[no players] LURKER and MAP: 51 Greens (and sharks)

[Commodore]

Here's what I got. I rolled a fractal, and then literally cut chunks and pasted them into this doughnut shape, plus added connectors. Anyone have a working Novicetool? Balance pass is really needed.

[Commodore]

Rather than futz about with NovTool, I had a quick sim:
   
Looks like maybe need to move France, Rome, and Korea "around" the wheel counter-clockwise a bit, then plump Persia and Eygpt's areas. I think then we're close.

[Hollybombay]

Noticed the bottom right has a huge floodplains river valley compared to the top left's large tracts of desert. Is this due to the neighbor situation? Also noticed other chunks of desert as well, all i would change is not having quite so much desert/jungle. Overall i think the players will love this map. Well done! That middle island is obnoxiously op to the 2 cities that can settle on there.

[Jowy]

Korea: Lots of space, and a jungle buffer between them and Rome. Not the best land, but will have a peaceful time expanding. Favorite for the island, and for the other one inside the donut.
Rome: Needs to compete with France for NE. West is free. Jungle buffer to Korea, but can attack France easily. Two naked iron around.
France: Cramped, needs to compete for space both South against Rome and East against Persia. Lots of desert SW, hard to expand that way.
Persia: Lots of space to the East. Competes with France for the West, but will likely get in some cities that way too. Has no rivers or island access. Land might be a bit too poor.
India: Naturally expands among the river first, competes with Mali for the land. Will have three neighbors.
Netherlands: Has a nice big river to settle around. Could easily be the first to grab the island. Will have three neighbors. Still probably my favorite start.
Mali: Likewise will follow the rivers. Will compete for land with India, Netherlands and Egypt. Has space south too, but runs into jungle and dry land. Could even push for NE.
Egypt: Jungle from NE to NW will make expansion awkward. Nice floodplains, but will have to compete for them against Inca. Has his own island. Might get cramped.
Inca: Very nice lands full of rivers. Might try to early grab the Copper to the north, cramping Egypt even more. West is free real estate.
Zulu: Isolated start with faraway neighbors to both directions. Land isn't as rich as in the cramped area. Getting to the river in the West before Korea is probably important.

Only on the second time looking at the map I noticed the ice island

[Commodore]

Thanks guys. I moved starts to open up the squished and close down the open ones. The one who should have the most interesting time is Egypt, has a vet Pro-Mali, Agg newbie, and Exp/Pro Inca as his neighbors...plus Superdeath just across the way. So I turned his own island into his own backline peninsula, giving him more solid real estate.

[Erwin]

That desert tile at Lazteuq's start is quite nasty. Was it intentional? If not, could something be done about it?

[Commodore]

That desert tile at Lazteuq's start is quite nasty. Was it intentional? If not, could something be done about it?

It was an accident, but I meant to flip it to plains. Not a high-impact loss.

[Hollybombay]

Got the uploaded map available to play on?

[Jowy]

First gameplay tip, make a simulated save with the same settings and build your start in WB to help you plan out your opening. It is a lot of work for a greenie, but it's probably also the most helpful for a greenie to try out different ways to play the start.

[Miguelito]

Ramk and Plemo are reporting on civforum.de (in German, in the members only section). I really enjoy how they have very different views on many aspects of the game than what you read here typically (also well argued, mostly). Plemo has a lot of respect among them, having played just one PB I think but straight up won it against experienced players.

Ramk's start seems significantly weaker than the others, with just a drycorn and a banana, while others get up to 3 food resources:


Is that intentional? Is it balanced by other map factors? I didn't look closely at the map you posted as I understand it was changed significantly afterwards.