Okay, so it looks like we've got five interested players, looking to start sometime around 2-3 weeks from now! I've started tinkering with a candidate map, but am still in the early stages and will happily scrap or adapt what I've got if a sixth wants to join or the players want different map settings. The assumptions I'm going with in the meantime are that we're looking at roughly the same general rules and requests as the last game:
(March 20th, 2024, 12:34)coldrain Wrote:
Minimum distance between starts: 15 tiles
Land tiles per player: 200-300
Map-script: Map-maker choice
Continent + start distribution: All players on same land mass
Amount of ocean/water: Map-maker choice
Islands (amount and size): Map-maker choice
Lushness: Not totally barren plains or desert hell, otherwise Map-maker choice.
Blessing of Amatheon: Map-maker choice
Unique features: Yes, but balanced
Strategic resources: ensure copper, horses, iron, mithril, reagents, incence, and blasting powder in all starting areas (not necessarily in capital BFC)
Boosted thaw start
All players start with a free worker in addition to normal starting units. First level technologies are researched (agriculture, ancient chants, crafting, exploration) and players can choose one additional technology based on their civiliztion pick (for example Hippus can choose either animal husbandry or calendar). Same setup was used in EitB PBEM LVI.
Random block for leader + civ selection
Players receive three leader/civ choices (unrestricted leaders is OFF). Player can choose to keep one choice or to have a new random selection if available options are not satisfactory, but next round starts only after all players have made a decision on the ongoing round. New selection can be chosen twice. Final pick has to be made on third round, if not done on earlier rounds. Same setup was used in EitB PBEM LVI.
Quote:Game settings
AI diplo
Quick speed
Emperor difficulty
No tech trading
No vassal states
No espionage
No Acheron
No Orthus
Wildlands
Living world
Tribal huts: no
Lairs, barrows, graveyards, etc: yes
Mana nodes: two guaranteed sources in starting area
Normal settler at start (no bonus vision or movement)
I'll add that the nominal world size would be Standard, the starts (and map in general) non-mirrored and with absolutely no promise of equality, but with attempts to at least balance things to the point where any start is hopefully fun to play! Also, if no one objects to banning Samhain, that house rule can be added in.
Note for instance that 200-300 land tiles per player is a lot more than in EitB LVI, but EitB LVII was within that range.
(December 14th, 2024, 17:32)xist10 Wrote: I will enter as 6th player.
Sounds good to me! I've now tentatively selected a potential six-player map to work from and started fiddling with it on the assumptions I posted above. There's still plenty of time to adapt if y'all actually want different settings (even if you want many fewer (or more!) tiles per player) though of course the sooner I hear about them, the easier it will be to change the map accordingly.
No objections to banning Samhain. I'd prefer no lairs, but am willing to go along with the majority. I'm fine with all other settings.
My playing time is likely to be 6-8 AM, 6-9 PM US Eastern time, so 11:00-13:00 and 23:00-2:00 GMT (I think, check my math). There's a good chance for availability other times of day, but those two windows are my most reliable (though not guaranteed).
