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Are you, in fact, a pregnant lady who lives in the apartment next door to Superdeath's parents? - Commodore |
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[FFH2PBEM6 Lurker Thread] The Peanut Gallery
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Here is the original game thread.
And here is the map-making thread. I am the map-maker, and as per excellent advice given to me in the map thread, I shall now thicken my skin, put on a flame-retardant suit, and place upon my head a stylish tinfoil hat.
So, as promised to the players, I'll explain the "balance reasons" behind no Wildlands, and also no 4-move settlers.
No Wildlands: as pointed out by DaveV, with Wildlands on this map, quite a lot of animals are generated, not giving the barbarians a chance to spawn. Furthermore, in Mist's and my own games, many of these animals were scorpions and bears, which, in large numbers, can seriously hinder expansion. Compared to them, actual orcs and goblins are easy. No 4-move settler: this may be good for single-player, but it's hell to balance in multiplayer - there are so many options where to move them, that it's impossible to check that you haven't left an overpowered spot anywhere. It almost forces the map-maker to overpower the starting location instead to make sure the players don't move away, and that, in turn, overpowers some strategies, such as God King. The other concern is that, this being a relatively small map, the effect of two players moving on their first can be that their capitals are between 5 and 21 tiles away, throwing the land area balance all out of whack in an essentially random manner, as nobody knows the map layout on turn 1.
So how would people approach this one from an economy point of view? With agrarianism those plains farms are going to be 3f 0h so like normal grassland farms. I suppose cottages are going to be the best source of commerce longer term.
Aristocracy still kinda works once sanitation is in so I'll be surprised if we don't see that. Maybe a run towards drama for the free bard to then bulb sanitation might work if someone wanted to persue that path.
Yeah, sanitation+agristocracy works fine on plains. A food bonus tile to give some initial food surplus is helpful, otherwise growth takes a while to spool up. Windmills might be a good choice on this map, to give some extra food.
Using the drama artist to bulb Sanitation is a cute idea, but the non-sage great people never seem to yield a lot of beakers for me. It might be better just to use the artist for a golden age and tech normally (or skip Drama and go straight for Sanitation).
In an effort to stimulate the players to write in their lurker threads, I'm going to spam this one, and hope they don't notice I'm the only poster here.
 Anyway, City States is generally seen as a poor cousin to Aristocracy, but on this map, I think it would be definitely worth thinking about. Consider: 1) Low food availability suggests a preference for smaller, more tightly packed cities (essentially, one per food bonus). 2) River structure allows planting the first 4-5 cities riverside; these will immediately be connected to internal trade routes, and in City States, turn to profit almost straight away.
So this map makes farms less efficient (1 less yield, because Agrarianism actually loses them a hammer). However, food is more necessary than ever, because almost every tile starts at a food deficit. So you need farms but really want as few of them as possible, which makes Aristocracy pretty bad. So I expect agrarian farms + specialists where possible + plains cottages to be the way to go.
Would it be wrong to tell Ichabod that he is missing that there could be a possible pre-req bonus? I know how much I struggled with C&D in PBEM7 and how often I hoped someone would tell me what I am missing so I would be inclined to tell him - and I don't actually know if that is the case with Dantski (though I know the map so I feel it has to be). But on the other hand, telling him that could be seen as more then only answering a game-mechanic question. Advice?
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