FFH PBEM8 Map thread

[Mardoc]

The map seems to be fairly well balanced but I tend to be a stickler for such things so feel free to ignore the following:

I think it's important to focus on commerce specials, especially in an Immortal-level game, but I think it's not enough to simply to sprinkle a few around every start point.

Commerce specials are not created equal (Incense/Dye > Gold/Gems > Wines/Silk/Spices >> Cotton) but they're also worthless without nearby food sources to support them. In this light, I think the Bannor have it made: double Sheep+Wheat+Wines at Capital, Rice+Incense, Cow+Sheep+Spices, and Sheep+Clam+double Gems. That's four good to excellent early commerce sites. None of the other players seem to have nearly as much food or commerce.

For instance, the Gold/Incense east of the Amurite start may as well not exist, because there's no food in that desert. Likewise, the Orcs have weak Cotton and forest Silks at three different sites around their capital, but only one weak Deer between them. The Hippus, strangest of all, have no starting river proper, but three Dyes+one Incense; the Dyes are all next to jungles tiles, making for very unpredictable results. Maybe you think I'm nitpicking, but looking at these starts, I know I'd pick the Bannor in a heartbeat. I'd suggest giving/reshuffling some food around the Amurite/Clan/Ljos starts, maybe upgrading some Clan specials, and doing a slight rework for the Hippus.

Thank you for your comments, Azoth - you're not saying anything that the players won't, but you're saying it when I still have a chance to do something about it. I realize you're hesitant to criticize, but on this topic, the more the merrier!

I will work on your suggestions this afternoon. And I think I'll work from the direction of upgrading the weaker spots instead of downgrading the Bannor, per Gaspar's suggestion to keep the map fairly lush.

[DaveV]

Good points, Azoth. Another thing to consider is the expansion room for each civ: do the Calabim have a land connection to the lumpy chunk of land to their east? If not, they're pretty squeezed by the two civs to their south and southwest. They have a lot of tundra, but if anyone can thrive in that kind of terrain, it's the vampires. Another thing to check for: the Tectonics script will sometimes create big swaths of plains and grassland with no access to fresh water (blocked by hills/mountains). I can't tell whether that's the case here.

As Azoth said (and I said earlier), Immortal difficulty with no Financial civs can make for a slow early game. It's probably better to err on the side of too much commerce, so the players don't lose interest.

[Mardoc]

Alright, first big change incorporates both the commerce question and the irrigation question - I added a LOT of rivers, both long and short. After all, I want aristograrianism to be a choice with consequences, not something strictly impossible. Hopefully the rivers overshadow the commerce specials anyway.

Added a bunch of food - floodplains along with the rivers, deer and pigs and sheep and cows.

In terms of strategic positioning, yes, every chunk of land has at least two civs with a land bridge. The Calabim bridge is along the tundra/ice in the north, but it's there.

I'll be posting screenshots and the save shortly, but I ran into a problem I'm not sure how to solve. The player order is wrong in my worldbuilder file, since I assumed it could be set at game creation (discovered I can't when testing). How do I fix that?

Edit: I think I mostly solved that by editing the file as text. The only thing is, it shuffled around the units/start positions, too, but as long as I replace the Amurite Goblin with a scout and etc I don't see a problem with rearranging everyone. The big question is, did I change anything else that I wasn't intending to by switching team numbers at the top of the file?

[Mardoc]

First, the save.

Second, the islands of toys:

The Calabim

The Amurites:

The Bannor:

The Hippus:

The Ljosalfar:

The Clan:

[Azoth]

Edit: I think I mostly solved that by editing the file as text. The only thing is, it shuffled around the units/start positions, too, but as long as I replace the Amurite Goblin with a scout and etc I don't see a problem with rearranging everyone. The big question is, did I change anything else that I wasn't intending to by switching team numbers at the top of the file?

I think you might have.

The original Ljosofar start (now the Bannor start) was surrounded by forest, with a forested Silk at the capital and no less than four Deer within five tiles. This was fine for the Elves because they could build a Plantation over the forest Silk and they would prioritize Hunting anyway. The Bannor now need both Calendar and Mining to unlock their capital commerce special, and must deviate significantly from their early tech path to hook up the local food.

Meanwhile, the Ljosofar have been moved to the Hippus start, with its three-Dyes-next-to-jungle. If the jungle spreads, the Elves will need to pick up Bronzeworking to clear it, another tech detour. Also, they have less than half the forests they originally did. It would be ideal if you could reset the original player positions. If not, I think you should at least replace the jungle by the Elves with forest (maybe sprinkle some more in anyway) and substitute the Silk and some of the Deer for the Bannor. The rest of the positions seem fine to me.

Finally, have you looked at how many mana nodes are available to each player? I can't tell from the screenshots but it's something you should look over before you send the map off.

[Mardoc]

I think you might have.

The original Ljosofar start (now the Bannor start) was surrounded by forest, with a forested Silk at the capital and no less than four Deer within five tiles. This was fine for the Elves because they could build a Plantation over the forest Silk and they would prioritize Hunting anyway. The Bannor now need both Calendar and Mining to unlock their capital commerce special, and must deviate significantly from their early tech path to hook up the local food.

Meanwhile, the Ljosofar have been moved to the Hippus start, with its three-Dyes-next-to-jungle. If the jungle spreads, the Elves will need to pick up Bronzeworking to clear it, another tech detour. Also, they have less than half the forests they originally did. It would be ideal if you could reset the original player positions. If not, I think you should at least replace the jungle by the Elves with forest (maybe sprinkle some more in anyway) and substitute the Silk and some of the Deer for the Bannor. The rest of the positions seem fine to me.

Finally, have you looked at how many mana nodes are available to each player? I can't tell from the screenshots but it's something you should look over before you send the map off.

Mmm, that's a good point, I did tend to give the elves more Hunting resources than anyone else. It's probably easiest to swap them and the Bannor; won't get them original positions, but I did try to make all the rest of the sites neutral so I don't think I need to move all the civs to their original spots. So I did that, and had to go through and remove a bunch of contacts, but we should be good now.

I'm 90% sure that forest and jungle don't grow onto resources; I've seen that used as a divining rod by players who should know ("I bet there's iron there, it's had all game and no jungle's spread onto that tile").

I'll count up mana nodes, too. I tried to be generous to make a Tower victory possible, but I should make sure that I'm fair, not just generous. Edit: Ok, every civ has 2 nodes that are pretty clearly theirs and 2-3 that they can challenge for, plus the treasure islands. Add in the palace manas, shrines, and whatnot, and a Tower victory is definitely in the cards.

Finally, a change I made after noticing that the Calabim had a plains hill start and some others didn't - now everyone has to choose between plains hill and 2 foods. I will be shocked if anyone goes for the plains hill and doesn't regret it, but we'll see

[Azoth]

I'm 90% sure that forest and jungle don't grow onto resources; I've seen that used as a divining rod by players who should know ("I bet there's iron there, it's had all game and no jungle's spread onto that tile").

The way that works is jungle and forest only grow onto resources that can normally be found in jungles and forests. So forest will spread to furs but not incense or copper; and jungle will spread to pigs but not corn or iron.
In this case, jungle can definitely grow onto dyes.

[Mardoc]

The way that works is jungle and forest only grow onto resources that can normally be found in jungles and forests. So forest will spread to furs but not incense or copper; and jungle will spread to pigs but not corn or iron.
In this case, jungle can definitely grow onto dyes.

Well, in that case, time to pull out my machete!

[DaveV]

Vamp start looks pretty weak compared to the others. Wine is worse than calendar resources; deer and furs require a very expensive and off-path tech.

The 3 FP, 2 gold, desert incense site west of the Hippus is absurdly strong.

The only way to grab all the seafood on the Remnants of Patria island is to settle on the Remnants. Intentional?

[Mardoc]

Vamp start looks pretty weak compared to the others. Wine is worse than calendar resources; deer and furs require a very expensive and off-path tech.

Added in some silks for them. If they head south instead of north, they've got this to look forward to:

The 3 FP, 2 gold, desert incense site west of the Hippus is absurdly strong.

Moved one of the golds away. Edit: And, on further thought - moved the incense a tile so that a city can have one or the other but not both.

The only way to grab all the seafood on the Remnants of Patria island is to settle on the Remnants. Intentional?

No, good catch. Reshuffled so that one can settle next to them instead.