Mapmaking and Lurking thread

[Mardoc]

Players, scram! .

[Mardoc]

Interesting choice by Thoth here. I'm dying to find out if he can make the Sheaim work, or if they're going to underperform like usual. Amurites greatly complicate his strategy, particularly with Tebryn.

[flugauto]

Khazad and Sheaim, this game looks interesting!

[Commodore]

Financial love is odd.

[Mardoc]

Financial love is odd.

That's the result of choosing civ first, and then getting stuck with the leader. At least, that's Ichabod's issue, and although we didn't see gtAngel's reasoning, Hannah was the only Lanun available.

He's going to be a bit disappointed that I'd decided on landlocked capitals and generally small lakes rather than oceans, I suspect

[Commodore]

Over/under on Kyan's disappearance?

[Mardoc]

On the hope that I can get this one launched in the next few days, I'd appreciate any and all lurker input. Remember, anything you fail to complain about, the players will!

I'm going to continue working while I wait for lurker input, but I'm confident there are things that are bad that I just haven't seen. More eyes will be immensely valuable

In particular, I'd like input on these questions:

• Did I get the capitals mirrored correctly? Are they strong enough, or should I add something more?
  
• Does everyone have reasonable access to each strategic resource? In particular: copper, iron, mithril, incense, reagents, mana
  
• Is the general land distribution fair? Both in amount and in quality?
  

Most urgent, I think, is the question of capital quality, because once that's good enough, I can post starting pictures. But I'd appreciate any input.

Here's the save.

Here's a sample capital - they all should be the same, if I did it right.

What you can't see is the Mithril on the center Plains hill tile, and the copper at the edge of the BFC, but those should appear in the Worldbuilder pics.

Here's an overview of the land:
Lanun:

Khazad:

Amurites:

Calabim:

Sheaim:


Here's the save, again.

My initial thoughts are that the Lanun are too rich compared to the others, and I ought to boost the other four, probably by giving them each a floodplains valley.

[HidingKneel]

Quick impression: the Sheaim seem more boxed-in than the others, having only one good direction to expand in. Maybe warm up some of the terrain to their north?

[Merovech]

Quick thoughts:

The lake in between the two mountains and the two wheats near the mirror of heaven is very artificial looking. Sometimes the map generator will fix that if you switch the tile and/or the surrounding tiles temporarily to other elevations. I have no idea why.

The double hill gold + little (but some) food is interesting. I can't decide between it being good, forcing the player to make a tough decision when to settle it and it being annoying.

Whosoever start is in the same screenshot as the Tomb of Succulleus (sp?) looks a little cramped to me. I also don't see any marble nearby, which isn't that important in FFH but might be something to think about, especially if the compact is not enforced (I don't remember which of the new games has the compact enforced, I just remember that one does). On a similar vein, the Khazad's marble is in a much worse place than everyone else's marbles.

[Mardoc]

Thanks, gentlemen. I'll add some more room to the Sheaim (and remove a barrier or two), green up the Khazad marble, and give every non-Lanun a floodplains valley. Then I think that'll be close enough to let them get started. Hopefully I can have the save in Kyan's inbox by the time he wakes up tomorrow morning.

Merovech - the Sheaim did have marble, it's just that it was at the southern edge of the screenie and hence no icon.