[NO PLAYERS] PBEM 8 Map Making & Lurkers

[Cornflakes]

PLAYERS STAY OUT

[Cornflakes]

Re-posting from the setup thread ... mostly filling space at the top of the lurker thread

Gonna do that.

Civilization List:

Vanilla: 19

America
Arabia
Brazil
China
Egypt
England
France
Germany
Greek(Pericles)
Greek(Gorgo)
India(Ghandi)
Japan
Kongo
Norway
Rome
Russia
Scythia
Spain
Sumeria

DLC: 8

Australia
Aztec
Indonesia
Khmer
Macedonia
Nubia
Persia
Poland

Expansion: 9

Cree
Georgia
India(Chandragupta)
Korea
Mapuche
Mongolia
Netherlands
Scotland
Zulu

This means 38 Civilization alltogether

Now we have 6 players, so please do the following:

1st Player    2 Expansion           4 Vanilla
2nd Player   2 Expansion 1 DLC 3 Vanilla
3rd Player    2 Expansion 1 DLC 3 Vanilla
4th Player    1 Expansion 2 DLC 3 Vanilla
5th Player    1 Expansion 2 DLC 3 Vanilla
6th Player    1 Expansion 2 DLC 3 Vanilla

If someone objects to being 1st player I can do that. So I am the only one without DLC civs. Else random.

AMERICAN:

Chevalier Mal Fet
Emperor K

EUROPEAN:

TheArchduke
Alhambram
Japper
Rowain

Will randomize in next post.

[Cornflakes]

Here are the picks I rolled. Anybody see any glaringly obvious issues?

Player Order:

1. TheArchduke
   
2. Rowain
   
3. Japper
   
4. Alhambram
   
5. Chevalier Mal Fet
   
6. Emperor K 
   

                                   

TheArchduke	Rowain	Japper	Alhambram	Chevalier Mal Fet	Emperor K
Mongolia	Scotland	Cree	Netherlands	Korea	Georgia
India(Chandragupta)	Zulu	Mapuche	Poland	Khmer	Indonesia
Norway	Aztec	Persia	Macedonia	Nubia	Australia
Arabia	Kongo	Russia	Japan	Scythia	China
Egypt	Sumeria	France	America	India(Ghandi)	Rome
Spain	Greek(Pericles)	Brazil	England	Germany	Greek(Gorgo)

[Ituralde]

Looks good to me. Thanks for your efforts!

I look forward to the civ picks. I actually would have preferred to have this game limited to the Expansions civs to see those in action, but this looks interesting as well.

Will we see the inevitable clash of Mongolia vs Zulu/Sumer vs Scythia?
At least Rowain has to choose between Zulu and Sumer if he wants to go rush someone.

Since this site is the only place that I follow Multiplayer games it will be interesting to see the RB take on the multiplayer meta where rush civs beat everything else from what I've heard. But maybe Australia or the Netherlands or goold ol Russia will be able to outbuilder them? We will see.

Also looking forward to the whole Ages and loyalty system. Fun times! Can't wait to see this start!

[Ichabod]

Scythia and Sumeria just seem too powerful in a setting where you'll have close neighbours. 

I don't see how to defend against a War cart rush without spamming warriors from the get go (which loses you the game against everyone else). It's 30 strenght against 20 from a warrior, and the first Heavy Cavalry promo actually gives +10 against fortified units. The sumerian player can even go for Military Tradition early, before PP, and get the +50% on War Carts + support bonus, that nobody will have. I actually think the Ziggurat is a good improvement as well, since flatland improvements in Civ 6 usually suck (and science just got harder to come by).

Meanwhile, Scythia after Horseback Riding is just too good. Healing after kills (i.e. when you most need it, since the units that actually kill are the ones that become the most exposed) and combat bonus against damaged units is bonkers (1UPT means most of your units are damaged at all times, healing takes a long while in Civ 6). Also, the Kurgan means you are very likely to get one of the early pantheons, except for a lucky opponent (faith at the start or faith CS), so you can choose GotForge. And to top it all, the double light cavalry... That's completely crazy. ideally you can spend just a few turns into the 50% cavalry policy, chop some trees, get a huge army in no time and change back to economic policies. And take into account that Cavalry are a unit with an easy beeline, so you can also get double cavalries (even though at that point it's easier to upgrade than to build new ones).

Does Scythia gets double units when gold or faith buying them? If that's the case, I can see faith-buying Cavalry as a pretty good way to finish the game, after a strong rush start.

Prehaps the more Diploey meta game that PBEMs tend to have can make player teams stop this rush juggernauts, especially in a game with more players. Perhaps I'm missing something from the expansion. Perhaps the players that got Sumeria/Scythia won't play them as I think you should, really spamming units.

And a quick pun: Scythia is not a one-trick pony Civ, it's a one-trick two-pony Civ. 

[Quagma Blast]

One thing I've thought a bit about that people might not be considering: Era Score. Partly because we're not particularly familiar with how to get it, but...

The very first targets for Classical Era are 15 score to stay out of Dark Age, 25 to earn Golden Age. Sumeria is extremely well placed to earn a Classical Golden Age - +4 for each of 'build first Unique Unit' and 'build first Unique Infrastructure', +2 or +3 for clearing barbarian camps, high-power fast units give them better early scouting than anybody but Cree for all the 'find stuff' moments (civs, natural wonders, world first all-contacts), Tribal Village rewards help catapult him to world first classical tech, world first classical civic, and world first pantheon moments, Sumer's really the only civ who has a chance of getting the +5 point "eliminate another civ" moment in ancient era...

[MJW (ya that one)]

The conquest Civs are just too OP. Japper and Emp-K don't have access to them. Emp-K should pick Rome to discourage being attacked even through China and Australia are available and Japper should pick Russia and fart out a larva--this game should be so fast paced that no-one will build culture districts so he should pick up a lot of stuff for free.

The civs are so imbalanced that I don't have to look at the map to give my rankings. I'll even just use the civ names.

Scythia
Summer
Zulu
Mongolia
Rome
Russia

[Cornflakes]

Here's a first look at the map I'm making. I tweaked the Inland Sea script a bit to get this. Player start locations marked in RED circles, with the lines being the approximate midpoint between. The rough division is 3 in the west / 3 in the east. The starts are all about 20-25 tiles apart.

   



Close-up of the starting areas ... starting with the middle in the west and moving clockwise

Each start has a marsh rice plus either [(1) 5-yield tile] OR [(2) 4-yield tiles]. I also made sure the starts have about the same number of hills. 

Wider shot of the starting areas ... starting with the middle in the west and moving clockwise. I did a strategic resources pass and made sure everyone has access to all strategics, but please double check this. The strategics were surprisingly abundant on this map. Outside of a couple iron and quite a bit of oil I didn't have to add much.

[Cornflakes]

Regarding city state locations ... Here are two options that I'm toying with:

1) Placing 1/player on the coast directly towards the center, with the remaining located between the civs, skipping every other one [9 total]
2) Placing 1/player roughly to the west of each (since warrior start on the west), with one in each corner.

My leaning is towards 2. Here is a conceptual sketch of both:

   

   

[Singaboy]

I am looking forward to this game as the imbalances and exploits in R&F are magnified.

GG are totally out of tune currently. Very powerful if you know how to use them