[NO PLAYERS] Seeding and ranking discussion

[Haram]

If 2metra is teaming with OT4E I wonder if they join the top tier? OT4E is supposed to be an amazing dualist, but that didn't seem to transfer in pb22..

That is something I can confirm, OT4E is an incerdible dualist. Couple of years ago we had duel tournaments on our polish forum and he has won 4 tournments out of 5, he was participating in. These included some really strong players from different civ sites, not only from ours. As far as I remenber, Mackoti was also taking part in one of them.

[Dreylin]

Prompted by Joey's comments in the PB25 thread, I'm offering my Lurker 2p into the map discussions. Primarily I've held off because the first map had been rolled and published before there had been much of a chance to discuss settings and then the discussion seemed to be focused on the nuts and bolts of tuning that particular map (which as noted are time consuming and I'm not experienced at), rather than on the general merits of the map type selected.

* I was surprised that we went straight for a Toroid even though imbalance is the order of the day. I was expecting a cylinder or even a flat map to allow an aspect of balancing to take place through use of "safe" backlines.

* I've not opened the proposed map itself, just looked at the images in the thread, but it seems to me that there's a lot of water. It might be a crackpot theory, but I would propose that high water maps probably favour the more experienced (generally higher tier) players. Let's discuss that, but if agreed then it would follow that a water-light map would maintain a balance.

* Close starts will promote conflict, which will also favour the more experienced players, but lots of space for all also does if the terrain is balanced. So control ideally has to be via spacing of resources, rivers, inconveniently placed Peaks/Lakes, etc. Unfortunately this seems like a lot of work. Can it be sectioned and delegated effectively?

I guess we could always just give them the PB25 map; maybe Gavagai would like to try playing out from the same corner again...

[AdrienIer]

* I was surprised that we went straight for a Toroid even though imbalance is the order of the day. I was expecting a cylinder or even a flat map to allow an aspect of balancing to take place through use of "safe" backlines.

The proposed map is cylindrical I think.

[Krill]

Fuck cylindrical. Fuck it and everyone that thinks it's acceptable. That's fucking dreadful.

[Dreylin]

* I was surprised that we went straight for a Toroid even though imbalance is the order of the day. I was expecting a cylinder or even a flat map to allow an aspect of balancing to take place through use of "safe" backlines.

The proposed map is cylindrical I think.

In which case I'm an idiot and please rescind that comment.

[GermanJoey]

Fuck cylindrical. Fuck it and everyone that thinks it's acceptable. That's fucking dreadful.

Well they want imbalance, right? *shrugs*

[Krill]

It's easier to unbalance toroidal yet leave players methods to play back for a win.

[GermanJoey]

Well, I agree, but we weren't the ones who were asked to roll the map.

Commodore is well known for and makes no secret about liking a certain kind of map (this kind of map). Harry explicitly asked him to roll it, giving him free reign to boot, so I assume this is the kind of map he would expect. On top of that, I asked the players, in as neutral of a way as I could imagine, if they were fine with these settings, and there were no complaints. So, I have none either, and I think we should just try to do what they asked, which is to try to fit the players into the map as best as we can. Put players rated 4/10 into map spots that we rate 4/10, players rated 9/10 into spot rated 9/10. If there's only an 8/10 spot left for the 9/10, make their capital's corn dry instead of wet or some such. At the end of the day, the hope is that the better players go into the game feeling challenged, and the less skilled players go into the game feeling confident, and that we get a good game out of it.

FWIW I'm very interested in seeing this formula work. The settings for this game in particular are maybe a bit raw for me, but I think its a really cool idea nonetheless - to get a fair game without needing to slave for many hours at building a fair map. I think its extraordinarily difficult and time-consuming to balance any kind of "natural-looking" map fairly. There ends up being a fantastic amount of details to consider, and something important getting overlooked or omitted ends up being an inevitability, as you well know, heh. However, being able to slot better players into worse slots might compensate for that quite a bit... I think it will at least. So, we can get a pretty fair game with just some light balancing, maybe. I mean, its worth a try at least, right?

[GermanJoey]

heh, I'm sad that nobody liked the 1-plot-wide Maze w/ Rocky Climate. ;(

I wonder if you started people with a galley on T0, if this could actually work out ok for a 4 player PBEM?

[Krill]

The last time people played a map that Commodore wanted PB25 happened so fuck that.