Airstrip One Palace Court - No Players!

[sunrise089]

Hello all and welcome!

In fine RB tradition we're going to play a fun and wacky game. This time it's a Pitboss game with 11 different human-controlled civilizations

Pitboss is a type of Civ IV multiplayer that allows players to connect to a game hosted online at their own pace. Unlike PBEM turns happen simultaneously, so players can take as much or as little time as they would like to play. The game will be played with a turn timer, and we anticipate the entire game will take between 6 months and a year to complete.

Anyways, feel free to discuss the game here without any players looking over your shoulder. Also, anyone interested in some info and stats, keep reading:
______________________________

Our 11 Pitboss Teams:

*shadyforce - Willem (Cre/Fin) / Persia (Immortal, chariot with +50% versus archery units and receives defensive bonuses/Apothecary, gorcer with +2 health/Agriculture+Hunting)
*Broker33 - Zara (Cre/Org) / Holy Roman Empire (Landsknecht, pikeman that has +100% versus melee units/Rathaus, Courthouse with an extra 25% maintenance reduction/Hunting+Mysticism)
*regoarrarr + Danski - Hatty (Cre/Spi) / India (Fast Worker, moves 3 tiles/Mausoleum, +2 happy jail/Mining+Mysticism)
*Krill + memphus - Joao (Exp/Imp) / Inca (Quechua, starts with combat 1 and 100% vs. archery units/Terrace, granary with +2 culture/Agriculture+Mysticism)
*dsplaisted + Fenton Denton Smith - Suryavarman II (Cre/Exp) / Mali (Skirmisher, strength 4 archer/Mint, forge that gives +10% gold/Mining+The Wheel
*Dreylin + kalin - Catherine (Cre/Imp) / Sumeria (Vulture, strength 6 axeman but only 25% bonus versus melee units/Ziggurat, courthouse available at Priesthood and 30 hammers cheaper than normal/Agriculture+The Wheel)
*mostly_harmless + Kodii - Louis (Cre/Ind) / Byzantium (Cataphract, strength 12 knight/Hippodrome, theater that gives +1 happiness from horses and +1 happiness per 5% culture, Mysticism+The Wheel)
*Imhotep - Genghis Khan Temujin (Agg/Imp) / Zulu (Impi, 2-move spear with mobility/Ikhanda, barracks that reduces maintenance/Agriculture+Hunting)
*sunrise089 - Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi) / Spain (Conquistador, cuirassier that receives defensive bonuses/Citadel, castle that gives +2 exp to siege units/Fishing+Mysticism)
*Ruff+TheArchduke - Kublai Khan (Agg/Cre) / Rome (Praetorian, strength 8 swordsman/Forum, market that gives small GPP boost/Fishing+Mining)
*ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF - Washington (Chm/Exp) / Carthage (Numidian Cavalry, strength 5 horse archer with 50% bonus versus melee units/Cothon, harbor with +1 trade routes/Fishing+Mining)

Some stats for the lurkers:

Overall pick order:

*Willem
*Zara
*India
*Inca
*Suryavarman
*Sumeria
*Louis
*Zulu
*Mansa Musa
*Rome
*Washington/Carthage
*Kublai Khan
*Spain
*Genghis Khan
*Byzantium
*Catherine
*Mali
*Joao
*Hatty
*Holy Roman Empire
*Perisa

Traits:
*Creative - 7
*Expansive - 3
*Imperialistic - 3
*Financial - 2
*Spiritual - 2
*Aggressive - 2
*Organized - 1
*Charismatic - 1
*Industrious - 1
*Philosophical - 0
*Protective - 0

Unique units by era:
*Ancient - 6
*Classical - 2
*Medieval - 2
*Renaissance - 1
*Industrial - 0
*Modern - 0

Unique units by type:
*Melee - 5
*Mounted - 4
*Archery - 1
*Non-combatant - 1

Unique building bonus:
*Economic - 5
*Health/happiness - 3
*Military - 1
*Culture - 1
*Great people - 1

Starting techs:
*Mysticism - 5
*Agriculture - 4
*Mining - 4
*Fishing - 3
*Hunting - 3
*The Wheel - 3

[sooooo]

My prediction is that whoever builds the Great Lighthouse will win the game

[Sullla]

Hehe, you might want to see the revealed map first, sooooo. I know it looks like an archipelago-type thing from the screenshots... but it's not.

I'm off for the day (this is some kind of American holiday, if you can believe it ) but tomorrow I'll be posting some spoilered pics for the overall world and the individual starting positions. For the moment, I'll leave everyone with these two tidbits:

- Everyone has ivory at the start (which I'm sure anyone reading the player threads has deduced by now).
- There are no gold, silver, or gems resources on this map. All of my custom maps have a little tweak of some kind, and that's the minor twist on this one. The omnipresent ivory is designed to help compensate this, as well as help balance the starting positions.

[haphazard1]

- There are no gold, silver, or gems resources on this map. All of my custom maps have a little tweak of some kind, and that's the minor twist on this one. The omnipresent ivory is designed to help compensate this, as well as help balance the starting positions.

Interesting. A little tough on the one industrious player. This will also make any gold/silver/gems which get popped into very valuable commodities.

Looking forward to your comments on the map and starts, Sulla.

[Sullla]

Alright, time to pull back the curtain for all the lurkers and reveal the playing field for our competitors. The first thing to consider when designing the map for one of these games is which script to choose for the base terrain. I suppose that you could draw an entire map by hand, but that would take ages and likely introduce even more problems! I considered and rejected a number of different scripts that didn't create the gameplay that I wanted. I was thinking about doing some kind of water-based map, something different, however all of those scripts (Islands, Archipelago, etc.) just didn't look right. I then experimented with some of the rare Team Battleground options that no one ever uses - like Four Corners and Left vs. Right - but they weren't quite right either. A natural option for a game like this, with so many players, would be to split them up into 2 or 3 continents. And yet... I really did not like the gameplay that the 2 continents produced in the Apolyton Demogame, as the civs in the "middle" had an enormous advantage in terms of contacting the other teams. Plus, the gameplay would be the same on each continent: whoever could wipe out all of their competitors first and own their own continent would be the winner. Makes for an exciting game, but not very deep strategically.

So I started poking around in the Creation and Customization forum at CivFanatics, where various individuals have created custom map scripts. I found one that had some promise, entitled "Full of Resources". This isn't a base map script itself, but rather adds a bunch of options to existing map scripts. And I mean LOT of options! Take a look:



Note that this is just one of six different tabs that can be selected at the start! Anyway, I began by playing around with different base map scripts and then customizing them in weird ways using the extra options. I found that I could take the Lakes script and dial up the water percentage, from its base 10% to something in the 30-50% range. This created a bunch of huge lakes set against an all-land background, sort of like a reverse archipelago - it was really something different! I eventually settled on 35% water, after some experimentation. Then I started tweaking the setting you see pictured above. I increased the grassland percentage from its default level to "Rich", keeping the plains setting at the standard. Then I dialed back the desert and tundra, and removed the snow/ice entirely. This created a map with a narrow band of tundra at the poles, and huge expanses of fertile land everywhere. In other words, I could put teams all over the place and no one would get shafted by having unplayable terrain. Perfect!

The only choices for map size were Large or Huge. As far as these maps go, 9 players is the default for Large, and 11 is the default for Huge. This made it an easy decision for: why not go with Huge, which is designed for 11 players anyway? Yes, it would be a big map, but so what? There will be 11 players on there! I don't see the need to cram everyone into a tiny space for a long-running game such as this. My own personal opinion is that bigger maps require more planning and thus more skill, allowing the better players to rise to the top. Starting terrain means more than skill when everyone is packed into a sardine can. And remember, I did warn all the players before we started that this map was "big", so the teams shouldn't be surprised by what they find.

I screenshotted the starting map before making any edits, so here it is. It has to be presented in two screenshots, because it's too big to fit in one.

Eastern hemisphere:


Western hemisphere:


My design notes are on these screenshots; indeed, I had to work from the screenshots because the map was simply too big to see in-game very well. Note that the map has continents of various size, some small and some large, all connected together by land bridges and yet also accessible by water across lakes and seas. There is even a veritable ocean in the western hemisphere that runs from pole to pole! You can also sail completely around the world at the south pole, for some reason. That could be very interesting. I said in the public thread before starting that navies would play a role in this game, and I suspect that they will.

OK, the first thing to do before anything else is create equal spacing between the teams. While terrain matters greatly, nothing is going to make things balanced if someone has half the map all to themselves! Civ4's map generator is "OK" in this regard, not great. Starting with the eastern hemisphere, the blue civ in the middle had an insanely good start, in the middle of a huge continent with no one remotely close. That had to change, so I moved them southeast to the coast. I intended to move in another civ to the northwest of that same continent, and I ultimately did so, sliding the light purple team up there. In the southern part of the eastern hemisphere, the gray civ and the brown civ were too close together, so they had to be split up. The overall spacing was better to move the brown civ to the west, and that necessitated moving the orange civ down there across the bay further to the west.

Moving to the eastern hemisphere, there were six civs too close together (including the yellow one circled at the very top of the screen) so I had to create some more space here. The light purple civ moved far to the northeast on the same continent with the light blue civ, as mentioned above, while still close enough to border the peach civ. This also created space for the orange civ, who moved down into the southeast part of that second screenshot. The light yellow civ moved halfway around the world, into an empty northern region of the map which was looking to cause all kinds of problems if not filled. Then the geography around some of the starting positions had to be further changed. The yellow civ in the extreme north needed a lot more land filled in to make their start playable. (I liked the location in terms of spacing, but it was too weak of a spot without being upgraded with more land and resources.) The light yellow civ I moved across the world also needed a lot of land filled in; their new starting position was created entirely out of filled in land! Finally, I had to delete some land bridges to the south of the light blue civ, or else the brown civ would be too close.

The final result was relatively equal spacing all around. I then did several more passes over each starting position to balance them, which I'll get to in a minute. Now I've referred to all of the teams above by color because I made no attempt to identify which was which; I never do this when designing maps. The placement of the civs and balancing of starting positions is always done "blind", to avoid any favoritism. This was really easy for this game, as the Unrestricted leaders had me totally confused as to which was which! Here then is the final map revealed:

Eastern hemisphere:


Western hemisphere:


Let's start in the same spot. shadyforce and regoarrarr share the corners of that large continent, which contains some incredibly fertile land. I expect that they will meet in the middle somewhere, and the diplomacy will be interesting with such a long border to negotiate. shadyforce will also meet Ruff in the east, and has dsplaisted across a narrow channel of water to the direct south. regoarrarr is uncontested in the north, but of course the land isn't as good up there. sunrise is close to the west. Moving east, Ruff has another insanely fertile starting position, however that comes with being surrounded on virtually all sides! Imhotep is on the other side of a narrow two-tile choke, and mostly_harmless is directly south. The direction in which each team chooses to expand will determine a lot over here. Imhotep also has a lot of territory up there, and fewer neighbors to worry about - but the land quality is lower. mh is in a similar position to the south. That's my hope at the metagaming level, that the teams in the far north and south will compensate for slightly weaker land by having more overall territory and fewer neighbors to defend against. We'll have to see what happens, I guess.

In the west, sunrise and Dreylin share a large, very fertile continent packed with jungle and forest. How they choose to work things out will be fun to watch. ZVPCS... (whatever that name is!) is just off screen to the southest. He's also quite close to dsplaisted, as they are separated by a narrow water barrier. That's kind of a weird spot to watch as well. Broker is further west, in a fairly isolated southern spot. The land's not as great down there, but he could clean up a ton of it uncontested... Krill is in a similar spot in the extreme north, with empty land everywhere to the east and west. I expect that Krill and Memphus will complain constantly about their starting postition, and ride that start into an enormous empire and a top 3 finish regardless.

Overall, much will be determined by the direction in which each team expands. At least one team will end up with tons of territory simply because all their neighbors expanded in the opposite directions. Part of this is determined by diplomacy, and part of it by dumb luck. I've tried to give everyone a fairly even start, and then let their choices determine the results!

Next, I'll look at the individual starting positions in more detail, and comment about the civ/leader selections of each team.

[Sullla]

Let's look at the individual players. At an overview level, I'll mention that all of the starting positions share a lot of features in common. They all have ivory, a couple of Calendar-era resources (mostly silks, spices, sugar, and wines) and a single food bonus. All of the food bonuses are on the "high" end of value: irrigated rice, corn, pigs, or fish. No sheep or unirrigated rice, which are of distinctly lower class. Every starting position has a river of some length, which I added if it was missing. As I said in the previous post, none of the resources at the starting positions were picked with individual civs in mind, no handicapping or anything like that. If a corn resource happened to line up with a civ that starts with Agriculture, that was just coincidence.



shadyforce: Willem (Creative/Financial) of Persia. I agree that Willem is probably the best leader in Beyond the Sword, or if not the very best then certainly top tier along with Darius and maybe Mansa or Elizabeth. Cheap Creative libraries is a powerful synergy with Financial. I'm less certain about Persia, as the Immortal shouldn't be that great on this map, and the unique building is nothing special. But shadyforce definitely grabbed a nice leader for himself!

The starting position is very fertile, all grassland as far as the eye can see. A lot of it is jungle though, especially to the north. Horses for immortals can be grabbed to the west for a nice second city. Metals will be a lot tougher to secure early on. The key issue for shadyforce will be negotiating with regoarrarr, who starts at the northwest end of this continent. dsplaisted is also directly south, rather close across the water. I don't know much of anything about shadyforce, so he's one of the wild cards in this game, especially starting in the middle of the map geographically with a lot of neighbors on all sides.



Broker33: Zara Yacob (Creative/Organized) of the Holy Roman Empire. This is a pretty good combination of the civ and leader. We all know how useful Zara can be from the Apolyton Demogame, with six different cheap buildings and free Creative culture, then Broker goes and pairs that up with one of the best unique buildings in the game. Plus, all of those Rathauses are half cost! The HRE unique unit is nothing special, but Broker's got a great trait synergy going here. By whipping and chopping courthouses, he can probably expand just about forever. It's almost a shame that the game is only on Noble; on a higher difficulty, he'd have a greater advantage.

This is one of the more isolated starting positions; Dreylin is off screen to the north, mostly_harmless is to the west, and that's about it. While there are many fewer grassland tiles here, the land still isn't exactly terrible, and Broker could build up a very large empire down here in relative security. He'll have to prioritize scouting to meet other teams and line up trade deals though. I added in the copper resource to the due north because nothing else was too close, in terms of early resources. Finally, one of the rare marble resources is down in the southern tundra. All of the stone/marble locations are out of the way, and they will be precious commodities in this game.



regoarrarr and Dantski: Hatshepsut (Creative/Spiritual) of India. As far as this team goes, we all know that India is a good selection with their Fast Worker. Their unique building isn't too bad either, although nowhere near as good. I'm less certain about the leader selection; most of the good Creative leaders had already been taken, and there were some excellent non-Creative ones still sitting out there. Darius could have been a killer pick here for an all-out economic approach, or a Philosophical leader like Elizabeth would have added another wrinkle. Still, this isn't a bad combination either.

The starting position is at the other end of the continent from shadyforce. One interesting thing to watch is whether regoarrarr and Dantski push south or north with their early settlers; I expect them to move south, where I added that copper, but nothing is set in stone. That north is pretty open, with no one else in place to contest their claim. sunrise is close to the west though, and you can see his start on the left side of this picture. They'll have to work out some kind of agreement concerning the lake in the middle.



Krill and Memphus: Joao (Expansive/Imperialistic) of the Incans. This is one of the most dangerous pairings, with everything geared towards rapid expansion. Expansive gets the workers out faster, who chop out settlers using the Imperialistic bonus, while new cities build or chop out cheap Expansive Terraces, which come with free culture to boot! It's almost like getting the Creative trait for free. The Incan unique building is crazily unbalanced, and if I had been working with Firaxis back then, it never would have seen the light of day. (I dunno what they were thinking.) With Krill and Memphus at the helm, I expect them to leverage this civ pairing into crazy fast expansion, which will be easy to afford at Noble maintenance costs. Dangerous.

The original Incan start was on a tiny peninsula with four seafood resources. When I redrew this area (and it needed extensive work to become playable) I filled in a large swath of land, added the river, and redistributed the resources. Because the original start had been full of seafood, I left a single fish as the food resource. Krill is already complaining about this in their private thread, hinting that I did this deliberately to handicap their team (which starts with Agriculture), but I did nothing of the sort. I didn't even know which team this was until after I did all the editing. Their starting position is another one of the isolated ones (and I'm sure that Krill will complain about THAT too), but it should allow their team to expand like mad all over the northern part of the map. Dreylin and Imhotep are the closest two teams, and neither one is very close at all. This is designed to balance out the fact that the land is not as good up here at the top of the map. I expect that Krill and Memphus will ride this start to a very strong position in the mid-game.



dsplaisted and Fenton Denton Smith: Suryavarman (Creative/Expansive) of Mali. This is another one of the odder pairings. Suryavarman is sort of a second-tier leader from a pure power perspective, and it feels like he was picked only because so many other Creative leaders had already been taken. Perhaps a better choice could have been made here. Mali, on the other hand, is an excellent civ for all sorts of different gameplans. The skirmisher is a great early unit, can be used to defend or attack, and the mint is a solid building. Too bad there are no gold/gems/silver on this map! Another thing to keep in mind is that Mali is a good civ to synergize with an Industrious civ, for cheap mints. So while neither civ or leader choice is bad exactly, they don't link together in any clear way either. dsplaisted has mentioned possibly trying to rush someone with skirmishers in their game thread, which probably wouldn't work on this map, but it would be fun to watch! (If thinking about a rush, however, why not pick different leaders/civs?)

This is a southern start, which has several other teams close by but separated by water barriers. One of the more creative parts of the map, if I do say so myself! dsplaisted and Fenton should be able to grab all the land you see here uncontested, and yet they will have to worry about shadyforce (north) and ZPVCS... (west) invading by ship - or vice versa! mostly_harmless is also directly east, and they'll probably meet somewhere around that eastern sheep tile. Finally, there's a narrow passage to the northeast that leads to Ruff's start. Which way does this team go? It should be fun to watch and find out!



Dreylin and kalin: Catherine (Creative/Imperialistic) of Sumeria. I have to say, this civ/leader pairing doesn't particularly do it for me, not with so many excellent leaders that went unpicked. Cathy is really a stretch for a Creative leader, and Imperialistic is on the weak side. Expansive does almost as much for quick expansion (with the cheap workers and granaries), and it gets a health bonus and cheap harbors to boot! However, Dreylin and kalin will get settlers out fast, and with all the new cities producing free culture from the start, it's not all bad. But the leader selection and the civ selection don't really go together at all; vultures are nothing special without the Aggressive trait to give them a boost, and the ziggaraut is just a courthouse that comes earlier on the tech tree. You'd do better just picking an Organized civ than messing around with Sumer! I guess I just don't see this one. Why take Sumer when you could grab civs with awesome unique buildings, like the Dutch (levee), Ottomans (hamman), Korea (seowan), or England (stock exchange)? All of those went unpicked.

Those is totally non-topical, but it's crazy that no one picked Darius of the Netherlands, or Elizabeth of Korea. Those are both utterly broken combos, and none of those civs or leaders were chosen!!!

Anyway, back to the current start. Dreylin and kalin have an extremely fertile spot, all grasslands under a blanket of forests and jungle. The main issue to watch here is the diplomacy with sunrise, who is at the eastern end of this same continent. Whoever can control that narrow two-tile path in the southeast will likely be in the driver's seat. Further away are Krill (north) and Broker (south). Once again, there are tons of different possibilities depending on where each team decides to expand, and how the diplomacy shakes out.

I'll do the last five teams a little bit later tonight.

[Sullla]

Alright, wrapping up with the last five teams.



mostly_harmless and Kodii: Louis (Creative/Industrious) of Byzantium. This is another one of those oddball picks that doesn't appear to make much sense, yet I think it's going to come up roses for mh and Kodii. They were very fortunate that they ended up being the only team to pick an Industrious leader, which makes their trait much more valuable than it would be otherwise. Normally it's tough to land wonders in a game with 10 other teams, but if you're the only one with the Industrious trait, suddenly your chances become a lot more viable! Stone/marble resources are also quite rare on this map, which is a further help. And while the Byzantine unique building is unremarkable, their unique unit cataphract is one of the absolute best in the game. (I believe that it is actually banned from use in MP for medieval starts, because it's so powerful.) Between those two factors, this team will be in good position to have an advantage of some kind throughout the early and middle parts of the game. The only down side is that the lack of gold/gems/silver takes a bit of an edge off of cheap Industrious forges.

The starting position is in the southeast on the world map, although less isolated than some of the others. Ruff is directly north, and as close as any two teams start on this map, while dsplaisted is a bit further off to the west. There's virtually no one to the east, until reaching Broker33 quite a ways away, so that is the "safe" direction for expansion. This starting position had to be worked over a lot; I deleted a large lake and replaced it with a river, as well as adding several more food bonuses and grassland tiles to the area to make it more playable. Lots of possibilities here. If mh and Kodii can manage to cut off Ruff from moving south, they could clean up a huge swath of land. That area directly to the northeast (where you see the iron + wine resources) is the disputed zone to watch.



Imhotep: Temujin (Aggressive/Imperialistic) of the Zulus. There's not much to say about this trait pairing, other than max aggression from the start! Imperialistic gets the settlers out quickly, all of the melee units come out Aggressive, and Imhotep has impis to wreck havoc with anyone who gets in his way. Just what you would expect from someone who is approaching this game from a Multiplayer background! The contrast in style of play with the Single Player crowd should be entertaining to watch. Beyond the early game rush potential, Imhotep also gets the sneaky economic advantage of the Ikhanda, which is another one of the game's best unique buildings. Lots of potential here. I feel that this is another one of the best pairings in the game - you either play for economic advantage or go for military advantage, and while Imhotep is clearly doing the latter, he gets a bit of the former too! May be hurt a bit by everyone else and their mother being Creative, however.

Imhotep is the player who I moved halfway around the world to plug a large gap in the north in the eastern hemisphere. (There were no teams starting up there initially, and someone would have run wild in that part of the map.) This entire starting position is formed out of land that I filled in out of the sea to create a viable start. I pride myself on saying that it doesn't look any different from the naturally-created surroundings - I've even gotten down the habit of using the proper forests to disguise the edits almost completely! The initial start was going to be slightly SE, by the rice and wines, but that was a little too close to Ruff, so I shifted Imhotep to the current spot. In terms of neighbors, Ruff is the most important one, very close to the southeast. Krill is far to the east, and regoarrarr a ways off to the west. This is another one of those somewhat isolated spots where the team can grab a lot of the less-fertile edges of the map. Controlling the area just south of this start will be critical. Imhotep could potentially put a world of hurting on Ruff if he manages to do that, and chooses to go the aggression route.



sunrise: Mansa Musa (Financial/Spiritual) of Spain. I think that this is another one of the better pairings of leader and civ, if for reasons that don't immediately become obvious. I pretty much guess the strategy right away (use Spain on a lake + Financial to found a religion), which sunrise has explained in his own game thread in more detail. But beyond that, Mansa's traits are both excellent for any long-term game like this. Financial is always good in any cottage-cheeze friendly start, and... well, just look at those huge expanses of grassland! Spiritual is pretty much "the" trait for MP, since you can't afford to waste turns in Anarchy, and while it's less powerful in a non-Quick game like this one, I expect it will hold good value here as well. Meanwhile, Spain has an underrated unique unit and unique building, plus is the only civ that pretty much allows you to guarantee a religion at the outset of the game. Should sunrise succeed in his plan to grab one of the starting religions and build Stonehenge, he'll be well positioned to compete with all of the Creative civs without having to pick that trait himself.

The starting position is in the western hemisphere, on the opposite end of the large central continent from Dreylin. It's pretty much everything that a Financial leader could ever hope for, once the giant stretches of jungle are chopped down, anyway. regoarrarr is also quite close across the water to the east, and can be reached via a land bridge in the north, although I expect that there won't be too much contact between these two teams in the early game. And just to address one more point, the lake tile at sunrise's start was *NOT* added in by me. Scroll up and look at the initial unedited map, and you'll see a tiny little lake tile there as well, back before I had touched anything. I wasn't even paying attention to who was who at that point! So that was definitely not done on my part, and turned out to be a lucky coincidence for the Spain/Financial strategy.



Ruff: Kublai Khan (Aggressive/Creative) of Rome. This is another fun trait pairing, taking the power of Praetorians and adding Aggressive to them. (There was a brief period in testing where Caesar actually was Aggressive, Agg/Org if I remember correctly, and it was so horribly broken in MP that we had to change it.) Unfortunately, this probably isn't the best map for a Praetorian rush job, however everyone around Ruff will be afraid of that unit combo, and tread lightly during the Classical period. The Creative trait is less inspiring, but as they say, when in Rome, may as well take a Creative leader like everyone else, right?

Ruff's starting position is in a nexus of sorts, with expansion possibilities on all sides and yet opponents in every direct as well. Imhotep is directly north, mh directly south, and shadyforce is to the west. Only in the east is there "safe", uncontested land to be had. That's where I placed the iron, to ensure that Ruff has access to it. (This game would be no fun if Ruff didn't get his Aggressive Praetorians!) It's not too close though, he'll have to work a bit to get it. The direction in which Ruff beelines his early settlers will impact the game enormously in the eastern hemisphere. Enormously. If Ruff and Imhotep butt heads, then that leaves mh a chance to clean up huge stretches of ground, and vice versa. Watch the diplomacy over in this theatre, it should be exciting to see how it plays out.



ZPVCSPLFUIFDPEF: Washington (Charimatic/Expansive) of Carthage. Last but not least, the man with the unpronounceable name. I can't figure out this particular pairing. Charismatic and Expansive are both geared towards the early game, but then when that's over, what do you have exactly? I feel like there were better leaders out there for both a peaceful/economic or military/early aggression direction. Maybe ZPVCS sees something here that I don't... Carthage is similarly much weaker without Hannibal's Financial trait to help out. The Numidians are a rushing unit, yet this isn't much of a rushing map, and the map generator didn't spit out horses near the Carthaginian start. (I guess I could have placed some extra ones, but chose not to. There's one horses source that can be grabbed in the north, but too far away to be used in rushing someone.) And the cothon doesn't quite seem like the right unique building for this map. All in all, a confusing group here to me.

This start has an irrigated wheat tile, which is a very strong one, and designed to help make up for a slightly weaker position than some of the others. I had to do major editing work here, cleaning up the start, adding a lot of food bonuses, and changing plains/desert tiles into grassland ones. ZPVCS is in a unique starting position, halfway between the shadyforce/regoarrarr and sunrise/Dreylin continents. He can connect to the southern end of both of them, or alternately hop across the bay to the east and grab land from dsplaisted. I really have no idea which way he'll choose to go, but I'll enjoy watching it play out.

That sums it all up. The map is set and it can't be altered anymore, so I'll simply hope that it all works out as I planned and we get a good (and balanced!) game from everyone. I appreciate all comments and suggestions for improvement when the next one of these things rolls around. Until then, game on!

[sooooo]

Lakes map heyyy - haven't seen that one for a while. That's a nice resource editor you've found there.

I think the map favours the financial civs over those who chose "rushing" leaders. The starting positions are well-spaced and there is mucho grassland for some cottage cheese action.

I echo Sullla's incredulity that no one chose Elizabeth.

Still think Great Lighthouse will be awesome!

[Sullla]

I totally agree, sooooo. Of course, to be fair to the players, they couldn't know what map would be chosen ahead of time. But still, only two Financial civs out of 11 (!) players? Something really strange there.

No Elizabeth is hard to believe. (Elizabeth of Korea, with cheap seowans and getting to ditch Wang's lame Protective trait, is just crazy good.) And no Darius either!!! Pure craziness.

I'm glad you liked the Lakes map. I love finding new ways to fit the maps together. We've probably done more experimentation in that regard at RB than anyone else.

[T-hawk]

The Incan unique building is crazily unbalanced

Is it really? It's the same price and function as an Expansive granary plus an obelisk. It is like having another half-a-trait (either Creative or Expansive whichever way you look at it), but that can be said for lots of things in the game. Stonehenge is half Creative, the Zulu Ikhanda is Organized-lite, the Portuguese Feitoria simulates Financial, the Hanging Gardens is half-Expansive, the Quechua is like being Aggressive, the Rathaus is faux-Organized, the Roman Forum is mini-Philosophical...

Those is totally non-topical, but it's crazy that no one picked Darius of the Netherlands, or Elizabeth of Korea. Those are both utterly broken combos, and none of those civs or leaders were chosen!!!

I see the hyperbole machine is operating in fine form today. This reads like Starcraft commentary, where every race is brokenly overpowered and can't ever lose to any other.

Why is the Netherlands good? It's a blank until Steam Power. The East Indiaman is strictly situational and not hot on this map. Sure Darius is great, but wouldn't he want a civ with an earlier economic ability?

And if +10% science on a half-price renaissance building makes Elizabeth/Korea "utterly broken", then this game's balance standards are pretty fragile indeed...