[NO PLAYERS] Mapmaking, Boasting, and Wild Speculation Thread

[spacetyrantxenu]

Reposting since we posted at the same time and you may have missed this:

Notes from looking over the map:

*Spread out the starting units so that the full BFC can be seen from the starting tile the settler is on. If it isn't possible due to hills/forests, manually reveal the missing BFC tiles.

*Everyone has copper available at their capital. I didn't think this was a problem before PB16 where Retep blindly moved. The risk is that one person moves away from the copper and gets rushed by his neighbor. Obviously it's their own fault for dying but it removes a lot of the life from the game if that happens. Maybe move copper away from the capital so that everyone has a chance to grab it with their second city rather than their first? This gives time to react (change research, for example, to Archery) if necessary.

*Carthage - Check happy resource allocation. Only fur/spice. Happy resources in general are pretty sparse. Conscious choice?

*Ottomans, Natives - No aluminium.

*Natives - more plains, less grass? (Could be said in general, but Natives seem to have very little plains at all).

Overall looks like a really fun map. I'll have to play a SP game on it.

Off to bed, no further nitpicks from me tonight. Thanks for taking on map duty.

Preview edit: With Seven's comment in mind, maybe either drop Isabella/England to level the field to a lower midpoint or...reroll if all the "close" combos suck too much? I wouldn't be too bothered by playing out a mediocre combo if everyone else was doing the same thing. As long as it isn't the same old best leaders/civs, I'd be OK with it. But I value variety highly, quality less so in combos. YMMV.

[Gawdzak]

I guess I'm a bit late, but from this list:

Charlemagne of India (Terrible leader but they get India)
Kublai of Khmer (Bad leader, bad civ, but you get Hunt/Mining if they need it)
Cyrus of Dutch (Bad leader, and ok civ but one of the few Agriculture civs)
Peter of Germany (Good leader, but bad civ)
Isabella of England (Decent leader, decent civ)
Hammerabi of Byzantium (Bad leader, bad civ but they don't have to pick it)
Monty of Mongolia (Bad leader, decent civ with unique starting techs)
Ragnar of Portugal (Decent leader with Fishing/Mining)
Catherine of Ethiopia (Decent leader, decent civ)
Ramesses of America (Decent leader with bad civ, but only Industrious)
Justinian of Vikings (Bad leader, but only civ here with Fishing/Hunting)
Wang Kon of Holy Roman Empire (Another Financial, if they want it)

Isabella is by far the best, and the only other ones in the adjacent league are Catherine, Ramesses, Ragnar, Peter, and Justinian.

Monty, Hammurabi, Wang Kon, Cyrus, Kublai, Charlemagne are all complete whiffs. If you pick one of them you are playing a personal challenge variant.

I don't know what the players wanted (I'm sure they have different priorities) but I would be pretty unhappy with this list. It might as well only contain 6 pairings, and one of them is way better than the others. Isabella is stronger than half of the pairings you eliminated.

How would you make the list instead?

Edit: I think you definitely make a good point here. Perhaps eliminating Isabella and reroll the bad ones?

[GermanJoey]

How would you make the list instead?

Edit: I think you definitely make a good point here. Perhaps eliminating Isabella and reroll the bad ones?

Maybe only keep these "whiffs" and then generate a few more "whiffs" to round out the set? Eh? ehhhhh?

Think about it...

[SevenSpirits]

Well we've done this pick method before, and I think it's very unlikely to try to get a good list without rolling 3x the combos, and you only rolled 2x. Dunno if they asked for that specifically, I wouldn't surprise me. If I were doing this I would say look guys, let me roll 3x the number, it will work out better.

That said if you want to follow their instructions here is my rankings of the whole bunch with VERY rough numerical ratings. Rough both because I am spitballing and because I'm not spending a lot of time on it.

The closest group to me looks to be the middle 9. I would pick those 9 and Hammy. IMO the variance of this group is still 2x as high as you want, but it would be all right.

Pacal of Russia
420
Huayna of Sumeria
400
Isabella of England
385

Hannibal of France
340
Victoria of China
330
Frederick of Egypt
330
Peter of Germany
330
FDR of Rome
320
Ragnar of Portugal
305
Ramesses of America
300
Catherine of Ethiopia
290
Justinian of Vikings
285

Hammurabi of Byzantium
265
Kublai of Khmer
260
Monty of Mongolia
240
Wang Kon of Holy Roman Empire
220
Cyrus of Dutch
210
Charlemagne of India
185
Sitting Bull of Japan
130
Churchill of Celts
100

Edit: You could also lop Hannibal off the top and add Kublai on the bottom, if you think having a flatter top, or having lower variance overall in the 10, is more important than having low variance in the top 5 of the 10.

[Gawdzak]

Seven I think I will take your middle 9 and roll another one similar in strength.

I got Hatty of Inca. How does that match up to the others?

[SevenSpirits]

Hatty of Inca is funny, but I would put her above the middle 9 just based on two good leader traits, so not a good addition IMO.

[Gawdzak]

If we go by Seven's ratings we get:

Hannibal of France
Victoria of China
Frederick of Egypt
Peter of Germany
FDR of Rome
Ragnar of Portugal
Ramesses of America
Catherine of Ethiopia
Justinian of Vikings
Hammurabi of Byzantium

What does people think about this?

[The Black Sword]

I don't know, it's still hard to see Hannibal and Victoria not being picked. If they were with weak civs they might be ok, but they're not. Problem is, if you put something from the bottom set in, it's hard to see that being picked either. The only exception IMO is Charlie of India. There's a bit of synergy between Imp and India too, I could at least see someone picking it as a possibility. I'd swap that for either Hannibal or Hammurabi.

[SevenSpirits]

Of course Hannibal and Victoria get picked, that's the problem with this "pick the 10 closest out of 20" system. It would be much worse for the balance of the game if someone picked Charlemagne though. And the other problem with that is it leaves fewer good choices, so the first 1-2 players in turn order get screwed.

[Gawdzak]

Alright I've thought about this a little more and this is probably what I'm going to do:

I'm putting Isabella back in. Adding another good leader gives a smaller chance that the last pick player gets screwed, and frankly I have a hard time seeing that Isabella is that much better than the likes of Hannibal and Victoria.

I'm putting Charlemagne of India back in also. Yes I know Charlemagne sucks, but if a player wants to play India that's their choice. I want to give players a chance to play something that they don't often get to play.

This will give us a list of 11:

Isabella of England
Hannibal of France
Victoria of China
Frederick of Egypt
Peter of Germany
FDR of Rome
Ragnar of Portugal
Ramesses of America
Catherine of Ethiopia
Justinian of Vikings
Charlemagne of India

I will leave this here for some more critique until I finish the map.