[NO PLAYERS] PBEM58 lurkers and their kindhearted gentle thread

[SevenSpirits]

This thread is for people not playing in the game.



























Specifically it's for them to talk about the game, definitely not gloat about the fact that they have this exclusive thread which the players can't read, and maybe be polite and respectful of the players. (Who knows!)

[SevenSpirits]

I've prepared a map and run it by a few people already. The game will start soon but I still welcome map feedback from any and all if you can get it in on time.

Map: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1116...wordWBSave

To conveniently organize the map-related info which you can find in the setup thread:

What I told them about the map:

* It is not mirrored.
* It is 32x32.
* It has toroidal wrap.
* It is 20-25% water.
* It has no marble and no stone.
* Size is Standard. (Note: the size setting does not affect dimensions; it affects maintenance and tech costs, and e.g. number of theaters required for Globe Theater.)
* Difficulty is Noble.
* Unlike many starts, fishing will not be completely useless here. (But it's by no means needed.)

Their settings as far as I can tell:

No elephants
No nukes
No blockades
No huts
No events
No active espionage
No barbarians
No technology trading
No diplomacy
No India/Inca/Pacal/Willem

[SevenSpirits]

My first goal with the map was to give the players a game where they are safe from ancient units, but it will quickly heat up in the classical era and beyond. Hence a toroid of this size. (Also: the fact that there's a boat-eligible sea spanning most of the direct path between every pair of starts.)

Second goal was to provide plenty of resources and a low enough difficulty such that they can breeze through the game rather than struggling with lack of food and high maintenance. This is explicitly a learning game and they expressed some interest in having it play out quickly so they can get to game number two.

Third goal was to make this toroidal mostly-land map have distinguishable and memorable terrain, that doesn't just all blend together in the minds of lurkers and players. To this end I gave each space-between-four-players a distinct, but hopefully fairly balanced, biome. I think of them as: Fertile Plains, Temperate, Taiga, Tropical Highlands, and Tropical Lowlands. I'm excited to find out which one people like the best/least.

The map was made by rolling a modified torusland and tweaking the starts so they are just about as equidistant as possible, and then replacing almost everything on the map with other stuff. I didn't think of the separate biomes concept until I had drawn in the seas and saw the shape of the resulting map - and with the biomes, I needed to rip up all the existing resources and draw most everything by hand.

[Old Harry]

Looks fun, I played the first 20 turns and everything seemed nice and easy. No tough choices and I can't see anything obvious wrong.

Will be interesting to see which terrains the players try to expand into...

[SevenSpirits]

Well then. Everyone picked a financial leader. For the record, I think Suryavarman was the best leader available.

The players asked me to provide a ban list and I gave them India/Inca/Pacal/Willem, and the only reason I left Sury off the list is I didn't want it to end up being all financial, and I thought if I left Sury available then worst case there's at least one non-FIN player so they get a demonstration of how other traits can be good too in different ways. I thought it was worth the potential imbalance in favor of whoever picked Sury, to completely ensure they get a taste of this difference.

I'd consider EXP and CRE to be incredibly close to the level of FIN on this kind of map. EXP is always close, moreso on lower difficulty settings, and CRE of course is enhanced by the nature of a toroid where you'll have lots of touching borders. But then the thing is, all the next-best traits are economy-driving ones: spiritual, organized, industrious... these traits can be more synergistically paired with EXP or CRE than with FIN. Meanwhile, traits like PHI and IMP maybe shouldn't be picked at all in a 5-player game with such loose restrictions. They are just not up to par. Here's my (hasty) take on top leaders for the map:

1) Suryavarman II
2) Huayna Capac
3) Isabella
4) Zara Yaqob
5) Mehmed

[Boldly Going Nowhere]

With financial leaders, I think I'd be gunning for the flood plains/river region. The map looks really fun and I love the fresh water/forest lakes.

I didn't notice any problems with the map. Bronze/Iron are in good range. With gold, silver, and gems none too difficult to acquire, IND/FIN would indeed be strong, particularly given no stone/marble.

Edit: And now I look at the picks and see that HC was the first pick off the board, just before Mansa. Hard to disagree with either, though I'll be interested to see how much benefit the Mansa player gets from SPI. I'm less sure about the Vicky pick. There were several better options available, IMO, but he did pair with Sumeria so there's some insurance against crashing the economy. I like IMP, but in a five player game I agree that there are plenty of better options.

[Commodore]

I am Pro Vicky/Sumer. Honestly, Vicky is underrated, best expansion trait left available to pair with the best economy trait with Pacal/Willie out.

[SevenSpirits]

I agree, Vicky has some appeal in terms of trait synergy. I do think Mehmed is clearly better, though, with ORG only being a bit worse than FIN, while IMP is a lot worse than EXP. And in particular, I wouldn't have to think for more than a second about which of the two to pair with Sumeria.

[NobleHelium]

oh - it looks like growth and whip isn't actually particularly faster than just builidng one, but I do get slightly more commerce and I get a 2nd warrior faster, so that's something.

It's probably slower because you're not EXP...

[Oxyphenbutazone]

Shouldn't Krill pop in at some point to rant about picking Darius of the Ottomans on noble?