RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Cyneheard]

I second Krill's metal/horses suggestion.
If the copper's going to be on the main donut, what about having each player's copper be radially aligned with their start, give or take a tile or two, just near the inner edge of the donut? That way, they still have copper access (if someone gets beat there...well, that's their fault), but it'll take a relatively far-flung city + road network to connect it.

[Krill]

TBH, that was how I envisaged the horses set up, with the copper being off ring. However, having copper right on the inner edge of hte dnut and the horses between the start and the copper would also be balanced, if iron was easily accessible.

Ultimately, I think anyone can "cope" without having copper immediately accessible, but it screws up whoever got Zulu and whoever starts next to Rome, so the copper should probably be accessible just as much as the horses. That kinda makes me think, place both of them about 6-8 tiles from the capital but so they can't be settled with 1 city, or place them further away but settleable with just 1 city, taking into account ease of hooking them up to the trade netword due to rivers.

On the other hand, we could make it such that there is no iron on the ring, instead only on the near by islands, thus forcing everyone to stretch themselves to get the necessary defensive resources. That might not be so bad for Rome.

[Shpoko]

Just a suggestion from a lurker, but you could put both gems and pigs on the jungle island, to increase its value. Corn would probably do better on the outer isles.

Shpoko

[Krill]

Advantage of putting corn on the outer isles is that if there are no sources of fresh water it'll only be 5 food until Bio. Now, that's nice and all, but I'd normally view that as a good enough reason to put corn on the inner isle, far away from any sources of irrigation. Hence they have to settle a large chunk of land including the fresh water, or they have to diplomaticallly work a way of getting the fresh water. Putting pigs on the outer isles means that you could just replace the deer/crabs with them, so the outer isles maye end up getting an extra 2 fpt/island, which isn't much.

OTOH I don't know how to balance gems. If furs were given at every start though, you could do it so that gems are rare and only on the outer isles (on grasslands because the outer bit looks food poor), silver is on the habitat ring, and gold is on the centre (which looks more food rich but has limited space and 10 players vying for the land, especially if there is corn over there), and maybe keep the gold and gems limited to about 5-7 sources, and the silver more plentiful

EDIT: OK, just got mapview to work as I don;t have CIV. (For those of you that don't know, mapview is a standalone map editor for CIV. It's very powerful, and I suggest you use it if ever doing massive scenario design, as it allows copy paste).

Problems with the map, as I see it:

1. Bottom right/top left, island is all plains with 1 crab. Should be given something elseto use, like another crab on the other side of the island? It looks like there is space there for 2 cities, so want to make it an option to use 1 with 2 food res or plant 2 less good cities.
   
   
   
2. SW, 2 tile plains island...pretty naff isle, maybe give it a plains cow/grass cow? Or maaybe that is a good candidate for a gems isle, 1 grassland gems and 1 plains....
   
   
   
3. Players 2, 3, 8, have no accessible coal, and 6 and 7 have 1 to fight over between them. On the same note, might want to move one oil slightly close to player 7, specifically the one to the NE of the start, by a tile or two. (Coastal oil is pretty much useless, and impossible to defend, not comparable to land based sources). Other option is to make coal sparse on the habitat ring, but roughly distant between players, then place the rest on the islands. Also, Oil can be made to be just coastal if you want. That's always a little bit iffy, but it's "balanced" if everyone has to deal with the same problem.
   
   
   
4. On the same note, might want to move one oil slightly close to player 7, specifically the one to the NE of the start, by a tile or two. Coastal oil is pretty much useless, and impossible to defend, not comparable to land based sources. However, Oil can be made to be just coastal if you want. That's always a little bit iffy, but it's "balanced" if everyone has to deal with the same problem.
   
   
   
5. 1 uranium resource between 7 and 8, 1 between 8 and 9 whereas everyone else has their own. Same problem as above really.
   
   
   
6. If you do decide to add in the removed resources, I'd say just convert the rice on the inner continent to corns and add one to the north of the isle, and make it so players have to irrigate atleast 5 tiles to irrigate the corn. This might mean that some of hte inner lakes need filling up. Removing food and replacing with pigs on the outer isles also keeps it pretty solid.
   
   
   
7. Not all islands are balanced, some have sources of fresh water and others don't, and that's a little harsh. You could add small lakes to the 2 islands at the North/South border, and the one in the NE next to player 1 to balance that. It's not just irrigatingh te food, but hte ability to irrigate the entire island whereas the worse off islands are stuck growing off of just the food res is a big kick in the teeth.

The stone and marble look decent as well, not "perfect" placements between players, but solid for map balance purposes.

Nice looking map that isn't a chessboard, I like it alot :b:

[Cyneheard]

If gems are in the outer isles, then how do we balance the players who have gems on their nearest island, and those who don't? 10 gems might be too many, but giving some players a 2/1/6 tile, and others not, in territory they don't have to contest that hard for? I expect 7-9 players will end up being the only person to settle their nearest island (someone's going to lose badly in a rush, overemphasize the donut, or a crazy Pink Dot scenario works).
I do think gold in the inner section makes sense. The other option would be 3x each of gold and gems in the inner isle, and no pairs of them being in range of a single city.

For corn: Hm. If we put corn in the center, then we're going to have very few rivers in the center to limit irrigation. Is that desirable? Either pigs or corn should be in the center, and the other in the islands. I'd lean towards wider irrigation in the center, and jungled pigs, with corn on the outer islands, but either way should work. Wars over fresh water sources would be interesting (and no spies to sabotage those improvements at key moments...).

[Olodune]

Great comments:

I'll go ahead and make some changes as follows:

-- Tighter start balance including grains + furs for all. Those starts that have wheat will have unforested/non-riverside furs.

-- All starts will have close horses. Copper will be both on the outer islands and somewhere towards the center.

-- Move the oil and add a few uranium as per Krill's suggestion.

-- I don't see the missing resources as a big problem; compare this to a continent situation where each landmass will usually only have 50-70% of the health/happy resources.

-- All major islands will have a source of fresh water.

I'll have an edited map up soon.

[Krill]

It's not so much a problem, but it gives players other options for trades and diplomacy over borders. As it is, the outer isles are just extra land, with no special resources that are up for grabs, so no reason to focus expansion over there, whereas the inner isle has the extra resources. This is balanced, but it could also give players a good reason to expand outwards as well as inwards and really make them question which way they want to expand.

One way to edit the map would be to place a large island that goes over the 4 corners of hte map, and place some of the extra resources there, as a continent about hallf the size of hte inner continent. This hurts the players on the N/S/E/W parts of the maps, so I'd place 1 gems resource between the N/S players, and 1 between the E/W players. However, as they are all slightly staggered, I think the N/S pair, which are the worst off, are about an extra 4 tiles from the corners of hte map compared to those closest. That is hardly unbalanced, and would be a decent alternative.

However, the current set up is still playable, and there is no real reason why any alterations such as those proposed are any better, as the suggestion that it may lead to there being 2 large continents to rush to instead of 1 and hence extra choices to be made, is not at all for certain.

[Olodune]

Some additional notes/changes:

- Two of the islands remain unirrigated, but they have 2-3 silver instead, which is the majority of this resource on the whole map.

- I added some island tiles between the N<->S and W<->E locations to increase the galley travel time.

- While all starts have grains, two have fish + unirrigated rice. Probably a small nerf, but less difference than before.

I think we're getting closer to a finished map here.

[Krill]

I see a lone corn, SE of the western player with fish, only one on hte map.

TBH, I really dislike the extra silver. They in no way make up for the inability to irrigate. There simply isn't the food to use them constantly and grow. The advantage seems to be that it is an extra happy res that is easily attainable to grow larger, and to trade, but that isn't particulary balanced.

Also, the starting fish are pretty good, those starts are better for those that start with fishing, and are not EXP. Oh hell, not like we know for sure who starts where...

[Olodune]

It's not so much a problem, but it gives players other options for trades and diplomacy over borders. As it is, the outer isles are just extra land, with no special resources that are up for grabs, so no reason to focus expansion over there, whereas the inner isle has the extra resources. This is balanced, but it could also give players a good reason to expand outwards as well as inwards and really make them question which way they want to expand.

It's true, but these islands will provide good trade routes. I think the current design allows each team to make profitable cities by settling the islands, but does not force them to. I added a few cows to the resource poor corner islands.

Edit: Just saw your corn post, will fix in a while.

Edit2: I agree with the silver. Will fix that too. Give every island one? Move it to slightly built up "corner" islands?