I have been playing a lot of multiplayer games in Civ4 BTS. My preferred setting is Islands (one per player) because I don’t like the early wars.

But even when you have "balanced" settings, the difference of starting positions and islands in general can be huge. It’s far from being balanced. Sometimes you have 4 food resources, then none. One has half the island desert or jungle, the other rivers. A player who has gold/gems will have a much better techrate than others without. Often also the size of the islands is very different (on tiny Islands 5 Cities possible vs. 8 cities possible etc.). The list could go on for a while...

I think it would be really cool to have an option "identical islands". Every player would have exactly the same island with the same resources and start on the same spot of his respective island. Then you could see - wow while I have a 12 capital, my neighbour has it at size 20...

Obviously that would not be realistic - but it doesn’t have to be for me. When you play competition / multiplayer I always prefer settings as equal as possible. The identical Island option would obviously be best for this.

Im looking here for people who see things the same way. Maybe if we are a lot of people we could find a way to make it possible in one of the next patches.

I don't MP much myself (well, at all really), but I wrote the Hemispheres script specifically to address a similar suggestion and avid MPer made to me.

If you play with 4 or 6 continents, you'll get a pretty balanced map, with just enough variety to be interesting. It splits the map into equal quadrants (or sextants I suppos, for 6 continents), above and below the equator. This means you won't get much jungle or tundra, as you'll have ocean above and below each continent, and each will have roughly the same general shape and landmass.

Playing with 2 or 3 continents, of course provides much more variety and is less likely to be balanced.

If all the islands are the same, would that not take some of the challenge out of the game? If they are all the same, you would have at least 1 of every luxury, food and strategic resources on your island. That would make the game too simple...you wouldn't have unhappy and/or unhealthy cities so no wars to take needed resources. I guess it would be okay if you are going for diplo/culture/spacerace wins...but seems like it wouldn't be very challenging.

But it could help decide who is the better player.

not really...

the whole point is using what you have at your disposal to grow your empire, while taking over other empires for better land that you covet, or for resources

everyones starting with the same resources, and the same land, there would be no point to diplomacy or wars, or trading, which would then decrease commerce, no point to building a military, no point to spread a religion, no point to start a corporation, no point to even meet with other civs, because if everyone has the exact same starting point, what will diplomacy and war get you?

it proves who is the better player when you can adjust your strategy to what your starting position is, and still win

wasn't there in civ3 the option to have your map mirrored?

not really...

the whole point is using what you have at your disposal to grow your empire, while taking over other empires for better land that you covet, or for resources

everyones starting with the same resources, and the same land, there would be no point to diplomacy or wars, or trading, which would then decrease commerce, no point to building a military, no point to spread a religion, no point to start a corporation, no point to even meet with other civs, because if everyone has the exact same starting point, what will diplomacy and war get you?

it proves who is the better player when you can adjust your strategy to what your starting position is, and still win

I disagree a lot with this post.

WARS: There will still be surely a lot of wars with everyone on his identical island. The one that conquers another island will go ahead in tech / military units etc. so there is still a lot of interest... The difference is just that when you have a war - you will just not be behind in tech because of the starting island and his resources. These excuses would be gone.

TRADING: Also trading is still interesting. You still can trade gold for food if a player has an expansive civ etc.

RELIGION: Religion wouldn’t be affected at all by this setting. It has the same uses as in every game. You should spread it on your and on the other islands for your benefit.

RECOURCES AND ADAPTATION: You shouldn’t have all the resources on your island. If there is no stone/gold this is no problem since no one will have stone/gold. I think there are just a few resources you really need (oil) and others that just help speed up things. The speed up ones shouldn’t be always there. So in every game you would obviously also have to adapt your strategy.

A player that even with bad terrain can win a game is by far a better player – that’s very clear. But that’s not the point. It gets especially interesting when players with similar quality play a game. And then it’s more often than you think decided by terrain.
Besides it would for me just be very interesting to see other people’s strategies with the same conditions as you have. This way you can learn a lot about which strategies are working better than others.

You don’t seem to see the concept of multiplayer fairness. I know there are a lot of players that like standard resources, random events, tech trading and huts etc. and I respect that. But I see that there are also a great number of people that happily turn these unbalancing things off. In this spirit it would only be consequent to go for an identical island option.

A player that even with bad terrain can win a game is by far a better player – that’s very clear. But that’s not the point. It gets especially interesting when players with similar quality play a game. And then it’s more often than you think decided by terrain.
Besides it would for me just be very interesting to see other people’s strategies with the same conditions as you have. This way you can learn a lot about which strategies are working better than others.



If that is the reason that you would like all land to be identical, then you should participate in the Game Of the Month contest...Everyone that plays starts at the same spot and does not diminish the rest of the game by having everyone with (or without) the same resources...

I'd prefer similar islands to identical. No one should have all of the resources but more everyone has a balanced set. Or you could have everyone with the same resources but not all of them and the rest scattered about on smaller islands. Then again you could be like me and just lost three games by dang barbarian archer hordes.

it proves who is the better player when you can adjust your strategy to what your starting position is, and still win

That is so far from qualifying as proving something I cringed when I read it. Got science?

First of all, the starting positions are still unknown and random, so flexibility is still tested under identical starts.

It also further produces questions like: is it better to win with a phenomenal start or come in second with the worst start?

And then your whole multi-player circle of friends is breaking down into disputes that try to measure difficulty of starting position. You had stone and elephants! No, you had iron! So what, I wasn't Rome!

In fact, people begin to covet bad starts, right?

In summary, unless you have many repetitions and a statistical system for weighting starts, identical starts is by far the best.

- O

If that is the reason that you would like all land to be identical, then you should participate in the Game Of the Month contest...Everyone that plays starts at the same spot and does not diminish the rest of the game by having everyone with (or without) the same resources...

Game of the month contest looks like an interesting idea (Thx for the tip). But I prefer to play multiplayer games.

If all the islands are the same, would that not take some of the challenge out of the game? If they are all the same, you would have at least 1 of every luxury, food and strategic resources on your island. That would make the game too simple...you wouldn't have unhappy and/or unhealthy cities so no wars to take needed resources. I guess it would be okay if you are going for diplo/culture/spacerace wins...but seems like it wouldn't be very challenging.

All the starting islands need to be the same, so let's have a larger central island with no-one starting on it, and some resources on there that aren't available on the starting islands. For maximum fairness, it'd need to have rotational symmetry and be equidistant from each island; your level of pedantry may vary...

Also, to encourage resource trading, remember that some resources have identical features. Wheat and corn, clam and crab, and perhaps some others I've forgotten. If there are an even number of players, you could give half of them wheat and half of them corn, on the same tile. This encourages trading but doesn't give anyone an unfair advantage.

Has anyone an idea how to transfer the identical island wish to Firaxis. I'd really like they noticed. Should be too hard to include it...

Bts has an idiosyncrasy against the " equal opportunities " at all. :rolleyes:

In single player f.i. the human player always starts in a worst situation than other AI opponents , I assume the MP section is unbalanced as well.

I don't MP much myself (well, at all really), but I wrote the Hemispheres script specifically to address a similar suggestion and avid MPer made to me.

If you play with 4 or 6 continents, you'll get a pretty balanced map, with just enough variety to be interesting. It splits the map into equal quadrants (or sextants I suppos, for 6 continents), above and below the equator. This means you won't get much jungle or tundra, as you'll have ocean above and below each continent, and each will have roughly the same general shape and landmass.

Playing with 2 or 3 continents, of course provides much more variety and is less likely to be balanced.

I'll have to try out the Hemispheres setting. Lately I have been playing either Fractal or Terra. Hemispheres might be an interesting option for my next multiplayer game.

Identical starts would rather take the excitement out of the game for those who desire something more stimulating than a gloridifed version of tic-tac-toe.

Ifyou want identical islands, then it's not a map script you're after - it's a saved game.

The whole point of running a map script is the random results.

Ifyou want identical islands, then it's not a map script you're after - it's a saved game.

The whole point of running a map script is the random results.

The template for the identical islands would ideally still be random.

@Gewaltloser

All island players think like u in MP. Unfornately this forum is for Single-Mode-Players. A lot of members are SMP. They are not interested in your idea and suggestions. I'm one of MP. Try "Fair Island" map script. It's not perfect but not bad at all. Remenber! all of SMP are noobs in point of view of MP.

I don't play MP games, but even I can see why this would be a good thing for MP games. It's very similar to the GOTM idea, but multiplayer.

The basic idea: generate one random island, identify the starting unit location on the island, and then copy it once per player. Each player starts out on an equal footing to all the other playes.

The random island can be adjusted by the usual settings (arid/temperate/tropical; low/medium/high sea; raging/normal/zero barbarians; etc) so there would be some variety. Not every resource would be present. It's possible there might not be any ivory, or coal, or copper -- each player would have to deal with this in their own way.

You could also add another variant where there are uninhabited islands that contain the missing resources.

This would in no way at all resemble tic-tac-toe! All the usual reasons for trading, diplomacy, religion, war, etc. would still apply - with the one exception that you couldn't easily trade for the 'missing' resources.

I Made a handfull of maps like this for Civ3 with the map editor. Not perfectly identical but with a full set of strategic resources and six of a single luxury on 8 islands. It made for some very good play.
But a random script could do it beter because then no one would have seen the setup beforehand.

@Gewaltloser

All island players think like u in MP. Unfornately this forum is for Single-Mode-Players. A lot of members are SMP. They are not interested in your idea and suggestions. I'm one of MP. Try "Fair Island" map script. It's not perfect but not bad at all. Remenber! all of SMP are noobs in point of view of MP.

Where and how can I get this "Fair Island" map script? Thx

The problem with balancing is....

If you are an island that has most or all the major ore in good locations you will ROCK!

Yet if you are missing specific ores or material then you are forced to attack and go offensive when you should not. For example, if you are the germans and plan on going all Panzer on an enemy to discover your island or waters have no oil and no coal! You are in big doodoo when you see your enemy with crappy tanks and stuff you can only dream about.

And what if every island has uranium except yours... and you are in the modern age waiting to get nuked!

At http://league.civplayers.com/?section=downloads they have put a map for identical islands.
But I dont know in which folder I have to put it :mad:. Can someone help me?

Well I know in SP if you do a custom game there is a pull down for resources that has two options: Standard and Balanced. I tried a game with balanced resources and found myself on an island with every strategic resource, and like 2 health and 2 happy resources. Over the course of the game I discovered that everyone was in the same situation.... So you can still trade for those health/happy resources, but everybody can build any unit they want. I found it kind of a boring game, but I can see the allure of it for MP. Not having hosted my own MP game before, I don't know if you can go in and choose a custom game but if you could, the option is there and seems to be available with most of the standard BTS map scripts.

@Gewaltloser

All island players think like u in MP. Unfornately this forum is for Single-Mode-Players. A lot of members are SMP. They are not interested in your idea and suggestions. I'm one of MP. Try "Fair Island" map script. It's not perfect but not bad at all. Remenber! all of SMP are noobs in point of view of MP.

This is a good point. This forum is mainly filled with SP players so your idea might not take off.

not really...

the whole point is using what you have at your disposal to grow your empire, while taking over other empires for better land that you covet, or for resources

everyones starting with the same resources, and the same land, there would be no point to diplomacy or wars, or trading, which would then decrease commerce, no point to building a military, no point to spread a religion, no point to start a corporation, no point to even meet with other civs, because if everyone has the exact same starting point, what will diplomacy and war get you?

it proves who is the better player when you can adjust your strategy to what your starting position is, and still win

I suspect this person has not played much MP if any. To suggest war would get you nothing in even an identical islands game is just absurd.

Going back to the OP topic, I think the idea is fairly reasonable but there is the obvious hurdle that someone pointed out, that it would imply all resources would need to be on all islands. I don't think leaving out certain resources is satisfactory either but others can disagree on that point. Also, the giving some players different resources if they are equivalent in some sense might work but there are very few pairs of resources like that.

Even if you do get an identical islands start you'll still find people complain of having a disadvantage based on which leader they chose! To be honest I don't think I would find identical island maps very interesting but I can appreciate why you'd like to at least try them. It does seem to be pretty standard in other games like RTSs that many, sometimes all, of the maps are symmetrical in some way.

Again I can appreciate the idea but I would be disappointed if MP players adopted this type of fair map as a standard setting for games. I rather enjoy the challenge of having different islands. Stronger players will almost always come out on top anyway, unless you play with a group of players who are VERY evenly matched. My experience has mostly been with random people from the lobby so I can't really say I've had a group of evenly matched players, but I'd imagine that would be quite difficult. Skill levels vary so much in Civ it's pretty ridiculous actually.

My two cents.;)

If all islands are identical, won't you immediately know the layout of the other player's island the moment you discover it? That would be a huge advantage for the human player.

If all islands are identical, won't you immediately know the layout of the other player's island the moment you discover it? That would be a huge advantage for the human player.

Well last time I heard MP is all about human vs human :)

wasn't there in civ3 the option to have your map mirrored?

Civ 4 has that as well.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=171352&stc=1&d=1205494014

That's with the Wide Continents as the landmass. Tiny Islands creates VERY tiny islands, but this may be the type of map that you are looking for. It comes as a default Custom Game map, so you don't have anything to download. Might be what you're looking for, just edit the Python a bit so that the land masses are smaller if they're not to your liking.

OK, maybe I'm showing my inexperience here, but can't you just go into worldbuilder and make yourself a map, however you like, to include starting locations? I thought there was a way to do this...

You can WB a map, but then the mapmaker knowes the layout. Either you have to get an independent mapper, or you need everyone to see. In my Civ3 MP days everyone playing looked at the map. The randomness and unkowen would be nice though.

lol just realised I was replying to posters from several months ago... oh well

http://www.bantamsworld.com/downloadsarea.htm

has a great map (equal_islands) that does all I wished for. Great stuff. Thx bantams!

Mirror script will give identical islands.

Age of Empires II: Age of Kings had similar.

just from memory, you always start in an area with X number of

Deer
Berry Bushes
Sheep
Straggler trees
Tree clumps
Boar
Stone
Gold

This is the same for every player. However, placement is random. This allows for good estimation on who is better player.

As was said, many resources have the same health/happiness effect. A script could start you on a small(6 city) island with the same basic resources that everyone else would start with.

Instead of a boring game, I see a very cut-throat vicious MP game where strategy means ever so much more. Sniping duels erupt while players beeline for certain milestones, religions, tech, etc.

Back playing Civ II with my cousins I usually followed the strategy of foregoing early wonders for massive growth. Thus slowly crushing my enemies with industrial might.

Germans vs. US in WWII. Germans has arguably better battlefield tech. Americans simply out produced the Germans ability to cope. Same could be said of the Russians vs. Germany in WWII.

/me rambles on and on about inane topics boring the hell out of everyone...

So to sum up. I enjoy MP and would like to see a script of this sort. :D

The bantams download mentionned before is perfect.

Every time new islands are created. But they are the same for everyone with the same recources. Really great.

http://www.bantamsworld.com/downloadsarea.htm

has a great map (equal_islands) that does all I wished for. Great stuff. Thx bantams!
Just tested it, and it seems to work alright, though the script is a tad slow, and results in very generous starting locations. The "extra islands" are randomly placed, so you can't really say every civ have identical conditions.

A direct web link: http://www.box.net/encoded/7801773/143489547/c50096178620f8bf43c3e353ccae6187