[LURKERS] Setting Up Tents for a Ren Faire

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

It is fine as long as you do not have a second item in the queue.

[darrelljs]

Oh, that's easy then...the drama seems even sillier now.

Darrell

[BRickAstley]

How is the map coming Mardoc?

It's weird, but I seem to have more time and energy on work nights than the weekend. Maybe because I stop work at quitting time and leave it at the office, but the house could always use something else done. Didn't get much progress, aside from installing Perl on my new computer.

Anyway, still think I can have a first draft ready for comments sometime this week and ready for the host next week.

Need any help?

[Mardoc]

...maybe. Probably.

Let me see how much I can get done tonight and tomorrow.

[Mardoc]

Alright, I've got it about 90% done. Going to leave it to Brick for final polishing after y'all weigh in.

The biggest thing I know I didn't do is apply the chosen leaders and civs and starting units. Aside from that, all that should be around is balance and aesthetic changes, if any. My land bridges didn't turn out quite like I envisioned, and the metal islands got squished into the mainland. Not sure why exactly. I've attached the 'cell' file in case GermanJoey wants to take a look, but I doubt there's any easy approach.

Joey's html map viewer is here: - easiest way to look at the map from a high level or away from a civ computer.

And the worldbuilder save is here.

Edit: Hmm, the map viewer doesn't seem to want to work from dropbox. Here's a screenshot of it instead:

[Azoth]

Going by the screenshot, the land appears lush (mostly green and full of resources), which will make the players happy. The one major asymmetry is the Silver. It looks like two players get Freshwater Fish, Clam, and three Silvers, while the others get two Rice and a Cow. Is that intended? Also the land bridges mean that everyone is on the same continent and there are no island trade routes available at all. Don't know if that matters at all.

[GermanJoey]

Very nice map, Mardoc. I really like the use of more alternative food sources, e.g. all the bananas and deers, and even the spices near the bottom.

I also took a look at the problem you were having, and it looks like you're using your cell a little differently than I had been. The land in mine was shaped like an arc, so, even though the cell is 21 tiles wide, I was able to overlap the cells by 5 tiles, meaning a 3-cell-wide setup could fit into a 48 tile wide map. With your cell, because you added islands in the NE, it looks like you're only able to overlap by 2 tiles. I changed the pb35_finish.civ4mc file to account for this, including expanding the map width from 48 tiles to 57, and reran it using your cell:

http://media.rhizzone.net/civ/pb35.CivBeyondSwordWBSave
http://media.rhizzone.net/civ/pb35.html

(I also shrank the height by 1, so that your N/S landbridges will connect fully.)


This one's got a lot more land, weighing in at about 200 land tiles per player, subtracting out ice, peaks, and bare desert, and each area is a perfect mirror.

FWIW, I think both maps look very fun. The first one, IMHO, just needs a bit of balance touches near the top of the cells (the parts nearest the middle) to correct for the overlap not occurring as consistently.

[Mardoc]

Ah, I figured that it was something about the margins - didn't expect five tiles of difference! Explains why things got so mushed together, though.

Don't have time to do any more, so this is up to Brick if he wants to implement, but my vision was to use the version Joey just posted, with one major change by hand:

For Plantation resources, I'm thinking of the following pairs:

Grass riverside Sugar + Plains Incense
Grass Spice + Grass Dye
Grass riverside Wine + Grass Silk

I swapped out the spice/dye combos for one of the other combos so that each player got one of the above.

There is a set of 2 pairs near the base of the 'wave', and 1 pair near the tip, for three spice/3 dye on each player's continent. Don't substitute any unless you get all three! Would hate to have someone end up with spice/dye/sugar/incense while everyone else has to trade.

[Mardoc]

And, Joey, thanks again for both your map tool and the technical support. It's amazing how much tedium that removes from mapmaking. Almost makes me regret that civ 6 is coming...

[BRickAstley]

Don't have time to do any more, so this is up to Brick if he wants to implement, but my vision was to use the version Joey just posted, with one major change by hand:

I'll do this then, working off Joey's version with the change you mentioned, since that is closest to your vision for the map.