Commodore Wrote:With the colossus of full-scale Modern Era MP war no longer looming, I find I'm in the mood for another light game. Would three others be interested in another of the tight AW games like 34? http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showpost....stcount=13
We'd need a mapmaker confident in making a rotational mirror too, I suppose. Settings I'm thinking:
Always War (CTON)
Raging Barbarians
Emperor difficulty
Map:
20x20 to 24x24 Tiny Toroid, a mirror like 34/42 designed with two different centers. Maybe a salt water body in one center for Moai/Colossus, etc fun.
See starts before picking.
Lakefood start (buffs fishing, gives at least one unchokable food)
Some form of CG3 guardian(s).
Bans:
Maybe India?
War Elephants
Spies
Statue of Zeus
Nukes
Great Artist bombs in cities below fifth-ring*
The 34 shadow I'm playing in has been great fun, a pretty fast game even now in the workers-have-pants era. Obviously I'm not in the super-leets or greens categories, but I think any vets or intermediates qualify for skill. Being able to play a sure 1t/day at least would be a must, but no need for the insane 100t/month rate of 34s here.
Players:
Commodore
Sian
Slowcheetah
BoldlyGoingNowhere
*[SIZE="1"]Lets a cultural victory shot still be semi-viable.[/SIZE]
Are we good on these settings? Also, let's finalize in one place the turn order so I can sticky that in my new, awesome thread.
I'm ok with suggested map settings and bans, including India. Fast Workers? We're leaving 'mids, MoM, Cristo, Kremlin, etc? I'm fine with those as well but have no strong preference.
my email for this will be boldlygoingnowhererb a t g m a i l dotcom.
I'm fine with almost all of the settings proposed. Only thing I'd consider is banning Cristo, although thats just on a general if people are Spiritual its bloody annoying for people to be able to grab the trait at a time when it's pretty powerful. If everyone else wants Cristo I'm fine with it though.
Are we banning Apostoltic palace victory?
Warrior for the starting CG3?
Given the massive planning and luck it would take to even manage the AP victory conditions in AW, I wasn't worried about it, but sure, ban 'er, and I'm happy banning the CR. I waver on the starting extra defense...maybe two CG2 warriors?
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
I'm declaring for team Going Fucking Nowhere (except last place). But no need to change the thread title, it's going to work out the same way in any case.
Good luck to the other players in RL, in this game, to quote Commodore, "go die in a fire." Or to quote Lewwyn from probably every one of his games, "War bitches.".
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
Bet you I can make you rage quit both sooner. $1, Bob, as it were.
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
Eidt: I know what I want to do with the starting areas, but I'm not sure on the surroundings yet.
Double Edit: Also, how do I set the map up as a PBEM (or really, a multiplayer map in general?) and later, after everyone picks, how do I change the civs, leaders, and turn order? I assume this requires accessing the worldbuilder textfile, but I am not sure how to do this and where to edit. Google wasn't helpful
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.
You don't have to do anything special with creating the map for it to be usable in MP. Just roll the right size and go to editing. Enter placeholder civs for now, you can re-roll the map later with the right civs or edit them in manually via text editing.
The easiest way to learn how to mess with the maps is to open a world builder file in notepad and take a look around. Things like setting turn order will happen later after we've picked civs and then someone rolls for turn order (don't do it yet folks!). Once you know who we'll be and what order we'll play in, you'll assign the civs as Player 0, Player 1, Player 2, and Player 3 in the WB file. It's all in the XML pretty easy to read once you get a feel for what all the XML tags are for.
If you want to play around with civ colors and flags that's up to you. It can be amusing as long as you don't assign everyone the same color, or you don't assign someone black. Well, that would be amusing, but confusing still.
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
Also, WB editing information overkill can be found here and in the various pages linked from there. But most of that is way more than is necessary to do the edits we'll need. I still suggest opening the WB file in a text editor and looking around.
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
We're leaving 'mids, MoM, Cristo, Kremlin, etc? I'm fine with those as well but have no strong preference.
