Suggestions re. strategic resources, which combine fairness/balance with interest/variety:
- Move horses 4 (or maybe 5) tiles from all capitals, so that they are 1-third/30-40 percent towards the next capital clockwise. i.e. distance of horses from Nth capital is 0.3-0.4 times distance of N'th capital from (N+1)th capital
- Move copper 4 (or maybe 5) tiles from all capitals, so that they are 1-third/30-40 percent towards the next capital anticlockwise. i.e. distance of copper from Nth capital is 0.3-0.4 times distance of N'th capital from (N-1)th capital
- following the above, then horses are 1 city away from capital clockwise and copper is 1 city away anticlockwise from each capital, ensuring that everyone will have at least one strategic resource. Plus fairness/symmetry. Civs are pretty much guaranteed both strategic resources (copper+horse) if they strategize for it (scouting + research resource-revealing techs + choose to settle the relevant place), but can be denied by civ (N+1) or (N-1) if they delay this too long, which is as it should be...
- Also note that N's horses are 3-5 tiles, or 1 city away from (N+1)'s copper. Providing interesting opportunities for diplomacy, or for conflict with aggressive settling...
- Also note that N's copper is 3-5 tiles or 1 city away from (N-1)'s horses. Providing interesting opportunities for diplomacy or for aggressive settling...
- Put iron one city away from capital, possibly on the island across the water from the capital.
- No-one should have horses/copper/iron in their capital city. Giving some of these resources at some capitals but not other capitals introduces too much chance (If these resources are at capitals then people get the resource at no real cost for exploration/settling/tech-revealing). But if each of these resources are one city away from the capital then everyone can get all 3, but it is strategy rather than chance/luck.
- at least one extra strategic military resource on each civ's island to allow trading to the desperate
- Symmetric.
- instead of deleting resources, swap them for another one? e.g swap all gold on the starting donut to gems. Swapping between gold/silver/gems allows clustering (for interesting trading/diplo) without changing balance.
- Put the gold/silver in contested places equally accessible to all - e.g. gold in the island in the centre of the donut, silver in the food-poor central islands of the island area. Do this by swapping between gold/silver/gems/other-equivalent
- I like that the map has some clustering of resources on the islands, since this allows trading.
- In the inner water circle between the donut and the centre island, there are 9 water food resources in the southern half but only 4 in the northern half.
- I like a great deal the idea of giving everyone a galley to start with, to allow early scouting of the islands, which encourages their settlement. I playtested having a galley, and it doesn't reveal the donut nature of the map earlier (unless you stick to the outer coast of the ring, which isn't possible without open borders or cooperative war declarations), and is actually pretty disorientating wrt to the map's nature. It would allow teams far apart on the donut to meet a little sooner, allowing for earlier diplomacy (which make things more interesting), and the island scouting 30 turns earlier than you would usually be able to do it also makes the first turns more interesting. So I think that having a starting galley would make the starting 30 turns a great deal more interesting wrt scouting/diplo than shuffling your warrior/scout one tile per day.
- I don't think it is unbalancing to allow island colonization more easily. But my main concern re. balance is superearly amphibious attacks of empty capitals when there has not been enough time in the game to build a warrior or two. e.g. hide your starting warrior on the boat and sail to next door's capital which is empty or defended by its starting scout. I doubt anyone would do this, but they could... Allowing otherwise impossible amphibious attacks on capitals in the 1st 20 turns by providing a galley could change the game dynamics. But I do like a great deal the idea of a starting galley to make the 1st 30 turns more interesting wrt scouting/diplo, and to facilitate island settling.
- Move horses 4 (or maybe 5) tiles from all capitals, so that they are 1-third/30-40 percent towards the next capital clockwise. i.e. distance of horses from Nth capital is 0.3-0.4 times distance of N'th capital from (N+1)th capital
- Move copper 4 (or maybe 5) tiles from all capitals, so that they are 1-third/30-40 percent towards the next capital anticlockwise. i.e. distance of copper from Nth capital is 0.3-0.4 times distance of N'th capital from (N-1)th capital
- following the above, then horses are 1 city away from capital clockwise and copper is 1 city away anticlockwise from each capital, ensuring that everyone will have at least one strategic resource. Plus fairness/symmetry. Civs are pretty much guaranteed both strategic resources (copper+horse) if they strategize for it (scouting + research resource-revealing techs + choose to settle the relevant place), but can be denied by civ (N+1) or (N-1) if they delay this too long, which is as it should be...
- Also note that N's horses are 3-5 tiles, or 1 city away from (N+1)'s copper. Providing interesting opportunities for diplomacy, or for conflict with aggressive settling...
- Also note that N's copper is 3-5 tiles or 1 city away from (N-1)'s horses. Providing interesting opportunities for diplomacy or for aggressive settling...
- Put iron one city away from capital, possibly on the island across the water from the capital.
- No-one should have horses/copper/iron in their capital city. Giving some of these resources at some capitals but not other capitals introduces too much chance (If these resources are at capitals then people get the resource at no real cost for exploration/settling/tech-revealing). But if each of these resources are one city away from the capital then everyone can get all 3, but it is strategy rather than chance/luck.
- at least one extra strategic military resource on each civ's island to allow trading to the desperate
- Symmetric.
- instead of deleting resources, swap them for another one? e.g swap all gold on the starting donut to gems. Swapping between gold/silver/gems allows clustering (for interesting trading/diplo) without changing balance.
- Put the gold/silver in contested places equally accessible to all - e.g. gold in the island in the centre of the donut, silver in the food-poor central islands of the island area. Do this by swapping between gold/silver/gems/other-equivalent
- I like that the map has some clustering of resources on the islands, since this allows trading.
- In the inner water circle between the donut and the centre island, there are 9 water food resources in the southern half but only 4 in the northern half.
- I like a great deal the idea of giving everyone a galley to start with, to allow early scouting of the islands, which encourages their settlement. I playtested having a galley, and it doesn't reveal the donut nature of the map earlier (unless you stick to the outer coast of the ring, which isn't possible without open borders or cooperative war declarations), and is actually pretty disorientating wrt to the map's nature. It would allow teams far apart on the donut to meet a little sooner, allowing for earlier diplomacy (which make things more interesting), and the island scouting 30 turns earlier than you would usually be able to do it also makes the first turns more interesting. So I think that having a starting galley would make the starting 30 turns a great deal more interesting wrt scouting/diplo than shuffling your warrior/scout one tile per day.
- I don't think it is unbalancing to allow island colonization more easily. But my main concern re. balance is superearly amphibious attacks of empty capitals when there has not been enough time in the game to build a warrior or two. e.g. hide your starting warrior on the boat and sail to next door's capital which is empty or defended by its starting scout. I doubt anyone would do this, but they could... Allowing otherwise impossible amphibious attacks on capitals in the 1st 20 turns by providing a galley could change the game dynamics. But I do like a great deal the idea of a starting galley to make the 1st 30 turns more interesting wrt scouting/diplo, and to facilitate island settling.