[NO PLAYERS] WW err CIV6 Game 4

[Alhazard]

I predict we will re-learn why RB shifted away from Diplo games.

[Ituralde]

So Spain over Rome? Colour me intrigued.

[Mardoc]

Yeah, diplo is rarely as much fun as you think it will be. But maybe it can work for Civ6, given how many avenues to free stuff have been removed or reduced, and how much coordination had become possible without explicit diplo. In particular, tech trading, but DoF/alliances available in-game.

[MJW (ya that one)]

Has public diplo thread been tried before?

Edit: Not worth own post but the no-images rule is silly. Anyone reasonably strong can get the same effect with words. This isn't the case with weak players (Civ4 Pitboss#2) but if there are weak players anyway your ****ed anyway because their land will get stolen and unlike Civ4, Civ6 doesn't have a city maintenance system.

[Kaiser]

It has a hidden one as the anenities are distributed among your cities. The more cities you have, the more difficult it will be keeping them content

[Sullla]

I have a map that I think will work for this game. As I posted in the public organizing thread, I'm hoping to get some technical assistance on how to transform it from Worldbuilder map file into a playable state for this game. First of all, a link to the Worldbuilder save file itself:

PBEM4 Test Save

I'm hoping that Cornflakes or Trassom or someone else who understood all that discussion in the General Forum can take a look at that file and help out. Now for everyone else, some pictures of what we have in this map. The basic gist is that there's one large continent with the six players scattered at the corners, and then a whole bunch of smaller islands on the outskirts. Pictures:



First up, Spain in the northwest corner. I left this part of the map untouched, aside from making sure that this player had access to iron/horses/niter.



England in the southwest corner of the main continent. This starting position had very narrow access to the main continent originally, and I widened the land bridges to make them easier to traverse. England originally started on a tiny island in a completely screwed location before I moved them here.



Brasil has the north-center location on the map. This was the most heavily edited location; Brasil originally started by that central lake, and I moved them up here and converted the local tundra/snow terrain into rainforest to match their starting bias. The Carnival was hot enough to melt the ice up here.



Japan has this spot in the south-central part of the continent. Now it's obviously a disadvantage for these two players to be in the middle of the map, so my plan is to compensate for the strategic disadvantage by putting two city states nearby, one on that tundra island west of Brasil, and one on the small island southeast of Japan. This will help them out a bit. There's only so much I can do though; this Worldbuilder is a real pain in the rear to use, as everything must be edited one tile at a time. Apologies Brasil and Japan.



Germany has the northeast starting location. This was originally an island that I connected to the main continent.



Norway has the southeast location. This was also originally an island that required some serious editing to link up with the rest of the continent. Norway originally started on a pitiful little offshore location before I moved them here.



Finally, there's a huge chain of islands along the worldwrap, and this is where I would like to place the other 8 city states. There's two subcontinents in the far north and far south of this part of the map, and I was thinking something like 2 city states on each of them, then the other 4 city states scattered in this central region of tiny islands. Everything is connected by coastal tiles, so players have an incentive to get out and scout the map to find them.

Now the problem is that I have no idea how to place the city states. I'm hoping someone else can help with that, as well as convert this from Worldbuilder state into something the players can use. I've read that post in the General Forum a bunch of times and I still can't make sense of it. Sorry! I'm kind of turning this over to someone else to help in the next step of the process. Here's hoping that our community can figure this out. We have awesome people, so I'm not worried.

[Bacchus]

At what stage are you running into a problem, Sulla? You start by placing city states in the Worldbuilder, then the idea, if I understood it correctly, is just to download DB Browser, open the map file in that program, and then import some data into appropriate tables (Players and PlayerAttributes), after deleting whatever WorldBuilder puts in them.

[Trasson]

I'll be home in ten hours or so so I can see what I can do then.

[MJW (ya that one)]

A part of this player ranking could be considered to have spoilers for PBEM#1 for Alhambram, so I spoiled it after the first one--the players are people who have played in PBEM#2 (spoiler thread in case you are confused about Archduke) and I talk about Russia a lot for the last guy.

The map looks like a total mess to me; however Brazil and Japan take a slight hit from being in the middle. FYI, I use FilthyRobot's tier list. Now from worst to best:

CFCJesterFool
This player picked Spain.   Don't have to say anymore...in fairness he didn't want to play Rome but picking the worst Civ in them game on this map is just too much.

Japper007
Total unknown; so the other players get the benefit of the doubt. Norway is actually playable on this map but I still don't think it will hold up the Russia. The tech will easily reach powerful Cossacks because of islands and more players than PBEM #2. Due to the fact that the game cannot steal buildings from you when you take out a city anymore the UU being late isn't as big as a deal.

Woden
Cutting Aztecs because of map issues and them already being picked is okay. Brazil gets a bump too because of their water UU and the game being prolonged makes their GP abilities better. They still feel a bit underwhelming. You might be able to reach Mbanzas consistently on this map which would make Kongo shoot up to tier two. Don't really care to think about that after Woden didn't pick them.

TheArchduke
After dying horrible deaths two times he's weaker Singaboy and oledavy. Woden only died horribly once but it was quite the death and he's stuck in the middle in this game. It's okay not to pick Greece again and England is at least equal to Egypt on this map. It might even be Tier 2 on FilthlyRobot's tier list and that's another reason he get's bumped up. 

oledavy
France is underwhelming. Japan is really pushing it too...but's it's okay not to pick China again. China would still be really powerful with access to the banned in no-quitters Colosseum (even though it would be very unlikely to reach six cities). He's about the same playing strength as Singaboy but takes big hits from being in the middle and having a much weaker civ.

Singaboy
The Germans still have enough room for their Hansas on this map, production is King in Civ6 and weak tiles makes Hansas more important. This pick is as about as safe as it gets for gamers.

[Mardoc]

Sullla, I'm confused by your philosophy here.  They asked for a map that favors naval combat, but I see three big edits that should push away from that: linking up the Norway and Germany islands to the main continent, and widening the English land bridge.  It seems to me that a player who completely ignores their navy can win this game; you're likely to end up with the Civ4 Terra map problem where the overseas stuff is nice to have but the mainland cores are what determines the game.

I grant that overseas city states ought to encourage at least naval scouting, but it seems very swingy - whoever first realizes your map design might be able to pick up 6 or maybe even all 8 free first-contact envoys, while someone who scouts the wrong direction first will get nothing.  Also, with so much of the island area already settled, that doesn't leave nearly as much room for strategic questions about where to send settlers, how soon to build navy, etc.  Instead it seems like the right approach is to claim as much of the mainland as possible, while sending a minimal scouting force to the islands, then just invade your neighbors until you're big enough to win.

That said, I'm not yet a Civ6 player, so maybe I'm overlooking other features of the map that might push toward navy anyway.

My first thought would be to cut your land bridges back down, even though that would tend to make the land splits more artificial.  If you're not willing to do that, I'd at least change the city state philosophy.

I'd be inclined to move several of them (four, say) to form island chain bridges, or just fill in the bays with islands, between the points of the E's; that would both make scouting decisions cause smaller swings (since there would be city states any direction you look) and provide a role for a coastal navy that's more than just guarding the flanks of your land-based army.  It would also encourage the central players to have more use for navy.

Things I like:
-  I very much like having the world-wrap all connected by coastline.  That puts the corner players in contact from a fairly early date.  I'm not sure how fast navy is compared to walking units, but in terms of turns of travel, they might be a similar distance as the distance between corner and central players.
-  I like having lots of the land be islands, and so much of the rest as jagged coastlines and penisulae.  That probably allays a lot of my concerns about navy relevance.
- The general spacing and neighbors are both good.

Things I can't judge:
No idea if the starts themselves are balanced or not, I still don't own Civ6 so I don't have any practice judging terrain.

I see everyone has decent access to niter, horses, and iron. Encampments will be required for some players, but I think it's become clear that those are always a good idea anyway. Are there any other strategics that I haven't noticed by lurking, and hence haven't judged balance about? In particular are there any naval strategic resources, or maybe late-era resources?