New Civ4 Pitboss (38?)

[Mardoc]

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.

Huh, that works?  Never would have thought boats could use rails, but then I guess I never thought to put rails in the ocean first.

Probably would want to try it on a PBEM or some such before using it in a flagship game, though, since there's probably a way to exploit it that is only revealed by MP-serious level of play.

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?

@Krill - what problem would that solve?  It would reduce 'safe backlines' post-Astro...and that's about it, right?  You'd still prefer to be on a north/south coast pre-Astro, wouldn't you?

I guess it would add the east and west coasts as safe backlines pre-Astro as well.  Maybe if we made 3-4 non-galley connected continents, then we could manage more people with a coast as a safe backline, but still everyone interacts eventually. Would that be a design people are comfortable with, or am I just overlooking the new problems it would create?

can the world size be hacked so tech costs don't make things too boring at the start?

Easy to do, main question is what long-term effects this would have.  I think this one is definitely a 'y'all debate, Dtay summarize, mapmaker does whatever you ask' - assuming Brick and (maybe) Joey agree, of course.

If this starts after the new year,

Can someone trawl through the thread and figure out how many people said this?  I have the impression that's basically the only option that gets 20 players and a mapmaker...

[Krill]

@Krill - what problem would that solve?  It would reduce 'safe backlines' post-Astro...and that's about it, right?  You'd still prefer to be on a north/south coast pre-Astro, wouldn't you?

I guess it would add the east and west coasts as safe backlines pre-Astro as well.  Maybe if we made 3-4 non-galley connected continents, then we could manage more people with a coast as a safe backline, but still everyone interacts eventually.  Would that be a design people are comfortable with, or am I just overlooking the new problems it would create?

It means that all the players are in similar positions; compare to PB18 where there were three rows of players, and the players in the middle row were surrounded, and the players on the bottom and top rows had a safe edge of the map. The rest of the "fairness" comes from the map design and that is your problem to solve, but this gives you the ability to have a generally fair map that is not constructing player positions into two horizontal or vertical rows.

I just ask you don't mirror the damned starts again.

[Mardoc]

compare to PB18 where there were three rows of players, and the players in the middle row were surrounded, and the players on the bottom and top rows had a safe edge of the map.

How are the top and bottom not safe with a 'minimum 5 rows of ocean', just because the map is a toroid? At minimum their risk is delayed until halfway through the game.

I just ask you don't mirror the damned starts again.

I'm just assisting, this is Brick's problem.

[Krill]

How are the top and bottom not safe with a 'minimum 5 rows of ocean', just because the map is a toroid?  At minimum their risk is delayed until halfway through the game.

Well if you just put the equivalent of a filled donut on a map that wraps on all axes, and then put someone in the middle of that donut (like what happened in PB25) then yeah, that's not exactly fair.

You change the PB18 map to wrap on all axes though, and that is fair. Depends on the layout of the land. The 5 tiles of ocean is just a point to illustrate that you do need to space people out a bit. Put ocean breaks between differ entire continents, or between different areas.of a Pangaea and you can create safe back lines for all players, for a given value of safe, and time.

[superdeath]

i kinda liked the donut looking maps, id figure those would be the most fair/safe for everyone? with ocean along the sides for post-astro attacks? make the middle anything, mountain, islands, ocean, ect ect. but personally a donut seems the safest to me, as a new player 

[BRickAstley]

So we're replaying the PB18 map, but edit it to be toroidal wrap. Got it.

/s

[dtay]

Are there people ready to jump in and play turns for players temporarily away / forgetting? / quitting??
Seems like this might become a fairly large pb and then those people are quite vital for moving the game along...

Such a lurker crew would be great, I believe we had one in 18 and 27. If anyone wants to volunteer for that, that will be super helpful (it may in the moment be a thankless task but I promise we appreciate you in our hearts). I promise you much blood in return.

Taotao - you wanna join? Or be the first volunteer?

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.

I support a BRick/Mardoc map team, I think no one will object to that. (GJ I put you in the game for now, lmk if not your preference and actively wanted to mapmake). 

In terms of guidance - Here is my take on the map and what I intended as the initial post. I intend none of this as gospel if a bunch of people object and obviously have no inherent authority here, but do tend to think these things go more smoothly if someone just asserts guidance and then others talk about it:

Size / Buffer between players: I think this should be more in the realm of normal than particularly tight, along the lines of 18/27. I never remember the tile-counts that generate what amount of space, but something like civs 2nd/3rd rings are neighboring depending on city placement. Tight maps I think are harder to balance, generate a bit of a different gameplay than "bog standard", and I think can ironically generate a slower turnpace than more spacious maps, up until the very lategame when you do reach empire-size problems. I would rather optimize for the majority of the game that most people will play in than the final piece where 2-3 people matter.

Level of Balance: PB27 level balance. Maybe a touch beneath. Pretty balanced. Not mirrored starts, not mirrored shapes. I think the attention to detail and the thought process GJ (et al) appears to have engaged in for that map (pb27) is laudable. 

Lushness: I meant standard range of lushness here at RB, not base civ map generation. If anything lusher like pb27. I agree with the post GJ had here  in the PB27 lurker thread here on why lusher maps are easier to balance and allow more variation in play.

Map Shape/Wrap: Mapmakers discretion. I like Krill's suggestion, which I think boils down to a toroidal map where you don't let continents cross the N/S border. Basically Toroidal but aesthetically pleasing. Sounds a lot easier to balance than true cylindrical. Don't really want to play a donut as a few suggested, but if you think you got a great donut idea somehow, shrug.

Map Size Setting: Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we usually just leave the literal size setting at standard so as to leave tech costs the same, and then just make a map of whatever tile count we want? I would do that. 

Islands and astro-islands and how interactable are continents and are there barb submarines and how many 1-tile deer islands: Mapmaker discretion 

If others have thoughts or want to discuss some of these, again everyone feel free to do so or yell at me or w/e. This is just my pitch based on a combination of "what has been said in this thread" and "what dtay thinks the right answer is".

I think enough people are in the "after new year" camp that we should just commit to this starting then. I would hold off a bit on anything super concrete on the map for a few days/weeks to see what number we stabilize at, given how much time we have until actual gamestart.

[OT4E]

If we choose toroidal then we lose Commodore, so I suggest cylindrical.

I am for non-mirrored map. You can never balance things like 1st-time-player neighboring on mirrors.

Also I dont see much reasons to make those Astro nerf changes, so I'd like to play previous version of mod.

[Ghostpants]

Toroidal but aesthetically pleasing sounds like a good compromise between balance and, well, aesthetics if commodore is ok with it.

[pindicator]

i guess you could always make generous use of mountain ranges if you need to make a cylinder where everyone has similar backlines.

Going to have to be some large mountain ranges tho....