I knew that was coming and yet it still made me smile.
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.
So after a brief hiccup, we get the save only to find ourselves somewhat turned around:
Not to be deterred, our intrepid explorers sally forth.
Warrior will go NW to gaze out over the lake, then do a very quick loop up N before returning home. Jungle should be pretty close; tile 4N/3E of Paradigm is jungled.
Scout will do a slightly bigger clockwise loop around the south, probably ending around the floodplains to the West. After that, I'm thinking of keeping him around to watch out for worker snipes since we're going to be so warrior light in the early going. Major priority for early scouting is to find second city site (already got my eye on those floodplains).
FFHXXVII spoiler
I really like what Dave is doing, bouncing the scout out to get a look at all of the surrounding terrain
I'm a bit torn about trying to meet the others. On the one hand, with the fast start, I'm hoping to avoid giving folks a look at my graphs too early. On the other hand, I don't want any fear-mongering going on without the chance to calm the waters. I suppose I can just post newbish questions/comments in the banter & tech threads
Looks like Sian and Yell0w's shades got turned into great sages as well. The only ones I can see having an argument for something else is the Khazad; a GM would start filling up the coffers nicely, but even there I'm not sure it's the right play.
One nice thing about the new start layout is we get the cow farmed a turn earlier. The bad news is that my old sandboxing has too many beakers...I'd been getting some great known-tech bonuses on crafting before, but the with the proper players inserted (and the fact that my non-AI opponents won't get free techs at the start), that's all gone. Now 5 beakers short for a T24 mining, and no way I can see to improve on it. So I'll probably sacrifice a few beakers and switch working the oasis while building the settler to a GL farm.
Here's a new save stack which is only somewhat updated. The start position is revised at least. Micro sheetgoogle doc also has a new sheet.
Question for the lurkers: how does this format work for turn reports? Anything I should change/add/remove? Don't expect this much detail every turn, but I do have a bit too much free time on my hand these days.
Great format, but don't feel obligated to keep it up.
Do what you have time/inclination for.
Check the micro!
I don't have time to have a look at that file, but the placement of tiles is quite a bit different from the original (in particular the incense is on the over side of the capital).
I don't think mining time matters overmuch, we'll likely be sending our workers to the new city anyway.
Go meet the others - I tend to think that going deep with the first scouts is important (it was a great advantage in pitboss 9) and especially so in FFH where griffons et al quickly halt exploration in its tracks.
I don't think worrying about worker snipes is too big a deal, we can keep a warrior in the area ato deter scouts and other wise they'll be moving slow enough to respond.
Fond the others! If only so we can snipe in kind
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
...and I think I've found the site for our first (second?) city. I could wish it were on a hill, but wet corn + calendar happy first ring make it pretty hard to beat. I'll see what's over by the floodplains to the SW, but for now, that's where the first settler is going. Speaking of, new micro plan has settler popping EOT 24, with mining coming in EOT 25. Mind you, that plan will last about 4 more turns (barbs start spawning on turn 5, right?)
Some weirdness with the demos:
How does someone already have 21000 for land area? I know Sian's creative, but I'm pretty sure he should still need two turns to pop borders. Did someone get a free culture event or something? I'm also confused as to why I'm on top in GNP. Sian was on top last turn with 21 (+1 center tile, +2 oasis, +8 palace, +6 GS, +2 culture palace, +2 creative); I don't think anyone else could be that high and only he and Yell0w go before me anyways. So how could he drop to 19? My guess is that he is indeed the one who popped borders, and is now working the deer to get the worker out faster (which explains food 3 since that isn't even possible until after borders pop). Still doesn't explain how the borders got popped after one turn.
Production best of 7 could either be someone industrious going with a GE (+3 GE, +2 city PH, +1 palace, +25%*6=1 ind making worker), or Sian (+3 deer, +2 city, +1 GS, +1 palace); I'm going to assume Sian. Rival average is 5, worst is 4. So let's see, 2x 4 (cassiel & cardith) + 2x 5 (arturus & thessolonica building workers) + 1x 7 = 25. 25/5 rivals = rival average of 5.
GNP of 18...? That looks to me like either someone is accidentally working the corn over the oasis, or the dwarves grabbed a GP instead of a GS. More hammers for ind workers, more gold for the coffers...? A GP doesn't make sense for WK or the Black Sword, but I guess TBS is pretty new. Anyways, a GP would boost someone's production to 6, but due to rounding, shouldn't change the production calculation above. [size=xsmall]Lurker question: how does rounding in the demo screen work?[/size]
Gah, the deeper into all of this I go, the more unsure I am. Only thing I can be sure of is that Sian and Yell0w both had Prod <= 4, and Food <= 5, meaning they had to have both settled their shades as GS.
If I've screwed up something terribly, will someone please be kind enough to point it out? I'm very new at this.
Upon further reflection, a GP makes a good bit of sense for the stumpies. As soon as borders pop they'll be able to hit 8 base hammers (2 city tile, 2 GP, 1 palace, 3 deer) for 10 hammers into their ind worker (total 11 food hammers). The gold production also makes the most sense for them. If I see production of 10 the turn after my borders pop, I'll know that's what they did.
