PBEM5 Map Thread

[Azoth]

I'll echo haphazard1 in saying that the wildly varying levels of forest and jungle cover near the starts creates a significant problem. The Sidar have the best start BY FAR: two food resources PLUS four flood plains (all of which yield 5 food with Agrarian farms) PLUS two non-forested commerce bonuses AND 16 out of 20 riverside tiles in their capital's BFC. Their expansion opportunities are also spectacular. The river leads to even more flood plains, copper, and pigs to the south AND to the godly Remnants of Patria to the east. Compared to that, the other start locations are simply laughable: the Sheaim with a potential 7 desert (hill)/1 mountain inland site or a coastal spot with no seafood; the Amurites with precisely one non-forested riverside tile; or the Clan with three such tiles, surrounded by jungle. Sorry to say, but I would judge this map seriously imbalanced. For the first ~30 turns, players will be doing little but building farms, plantations, and roads. Enough time for the Sidar to get the snowball rolling while everyone else waits for Crafting-->Mining.

[uberfish]

Iteration 2

The point about forest/jungle cover is completely correct, I just overlooked this while trying to decide what to do with other stuff.


Orcs:



Cleared some jungle/forest including on a dye tile, improved river access


Amurites:



Moved settler 3 tiles north out of the woods (displacing Tomb of Sucellus to the south), changed starting commerce specials to 2 silk, replaced river with a slightly longer one. A copper was moved closer to them.


Sidar:



Removed 1 floodplain at capital
Copper moved away from the southern floodplain site
Patria base tile desertified


Luchuirp:



Forest cover adjusted slightly and silk de-forested


Sheaim:



River extended
A lot of desert terraformed to fertile land and added some forest


Balseraph:



River extended, desert terraformed, 1 peak removed

[uberfish]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19168036/1.CivBeyondSwordWBSave

[Azoth]

Well, that looks better - but I still wonder about the Sidar. I think PB's intuition from PBEM1 is correct: floodplains should count as a food resource in FFH. With that in mind, the Sidar have access to 5 food sources, while the others have 1-3. (Note that Animal Husbandry isn't strictly required. An Agrarian farm on the Sheep will provide the same +2 food as a pasture.) Combined with all the nearby river tiles... I don't know. It's not as imbalanced as the floodplains + gold Calabim start from PBEM1, but I'd still be screaming bloody murder if I was playing, say, the Clan.

[Ilios]

I think Sidar are fine. They don't have that much good land to expand into, so that balances out things nicely.

I'd just remove the Dungeon near the Sheaim starting area, and you're good to go.

[Sciz]

Yeah it feels much more balanced now.

I noticed you removed the tomb of sucullus from amurite land though. Why?

[haphazard1]

Definitely a sizable improvement.

I still think the Clan (and to a bit lesser extent the Luchuirp) are a bit short on food. Clan has rice, Luchuirp have corn; most of the other civs have at least two sources (grain + animal, or grain plus FP). And the Sidar are still too strong by comparison with wheat, sheep, and 3 FP -- maybe remove another FP? The wheat is dry, which helps since they have so much other food.

The Amurites have an interesting settling decision -- to get early use of the clam they would have to give up one silk and accept a lot more water tiles at the capital. I am curious to see what they choose.

[uberfish]

Tomb of sucellus was just displaced south when I moved amurites north. It's still in their land, but not at their capital. Guardian of pristinus pass got kicked off to one of the islands because it's annoying (actually I should put it on the Yggdrasil island probably)

Yeah think I'll remove the Sidar river sheep and give orcs a meat resource instead. Luchuirp feel ok to me because corn is the best food resource and they have good access to a bunch of floodplains south of them.

any other thoughts?

[uberfish]

Final edit. Caught a floodplain/plain and had to prevent balseraphs seeing the FP+rice+gold and moving there turn 1. Brigit and goblin archers appear to be properly behaved for a change. Sending it out. Fingers crossed.