The Fearsome Foursome [Spoilers- Map and Lurker Thread]

[Bobchillingworth]

A lurker thread title which isn't insulting the players?! Inconceivable!






Bottoms up!

[Bobchillingworth]

The Map:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1036...wordWBSave



I'm pretty proud of it! Qg has already given it a look, and it has gone through a few revisions already.


Changelog for Qg's reference, based on his latest suggestions:

* Removed HN from select Fort Barbs

* AI on most Fort Barbs is now AI Attack, which seems to perform satisfactorily and keeps them from garrisoning random barb cities in the Fort.

* Little bit of land outside the Fort is now barren, to discourage city spawns. Also, I tested what happens if you go through a portal directly into a city square- it just razes / captures the city and boots the garrison one tile over.

* Added two new islands per player, one of which will require ocean-travel (or a ton of culture I guess).

* Removed Pigs from the mainland, to encourage settling islands. Replaced with Sheep.

* Ivory relocated to most distant islands.

* Removed huts.

* Removed Seven Pines, I'm worried about their effect on game balance.

* Added a number of nice pillage-able improvements in the Slave Quarters region of the Fort, which can be accessed relatively easily by Barbarian leaders.

Things left to do:


* Remove extraneous 5th player (Sidar in current form).

* Add in correct player civs and names, in the right order.



All input is most welcome! That's why I made this thread :P

[DaveV]

It's a clever map, and obviously a lot of work went into it, but will all the barbs in the fort keep barbs from spawning on the X? I remember in 14, there weren't nearly as many barbarian orcs as I was expecting, which I blame on all the ice barbs.

[Bobchillingworth]

They spawn, but there aren't many of them. Generally two or three barb cities appear on or near the center, and there are a handful of goblins and warriors from the fog. This is part of the reason Qg suggested taking away HN from a lot of the fort barbs- originally like half of them had it. That way a leader with the Barb trait only has to kill a couple boss-type barbs to unlock some of the nicer regions of the Fort. It sort of makes up for the trait losing most of its might on the mainland.


Lairs would help, but of course I can't stick any on the mainland

[DaveV]

Not just Barbarian civs, but Raider, Charismatic, and especially Aggressive benefit from more barbs because they can kill them more easily than the other civs. Cutting down on the number of barbarians alters the trait balance.

[Bobchillingworth]

Meh. The Raider's advantage over barbs is incredibly slight (a chance for a single first strike?) and all three of those traits are quite good and aren't nearly as dependent on barbarian presence as the Barb trait to make an impact. I'm not going to lose sleep over someone with Aggressive missing out on a few shock warriors or whatever.

[Qgqqqqq]

Besides, a lot of the early barbarians work largely by creating a lot of variance in terms of scouting, potential choking and so on. I still think you should put four barb cities down under the constructs to create at least SOME barbarian presence.

And whatever the case, you should make sure the players know about it before they pick.

[Qgqqqqq]

Contact (and player techs/civs) also needs to be corrected.
The Avatar of Murder is going to be invisible because the promo is reapplied on game start so I advise changing him to a different unit (some sort of assassin figure?).
I still think the central region should be strengthened/mana placed here (say, 3S of the portal, mirrored appropriately) to discourage just building in a buildery map.
Players are already going to be very hard to attack and the placement of certain terrain (especially marsh) favors this greatly. Conversely, sea war is greatly advantaged, and given that this seems natural for this map anyway, I'm not sure if this is the right move to make.
Given the difficulty of land attack and the lack of barbarians, I wonder if BFC copper is really necessary. Perhaps just leaving the exposed placement (swap out that tile for mithril?) and adding a backfill location up by the lighthouse would be better.

[Bobchillingworth]

Contact (and player techs/civs) also needs to be corrected.

Ah, forgot about the techs, not sure how to change contact tho.

The Avatar of Murder is going to be invisible because the promo is reapplied on game start so I advise changing him to a different unit (some sort of assassin figure?).

Yeah, I thought about this and decided I was fine with him being invisible- the only point of him is to kill him for his weapon, so anyone clever enough to reveal him can take it

I still think the central region should be strengthened/mana placed here (say, 3S of the portal, mirrored appropriately) to discourage just building in a buildery map.

Understood, but I think that between the FP grasslands, unique resources, Iron and mana it's fine. People have plenty of reason already to settle and fight over it.

Players are already going to be very hard to attack and the placement of certain terrain (especially marsh) favors this greatly.

This is intentional; attackers have such an advantage in FFH, I purposely made the necks leading to each player easy to defend. Besides, I don't want this game to be over too quickly- with only four players, losing even one early on will severely impact game balance.

Conversely, sea war is greatly advantaged, and given that this seems natural for this map anyway, I'm not sure if this is the right move to make.

With Lanun and Tsunami banned, what's the problem?

Given the difficulty of land attack and the lack of barbarians, I wonder if BFC copper is really necessary. Perhaps just leaving the exposed placement (swap out that tile for mithril?) and adding a backfill location up by the lighthouse would be better.

Eh, people should be able to get copper online before a major attack no matter where I stick it on the player landmasses- I placed it near the capitals so that they'd be extra-good in Godking, a civic which generally is poor because most games are on larger maps, but might actually see long-term use here.

[Qgqqqqq]

With Lanun and Tsunami banned, what's the problem?

I'm not saying that any group has an advantage in this area, merely that the sea will dominate the game as a method of attack/war. This is not a problem in and of itself, but something that I think needs to be taken into account in balancing other parts of the game - in this case I'm arguing that sea warfare (which doesn't get a lot of publicity on RB but is super easy in EitB/FFH) is going to dominate warfare so I think land warfare ought to be encouraged over its watery brethren.

I'll respond to the rest in a short while.