(February 26th, 2013, 21:08)NobleHelium Wrote: In other news, I've just learned that explication and explicate are words in English.
I knew explicate, did not know explication (though it makes sense)
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
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.
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
Chat with CFC Wrote:scooter: our turn player just noted that the spanish team declared war on you. is everything ok? Caledorn: Thank you for asking We suspected it might be coming based on very little contact from them lately, so we were not taken by surprise scooter: that's good to hear! yeah they seem pretty unpredictable Caledorn: Hah, indeed. They're an enigma to have as neighbors scooter: yeah, unlucky for you. we felt we were lucky not to be next to them Caledorn: I can agree to that sentiment We'll just have to deal with them the rough way it seems. It seems an odd decision to go to war at this point of the game, as wars at this stage usually just end up as stalemates as far as I can tell personally based on reading up on lots of Civ4 playthroughs. But they seem to be used to a different style of play than what we are. scooter: Yeah, agreed on all counts. I know they're zulu and everything, but the time of Impis being terrifying was 40 turns ago. should be pretty manageable for you guys I hope Caledorn: Personally I'm not much of a war strategist, so I have little experience with waging wars in civ against other players. But the strategists on the team doesn't seem very concerned that this poses any big threat to us. Annoying, of course, based on the potential stalemate situation - but I don't think we're in any real danger.
Pretty inconsequential, but figured it didn't hurt to ask. Again, should be pretty easy for CFC to fend this off, but it might at least force them to whip a bit.
I don't know if there's been much thinking about CFC rolling over CivSpan and having 2x the territory of anyone else but it might be good to plan for that - if only to ask for funny pictures about terrible CivSpan tile management.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
(February 28th, 2013, 12:33)antisocialmunky Wrote: I don't know if there's been much thinking about CFC rolling over CivSpan and having 2x the territory of anyone else but it might be good to plan for that - if only to ask for funny pictures about terrible CivSpan tile management.
Spain only has about four cities I think. Even if they take them all, we probably have equivalent land. I assume the Spanish neighbors have aggressively pushed expansion up on them like we have done to the Germans and WPC.
Completed: SG2-Wonders or Else!; SG3-Monarch Can't Hold Me; WW3-Surviving Wolf; PBEM3-Replacement for Timmy of Khmer; PBEM11-Screwed Up Huayna Capac of Zulu; PBEM19-GES, Roland & Friends (Mansa of Egypt); SG4-Immortality Scares Me
CFC does have 12 cities to the 5 of the Spanish, but I don't think they'll be rolling through them. At least not immediately. CFC doesn't seem to have any kind of army, nor do they have any military techs right now. They do not have a single barracks finished that we can see. They'll be facing 2 promo units everywhere from the Agg/Chr Zulus, which will make the individual battles a bit tough. Yes, CFC will win eventually in the war of attrition, but I think it will take them quite some time to go on the offensive.
Elsewhere, with nothing going on right now diplomatically, I'd like to see us send off another short message to UniversCiv. We've heard nothing back since our infamous 3gpt for spices offer; I guess their answer to that is no. But we should try to open lines of communication and see what's going on, that sort of thing. I would like to see something along the lines of:
* Hey how are you doing, etc.
* I guess you weren't interested in our past offer; would you like to discuss any other resource trades?
* Any interest in straight OB for OB? We're not paying for them, but we're open to a straight exchange.
* Want to make an EP agreement where we stop spending points after seeing each other's graphs? (The infamous 43 EP deal.)
Something along those lines. Now is a good time with the local neighbors all walking quietly.
Hey guys! I wanted to check in and say hi and see how things are going in your part of the world. Is there anything exciting going on? The Spanish Zulu team just recently declared war on CFC's India team, so there's more than a couple fireworks going on in our part of the world.
Do you guys have any interest in Open Borders and/or any resource trades? We never heard back from you on our last idea, but we're open to any offers or suggestions you might have. Also, would you be interested in an EP spending agreement? We were thinking we could agree to only spend enough EPs to get each other's graphs, and then we can both spend them on other teams. No pressure, just sounded like a good idea to us.
But we should try to open lines of communication and see what's going on, that sort of thing. I would like to see something along the lines of:
