RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Krill]

Advantage of putting corn on the outer isles is that if there are no sources of fresh water it'll only be 5 food until Bio. Now, that's nice and all, but I'd normally view that as a good enough reason to put corn on the inner isle, far away from any sources of irrigation. Hence they have to settle a large chunk of land including the fresh water, or they have to diplomaticallly work a way of getting the fresh water. Putting pigs on the outer isles means that you could just replace the deer/crabs with them, so the outer isles maye end up getting an extra 2 fpt/island, which isn't much.

OTOH I don't know how to balance gems. If furs were given at every start though, you could do it so that gems are rare and only on the outer isles (on grasslands because the outer bit looks food poor), silver is on the habitat ring, and gold is on the centre (which looks more food rich but has limited space and 10 players vying for the land, especially if there is corn over there), and maybe keep the gold and gems limited to about 5-7 sources, and the silver more plentiful

EDIT: OK, just got mapview to work as I don;t have CIV. (For those of you that don't know, mapview is a standalone map editor for CIV. It's very powerful, and I suggest you use it if ever doing massive scenario design, as it allows copy paste).

Problems with the map, as I see it:

1. Bottom right/top left, island is all plains with 1 crab. Should be given something elseto use, like another crab on the other side of the island? It looks like there is space there for 2 cities, so want to make it an option to use 1 with 2 food res or plant 2 less good cities.
   
   
   
2. SW, 2 tile plains island...pretty naff isle, maybe give it a plains cow/grass cow? Or maaybe that is a good candidate for a gems isle, 1 grassland gems and 1 plains....
   
   
   
3. Players 2, 3, 8, have no accessible coal, and 6 and 7 have 1 to fight over between them. On the same note, might want to move one oil slightly close to player 7, specifically the one to the NE of the start, by a tile or two. (Coastal oil is pretty much useless, and impossible to defend, not comparable to land based sources). Other option is to make coal sparse on the habitat ring, but roughly distant between players, then place the rest on the islands. Also, Oil can be made to be just coastal if you want. That's always a little bit iffy, but it's "balanced" if everyone has to deal with the same problem.
   
   
   
4. On the same note, might want to move one oil slightly close to player 7, specifically the one to the NE of the start, by a tile or two. Coastal oil is pretty much useless, and impossible to defend, not comparable to land based sources. However, Oil can be made to be just coastal if you want. That's always a little bit iffy, but it's "balanced" if everyone has to deal with the same problem.
   
   
   
5. 1 uranium resource between 7 and 8, 1 between 8 and 9 whereas everyone else has their own. Same problem as above really.
   
   
   
6. If you do decide to add in the removed resources, I'd say just convert the rice on the inner continent to corns and add one to the north of the isle, and make it so players have to irrigate atleast 5 tiles to irrigate the corn. This might mean that some of hte inner lakes need filling up. Removing food and replacing with pigs on the outer isles also keeps it pretty solid.
   
   
   
7. Not all islands are balanced, some have sources of fresh water and others don't, and that's a little harsh. You could add small lakes to the 2 islands at the North/South border, and the one in the NE next to player 1 to balance that. It's not just irrigatingh te food, but hte ability to irrigate the entire island whereas the worse off islands are stuck growing off of just the food res is a big kick in the teeth.

The stone and marble look decent as well, not "perfect" placements between players, but solid for map balance purposes.

Nice looking map that isn't a chessboard, I like it alot :b: