(April 9th, 2020, 18:32)Hollybombay Wrote: Im not a fan of Ruff's dotmap, settling on a floodplains?
Nor is he apparently the only one! I'm reserving judgment (including on the players' judgment of the map!) since nobody has very complete or accurate information about their position yet; dotmaps and opinions may yet change significantly. (Fintourist seems to realize this, at least!)
There are definitely some things I'm worried about in terms of balance, as the map was designed to look natural first, then stretched and deformed to accomodate nine players, with attempts to balance it forced to deal with the result - but right now, I suspect that civ+leader picks and scouting are going to be the biggest unbalancing factors: There's just so little space available on a map with room for so few cities (as requested) that someone like Cathy of Good Techs (ahem, not to name any names) has enormous potential to throw a giant wrench in other players' games, especially when neighboring Slow Traits of Misplaced Techs on both sides.
That doesn't mean Raskolnikov wins, since he might end up provoking grinding wars won by the non-participants, but it certainly will skew the outcome unpredictably.
Also: Random numbers sometimes throw out results that look almost like patterns. The almost-pattern these random numbers made has caused me more than a little anxiety as well, even though they really are completely random!
(April 16th, 2020, 02:07)Charriu Wrote: Would you like to post the original 8-player map or do you want to keep it for a future game?
It was (and now is probably permanently) still unfinished, and I wasn't really happy with its overall effect, which is why I was willing to try stretching it to fit nine (or compressing it for seven) instead of massaging it into better shape for eight. Parts of it (especially in the west) look a lot like this map, but a lot less complete; other parts are just placeholder terrain to give me a sense for the shape of the land.
I was working on another 8-player attempting-to-be-natural-but-balanced map when I took this one on as a challenge, and I might finish that one at some point if I have time, but it wouldn't have matched the criteria the players requested for this game at all.
[EDIT: Also, was at least one mistake on the map I posted upthread, and Ramk was kind enough to fix the one I noticed in time for it to not affect the game: Two coast tiles near the island not far south of start I are Oceans in the posted map in spite of being adjacent to land. In the real game, they are now coasts, fortunately! But not before I gave Ramk the wrong coordinates for them, fortunately realized my mistake in time, and got them corrected properly. Thanks very much again, Ramk!]
Wellll ... I was right that Raskolnikov and his neighbor(s) might skew things unpredictably, anyway!
Mr. Cairo hating the map I can certainly understand. I seem to recall he was the biggest advocate of having more than one relevant landmass, but I don't think he wanted the total average number of cities between all landmasses to be this low. If I'd liberally interpretted the overall "6-8 cities per player, err low" to include only the starting landmass and overlook the err low bit, or to mean something like "6-8 full-sized cities, or a commensurately larger number if someone plants for lots of overlap" as I think Commodore assumed I would early in his thread, things wouldn't be nearly this tight, but I took the players at their word. (My estimate is ~~6 actual mainland cities per starting player, while some have better access than others to islands.)
Fintourist's complaints are mostly just amusing though: What he calls Elkad's jungle not only is covered in ... you know ... jungle, but also includes stuff that's closer to other players, and if the city he says can get "four food resources" were closer to Fintourist himself, he'd say it had none! (Plains cow, jungled banana, and two plains hill sheep do not count as food any time in the early game.) The best part will be if he spots the jungled sugar nearby and pretends that means a city on a certain flatland plains tile can get five! (And then of course that region isn't Miguelito's; it's contested to one extent or another by three other players - or two now that one of them is getting Bowman-choked.
Emphasizing Mr. Cairo's point again though: Early events like the imminent Babylon-Carthage war (or just the Carthaginian mess that led up to it) can have massive spill-over effects all the way across the board - even moreso than on a larger map. I have no idea what those effects are going to be, but some of the players who aren't involved will benefit disproportionately while others (perhaps including Fintourist) may be in no position to benefit at all. And I also still have concerns about problems with the map that I didn't recognize when making it, but which could have been done better even within the constraints of 6-8 cities. I'll just have to hope those don't play major roles, and only time will tell, but the game looks like it'll be interesting, at least!
(May 2nd, 2020, 00:16)thestick Wrote: Wow, this map is a knifefight. First Cornflakes/Raskol and now SD/Ruff.
And warlike noises from other quarters as well! This might have been avoidable with a more artificial-looking map - say a more-extreme version of what Commodore and Cornflakes (somewhat mistakenly) think it looks like already, with each capital at the end of a peninsula with room for two pairs of other cities on each en route to a central area - but that would be much more limiting and predictable for the players. I wonder if that would have been desirable. Surely they expected early warfare on a map with so few cities per player, right?
I'm still worried about the balance - the start that became Miguelito's has been a problem from the time it was added to the map, and it's definitely unique, with a lot of different ways to play it but generally hammer-poorer and commerce-richer than anyone else early on, but other questions - some of which the team has identified, some that they seem to have missed, and one that they couldn't yet know about - that they'll be facing later on. The fighting is sure to skew everything, but I have no idea exactly how!
(May 4th, 2020, 15:10)Fintourist Wrote: As a kind request/prayer to any active lurkers out there: Players definitely appreciate all kinds of spam in the lurker thread, be it overview posts, forecasts or even criticism, so make us a favor and share your well justified or random thoughts.
Spam spam spam. Spammy spam spam.
Ok, some stuff of substance: I'm pleased Commodore got the Stables quest after wasting it in PB46 But will he even get seven cities in which to build the stables?
As a lurker, I'm delighted by all the early war stuff. As a future player, I'm very happy with maps that have player interaction. It's stressful, absolutely, but better this than a micro challenge for 150 turns and whoever did best hits drafted rifles and wins by concession.
Lurking in 2020? Sure, why not. While Cornflakes/Raskolnikov and superdeath/Ruff seem to have secured duels without 3rd-party spoilers (like FT deciding to move in on superdeath's undefended 3rd city), the powder keg around Miguelito/Cairo/Commodore looks like a scenario where moving in first carries the risk of losing out to the vultures. But then again, that reach city by Miguelito might be so unacceptable that the normal rules don't apply
Commodore moved after me on t48, and before me on t49 (running). Can he still attack next turn (in the first half)? I could not see the chariot on t48, and if I had, I would have played differently (would have pulled the scout towards the city to gain the one turn I need).
As I understand it, Commodore would be able to attack in the first half of turn 50, although Miguelito and Adrien seem to think not. The double move would have been if Commodore moved second on turn 48 and then used the first half of the timer on turn 49 to attack. A double move only refers to the turn order established on the first turn of the war, right?
But will he even get seven cities in which to build the stables?
