I take my last comment back. Gavagai did a map trade again, which I accepted, and now our map knowledge is a heck of a lot better since it seems that he's done a ton of exploring in the middle of the map and some in the east. Let's us retrospect a little better if you want Mero.
One thing is that our early scout got killed by a bear. Technically, that could have been avoided. I'm going to go look at the newly open regions.
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.
(November 10th, 2013, 01:11)Merovech Wrote: One thing is that our early scout got killed by a bear. Technically, that could have been avoided. I'm going to go look at the newly open regions.
Well true, but even so after that didn't send even a single unit to scout anywhere except our S backline. Heck, aside from our 3 neighbours, everyone's had to come find us. Probably not a major factor in our overall position, but info is useful.
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.
Now that we have a somewhat respectable map of the world, we suddenly have a much better understanding of the worldwide situation. Firstly, aside from the island city with Sian we have no chance of holding anything we capture from Sian without exposing ourselves to slow (not to mention slow declared on Sian himself this turn), so next turn I'm going to declare and take it and just offer peace to secure that front unless Sian suddenly shows up with more than a warrior in that city (or that warrior holds off 2 Knights...). yuri has a lot less land then I thought he would, plus thanks to our EP spending we have visibility on almost all of his cities.
Only slow has compass and no-one has Optics while we're enroute to Astro. That will definitely give a mobility advantage against anyone we face (probably yuri everything considered), but we still have nothing really better then Knights while yuri's piling up the pikes. I doubt I can take either border city, but I might be able to at least make him sweat over his other island cities. Probably not a great move long term but everyone pretty much agrees Serdoa's got this won anyway, so may as well get some fun out of it.
Well yeah, maces do beat pikes. But I can't build both them and Galleons before the maces before yuri obsoletes them by teching gunpowder (I think he already has Nationalism for drafting already). This isn't meant to be a super serious plan or anything, really it's to amuse myself while waiting for everyone else to concede to Serdoa, and I don't have any fantasies of taking out yuri's main army or anything as he's too powerful for that, rather focus on quick strikes in less protected cities.
Great start, slowed down expansion at exactly the wrong time. My level of macro play definitely took a drop after I stopped making detailed microplans (t50?). WK had lots of good ideas, but being in diametrically opposite timezones made communication sporadic. Quite enjoyable, and I thought that we had a real chance at winning. Sigh.
Quick thoughts: Yuri played well, as, obviously, did Serdoa. Slow played well after a slow/poor start. Sian fell behind early. I have little idea of what happened elsewhere.
Any lurker/other player thoughts or questions?
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.
(November 29th, 2013, 02:11)Merovech Wrote: WK had lots of good ideas, but being in diametrically opposite timezones made communication sporadic.
I get that a lot. Not that there's much I can do about it though...
Ah well, it was fun nonetheless. Both of us could've played better though, especially in the later stages. But in games with lots of players winning is obviously harder.
