Map Making Thread (SPOILERS!)

[Jowy]

Will be lurking this. I was tempted to play but I don't want to be stuck playing Civ5 when Civ6 will come out soon :P

[Meiz]

Will be lurking this. I was tempted to play but I don't want to be stuck playing Civ5 when Civ6 will come out soon :P

[chumchu]

Nice with some interest. I am almost finished with the starting positions.

Re: civs. I think Persia and England will be the strongest choices on this map. England has two of the best units and will dominate in those eras and is perfect for a military victory but has no real economic bonii. Persia can have a great economic game with nearly constant golden ages from turn 80ish doing something like liberty/splash aestehtics/rationalism/freedom and is also brutal in warfare, both on land and sea.

Inca, celts and ethiopia will be less strong due to a map that is not pangea, lopsided for pantheons, heavy on mountains.

Polynesia, carthage and ottomans are definitely better on this type of map.

[chumchu]

I am finished with the strts now but I have some trouble generating balanced screenshots as loading the map as civ5.map produces starts that vary a few tiles from the designated spot. To solve the issue I can either make it into a scenario which according ot the internet should lock the starts or post them as edited from world builder or just accept the following screens and say to the players that the city states(true) and fog(false) are lies. making it into a scenario might take some additional time though. Suggestions.

[Azoth]

I guess it depends on how long it will take to make it into a scenario. I would definitely turn on resource icons, though; I'm sure many players won't be able to identify Wine, Incense, etc. tiles by sight.

[chumchu]

After googling around, I see that this is a common problem. It is no problem to use map scripts in multiplayer but you can not make custom maps with custom starts without making a scenario in effect a mod. Making a mod requires a bit of work, especially if it is to allow multiplayer as it Civ V does not support Mods for multiplayer which means it would have to overwrite the Civ V install. This is my first attempt at map creation in Civ V so I might have overlooked something. I assumed that you could fix starting position when you use edit the starting position function cause why would you not? It was in the earlier civ games =(

I think I need a bit of technical help right about now.

[chumchu]

I have done some more work on the map now that the technical issues have been solved.



The shape of the land is starting to look better, I will only do smaller modifications now I think. Do you think it is starting to look more natural?

The terrain is subject to a little more change as I am thinking about how to set up the main continents. I want to have good looking terrain but all features I add makes the map harder to maneuver in. Especially mountains. I will probably need too add more fresh water on the continents as well to avoid the river basin being to dominant a place to settle. More marshes could do the trick as well.

The luxury resources are set: On each continent there is 1 monopoly resource for each player and 4 common ones as well 1 unique to each city state for a max of 10 luxuries for the entire continent. The unique luxuries for the city states can be found in the archipelago as well as a few examples of the monopoly resources. The monopoly resources can be found in larger quantities in the poles as well as 2 unique luxuries.

The strategic resources I am not that sure about. My current plan is this:
Iron and horses are readily availiable for each player on the continents.
Coal and aluminium are restricted to the mainland city states and the archipelago. (this is to make the common industrialisation beeline less good unless the player has city states or colonies. This might backfire.)
Oil will be availiable everywhere but in hard to reach places. (It is too important for modern warfare to be only in the archipelago as that could make a naval dominance unbreakable)
Uranium I am going to restrict to the poles to make them special and make nukes harder to acquire. The poles will have every other strategic as well.

The arctic is finished, the antarctic will be a loose copy of it. The eastern continent needs a bit more resources and work in the edges to be finished and the western will be a loose copy of it. The islands need some work but hey are quite easy to do. I can probably finish it by friday.

I want to give the players a little more information along the lines of scouting and naval matters will be really important but I am unsure about how to do it in the best way. Suggestions?

[chumchu]

The final(?) map. I want someone besides myself to check it over for balance as I have worked on it too much to be objective.

[Azoth]

I don't play Civ5 all that much, and I've never played it MP, so I don't feel qualified to comment on balance issues, such as the availability of late-game strategic resources. I'll just make a few observations and ask some questions:

1. It may be a good idea to reveal more hexes around the players' Settlers at the start of the game. In particular, I'm not sure if all players can tell where the ocean is from tile bleed. Everyone should have a fair choice between inland, riverside, lake, and coastal capitals, and it's no fun to be boxed into an unworkable dotmap.

2. Are you concerned that some luxuries (Wine/Incense) allow faith pantheons (Goddess of Festivals), while the others don't? It's probably too late now to swap them out but 4 of those resources would produce almost as much as Stonehenge.

3. How are the city states distributed? By type? What about Natural Wonders? (I think I see one on the center island?)

[MJW (ya that one)]

Nicolae Carpathia didn't blow Ethiopia.

So do you guys think HAK will not show up?