[SPOILERS] Team Orgynized: Parkin/Arki/Magno embark on a kinky adventure

[Lord Parkin]

So the game begins!

Our finalized start:

Compared to the screenshot Plako provided, I see only one difference - a coastal tile 3W-1N of the Settler turned into a land (desert?) tile.

After moving the Scout 1NE-1NW as discussed:

Now the question is, settle in place or 1N?

Benefits of settling 1N:

• 1 extra grassland hill.
  
• 1 riverside tile gained.
  
• Same number of forests in both 2nd and 3rd ring compared to settling in place, but one is easier to reach (not on the other side of some coast).

Drawbacks of settling 1N:

• 1 lost Worker turn due to extra distance to Sheep.
  
• Extremely low health cap of *3* after chopping all forests (5 after roading Deer and Sheep), vs health cap of 6 settling in place (7 after roading Deer). Extra worker turns required to road health resources early on.

From that I'm inclined to settle in place - the extra hill from settling 1N can't be used for some time, and the drawback of the lost health (no river and no auto-connected Sheep) is probably more significant than the minor tile gains. Any thoughts before we make the final decision?

[Dp101]

Settle in place, the map was probably designed for it.

[WilliamLP]

The scout move was about as uncompelling as could be so I think settling in place is better.

I'm interested in the parallel universe if we hadn't picked fishing, and settle 1W, but I definitely don't think we should have done that.

Any meta-game knowledge we have about the kind of map? What's the land tile count? Can you infer the percentage of water in the world based on map dimensions somehow? I'm wondering if we're looking at a pseudo-continental map like PB8 or a land clump with lake boundaries and chokepoints, or something else.

How much C&D do you plan on doing for this game?

[Lord Parkin]

Here's an analysis based on the total number of land tiles, which can be found by mousing over your name on the scoreboard in any game (it says something like "Land: 0/x", where x is the number of land tiles on the map).

Total land tile count = 2176
Average land tiles per player = 217.6

This is quite a lot - not quite as much as Pitboss 4 which had 243.5 land tiles on average per player (2435 in total), but much more than Pitboss 7 which had 164.8 land tiles on average per player (2967 in total).

Total number of tiles

• Assuming 10% water = 2176/0.9 = 2418
  
• 20% water = 2176/0.8 = 2720
  
• 30% water = 2176/0.7 = 3109
  
• 40% water = 2176/0.6 = 3626
  
• 50% water = 2176/0.5 = 4352
  
• 60% water = 2176/0.4 = 5440
  
• 70% water = 2176/0.3 = 7253

Given the description of "Water: Enough to make sea-faring relevant", I wouldn't expect any more than 70% water. Also the total map size and average distance between civs would be getting rather large at that point - see below.

Possible map dimensions

Typical horizontal:vertical length ratio on a map = 1.6:1

Vertical dimension

• Assuming 10% water = (2418/1.6)^0.5 = 39
  
• 20% water = (2720/1.6)^0.5 = 41
  
• 30% water = (3109/1.6)^0.5 = 44
  
• 40% water = (3626/1.6)^0.5 = 48
  
• 50% water = (4352/1.6)^0.5 = 52
  
• 60% water = (5440/1.6)^0.5 = 58
  
• 70% water = (7253/1.6)^0.5 = 67

Overall dimensions

Multiply result from vertical dimension by 1.6 to get the horizontal dimension.

• Assuming 10% water = 62 x 39
  
• 20% water = 66 x 41
  
• 30% water = 71 x 44
  
• 40% water = 76 x 48
  
• 50% water = 83 x 52
  
• 60% water = 93 x 58
  
• 70% water = 108 x 67

Average distance between neighbours

There are only a few ways to lay out a balanced map with 10 players. I actually analysed this in detail in Pitboss 4, which happened to have exactly the same number of players as this game. (Unfortunately some of the formatting seems to have been corrupted since the forum switch, but the general ideas are hopefully clear.) Basically you can do some form of a ring or circle, or divide into strips of 5 x 2. Any other arrangement either results in unequal distances between civs or some civs with more neighbours than others - in both cases leading to an unfair situation. Technicallly you can also do a single strip of 10 x 1, but that leads to extremely close capitals.

So let's make the simplifying assumption that we're dealing with a 5x2 layout like Pitboss 4, with the rows of 5 spaced along the longer map dimension, which approximately maximises the distance between nearest neighbours. Then we get the following roughly expected distances between nearest neighbours:

• Assuming 10% water = 62/5 = 12.4
  
• 20% water = 66/5 = 13.2
  
• 30% water = 71/5 = 14.2
  
• 40% water = 76/5 = 15.2
  
• 50% water = 83/5 = 16.6
  
• 60% water = 93/5 = 18.6
  
• 70% water = 107/5 = 21.4

Any more than 20 or so tiles between nearest neighbours leads to an overly insular game (think Pitboss 4 with even more room). Less than a dozen or so tiles between nearest neighbours results in an overly cramped game where early wars are pretty much inevitable (like Pitboss 7).

So from all that, I'd expect we have somewhere around 30-60% water on this map, dimensions around 80 x 50 (+/- 10 x 5), distance between nearest neighbours of about 16 (+/- 2), and total tiles around 4000 (+/- 1000). That's assuming the design specifications of "Contact: capitals quite far from each other" and "Water: Enough to make sea-faring relevant" were roughly adhered to.

[Lord Parkin]

Any meta-game knowledge we have about the kind of map? What's the land tile count? Can you infer the percentage of water in the world based on map dimensions somehow?

Map dimensions are not necessarily the defaults according to Plako, the "Large" size is only relevant for maintenance calculations. Hence why I didn't assume dimensions in the post above.

By the way, average rival land area is 4888... seems everyone else that's settled so far had a coastal start, as expected.

[antisocialmunky]

Settle in place, looks like there's a water tile and hill/mountain in the extreme southwest.

[Lord Parkin]

My reaction to the story thread...

[WilliamLP]

Total land tile count = 2176
Average land tiles per player = 217.6

I actually remember your analysis of symmetrical graph configurations for 10 players from PB4! It was pretty cool. I don't think a mapmaker would be bound to such symmetry though. Something like this is possible to balance, given the land around it.

_X_X_X_
X_X_X_X
_X_X_X_

My dumb and mostly wrong back of the envelop analysis:

A circle of radius 8.5 has an area about 227. Radius 7.5 is area about 177. So an estimate of our "fair" land is a reaching about 8 tiles from the capital orthogonally, and maybe 6 tiles diagonally. Lots of factors make this wrong; islands, and also starting on the coast means the fair land (based only on land tiles) stretches farther than a circle. Still, this analysis would suggest our closest neighbour "should" be about 16-17 tiles away by radius, or 12-17 by tile moves.

Also: I don't know it, but I thought there was some trick to reveal the map dimensions in game? Something like using the go-to function and seeing where the suggested path switches from east to west? I've never done this, just heard of it.

[WilliamLP]

My reaction to the story thread...

I don't understand the story thread at all! Have fun doing roleplaying diplo with Maga_R.

Also why is that thread rated R while ours is PG-13 at best?

[Magno_uy]

I also vote for getting the capital just there!