Furthermore, I can always make it so that one city can't block off the start of an island chain, it;s not just going to be 1 tile wide islands all along the mini island chain.
And keep in mind, those continent circles are probably smaller in that picture than I can make them, the players asked for a map with lots of room, 200 tiles a player or so, so the circles will be closer, but still only connected by going along the islands.
Of course, if the continents are closer, then depending on how map creation goes, once Astronomy hits they could be a mere 10 tiles or so away from each other, which would make for interesting tactics and battles. :D
BRickAstley Wrote:There are 4 sets leading out from each continent, 2 going to each intersection point. So for mini-island one, that will be reachable from Continent 1's north and south island chains, and Continent 2's east and west island chains. With 4 ways to exit each continent, I would think that it would be easy to send contact if people so desired. Maybe that center island could be split into different pieces, to keep it from becoming blocked off.
Plus, there will be resources on these islands and chains leading to them, but they will not be anything super powerful, just there to allow some settling for later naval ventures. If someone has a big push to settle the islands, then that might win them extra revenue via the GL, but the territory will not be grand enough that that will be The Winning Strategy TM
This might very well be an awesome, awesome map.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Brick Wrote:I'm having trouble picturing what you're saying unfortunately. do you mean having a few islands side by side? two entrances from each direction?
Yeah, anything that wasn't purely a linear string of islands between the larger continents, so that one player couldn't monopolize access to the whole string and block off anyone else from getting to a particular part of the other continent. If everyone has a similar chain that won't be strictly necessary, but it would make things more interesting to have different players competing for the same areas of the new continents/larger islands, rather than everyone being able to determine what is "their" section of the new continent based on where their chain of feeder islands leads them.
I was thinking of it in terms of the map Commodore rolled for PBEM 29. It was a toroid where the four players had their own starting area connecting toward each other in a big X shape. On that map there were two outlying large islands that each team could access from their starting area. The way the map played out (at least in the greens game) there wasn't so much free competition to settle the land as there was a kind of belief that a particular area was in someone's sphere of influence. It may have been because the map was mirrored and edited such that everyone had more or less the same resources available, but it happened that even though everyone had fair access to the outlying islands the settling was formulaic and straight forward once you made your way to the new island. It didn't feel like there was a settling race to get your part of the contested territory, you knew roughly what territory you would get. The only competition was to see who could settle the furthest territories first, where two players' spheres of influence would meet. If you settled into your opponent's area that would be winning the land grab, except that the map layout (or our interpretation of it) frustrated that outcome in practice. That was the effect of the land grab in PBEM29g anyway. Commodore's map was great and fun to play on, but it was almost deterministic who would get a given part of the map (assuming they were expanding like the should have....) just from where that land was relative to where the player started.
What could be interesting here would be if each player isn't able to quickly figure out which overseas territory should belong to them. That was my idea behind multiple island chains to an outlying island. In your diagram for a given pair of players on one part of a starting continent if it is possible for both players to settle or advance down one island chain toward the new continent, that would prompt conflict or interaction between them regarding settling that island chain and would produce doubt as to who will end up in possession of any given part of the new continent. It goes both ways, really. Civ A and Civ B could settle some of the feeder islands along the way to continent C (or continent D), and then do the same on the other island chain common to those two civs. It may turn out that one civ dominates each island chain going to a particular part of the outlying continent anyway, but at least if there is a possibility that someone else could have got there first then it would have been a decision by the player of that civ to make sure their competition didn't beat them to "their" land, rather than their competitors never really having a chance at it in the first place purely because the geography worked against them.
Brick Wrote:Of course, if the continents are closer, then depending on how map creation goes, once Astronomy hits they could be a mere 10 tiles or so away from each other, which would make for interesting tactics and battles.
I'd suggest maybe not making the capitals coastal in that case. It would be tough to have your capital be the target of an alpha-strike by the first player that techs Astronomy. In that event Astronomy becomes the One Right Answer. Astronomy is going to be powerful on this map design anyway, which is OK, but putting the capitals on the coast is begging the game to end as soon as someone puts galleons in the water. Now balancing a need to move the capitals inland versus your design plan for having three civs on the starting continent could be interesting, depending on how much space you're going to leave the players away from each other at the start. I'm not trying to make your life more difficult while designing the map, but I'd hate to see the game end too early (Astronomy) if we can prevent it in the design phase. I don't have any ideas about the starting continent for now though. But I'm watching this thread, interesting ideas Brick!
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
Mist Wrote:Don't do triangles, especially if any form of diplo is present. It's a bad idea for the same reason noone plays 1v1v1 FFA games.
Build fest + a constant state of fear + constant arms race? What's not to love? It's all antacid, all the time.
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
spacetyrantxenu Wrote:Build fest + a constant state of fear + constant arms race? What's not to love?
No. Two players coming to agreement to kill off the third and sort out the remaining duel at a later date. Which is usually the way how 1v1v1 games tend to resolve.
Ah, the diplo factor. I guess without diplo you wouldn't want to attack because there would be no way to know if you'd be invading on your own (falling relatively behind player 3 who is not at war) or as part of a dogpile which would probably be successful. With diplo on the guy left out of the deal is probably dead or quickly rendered irrelevant.
How can this be solved within the 3 civs per starting area format of the proposed map? I don't think anyone would find a "no war until turn X" setup interesting.
Edit: No diplo, always war?
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
Mist Wrote:Don't do triangles, especially if any form of diplo is present. It's a bad idea for the same reason noone plays 1v1v1 FFA games.
So does that mean you think this instance of three people on each continent will be imbalanced? They requested a 2 continent map, with civs split on each, and this seemed like a fair way to set it up.
Also keep in mind, they did vote AI Diplo only, so there should be a much lower chance of early dogpiles.
SpaceTyrantXenu Wrote:Yeah, anything that wasn't purely a linear string of islands between the larger continents, so that one player couldn't monopolize access to the whole string and block off anyone else from getting to a particular part of the other continent. If everyone has a similar chain that won't be strictly necessary, but it would make things more interesting to have different players competing for the same areas of the new continents/larger islands, rather than everyone being able to determine what is "their" section of the new continent based on where their chain of feeder islands leads them.
I mean, like I said before, there will be 4 strings off of each 3 player continent, and none of the players will be explicitly placed at one, though due to placement some will be more accessible than others. There will both be closeness and uncenteredness for contention, and variety to allow everyone to dip a hand in somewhere. So while some chains will be easier to get to than others for different people, it isn't set in stone. Especially if some people decide to continue the lovely tradition of pink dotting.
Zenu Again Wrote:I'd suggest maybe not making the capitals coastal in that case. It would be tough to have your capital be the target of an alpha-strike by the first player that techs Astronomy. In that event Astronomy becomes the One Right Answer. Astronomy is going to be powerful on this map design anyway, which is OK, but putting the capitals on the coast is begging the game to end as soon as someone puts galleons in the water. Now balancing a need to move the capitals inland versus your design plan for having three civs on the starting continent could be interesting, depending on how much space you're going to leave the players away from each other at the start.
Okay, well I have a few ideas for that. We could just make it harder to sneak attack by putting some ice barriers in the middle of the ocean to prevent super quick direct travels, but that would also mean that all naval warfare would eventually have to go towards the island chains.
Alternatively, we could move the capital starts just a smidge inland, which would make for closer starts. But if that happened they could maybe be separated by peaks?
Oh! I remember one of the players, I think Kyan, saying some sort of unit mechanic to discourage rushing would be allowed. So start everyone off with an archer at their Cap to make people have to build up a bit before warfare?
One archer that isn't allowed to leave the capital's BFC? That way you can't use it to pink dot your neighbor early on.
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
) just from where that land was relative to where the player started.
