Sounds like players are fine with the isolation aspect. Not surprised about Gav, given PB25, heh. I felt the same way about PB22 after 20 and 21...
Here's some very minimal suggestions to make the map a bit more interactive.
Circled in red are the "corners" of the dead areas. I think a.) adding a bit of land bridging, in the two spots that are circled over water near 7/5 and 8/4, and b.), adding a single food resource to each of the circled regions, will do a lot to pull players into conflict and make land war a more realistic possibility. Finally, c.), adding a single 1 tile island, no food necessary, to the southeast of 5, will do a bit to make that chokepoint less of a scouting crapshoot. player 2 is just going to be isolated unless we were to do some serious plate tectonics and shift that whole region north. oh well.
Other things: player 6 has no copper at all, player 8 has no horse. players 7 and 9 are missing oil. player 2 is missing aluminum. players 2, 3, and 4 are missing coal. player 1 is missing uranium. everyone should get their full set of strat resources, at least.
Things to note about the difficulty of each spot: players 1, 2, and 6 have really good luxury access. players 2 and 4 have shittons of food compared to others. player 4 has no ancient luxuries. player 7 has only a low chance to get any luxuries, while players 8 and 9 have no chance at luxuries whatsoever!
We should check with players, but I think on resources the most sensible thing to do is to strip the map of non-food resources and re-seed manually -- strategics can't be left to chance, and luxuries should probably be used as a balancing mechanism especially for bringing these weaker starts up a bit.
So I think our rough consensus is as follows on players? Will win unless we set him to Deity and the rest to Settler: OldHarry
Without Old Harry, would win unless we set him to Deity and the rest to Settler: Gavagai
Good: 2metra+OT4E
REM
---Some debate about which is better, but OT4E is good, think this ordering is fair---
Medium: ipecac
Alhazard
Molach
---MUCH debate here; I'd actually say ipecac>Alhaz>Molach for sandbox skill, but Molach>Alhaz>ipecac for war tenacity---
Lead boots: Dantski
Greywolf
TheWannabe
---All going to be food, but edibility probably is in that order---
Quote:As far as neighbors are concerned, from my perspective I'd say that the most dangerous 4 (OH, Gavagai, REM, 2metra) lower their neighbors' skill ratings by 1 apiece, with REM and 2metra getting special consideration above their skill level because they're both kind of disasters to neighbor. That is to say, if, for example, ipecac were next to Gavagai, REM, and Molach, he would effectively rate a skill rating of 3, as far as land-quality goes, meaning he would get better land if he's stuck next to these guys. Conversely, we could say that GreyWolf and TheWannabe would effectively increase their neighbor's skill rating by 1 apiece, because they're likely to underexpand and be food for later.
Yeah, I'd mostly agree with this.
Another note on combos; for the lowbies in particular I think we want to ensure they're given options to encourage *smart* play. Victoria and Zara? Encourage good solid play. Less so maybe Catherine of Byzantium...
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.
First, some notes about land quality, in addition to what what we've already said about strategic position on the map and luxuries:
- start 0
- capital: pig, fish (2nd ring), decent riverage
- good sites for second/third/fourth cities
- start 1
- capital: hillpig, drycorn, decent riverage. decent capital.
- huge tundra wasteland right in front of it
- desert to its southeast
- very little food to the north.
- this site is fucked up actually, wow! this starts gets worse and worse the more i look.
- start 2
- capital: drycorn, fish (1st ring), sheep
- good 2nd/3rd cities
- needs an early galley
- imp very good for this spot
- start 3
- triple grass sheep, dry corn
- ok sites for 2nd city, tougher after that
- start 4
- capital: TWO HAMMER PLANT, triple floodplain, grass sheep, plains cow, very good rivers
- shitloads of jungle to the south
- decent 2nd/3rd cities; things might get slower after that though
- start 5
- capital: hillpig, drycorn, no fresh water
- low trees compared to other starts
- not a lot of great 2nd city options, but ok 3rd/4th cities
- cre helps this spot immensely imho
- this spot needs to control the island to its nw, but also doesn't want to give up the choke to the east nor allow a foothold to the continent to the north. very complicated start.
- start 6
- capital: copper (forested), a single fish (first-ring), multiple jungles in capital bfc, very good riverage
- land nearby capital sucks a lot actually
- long term potential outside of capital zone is amazing however
- start 7
- capital: hillpig, fish (1st ring), cow, marble, no fresh water or rivers
- insane moai spot nearby, but bad as an early city unless cre
- WARNING: if the capital is planted on the moai, this spot is FUCKED
- not great sites for 2nd/3rd city imho
- this start wants the island to the south so bad
- start 8
- capital: wetcorn, grasshill sheep, fish (1st ring), nice rivers
- ok sites for 2nd/3rd cities
- boned after that
- start 9
- capital: marble+double stone, sheep + drycorn if settler moves onto plainshill marble
- great spots for 2nd/3rd cities
- wants Ind, heh
Some very small changes that I think would improve the map drama:
1.) give player 5 a backdoor way to get across the bay, because its way more likely player 0 will beat them to the choke because player 0's start is much faster
2.) add some floodplains to the big chokepoint desert between 0/3/8 to make that area worth fighting over
3.) swap the location of the marble and aluminum tiles, because if player 7 moves to settle on the marble where it is they'll end up orphaning two fish and ruining an amazing moai site. or, do something else, like add an extra land tile near the fish so they won't be orphaned by the marble plant. just make it so they don't want to commit seppuku on T1.
4.) player 6's capital spot turns out to be considerably slower than every other players'. like, by a ton. they only have a single fish, from a 10T workboat, and multiple jungles in their bfc, where most other players have a 6f + a 5f, or better. (some much better, e.g. see player 3). my suggestion is to get rid of the capital bfc jungle and move this pig down one tile, into the bfc. i think it's worth buffing the capital like this because otherwise it's tough to judge the spot; everything else about start 6 is awesome, but this player will have 2 cities out when others have 5. note that even with my suggested buff this is still the worst capital! note that if they yolo-move onto the banana their capital is completely without food.
5.) it is insanely important for player 1 to have a shot at controlling this area, as their starting zone is totally horrible and so their only real land will be the peninsula to the south. a plains wheat here will help anchor this position.
blah blah blah. anyways, here's my ratings, with 5 being "average", 1 being the best, 10 being the worst.
player 0: 4
player 1: 9 (10 without the suggested buff)
player 2: 1.5
player 3: 3.5
player 4: 3
player 5: 5.5 (6.5 without the suggested buff)
player 6: 1 (5 without the suggested buff)
player 7: 6 (8 without the buff)
player 8: 9
player 9: 7
this is also assuming that strat resources get fixed up.
I would suggest that typical start normalization is done. All capitals should have access to fresh water, even if it's just a shitty one tile lake. Three hills minimum, no bfc jungle, etc. The starts have to at least be playable, even for the expected best players. No one will have fun if they can't improve their capital tiles because jungle has spread everywhere.
Played: Pitboss 18 - Kublai Khan of Germany Somalia | Pitboss 11 - De Gaulle of Byzantium | Pitboss 8 - Churchill of Portugal | PB7 - Mao of Native America | PBEM29 Greens - Mao of Babylon
