RBP2 Lurker Discussion Thread - No Players!

[Ruff_Hi]

Map looks good. Are there a little too many peaks? One idea that I had would be to put in a ring of peaks around the middle of the donut with gaps in the ring between each players start. That would make the gaps very valuable real estate.

If we really want to say to everyone that navy is important, we could give everyone a galley to start the game.

I've had tons of experience with playing with rivers in WB so if we want to move some of them around, I can do that. Also - I am very familiar with getting the right civs / leaders in the right starting positions with the right colors, techs, starting units, etc.

[Azoth]

Hey. One-time RB MOO player and now avid RB Civ lurker checking in. I must say this map looks very promising. It should play quite differently from both the current Pitboss and the PBEM. You asked for comments, so here goes:

- The Great Lighthouse: A powerful wonder on this map, no doubt. But everyone has a coastal capital, so everyone has a fair shot. Plus, it's makes a very tempting target for conquest. It says "Here's 200 hammers I didn't spend on workers, settlers, and military." Ditto Colossus, to a much lesser degree.

- Strategic Resources: Someone mentioned that all strategic resources (copper, horses, iron...) would be placed on islands. I think it's a great idea and should be followed strictly. As I see it, Civ IV has a distinct bias against overseas colonization. That is to say, once the staring continent is fully occupied, it's generally safer to build a massive offensive force than to invest in exploratory and colonization missions, and spread defensive forces across several landmasses. Successful colonizers get a few fledgling fishing villages for their efforts, while successful militarists can snag a couple of mature cities from their neighbours. The only way around this is to force players to colonize islands in order to get the resources to build an effective military in the first place.

- Jungle Island: Choked with jungle and relatively low-quality (tile yield-wise) Calender resources, I'm not sure all that many players will bother to build cities here. Maybe you could sweeten the deal by putting ivory (and/or marble and stone) here? After all, ivory is a jungle resource...

- Military Alliances: In the same way that diplomacy in RBP1 soon collapsed into an us vs. them struggle between two large trading blocks, diplomacy in RBP2 *could* simplify into a struggle between large military alliances. I don't think this is a design flaw: players will be looking for security and eager to cut down on the number of directions from which they must defend, so it would be only natural. At the very least, such alliances will probably be more fluid, depending upon the fortunes of war.

Or so it looks from here...

[Cyneheard]

Ivory is out. Eles have to be either "everybody gets them", or "nobody gets them", and center-only would be a very, very dangerous idea.

Wonders: I agree with you about the GLH. Especially with 0 Ind civs. Colossus isn't as expensive, since it's built with copper+forge, and therefore only needs 112 base hammers.

Re: Diplomacy: Certainly, that's a possibility. But even in RBP1, getting a full set of 5 players to coordinate attacks or defense has not happened yet. Also, players will have fewer reasons to cooperate, since the only things they can trade are OB (nearly costless; would you send 300H of troops off to die for trade routes?), resources (positive-sum, but sharply limited), and gold (zero-sum). I think the diplomacy is going to be a LOT more interesting; RBP1 was going to go something approximating UTA/NUTA from the scenario design.

[Imhotep]

Speaker and Sulla eh? OMG.

[Olodune]

Many new edits, starting with larger islands painted with resources looking like so:



I've also fixed all the starting techs and units (I hope), and done a pass over the starts. Each start has the following:

-Two food tiles, one of which is a seafood. The total yield between the two should add to 9.
-A short river, irrigating the start
-A Commerce resource. Either plains-hill-silver OR plains-fur
-Either Copper OR Horses within 3 tiles, but NOT in the BFC

The starts should obey the rule that moving 1-2 tiles in any direction does not vastly improve the location.

Here are some samples:





Some more notes on balancing

- Stone and marble have been moved away from caps, but otherwise remain untouched
- There is currently none of the following on the map: gems, pigs, corn, ivory
- Iron should be accessible by everyone.
- The center continent is the only source of Bananas and Dyes

The map is attached (two posts down)

[Olodune]

So what needs to be done:

1) Someone should check that the options and civ/leader/units are correct.

2) More balancing, especially a few more eyes on the starts

From now on it would probably be good to post a "working on it" note if you're editing the map (Krill, MH, Ruff, Olodune)

Anything else?

[Olodune]

Obeying my own rule, I already see several cases where "The starts should obey the rule that moving 1-2 tiles in any direction does not vastly improve the location." fails.

Slightly modified map:

[Olodune]

- Strategic Resources: Someone mentioned that all strategic resources (copper, horses, iron...) would be placed on islands. I think it's a great idea and should be followed strictly.

It's a clever idea, but for a game that players expect to put months of thought into I would rather avoid too gimmicky starts ... otherwise someone's game could be over in a frustrating manner.

[Olodune]

So I've played a couple of the starts for a few turns with random civs and not surprisingly:

Silver is better than Furs (since mining is generally more useful than hunting)

Rice/Wheat is better then Sheep (since AH is harder to get to than Agri)

Options:

1) Only pair sheep with silver, leaving furs for the grain starts
2) Give sheep starts a plains hill to settle on ... or a longer river.
3) Move to grains + furs at every start.
4) Leave it as is .... exact balance is dependent on the leader choice anyways.

[Krill]

Personally I'd prefer it if there were gems/pigs/corn on the map, mainly in limited amounts on islands (ie 5 of each on the map). Generally, I don't like it when resources are stripped from the map, as it unbalances the game, but in this case because it is one of everything, it is more balanced, and adds extra advantages to EXP and CHA. But without the resources there at all, there is less to trade between players, and less to communicate about. Also, wheat is much better than anything else (it's the only 6 yield tile left around) save a plains cow or metal, and placing that in a start is unbalancing itself.

1) Only pair sheep with silver, leaving furs for the grain starts
2) Give sheep starts a plains hill to settle on ... or a longer river.
3) Move to grains + furs at every start.
4) Leave it as is .... exact balance is dependent on the leader choice anyways.

1) isn't really "balanced" someone still getsbetter starts.

2) Makes sheep starts overpowered with plains hill. Option is to make it a double fur start.

3) Safest but most boring proposal.

4) Is true, but comes down to player choices making hte differences, instead of map maker choices.

I'd probably plump for 3.

My biggest complaint is that those that start with copper nearby have a massive advantage over those with just horses, and that isn;t balanced at alll, on a map like this. Those with copper get spears, never mind axes, and they can choke those without copper or at least damage their opponents growth because chariots are useless.

I think the copper needs to be moved far away from every start, and give them all horses. Chariot v chariot combat is perfectly balanced anyway. To balance, iron can be placed close by to every start (3-4 tiles? 5 on the outside), so everyone can atleast get metal.