(February 6th, 2018, 13:20)RefSteel Wrote: The trouble with the debug is that it doesn't show the direction of river flow. Both of these "U" rivers start by a mountain and have an early fork, then both forks flow down to the sea. It's possible that normal mapscripts don't do that, but I'd rather have these rivers than a normal mapscript's.
Fine with me to leave them as-is
In not-to-important news, I accidentally figured out that it is relatively easy to change the direction that a river flows ... after accidentally deleting a river tile in the middle of one of the starts and spending 20 minutes trying to re-draw that 1 tile of river with it curving around the same way
Quote:I'm glad to hear that the iron (and most of the land in general according to Novice's tool) isn't as bad as I feared. I'll not mess with the iron any further and I'll panic less about start disparity, although I'm still worried about starts W (135 land tiles per GJ's tool) and H (5 neighbors and I think insufficient compensation).
Hmmm ... brainstorming possible compensation to see if something sticks (for either start):
Extra luxury(ies)
More food
Extra (or more accessible) horses/copper
More river
[for H] Scatter in a few more lonely peaks to provide more defensible borders (can settle such that the diagonals are protected)
More forests
Extra iron in the hills
guaranteed stone/marble access
I know I originally opposed some type of mountain/lake barrier between the starts, but I'm open to exploring that option. Here are two sketch I put together, PURPLE color marking a mountain range to add [numbered in the upper-left corner for easy reference]:
1) Essentially cuts off direct shared borders between H and K. It looks maybe a little too close to K? It give a larger safe backlines to H. I and K would likely tie up the border, maybe 1-2 tiles where K and H would be in direct conflict.
2) Closer to H as compared to (1), in reality this is about at the halfway point. Slightly smaller backlines for H, slightly larger chance that H and K would have a direct border (depending on who gets control of the Wheat just SE of the purple added mountains).
I drew (1) first because you have to start somewhere, but I actually like (2) better. I'll see if I can find an opportunity to draw both of these up in the next day or two and run them both through GJ's balance checker and see how the different location affects the H/K tile numbers. If you have any other suggestions I can try that as well. The balance checker takes about 15 minutes on my PC which is not prohibitive.
Heh - we've traded places: Now I'm hoping we don't have to resort to those mountain ranges to fix H (and Q). There are a few things I want to try, including a lighter version of what Cornflakes described: Moving the furs 4W as suggested and making the border more mountainous, but with passes and hills instead of a hard wall. I'm hoping even that much won't be necessary (although I'm tempted to do it anyway because if done right, it could look really cool) - we'll see. I think tonight I'm going to make some relatively subtle changes that I think might have stronger-than-expected effects*, then go over the astro isles just to add some rivers (and probably add or move some hills) and hopefully (time permitting) recreate the northern ice.
* - Sinking a desert tile to give N some good options for a close coastal city to contest the Start O Galley Hegemony, adding a little food south of W and changing one of its game tiles to a cow with the same improved yield but less tech required to get it going, adding a couple mangrove forests to non-starting lakes near weaker starts, drawing another short river, and adding a coastal desert tile north of H for basically the same reason I want to remove one at N - just different geometry.
Noticed something as I was looking at the minimap: I love this map. It's not what I would have put together if I'd been doing it myself (thank goodness) but it's beautiful and I hope the players have a terrific time with it!
I made the small changes I mentioned above (no mountain ranges added, at least not yet) and moved gems and dyes closer to O and changed around a few food resources as Erwin suggested and Cornflakes elaborated. There were a couple food resources I added instead of moving where I thought food was too sparse and spares I subtracted from crazy locations too (there was a possible site near start O with something like four food resources, iron, and an early luxury, I think).
Added rivers and some extra hills to the astro islands. Didn't have time to add sea ice. Went ahead and added sea ice anyway. Also threw down some deep-water unworkable whales and fish, which is good because I caught at least half a dozen more fish that had been generated 2 diagonals from land (mostly near the astro islands) and moved those to spots where they could be worked.
No idea if the balance is there yet, but I think we're well within the range where the most important aspect of map luck will be neighbor luck (by far). Doesn't mean it's ready - there are a few more things I want to look at, and I haven't seen a balance report following what I just did, and I surely missed something somewhere anyway, but ... seriously, I really like this map.
[EDIT: I also added a small chain of additional tiny ~equatorial astro islands near the East/West map wrap, pretty much just because the sea seemed big and empty there. I did not think them through in any way though. Also I cut a couple long one-tile isthmuses on a giant astro island so that it's now three astro islands instead.]
The following starts I'm having a tough time finding 2nd/3rd city sites that I like:
Start D: Maybe swap the game and pigs tiles directly to the north? Probably should thin out that patch of jungle directly to the SW of D, make a couple of those tiles forests.
Start E has too much jungle around it. Let's cut out 50% of the jungle (turn to forest) directly west and east. Also fill in the area between E and F with more jungle. Those starts are only 11 tiles apart compared to 12 minimum everywhere else, and they are in separate pentagons.
Start F: I'd like to flatten the mountain 2SW, and maybe add another weak food like plains sheep 4S1E
Start G: I'd like to swap the sheep with the iron to the NE to get the sheep a little closer. There's a lot of desert around the corn to the north.
Start T: Thin out the jungle to the north, denser jungle to the SE (see E above). Remove the jungle from the Rice to the NW. Miscellaneous comments
Start L has a double wheat + game + [pigs or corn] site to the SW ... not irrigated, but still rich. Delete the northern of the 2 wheat?
The middle region seems to be lusher overall without the jungle of the other regions. I'd like to scatter a few jungle tiles in, especially towards the middle of that pentagon. Maybe turn a half dozen forests into jungle and add a half dozen more. It will also create a mild buffer in the middle.
Start V has no land-based food within reach of copper. What do you think about replacing that Furs with a Game and relocating the furs NE of U (3E of their Sheep)?
Start V has jungled gems, need to delete that jungle (2S of their ivory)
Start O is only 3 tiles off the coast both to the NW and SW. Their cities to pick up copper and horses in those directions will be very cramped.
H&Q both have copper 3rd ring to capitol. Since they both also have 5 neighbors I assume this is intentional and think it is a good idea.
Start J has copper 3rd ring. Move 2W?
Start C has copper 3rd ring. Move 1W? I'd also like to move the ocean fish west of copper 1E where it can be reached by a few more tiles along that coast.
Numbers 7 and 10-13 I'll wait for your input. The rest I will address tonight as described above unless I hear otherwise.
(February 7th, 2018, 18:50)Cornflakes Wrote: Questions:
Do we put jungle/forest on ALL peaks? Or just some?
I prefer just some.
On the items where you wanted input:
7. I don't think the middle needs any jungle (you're talking about the plains/desert region between K, L, M, N, and O, right?) - I think it's actually pretty well-balanced at this point with the ~average for the rest of the map, given number of neighbors. I also think adding jungle there would give the different regions less individual "character," for what it's worth.
10. Good point, especially with the peak out there. Add a couple more land tiles, then? Say 3 tiles away on each diagonal? Or do we need more?
11. I'd love to take credit, but I didn't think about this. I agree it's a good idea.
12. J's copper would be on a river if we move it 2W. What about this: Make the current copper tile a blank grassland, put copper on a plains 1S of that, move the deer tile west of it 1N, replacing the blank plains, and sink the deer's original tile, shortening the river by one tile.
13. Sure; let's go with that.
Fine with me to leave them as-is
