PBEM21 [Lurkers] can we beat the duration of PBEM18?

[Tarkeel]

I can't really comment on the details (lack of Civ6 knowledge), but it looks in general pretty similar, except for one thing: Is it on purpose that the middle area does not connect in the north?

[Woden]

A couple of items:
1. Are there natural wonders on the map? Hard to tell from screenshots and I can't go into world builder at the moment.
2. Maybe need some freshwater on the 3 tile connections so someone could possible get a canal city or at least a few mountains.
3. I would add a path around the city states on the 3-tile bridges, otherwise they will have to conquer city states just to explore and nobody will meet until pretty late in the game. Might be what you are looking for but it pretty much means that conquering the city states is the only paly they will have and then whoever conquers the city state will block their nieghbor from getting passed them.
4. Are you planning on having the starts next to the single lake tile?

[Chevalier Mal Fet]

Can we add some bays and peninsulas to the 3-tile passages, too, to make them less artificial?

I also think there needs to be places here and there that allow sea access to every other continent, otherwise the game will bog down a lot. We want players to be able to attack each other eventually - they need to be able to influence stuff around the map - just not so easily that an ancient-era rush happens. So, narrow 1 or 2-tile passages here and there that will let canal cities be founded. I'd also probably replace the central sea ice with something (perhaps an inner donut around an empty sea, with some mediocre settling terrain?), again, prioritizing ease of access.

[williams482]

One terrestrial oil per continent is a very small allotment, and it's not like there's a massive amount in the water either. Industrial era wars completely revolve around oil, and three per turn just isn't enough to capitalize on being first to tanks, for example, and permits only an extremely small number of biplanes to be built per side.

I think three or four terrestrial sources per continent is more reasonable. Nobody will be swimming in enough of the stuff that resource allocation is irrelevant, but it will still be possible to build a significant number of industrial units before researching Plastics. Plus, it greatly reduces the odds that some civs just flat out can't boost plastics because they put a district on their only oil source.

[Kaiser]

Thanks for your feedback guys, I worked on it a bit more in order to try opening the map a little for later game warfare.

@Tarkeel
you are right and this fit in well with CMFs requirement, so I edited a landbridge in there to close the inner donut

@Woden
Natural Wonders, yes, ... I have none at the moment and fear that thrawn will instantly guess the rest of the map as I have a tendency to heavily mirror maps for balancing purposes. Do you think I can get away without placing any? The lack of Astrology Eureka hits all players identical but it certainly is a bigger blow to religion heavy plans (hello PBEM20)
The starts are on exactly that tile, I am happy to have any feedback how to make these more interesting/offering more choice here. I try to differentiate them on purpose slightly by amenities so people will take longer to assume mirrored maps though.

@Williams
I left it on purpose scarce, exactly for that reason. If there is enough oil, there is no better play than rushing tanks and steamrolling your neighbor. Look at PBEM18, slight Egypt spoiler incoming

Egypt had a total of 1 Oil source and was forced to go for AT Crews to defend against Wodens Tanks (who had 4 or 5 land based oil sources). This was not only a multiple thousand beaker detour, but also a huge production issue as the AT crew multiplier card comes way way later thank the Tank card. AT crews are also plain worse than tanks (less movement, less CS against non Cav, no ignorance of ZoC).
So despite being able to be first to Tanks I had no option to do so and instead had to wait for Woden to come

Here are the updated shots of the landbridges, everything is mirrored so I made only one shot were applicable



The middle is now a closed donut and offers several canal city settling options. I made it a bit harder to get into the middle sea itself but it can be achieved with Canals or by settling otherwise horrendously bad cities.



Landbridges have been naturalized, made partially 2 tiles thick so a CC -> Canal to exchange fleets between outer and inner ocean is possible, Mountains have been provided for aqueducts



here as well



here as well

I also realized that I forgot crab and stone placement and added them to the map. Here is the save, I can provide some more screenshots from the main continents tonight so we can doublecheck them for balance

[Krill]

I usually state that I strongly prefer natural looking maps, but I also feel that Civ6 on RB could play a few games on highly controlled, balanced maps.

[Kaiser]

I successfully loaded the map, here are the player continent screenshots with yields











And here is the worldbuilderfile, ready to be used as a map

I can select the CS from the Worldbuilder, right now I have 5 industrial CS on the outer ring and 5 commercial CS on the inner ring. Mostly as I wanted to cut down on variables while getting the map to run. 
Do you guys have any preferences for CS, shall I randomize them (I would probably randomize them in excel and then edit them in accordingly else I have issues starting the map)

Can anybody roll the players already to their starting positions?

[Kaiser]

@Krill
I agree, but I also think it is worth a shot at a more balanced map and that is what I went for here.

Also, this map is huge (not the map setting) for 5 players, seeing it now with the player starts and CS, I wonder if I went a bit over the expect size. We either need more amenities or a different map I think

[civac2]

Can one not make infinite amenities with entertainment complexes?

[Bruindane]

You could add coastal wonders such as the Great Barrier Reef (or even 5 of them).