Unfinished business - SG for improving at Civ 4 (sic)

[shallow_thought]

Are you on mac or windows? Mac you can use preview to edit the image; Windows you can use paint.

imgur.com is a good upload vehicle. I use my own hosting because I like to control how I spend my time and imgur isn't good for me in that regard.

If we can, maybe some nice person can review the map for us? Or you can just post the starts (I think that's where your question came from).

It's the uploading that I'm unfamiliar with; I was vaguely aware that people used 3rd-party services to host the images (all those broken old links!), but have no experience of using them myself.

Will try to get pics up later; I will need the ability to do so later regardless, so this is an opportunity to experiment while still waiting to see if we can get one or two more players lined up. There will be some moments where this slows down while I learn these practical details I'm afraid...

Naming scheme: famous ghosts?

I was going to ask "real or ficitional" then realised how stupid that was . I hadn't really thought about a scheme - I can't think of many ghosts of the top of my head myself, but I'm sure Google can help if the worst came to the worst. So, why not?

[RefSteel]

I was going to ask "real or ficitional" then realised how stupid that was :crazyeye:. I hadn't really thought about a scheme - I can't think of many ghosts of the top of my head myself, but I'm sure Google can help if the worst came to the worst. So, why not?

I like this theme. Hamlet's Father and Banquo would be my first two if I were playing, and of course there's always Marley and the three temporal Christmases. The Vliegende Hollander, better known as the Flying Dutchman, is also cool, and that's without touching pop-culture stuff from Casper to Slimer. (I have heard terrific things about the new Ghostbusters movie too, but as I never see movies ever, I don't know the names of any of its ghosts.)

[Zalson]

I was going to ask "real or ficitional" then realised how stupid that was . I hadn't really thought about a scheme - I can't think of many ghosts of the top of my head myself, but I'm sure Google can help if the worst came to the worst. So, why not?

Well, we can do both. But whose the most famous-est ghost of all? (I realize that would assume I have an answer but, nope) Here's all I can think of and then we can decide which one's a cap:

• The King (Hamlet's Father)
  
• Banquo
  
• Jacob Marley
  
• Christmas Past
  
• Christmas Present
  
• Christmas Future
  
• Flying Dutchman
  
• Casper
  
• Slimer
  
• Samuel
  
• Nearly Headless Nick
  
• The Bloody Baron
  
• The Far Friar
  
• The Grey Lady
  
• Moaning Myrtle
  
• Professor Binns
  
• The Headless Horseman
  
• The Black Knight
  
• Bloody Mary
  
• Anne Boleyn
  
• Sweet William's Ghost
  
• Dead Men of Dunharrow
  
• King Boo
  
• Ghostrider
  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghosts

That should be enough for now.

[shallow_thought]

Ghosts it is. I'd thought of Dickens, and of the Dead Men, but hadn't remembered Shakespeare and Harry Potter (d'oh).


I noticed that Willem was used in the last SG on RB (albeit three years ago), so I dropped him and rolled a start for each of the others.

I rolled a really nice start for Huayna Capac, then realised I'd left the game on Monarch. So I corrected, rolled again and got this.


My first screenshot at RB. Behold the beauty of ... dry corn and a plains cow? Oh, and inland lakes. At least Willem would have been able to use them. There is a possible plains hill start though.



Julius got this:



Not a conventional RB start. Willem would have loved it. Moai capital anyone? Or perhaps just keep whipping for ever.. No plains hill though.

Finally, I have a confession to make. My first roll for Zara was yet another coastal, lake start (with two plains hill sheep). I decided the game was trolling me after my decision to drop Willem and granted myself a re-roll. Zara got this:

Yet another lake. Feels food light but does kind of suit Zara's techs. Also, shiny. Plains hill starts are available but awkward.

I do intend to take the actual start slowly and do some analysis / simming / micro-planning (more for practice than anything else), but suggest we just go with a gut feel of what's practical but fun for the pick. Then all we have to do is make it work...

[Sullla]

Those are not bad starts. This is a bad start:



The community here has gotten too used to the ultra-lush handcrafted maps used for Pitboss and PBEM games. When you roll an actual random map in Civ4, this is the kind of terrain that you get. All three of those starting screenshots have freshwater and either floodplains or multiple food sources. I'd classify all of them as at least average, and the Zara start as well above average.

This is not intended as a criticism, only as an attempt to reframe the discussion to a more accurate perspective. Zalson's start in the previous game wasn't terrible either, only a normal random map. It's been too long since this community played actual random maps in Civ4, everyone has lost the understanding of what they actually look like. Good luck!

[shallow_thought]

Those are not bad starts.

The community here has gotten too used to the ultra-lush handcrafted maps used for Pitboss and PBEM games.

This is not intended as a criticism, only as an attempt to reframe the discussion to a more accurate perspective. Zalson's start in the previous game wasn't terrible either, only a normal random map. It's been too long since this community played actual random maps in Civ4, everyone has lost the understanding of what they actually look like. Good luck!

Thanks Sullla - I've overstated things in my post, looking for humourous effect; also trying to muscle in on the old RB tradition of moaning about the map, regardless of justification. That's all very well, but I mustn't let it get in the way of an accurate discussion of which start we actually want to play! And all of them are comfortably playable.

Two important hints there guys - one, for me to man up and stop whining / trying to be funny, and two, the Zara start is strong.

[Zalson]

Yeah a multiplayer "good" start is pretty hard to come by with a randomly generated map. I think we can complain if the rest of the territory resembles Adventure 2. Or the tundra north I had in my game. And even that wasn't bad per se; it just doesn't lend itself to a very ... insanely explosive start. With some careful play and planning, we'll crush emperor.

After all, that's what the peanut gallery is for.

[Zalson]

thematically, I'd prefer inca or Rome. They're dead empires and Ethiopia still exists as a country.

What victory would you like to go for? Space? Culture? The start has about 0 to do with that but it is worth asking now.

Roll a d3 and let that pick -- unless there's a specific strategy you'd like to pursue. For instance, if you want to practice the settlers gambit, imperialistic will help. But we're totally fine with all 3 starts.

[El Grillo]

I'll be following along, good luck and have fun!

[ReallyEvilMuffin]

I'll pipe up time to time. Also with the map, you could use one of the old pitboss/pbem maps. The old ones you'll likely not have seen and there is a load of them in a thread somewhere.


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