[SPOILERS] By the Rivers of Babylon, FIN has no effect (on krovice)

[fluffyflyingpig]

hammerhammerhammerhammerhammerhammer

[Krill]

Not likely. Stupid map design stops most relevant wars from occurring.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Bah humbug. Fewer excuses, more hammering.

[Ceiliazul]

Not likely. Stupid map design stops most relevant wars from occurring.

What are relevant wars? Seems like plenty of food are finding good reasons for fighting...

[Krill]

Wars between FinHarry and Azza, between BGN and Q: Irrelevant, that's micromanagement.

Wars on Williams continent: Irrelevant, that continent has no bearing on who wins.

TBS v Dazed: Even if Dazed deleted his units and gifted cities to TBS, he is still something like 10K beakers down on us with fewer cities, crop yield, and breakeven bpt, and is just across a few water tiles so theoretically a viable target for dtay...so no, that war is not relevant either.

Plako's continent? Same issue.

Only wars that matter involve FinHarry, dtay and ourselves...and maybe how quickly BGN can take over his continent if he also plans to take iover his northern continent (at that point he would probably be able to just steam roll people). In other words, what matters is how dtay is slowed down so his main competitor not involved in the war can grow at teh end of the pointy stick.

[Krill]

[Ceiliazul]

Only wars that matter involve FinHarry, dtay and ourselves...and maybe how quickly BGN can take over his continent

How is map design keeping those wars from happening?

Im not arguing that you should declare war, but I dont see how the map design is stopping those particular wars from happening.

[Krill]

Was going to reply tonight, can't cos just got back from work and need to be back there in 6 hours.

novice I think I should be able to get this turn fine Monday evening, but just a heads up that tomorrow might actually be worse for me.

[fluffyflyingpig]

Only wars that matter involve FinHarry, dtay and ourselves...and maybe how quickly BGN can take over his continent

How is map design keeping those wars from happening?

Im not arguing that you should declare war, but I dont see how the map design is stopping those particular wars from happening.

Fine. Then I'll argue you should declare war. Lurkers demand blood!

[Krill]

Only wars that matter involve FinHarry, dtay and ourselves...and maybe how quickly BGN can take over his continent

How is map design keeping those wars from happening?

Im not arguing that you should declare war, but I don't see how the map design is stopping those particular wars from happening.

I'm going to start from the assertion that warfare exists as a method of increasing economic output, as opposed to it as a method of winning the game. Obviously if you can kill everyone in the game it's irrelevant if economic output increases or decreases, but we aren't at the point where one player can kill every person on the map just yet.

So if warfare exists of increasing hpt and bpt, then it is always going to compete with building settlers and building city improvements....and maybe building workers, but that's making the issue more complex than it needs to be for this argument.

This map is essentially a continents map, with 10 continents, some with what looks like mainly 3-4 members continents. Warfare involving conflict over water has a higher hammer cost, due to the need to not only build military units to capture cities, but a navy to transport it. The increased costs of the navy therefore shifts the balance towards settling the starting continent before attacking a player on a separate continent, compared to another opponent on the starting continent.

At this stage of the game, with there being no more land available to settle, the options come down to growing cities to work all tiles (whatever happens) and then building units or city improvements, and the effectiveness of each has a lot of variables. But the requirement to build a navy to transport units to other continents locks a lot of players into focussing on their local, land based neighbours as a potential avenue for growth. The only people that can afford that additional cost are those players that have a decent tech edge (can afford Astro) and a good production edge (can afford the upfront investment in boats).

Why do I think this makes the map bad? This is part of the reason continent maps were rarely played back in the day, and land based maps were preferred: making warfare a more cost effective method of growth increases player interaction. This is why I hold that Torusworld is the single best map script that exists for Civ 4.

There is another way to look at my original statement, regarding Torus versus Cylidrical, but that's simpler to explain: It makes it fairer for each player to have to defend multiple fronts, along the the cost implications.

Personally, I don't like this map because of these two issues. The difference between the starts and the topography of the islands themselves? Meh, that's something I accept. Some people having plains hill starts and some not? Well, that's why I intend to introduce that 2 hammer capital change to RtR, why bitch about something I can change.