Sirian Wrote:Hub was meant to be (primarily) a multiplayer map, while Always War is meant to be playable on Pangaea, Continents, Lakes, or any other map. So it's a bit ironic that it's become an AW SP favorite and is shunned by many MP players. However, if some AW players, by and large, prefer to stick to the choke maps rather than lower the difficulty level and play on a variety of maps, that's their call. They get a fairly predictable game and can work on perfecting the strategy for it. Fun is where you find it.
There aren't very many map types that could be produced without some choke points, though. You can get chokes that are three plots wide with the existing maps. Is that too narrow, in your view? How many plots wide should a choke be before it stops being "too easy to defend"? The MP players don't like Pangaea maps either. So if chokes are out and varied luck on starting location and landmass quality are out, what's left? Not to run too far off track here, but the feedback I've gotten on maps leaves MP players with as narrow and picky a range of "acceptable" map conditions as the AW-only crowd have moved toward.
- Sirian
Well, I think part of the problem with the feedback you're getting on maps for multiplayer is that the opinions are so varied. Some people like the unpredictability of Lakes and the danger of a toroidal map like Fantasy Realm, others the predictability of Mirror and the relative safety of Inland Sea.
In my opinion, a choke that's "way too small" is one that's only one or two tiles wide. Three tiles is okay, but still a little small. The other problem with three tile chokes on Ring, Wheel, and Hub is that, for some reason I don't understand, the host rarely makes them that wide. It may be that the people who are playing maps with chokes want them as small as possible, that people who would enjoy the game with a three-tile choke aren't playing these maps, or that people shy away from the most extreme options in any category.
I would say that in a teamer game for an age before industrial, the ideal width is about five or six tiles. In a free for all or CTON (essentially a free for all that's been modified to better fit with the ladder system) the best width is less. In a later era game where sea invasions are a more potent option, it's probably somewhere in between.
Because of the range of opinions on the relative degree of safety that the landform should provide and the variety of game-types and starting eras, I think the best option would just be to increase the number of options for choke size that the host can choose. I can understand why there could be a number of reasons not to include a huge range of options, but it's very hard to pin down a specific number that would work in all instances. If I had to say one, the best general purpose width for multiplayer would probably be somewhere from four to six tiles.
On Pangea, the only complaint I ever get when I suggest the map is that the land that's given out is "imbalaced." The quality of the land isn't really the issue, as much as the amount of land that one team gets. I saw this first hand in a game the other day where my team's circle of land was roughly the same size as the other team's, except that it was missing a rather large triangular piece. I think Pangea is a very good map script, but if you're looking for one where both teams are going to get exactly the same amount of land, it may not be what you want.
(thanks firaxis)