RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[mostly_harmless]

Krill, can you post a sample map please? It would help to get a better understanding of what is centre etc.

We are talking toroidal, when saying donut, don't we?

Thanks
mh

[Olodune]

The more I look at it a standard size donut is too small a map for 10 players -- in many cases there is only room for a single city settled slightly aggressively between capitals. I think this is too close.

Also the toroidal map means that there are only 5-tiles of ocean between the E-W and N-S wrappings, which is not really enough space to build solid islands for TWO players.

So my preference would be to move towards at least a large donut map, or a large "ring pangaea". I'll put together a few alternative maps in a few hours.

Attached is a standard size donut map. The preliminary plan was to add a central continent and external islands to this to create more land.

[Olodune]

What I mean by a "ring pangaea" is a map like this:



I've added the connector strip from East->West. This would be a large map with extra tiles, so it has more room per Civ.

I would include a few small islands as well.

Thoughts?

[Krill]

Build solid islands between the two players, "continents" that can host up to 10 cities. No one can ever prioritise which direction to settle in, because no one ever knows the full map at the start of the game. And weven if they are close, there is no chance in hell that they ever invade before astro, the hammers they need to invest in galleys is too prohibitive. This is hiow to make the exploration in the 4X important in how the game unfolds (place all starting untis on 1 tile).

For instance it took Memphus 80 turns to realise what sort of map he was on when he playtested the idea for me months ago. He never really knew what to do, and he warrior rushed the player next to him.

Olo, problems: navy is unimportant, for some. Others get a larger coastlin,e so can take advantage of that to build a navy against those that hagve none and anphib invade them with no opposition. Difficulty of balancing coastal v non coastal starts. Unequal jungle etc etc. balancing lack of land v those with lots of land (I've already illustrated that, compare against ruff with agg Rome!)

[Olodune]

RB Epic 14 was played on a Donut map (designed by Sullla) so it won't take some teams too long to figure out what's going on

I agree that pure balance it more difficult with a "free form" map like the one I propose. I guess it partly comes down to preference: do you prefer a more symmetrical (that might still be unbalanced for certain trait combinations) or a map with more variety (but as balanced as possible).

What are your thoughts regarding large vs standard in the Donut case?

Edit: It looks like the map you sent me is actually large: do we want to consider a huge one then?

[Olodune]

What I'm worried most about a Donut map is:

1) Capital distance. I think each player should have room to settle at least once in either direction (so roughly three decent cities per player along the "rim". 11-tile separation is a little tight. We could add some peaks or water channels I suppose to increase the land distance.

2) The difference between starting close to the compass points (ENWS) compared to the diagonals (NE,SE,SW,NW). The diagonals have a much larger distance to the other external edge of the donut. This can be minimized somewhat for most players, however.

[Krill]

Large could work, if the inner side of the habitat ring were deleted. Need to make it impossible to play the game without expanding to the island chains or the inner continent; that's the only way to keep the map balanced.

That said, I think 11 tiles between civs is OK. Distance between me and Dreylin was 22? That's too far for ancient era warfare to occur, and actually forces people to run a paper military. 10 actually allows people to settler 2 cities between caps. If they settle more, they won't have strat resources, and get rushed/choked (unless neighbour plays a bad game, in which case, why shouldn't hte aggressive pklayer win?). 11 tiles is enough along the rim without any overlap on either side, for any city.

2) is a fair point, but it doesn't matter because galleys are so expensive. Also, because moving on a diagonal is equivalent to moving on a lateral, they are identical. Problem is nearby islands, but tbh enough space kinda makes that OK, so long as they can never sail "through" and island.

[Olodune]

I'm nearly on-board now -- thanks for being patient

Large could work, if the inner side of the habitat ring were deleted.

What do you mean by this?

[Cyneheard]

Standard donut is 52x52, large donut is 64x64. The first one has 2604 tiles, the latter 4096. I think 2604 is too small with the amount of water and water-access issues we're going to have. That would be, what, 1800-2000 land tiles? At most? 180/civ across islands, the center jungle, and the start? 4096, however, is the same size as some Huge contiguous map scripts like Lakes.

I think what Krill's saying is that a large donut would need to be made about as thick as the standard donut naturally is. Which means the center is a little larger, but right now it's only big enough for 3 or so civs to actually claim, since no one's going to want just 1 city on a continent that's surrounded by foes.

[Olodune]

I am satisfied with the 11 tile distance. It should be ok.

Also, having ten players reduces my worries about the compass points since most players won't line up exactly.

I'll take the first pass at resource balancing, unless someone would rather take it?

Question: Does it make sense to balance a map before the complete leader/civ list is known? -- These can be changed later (by editing the WB save file in a text editor), but must be done very carefully to make sure starting units and technologies match well. Anyone have any experience here? I asked Sullla this question a while ago and he thought that it would be easier to wait for the final civ/leaders.