Mardoc gives mostly good advice in Sian's thread, but this:
(December 9th, 2013, 11:54)Mardoc Wrote: How does a typical Calabim game look? Start by grabbing the minimum necessary worker techs, while expanding. As soon as you can, go to Code of Laws, swap to Aristocracy/Agrarianism. Build farms absolutely everywhere, and Governor's Manors. This should put you basically first place in the demos, or at least competitive. Research up to Bronze Working, Sanitation, and grow your cities big, putting in Granaries, Smokehouses, and Breeding Pits, along with whatever happiness buildings you need. Revolt into Military State. Build or draft enough Moroi to keep yourself safe or take advantage of opportunities, while researching to Feudalism. Draft a bunch of vampires, Feast them up, and go kill everyone.
sounds like the single-player mindset that turns good openings into losing mid-games. Remove the bolded text and it sounds a lot better.
Here is the map. I haven't finished every backfill region (including marble access), but the regions will just be effectively copied from one to the rest, and I haven't added lairs and the ilk (which I actually just forgot about until now).
Since I wasn't able to plan out and put a ton of detail into this map like I did for XXV, it's a little less balanced, and a bit less interesting, but I think still pretty fair. Also, making maps for 5 players is not easy.
I have two questions, basically: 1) Should I add more resources to the center area? If so, what? Noticeably, the map does not yet have bananas or sugar. 2) Should I add more backfill (aka coastal islands)?
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
1) The map overall is a little light on happiness. I don't see any whales or dyes, either. There's only one Calendar source and one Hunting happiness source on the spokes; Pearls and Furs are available after Sailing; Gems, Gold, and Wine are on the hub. The map is still playable, especially because it looks more like an early conflict map than a builder one.
2) Assuming the Balseraphs configuration is the final one, I'd say there are enough island city spots now. If I were playing, I'd consider the mountains blocking the mainland fish spot east of the starting location to be a bit of a thumb in the eye, though.
3) Malakim and Svartalfar (if they move their settler away from the start position) can build a canal city where their spoke connects to the hub; the others can't.
Thanks! Yeah, forgot about whales (and dye). I fully intend to fix that. I thought I checked the canal possibilities, but evidently not well enough. I'm fine removing some mountains.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
I think that I forgot to switch techs when I switched the civs to the correct player order.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
(December 26th, 2013, 01:20)Bobchillingworth Wrote: of course, I had to open [the dungeon], because A: if I don't, someone else will, and B: getting a great result like a Great Sage means the most early on.
Exactly. There's lots of stuff in FfH that is fun for single player, but totally screws up multiplayer. This game seems to be all about dumping every one of them into the pot and mixing them together.
Well, I think this game is over. Ellimist can cripple Dantski with his Lair Lizards (if not kill him outright), and then he'll have land meant for three civs to expand into. Plus he's by far the strongest player left (not that he wasn't already going in).
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
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