New Civ4 Pitboss (38?)

[Dreylin]

I guess I might fill the next descending slot, the sign-ups need more mediocre players with spotty reporting.

Starting in the New Year would be good as I might have finished my XCOM2 playthrough by then.

Also second the chumchu's suggestion for smaller starting areas to reduce late-game empire management. We could also "vassalise" defeated players - they become dedlurkers for the empire that contributed most to their downfall - to help on that front and with holidays, etc.

[Mardoc]

I can work on a map but I can't start until December (which looks like it might not be a problem, with people saying wait til the new year?). I would be happy to work with either/both of GermanJoey/Mardoc, or anyone else with mapmaking experience.

As long as Krill ends up swearing at you instead of me, I'm happy to help.  I can start earlier but tend to have trouble finishing maps on schedule, so maybe me starting and you finishing the map would work?  I'm also happy to just do a review if you want to be more primary.  We can sort out who's doing what by PM or e-mail or something.  Also happy to work with additional volunteers, these are big projects and it's easy to overlook something.

Would like more clarification from Dtay before doing anything, though.  For example, "Normal bound of lushness" - is that RB-normal or map-generator normal or something else?  Same with anything else that's kinda vague or currently under discussion; either pin down a specific request or make it explicitly 'mapmakers' choice', please.

Biggest concern with making the starting areas too small is that it makes it a lot harder to build the map.  Especially if you don't want mirroring.  A lot easier to make a minor mistake that means a player never really had a chance, things like 'the obvious 2nd city spot made it impossible to settle for first-ring copper before my neighbor invaded' that don't matter in a bigger map but can kill you in tight quarters.  But it's hard to judge 'the obvious 2nd city spot' for twenty different players with different starting techs and strategies and so on...

If we go for a cylinder and have a lot of players can we avoid having civs stuck in on the equator with enemies on all sides while others have happy polar back lines?

Sure...as long as you're ok with having civs on the other side of the map who you can never affect, because it's too far to send any sort of army .

Maybe we can come up with something that helps a little, but that's definitely an area where there's a trade-off against other goals, such as 'you should be able to do something about someone threatening to win'.

[BRickAstley]

The map is going to be 20 tiles high by 400 tiles wide. Everyone gets two neighbors and two safe directions. PROBLEM SOLVED

[GermanJoey]

If this starts after the new year, I'll sign up in the next descending slot.

Otherwise, I could help out with the map, although I don't have enough time to make a 20-person map by myself.

Question: are we going to play with 2.0.8.3 or the newly proposed 2.0.9.1?

[GermanJoey]

If we go for a cylinder and have a lot of players can we avoid having civs stuck in on the equator with enemies on all sides while others have happy polar back lines?

Sure...as long as you're ok with having civs on the other side of the map who you can never affect, because it's too far to send any sort of army .

Maybe we can come up with something that helps a little, but that's definitely an area where there's a trade-off against other goals, such as 'you should be able to do something about someone threatening to win'.

An idea I had awhile ago that might help with this, based on something that I once saw used in a Civfanatics team succession game contest, but never actually tried using: strategically pre-placed roads and/or railroads on the water to "virtually shorten" the naval distance between far-away points. Thematically, you could think of it like the Gulf Stream or some such. For example, a long railroad in the deep ocean could help "connect" two far-away continents after Astro. Or a few sections of short (2-3 roads) around a coastal area could allow more civs to interact around the same territory. Or a few isolated coastal roads would help allow you to give backfill island access to a civ that doesn't have a lot of accessible coast. etc.

Or hell, we could get all One Piece up in here and have a multi-lane naval railroad running right through the center of the entire map...

At any rate, I throw another hat in for trying to avoid "pickle-in-the-middle" civs. (or at least, don't make me one!)

[Krill]

Just throwing this out there, but what is wrong with having a completely ordinary map that just, you, wraps on all four sides? Just don't have any land tiles on a map edge, and give at least 5 ocean tiles as a border on the map.

No mirrors, nothing repetitive or unnatural. Just a blob of land in the centre and ocean surrounding it?

[pindicator]

Like PB2?

[naufragar]

I'll join. (Slot 12ish?) I too am a first time multiplayer.

[Krill]

Like PB2?

But not PB2. You know you can have a normal, random, map that you edit in notepad to wrap on X, y, either or both axes? What the map actually looks like is irrelevant to the program. It could be the earth map or an inversion of the PB2 map. It'll still work.

[Old Harry]

If we end up with a huge map can the world size be hacked so tech costs don't make things too boring at the start?

Also +1 for whatever Krill is babbling about. Sounds like my kind of cartography.