[FFH2PBEM6 Lurker Thread] The Peanut Gallery

[Maksim]

I'd have suggested moving to the red X and then blowing the worldspell.

Prioritise KotE a bit higher in order to get Water I adepts out and Springing those three desert tiles, convert the mana node in the North to Mind. That'll give Inspiration and more beakers.

Plus there's always the chance there might be another resource in the fog (Dyes? Or are the starts not exactly the same?).

There are some commerce resources in the desert, not sure which, as well as another oasis or two, and an animal food resource - there's a pretty good potential second city site for Kurios in this area. I'm not sure if it's so great as a capital - KotE is far away, and riverside at the original location has the advantage of extra coins straight away.

Indeed, Knowledge of the Ether should be prioritized higher than usual for the utility spells Spring and Scorch.

One more thing to note is that Scorch can be used to turn plains into deserts, thus allowing people to effectively build their own borders - exactly what PB has done in FFH PBEM 1, as a matter of fact.

[Maksim]

I like Irgy's style. A lot. Witness this recent post of his.

Now, did I intend to kick everyone in the pants? Sure. Did I intend to do so equally? Also very true.

Why? Well, besides being an aspiring evil mastermind, there were other thoughts going through my head.

If you look at the BTS PBEM games going on, you will see a lot of weirdness - starting on toroidal worlds with railroads in one, obviously artificial triangle islands in another et al.

The thing such weird setups bring out is the ability to think on one's feet, to adapt to new situations and make the most of them - these, to me, are the hallmarks of a good player, on top of which are layered diplomacy, C&D and other skills.

The FFH PBEM games, on the other hand, have seen more normal worlds, with uneven starting locations. I'd direct everyone to the FFH PBEM 1 lurker thread, where I spent some time analyzing everyone's research rates - you should see how terrain shaped the relative power balance there.

Thus, when FFH PBEM 4 finished suddenly, I threw my hat in the ring for map-making, and decided to create a map with a twist that should catch people off-guard, force them to re-examine favorite strategies, and make hard choices.

I would hope that it would be those players who analyze the situation, and make the correct choices that would succeed - not just those that the random map generator started next to a plantation commerce resource.

Finally, there's a human element to this - I have lurked around this community since the early days of RB adventures and epics, enjoyed it immensely, and wanted to give something back. If someone reads this, and wants me to make a map for another FFH PBEM game, I'd be glad to do so.

So, expect to see rivers running in circles and hills in arbitrary places by the map editor. Not that informative, but it does definately suggest that the map is quite heavily hand-editted. In the tech thread, Maksim effectively stated that some sort of map script would be used as a starting point, but how far diverged we are from that point is hard to know. There is certainly something truely unnatural about the plans/tundra/desert that we've seen so far so I expect there's been a fair bit of it. And the desert forest to the east doesn't happen on any map script I've seen. But it does still have something of a natural feel in the details for the most part, so if it's not based on a natural base map he's done a meticulous job of fiddling around with it.

It's quite scary how close he gets to the truth here.

Generally speaking, map-makers either build maps from scratch, or use one of the map-making scripts. Well, there's a third option - hack your own map script. Start with something that's close to what you want, then make changes as necessary.

It's mostly straightforward but there's a few hidden gotchas to learn; however, last year I was the map-maker for the unfortunately aborted FFH Pitboss game, and spent plenty of time doing just that.

As an aside, it is really cool to read all those explanatory comments in the code, written by Sirian back in 2005 or so.

Anyway, compared to what I cooked up for Pitboss, this time, my job was easier. I took an Ice Age script, and started modifying it:

• Added logic to force tiles to be land only between certain latitudes (so seas\lakes will be present in polar regions only).
  
• Added logic for various latitudes to force terrain type(s) - e.g. in some latitudes, only ice will exist, in others, there's a random choice between tundra and plains
  
• The fractal for hills was left as is, with only a few small changes to normalize starting locations
  
• Changed the script not to generate any lakes, rivers, bonus resources or features
  

This gave a rather desolate natural-looking world with little work on my part, thus allowing me to fine-tune balance by hand, placing resources and rivers, assigning starting locations et al. I'm not going to go into detail on those just yet - let's keep a bit of suspense here, shall we?

[Maksim]

Ok, here are my thoughts on the pick:

...

Starts are not going to be themed, so can strike out all civs that need a certain terrain to be effective: Malakim, Ljosalfar, Lanun, Illian, Svartalfar

...

Just wanted to comment on this statement from Jkaen earlier on. Whilst it's true that these civilizations get greater bonuses from particular terrain, that's not really a strike against them on a non-flavored start.

Elves will, with Priests of Leaves, create their own forests, which will then convert to Ancient Forests. In fact, elves are probably less worried about the starting location than any other civ.

Ilians, similiarly, can force their own favorite terrain as well - with a simple investment of building their temple. In addition, they do just as well on normal land (sometimes even better, as Ice terrain removes riverside coin bonus).

Malakim do get a lot of mileage from starting in floodplains on flavored starts, sure, but looking beyond that, we still have a Spiritual\Adaptive civilization with good combo potential and several synergies in the disciple line.

Lanun are probably most tied to water, but even without it, they are a Financial\Raiders civilization (seriously, has anyone ever played Falamar instead of Hannah?), which is quite a powerful combination.

[Maksim]

Wow, this is something. First, a Mistform, and now a bunch of wolf riders - if they aim for someone, that person is likely to be very, very dead.

This is rather annoying. What can be done, though? Remove all dungeons from the map, period? Or require the players to sign up for a game rule that prevents dungeon popping for the first X turns?

Would be a shame to lose civs this early.

[Mist]

Make them all garrisoned by something. It takes much longer to pop a dungeon if there's a held Spectre/Bear/etc on it.

[Square Leg]

Make them all garrisoned by something. It takes much longer to pop a dungeon if there's a held Spectre/Bear/etc on it.

Or only have lairs, forts and barrows that have auto-spawn defences.

[Mist]

It takes a while for skelies/lizards to spawn, if you take good scouting route it's not hard to find an empty lair to pop in first dozen turns or thereabouts.

[DaveV]

And sometimes the lair guardians will wander off. I've seen unguarded barrows and lairs in mid game (and I've seen the guardians desert the lair). Putting a strong held unit on top is probably the best answer.

But the early game is always going to be dangerous: witness Selrahc's wraith in game 4. There's a big luck factor in this game, and the mod would probably lose its character if you tried to remove all the extreme stuff.

[Serdoa]

Wow, this is something. First, a Mistform, and now a bunch of wolf riders - if they aim for someone, that person is likely to be very, very dead.

This is rather annoying. What can be done, though? Remove all dungeons from the map, period? Or require the players to sign up for a game rule that prevents dungeon popping for the first X turns?

Would be a shame to lose civs this early.

Maksim, it would be a shame to lose civs early, but on the other hand, they brought it upon themselves. It is not like something which can't be prevented or is simply "bad luck". Both made a strategical decision and both have to live with the outcome now. Well, hopefully they have to live with it and not others - but even if not, I think it is part of what makes this mod interesting.

Btw: I think in BTS barbarians won't enter borders for several turns into the game, even if they are spawned by a hut pop. Is that true and if so, is that the same for early spawned barb-units in FFH2?

[Thoth]

Btw: I think in BTS barbarians won't enter borders for several turns into the game, even if they are spawned by a hut pop. Is that true and if so, is that the same for early spawned barb-units in FFH2?

It is mostly true. There is a grace period during which barbs will not enter cultural borders (IIRC the grace period lasts until there are 2N + 1 cities on the map, where N is the number of civs in the game).

However if there is a tile improvement or a unit on a tile at the edge of cultural borders barbs will attack/move to pillage.


I don't think this rule applies in FFH as I have seen barbs enter my borders very early.



As far as early dungeon pops are concerned: You pays your money, you takes your chances.

Dungeons are high-risk/high reward propositions. Deciding to pop one or not is one of those "interesting decisions" that make for a fun game.