(February 6th, 2013, 08:13)DaveV Wrote: I hate lairs. The possibilty of popping a game-winning great person, or (as always seems to happen to me) a stack of capital-razing Azers, just doesn't strike me as a fun addition to the game.
I'm still amazed that players vote for lair-heavy MP games.
(Mardoc gets an Academy and Selharc is stuck with Mistforms!)
No one seems to like lair guardians with the Held promotion
so maybe the Explore Dungeon spell should have a level requirement.
Level 2 for Graveyards (2xp)
Level 3 for Ruins, Barrows (5xp)
Level 4 for Dungeons, Goblin Forts (10xp)
Level 5 for Epic Dungeons (17xp)
(February 6th, 2013, 08:13)DaveV Wrote: I hate lairs. The possibilty of popping a game-winning great person, or (as always seems to happen to me) a stack of capital-razing Azers, just doesn't strike me as a fun addition to the game.
I'm still amazed that players vote for lair-heavy MP games.
(Mardoc gets an Academy and Selharc is stuck with Mistforms!)
No one seems to like lair guardians with the Held promotion
so maybe the Explore Dungeon spell should have a level requirement.
Level 2 for Graveyards (2xp)
Level 3 for Ruins, Barrows (5xp)
Level 4 for Dungeons, Goblin Forts (10xp)
Level 5 for Epic Dungeons (17xp)
Yet another idea for EITB v10.
Oooh, I like this, escept I'm not sure sure I would put a level minimum for Ruins, Barrows, and Goblin Forts, because not being able to pop them means one has to waste a unit just sitting on the tile.
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.
I don't know opening a lair so close to your city gives you what a ~40% chance to lose the game right than and there.
I did that often enough in SP that I won't risk it in a PBEM.
Ofc you can say: well fuck it either I'm out in 10 turns or I got a big lead but thats not how I want to play.
I see that it can be imbalanced to get a GP, but the same applies to huts, where you pop hunting, mining or education with the first hut. But there it just gives you an advantage, you don't risk getting killed.
Mardoc took his chances and got the lead.
Selrahc took his chances and pretty much lost.
"Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. This is the War Room!"
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
(February 25th, 2013, 23:28)HidingKneel Wrote: Theory: Mardoc was the other player to lose a warrior, and he started working a gold hill to get himself a second warrior built in a hurry (in addition to some great person luck).
Yes, it would be totally fair for the mapmaker to give one player a gold and not another
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.
What a great result for Mardoc! I doubt he'll realize how good that is until he figures out that it's the only gold outside of "Hell Island."
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.
(January 8th, 2013, 18:51)Tasunke Wrote: Yall realize that EitB switched Cassiel's second trait from Ind to Org right? As in, a trait even more useless during the first 70 turns?
Hm.
See a lot of trait changes like that could probably be reversed now Ind is actually good. Capria and Arturus both got Fin as an attempt to buff them. But then Fin got nerfed and Ind got buffed, so it isn't really working properly any more.
I'm not sure why Cassiel got swapped from Ind to Org though! I'm guessing the aim was Command Post synergy with his Adventurer Guilds, so he can have a really elite force.
I'm having great fun watching Ellimist explore with his Griffon.
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.
Okay, two problems with the map that I should have noticed and did not, one minor and one major:
A lot of tiles that should be ocean are instead coast. This makes naval invasions ridiculously easy, especially between Mardoc and Ellimist. Hopefully, this can be partially solved by everyone agreeing not to use those tiles for transport pre-Astronomy. The only drawbacks are that some people have a small amount extra commerce and trade routes happen more easily.
There is a much bigger problem, however, and I honestly do not know what to do. This is a serious failure on my part. Simply put, Mardoc and Ellimist are too close together. The islands which should be Mardoc's by even split of the land are accessible to Ellimist due to culture expansions allowing ships to move over ocean tiles pre-Astronomy (even ignoring the inadvertently coastal tiles, which are literally everywhere except here), but simply denying those lands to Ellimist buts Mardoc in an excellent place to attack Ellimist's capital while his own is relatively safe. This is something that I should absolutely have realized while making the map. The "best" solution, and I don't know if this is possible, but it is something that Ellimist suggested (he notified me to the problems in the first place; it's not like I told him anything), is somehow editing the map to add an extra 10 rows of ocean between Mardoc's lizard island and Ellimist's capital. (The ocean wouldn't be able to god all the way across, however, due to Hell Island). Otherwise, what happens is that Mardoc gets less islands than he is supposed to get and Ellimist gets a bit more, and the two come into early conflict on the sea.
I suppose what I would do if that is not possible is ask everyone to not put boats onto the false coast tiles until Astronomy (except the ones that they normally could, like should-be-ocean fish one tile away from the coast and in cultural borders) and hope that Selrahc no longer existing kind of balances out my mistakes, giving Mardoc some extra room that he lost. He loses a lot of typed nodes, however, and only gets a small amount back from Selrahc's regions.
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.
Meh. I don't see it as such a huge deal. If it were possible to edit the map, that would be a good solution, but I think that would require quite a bit of hacking.
I think this was advertised as a fair but not perfectly balanced map. Huts and lairs will unbalance the game more than a slight naval edge. My recommendation: play on.
