[SPOILER] PB37: Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the most aggressive of them all?

[Krill]

Posting now before seeing the screenshot, my hope is that i get a start that will let me pick CHM. I caved and added the Colosseum change, +1 XP to melee, archery, mounted and siege. I want to see what it's like. With the library change as well it feels to me like it's playable, it has alot of flexibility but you have to work to use it. AGG is much more upfront in the military advantages, PRO is all about the granary, but CHM needs you to get to Construction before the land units gain that advantage. The happiness is hard to quantify because to use the happy on whips your u really need to get a granary, but the library probably provides enough saved hammers to make it work in enough situations I could feel comfortable using it with other traits.

[Krill]

Thanks for getting the starts done Mardoc. Are you going to post map dimensions and/or map size publicly?

Once I'm done, not in time for the snake.  Although you can infer approximate dimensions from the constraints I'm under .

Map size is important to know due to valuing starting tech costs, but the rest isn't important. Just knowing if the map is large or standard is enough.

[Mardoc]

Your start:



Fog does not actually lie this time, although you're certainly welcome to read more into it than is actually there

[greenline]

the FP/oasis tiles right next to that lake are so ugly, argh

also, what was wrong with the +1 100% Lib CRE that needed reworking it into 35% across CHA and CRE

[Mardoc]

the FP/oasis tiles right next to that lake are so ugly, argh

I can turn Krill's into plain deserts, if you'd like

[Thoth]

Settling on the cows is the obvious move.

[Krill]

Questions, and i think these are ones i can expect to be answered:

Is that rice wet?
Can you tidy up the rivers so that it shows they are emptying into the lakes, just so it doesn't look ugly?
Why is there an oasis next to a river?
Is the map size large or standard? Don't care about the dimensions just the variable that affects tech cost.

And the following are rhetorical:
Why did you make a start that people will move away from when the signups discussion was able it how we specifically wanted people to the ant to settle in place?
Why did you give seafood and no three hammer tile in the inner ring? It means workboat start is none viable. Why do mapmakers always fuck this point up?
Why is the start so flat and boring?

[Mardoc]

Questions, and i think these are ones i can expect to be answered:

Is that rice wet?

See general thread.

Can you tidy up the rivers so that it shows they are emptying into the lakes, just so it doesn't look ugly?

Ugliness of rivers can never be decreased, just moved around or increased.  I refuse to play Sisyphus.

Why is there an oasis next to a river?

Because I like oases and am not particularly fussed about following the same rules as the mapscripts.  You may also see grassland wheat, lake clams, and other 'unnatural' tiles from time to time. I'll refrain from giving out ice floodplains this time, though.

Is the map size large or standard? Don't care about the dimensions just the variable that affects tech cost.

See general thread.  Also note that I time-travelled to answer this one.

And the following are rhetorical:

Why did you make a start that people will move away from when the signups discussion was able it how we specifically wanted people to the ant to settle in place?

Can't stop people from shooting themselves in the foot if they want to.  Grass always appears greener whether it is or not.

Why did you give seafood and no three hammer tile in the inner ring? It means workboat start is none viable. Why do mapmakers always fuck this point up?

I don't care if you want to go workboat first or not, I care about having a strong tile that's wrecked if you move, attached to a tech that's different from the other food.

Why is the start so flat and boring?

Because you've succumbed to ennui.  Don't worry, the map may be boring but the other players will give you plenty to think about.

[Krill]

Specifically about the seafood Mardoc, you are wrong in this instance. Because you have placed three food res that need three different techs, and you have given no hammer tiles with which to build workboats, the seafood has incredibly low value. It's just not workable because I lack the resources that actually build it to improve the seafood. This means it's not acting as the anchor you intended. You should have placed a three hammer tile in the inner ring which would have worked.

Right now i see a start with minimum forests, minimum hill tiles, below minimum if settling on one and too much tech needed to make it actually work. It's a great capital for an academy and 15 cottages but it's really slow to get started. If you have given that s start to every player is think you'll see people consider moving to one that has fewer tech requirements. That is because of how players perceive the start and calculate actions.

[Krill]

Yeah, unless a player starts with both Agri and Hunting, the tech costs of getting all three food techs is too high to reach BW quickly enough. Mining and BW are 250-265 base beakers (rounding issues), and there is no incidental commerce from the food resources. But arguably BW isn't worth much because of the lack of forests to chop, and double whips are worse than building with food without that granary. So any attempt to get Pottery before BW pushes that back even further, towards a T45 BW.

I'm still mulling this over, but it's not looking like a good starting position. Moving to a location that requires just 1 food tech that had 2 food res would be significantly faster even without the plains hill because it would enable an earlier BW and potentially earlier Pottery.

I don't think that the option of picking Churchill and an Agri/Wheel civ to go POttery first, and worker>granary works either. It requires just too much time to set up, and tech requirements are too high. I think that the better choice is moving the scout 99 and the settler either 31 or 32. The start is really low food without the seafood, but there are no resources with which to actually use the seafood so I think that's a trap.