[SPOILERS] Map and lurker thread

[Lord Parkin]

You know the drill - if you're playing in the game, don't read this thread.

[Lord Parkin]

Here's what I told the players:

A little bit of teaser info about your map, now that you've all picked your leaders.

Descent into Madness

This map features reasonably balanced starts and fairly similar distances to neighbours, with about 200 land tiles per player. Sparse lairs are present on the map, though none are within visual range of any player starts. There are no huts on the map. Unique features are present - some in multiples, while others are absent. You will have to discover which by exploring the map.

If you find yourself descending into madness trying to plan certain cities, you may be justified in blaming the mapmaker.

Settings:

Standard size
Quick speed
Monarch difficulty
No Tech Trading
No Vassal States
No Huts
Human Basium
Human Hyborem

I think that covers about everything you need to know. No house rules banning any strategies should be necessary.

[Lord Parkin]

If you want to spoil the map for yourself ahead of time, click below. Or else, choose to remain unspoiled and discover the map as the game unfolds.

Descent into Madness - WorldBuilder Save

So what I didn't tell the players was that the starts are in fact exactly balanced, and distances between neighbours are precisely identical.

Basically it's a mirror map, but one with a twist. Obviously it needed a toroidal design to be balanced for 5 players, and here I took some inspiration from the PBEM58 map by SevenSpirits. Additionally though, I wanted the entire map - outside of the capital locations - to be as difficult as possible to dotmap, so that even with identical land we'd be highly unlikely to see any two players settling the same locations in the same order. SevenSpirits helped with on this front with advice and playtest feedback.

The map is 40x40, and everyone borders everyone. All players are separated from all their neighbours by 16 tiles as the crow flies, and 24 tiles by the lay of the land. Capitals were designed to make settling in place as clear as possible so as to avoid roaming settlers messing up the distance balance. Everyone gets all strategic resources inside their capital's BFC, so as to allow all players to put up a strong defense even in a "last stand" position.

I deliberately made the starting areas plains-heavy but rich in food resources to try to discourage the typical Aristograrian strategy. In theory hammers should be valuable enough on this map - and food plentiful enough - that other civic/improvement options are viable choices.

The land areas between starts are jungled and rich in Unique Features. I liked the idea of everyone having a technically possible Yggdrasil + Remnants of Patria + Dragon Bones city, but deliberately made the steps towards such a city incredibly difficult: heavy jungle to be cut down, 4-way border contest for each spot. More likely I suspect we'll see players claiming just one of the features each in most locations.

There is no Guardian of Pristin Pass or Ring of Carcer, and there are no mana uniques because I didn't want the number of sources to get out of hand by copying each 5 times. (Also two of the mana uniques are lairs, which I didn't want on the mainland.) I did have an idea for a variant where each player would have one raw mana source replaced by one each of the non-Letum Frigus mana uniques (Broken Sepulcher, Mirror of Heaven, Pyre of the Seraphic, Standing Stones, Tomb of Succellus), or two sources replaced (BS + MoH, PotS + SS, ToS + BS, MoH + PotS, SS + ToS). However I liked the symmetry of the map as it was.

The lake areas between starts are rich in food, enclose the only sources of Gold and Gems, and contain all of the lairs on the map. The ten islands should be nice prizes for those who seek to claim them, but they will almost certainly require a heavy defense against the neighbour across the bay.

All of the mana sources on the map are located near the jungle regions, one each in the N/E/S/W directions from each start. There are thus four raw mana sources per player. I consulted with both plako and Mardoc about this, and I think the mana locations should be sufficiently vulnerable to attack such that turtling to a Tower of Mastery victory isn't too easy. (Especially if the house rule requiring Omniscience is in place.)

Map Stats:

Dimensions: 40x40
Number of Players: 5

Total number of tiles: 1600
Land tiles (without peaks): 1060
Water tiles: 520
Impassable tiles (peaks): 20
Average land tiles per player: 212
Percentage water: 32.50%

Number of land masses: 11
Large islands (>9 tiles): 1
Islands with 2-9 tiles: 10
One-tile islands: 0

Number of water bodies: 10
Saltwater lakes: 10
Lakes with 2-9 tiles: 0
One-tile lakes: 0

Size of largest land masses:
990
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7

Size of largest water bodies:
52
52
52
52
52
52
52
52
52
52

Map overview:

Happy to answer any map-related questions.

[DaveV]

The downloadable map seems to have Noble difficulty, as opposed the Monarch specified in the tech thread. This looks like another "race to advanced techs" game (which is probably a good thing for testing out the mod). Should be interesting; HidingKneel is, IMO, the best player in the game by a good margin, but his leader has been pummeled with the nerf bat. Prediction: Summoner beaker bonus will be scaled way back or eliminated in the next update of the mod.

[Lord Parkin]

Monarch difficulty was set when getting the PBEM up and running. Just checked and all players are definitely at Monarch in the live game.

I always design maps at Noble to ensure there aren't any issues with barb techs or anything. PBEM XXXVI is the same, though of course you wouldn't have downloaded that one.

I did consider upping the difficulty level and/or the map size to slow the pace a bit, but Mardoc didn't seem to think it was necessary. I was happy with the game reaching further into the tech tree than usual before reaching a conclusion, as long as ToM wasn't too easy to achieve.

[Lord Parkin]

Here's the WBsave with the switched civs, just in case someone wants to check I didn't forget anything. (Again I set Monarch difficulty in the PBEM setup screen.)

Descent into Madness restart - WorldBuilder Save

[Hesmyrr]

Is there duplicate Seven Pines?

[Lord Parkin]

Yeah. Didn't hear any objections to it the map balancing. Why, is it a problem?

[Hesmyrr]

Ah, nope. Just one of the things I wanted to know as a lurker, since AC halving effect of Seven Pines could have marginal game-play effect.

[Lord Parkin]

Incidentally, can each Seven Pines be used once (so five uses total), or only the first one to be activated?