[SPOILERS] Map thread

[SevenSpirits]

Exactly, balanced. The other suggestions weren't in my opinion.

Your comments were AFAICT about forcing people to play a certain way, which is orthogonal to balance.

[SevenSpirits]

PHI/SPI of Arabia and give everyone an all land, grain plus grass cow start.

The problem is that you've picked 8 traits and tried to get them all into the game. That doesn't make things interesting.

That is a good idea for a game. But it is NOT what the players of this one asked for. They specifically want a non-mirrored setup, balanced but without symmetry.

[zakalwe]

Sounds like we agree Kyan; we both want a balanced but varied setup, but you think it's better to focus on just 4 rarely used traits rather than 8. Or maybe your objection is specifically to the Industrious trait? Anyway, a mix of 4 traits seems fine to me, you could just let each trait occur twice.

You suggested Imp/Org/Cha/Spi. I would probably go for Agg/Cha/Spi/Org instead, giving everybody either Spi OR Org plus Agg OR Cha.

The problem is that you've picked 8 traits and tried to get them all into the game. That doesn't make things interesting.

Why not?

[scooter]

PHI/SPI of Arabia and give everyone an all land, grain plus grass cow start.

I think that sounds far, far less interesting than the current setup.

[Kyan]

Your comments were AFAICT about forcing people to play a certain way, which is orthogonal to balance.

I don't quite get you. The generic middle-of-the-road leaders suggested don't pigeon-hole anyone into or out of any specific tactics. The only argument i've seen so far against those is that the other suggestions are 'more interesting', but for who?

[Kyan]

Sounds like we agree Kyan; we both want a balanced but varied setup, but you think it's better to focus on just 4 rarely used traits rather than 8. Or maybe your objection is specifically to the Industrious trait? Anyway, a mix of 4 traits seems fine to me, you could just let each trait occur twice.

You suggested Imp/Org/Cha/Spi. I would probably go for Agg/Cha/Spi/Org instead, giving everybody either Spi OR Org plus Agg OR Cha.



Why not?

That sounds good to me mate. I would actually say that your suggestion is probably better than mine.

[SevenSpirits]

You suggested Imp/Org/Cha/Spi. I would probably go for Agg/Cha/Spi/Org instead, giving everybody either Spi OR Org plus Agg OR Cha.

I think SPI is significantly better than the other three, and CHA better than AGG. I'd be pretty irritating if I get Hammurabi and someone else gets Brennus!

Kyan: maybe I have no idea what you're talking about. Your posts didn't say what they were in reply to, so it seems possible I just misunderstood them.

[zakalwe]

To make Cha worse, you can crank up the natural happy cap (by providing lots of happy resources, or by lowering the difficulty). To make Org better, you can crank up the maintenance (toroidal wrap, or reduce the map size). Also, you can compensate by assigning better civs to the poor leaders. Or pick another set of 4 traits.

Anyway, I'm just throwing out ideas here (I like doing that). Hopefully nobody will mistake me for any kind of authority on these matters.

[SevenSpirits]

I made a few edits and sent it off:
* Added a rice in an area near Ethiopia that had no food.
* Replaced the sheep in Aztec's start with a forest deer; replaced a nearby rice with a sheep. This allows them to skip agriculture for a while, making the hunting/mysticism start palatable.
* Forested France's nearby gems so they wouldn't randomly become jungled.
* Other stuff I don't remember?

I tried all the starts out, and I thought they were fun to play. We'll see how it goes! Thank you all for your suggestions and observations. I have attached the final WBsave for the curious.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Anyone ran the map through Novice's tool?