New FFH2 PBEM?

[Northstar1989]

On this site? I think you overestimate elven rushes in competitive MP.

I'm saying that Elven rushes never happen, because very few games are ever played at a speed slower than Quick. This makes the Dexterous trait basically *worthless* (there's little reason to ever attack with Archers once you have Axemen- which are stronger with Bronze Weapons, don't require an Archery Range, don't have defensive bonuses, and are better at attacking cities).

Ljosafar rushes aren't even possible below Normal, and really only shine on Epic game speed... To have any chance of working, they require that Archers are built and reach the other player before they have developed Bronze Working (or one of their neighbors has- and is willing to trade them Copper for Bronze Warriors), or Longbowmen before Champions appear (both of which are too narrow of a time window for a major assault on Quick). Flurries (the other unit Dexterous benefits- and the only one with real skill at offense) come so late in the game and so far off the normal Ljosafar tech path as that the winner has almost certainly already been decided in any game against human opponents by the time they can be built.

The Svarltfar have it a little better, since the Sinister trait benefits their Rangers and Beastmasters as well as their Hunters. But recon units aren't good at attacking cities, so it's almost never a viable rush strategy. (it *IS* good for Choking by pillaging/raiding if the Svraltfar use Rangers to protect other units, however)

More generally, I'm not greatly inclined to weigh in here, but I'd like to mention that unless there are very specific instructions, mapmakers are in a very awkward position if asked to favor one civ over another - that can very easily lead to resentment and blame of relative positions on the map/mapmaker.

It would be even more unfair to ask players to start in positions that give them no conceivable chance at victory. The Calabim in a desert without food resources or flood plains, or the Khazad in a flat expanse of plains with no metal or hills nearby (in EiTB, where their world spell no longer provides free hills), for instance.

Trust me, I won't be resenting any mapmaker for changes made to the map. No map (except a mirrored map) is ever *perfectly balanced*, and the worst a mapmaker can do is overcompensate for a weak starting position and actually make it the strongest starting position (which just switches up the players who start off at a disadvantage- somebody will either way...)


Regards,
Northstar

[Bobchillingworth]

Is this game still happening? I start a new job in a little over two weeks- if I'm to make a map, I'll need a complete list of settings before then, the sooner the better.

[Kragroth]

I emailed North Star to come back. He hasn't appeared since Dec. 24th. Regarding the settings it's pretty much:

Mod: FFH Vanilla
Map Type: Erebus Continents
Flavor Start: On
Barbs: On
Speed: Quick

Judging from everything else, I think the following is in order as well:

Raging Barbs: On
Barbarian World: On
Acheron: On
Orthus: On
Living World: On
Blessings of Amalthon: On
All Unique Features: On
No Tech Trading On

This goes in mind for the best FFH vanilla has to offer.

[Northstar1989]

I emailed North Star to come back. He hasn't appeared since Dec. 24th.

I've been checking in regularly- I just haven't bothered to log in, as there hasn't been any progress on this thread lately. I'm good to start this game whenever, although my laptop is acting up and I can't guarantee super-quick turnaround on my end until the replacement arrives in the mail...

Regarding the settings it's pretty much:

Mod: FFH Vanilla
Map Type: Erebus Continents
Flavor Start: On
Barbs: On
Speed: Quick

Quick question, but I assume it's FFH2 Vanilla? Technically, Age of Ice is FFH, and the game we all know/love is FFH2, isn't it?

Judging from everything else, I think the following is in order as well:

Raging Barbs: On
Barbarian World: On
Acheron: On
Orthus: On
Living World: On
Blessings of Amalthon: On
All Unique Features: On
No Tech Trading On

This goes in mind for the best FFH vanilla has to offer.

Barbarian World? No Tech Trading? When did we decide on those settings?

Honestly, I think Barbarian World is a *very* bad idea with the Clan potentially in play (which is already OP'd enough with just Raging Barbs on- which I'd also suggest we leave off, but can live with leaving on as it adds a certain flavor), and tech trading adds a major new strategic element to the game- allowing players who are falling behind to gang up on the lead player and share technologies to earn a fighting chance...


So, could we remove Barbarian World and No Tech Trading from the options? Other than that, I think we're good...


Regards,
Northstar

[Kragroth]

Barbarian World is that you don't find Acheron directly next to you when you accidently lose a city to barbs. With Barbarian World Acheron Starts out with a place to go. I don't think the barbs need to have a lot of cities or even more than 1 city. But they should have at least 1 city. The mapmaker could put the future Acheron City in a nice centralized place.

Clan will be powerful not because of Raging Barbs per se (Raging barbs means free xp to attentive civs) but moreso because of converting disciples of Acheron and getting fireballs!

And frankly if you want to play Clan I'm fine with that.

No Tech Trading is a highly important balancing method that prevents two civs from deciding that between one of them, they will win the game. We can leave that off, but it's not recommended for the most enjoyable game. And, there won't be much ganging up with an Erebus Map on.

Come to think of it, we should also add permanent alliances in.

[Bobchillingworth]

Hmm, looking through this thread, I'm not actually certain how many players you guys even have. Is Ellimist still playing? Are there only three of you participating?


To move forward, I need finalized settings (since these currently appear to still be under discussion) and picks sent from each player. I'm not sure you've got enough players for more than a duel though, in which case you probably don't need me to even work on a map- just run a mirror script.

[Ellimist]

I am still interested in joining a new game, but not with some of those settings, so I guess I'm going to drop out of this one.

[Kragroth]

I'll gladly propose changing the settings to your liking. What do you have in mind?

[Ellimist]

A couple of things.

I think barbarian world is a bad idea unless we were doing something like "no settlers," but I'm not sure I'd even be interested in that. Acheron and sons of the inferno has already been done and I'm not sure it's worth doing again.

Erebus map script just seems bad in general and Bob would have to do a ton of editing to make it usable. It would be better to let him work with something less cumbersome. Bob is very creative and has a lot of experience with FFH, so let's try not to micromanage things.

Three players is also probably too few. Starting with less than four also seems super risky because sometimes people can get eliminated pretty quickly. I very much prefer 4-6. If this means EitB, then so be it.

Permanent Alliances is another thing I'd like to avoid. I'm not sure how/why they were turned on in 31, but I'd rather avoid that in the future.

[Kragroth]

I'm not attached to Acheron. I just had an idea of acheron being a chokepoint in a 3 person map. To get to other players you had to go through Acheron. Perhaps have a special agreed victory condition that the first to kill Acheron wins. We could ban clan if it was more palpatable.

North star wanted an erebus map with flavor start for flavor and lore reasons. That being said I'm very open to Bob's ideas. Flavor start was definitely part of the desire here (pick civs accordingly)

Regarding players: this is an unbalanced map with unbalanced settings. A smaller map for 3 seems fine in my book. Not every game needs to be large form imho.