[No players] Big epic lurking - PB74

[scooter]

Are we ready for Map Discourse? You're gonna have to allow it ok, because it's the one thing in this game I've been looking forward to since like Turn 30. I'll try to be easy because I'm not mad, but I was amused reading the first few pages here.

Not qualified for real comments but...
#1) I would cry about the southern clam, each day I log in (or is there an island nearby?)

I never once cried about this Clam. Why? Because this is the first time I'm seeing it because apparently it simply got deleted.


Alright, time to look at the thing I've been wanting to see for months. It took my eyes a minute to figure out where I was here, but once I saw it. ("I" am Persia here.)

Main continent western half:

The obvious thing is that France shouldn't be alone. Basically my idea is to connect greece and arabia via France. Might see if I can figure out tools to just actually move the land or might manually move some of and incorporate island that is already there. Honestly of all the moves this is the one I would prefer you do, but up to you and not sure how much technical expertise you have. Edit: I have none, need to absorb Tarkeels post.

I also like moving Persia basically to where I scirbbled some green. Khmer would move south as that area of the world is pretty crowded. 

Oooof this was tough to look at. Like, I do see what you were going for here, but what really happened here was you took a start (Persia here) that was already the most land-starved on the entire map by a mile, and you removed all its island access, and you forced its eastern neighbor towards it by removing that player's (GT) southern expansion options.


I talked about it at length in-thread, and it's been talked about elsewhere, so I won't belabor. But a common theme lately is that it feels worse to get hosed by a mapmaker design choice than it does to get screwed by the map generator. Also.

A pattern I implemented with the map is people who came in low in land quality got 2-4 island cities, but people who were higher up got 1. Again, moving / modifying islands when I could. This is obviously imperfect, but felt like best solution. I'm not sure some of these players will get to 10 cities while some might get a few more, but 8-9 should be easily doable.

...Wait, did you think my start was HIGH in land quality? I've played around 20 games here and I think this was my worst opponent-relative land I've ever had, including quite a few games that were totally unedited maps and the no-luxury game. I'm comfortable calling mine 19th out of 19 but apparently it was too good and needed just one island.

[Mjmd]

Persias only island expansion was through France, which doesn't seem likely to have succeeded. Sure there were some 1 city islands you might have gotten, but they would have been pretty stretched and France 100% would have declared having only 1 neighbor while Persia had 3. Babylon had WAY too much free land. In my hindsite section I wrote I do wish I had followed through with that green scribble in the picture.

Somewhere later I discuss that you should have had more of an island. I think I even mentioned twice.

If people want to get screwed over by only random map rolling they can join an all random game. Multiple people requested some balancing. It was never clarified how much, but neighbor balance to me is very important and moving France was pretty important to that.

[Qgqqqqq]

I strongly agree re mapmaker fiat feeling worse, personally. MJ and I pulled each other in different directions on this one, and it would have been better to go full one way or the other.

[scooter]

Somewhere later I discuss that you should have had more of an island. I think I even mentioned twice.

Yeah I haven’t read past the pre-game stuff in this thread yet. There’s a lot to read still.

Persias only island expansion was through France, which doesn't seem likely to have succeeded. Sure there were some 1 city islands you might have gotten, but they would have been pretty stretched and France 100% would have declared having only 1 neighbor while Persia had 3. Babylon had WAY too much free land. In my hindsite section I wrote I do wish I had followed through with that green scribble in the picture.

<snip>

If people want to get screwed over by only random map rolling they can join an all random game. Multiple people requested some balancing. It was never clarified how much, but neighbor balance to me is very important and moving France was pretty important to that.

I understand everything you’re saying here. My point was that it felt bad that you did a bunch of balancing for players other than me, but nothing at all for my start. I threw the latest wbsave I could find (not the final one) into novice’s map checker and discounting the water, there were 40 land tiles that were “mine.” I guess what I’m trying to say is I did get screwed by the random map generator, but unlike others who also did, mine didn’t get fixed even remotely while others got entirely new areas in some cases. Clearly just slipped through the cracks - is what it is - but I’m just explaining why I reacted more strongly than I think you expected I think. Personal preference goes: all get fixed > none get fixed > some get fixed. I think some players would reverse the first two.


Most concise constructive statement I have - this map needed either more time or less time.


For example, in the case of “less time” - an alternate path might have been filling in the green line you drew combined with giving France an island for Galley access to that southern land mass. And maybe delete Babylon’s 1-tile desert connecting them to the southern strip. My start and France’s start would have still been quite disadvantaged to the field, but it would have provided more options to play while still being very natural. Likely would have meant changing fewer than 10 tiles. I would have complained less for sure if that’s worth anything to you.

I strongly agree re mapmaker fiat feeling worse, personally. MJ and I pulled each other in different directions on this one, and it would have been better to go full one way or the other.

Yeah agreed strongly, especially with the last sentence. FWIW I prefer well-balanced and would just as soon use Torusland as the base for every single game, but some of the loudest voices in these games simply don’t agree. I do totally get that it’s difficult to synthesize that range of opinions into a coherent map.

[Mjmd]

I would have loved another week, but honestly I didn't do a bunch of balancing. I did very little (in my viewpoint, but a lot in Qs). Its just 19 players and such a large map even a couple changes adds up pretty fast. Your start still went from VERY screwed to only MOSTLY screwed. You still had less neighbors, more land, more food, and more happy than you would have otherwise. That being said, it is one of the two starts I wish I had done more with.

Again, for the parameters given I think it turned out pretty well. If you want a random base and stay somewhat near random on a somewhat fast time frame, but fix the worst issues and even it out a bit, this fits the bill.

I also like Torusland for these large player games. Honestly if anyone can edit map scripts and just make it spit out cylindrical maps as well as toroidal maps that would solve a lot (as people really don't like toroidal).

[xist10]

I think, scooter should play, if he is at february ?
I know, I'm up to date - and I plan to play in ~ 1h.
Edit: I didn’t play, scooter seems to be better.

[scooter]

I've read a few threads now - mostly what seemed like the most eventful ones. My basic takes on the game so far.


* Commodore has gotten absolutely bonkers luck this game between the clear best land, T1 BW pop, and an easily conquerable neighbor, combined with tons of Astro land out there to benefit from, which was of course full of huts to increase the value further. However, he's obviously done a very good job of capitalizing on said good luck. Lucky and good is the best combination.


* I'm beginning to form an opinion of Plemo being someone with really top-tier micro/raw skills but very iffy macro that can burn him a bit in more competitive games. I think it was clearly a mistake to kneecap Tarkeel/civac without any real gains. Especially once they moved south to conquer Dreylin, I think it would have made much more sense to simply leverage IMP to take 2/3 of the land between himself and Germany (which I suspect they definitely would have tolerated), and then turn around and invade Superdeath in the mid-game. Superdeath was always going to slam into him, so developing a game-long enemy in Germany just made a 2v1 inevitable. His raw pop lead was enormous at one point, but his geopolitics let him down. Not to mention delaying so many turns pointlessly that it began spawning actual PYFT wars.


* I think the level of play on the small continent has been pretty iffy. Feels like Miguelito/Ginger should have absolutely rolled that continent, but they got distracted by the monk wonders, which I don't think was the right play. I think in that situation you have to recognize you have a LOT of food on your land mass and get to eating. The big games are won by big empires, and I think their wonder chasing distracted from this? Also, build workers guys, please.


* I think Gavagi has played the best game overall. His land was not great. The islands helped a lot, but his starting area had a very low ceiling. Noticing he had meh land and a neighbor with a slow start close by and going full-bore into horchers ASAP was a perfect choice. It got easier for him after that, but I am generally pretty impressed by his game. The contrast to the Miguelito/Ginger team in terms of the killer instinct is really noticeable. I like his chances to win mostly because it's going to be harder for the competition to reach him.

[Mjmd]

Ya you always need luck to do well in these large games.

Commodore got more land north when Dreylin died, most people would have gone to war over Midway but Bing didn't letting Commodore tech to knights, and I'm pretty sure 3/4 games Pin and Amica don't go to war over that jungle and Pin can help counterbalance or at least get more in the split.

Gav got lucky both that Greenline ignored him and instead extended towards Pic. And obviously that Xist moved to a weaker capital and then failed an axe rush. Plus the neighbors south of that got in a forever war with each other vs teaming up against him (which he was afraid of), and Piccadilly didn't do anything to stop him.

[scooter]

I know Amica was losing money, but Scooter letting the stack get hit first by knights is still super iffy. His cats while not killed by flanking were basically rendered useless and therefore his counterattack was a dud. He had 1 free turn of strike to wait at the very least.

Couple things here as I'm just seeing this.


1) Pindicator can see the gold remaining and GNP and know what's going to happen. He also could see I revolted out of Slavery into Tribalism, and the only reason you would do that is to delay a strike. This is all important because:


2) I had to move out before the striking to ensure I actually got to use the full stack. Pindicator could have simply pulled back a bit and watched the army start disbanding. Which means it's also a good time to bring up the fact that:


3) I have very little idea how strike works, honestly. I've never done it before. I mean I have a general idea, but how many units would have disbanded? Which ones? Is it gradual or all at once? No idea! And I wasn't going to test it and figure it out for a Civ I was effectively euthanizing.



tl;dr: If your opponent knows you are going to strike, they can adjust their play around it, so taking the fight was more or less the only choice, as Pindicator had no real reason to ever allow me first strike. The way to avoid this situation would be to not give up your entire empire without taking a fight to begin with, but that ship had sailed.

[Qgqqqqq]

On strike.

Key part: A quick look at the code shows (BTS 3.17): Every player has a counter starting at 0 and incrementing every turn his units are on strike, it appears there is no way to reset this counter. In case of strike and counter > 1 the game will disband up to counter/2 units (disbanding will stop if break even is reached).... Strike starts out with 0 disbands, then 1, then 1, then 2, then 2, then 3, etc...