The Broken Drum - Lurker's Thread

[Square Leg]

All those in FFH2PBEMIV get out!

Everyone else - enjoy some fine (ahem) beer (ahem)...

[Square Leg]

I will be posting shots of the map here once I start it for comment although there isn't too much to say at the moment and some features may have to be based on the leaders/civs that are picked.

One idea I have it creating a world where the only way to meet other players is if you encroach a little on where Acheron is placed. A classic [SIZE="7"]*[/SIZE] shaped map with Acheron placed in the middle. Ideally there would be room to pass by without enraging the timid fellow but it would just add a little bit of fun to the centre of the map.

I had toyed with making it impossible for people to meet without entering into the culture of Archeron's barb city and I still might do this. One thing that has not been done in any of the games here at RB is an isolated start. Everyone meets in the early game and often games are over before some of the mid game techs get used properly. It will be a real test of skill to get your civ ready for contact once you realise that you are isolated. TBH though this would work best in normal BTS where there isn't a vast difference between nations but in the world of ffh an isolated start for the Divello is slightly different to one for the Ljolsofar.

With that in mind I would like to offer a slightly later contact point in this map. Something else to consider is that settlers are not allowed and so I am going to be pre-placing some barb cities. This will undoubtedly slow expansion and scouting and so perhaps I can achieve the "no contact until later" I desire by careful placement of these cities.

Lets see what the snake picks are and then I'll have a stab at the map!

[haphazard1]

The delayed contact is an interesting idea, SquareLeg. Not true isolation, but with the player having to make an effort to get contact by running a gauntlet of obstacles and barbs. (More than the FFH usual, I mean.)

What about contact by water, if you use the star formation with Acheron at the hub? None of the FFH games so far have really emphasized naval units, although 2 and 3 may eventually see more with the Lanun involved. But with full contact by land in all of 1, 2, and 3 the naval techs are more of an afterthought.

[Irgy]

Looking forward to lurking this! Some interesting ideas for the map. I like the idea that they'll have to either run past Acheron or sneak around on the coast to make contact. Isolated is probably going too far, it will make half the game like a slow single-player. But late contact is fine.

I'm not sure who I'm going for. I want the Clan to do well because I disagree with Selrahc's analysis of Rantine being underwhelming, and there's nothing better than being proved right (well ok there's a few things but it's still pretty good). But what is up with the no-settler expansive leader? It's a shame he couldn't pick Hyborem if he wanted spiritual and barbarian

However I also had a big winge about a human-human Basium team in the planning for RBFFH2PBEM3, and Selrahc is planning a run on exactly that. I'd love to see that work for him for the same reasons as wanting the clan to dominate early.

Lets see what the snake picks are and then I'll have a stab at the map!

It seems like the wrong philosophy to me to base the map on what people pick, it should be independant. Otherwise you could be introducing a bias when you should be neutral. Not trying to say there's a problem here, just this comment struck me as odd from my philosophical perspective.

[haphazard1]

It seems like the wrong philosophy to me to base the map on what people pick, it should be independant. Otherwise you could be introducing a bias when you should be neutral. Not trying to say there's a problem here, just this comment struck me as odd from my philosophical perspective.

I tried to stick with this philosophy when preparing the map for FFH2 PBEM3 -- I did not read any of the player threads until after I finished and submitted the map, in case someone's planned strategy would bias me about their start. I did know which civs/leaders were picked, obviously, and this was important since the Erebus Continents map script creates "flavored" starts by civ.

But for this game, SquareLeg may want the additional knowledge. The players specifically wanted a "spicy" game with things significantly changed from the base FFH2 experience. Stacking the odds with the map is part of that set up.

[Mist]

What about contact by water, if you use the star formation with Acheron at the hub? None of the FFH games so far have really emphasized naval units, although 2 and 3 may eventually see more with the Lanun involved. But with full contact by land in all of 1, 2, and 3 the naval techs are more of an afterthought.

There are two problems with no land contact in FFH. First one is called Lanun second one is Octopus Overlords. A map where navy is obligatory makes Overlords a magnitude better and every other religion a magnitude worse. If you really wanted navies in play, smaller offshore landmasses might be a solution.

Anyway. Square Leg could you mail me the initial save once you're done? It would be much easier to start the tracker this way without all the shakiness demonstrated on turn 0 in pbem3. Alternative would be to send it directly to the tracker but PM me your email and the filename beforehand so I can set the forwarding to the first player. Thanks.

[Square Leg]

Thanks for the comments guys.

So the picks are:

Dantski = Cassiel of the Svartalfar
Sciz = Dain of the Grigori
Ichabod = Jonas of the Clan
Selrahc = Kandros Fir of the Sheaim
Ravus Sol = Van Gosan of the Illians

I wanted to see them first mainly in hope that the Launan weren't picked! and they weren't! So the plan will be to have Acheron in the centre and there will be a reasonable amount of land to trapse through before reaching Acheron's lair.

After reading the comments above I think the best solution is to leave enough room for the players to get past Acheron, but they will need to be careful from his elemental spawns.

Some notes on the barb cities I am going to place:

Does anyone have any feel about what the defences should be? My inclination is to have 2 cities within early warrior rush reach for everyone. These cities will hold good calendar resources and make for good commerce cities. Each start area is going to lack commerce in the form of bonuses, but have rivers and hills. This will mean that producing enough warriors to take down the city will be easy. The Clan will have to get the cities with Rantine (sp?) but if you choose the clan - thats what you have to do.

I plan on putting a warrior in each city with the "Held" promotion. The cities that are further away with have "Held" archers instead.

The players will have access to 1 mana node and then another 2 once they capture the next round of barb cities.

Perhaps someone can help me out with a couple of questions:

Do barbs fog bust? I was under the impression they did and so if I start placing barb cities everywhere there aren't going to be too many spawns of animals etc... One solution might be to place a few animals in Acherons city?

Will the barbs start building Archers straight away? In BTS I know that the barbs start building archers at higher difficulty levels (something to do with the number of cities on the map or how many people know the Archery tech?)

Unique features: I plan on putting a few on but are there any in particular (apart from the big 3) that anyone has any particular comments on?

Anyway. Square Leg could you mail me the initial save once you're done? It would be much easier to start the tracker this way without all the shakiness demonstrated on turn 0 in pbem3. Alternative would be to send it directly to the tracker but PM me your email and the filename beforehand so I can set the forwarding to the first player. Thanks.

yes - of course - PM me your email and I'll send it to you once it is ready.

[Mist]

Does anyone have any feel about what the defences should be?

Very easy city - warrior garrison
Easy city - warriors on a hill, archers on flat/desert
Moderate city - mixed archers / axes
Hard city - swords or longbows

Perhaps someone can help me out with a couple of questions:

Do barbs fog bust? I was under the impression they did and so if I start placing barb cities everywhere there aren't going to be too many spawns of animals etc...

Yup. Plenty of barbs means no animals. Maybe throw in patches of desert/jungle? Barb cities and units don't spawn there often and it would make for a nice animal breeding ground.

Will the barbs start building Archers straight away? In BTS I know that the barbs start building archers at higher difficulty levels (something to do with the number of cities on the map or how many people know the Archery tech?)

No, barb cities spawn with archers but initially build only warriors. I think you're right and certain ( all? ) number of civs need to know archery for them to build archers.

Unique features: I plan on putting a few on but are there any in particular (apart from the big 3) that anyone has any particular comments on?

There are six that provide mana : Letum, Stones, Mirror, Pyre, Sepulcher and Tomb. Stones, Mirror and Tomb also give happy to cities having them in BFC. If you plan on placing these six it might be worth putting a moderate level held guardian on 4 good ones to counterbalance the risk of having either of the bad two in the neighbourhood.
If you put Odio's near to Acherons city, it'll be much harder to conquer :]

yes - of course - PM me your email and I'll send it to you once it is ready.

mistbinder [att] gmail [dot] com

Thank you

[Square Leg]

Very easy city - warrior garrison
Easy city - warriors on a hill, archers on flat/desert
Moderate city - mixed archers / axes
Hard city - swords or longbows

Agreed. Must remember to hold these unit's in place so they don't go wandering off attacking the players.

No, barb cities spawn with archers but initially build only warriors. I think you're right and certain ( all? ) number of civs need to know archery for them to build archers.

I was worried that if I place a barb city with 2 held warriors in it, the city would then build 2 archers before making a raiding party and thus make the city pretty hard to capture.

There are six that provide mana : Letum, Stones, Mirror, Pyre, Sepulcher and Tomb. Stones, Mirror and Tomb also give happy to cities having them in BFC. If you plan on placing these six it might be worth putting a moderate level held guardian on 4 good ones to counterbalance the risk of having either of the bad two in the neighbourhood.
If you put Odio's near to Acherons city, it'll be much harder to conquer :]

and we have 5 players... so each will get one. Now who gets what...

First question I think I know the answer to but someone to back me up would be cool: Is the aggressive bonus gained by entering LF linked to the Illians, or Auric. I am pretty certain it is the Illians and so if I place LF near his start he will get the aggressive bonus... That would be too overpowering so of the 6 that provide mana, LF will be left out. That leaves:

Standing Stones: Earth Mana (+1 Happy)
Sepulcher: Death Mana (Super lair)
Tomb of Seccullus: Life Mana (+1 happy)
Mirror of Heaven: Sun Mana (+1 happy)
Pyre: Fire Mana (super lair)

Ok - so who gets what? Man - this is difficult... Well for a start, none of the features should be reachable before capturing a city or 2. Here is a stab:

Clan of Embers: Pyre of the Seraphic
Sheaim: Broken Spulchur
Grigori: Mirror of Heaven (It will be in range of a city also for the +3h and happy)
Svartalfar: Standing Stones (it will be in range for the +1 Happy)
Illians: Tomb of Succellus (it will be in range for the +1 Happy)

Is this too powerful for the Sheaim? Or maybe even the Illians? Maybe none of these whould be on the map?

[Irgy]

if I place LF near his start he will get the aggressive bonus... That would be too overpowering so of the 6 that provide mana, LF will be left out.

...

Here is a stab:

Clan of Embers: Pyre of the Seraphic
Sheaim: Broken Spulchur
Grigori: Mirror of Heaven (It will be in range of a city also for the +3h and happy)
Svartalfar: Standing Stones (it will be in range for the +1 Happy)
Illians: Tomb of Succellus (it will be in range for the +1 Happy)

Is this too powerful for the Sheaim? Or maybe even the Illians? Maybe none of these whould be on the map?

See, this is the sort of thing I meant before. I'd have thought the starting locations should be assigned to players at random, and they get whichever mana they get.

The Illians should have a right to at least a small chance of finding LF, it's part of the reason for choosing them in the first place. Ok it would be unfair to everyone else to specifically give it to them, but it seems unfair also to specifically leave it off the map because the Illians have been picked.

I similarly feel sorry for the Lanun, who it seems are always denied any chance of being lucky enough to get a highly water dependant map.

Now if you really really know what you're doing, this sort of approach is fine, and you can give them a nice, hand balanced map. Random is always fair beforehand but can be unbalanced once the dice have been rolled. It might be fairer in principle to allow some chance of the Lanun getting a water map, but it will make for a lame game when it happens. So I'm not saying you absolutely shouldn't do it this way, or do some parts of it this way.

But you're definately opening yourself up to the risk of players coming in here afterwards and whining about the fact that some other team got given a better mana item than they did. Or the Illians whining that LF was left off the map. And so on.

Anyway, just making my point. You can agree or disagree as you like, and it's your map to make. Just explaining why it's not how I'd have gone about it is all.