Also, I thought that all the elves start with two scouts, no?
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.
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.
First, I learned that the map has been edited three times :
More importantly, to the west I found my missing forests. And a dungeon! Which of course, I had to open, because A: if I don't, someone else will, and B: getting a great result like a Great Sage means the most early on. And the result was:
Heh, well it was a fun game while it lasted, I guess
While not the absolute worst result possible (like, he could have had Mobility as his free promo instead of Loyalty), it's still incredibly bad luck. I didn't delete the scout, since I wanted the Ogre to spend a turn not moving toward my capital, which I switched to a 4-turn warrior (for whatever very little good that will do if it attacks). Ogre obviously killed the scout the following turn, I guess I'll regret allowing the kill if he shows up in a few turns with C1 and little or no damage. Losing a scouting unit and being forced to spend 4 turns on a warrior is a significant set-back, and there is a very strong possibility I'm going to be eliminated within the next 10 turns. My best hope is that this is a cramped map, and the Ogre wanders off to bother someone else.
Hmm, in regards to the goblin forts, I definitely remember cleaning those out before I sent out the map. I think that I forgot to do so on the edit, though, when I had to change civ techs.
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.
Well, still no Ogre in sight yet, so either he's still healing or the barb AI decided to wander off someplace which isn't my territory.
I bet with almost complete certainty that Dave's lurker thread post is something like "see, this is why I don't like playing with lairs!". Well, it's true that I screwed myself over here, exploring that dungeon; at the very least, I lost several turns of scout exploration and put myself four turns behind the growth curve with my emergency warrior build. At worst, I'm going to be eliminated in six turns or so. But I don't really mind- I took a calculated risk and lost, and the thrill of having such risks to take is a major part of what makes FFH games fun for me.
Other scout continues to reveal land, mostly decent semi-forested highlands-esque territory with a notable shortage of commerce resources. I'll try to remember to take some screen caps when I'm not playing my turns in the brief window I have available before work.
In unrelated news, I'm surprised Sian is still holding onto his world spell- I guess he wants to zap us all back to size one, but assuming mirrored starts he'd probably be better off having deployed it ASAP to work three river tiles.
That's really harsh luck Bob, two games in a row . On the bright side, you hated the starting position anyways, so lair hail mary made even more sense. Either you hopefully get a big boost to make up for it, or you're mercifully killed by some big bad.
(December 30th, 2013, 19:29)Azarius Wrote: Either you hopefully get a big boost to make up for it, or you're mercifully killed by some big bad.
This man understands
My odds for survival are really poor, so I'll write up a couple brief summation thoughts on the game.
First, I apologize to Merovech. Not for eviscerating the start, which I still think is utterly abysmal, but for messing up what looks like an otherwise neat map. A missing civ and CII Barb Ogre are not going to be good for game balance. Whoever my neighbor(s) were supposed to be are going to have a serious advantage- unless the Ogre finds them before turn 50 or so, in which case they may be in serious trouble.
Second, I apologize to Ellimist; I know you had wanted to have a match against me after we've lurked each other in almost every game for the last two years, but we'll sadly have to put that off for a while.
I do not apologize however for opening the dungeon, or advocating lairs. I was happy to do it and would attempt it again if given a second chance. Lairs make FFH so much more interesting. They give me something to look forward to when I have a turn which could otherwise be played in under a minute. That I spawned an incredibly low-odds worst-case scenario does nothing to diminish their appeal.
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