RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Krill]

Method for balancing starts:

We give each position on the map a number. We line them up 1-10 in excel. Next column we place a random number in, and then reorder the starts. Therefore we have no control over who starts where.

Also, out of 2604 tiles, there will be about 60 water tiles inside the donut, and maybe 300 ish outside? There should be alot of islands, all settleable via galley. I'd definately up the estimate of land tiles on standard.

[Olodune]

That's not what I'm worried about

Alright, I'll add some Islands to a Standard Donut map and do a resource pass. Rather than use your map, I'll just generate one without jungle -- should make is slightly easier to work with. I'll add the currently known civ/leader but we'll need to do some text editing for the final few.

[Cyneheard]

The standard map is 52x52, and the donut has an outer diameter of 44 (4 water tiles on the compass points). r=22, the donut covers pi*22^2 = 1504 tiles, give or take a few dozen because of rounding and such. This includes the 60 (one-thick water circle between the center and the donut?) tiles, so 1100 or so donut land tiles, 300 center continent (radius 10?). Leaving about 1100 tiles for the islands + water. If all the water pathways are one-tile thick, then 300-400 water tiles is possible. I expect lots of culture wars over the ocean.

Re: Knowing civs first.
Could we build the map, save it as a wb file, and then start it as a custom game with the 10 civs and leaders?
If that's not possible: it's very easy to move units around, and put them in the proper start order. However, it's a PITA to redo starting techs and colors and such. As long as we carefully keep track of who starts with a scout, and who starts with a regular warrior, and who gets a CI warrior (and who's Inca), there's no worries about moving around. Also, we're still not subconsciously rigging the map based on who's getting what spot, if we randomize the starts after the maps done. Sure, we know whether or not the map is Fin-heavy, or Cre-heavy, or rush-heavy. But I think that's fairly minor compared to the mess of dealing with starting techs and such, especially if we're wrong; Sullla did goof on one of the RB Adventures when he swapped who we were playing as. I think the recent Deity Adventure.

[Olodune]

Yes indeed. But at least we have several sets of eyes on the map.

[Olodune]

So I generated a map using a standard Donut size without jungles adding all the current choices, and spacing out starts here are a few pics before any editing:

Overview:



Capitals too close?



And here?



The shared corner (this is toroidal, remember )



I'm still somewhat uncertain I like this geometry, but I'll spend a few minutes adding islands and filling the center to see if it improves things at all ...

[Olodune]

Is this the sort of center you guys had in mind?



It's clear to me that at most 4-5 civs are going to get onto here ...

[Olodune]

Putting ~20 tile islands close to each capital works pretty well (these still would need to be painted with resources, forests, etc)



However a downside to the toroidal wrapping is strange graphical artifacts along each axis .... not too pretty looking. This disappears with a reload, so not an issue after all.

I can probably double the island fill pretty easily, which would allow enough islands for 5-7 cities per team.

So what to you think? Are we heading in the right direction here?

[Olodune]

We're not committed to any mapping decisions yet so feedback from mapmakers/lurkers would be great.

This should be a more confrontational map if we stay the course!

[Cyneheard]

I think that looks more playable that I'd thought, it's very cramped and confrontational, but there's room to be had. RBP1 allowed players to move really slowly with the land grab. This will not. Each civ can probably peacefully get about 8-9 cities on the donut, 3ish on their personal island, but the center...that could be some fireworks.

Do we want more than 10 islands? Maybe something near the large "corners"?

The graphical artifacts are not a good thing. For civs like s2 and s7, though, I'm concerned that keeping that channel of water would limit their ability to have an actual island. That's the only reason I'd be slightly hesitant to fix that. Also, we need to be sure that each island can be reached from the opposite side, as well, by galleys. I think you've got that, except maybe for S3 with S8, and S6 with S1. It's impossible to keep S2 and S7 from having galley-access to each other, so everyone else is going to need it from their "partners", too.

I'm looking forward to 2v1 attacks where S(N) gets ganked by S(N-1) and S(N+1). Paranoid defenders ftw.

[Krill]

I'd add in more islands in the corner bits, and make it so all of hte islands can be reached via other islands. This allows neighbours to reach the others "island" without having to go via his/her capital.

Otherwise, everything is perfect.