[Spoilers] Lurker observation post

[plako]

For the lurkers only. 1st version of map coming soon.

[plako]

Starting shots + 1st version of the map.

Comments welcome.

[GermanJoey]

Hmmm, didn't get a chance to look at the rest of the map here as I'm still at work, so I'll just give my thoughts on the starts. #1 should have a first-row tech food, I think, to make it comparable to the other starts... maybe replace the plains sheep with a dry plains wheat? #2 also has AH-only food, but maybe its a little more acceptable here, with a 2H city center and those bonus floodplains? I dunno, I think I still would feel salty about AH-only food, especially if nobody else had it too. #3 seems quite a bit better than #0, as #3 has a plains hill start, a 3h tile in its first ring, AND its fish is adjacent to the capital, which is as ideal as you can get for a WB-first opening, especially with Productive. (5T workboat!) IMHO, you should remove the PH start here.

other than that, they look pretty good.

[AdrienIer]

Are they going to see the map before picks ? If not AH food only is unfair. If they see the starts it will depend on the rest of their immediate surroundings but it could still be balanced.

[Commodore]

Meh, I'm not particularly interested in figuring out 7mod's invented leaders breaking things, but the starts all look close enough to not derail Mackoti's inevitable victory.

[GermanJoey]

I took a look at the rest of the map, and I think it is really cool! I loved the shape of the geography, and thought it was very well balanced; everyone had one "easy" early happy, often a duplicate a little farther, and then had an ivory roughly equidistant between their start and another player's. Everyone had copper/horse/iron reasonably placed (NOT BFC RIVER) and fooded. Starts were roughly equidistant and encouraged expansion by boat by city 5 or 6 or so.

The one off-balance thing I noticed was that start #0 will have a much tougher time getting an ICTR compared to the other players, who all have pretty close access to some sort of island.

[plako]

I took a look at the rest of the map, and I think it is really cool! I loved the shape of the geography, and thought it was very well balanced; everyone had one "easy" early happy, often a duplicate a little farther, and then had an ivory roughly equidistant between their start and another player's. Everyone had copper/horse/iron reasonably placed (NOT BFC RIVER) and fooded. Starts were roughly equidistant and encouraged expansion by boat by city 5 or 6 or so.

The one off-balance thing I noticed was that start #0 will have a much tougher time getting an ICTR compared to the other players, who all have pretty close access to some sort of island.

Thank you for your comments. I've added couple of island so that also player #0 has 1 island now nearby.

Concerning the earlier balance comments. #3 is now a bit weaker. I changed the positioning of the Fish and there won't be 3 hammer tile in BFC. I'll also improve #1 so that Pigs are moved riverside. They see the start so AH only food is not that big of a problem and that start already has 2*6 yield tiles that is more than anyone else. Also early tech costs in this mod are lowered from BtS.

[AdrienIer]

Also n°3 has the possibility to get all his early strategic resources with his second city, it'll give him a greater flexibility if there's an early war, but with the geography of the land (really nice BTW, the waterways or mountain passes that block civs from being too close are super cool) it shouldn't be too important.

[GermanJoey]

Meh, I'm not particularly interested in figuring out 7mod's invented leaders breaking things, but the starts all look close enough to not derail Mackoti's inevitable victory.

You're very vocally dismissive of Tides of War. Why is that?

[Commodore]

Aesthetics.

Well, that and redundancy. RBmod already has an excellent balance; Seven's claims that his competing mod is more minimalist are suspect at best.