[no players] Lurkers' paradise for PBEM3

[Dreylin]

Ah, that makes sense; I guess I hadn't heard the acronym before. Makes sense to ban it on a wet map, and it does seem to be a right answer more often than not - it's a very early first-to bonus that is more luck dependent than a usual trade-off.

[oledavy]

Did I miss an explanation of "OLORAM"? I did a Google search and the only relevant offering was oledavy's PBEM2 thread, so I clearly can't check that....

May her flies ever be buzzing

May her mud forever be plentiful

[Dreylin]

So definitely not that guy from Temple of Doom then?

[oledavy]

So definitely not that guy from Temple of Doom then?

Took me a minute to remember that was the character's name 

It's been too long since I've seen any of the IJ films.

[Woden]

It looks like India, Arabia, America, and England so far. Let's hope Kaiser picks Japan or Kongo, then we will have a full sweep of unused civilizations in a PBEM. I rooting for Kongo. I want to see if they are as good in MP as in SP. Japan would also be good, since I think they are undervalued. Should be an exiting game.

[oledavy]

It looks like India, Arabia, America, and England so far. Let's hope Kaiser picks Japan or Kongo, then we will have a full sweep of unused civilizations in a PBEM. I rooting for Kongo. I want to see if they are as good in MP as in SP. Japan would also be good, since I think they are undervalued. Should be an exiting game.

I'm very happy about the way this worked out, I have to say. Here's hoping we go 5/5! I would love to see Japan personally.

[oledavy]

I feel like this is going to be a very violent game, based on civ picks if not player personalities.

I'm going to call it now as Japan being a stealth really strong pic, since the meta seems to be settling towards building an encampment as the first district and targeting the first GG. On that later point, Greece is unparalleled, but Japan is a strong second and can hedge in a way that Greece can't. 

On that note, for my next Civ6 MP game, I would like to play a map with 2-4 continents all accessible by each other pre-astronomy (or whatever tech it is this game), I would love to see England, Vikings, and Japan be really strong picks and get to explore the naval side of the game. I don't think any map script generates this at this point, so it would be a matter of endless rolling to get it (at least until we get a map editor). 

On that note, I don't think England is a very strong pick here, and could easily fizzle. I'm hoping that Ichabod lands on a continental fault line though and doesn't. I would love to see that consideration come into play when settling cities, and think there's strong potential for a fun opening building cities to generate swords. 

America is another civ I think is stealth strong, and while I don't see how they can beat Japan to a GG, their combat bonus will be really useful all game long. I would definitely not want to be on the same continent as them. 

Then there's India. I am really interested in seeing some Varu action. I didn't realize the bonus stacked! I think everything else about their kit is pretty meh, but Varu's have some strong potential. 

The likely strongest pick here, Arabia, is also probably the most boring ironically. They probably won't want to fight until they get Mamelukes, while everyone else spikes in one way or another earlier. 

So, we have 2 civs with faux-GG combat bonuses, 1 civ that has a probably lock on the first GG, and a 4th that gets free melee units from expansion. I feel like we're going to see a ton of fighting with swords and horses this game, and can't wait to see it in action 

[Sullla]

OK, I think I have a map that will work for this game. Since the players won't be ready to start for a few more days, I'll run it past the lurkers here for thoughts before making any final decisions. This is the best result that I found after rolling about 20 maps in total; like the PBEM2 map, I'm aware that it's not perfectly fair, but this one is pretty good given the complete lack of a map editor.



Starting with Japan, first in player order, in the south central part of the continent. Arabia is just visible to the north, and the game's only Cultural city state (Kumasi) is to the west. Keep in mind that the desert off to the east has a lot of oases to serve as a source of fresh water.



America is in the northeastern part of the continent. That's Hattusa to the south, one of three Scientific city states on this map. Zanzibar is the Commercial city state to the northwest, the only Commercial one in this game.



India is in the east and will complete with America and Japan for territory. Brussels to the east is the map's only Industrial city state. There's some substantial backline territory over here, but America actually has a good claim on the northern part, and Japan can compete in the southwest.



England is in the far west; there's a good-sized inland sea just off screen further to the west. Geneva is the Scientific city state next door, and this player will have a tough call over killing the city state versus keeping it around for the excellent suzerain bonus (+15% to science while at peace).



Arabia is in the closest thing to a central position on this map, although that's offset by a couple factors. Arabia has a good bit of "safe" territory to the west before running into England, and there's a bunch of city states nearby, albeit mostly Religious ones. Interestingly, there's also a natural wonder only about four tiles away from the starting settler. A bunch of those tiles have +1 science / +1 culture attached to them which is quite nice. That said, this isn't any more unbalancing than the extra science and culture that city states gives out in the early game for the first envoy, so I think this is OK. I'm curious to see it play out at the very least.

Here's some zoomed out pictures in strategic view, which lets the camera pull back and see more of the map:











Here's the full city state list, as well as showing that small inland sea off to the west. There isn't a lot of freshwater over here, but England has no competition for this land, and with their Harbor all that coastal terrain might not be such a bad thing.

For this game, the location of the "continents" also looks like it will matter a lot. I didn't look at the continent lens while rolling maps just to avoid being biased in any one direction. After I decided this map looked like a potential keeper, I went ahead and took a peek:



It's... interesting, to say the least. There are three total continents: the brown one in the west, the white one in the east, and then this purple one saddled between them. That's it. America is literally one tile away from the continental border, and I have no idea what that means for the game. How does "home continent" even get determined - where you place your capital I guess? Poor England ended up being a long way away from a "foreign" continent, although it's not impossible that Vicky could get over to this purple area eventually.

Thoughts? I'm not keen to go rolling a bunch more maps, but if you guys think this is a bad fit, it's probably worth it.

[oledavy]

Quick glance shows that England is signficantly farther away from any other player when compared to anyone else  (18 versus 11-13 average, if I counted correctly), although that may be good here since it balances out a civ that is relatively weak on this map. England got screwed for a continent, but is surrounded by a ton of coast for RNDs and arguably has the best city-state in the game next door. 

America, Arabia, and India all look like they have very solid starting locations. Arabia's is probably a slight cut above, surrounded by city-states so they don't have as many barbs to contend with. Their land is also pretty amazing, with excellent city sites close by to the east and west. Finally, they have a natural wonder and two religious city-states nearby, the perfect kit to kickstart their religious game. The trade off is that they have a smaller backline compared to India for example. 

Japan's feels a little weak. I don't know where they put their second city, for example. Cramming in another city on their starting river or stretching to get in a pink dot in the north look like they're best. Then again, they do have a cultural city-state next door..... Actually, if he scouts in the direction I expect, he'll find it on t2. 

Based on proximity, I expect the following players to meet the following city-states first: 

India: Brussels, Hattusa
America: Zanzibar
England: Geneva, Religious one to North
Japan: Kumasi, Preslav
Arabia: 1 Scientific, 2 Religious to West

This seems about as balanced as possible. Of course, I expect people will scout in completely weird directions and mess up this prediction list extremely quickly 

Overall, the map feels very light on solid freshwater settling locations compared to PBEM2. Especially for England and Japan. 

I would completely arbitrarily give this map a B+ for balance. The Japan and England players are probably going to bitch about their starts and everyone will look with envy upon Arabia, but it overall seems pretty solid, all things considered. My biggest cause for concern is Japan's start. The capital itself is okay, I expect they settle 1W. Kumasi is pretty great. However, they don't have great expand locations, with tundra to the south, relatively unproductive desert to the east, and constrained by city-states and other players to the north and west.

[oledavy]

Also, I really look forward to America's decision on which continent to settle on. It will likely determine the direction of their play and their likely game rival. India and Arabia both have a lot riding on his decision. 

I expect he will SIP and be a big pain for Arabia.