[PB82 Tech Thread] 3-city elimination

[Commodore]

As long as the barbs aren't raging, sounds excellent.

[yuris125]

Huts on? Are there any potentially game-breaking techs which could be popped?

[Cornflakes]

As long as the barbs aren't raging, sounds excellent.

Definitely no raging barbs on a classical start. That was nuts, it felt like Civ 4: Tower Defense.

For huts, didn’t that get changed so that only ancient era techs could be popped? Or was that RtR?

[Cornflakes]

Subforum requested, and updated thread title to PB82.

[scooter]

Done! I'm also good with the light ban variant. Mongols were the civ that I felt most needed banning in this setup, so all good with me.

[scooter]

One other small thing. I definitely am partial to a sequential pick rather than snake pick, with the sequential pick being in reverse turn order. I think turn order is slightly preferable to pick order anyway, so it evens out fairly well IMO.

[RefSteel]

For huts, didn’t that get changed so that only ancient era techs could be popped? Or was that RtR?

That was indeed RtR. In CtH, huts can still pop more-advanced techs. (In fact, one recent game featured a player popping Astronomy!)

Observation: I rolled a couple of maps per the instructions Cornflakes posted above, and they end up with right around 350 tiles per player (for a 4-player game). Of course, with the Cold climate setting, a lot of those are ice and tundra, but that does still leave something like 200ish to 300ish other assorted land tiles per player, depending on the landform.

Just to make sure: When looking at balance and playability, it looks like this is what's expected, approximately:
1) If the map doesn't meet the specifications, reroll and start again. (I.e. If water is too significant or it's impossible to give players enough space in step 2.)
2) If players are too close together, move one or more around so that no one starts less than sixteen tiles apart. (So you might end up 16 tiles from each of two or all three rivals, or you might end up 25 tiles from the nearest start, depending.) Should I be aiming to keep players even farther apart?
3) Make sure all strategic resources are within reasonable reach of each start location.
4) Don't try to balance starting BFCs; just take what the map gives you, even if one is much better than another. (If I move a start, I'll also move the resources and general terrain from the original over to the new site so nobody gets a start even the map generator wouldn't produce.) I'm happy to e.g. give everyone a plains hill start or otherwise try to balance BFCs if asked, but I take it this is not desired. (Note: If a BFC is completely devoid of anything desirable, I will try to move a resource or two into it from nearby, but that's about it unless I'm asked to do more.)
5) Don't try to balance starting areas apart from making sure the strategics are there; just go with the map you get. (Again, if someone gets dumped in the middle of barren desert or something equally hopeless, I'll try to move that player to someplace less bleak as part of step 2 - but I won't be checking for e.g. luxury availability or access to the best tracts of land unless asked to do more since it sounds like you don't want more.)

Is that all?

[Tarkeel]

One other small thing. I definitely am partial to a sequential pick rather than snake pick, with the sequential pick being in reverse turn order. I think turn order is slightly preferable to pick order anyway, so it evens out fairly well IMO.

FWIW, most sequential games have done the picking in reverse turn order instead of snake.

Ref, if you want a second pair of eyes on stuff, you know how to reach me.

[Cornflakes]

@RefSteel, yes that is what I was expecting. But you have a license to bend those in the name of player enjoyment. (E.g. Feel free to made additional minor edits like buffing a clearly weaker capitals or adding a luxury if you think it’s needed, but we wont’t blame you if you don’t).

The starting distance range is fine. From what I saw in a few test games the non-tundra band should be around 20 tiles high by around 50 tiles wide, giving everyone somewhere around 250 tiles (+/-). Basically it’s like we have the quantity of land to work with as if we conquered our first neighbor on a tighter map.

@Scooter, ok we will do reverse turn order pick.

Regarding techs popped from hut, I can easily remove techs as a hut reward for this game mod via XML

[Cornflakes]

And if you have to move a start you don’t have to literally copy all the starting tiles over. Just match the quality to be in line with what was rolled.