[PB61] Map-making thread (No players)

[Tarkeel]

Would any of the coastal starts have a dangerously strong capital if they moved inland on T0? Looking at start C in particular, they could opt to forego the plains hill, keep all three land food resources and the river, and have more BFC land tiles and possibility of BFC strategic resources.

That's one of the things I've tried to keep in mind; I did check it on V2 of the map, and it was fine then. I'm just finishing up resource balancing (V3) now, and will need to look over again as obviously a lot has changed.

You only gain one turn on the worker from the forested deer (since it's second ring). Then you need two turns to reach the deer and gain one back because deer improves faster. In total wheat farm and deer camp finish on the same turn. The deer start is by that point 3 food and 8 hammers up. Hm, that's actually a lot.

The wheat farm would be up a similar amount of commerce, and have slightly better tiles to expand onto. I'm not saying it's completely balanced, but I think it's within the margin of fair and fun.

[civac2]

Maybe. The fish start is yet again a bit slower than the grains start. It does have significantly more commerce though. But that only works if you ignore the Fishing tech requirement.

[Tarkeel]

I think I need to do what I talked about earlier:

Edit: I think I'll swap the animals around based on primary food:
Fishing: Pigs
Agriculture: Cows
Hunting: Sheep

Also, start F might need a helping hand, as it's by far the most central position. A is one of the more pressed starts, but not that much harder than the others I feel. Will give an overview of them when this pass is complete.

[Tarkeel]

I've done a pass over the all the starts, making sure they have equal access to strategic and luxury resources. It feels like start E is slightly more cramped than the others, but it's also slightly safer. In general, the western part of the map looks pretty good.


Here's a detailed look at each start area; I've tried to think how they might settle elsewhere, and I think all the options are acceptable.

Start A: Can possibly move (S-)SE to settle on a grass(hill) to work deer, sheep and gems.

Start B: Can possibly move S-SE to settle on a grasshill to work two desert golds, but a second ring rice is the only food.

Start C: Can possibly move S-SE to settle on a plainshill to work wheat, corn, cows, stone and ivory.

Start D: Can possibly move SE-SE to settle on a plainshill to work two hill-pigs and two ivory.

Start E: Can possibly move NE-N to settle on a grasshill to work two floodplains, cattle and corn.

Start F: Can possibly move NE-SE to settle on a grasshill to work a pig and forest deer, or NE-NE to work pig, floodplains and two ivory.

Start G: Can possibly move S-SE to settle on a plainshill to work cattle, floodplains and desert gold.

[civac2]

Sorry for being negative again but the different livestock species on the plains hills don't balance anything. The correct play is probably to just mine them. Eventually the pig will be nice but that will likely come after Pottery and be irrelevant for the start.

You could give the grains and fish starts wooded elephants and the deer start unforested elephants. That will also significantly help the fish starters build their work boats.

[Tarkeel]

I don't take it as negativity, but constructive criticism which I appreciate. Same goes for you Thoth. I don't see how ivory will help, but it did get me started in thinking of other ways to get 4 foodhammers early (other than giving everyone forested deers or prebuilt mines). I think the best option is moving everyone's stone onto hills in the BFC, and give the non-deer start a forest on them. The fishing start can even have a plainshill for a nice 4 hammers on their workboat. I just have to make sure that settling on the stone isn't the correct move.

[civac2]

Wooded ivory is also a 4 hammer tile but the stone will work.

[Tarkeel]

Ivory has less chance of giving a new super-capital location; I think my hesitance is mainly that I'd just spread out ivory and fur to each start. I can always redo that and give everybody capital ivory and a safe fur.

[civac2]

As mentioned ivory and wooded ivory. No need to spread fur around unless you want to.

[Tarkeel]

Hopefully the last set of starts. Everyone now have either forested deer or forested ivory in first ring. Primary farming resources and all seafood should be inner ring as well.
















I had originally split furs and ivory between the starts, now everybody gets both.