opposed to all of Canada.

The reason that the WWWF was able to become the most dominant territory was partly because they held the Tri-State and New England.

Even in the Cornellverse, I think it should be possible for the world to have the sort of population distribution as the real world (which is not under any copy-right protection) as any world has SOME KIND of population distibution.

At present Canada is too important compared to the US (and I live in Canada, so were I biased it would be in favor of an important Canada) and it should at least be possible to edit the US regions to reflect their differences in population and thus fan base.

[panix04]

perhaps this should be in the sugestion forum bud, never mind. I do think it would be neat for game areas to have a population slider, it might make playing TEW pretty similar to a game of risk though! (if you remember that game)

[Remianen]

But then wouldn't that be a slippery slope proposition? What I mean is, if you're adjusting for population, you probably have to adjust for affluence as well. I live in the Tri-State area and I'm willing to bet we pay more (per capita) for entertainment related expenses than people in the Mid South (especially now since New Orleans is pretty much a non-entity) and North West regions. No regions are equal in population, affluence, or discretionary expenditures so the best/easiest way to do it is to equalize everything (which is what TEW does). I'm pretty sure people in the UK and Europe don't spend as much on "stupid crap" as us Americans do (by "stupid crap" I mean stuff that's WAY more than necessary. See: Hummer, $200 theater tickets, conspicuous consumption in other words). The game already has some semblance of equalization in that not every area has every size of venue. That's true to life (unless a modder overshoots something, but that's not the game doing it).

I dunno if you can really seperate population from discretionary spending. That's one reason why a Jean-Georges Vongerichten opens restaurants in Manhattan and not Omaha, Nebraska, for example.

[panix04]

you have a point Remi, but i dont think its really a hugely slippery slope, you just have a slider for population and a slider for wealth. Admitedly it does mean 2 sliders but it would really open up the game world and make choosing which territory to break next a lot more fun and expansive.

[MrThing]

Yes, TEW 2004 had a slider for both affulence and population, I would be happy simply to see that again. It is very basic really and adds some more strategic depth to the game that it currently lacks.

These pops for fans would affect ticket sales, TV ratings, merch, and PPV buy rates.

Equalizing things makes the game too abstract, like Diplomacy (where the Ottomans as still as powerful as the French or the Brits) as opposed to a simulation game like Europia Universilis or even a well modded Civ IV (Rhyes and Fall of Civ).

[Thomnipotent]

Equalizing things makes the game too abstract, like Diplomacy (where the Ottomans as still as powerful as the French or the Brits) as opposed to a simulation game like Europia Universilis or even a well modded Civ IV (Rhyes and Fall of Civ).

Equalizing things is necessary to make it a game and not a replay of history in the cases you've given, though. If Turkey started with one unit, that wouldn't be much of a game at all, would it? :P

As for Rhye's... let's not get started.

Anyway, I digress! While it may seem as though I'm arguing against the idea of population and affluence sliders, I'm really not. I think the idea is important to help make things a bit more fair (for example, Canadian feds only have 5 regions to fill up for National, etc. while America has far more).

[MrThing]

Equalizing things is necessary to make it a game and not a replay of history in the cases you've given, though. If Turkey started with one unit, that wouldn't be much of a game at all, would it? :P

As for Rhye's... let's not get started.

Anyway, I digress! While it may seem as though I'm arguing against the idea of population and affluence sliders, I'm really not. I think the idea is important to help make things a bit more fair (for example, Canadian feds only have 5 regions to fill up for National, etc. while America has far more).

Having differences of locations which are approximate to real life, at least within a 300% margin of error (which is currently not even close to being the case) does no predetermine how things will play out. It only limits what is possible. I would not be interested in any war game in which all regions are the same, there is in fact very little stategy and few interesting situations can arise. Moreover, one can still set all the regions to be the same if one likes the Monopoly more than Capitalism II. Heck, one could make Mid Atlantic the most wealthy and populated area of North America. I simply think that it is a very basic dimension to the game world which became absent in TEW 2005.