New Civ4 Pitboss (38?)

[GermanJoey]

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....

well... as long as we don't have to pay Brick per tile... 

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.

For the PB27 map, we tried to aim at around 140/160/180 land tiles per player on the main continent for those with 2/3/4 adjacent neighbors. (IIRC, the total land tiles per player was something ~175ish or so, including the Astro islands) In hindsight, I think the 2/3 neighbors worked out about right, but those with 4 neighbors probably needed just a little bit more help.

A map's size setting generally isn't messed with too much because there's a tradeoff: decreasing the world size decreases tech costs, but it also increases city distance maintenance. So, for example, PB18 and PB27 were WORLDSIZE_HUGE maps, and PB37 is a WORLDSIZE_LARGE map. But maybe we could lower the difficulty setting to compensate for that? WORLDSIZE_LARGE with HANDICAP_PRINCE?

p.s. and thanks for the kind words about the PB27 map!

[Krill]

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.

Could just give everyone the 6 starting techs :shrug:

[dtay]

A map's size setting generally isn't messed with too much because there's a tradeoff: decreasing the world size decreases tech costs, but it also increases city distance maintenance. So, for example, PB18 and PB27 were WORLDSIZE_HUGE maps, and PB37 is a WORLDSIZE_LARGE map. But maybe we could lower the difficulty setting to compensate for that? WORLDSIZE_LARGE with HANDICAP_PRINCE?

Apparently I've been holding this wrong in my head the entire time, but I thought maintenance was set by combination of difficulty and literal total map tile count? I could absolutely just be mixing this up with like the religion spread rate or something though

[Krill]

Distance maintenance is calculated from difficulty, and the ratio of number of tiles vertically and horizontally from the nearest palace divided by the total map height and width (in base BtS it's slightly different from toroidal but in RtR toroidal maps are treated as cylindrical for this purpose).

The number of cities component however uses a specific number that varies depending on map size setting, the number is bigger, as the map size setting goes from duel to huge. This means on huge maps you can settle more cities before the number of cities component becomes crippling, and it takes more cities to reach the conquerors plateau.

What it means if you make a huge map then change the setting from mapsize_huge to duel, is when you settle the fourth or fifth city, the number of cities component will already be pushing 6gpt, but the distance component might not even be pushing 2gpt, but the tech costs use the multiplier from the mapsize_duel to calculate so you basically need almost no beakers to get any tech.

If the difficulty is lowered, then that lowers multipliers for tech costs and city maintenance so techs are both cheaper, and city, civic and inflation maintenance are also lower, as are unit costs as you get more free units.

[Krill]

Hell, if a mod is being used, it's possible to just manually edit tech costs in the ancient era if you want. Cut all anc era tech costs in half.

[B4ndit]

What's the planned start time at the moment? I have read mid-november, december and new year and I'm a little bit confused which version is on top right now Maybe we could keep updating first post for any already decided things?

[Old Harry]

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

Sounds like we're playing multiplayer SMAC!  

I'd guess we're starting when brick and mardoc have time to make the map. With the inevitable Christmas break I'm happy to start in the new year, but if we can have civ choices and a starting screenshot before the holidays that would be the best present ever...

[Krill]

Wait, we reached 21 players already?

We haven't done a snake pick with more than 17 players before have we?

[BRickAstley]

Yeah no way I'm getting it done quickly; I'm about to start working 5/6 12.5 hour shifts a week, til probably the end of November. So I'm not touching this til that wraps up.

I could always roll a whole roster of unrestricted matches, and then have people rank them Diplomacy style. That would give you a lot to consider, good agency, and fill some time

[AdrienIer]

For the picking method I propose the PB32 method. You get rolled a leader and civ, can reroll the leader, the civ, or both. You get three chances.