Yeah, I kept on meaning to admit that I didn't have any ideas but always forgot--I'm so sorry
Telephone Map Game: 12th Edition
- Thread starter CourageousLife
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- tmg
I find it interesting that both me and @Entrerriano chose to depict South-Eastern Asian empires in response to zalezsky's map, with both our empires profiting in some way from Sudanese Empire's eclipse. A very amusing coincidence.
I find it interesting that Side A stuck to Australasia almost the whole time but Side B jumped to the Balkans somehow.
Yes, I'm wondering if the Second Commandment didn't backfire in a way, because apparently everyone in my line was afraid of depicting Americas or Europe.
You might not be wrong. However, Side A did pull the perspective out and present a map of the whole world, it was just a coincidence that it zoomed right back in on Australia. If you think of each new map as a shift from the old map, Side A was more prone to a temporal shift, showing the same map as before in a different time, than a perspective shift, showing a different area or region than the last.
Hey now the Balkans are Europe. Idk, I don’t mind the way it went TBH though I do think the second commandment despite wanting to show off underrepresented groups might accidentally have ended up shafting native americans.
Again, not wrong, but I think the trend is broader. Most maps I've seen of the Americas tend to showcase European cultures. And while in some cases, it may be appropriate to show colonial holdings, it seems to have become a default in the community. This trend is also not limited to the Americas; in many places, when participants get a map of a region they know little about, it's easier to slap some colonies on it than to collect information that advances the original scenario.
I think it's also worth mentioning that actively enforcing the commandments isn't something I typically do, because at the end of the day, I don't want to stifle anyone's creative freedom. Rather, they are suggestions about how to make the game more interesting and to harness TMG's ability to create unique maps and scenarios that haven't been conceived elsewhere.
Any thoughts on changing the Second Commandment? Maybe something more general, such as "Consider how you can showcase cultures that are not dominant in OTL?" Feel free to add your thoughts.
That could work, I guess you could also drop in (ie not European or Euro-American cultures)
“Consider how you can showcase cultures that are not dominant in OTL or are underexplored in AH (ie ones other than European or Euro-American cultures)?”
Yes, I like this broader approach, as it doesn't suggest that there's a particular geographical zone a map should focus on. And, after all, there are many suppressed and underrepresented cultures in Europe as well.
We can do an attempt at regional historical world building. For instance each player gets a date timeframe. Wider date ranges early on, becoming more conical by the end for instance:
All done within say the middle east sub region or south american highlands. (2 examples, could be anywhere apart from europe)
Player 1. 4000 BC - 3000 BC
Player 2. 2500 BC - 1500 BC
Player 3. 1000 BC - 500 BC
Player 4. 1 CE - 500 CE
Player 5. 600 CE - 700 CE
Player 6. 750 CE - 850 CE
..... etc
Dates I picked are just examples
Thoughts?
All done within say the middle east sub region or south american highlands. (2 examples, could be anywhere apart from europe)
Player 1. 4000 BC - 3000 BC
Player 2. 2500 BC - 1500 BC
Player 3. 1000 BC - 500 BC
Player 4. 1 CE - 500 CE
Player 5. 600 CE - 700 CE
Player 6. 750 CE - 850 CE
..... etc
Dates I picked are just examples
Thoughts?
This sounds like a fun map game! I think I would probably join. You should make a thread for it!
I'd even say it could just be anywhere (although I agree that it might be more interesting if set in a less frequently-mapped region). It's not as if any cultures will be the same, with a POD that far in the past, most likely.
I think having a specified region would be a bit of an overstep, though I would agree that a specified time-range is a good idea.
Maybe you could limit to a culture or a region? That way it isn't such a wide project that it cannot be in depth for the parts we wish it to be. Neither culture nor region have to correspond to one that exists IRL, more so in the sense of the regions being determined culturally rather than geographically.
For example, we could take a culture from IRL and make it diverge quite a bit or take a region that's not really something that's considered in our modern world. For example, we could say "The drainage basin of the Black Sea" is the region we must cover in our turn. That's not a region that's historically or politically coherent for our world, but it could be for this one. Just an example.
Trying to conceptualize a way to make this as uncomplicated as possible for next round. Would it be fair to say that a rule for this next round is that maps can only jump forward in time, not back? Large forward jumps would be discouraged to keep the timeline open for players at the end of the list. The first player would start somewhere in the BCE era or early CE era.
New TMG just dropped. Please note:
- Every round, someone tries to make a claim in the Main Thread. Please use the Claims Thread. Anyone caught posting a claim in the Main Thread will be subject to public shaming.
- New commandments. I hope you enjoy bright colors. Note the update to the Second Commandment.
- TMG13 is linear as discussed above. First map will be earlier in history, last map will be later in history.