[SPOILER] The Steak, Beer, and Cigar Saloon

[spacetyrantxenu]

I get the complaint about the capital gold, but I'll defend myself by saying that sometimes when you move your settler in the fog you get lucky; that is not where his settler started. You may know from ancient age C&D that Zanth didn't settle T0 so this shouldn't be a big spoiler. But I've learned my lesson. In a future map players will probably need an airship to find a game breaking tile like gold from the settler's spawn point.

Not to get into the map design too much here, but little grievances like other players capitals being better than yours pretty much wash out on balance with the rest of the territory you're assumed to be able to grab. Or at least that's true according to Novice's awesome map tool. This game had an unfairness rating of 2, which is absurdly low. If you've ever noticed in the game settings screen the name of the map you're playing on the bolded part of the filename shown here is the number of save iterations I did (PB17-12starts-large-3.4.84-FINAL.CivBeyondSwordWBSave). That's 84 iterations of shaping, trimming, and altering the map. I did miss some things, but I got the low unfairness rating I was after. I specifically didn't want to maximize capital location fairness and make them all mirrored/clones (like in PB4, although that's one way to kill start balance complaints if one is of a mind to). I wanted a natural looking map that was overall as fair as possible while not being boring to play on, and that had a natural shape.

I'll admit that the map had a lot more forest on it than it should have, but I didn't add those, they were basically there from the start from the map script. I didn't worry too much about it though, I figured it would just accelerate every player's development some, which isn't that big of a problem as it affects everyone more or less the same way. In all I'm pretty happy with the map and think the game is playing out in a mostly interesting way, at least from what I can tell....not everyone is reporting like you are.

As for Slowcheetah, your exploration will soon find his capital. But it looks kinda like this, just because I knew it would throw you into a snarling, hissing catfit:

[Catwalk]

I get the complaint about the capital gold, but I'll defend myself by saying that sometimes when you move your settler in the fog you get lucky; that is not where his settler started. You may know from ancient age C&D that Zanth didn't settle T0 so this shouldn't be a big spoiler. But I've learned my lesson. In a future map players will probably need an airship to find a game breaking tile like gold from the settler's spawn point.

I don't think you're quite correct here. If he was in moving distance of the PH and he couldn't see the gold then he started somewhere west of it. He'd be able to see both the cow and the corn, and he could see a PH that let him grab both of those. No other PH in sight to do that (as far as I can tell), and he could also see that he'd be keeping all the river tiles. Getting the gold on top would be lucky, but even so it'd be the obvious move for him to make. So I don't think this one was a case of fog gambling in any way. Moreover, the main thing was actually having gold immediately available to him compared with what early luxuries I had. Even if it wasn't in his capital's BFC, being able to claim it easily with his second city would also have been a really big advantage.

Not to get into the map design too much here, but little grievances like other players capitals being better than yours pretty much wash out on balance with the rest of the territory you're assumed to be able to grab. Or at least that's true according to Novice's awesome map tool. This game had an unfairness rating of 2, which is absurdly low. If you've ever noticed in the game settings screen the name of the map you're playing on the bolded part of the filename shown here is the number of save iterations I did (PB17-12starts-large-3.4.84-FINAL.CivBeyondSwordWBSave). That's 84 iterations of shaping, trimming, and altering the map. I did miss some things, but I got the low unfairness rating I was after. I specifically didn't want to maximize capital location fairness and make them all mirrored/clones (like in PB4, although that's one way to kill start balance complaints if one is of a mind to). I wanted a natural looking map that was overall as fair as possible while not being boring to play on, and that had a natural shape.

If that's how the map tool calculates unfairness then by my best judgement it's underrating the capital start. Moreover, I think it's going to be extremely difficult for it to do so accurately. Same thing with early expansion options. zanth is a great example of that, he has a really good capital location and a really good first expansion. I get the impression from previous discussions that the map tool needs to be supplemented by a thorough manual look to see how it plays out, with capital location and early dotmapping being key considerations.

I'll admit that the map had a lot more forest on it than it should have, but I didn't add those, they were basically there from the start from the map script. I didn't worry too much about it though, I figured it would just accelerate every player's development some, which isn't that big of a problem as it affects everyone more or less the same way. In all I'm pretty happy with the map and think the game is playing out in a mostly interesting way, at least from what I can tell....not everyone is reporting like you are.

I rather like all the forests, and as I said earlier I also do enjoy the map a lot. I like the overall layout of it and the fact that it's not mirrored in shape or resources, makes exploration a lot more interesting. There's a bit too much space for my liking, but it's not bad. There was way more in PBEM29 and PBEM37, for example.


[/quote]As for Slowcheetah, your exploration will soon find his capital. But it looks kinda like this, just because I knew it would throw you into a snarling, hissing catfit:[/quote]

I'd actually argue that one is weaker than zanth's. He does have a very nice gems tile, but he loses out on river tiles and has to suffer a lot of water. On the other hand, there's probably something good waiting for him on one of the northern grass forest tiles But again, compared to my own start it does rock. Everybody gets more love than me

[spacetyrantxenu]

The map tool doesn't care about distance from the capital so far as I can tell, I think it assigns values to all the tiles that fall within the domain of a given player and sums it for a final land value within the territory. If I was a bastard mapmaker and put all your good tiles at the far reaches of your domain I'm not sure how much it would alter the scoring (although it may have been fun...but for instance, your ivory placement, while annoying, did give you an interesting choice to make, I think). Lest you think I only used the tool for determining what's fair, more went into it than that. I can talk more about the methodology after the game, but there were a few specific reasons I was able to get unfairness down to the number I did. Yeah, I could have used a few more passes reviewing the map for unfortunately placed resources, but the map had to ship at some point and that day my toddler was giving me fits.

As for that capital...I'd rate it as weaker than Zanth's because it trades so many land tiles for water tiles. Anyway, that isn't Slowcheetah's capital, that was mine from PB8. All hail the whip anger!

This is the closest picture I have to the turn you're on. This is from T114, whereas your shot of Zanth's capital is from T110. He's ahead of my cottage development, most likely because I had a small war issue when someone peed in my breakfast and I...overreacted. If not for missing so many land tiles I think I'd rather have double corn and gems than plains hill and gold.

[Catwalk]

I don't have a problem with the ivory being in a worse location than zanth's gold, and I don't mind his capital being stronger either. Problem is that there are too many factors that are in his favour. I definitely think maps are more interesting when they're very assymetrical, as long as they're still reasonably balanced. Which of course becomes increasingly difficult the less they look like each other. What's commonly done (to my knowledge) is to make sure that all capital locations compare to each other, that strategic resources compare to each other (split into early and late) and that happiness resources compare to each other. Both in terms of distance and quantity. That's just the easy way out, I don't mind if all of those factors don't match up on a 1 to 1 basis (ie. stronger capital vs worse happiness allocation, for example).

[Catwalk]

Also, how come zanth wasn't found worthy of being given interesting choices to make?

[spacetyrantxenu]

I don't know what you mean by that. I'm sure there isn't one right way to play his start. Honestly if you want to know the truth it's less the map and more the dedlurker that has Zanth ahead of you right now. You may have seen elsewhere in this forum that Gavagai is no slouch of a player. They don't report as often as you do so I don't know how they're doing everything but whatever it is it seems to be working pretty well, as you've seen. But I think you're trolling me for posts and view count now, so

[Catwalk]

I have never needed an excuse to troll for posts and views! I do agree that both zanth and Gavagai are good players, and I think their lead is deserved. However, their starting advantage is not a minor one. Since you're making me all stubborn, I'm going to try simming both starts out tonight

As for what I meant by it, there are many differences that favour them. Happiness location, resource availability at capital, resource availability at first expansion site. It's possible the rest of their land stinks, but it'd have to stink a good deal for this to not be a major advantage over what I've gotten, especially happiness location.

[Catwalk]

Completing my case against Xenu for being a kitty-hating tyrant, I present exhibits C and D: Jowy and Nakor

He also has a 3-food capital location available, with a very nice option for sharing the cow with a copper city on a 3-hammer tile. First luxury (elephant) is very close by, another two (silver and fur, fur is right by the silver down there) are also within reasonable distance. I rate this start a good deal better than mine as well, assuming he had a reasonable chance of spotting the 3-food site for his capital.

I just realized that I haven't put up a good screenshot of Nakor's lands yet, so here's one. Nakor also has a decent start. He has a 3-food capital and several good prospects for expansion, although most of them require early border pops. This would help explain his choice to get Stonehenge early on, although I still think this was an expensive way to solve the problem. Lucky bastard even gets clams in his lake! I love the lake city spot 2N of clams and 2W of wheat, although it does require an early border pop something fierce. First early resource (gold) isn't real close by, but it is within reasonable settling distance and has nice tiles next to it.

I'm guessing that the script rates my 3 silk, 1 incense and 1 wine quite highly. They're nice to have (and I should be able to trade away the excess silk) but I'd happily trade all of them for a single early gold and another food resource by my capital.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I'm guessing that the script rates my 3 silk, 1 incense and 1 wine quite highly. They're nice to have (and I should be able to trade away the excess silk) but I'd happily trade all of them for a single early gold and another food resource by my capital.

You may have noticed the sugar tile you settled on at Empty Wallet. That gives you five happy resources. Have you counted your rivals totals? I'm guessing it's a close contest. Also, Monarchy doesn't cost any more on this map than on others if you did need more happiness. Is that annoying? Maybe. But if you can't grow tall you can always grow wide. There's always another option. I guess I shouldn't be bothered, map whining is as old as civ itself.

Next time you definitely get a tundra start and no metals. I'll give you one of each happy resource and no food so you can't use it.

[Catwalk]

Aha, so you confess to being a kitty hater! And I'm not whining about the map, I'm complaining about being discriminated against for being feline

And true, I forgot about the sugar. If I do indeed have more max happiness than some of my rivals then that might help me catch up. zanth does stand out as having few happiness resources, he had gold + incense hooked up last I checked. Even so, I think I'd happily trade starts with him. The first happiness boost is critical for your early economy, and he got it for free. That went a long way towards tiding him over until he reached Monarchy, which was definitely the right play for him with the side bonus of getting to Oracle which noone had the balls to go for (kitty balls included). He also had the research power to reach Monarchy faster, gold is a major boost early on. If only he hadn't lucked into landing Hinduism lateish on turn 56 (I got Buddhism tun 46 without going straight for it) then he would have faced a much slower start, not being able to work two 5/1 deer tiles in his second city until spreading borders with a monument. I'm guessing they held off after Mysticism until one of the early religions fell then went for the other, counting on other players to be chicken about pursuing early religion in a game with this many players.

Had religion fallen to someone else and had Oracle been snatched by an IND player then I would have felt a lot more comfortable about my chances of keeping pace with zanth. This isn't whining either or detracting from his achievements, just wishful thinking In addition to what seems to be good economic management, I think those two successes made a big difference for them. Religion gave important culture in a spot where it was sorely needed and gave an important happiness boost while waiting for Monarchy, while Oracle gave them the highly useful Colossus at a bargain price. As FIN/ORG Colossus really does work wonders for them.

So again, well played zanth and Gavagai. But this isn't over yet! I shall scratch and claw you until my paws are furless. As soon as I'm done complaining at Xenu, of course. That may take another 10 turns or so, given that I'm about to discover what he felt like giving slowcheetah.

I probably shouldn't feel gloomy either, as many things are going my way lately. I have the Mausoleum as a PHI player, and am about to launch my first golden age with perfect timing for civic switches. I'm about to build Moai in a great location, helping me defend my cultural border against Jowy and putting very critical hammers in a border city that has very few hammers otherwise. I think I have the largest food surplus of anyone, I'm at 158 food now with 166 being the crop leader, and my population is still lagging behind a bit. So that's a lot of excess food, and I have enough workers and cities that I can commit fully to growth up until the GA and then sit on really nice tiles for 12 turns.

I think my main competitor, other than zanth, is BaII. He has a very strong economy concerning all of crops, hammers and commerce. I think I have a little bit more long-term power than him with England and PHI compared with him being IMP and Sumeria. Ziggurats are nice, but upkeep costs still aren't all that high anywhere due to the map size and the difficulty level. Same for zanth, his Colossus will expire eventually and I will have the Mausoleum for the rest of the game + Redcoats and Stock Exchanges.

Azza I'm not sure about. He has the powerful Pyramids, but it has set back his expansion a lot. He was last in city count for a long time and is still behind, I think he's at 9 currently compared with the 11 that most players have and the 13 that I have (including 2 crappy island cities, though). I don't think he'll be able to leverage Pyramids properly without a strong core economy, and it doesn't look like he has that. I'll get graphs on him next turn to find out for sure.

flugauto, slowcheetah and yuri all look decent. Sian and furungy are a bit further behind. Nakor seems to have been whipping a lot in recent turns, his crops have gone from decent to terrible. There is some evidence of a power spike, which could very well be directed at me. I need to make sure that I can withstand an assault of immortals straight into my core, his recent expansion has left me vulnerable to just that. He has 3 barracks, 2 of which are in cities in my direction. 2metraninja seems to have gotten off to a bad start, although I only have score to base that on. Jowy is hopelessly behind but soldiers on, I'm happy he's chosen not to mess with me so far.