[Spoilers] Scraping the bottom of the barrel: Lurker's thread

[Amelia]

To Bob:

I'm not getting upset or angry about it, just pointing it out. Every player has a personality to them, even if they don't understand it themselves. Sorry if it offended you though.

[Mardoc]

Why the hell were we on a donut map, when I specifically stated that I did not want the map to use that script, and all of the other players agreed with my request? Yes, I realize that it may have seemed like my main opposition to the Donut script was on the basis that it didn't look enough like a fantasy world or something. That was indeed a small part of the reason why I was against it, but Dave hit the main reason precisely with this post in the second page of the map thread:

Well, honestly, that was precisely how I intepreted you. The only comments you made on balance had to do with strategic resources and balancing starting positions. Everything else sounded to me like aestetic preferences:

No mirrored starts. No otherwise identical starts. No "artificial" maps like Donut. ...No flavor starts

You didn't say no round maps, you said no "artificial" maps. You spent the vast majority of your emphasis on having a nice, natural looking map. You said literally nothing about

With no safe backyard to expand in to and no chokepoints,

If anything, the talk was all about making Charadon playable!

I took this as a command to make the map look natural, not a request against Donut in particular. I took this as no mirrors, no maze, etc. I couldn't find any other script to start with that made a round continent that was uniformly lush. Why round? Because I couldn't imagine any way to balance 5 civs without it being round, and I couldn't figure out how to handle the big three.

But I changed it enough that I don't consider it a Donut map anymore, which is the key point in my mind. Impassible center - no, in fact it's arguably the lush part of the map. Aside from this ridiculously early Doviello rush, all 5 civs ought to be interacting in the center. Artifical looking? You didn't have any idea it was originally donut until you were told. You also couldn't really deduce much about the map from looking at one piece. I could have as easily started from Arboreal, and ended up with essentially the same map - it would have just taken longer to delete all the forests and deer.

Map type Everyone starts on the same continent. No mirrored starts. No otherwise identical starts. No "artificial" maps like Donut. Some islands would be nice, but nothing that gives OO a game-winning advantage by simple virtue of geography. No flavor starts- Charadon should not be stuck in the tundra. That said, the Ljo need some forests. Balanced strategic resources, bearing in mind additionally that some of the civs here have non-traditional resources they need, such as pigs for the Khazad and deer for Ljo. Starts (and the map in general) should be a little nicer than has been typical of the last few PBEMs, because Arturus and especially Charadon are barely playable as it is, and none of the other three are exactly great either. The map should not be as large as PBEM I's, but also probably shouldn't have everyone within knife-fight distance of each other to start, unless the intention is to have the game over within the first 50 turns. Four out of the five leaders here are either rushers or can be easily played as rushers, so yeah. Should be obvious, but Falamar needs ocean water.

Where I might have messed up is in my judgement of what constituted 'shouldn't have everyone within knife-fight distance of each other to start'. On the one hand, everyone had room for a full 1st ring before you'd have to come into conflict, of awesome looking sites; I think there's about as much room per civ as in PBEM2. Certainly both Ichabod and Ellimist hesitated to keep the cities they conquered due to maintenance worries, although that wasn't the decisive factor.

On the other hand, well, we have two eliminations already. I think this is partly luck - Sareln could have built or kept a warrior, and Ellimist ended up with essentially a beeline to you, aided by a hut map! Give you 10 more turns for him to find you and bring Lucian + reinforcements there, and you'd have had a full fortify bonus on your second warrior, higher cultural defenses, and probably a bigger city for production. You might also have met him somewhere other than 2 turns from Innsmouth, and had time to react.

But, well, certainly I didn't intend for the game to be this chopped down this early. And if I made a mistake, this was it. And I certainly agree, there wasn't anything reasonable for you to do to survive, given that Ellimist found you a)first, b)super early, and c)with Lucian and a scout very close. But that's mostly luck, in my opinion - if the two of you moved apart instead of together, if Lucian had been exploring north, even if he had gotten something other than a map from the hut, you'd have had significantly more time.

But I take exception to

outright ignored

The only piece I ignored was in starting with a Donut and doing extensive editing, rather than starting with something more random...and doing extensive editing. I would accept this complaint if I left it as a donut, where it would have been easy to block off your neighbors, each civ had a clear segment that's 'theirs', etc. Instead I just took it as a way to start with a blank canvas, a circle of grasslands.

• Nicer map, especially Arturus and Charadon starts - check.
  
• No flavor starts - check.
  
• Ljo have forests - check.
  
• Falamar has ocean - check.
  
• Smaller than PBEM1 - check.
  
• Balanced strategic resources, including civ-specific ones - check.
  
• Islands, but not enough for OO dominance - check.
  

[uberfish]

I think this mix of leaders was always going to cause trouble with the balancing, to be honest.

[Gaspar]

I think this mix of leaders was always going to cause trouble with the balancing, to be honest.

Yeah, its the problem with the Doviello especially, though its true to some extent with the clan and Illians as well - if they play the game "right" for them, its making the game extremely unfun for the others. Doviello really are meant to rush someone with their starting units. If you make a map where that's not a realistic option, then you've basically ruined the Doviello, because even if they have flood plains on every tile, they're not going to keep up with dedicated techers.

Still, as a spectacle, sucks to see two of the 3 teams I was most interested in out by T11 or whatever. Ultimately we know what the vamps and elves want to do, so Ellimist in someways is the most interesting situation left in the game.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Innsmouth isn't helping. That city does nothing but eat gold and shit useless warriors. I didn't expect a T10 #2 city would be such an albatross. It doesn't even help claim land, Mist will expand to that same city site. I can see Ellimist dragging Ichabod out of contention, so Mist could potentially just cruise to victory.

[Bobchillingworth]

Yeah, I'm kind of happy that he kept it Losing his worldspell to capture a crappy city seems like a classic Pyrrhic victory. And to think that if he had only waited, it would have come with several Pirate Ports!

[Amelia]

With the Doviello killing Lanun, and soon to kill Vampires with luck, can we say that...

Charadon is stronger than Falamar or Alexis?

This was however a dream start for Charadon though. Not only do they get to kill 2 others, one more was slaughtered by another team...

And even then i think they might lose to Mist?

[Bobchillingworth]

Charadon is stronger than Falamar if he can reach Falamar before the Lanun can build more than a couple warriors, and if the Lanun city isn't on a hill and isn't controlled by the AI (free promos). This is only because Falamar gets exactly zero starting combat bonuses in defending his cities- even Hannah at least gets a first strike from commando. Using this logic, Charadon is also stronger than Keelyn 8 turns into the game, Varn 10 turns into the game, and Flauros 12 turns in. He can also beat Kandros 2 turns into the game, provided that the Khazad capital is empty and Charadon is using a scout.



Charadon is weaker than everyone without exception once people can handle aggressive Sons of Asena or their equivalents (meaning Lucian).

[Amelia]

Elimist brings up an interesting question. Can Icy floodplains be scorched? I'm guessing no, but if they can... Tundra gives +1 food.

[Selrahc]

Yes, they can. I mentioned that when suggesting the idea.