Not surprisingly India went first. If something unexpected is taken #2, I favor taking Inca. With only five teams in the game we can be confident of getting a decent leader at #8 to pair with the second-strongest civ. Not that Pacal plus a decent-but-not-great civ would be bad, exactly.
If we get Pacal, let's make a sandbox with Pacal of [various starting tech combos] and get a feel for how starting techs affect our start.
Btw this will probably be a land-grab-heavy map with starts not too close, and with diplo on I'd much prefer a strong UB to a strong UU (other than fast workers of course, but that's not an option anyway, unfortunately).
I would also say I have a slight preference for Inca over Pacal
Edit: not that it matters, I guess. Sounds like a good idea, Seven Spirits (I can't make it however, atm stuck on 3.03)
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Any volunteers to make a sandbox for us all to play in? We'll still want one if we pick Inca, so the effort will not be wasted. I do suspect we'll end up with Pacal which is more than fine with me.
SevenSpirits Wrote:Btw this will probably be a land-grab-heavy map with starts not too close, and with diplo on I'd much prefer a strong UB to a strong UU (other than fast workers of course, but that's not an option anyway, unfortunately).
This is my guess too - on demogames it's best to give plenty of space for a longer game, so getting a fast start will be top priority. I also prefer strong starting techs over a strong UU. Although, I will say Byz may be a bit of an exception in that with a lot of space, it likely means that you'll face very little combat UNTIL Cataphracts hit their prime. However, that goes against every logical sense in my head for this game (bad UB and starting techs) so I lean towards avoiding Byz.
I do think Commodore's decision to include a Hunting and Fishing resource and no Agri resource is really interesting. It really widens the range of legitimate starting choices.
Edit: well in fairness the Hippodrome isn't actually bad compared to the average UB
scooter Wrote:I do think Commodore's decision to include a Hunting and Fishing resource and no Agri resource is really interesting. It really widens the range of legitimate starting choices.
I think this might be why Team Pirates can't decide on Inca v. Pacal. An ag/myst start isn't as good here as it normally is.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
Well , i like that others make the thing easy for us.Seeing the start , i think kmer had very good starting tech for this, but i dont think will reamin in place until chosing civ will return,if we end with Pacal.
mackoti Wrote:Well , i like that others make the thing easy for us.Seeing the start , i think kmer had very good starting tech for this, but i dont think will reamin in place until chosing civ will return,if we end with Pacal.
If we get Pacal, there'll only be two civs chosen before us. Surely someone will take Willem of Maya, so only one other choice. If we take Pacal, I'd say there's actually a pretty good chance we could land Khmer... And I think they'd be a pretty solid choice.
