Made the changes I described (or just agreed with) for items 7 and 10-13. Also made a couple more changes, e.g. giving start F some game to its west where it looked a bit barren and swapping the island furs with the island copper near K as I think it was affecting luxury distribution. Added more forests to mountains where I saw likely candidates. Added a small number of additional river tiles near T and hills where I thought they were needed. Moved the eastern isle of the new astro island chain (that I built last night, or rather yesterday morning, on a whim) northwest (further from the mainland) so that it's now the northern isle. Removed a fish that would be orphaned unless someone planted on dyes just so it wouldn't taunt anybody. Swapped the peak east of D with the grassland forest hill just to its east and added another tile east of the horses, to give D more options to settle for its early strategics.
I ... think that's everything I did? I was basically scrolling around the map looking for things I'd want to change, consulting the latest balance report (created earlier today from Cornflakes's latest save) to hopefully make sure I'd be making things better instead of worse, and failing to find excuses to add as many rivers as I wanted to. I looked at the possible mountain area near H (I don't think Q actually needs anything now) but didn't find any changes to make that I liked. If H still seems too weak, I'll try something very close to what Cornflakes depicted above (his second take) tomorrow night, but I'm hoping that won't be needed.
Latest save is attached. Map is still gorgeous.
[EDIT: By the way, since Coeurva brought up the starting sims and we're getting very close in any case: Whenever we want to edit the right leaders/civs/techs/whatever into the map, let me know. I don't even need my civ computer for that, since it's just pulling information together and putting it into the text file, so I can do it pretty quickly.]
I PM'ed Coeurva about the editing in the leaders/civs/techs/etc. and he is going to take care of that. It can even be done simultanously with one of us working in the save because it can just be copied/pasted in. Moving our conversation here:
Coeurva Wrote:Needless to say, if MapCad can export sandboxes automatically once leader/civ/tech info is correctly implemented, I'll have much less work (no copying the terrain) and room for errors.
Cornflakes Wrote:In fact, if you wanted to contribute to getting the map out by the weekend, you could edit the civs/leaders/techs/etc. information into the map file! It wouldn't matter if someone else has the save while you are working on this because we could just copy and paste your work from the head of the file into the latest map. That really would be a big help!
Therefore, gladly -- I'll see to this after dinner. I haven't followed the entire mapmaking process; is there a post that comprehensively matches the start letters to the respective player? (If not, I'll just compare them myself.)
Cornflakes Wrote:
Coeurva Wrote:is there a post that comprehensively matches the start letters to the respective player? (If not, I'll just compare them myself.)
RefSteel subsequently swapped a few of the starts around as described here: http://www.realmsbeyond.net/forums/showt...#pid660919 in order to make the rivers fit better with the surrounding terrain. I assume you are able to load up the latest save in Civ 4 to cross reference and confirm that the location does indeed match the above? If not I can create a debug that will load in any web browser.
Well, I've already run into some difficulties: Cornflakes' map document assigns Commodore's start ("actual: U") to map sign Y, which it isn't. Commodore's start is actually marked with the map sign V, which should be Gavagai, and actual start V ("Byzantines" in the latest revision), which should be Dark Savant's. Y isn't Gavagai's, either. Maybe something got mixed up, or I'm out of the loop?
(For player order, which I assume the "actual start" column represents, I'm using Mardoc's random roll)
(January 19th, 2018, 11:14)Mardoc Wrote: Random.org gave me this result: [...]
e: Same problem with T which apparently matches neither superdeath nor Mr. Cairo, whereas A goes to Old Harry &c. (actual Q) as you'd expect.
(February 8th, 2018, 15:11)Coeurva Wrote: Well, I've already run into some difficulties: Cornflakes' map document assigns Commodore's start ("actual: U") to map sign Y, which it isn't. Commodore's start is actually marked with the map sign V, which should be Gavagai, and actual start V ("Byzantines" in the latest revision). Y isn't Gavagai's, either. Maybe something got mixed up, or I'm out of the loop?
(For player order, which I assume the "actual start" column represents, I'm using Mardoc's random roll)
Player order got re-randomized in some mysterious way when the starts were imported to the map by GJ's tool. I know "Actual start P" is first in player order (player 0) and located at map sign T. Then the sign letters are shown in player order on the balance table and balance report (e.g. attached to my last report). I can probably just do the correlating/copy/pasting myself though (can't work on the map right now anyway) - I'll try to do so shortly in case it's helpful/needed.
Correlating map sign and player name would be very helpful, I'd appreciate it, although I could also try to figure out which start matches which sign myself, if there's no quick way for you to do that. It's only 25*26/2 - 1 == 324 total comparisons in the worst case (in which I am completely devoid of memory).
The order of letters in your report seems to match the WBSave I downloaded (i.e. V is player ID 5, matching Commodore's start).
e: and frankly, it seems like that's most of the work you need, so maybe I should do it. Your call.
Hah, of course, I get it now -- it starts at P/The Black Sword (for mysterious reasons) and simply goes in alphabetical order. The next starts are Old Harry (sign A, actual Q) and Elkad (sign D, actual R). Commodore, player ID 5, is sign V, actual U, which is P + 5.
This makes it much easier. I'll still have to verify that all starts match anyway, though.
Huh - that makes complete sense actually; the 25 starts were originally in two save files: A-O and P-Y, so Mapcad must have just put all the second-save starts first.
To hopefully save a little time though: Here's a save with (I think) everyone in the right order, in the right spots, with the right techs, etc. Probably best to double-check and make sure I didn't miss anything! The tiles will be out of date once Cornflakes posts the new save, but moving the civs from this map to that one should be an easy copy-paste job.
I think that's the fastest I've ever become obsolete Since you asked, I did double-check that the civs and starting techs match each other, as do the civs/leaders; I didn't look whether all the starts are correctly matched (player order past mackoti (Y) shows no clear pattern, btw, proceeding K-J-M-N-O-L-C-E-A-D-I-H-G-F).
Since you asked, I did double-check that the civs and starting techs match each other, as do the civs/leaders; I didn't look whether all the starts are correctly matched (player order past mackoti (Y) shows no clear pattern, btw, proceeding K-J-M-N-O-L-C-E-A-D-I-H-G-F).