EitB 33 tech thread

[Qgqqqqq]

It means:

• I roll a torusland map with what I think are the appropriate settings based off what the players have said and the standard amount of land for each player. At the moment I am considering (this can all change if players preferences are otherwise) an Inland Oceans map (tsunami banned) with 40 x 48 dimensions (this gives roughly 250 land tiles each), no mountain ranges, no improvements, Immortal difficulty setting, and small map size.
  
• This canvass is then balanced by me beginning with mirroring the start positions (as requested), applying the "handicaps," making sure immediate expansion opportunities are roughly equivalent in both commerce and food resources, rivers, balancing straategic resources to allow access to all players (especially late-game ones, the later they become available the further from the capital you can expect to find them), and ensuring mana is distributed evenly but not overmuch.
  
• This process will be very similar to that used in EitB XXX, although a desire for more balance inherent in this handicap idea will result in more balancing of the immediate starts and expansion, but the base terrain will remain largely unaltered.

Information I would find useful from the players:

• What sort of map are you looking for? Do you want a more buildery map or a closer one?
  
• Would you prefer Inland Seas, which would probably allow for enabling tsunami but would reduce naval combat opportunities significantly?
  
• Do you want preplaced improvements, which reward exploration but slightly alter trait balance?
  
• Do you want me to do any sort of flavor changes or only alter for balancing? Flavor would be applied last and would have little to no effect on the game, examples being preplaced hell terrain (no burning sands ), preplaced (held) barbs, barbs of low strength with animal AI (weak Djinn, fawns, weak angels and so on) signs on landmarks etc.
  
• Do you mind a pre-placed capital?
  
• Do you want mountain ranges?

Edit:

To clarify, does "standard (torusland) map" mean "torusland with standard size and default customization settings" or "I consider torusland to be the standard for mp maps" or what?

Of your options, I suppose I meant that I consider torusland to be the standard (at least as a starting point) for multiplayer maps.

[Bobchillingworth]

To answer your questions-


Type of map: I would rather it be a surprise whether the map will lean more toward the "builder" or "build at your own risk" ends of the spectrum in terms of player distance. Deciding this in advance will significantly cut down on the number of viable civs to pick from however the votes roll, and I would rather not give away my intentions by casting a vote for a map more conductive to peace or war.


Water preference: I don't care, save that I would like to see the Lanun be at least a reasonable option since otherwise we're essentially removing two leader options right off the bat. Probably won't be a problem given the script however. I would very much like to know if we're going to have any unit and/or ability bans (besides the Illian WS) before I submit my leader picks, however.


Preplaced Improvements: I don't really care, although they're going to be a big boost for Raider's leaders, which would seem to invalidate much of the point of giving most of them starting resource penalties and banning huts. Consider this a weak vote against.


Flavor stuff: Really neat in theory, but probably a lot of work for you in practice I would not object, provided it doesn't significantly delay the game launching and a lurker is able to check for balance. The idea of a bunch of roaming, pre-placed special barbs makes me a little bit uneasy, animal AI or no. We've seen this go wrong before.


Pre-placed Capital: NO

Also please give us the starting settler promotion.


Mountain Ranges: I'm happy with whatever.

[The Black Sword]

I'd be happy with a Torusworld map too, I'd like to try it out.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned with regard to the map is unique features. I'd vote for them on, though placed far from our capitals.

Map type - Definitely not as big as 29 please, that's not the type of game I'd want to play. A bit smaller than 28 is probably what I'd like but I'm happy to leave it up to you Q.

Improvements - Bob makes a good point about raider leaders, I'd prefer off.

Inland Oceans vs Inland seas - what's the difference exactly? I like incentives to go up the naval techs.

Flavour changes - yeah, I'd find that cool if it isn't too much work and no-one objects.

Pre-placed capital - I would say no, but then the handicap system might be rendered pretty useless. Starting settler promo should definitely be off IMO. Btw, one thing I was thinking about, is that the 1 commerce effect(activated by researching Calendar) will come into play a lot later than than the 1 food(at Agriculture). Maybe it's possible to give everyone 2 grains and balance that commerce effect by whether they are riverside or not?

Mountain Ranges - Indifferent

Thanks Q, I'll get my picks for you by tonight.

[Qgqqqqq]

Type of map: I would rather it be a surprise whether the map will lean more toward the "builder" or "build at your own risk" ends of the spectrum in terms of player distance. Deciding this in advance will significantly cut down on the number of viable civs to pick from however the votes roll, and I would rather not give away my intentions by casting a vote for a map more conductive to peace or war.

This is more whether there is any strong preference one way or the other. But with the best will in the world, there is no way I'm leaving that as something that could go either way, as that would leave the possibility of screwing a players entire gameplan right from the start. Rather, roll the dimensions mentioned or look at the distances involved in EitB30 as that is what I'm basing this map off, which I hope gives room for both strategies to be options but not dominate the play. (If players/lurkers feel that the map for XXX does not achieve this, do let me know and I will adjust the settings of this game.

Something seperate which just occurred to me now and I didn't notice when copying earlier: this map will NOT be on immortal, but rather noble or prince (probably prince due to the barbs timidness) as maintenance on high level toroidials is painful. If people wanted immortal level barbarians, then say so and I can add the 'Wildlands' and Raging Barbarians options.

Water preference: I don't care, save that I would like to see the Lanun be at least a reasonable option since otherwise we're essentially removing two leader options right off the bat.

Lanun are very strong on EitB, and Torusland is a good map for them. Honestly I hope they don't get chosen as it will create a lot of work for me.

I would very much like to know if we're going to have any unit and/or ability bans (besides the Illian WS) before I submit my leader picks, however.

I will lock in a tsunami ban then. There will be plenty of time to change picks if I decide otherwise when I'm, y'know, actually working on the map

Flavor stuff: Really neat in theory, but probably a lot of work for you in practice I would not object, provided it doesn't significantly delay the game launching and a lurker is able to check for balance. The idea of a bunch of roaming, pre-placed special barbs makes me a little bit uneasy, animal AI or no. We've seen this go wrong before.

This is very much an extra if I have time. I understand you're concern, but I will be very cautious, no barbarians introduced will be stronger/faster then animals could be, which, with respect to Mist, is a far cry from magic immune, 4-5 move high strength hordes
Oh and no barbarians introduced will have the orc race, and if a BAR leader is present, they will all recieve the HN promotion.

Pre-placed Capital: NO

Also please give us the starting settler promotion.

Unfortunately, this isn't an option. If the starting settler promotion is given, then the surrounding terrain not meant for settling has to be bare, unuseful terrain, to prevent varying starts in a game with mirrored capitals. Even if it is mirrored then a) that's a lot of land, why not just mirror everything a la Mirrorland and b) it still has to be largely useless to prevent variation based off where units are moved, all of which hurts the options for the immediate expansion. I am willing to give visibility as if there had been a unit with that promotion there. A leader like Decius, who has a big handicap might easily find a better start in the surrounding area.

I'd be happy with a Torusworld map too, I'd like to try it out.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned with regard to the map is unique features. I'd vote for them on, though placed far from our capitals.

Which type? The heroic lairs have to be off as per the setting, so I assumed the rest would be too. I'm willing to place these for minimal effect on the game, but they can't be fully balanced unless I duplicate them.

Map type - Definitely not as big as 29 please, that's not the type of game I'd want to play. A bit smaller than 28 is probably what I'd like but I'm happy to leave it up to you Q.

Definitely not '29 size, although I'm currently edging towards larger then '28, although this could be adjusted. Kuriotates will be allowed three cities if they are in the game.

Improvements - Bob makes a good point about raider leaders, I'd prefer off.

Thanks.

Inland Oceans vs Inland seas - what's the difference exactly? I like incentives to go up the naval techs.

Technically, 29% or 44% water. In practice oceans allows just that, with islands possible and the probability of a naval border, while seas is lucky to get a small island or two.

Flavour changes - yeah, I'd find that cool if it isn't too much work and no-one objects.

Thanks.

Pre-placed capital - I would say no, but then the handicap system might be rendered pretty useless. Starting settler promo should definitely be off IMO. Btw, one thing I was thinking about, is that the 1 commerce effect(activated by researching Calendar) will come into play a lot later than than the 1 food(at Agriculture). Maybe it's possible to give everyone 2 grains and balance that commerce effect by whether they are riverside or not?

The effects will happen on the agriculture food, not the other resources. I will unveil a start tomorrow, but no leaders will be edited in/announced until the final map is ready, so while I encourage you to get your picks in tonight, as they alter whether I have to balance for Lanun, Elves or Malakim, you may change at any point until the final map is posted.

[DaveV]

TBS is very much right about the -1 food applying from the start of the game, and commerce should, too. I like his suggestion of riverside/non-riverside food.

Map type/size: 250-300 tiles per player sounds about right.

Pre-placed improvements: off.

Mountain ranges: yes. I like chokepoints and natural borders.

Pre-placed capital: again, TBS makes a good point. The whole points system could break down if the player can move to a new lush location. In favor, but open to further arguments.

Seas/oceans: indifferent. I don't want to ban Tsunami unless the map has very few tiles that are not coastal (like, say, 32). Pound down one nail, and you'll get snagged on a different one.

Flavor: I'd rather have a quicker start.

I'm appealing for a teammate for superjm so we don't descend into EitB-24 PYFT hell during his move.

My timezone is US eastern; playing windows are 09:00-11:00, 23:00-02:00, 17:00-18:00 GMT, in order of reliability. Email is rbdavev9.

[DaveV]

Something seperate which just occurred to me now and I didn't notice when copying earlier: this map will NOT be on immortal, but rather noble or prince (probably prince due to the barbs timidness) as maintenance on high level toroidials is painful. If people wanted immortal level barbarians, then say so and I can add the 'Wildlands' and Raging Barbarians options.

No, no, no, and absolutely no!!! Switch to a cylindrical map or bring in another mapmaker. I don't want to play a game with a ridiculously fast tech pace (see EitB 28, with T4 units at turn 100). Also, Immortal difficulty means that barb city defenders and kill teams are an actual threat instead of a bad joke.

Edit: the aforementioned and ill-fated EitB 14 was toroidal wrap and Immortal difficulty. The pace of expansion and research was pretty much in the sweet spot, IMO.

[Qgqqqqq]

Okay I'm not going to tell you how to play the game, I can set it for immortal that is really what you want. However, I implore you to reconsider. FFH14 was not a normal map by any standard, and the combination of a pre-improved start, where settler before worker was optimal, an incredibly lush area to expand into and guaranteed expansion areas which were practically impossible for another Civ to access give an utterly different game state to the map you're looking at here. I don't care what settings you use, but you should be aware of the consequences, and you will get very expensive maintenance with this.

I will admit that noble/prince is unneeded, as I was thinking of bts, and monarch or emperor are reasonable.

Thanks for the feedback Dave.

[The Black Sword]

Most FFH games are Emperor IIRC, Immortal is only 1 level higher, I'd be fine with it. If worst comes to worst we can all revolt to city states .

[DaveV]

Emperor is OK for toroidal, noble or prince would be crazy. I think I'd still be happier with Immortal, but I'll defer to the map maker's judgement.

[Bobchillingworth]

I can live with Immortal, but Emperor is okay too.


Wasn't even thinking about how the starting settler bonus could screw over the starting advantages / disadvantages, heh. I still don't like the idea of pre-settled capitals though.


Qg- while I don't want the map to be dominated by mid-game priests turned super-units, consider that Tsunami is already nerfed in EitB.