[PB60] Map-making thread

[Tarkeel]

Current form of the map: 40 wide, 3x20 tall; 2400 tiles in total, of which 633 are land (so far).


I think the main blocks look pretty decent:


The secondary connections are trickier though:




I'm considering shifting the blocks sideways; something like this (quick photoshop):


This would make both directions lead to a contested center-blob, and each center will have 4 competitors. This should be a tighter game, with less landbridges, which seems like what they want.

(I'll also have to alter the width to be divisible by 12, which is probably best done by removing 4)

Revised starting position:



Everyone gets sugar as the optional second settling spot. Each player will have one of wines or spices, and one of incense, dyes and silks.
Resource allocation:

Code:

Start A1:  gold  wines  silks  wheat+clams
Start A2:  silver spices dyes    corn+clams
Start B1:  gold  wines  incense deer+clams
Start B2:  silver spices silks  corn+crabs
Start C1:  gold  wines  dyes    deer+crabs
Start C2:  silver spices incense wheat+crabs

[Commodore]

I like the new shifted configuration with the super-centers.

[Tarkeel]

Yeah, I went with that and it's looking decent. Note that the revised start has an obvious error; the sugar should ofcourse be on grassland.

Could someone please randomize the start locations (A1, A2, B1, B2, C1, C2) in order for me?

[Tarkeel]

I've completed a rough first draft of the super-centers version, and I quite like it:

• I've added two one-tile islands in each inner sea, that are reachable by coast from one player and with culture expansion for the other. These might become too important for control of the inner sea, so should I keep them?
  
• There are 3 one-tile islands midway between the helixes that can be reached with culture, allowing contact. Are these too powerful?
  
• Astro-land is limited to three larger islands (with barely room for two cities); these will contain furs.
  

I don't think I'll add any more islands, so they'll be stuck with 2-3 internal ICTRs untill Astronomy or conquest.

Currently there's 786 tiles (131 per player), but there are some mountains. I'll also look at trimming something, and adding more mountains and desert to get closer to the stated wish of the players.

[Miguelito]

True Random Number Service
List Randomizer

There were 6 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

C2
B2
A1
A2
B1
C1

I also like the new layout quite a lot more than the original one. Is it possible to narrow the ocean band a bit? The astro land should still be unreachable.

edit: Btw how do you guys to mirror/translation/rotation operations in the worldbuilder? Hack the text files, or is there a functionality in WB that I'm unaware of?

[Charriu]

I've completed a rough first draft of the super-centers version, and I quite like it:

• I've added two one-tile islands in each inner sea, that are reachable by coast from one player and with culture expansion for the other. These might become too important for control of the inner sea, so should I keep them?
  
• There are 3 one-tile islands midway between the helixes that can be reached with culture, allowing contact. Are these too powerful?
  
• Astro-land is limited to three larger islands (with barely room for two cities); these will contain furs.
  

I don't think I'll add any more islands, so they'll be stuck with 2-3 internal ICTRs untill Astronomy or conquest.

Currently there's 786 tiles (131 per player), but there are some mountains. I'll also look at trimming something, and adding more mountains and desert to get closer to the stated wish of the players.

I love that double helix.

[Tarkeel]

Thanks for the random Miguelito. Here's the (final?) draft of the starts:













As mentioned earlier, they're mirrored in terrain but different in resources. The game option has a slightly better un-improved tile than the others, but they also have a forest they aren't likely to chop. I added some hills that can be mined before chopping, as well as other minor tweaks.

As Commodore pointed out, this is (still) a less lush start than people might expect. I'm open to spicing it up some, maybe with a pig to the tile N/S of the whale?

I also like the new layout quite a lot more than the original one. Is it possible to narrow the ocean band a bit? The astro land should still be unreachable.

It's not really possible without major alterations to the map; I'd have to stretch the player areas slightly. Each dimension has to be divisible by 12 (3x4) to allow for the shift while still being a multiple of 4. If anything, I feel the astro sea is a bit on the narrow side!

Btw how do you guys to mirror/translation/rotation operations in the worldbuilder? Hack the text files, or is there a functionality in WB that I'm unaware of?

I did the shifting by writing a small perl script to swap around tile coordinates. Changing player info etc I do manually in a text editor, while the mirroring is actually handcrafted.

[Commodore]

*shrug* up to you, I'd ship as-is but that's me.

[Tarkeel]

I did a test-play up to T50 with and without pigs, settling in place as Mehmed of the Vikings. The pigs was a great boon, but mainly for getting the second and third cities up and running. It did feel more interesting to play without them, so I'm not putting them in.

I think the map as a whole is more or less done as well; I've been slightly wimpish in breaking the symmetry for fear of making one start much better than the others, but the calendar luxuries are slightly moved around. I think this should give the players plenty of interesting choices, and most traits and starting techs should be viable.

[Krill]

I really like the double helix, and really hate the shit land.

I have a suggestion, and it is not originally mine: turn some of the shitty plains into desert and don't give the players the idea they can expand peacefully into that terrain. I think there was a game where scooter was involved and someone pulled off a nasty WC rush on a mao with loads of desert. One of the mid 30s PBEMs iirc.