0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Lífþrasir held his axe high screamed a blood-curdling war cry, and rushed through the waves towards the beach.
It was the good ol' days, and he was taking part in a raid upon yet another undefended coastal settlement, it was almost too easy. He and his comrades ran through the town, as wolves among sheep. The few who resisted were cut down. By the time Lífþrasir reached the town square, there was no more resistance and the vikings were looting the place and carrying slaves back to the boats.
A sudden, searing pain shot through his leg, and he collapsed onto the ground in agony. An arrow had pierced his leg clean through right below the knee. He looked up just in time to see the horseman who had delivered it ride back down the street. The nearby viking warriors yelled, and charged after him.
Halfway down the street, they slowed to a stop dumbfounded as a swarm of arrows that nearly blotted out the sun appeared overhead, and came flying down towards them. They perished to the man. A horde of archers atop camels and small fast horses came galloping down the street over their corpses. The beserkers were taken completely by surprise, and fell left and right, full of arrows like oversized porcupines. The riders ignored Lífþrasir as he lay on the ground. Wounded as he was, he did the only thing he could think of to survive, and played dead. The hoofbeats soon subsided as the riders chased the remaining vikings to their ships.
The hoofbeats of the horses and camels were then replaced by a much louder, more ominous sound. Lífþrasir cracked his eyes open just in time to see a trio of large gray creatures, each with three riders atop its back, thundering down the street. Gripped by terror, he screamed, yelling up to the moment that the creature was nearly on top of him, it's massive move nearing his face.
Lífþrasir awoke screaming, Lif shaking him and yelling: "it's only a dream."
He stopped screaming, and took a few seconds that felt like an eternity, considering what he had just seen.
Alright, so this game is shaping up to be a bloodfest during the medieval period. We have two of the most powerful UUs in the game currently, and an honorable mention making it in the running as well. So, I need a civ that has a good defensive medieval unit that I can use to prevent myself from being romped and stomped during the medieval period, or I need a civ that can give me enough of an advantage early on to ensure I can be in a strong enough position to resist a Keshik/Elephant rush by the time Chivalry comes around.
So at the moment I'm considering:
Celts
China
Ethiopia
France
Germany
Greece
Japan
Korea
Leaning towards Korea at the moment. Beeline Physics, get NR and the best anti-personnel weapon in the game. Lots of bonuses to teching. Any of these would be a decent option though.
(April 5th, 2013, 12:03)yuris125 Wrote: I will dedlurk you, if you don't mind. No promises of being useful, as I don't have G&K But maybe... who knows....
Would love to have you onboard!!!
As for my civ pick, I agonized over the decision for quite a while, in the end coming down to China and Korea - and Korea won the coin flip. Will go into my strategy with them later on but I'm pretty happy with it. H'wacha's should make me fairly impervious to attack in the medieval era and their UA is really sexy. Going to be building a wonder I generally never build to capitalize on it - Great Library. Hopefully nobody else realizes it's value to Korea and Pindicator will have much sexier wonders to go nab in the meantime (ToA comes to mind).
I'll do much more extensive posting later on, but for now:
I think I'm definitely going to start uploading and downloading saves manually to the website from my Mac, because the settings I have to put the game on so it will run on my virtual machine make the game look simply awful.
At any rate, okay start, screaming out for Sacred Paths with all that jungle. Production light, which doesn't bode well for going for GL. Seriously debated moving two turns west to get next to that mountain for an Observatory later on. Quite a bonus to give up (+50% science), especially in the case of Korea where you get a free RA for building one. However, I didn't want to risk losing the pretty decent location I have for an unknown location (also loses the two hammer hill bonus). I feel like the game will be largely in hand by astronomy, so it probably wouldn't make an enormous difference either way. Getting a scout out in three turns. Debating whether a two scout start is best here, or to go straight to shrine -> monument. Leaning towards the former.
At any rate, settled and moved my warrior southeast.
Desert.
Wondering if Jowy is down there.
At any rate, queued up pottery. Will post much more detailed thoughts tomorrow.
One more quick note. On thing I do like about this capital is that it is very defensible from fast-movers. The jungles prevent a unit like the Keshik from firing and retreating, and the lack of hills immediately around the city give a garrisoned unit a clear field of fire. Conversely, it will be difficult for an opponent to set up a catapult and fire. The rivers surrounding the city also make it easier to defend. It will however, be easier for 2-mover tanky units to attack this city, since the jungle provides so much cover. If the Iroquois or Aztecs were in this game, I may be in real trouble. Fortunately, this is not the case.
![[Image: NightTime.jpg]](http://i1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc432/numismatist93/PBEM2/NightTime.jpg)
But maybe... who knows.... ![[Image: TheStart.png]](http://i1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc432/numismatist93/PBEM2/TheStart.png)
![[Image: ScoutingMoves.png]](http://i1211.photobucket.com/albums/cc432/numismatist93/PBEM2/ScoutingMoves.png)
