Gaspar and NobleHelium - More Arguments About Buildings & Food.

[NobleHelium]

Hey - let's swap into Theocracy next turn. We should have done it this past turn actually because all the Drydocks were done. We're really not building buildings now. DO can sink a few hammers into a PT before swapping to the IP.

[plako]

I don't love it, truth be told. I don't know what the logic that supports it is since that's over my head but I don't think it can replace a human. The things in this game that I think weren't properly valued:

• Yuri's start was terrible - its short a food resource and he basically started in the jungle. That's fine in a truly random map but less so in one that is in theory balanced. His land is great late game, but not nearly so hot in the start.
  
• Mistabod's start position in my mind was pretty clearly better than the others.
  
• The size of our secure backline was really strong.
  

That said, in search of a more "random" map it was certainly better than what the generic script spits out. I like Seven's mirrorland script but there's some value in variety, particularly in what it adds to scouting and the like. So I guess mostly I'd grade novice's tool as a work-in-progress.

Since the map is revealed I can't resist commenting this. I think map corresponded order and was balanced enough. Yuris screwed his start. He should have done way better from that position. Mistabod had a bit too good starting area, but it was a bit magnified by Yuris playing weakly.

All in all I'm pretty happy for the map balance. If the map is supposed to be somewhat random, it is very hard to make a map significantly more balanced than this. If you want similar tiles for everyone, ask for it. It is boring, but also way easier to balance.

[NobleHelium]

Played turn 163.

Some interesting stuff this turn. Commodore moved his Transports northward and the Destroyers also disappeared.




After some discussion I convinced Gaspar that we should just sink the Transports now so that we don't have to keep track of them. Commodore's Caravel also showed up again snooping in the southeast so we destroyed it too. Cursory examination of the kill statistics indicates that the Transports were probably empty.

Commodore also seems to be shifting units southward and he also increased his Cannon count considerably. We stuffed a few more units into Silver Spire in response.

Other than that, we finished Industrialism and Versailles. My main gripe with the map is our late game strategic resource placement, as we reveal Aluminum on crappy desert hills, one of which we can't work. The one at KA will give us an extra 1h1c over a workshop, so that's good I guess.




Redeclaring war reactivates the war weariness (which has reduced by about 25% from before). It seems that the unhappiness from WW is affected by culture? We have 3 unhappy in HC which is size 13, and only 2 unhappy at DO which is size 16. The 6% Commodorian culture at HC is the only explanation that I can think of. Since we sunk the Transports in neutral waters Commodore gets WW too (less than us though since he was the defender). We didn't get any WW for the Caravel since we had 100% culture on the tile.



Commodore finished Astronomy and obsoleted Colossus. His GNP dropped a lot on the graph but it will go up again next turn as he presumably stops working those 1c ocean tiles. We also swapped into Theocracy as planned.

With regards to the map, the main reason why we didn't have a normal map was that nobody wanted to make one, and then novice mentioned his tool. I don't think we really wanted a random map per se (I certainly didn't). That is the main source of any issue with the map I'd say. That said, I think novice's tool is fine for the most part but needs tighter controls for balancing resources - reducing the maximum variance between players for food and luxuries, and making sure there aren't swaths of land without any food at all. I basically mentioned this before we started the game (at least the part about reducing variance of luxuries). I think yuris's start was fine except for the GoH area for which I would have added at least a dry Rice. He had jungle pretty close by, but it's not like he started inside it.

[novice]

Redeclaring war reactivates the war weariness (which has reduced by about 25% from before). It seems that the unhappiness from WW is affected by culture? We have 3 unhappy in HC which is size 13, and only 2 unhappy at DO which is size 16. The 6% Commodorian culture at HC is the only explanation that I can think of.

I thought WW gave unhappiness proportional to the population, adjusted for jails etc. Maybe you have "We refuse to fight the motherland" unhappiness in HC?

[NobleHelium]

Oh yeah, we have a Jail in DO. Forgot about that.

[SevenSpirits]

My main gripe with the map is our late game strategic resource placement, as we reveal Aluminum on crappy desert hills, one of which we can't work.

I see NobleHelium thinks this is the best map ever.

[NobleHelium]

Not sure who got dogpiled but it probably wasn't us since I don't see any way that davy could have attacked us with his Musketeers this turn. Commodore, on the other hand, has two cities one tile back from the border and they're only defended by a combined seven units...and davy has at least 36! Musketeers stacked in range.

Well, davy could have attacked a few units that we had on the border I guess.

[SevenSpirits]

...and davy has at least 36! Musketeers stacked in range.

For those of you who, like me, can't do large factorials in their head, that's 371,993,326,789,901,217,467,999,448,150,835,200,000,000 Musketeers.

[NobleHelium]

I was going more for the chess-notation exclamation mark.

[NobleHelium]

Maybe davy did attack us. We'll see.