First time map maker

[Charriu]

I'm done with all the BFCs. Let me know if you spot something unbalanced, bad etc.




A







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E







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H

[superdeath]

I couldnt find my start with the triple floodplain gold + corn. Looks ok by my standards.

[RefSteel]

I guess it is Pythagoras. 3t NE would be sqrt(18) which is between 4 and 5 in distance, so it would make sense that both 4 and 5 tiles E would be characterized as 3 tiles NE (4 tiles NE is sqrt(32) which is higher than 5, 2 tiles NE is sqrt(8) which is lower than 3)

Almost pythag, but not quite: It actually checks the distance between tiles on both the X axis and the Y axis (i.e. East-West and North-South). Then the "total distance" it calculates is equal to the longer of those two distances plus half of the shorter distance, rounded down.

On the BFCs:

By default, the game never puts jungle in a starting BFC, and I recommend following this rule too. In particular, the jungle at start F could grow onto the pigs before it's improved, which would basically end F's chances of winning the game if it happened, but jungle at the start is a bad idea regardless, I think. (Depending on what's in the fog, some players might even consider moving to their banana on turn 0, or moving to another plains hill or plains ivory to open up the banana as an option for a later cottage+resource-sharing city.) Non-jungled banana in an already-good BFC isn't nearly as tempting a settling target, but getting a 3F city center and removing a jungle has a bit more value.

Smaller details:

Start B (the first one with double pigs) has a one-turn advantage over the others for connecting the second food resource (Worker can move SW-NW from the hill pigs after finishing the pasture, then NE and start hooking the flat pigs on the following turn). Likewise for Start D (Worker moves N-NE from the hill pigs, then NE and starts pasturing). One turn on the second resource isn't a huge deal, but if you want to eliminate effective early differences between the capitals, you'll need to cut off these courses. Relatedly, start B is the only one where the player has the option to improve the 6F tile first and the 5F/1H tile second and still have both improved at the same time. This is unlikely to make even the slightest difference, but I thought I'd note it since it distinguishes that one start from all the others. Early commerce is also substantially unequal between the different starts: Start A gets 1c per turn only from its second resource, start B gets no food resource commerce at all, starts G and H get one commerce from each of their first two food resources, and the remainder get 1c from their first resource, but not their second.

All of these smaller details are within reasonable variance of each other, more or less, with A clearly the weakest, and the strongest probably G, H, or B, depending on micro and tech needs.

[Charriu]

By default, the game never puts jungle in a starting BFC, and I recommend following this rule too.  In particular, the jungle at start F could grow onto the pigs before it's improved, which would basically end F's chances of winning the game if it happened, but jungle at the start is a bad idea regardless, I think.  (Depending on what's in the fog, some players might even consider moving to their banana on turn 0, or moving to another plains hill or plains ivory to open up the banana as an option for a later cottage+resource-sharing city.)  Non-jungled banana in an already-good BFC isn't nearly as tempting a settling target, but getting a 3F city center and removing a jungle has a bit more value.

I did not know that the game never puts jungle in a starting BFC. I propably played to many mods where this rule is overwritten. My intention with the jungle was to delay the third food resource, so that players need IW and Calendar to connect it. But I guess Calendar in itself is late enough. So I will propably remove the jungle, which allows me to change the spread of forests. As you can see I (almost) always put forest around the jungle, so that it won't spread early on.

Smaller details:

Start B (the first one with double pigs) has a one-turn advantage over the others for connecting the second food resource (Worker can move SW-NW from the hill pigs after finishing the pasture, then NE and start hooking the flat pigs on the following turn).  Likewise for Start D (Worker moves N-NE from the hill pigs, then NE and starts pasturing).  One turn on the second resource isn't a huge deal, but if you want to eliminate effective early differences between the capitals, you'll need to cut off these courses.  Relatedly, start B is the only one where the player has the option to improve the 6F tile first and the 5F/1H tile second and still have both improved at the same time.  This is unlikely to make even the slightest difference, but I thought I'd note it since it distinguishes that one start from all the others.  Early commerce is also substantially unequal between the different starts:  Start A gets 1c per turn only from its second resource, start B gets no food resource commerce at all, starts G and H get one commerce from each of their first two food resources, and the remainder get 1c from their first resource, but not their second.

All of these smaller details are within reasonable variance of each other, more or less, with A clearly the weakest, and the strongest probably G, H, or B, depending on micro and tech needs.

Great feedback, I will incorporate it.

[Charriu]

I had time to incorporate your BFC feedback and do the base terrain. Anybody who wants a deeper look into it can download the map here.

Next would be the resources for which I have the following ideas:

• You can already see that I placed gems and silver between players to raise the tension. I plan to make the area around those very fertile, but hard to defend.
  
• Place 1 gold resource in the middle of the island chains between player to encourage some competition.
  
• Create 4 astronomy-only islands with the only which will host the only incense resources in the world
  
• Arrange the other 4 calendar happiness resources (dye, sugar, silk and spice) so that the players are encouraged to trade
  
• Place 1 whale resource in everybodys area, but only available with an island city
  

I should explain my trading concept a little more. Take this example:

• Player 1 borders 2 and 8.
  
• Player 1 has no dye, but has two spice and two silk
  
• Player 2 has no silk, but two dye
  
• Player 8 has no spice, but two dye
  

That way players will be encouraged to trade with one of their direct neighbors, while also be in competition for the silver and gems. Could be interesting.

[RefSteel]

• You can already see that I placed gems and silver between players to raise the tension. I plan to make the area around those very fertile, but hard to defend.
  
• Place 1 gold resource in the middle of the island chains between player to encourage some competition.
  

The following quote, from your other thread, is a bit out of context, but I think it applies to some extent even to this, and the reason is something I've been trying to think of a way to express for some time:

All judgement on game balance is from player experience though. Don't do things because you think it would be interesting to play.

My feeling is that expressly placing important resources between players to raise tension is unnecessary and at this point kind of trite: There will be tension in the regions between players anyway, just in the nature of competition for cities and territory, as long as the land isn't complete trash. With potential super-cities and unique resources in the in-between zones, you need to be especially careful to make the capitals themselves very strong so that players aren't tempted to play the meta and try to move their starting settler toward another player for the expected super-site. Then if you try to discourage people from moving their starting settlers with a ring of barren and/or jungled land around the capital, you get this weird pattern of amazingly attractive land and amazingly unattractive land like a sine wave, or if you try to keep things reasonably even, you end up with an incredibly lush map. Not that those map types can't be fun to play, but the recent resumption of interest in script-based maps is partly due to the predictability of these forms (and the over-lushness of both, and especially the second) - also due to other types of predictability of course. So doing this isn't wrong - it's kind of normal for ~hand-drawn maps, I think - but I'd kind of prefer to see less of it. (In fact, arguably, it's most useful as a mapmaker's crutch: You don't want to "force" players toward one opponent or the other, and making sure that there are attractive prospects toward all neighbors is an easy way to ~equalize things.)

In particular, there's an issue with making the lush or resource-rich area hard to defend: It tends to encourage more extreme play like settling past the contested resources with a border fortress city. A map where extreme plays and risky gambits (including a starting settler move) are possible and potentially viable can be cool, but one which encourages the same type for each player is much less so.

Erm. Hopefully that long-winded explanation of my thinking is of some use to somebody (or will spark debate from someone who disagrees).

[Charriu]

That's very good feedback. Unfortunately by the time you had written your feedback I had already continued with this concept. But I don't think that players are tempted to move their capitol towards other players for two reasons:

• The distance to this war zone between players.
  
• Moving towards one player means giving your other neighbor an advantage towards the war zone on the other side.
  

So as I already said I continued with the map and have now placed everything except the astronomy islands. Here you can find the map. Next would be to balance this and then place the astro islands.

[superdeath]

Now we just gotta find players for this right?

[Charriu]

Players would be nice and anybody who wants to use the map can do so. But this was only an exercise from the very beginning and I also wanted to know how much time it takes to make a map. Although this was a process over many weeks I only worked on the map for some ours. I propably did the map in one weekend. The reason it took so long was to give enough time for feedback.

I had a final look over the overall balance. I mostly changed stuff on the island chains and equalized sea resources. Map




Next and final step would be to add in the incense islands.

[Charriu]

I went ahead and put in the incense-astro-islands: Map