[SPOILER] Map Rolling/Creation Thread

[Sareln]

For easy reference during and after the game, and of course because the more eyeballs we can get on this thing the better for everyone involved.

Player Fixed Settings:

Large
Full of Resources Lakes 35% Water
Monarch
Tech Trading
No Tech Brokering
No Vassal States

[Sareln]

Novice's Map Balancer Tool Thread: LINK
Full of Resources Map Script: LINK

Player Assignments:

Twinkletoes: Isabella of France
Commodore/Brick: Augustus of Inca
Jowy: Pericles of Khmer
AutomatedTeller: Hannibal of Native America
Cornflakes/Q: Huayna Capac of Zulu
2metraninja: Sury of Mongolia
Azza: Louis of Rome

[Sareln]

General Plan of Action:

Generate Map
Plug into Novice's Latest Build
Check Balance
Have Tool Search the Start Position Space
Throw out any map that has "total map unfairness" > 50
Get 3 or 4 maps
Post them and consider from there

Change of plans.

The auto-move start locations feature on Novice's latest tool are really really cool, but have a bad habit of sticking people into the tundra with basically impossible starts (though I'm sure the land share split is good). So instead, my process right now is I rolled a map and am using Novice tool to evaluate it as I go. This lets me twiddle the terrain a bit too. I'm going to bed soon, so I'll post what I've got soon - I'd love to hear feedback on it. I've mostly been making changes based on the land-split rather than the resources, so if someone could inspect the start for missing copper/horses that'd be awesome.

[Sareln]

First Version:

Worldbuilder Save

[timski]

Just a quick look, and I appreciate the ethos of the game is to play the hand you are dealt; but: I'm concerned about the distribution of strategic resources. Notably Zulu have nothing near their start, no Copper anywhere, with highly contested borderlands Iron and Horses. Compared to some Civs, which practically start with all 3 military resources, this seems like a recipe for disaster.

[spacetyrantxenu]

OK, I'm not sure if we're super worried about balance or fairness, but here are my thoughts on the map as it is now. If we're going to let the players mostly play the hand they've been dealt maybe not all of these points need to be considered, but some of them are fairly significant in my opinion:

Natives could use a few more tiles at their capital -- they have a great Moai site, terrible capital site.

Khmer have access to elephants 8 tiles away, on the border with Inca (9 tiles from them). Good enough for me -- if they prioritize it, they'll get it.

Zulu do need closer Iron/Copper/Horse (but likely one of the metals, I'd add a copper somewhere closer -- how much would it suck to be Zulu and not be able to build impis?) There is no copper nearby at all and the iron is 8 tiles away, maybe that's close enough, but that would force them to tech IW. Then again, as the only civ that starts in the equatorial jungle band they should probably get IW fairly soon anyway. Speaking of that, I'd be concerned about the amount of grassland tiles Zulu will eventually have, except that the map is fairly lush overall. I think this may be OK. I'm not sure if being in the center of the map is a bonus or a penalty for them, though, as this is cylindrical everyone will have a fairly safe backline except for Zulu. But they have quicker access to good land everywhere, so maybe that's a fair trade.

Inca has double sheep and nothing else visible at their start, which sucks a bit. Maybe swap a sheep for something else for variety?

Rome has marble in the capital's BFC. That's Azza's Louis of Rome...really lucky for him if he keeps that. Actually, that's one of only three marbles (that I found) on the map, the other are in the ice south of the Natives and Incans. I would move Rome's marble away from the capital. There are a few stone tiles scattered around so maybe scatter around a few marble resources between players, but leaving the only easy marble source in the BFC of an IND civ would be pretty unfair to everyone else. (The marble in the ice by Inca, that's another IND civ.)

France and Rome both lack meaningful river tiles, so a slight penalty to commerce for them. They have plenty of lakes for farm irrigation but no rivers is annoying.

Mongolia has to settle a terrible iceball city to get their horses. Probably worth it if you're playing the Mongol civ, but very unfun.

Natives and Inca seem barren of luxury resources.

I didn't check for all modern resources, but it looks like everyone has easy access to either oil, uranium, or coal. I'm not as sure about aluminum, I don't think Zulu are getting tanks, maybe not some other civs.

Thanks for rolling the map.

[Krill]

I lol'd at the "Throw out any map with a map unfairness >50" and then that map has an unfairness >350...

[Sareln]

I lol'd at the "Throw out any map with a map unfairness >50" and then that map has an unfairness >350...

So did I as I was changing the plan . My goal is to get it down to 50 via hand-work. It started at about 2200 FWIW, you were quite right about this map-script being one that doesn't really deliver the fairness goods with any consistency - that initial 2200 std. deviation on value (which should be magnitude 2000 for each player with these settings) has been consistent with the 10 rolls I did before giving up that method.

[Krill]

I'll be impressed if you can get it down to 50, I don't think you can short of rebuilding most of the map and the resource placements. You might be able to do it on a large map, but that would give too much land for 7 players. Another option might be to try and remove all of the ice and tundra from the game (I think you can do that using the full of resources map generation options).

[waterbat]

wow, i loaded it up in worldbuilder - this seems like an incredibly difficult undertaking. kudos to you sareln!

The only thing that stood out to me was the lack of land tiles for Hannibal. 3clam+fish+cow and 4 forests in the BFC seems nice though.