(April 28th, 2013, 11:13)Gavagai Wrote: Serdoa gains a) stopping Commodore from winning the game, b) keeping his other fronts safe. Other players wouldn't mess with Serdoa while he is fighting the main contender to win the game.
That's the same logic as why dogpiles should work, but they don't.
Up to page 15. Comments: Honestly, besides the simming at the beginning of the game (and ad hoc never even took my micro suggestions, even the ones that we both agreed were correct) a small amount of settlign advice, and the month that I turnplayed, I had almost no role in this game. I couldn't log into the game for the longest time and when I finally did, might have quit right then and there if I hadn't promised ad hoc that I'd cover. Looking at the worker micro, the tech path, the inside of cities was just...sickening. I did make one very, very large mistake: ad hoc had set me in place to settle for horses, but without military or worker support for another turn or two (I forget exactly). I should have waited; instead, I went ahead, got the city razed, and cost us the game. If I had waited a turn, our horses would have been secure and while we still probably would have fought plako, it would have been very different, we would have at least held ground.
Also, after my turn playing ended, I took about a month off because I was busy and the game was disappointing, but then once I returned to wanting to help, ad hoc never responded to my emails. I have no idea what happened there. All in all, I deserve a lot, if not most, of the blame for how horribly this game turned out for us, but when I threw my hat into the ring as a junior partner, I was hoping that what would happen is that I would do micro when free, play turns when strictly necessary, and learn from an experienced multiplayer partner in my first mp game. ad hoc and I almost never communicated, and that killed our game.
Also, RB mod Arabia sucks. Should have gotten more out of Augustus, however. Could have expanded much faster.
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.
Also, I know that I requested this in my thread, but could I please see the original map? That was one of the best capitals that I've seen in a long time.
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.
Krill, I remember some interesting discussion at the end of PB5. How winnable was our start with perfect play, assuming plako played his usual very good game? I assume it was possible to win, but I certainly do not have enough experience to judge how winnable.
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.
That start needed other players to act in a manner that benefited you as well as them. You had to get the horses settled and held, making it harder for Plako to settle around it without holding more defensive units than you (like a bunch of spears in each city so you couldn't rush in with HA and raze the cities). After that you basically needed a concerted push to hold all of the "islands" between you and Brick, so you wanted Brick to focus on settling his continent and competing with Serdoa, which did actually happen, along with his war with Xenu. From there you needed to basically pray on someones weakness to get more cities (like, crushing Brick with a tech edge, or applying pressure to Plako whilst he was trying to make jungle cities productive and he had to deal with Slow trying to settle south of him).
But TBH, you started next to Plako. Anyone can lose if they start next to Plako, and he got a better start so...yeah, whilst I think your start was "winnable" you probably weren't going to win if he played out his start as well as he could do, even if you did have a better civ. It's part and parcel of large PB games with random maps, and I don't think you gave a bad showing. Everyone tends to make mistakes, they just are not punished for them a lot of the time.
When I was looking through the starts on this map, Serdoa had the worst one, but yours wasn't that much better. The problems are that it's hard to find a good map for 11 players on this mapscript: Large generally screws 1 person over really badly (much worse than this map) and Huge meant that some players could just play builder for the entirety of the game with a ton of land, even on high sea level. I think 13 players are needed for a Huge map to be reliable, maybe 12 on some maps, and 10 is the max on Large. Part of this is to do with the set distance between players needed to ensure early warfare is possible (if not viable).
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.
