I defer to the majority on the settings discussion.
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Pitboss 13 Settings Discussion
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Random leader/civ vs. Snake Pick
Monarch Difficulty Normal Speed Vassals off TT off (though I'd like to hear about how Krill thinks NTB with TT would work [or not]) Huts off Events off Barbs off Unrestricted Leaders on EP on B&S, islands mixed in, normal size continents -mapmakers choice As for the general map-editing discussion: I think asking for a minimum amount of food and strat and lux resources balanced is already asking for quite a bit of editing. Which isn't a bad thing, but I wanted to point that out as I find it rather problematic to ask for nearly no editing and all of those edits at the same time. Also the question has to be in that case imo if you want to play the hand you are dealt (with Iron maybe being a continent and 20 diagonal tiles away from you) or if you want to pretend that everyone had the same chances at winning, despite an awful lot of other things being unbalanced anyhow, even if you balance strat, lux and food. That said, with 18 players I do see some issues with the standard map-scripts in any case. Some positions will be unwinnable, probably even with heavy edits. I'm wondering if there are any map-scripts that produce even bigger maps that we could use?
You could modify a current mapscript for increased tiles, join a bunch of smaller maps together, run Torusland - a lot of things really.
I totally agree with the issue of editing however, and I think we should be careful not to go too far along that route. We need to remember that a lot of stuff is going to happen though, so "unwinnable" positions could turn out not to be so - as long as the immediate start isn't horrible.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
(July 13th, 2013, 22:07)BRickAstley Wrote:(July 13th, 2013, 22:00)scooter Wrote: Huge sized Big and Small sounds wonderful to me. I definitely prefer little to no editing. Perhaps we can create a set of minimum food at the capital criteria like we did last time and say to not touch anything else? (July 13th, 2013, 23:07)Qgqqqqq Wrote: Krill, what are your thoughts on Torusland for this? The best place to start IMO is to understand why we want to play a Big and Small map script in the first place. IIUC it's because we want naval warfare to be present, and it provides a good amount of spacing between civs. However that last point only really works if there are the "right" number of civs for the map size, and Huge maps can't really handle more than 15 civs at a time without being really cramped, as Brick notes. PB8 took me over 4 hours of regenerating the map to find a single map that could be edited to work. Understand quite clearly that PB8 was not a natural map by any means - a lot of editing had to go into it to make it playable, and even then there were wild disparities in the playability of those starts. Trying to cram 18 players onto a huge map is going to be even worse: someone will get a start worse than Serdoas was in PB8. If we look at what Torusworld has to offer us, in a perfectly sized map, balanced strat res, variable water style (I would propose inland oceans for that naval warfare component we demand), we see it is pretty much perfect for what we want. The main drawback as I see it is that it is a toroidal map, but as Plako has pointed out, the RB mod has alrtered city maintenance on toroidal maps to be identical to that of a cylindrical map. The only problem with the toroidal map is that there will be players in every direction, but that is disingenuous to say that only applies to Torusworld: any map with 18 players will have a large number of players that are not on the north or south edges of the map, including Big and Small, so I would expect Torusworld to again be fairer than Big and Small especially as we can take extra actions to provide choke points and barriers on the map by using specific settings. So I'd propose the following settings to give us the map we want: 100*100 map (10000 tiles total) Inland Oceans (44% water), proper oceans for fighting over. A few small islands present. (5600 tiles are land tiles) 6% of tiles are mountains (so about 5000 lands tiles are usable or desert/tundra/ice) This means we'd be looking at about 270-ish usable land tiles per person. There will be some peaks present in clumps, and inland oceans generates long shorelines to also provide barriers to expansion so this doesn't devolve into the PB3 map where every player has a blob and the empires were laid out in a grid pattern. If we were to go with a smaller 92*92 map there would be about 230-ish land tiles per person. Now I'd say that either of these would work, but remember that these are only averages and because of the toroidal nature of having players on all sides, I'd suggest a slightly larger map so some players don't just get screwed over on T0 due to placement of competitors (I'd suggest the same of any map though with 18 players as teams in the centre of the map would squeezed in on every side anyway). So I'd go with the 100*100 map size. 100*92 would lead to about 250-ish tiles which might be a good compromise though. Can also increase peaks to 8% to remove a few more land tiles if people want. The other settings, like balanced strat resources (copper, iron, horse and oil) I think are no brainers to leave on, or don't matter much either way (scattered improvements generated with the map) provided that no improvements exist at the capital. The only problem I've encountered with Torusworld are illustrated in PBEM50, but those are due to small maps (150 tiles average per player), the water ways setting (it might be broken or at least doesn't work as it should according ot Seven) and that some maps just aren't good and that is why we have a map maker check them over, which didn't happen there (it's a completely random map). According to Seven, Torusworld would be best utilised as a script that creates a canvas for a mapmaker to then edit. I know people enjoy the idea of playing completely random maps but that just will not work for 18 players: whatever script we choose is going to need a lot of editing and people need to understand that. And when you do accept that, I don't see a reason why Torusworld isn't just plain better for everything (including making it easier for Brick to actually find a map to balance). So, I'll be voting for Torusworld.
Random leader/civ vs. Snake Pick
Monarch Difficulty -unless otherwise? Normal Speed -yeah Vassals off TT off Huts off Events off Barbs off Unrestricted Leaders on EP on Torusworld
Another point that isn't tangential to the map script: I think that it would be good if the worldsize is set to "Large" in the worldbuildersave (in the game settings if Torusworld) as this lowers tech costs slightly and makes the starts slightly faster.
Beyond that, I'd say my votes go along the lines of: Quote:Random leader/civ vs. Snake Pick - as Azza said, if you want to random in a snake pick just choose random when it is your turn to pick. Main reason I don't want to random is that there are certain things I don't really want to play again like Inca or a SPI leader 
I don't enough to make a decision for a specific script, I do however agree with Krill's thinking — the reason people like B&S is the relative spacing and naval component, as well as the diversity and assymetry of the map, I would say. As long as we keep these, I think we can go with any script. Torus is actually much fairer than cylinder as being on the edge provides a significant and completely random defensive advantage. I also agree that any play without heavy map editing is likely to be unenjoyable — the point is not so much to ensure "balance", which I think everyone realizes is unachievable, but to prune the extremes to prevents runaways and T0 deadrops. Otherwise,
Random leader/civ Emperor difficulty (I like the higher maintenace to limit the sprawl a bit and tougher barbs, but one would have to edit the tech modifier, is it possible?) Normal Speed Vassals off TT off Huts [abstain] Events off Barbs [abstain] Unrestricted Leaders EP on Mapscript -- as above, so Torusworld, deferring to more knowledgeable judgement |
