3 regions seems a bit of a too big of a game.
Why not just pick two?
Three regions is a bit large, and unless you do it right, impossibly hard to ballance. The only methods I know of to balance it out are:
- Bump the level count to something over 100
- Make sure the average level of the regions doesn't exceed 100 by the end of the second region
- Make the regions really small and plot-driven and not gym-driven
My game plans to feature three regions + a post game region, which is also really big. I've managed to determine a way to balance it out within my setting - having the player deposit all their team in a box to go on a cruise to the third region, but on arrival, the region's PC network is down and they can't access the PC till it's fixed (Which wouldn't be until they are close to done with the region's plot). This way, it keeps the levels from being topped at 100, and I don't need to bump the level cap past 100 just to make it work.
There's also the matter of maps, where, if you do things like I did at first, you'll run out of maps by the end of the first region or second region. What you need to do is to cluster similar maps, maps that can work together. cluster houses in the same city, cluster floors of an important building, just cluster it all together to cut down on space. It may not seem like much at the beginning, but assume that for one region it cuts down 60 spare maps. 60 maps per region, give or take, comes out to 180 maps. That's still a pretty decent chunk of maps you've saved space on. It probably wont be 60 - might be more, might be less - but it's still a good idea to get in the habit of it for a Multi-Region game.
If you do it right, a 3+ Region Game can be really well done - I won't know if mine is well done until I actually finish past the first region, but I can hope it will be!
And as for things I'm doing, I'm taking another break from working - my computer recently died and I can't really work on my netbook, as the game drops to 8 FPS while playing it - but I was working on a system for Erika's Gym in Celadon City, where if you stepped on 5 flowers, she denies your challenge for 24 hours.
