PB68 - Lurking the tides of war

[Tarkeel]

Have at it!

[Tarkeel]

Latest map (v1)

Missing the modern resources (coal/oil/alum/uranium), other than that I think it's ready for a loook. Everyone has a second city that can claim gold and horses and a seafood. There's not room for too many cities in total though.

I would recommend getting rid of the little lakes to facilitate more movement.

I have some more comments but would prefer those for a lurker thread.

The lakes are there to make movement more interesting, and I'd rather keep them unless the players protest. Interested in your other thoughts.

[Charriu]

About the missing modern resources. I would put them into the deserts. I seriously doubt they will ever get to that part of the tech tree if this stays ancient start.

[Mjmd]

I guess it might be good if the lakes prevent forking.

I know location pick might be part of reasons why certain things are the way they are, so the following are just some observations.

Are the western golds unforested on purpose? I haven't done a total forest count, but the fact that 2 are forested vs 2 that aren't stood out to me, again could be a pick consideration item.

The hill SW of the north beaver stands out to me. The happy resources are going to be a point of contention and that is the only hill first ring of any of them. Edit: realized this may be to make up for not being able to settle 1st ring new food like the rest. 

The southern fish is the only one that can be grabbed by 3rd ring borders pretty much insuring it goes to SW player. Also, in general even without the 3rd ring culture that is the safest inner fish spot just with how far it is from the SE player. Again, don't' know if this is on purpose / we should just leave for spot pick consideration but wanted to point it out. Could be moved 1 E if want it balanced more.

Other thought was stone / marble? Stone is pretty important for walls and Moai.

[Tarkeel]

Good points!

Are the western golds unforested on purpose? I haven't done a total forest count, but the fact that 2 are forested vs 2 that aren't stood out to me, again could be a pick consideration item.

They were supposed to be equal, and I did mean to ask if they should be forested or not. Probably not though.

The hill SW of the north beaver stands out to me. The happy resources are going to be a point of contention and that is the only hill first ring of any of them. Edit: realized this may be to make up for not being able to settle 1st ring new food like the rest. 

The southern fish is the only one that can be grabbed by 3rd ring borders pretty much insuring it goes to SW player. Also, in general even without the 3rd ring culture that is the safest inner fish spot just with how far it is from the SE player. Again, don't' know if this is on purpose / we should just leave for spot pick consideration but wanted to point it out. Could be moved 1 E if want it balanced more.

Neither of these are intentional, but I've tried to not edit this area too much, so it's more natural and less mirrored. I think it's balanced enough to be decided on start picking though.

Other thought was stone / marble? Stone is pretty important for walls and Moai.

Presence of stone will make walls better, absence makes PRO stronger. Thinking of leaving both out, but could put stone at one of the capital hills.

[Mjmd]

This is me just analyzing map like I would be playing it. The thin circles are alternates or unlikely.  Note spots are maximum in "x player space" and obviously unlikely because opponents do things. Note I assumed settling in place for all of these as working the banana for first worker is way better than settling on it.



Clockwise because I'm not a monster:
NE: I consider this to be a strong start but I would want creative. The main reason is you can contest the ivory (ie you need for a food as you can't steal cap food 1N of ivory). You can also settle a double inner fish city with creative if you think you won't have time. Even without creative if you don't get the ivory city this is the only start that still gets an 'extra' city in that direction (steal fish) without sacrificing other cities (so its only spot guaranteed 5 pretty much unless you lose both). So go for beaver first probably? I'm operating under assumption that the happy cities are the go to 2nd city for everyone btw. This start has the safest gold, which is good from a non raze perspective but bad from a work early perspective. To note only start without a wet corn. I would probably want to macro to confirm how much that matters, deer is -1 turn to improve.

SE: I would prioritize beaver here as well; mainly because its the only way to fit an 'extra' city in. Something I didn't realize when making my original map as you can tell is that 1st ring beaver from either SE or SW blocks the easy spot for the "safe" fish........ NE may decide to just not care about west neighbor and settle the hill fish city and go for ivory first though just as a warning. To note assuming everyone gets one of the happy spots this start only ends up with 4 cities.

SW: Again if you plan on contesting ivory you need creative. Not sure if that is a map flaw for NE and SW starts, but it is what it is. Like everyone but NE settling a happy city makes room for another city 1W of iron. As stated the "safe" fish isn't actually safe because you may not be able to settle for it......... Now you could settle the white circle instead of one next to beaver of that as it blocks a city from SE player still. If SE player collapses or you lost ivory spot and just want to focus east can also settle on the spice. Ignoring ivory also means you wouldn't need creative. To note assuming everyone gets one of the happy spots this start only ends up with 4 cities.

NW: so the as with other starts ivory is first go to due to fitting in another city. I know I have it as an alternate spot but I would be tempted to settle on the sugar after (if beaver is blocked which again I think NE will go for first). Reason being is it opens up another city on the inner sea. Now since both SW and NW want the ivory you may need to do this in order to get to 5 cities anyways. Also, if the worst happens and both the beaver and ivoery are taken you at least still end up with 4.

Because the races for happy are so important I expect a lot of fishing, agri, and mining civs. I also expect a lot of creative combos. I would probably want over agg even as with the lakes creative also makes 1 movers slow (except NW spot due to diagonal; this spot probably wants creative least).

Edit: I agree with Nauf and would actually probably pick creative cha for this map . Cha is a lot of happy along with being a partial military trait.

Edit Edit: I should note that its possible to end up with 3 cities if you aren't on top of things / are slow / fight over something early.

[Tarkeel]

Thanks for the detailed look-through Mjmd. I agree that both CRE and CHA will be important for this map; IMP is probably the least good trait, but that's to be expected on such a tight map.

[Mjmd]

My thought is that Imp might be like the 4th best trait or maybe even the correct pick honestly. Its the earliest hammer saving trait and you can put those extra hammers into a 2nd warrior or just easily win a race with only have 1 warrior. How fast you can snowball is very much a thing and at the very least you won't stumble or be put in awkward situations and because of that maybe you can take advantage when someone else stumbles or because you have an extra unit out or two you can maybe even raze a city. I kind of laid it out that everyone will nicely go in A direction and get to 4-5 cities all peaceful like, but I somehow doubt that happens!

I don't like fin and org (1st game in a while without org?). Phil I'm also low on; I get academy with small # of cities is good, but there just aren't a lot of uber commerce cities except for maybe SE gold beaver combo. Capital only has 4 river tiles.

The nice thing for the slower traits is that the little lakes are going to give great vision against incoming attacks, which makes me like them more.

[Cornflakes]

I disagree.  Keep the archer confined to the city until t50.


If you want to defend against scout chokes, build a military unit.

Hear hear.

Also thanks Tarkeel. I guess we're ready for that hyper-convoluted snake sequence to get rolled?

The reason for the starting archer is to discourage high-variance warrior start and favor the typical worker-first start. The issue with the archer glued to the capital is that on these tiny games where the map is revealed in advance is that there is nothing for the scouts to do except choke. I didn’t follow the setup closely but looking at the map again I see that each start has 2 land-food so it probably won’t be as big an issue as the previous game. But if someone gets scout-choked by two of their neighbors I’ll pass more popcorn out here in the lurker thread

[civac2]

Scout choke doesn't sound that scary.