[NO PLAYERS] Mapmaking, Boasting, and Wild Speculation Thread

[Krill]

Only 2 EXP, IMP leaders there, but Vicky of China is pretty much a no brainer.

Change the Ramses civ to something decent, Freddy of Egypt is probably a legit choice despite potentially awful traits, Izzy of England will be picked...i'd chagne Germany as well. otherwise there is a reasonable balance between strength of combo and interestingness/want to play a slightly harder game.

[Gawdzak]

Only 2 EXP, IMP leaders there, but Vicky of China is pretty much a no brainer.

Change the Ramses civ to something decent, Freddy of Egypt is probably a legit choice despite potentially awful traits, Izzy of England will be picked...i'd chagne Germany as well. otherwise there is a reasonable balance between strength of combo and interestingness/want to play a slightly harder game.

I'm hesitant to make too many changes since the players did ask for random combos, but I think it's reasonable enough to change America to the Ottomans for Ramesses.

So we end up with this:

Isabella of England
Hannibal of France
Victoria of China
Frederick of Egypt
Peter of Germany
FDR of Rome
Ragnar of Portugal
Ramesses of Ottomans
Catherine of Ethiopia
Justinian of Vikings
Charlemagne of India

This is good enough I think. I'm going to post it.

[Krill]

I suppose only concern is the three Agri/Wheel civs but depending on how you build the starts that isn't anything to worry about, really.

[Gawdzak]

I will post the start later but I don't think this will be a problem.

[spacetyrantxenu]

Gawdzak sent me the revised map earlier, after going through it here's more feedback. Preface all this with me saying that I'd be happy enough shipping it already, but these could improve fairness a bit IMO:


Natives may have a hard time claiming the same number of happy resources as other civs, as India could easily get the silver. Maybe put another silver elsewhere in the Natives territory?

Ottoman's first usable happy resource is too far away. Probably move the ivory closer so that the second or third city could grab it.

I'd probably put England's aluminium right at the capital so there's no discrepancy there. Everyone else's aluminium is in the capital's third ring culture.

Give Carthage another oil, they may not get theirs. Maybe down the SE peninsula somewhere less contested.

Ottoman - Coal not accessible?

England - Move oil 1E into the capital's BFC to ensure Natives can't steal it with a first ring border? Or leave it where it is and add another oil for England somewhere else.

India start needs AH to improve food. Maybe swap one of its food resources for an Agriculture or Hunting food?

What...what is that river doing at Carthage? It seems the water source is under the city. I have a thing about rivers....You could fix the direction it flows if you wanted to. Now that I'm looking around there are some other river oddities, too. The river at England has its source in the sea and drains to a lake. Just looks odd, nothing for me to get in a twist about. /nitpick

The map looks good. It's playable as it is, I think, but maybe consider these suggestions.

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

I have no idea if this input is timely or not, but anyway, map thoughts:

Is it an issue for bronze to be under a forest? This increases the amount of time to hook up the resource, which IMO isn't ideal. Actually, looking around, it's the same for everyone and should be a source of consternation for the players because they'll assume it's a mistake.

Two sheep at the India start is weaker than wet corn and deer at the Native America start and also forces an AH beeline. I'd like to see one sheep replaced with a grain. England lacks a river food resource. The early game commerce benefit from that is non-zero. India lacks this too. I suggest a grain + 1 something else (either seafood or AH resource) for each start. If you put a resource on a river at one location, do the same for all. Perhaps not the sheep, though, because that would trigger the bonus commerce from FIN.

Natives have 7 likely river cottages at the capital. India have 9, Orange have 9 (plus several cottageable hills but that is a choice/tradeoff), green have 8, England only 6. The easiest fix is to just get everyone to 9 by adding a river branch as needed.

I like the amended leader/civ list. There are more playable combos there, or fun variant options. Don't underestimate EXP/SPI. Base BtS EXP is the king of non-FIN and in the right hands, SPI is downright abusive, especially without the nerf to whipping in RtR. Fast start, no delay from civic swaps, extra workers to chop ahead....tons of options when you get to CoL and the early civic swaps. God help everyone else if you get Mids. I like Izzy as well as the bottom third of FIN leaders, if not better.

[spacetyrantxenu]

When I posted my map review I didn't realize the starts had already been posted. Is it too late to change them? (As in, have players already picked after seeing starts?)

[Gawdzak]

I had Seven look over the map and he said it should be ok to use.

However, he did brought up the issue regarding the starts. My criteria is that every player get two 5 yield or higher food tiles to start. In addition, to hook up both food resources, a player needs exactly 2 techs for both food resource. Sure some player's food resource might slightly better, but I think it's close enough that I'm willing to sacrifice a little balance so there's a diversity of techs needed due to a limited number of picks available.

Regarding the India start, I have buffed the start in the most recent edition of the map: one of the sheep was changed to a pig and the other sheep was changed from a hilled sheep to a flatland sheep. Yes this forces the player to have AH for the food. However, this is done so the player have the option to start with either Hunting or Agriculture in order to hook up food. Again this is due to the limited number of picks available.

Unfortunately I've already posted the starts for the players. I'd rather not change the starts since the picking phase already started. This is my mistake, I thought the starts are balanced enough as is for reasons stated above.

Regarding the copper, I really do want everyone to have copper in case they, for some reason, decide not to settle for copper as their 2nd city. So I put it in the BFC. On the other hand, I don't want them to be able access them too quickly either to rush their neighbours. In the end, I decided to put a forest on the copper to delay aggression from the attackers. The defender have more time to respond and it's easier for them to chop a forest in the capital to get copper than to settle another city for it. The Zulus are not in this game, so I don't see a big problem with copper in the BFC.

Anyways that's my twisted logic for why I made the map that way. I will check on the placements of various resources Xenu mentioned.

[Krill]

Never give one person double AH food and others something different except in an RtR mod game. Please change it. Just say caught a mistake and will repost relevant starts asap. Players prefer honesty about this.

[SevenSpirits]

Krill, it's not a big deal, they get to pick after seeing starts and plenty of agriculture civs are available. Others have fishing + agri or fishing + hunting resources, that's just as bad.