https://kotaku.com/googles-deepmind-ai-j...1832034863

Maybe Civ next?

We need a replacement player for PBEM 14. Australia Turn is 48 so still early game.

Is there any interest in playing on an earth map? Such as https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/e...it.344739/ ?

Ive always wanted to play on an earth map with a ton of people, however ill settle for just a couple

I got back to com after some months away. Happy to see updates still going strong. Started with life+sorcery halflings and no major revamps seen so far, though life buffs altered a bit.

Bless seems to longer work against ranged but should against fireball? Somehow elite halfling magicians with bless endurance holyarmor take surprising damage from fireball...

Just cause is strong whereas heavenly light not. always thought the unrest reduction should maybe be on heavenly light?

So as some may have noticed I want to get into the business of mapmaking. I already started the tutorial thread, which is to adress general topics. In this thread I want to document my first attempts at creating a MP map. The reason for this extra thread is very simple. I imagine that it will take a bit of time to get used to the tools, the workflow, how much time I need for one etc. So to not bore any potential players, because I take so long to create a map, I first want to create a map for some fictional PB settings. So here are the settings I want to use for the map:

8 players
Difficulty: Monarch
Era: Ancient
Vassals, Events, Huts: Off
Barbs: On
All players on the same landmass
Map size: Standard
Resources: Lush
Wrap: TBD
Map created from Scratch

Here is the workflow I've come up for

1. Concept general appearance of the map (landform, where islands are, player startlocations, distance between players)
   
2. Create the base terrain
   
3. Create player BFCs
   
4. Place resources
   
5. Check Balance and adjust map
   

It's been awhile. Any interest out there in a little werewolf? I don't have anything specific in mind currently, but I've got the itch to become a crazy person again for some reason. Open to suggestions if anyone wants to go for something high-concept, otherwise I was just thinking a pretty vanilla game.

As we've seen in Sapher's latest game, undead creation is still a very powerful game mechanic that can basically win games on its own at the common tier.
The formula is fairly simple - enter combat with a cheap, worthless unit against smaller armies of AI wizards. Use undead creation spells to kill the stack, and raise them as undead. It doesn't matter if you lose your original unit. 
Then you can have the undead act as the next cheap unit to do it again. Even if there are occasional stronger enemy stacks, the extra undead you raise in battles where you only lose a swordsmen and get 3-4 of them or even something like Nagas or bears out of it, will be enough to fight off those larger stacks. So the strategy can work on its own as long as you can afford the combat spell costs, which is trivial with Chaneller. You don't actually need to cast overland spells either, so you can dedicate your full mana and even gold income on spellcasting.

Basically, it achieves the "zero cost battle" scenario - in units the cost is indeed zero in fact you make more units than you spend, and the mana cost are quite affordable.

It's fairly obvious if we look at the numbers : Life Drain cost 10 mana crystals but will convert more than 50% of a unit of Swordsmen or even Sprites - a value of 25 to 80. Still, Life Drain is not so bad - Zombies are a lot more powerful. A single zombie, with cloak of fear or wraith form, can convert up to 9 swordsmen tier units - for a cost of 30 you get 200 value in units.
These spells are mostly balanced without Chaneller - you have to pay double mana on average for them. There are a few, rare cases where they are still extremely good and produce a significant net gain (like those 8 swordsmen armies or lone sprites) but on most battles they at least not better than breaking even, basically being equivalent to buying the same units for gold.

I'm not sure what can be done but it seems clear Chaneller breaks the balance of undead creation. Maybe the higher maintenance on undead fantastic creatures could help? I'm not sure, it's fairly easy to make those the "victims" for making the attacks and accumulate only the normal units as the actual gained forces. Actually no, Chaneller halves the maintenance so that wouldn't work exactly for the case we need to fix.

Maybe if undead had 1 lower movement than normal units? The turns it takes for those undead to reach the next enemy target is what defines how fast this strategy is, so it could be relevant while still being somewhat on theme - undead being slow both physically and mentally is fairly common.

Still, it doesn't seem to be as bad as what we usually see in Sapher's games, so maybe we can overlook this one? It even has a counter - Death wizards, whose summons are generally immune to being raised or drained and who can cast Weakness on zombies rendering them useless. The strategy isn't that great against life either, as buffed units can be too hard for zombies to swallow. It's mostly effective against Sorcery, Chaos and Nature AIs. Walls of Fire seem to also put a halt to zombies converting units, but everything outside cities are still vulnerable. Specifically having the fast and durable lizardmen swordsmen seems also required for this strategy to work at least until enough undead are created to let them carry the strategy on their own.

Hi:

I thoroughly enjoyed the PB39 map.  I found it to be fairly balanced and intriguing.  While your mileage may vary, I think it may make a fun, replayable, multiplayer map. 

My proposal is to have a 2v2v2v2 game set on the same map.  I imagine that strat, and possibly other, resources could be randomized if necessary to affect map balance.   

Thoughts?

If your eyes do wander here...

Settings-

AI Diplo - real trade offers only with fish/fish and copper/copper style deals allowed.
Toroidal wrap. Balanced map but not mirrored. Give everyone a chance to win at t0. Leave everything else to the map maker.
Random rolls of leaders/civs. Ban on Agg/Pro

Normal RB rules of no-dickery.

Players-
Elkad
JR4
wetbandit
Superdeath
Donovan Zoi
Boldly Going Nowhere/Mr. Cairo
Cornflakes

7 players, Charriu/Commodore made map. Who will win?

PBSpy-Overview page: http://civ.zulan.net/pbspy/game/76/
Server url: pb.zulan.net:2043
Mod version: https://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/show...#pid703171