Tentative plan for this mini-cycle: All traits have been used 3 times, except Fin with 4. Here's a proposal for the next shuffling of traits:
73: Isabella (Exp/Spi)
74: De Gaulle (Cha/Ind)
75: Hammurabi (Agg/Org)
76: Charlemagne (Imp/Pro)
77: Percles (Cre/Phi)

I like that idea. My favourite leader is in there (Pericles! :w00t:!). One of these may be my first Prince or Monarch attempt (most likely Monarch as apparently there's little difference between Noble and Prince). :)

Excellent! I like all of them, even poor Izzy. Are we doing fantasy realms, then?

It turns out the most recent BOTM (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=418384) went with fantasy realm, so if we do that this cycle it should probably be #75 or later -- but we can reorder the leaders easily. Anybody want to make a suggestion as to which one? CRE, to make it easier to grab whatever weirdly-placed resources you can find? EXP because you might not find convenient :health: resources where you expect? Somebody with a resourceless or later-game UU since you might not find what you need for an early-game UU? (for the full Fantasy Realm effect I'd presumably have to avoid ensuring our UU's resource was nearby, so Pericles' Phalanx might be out of luck).

Charlemagne, because such a bizarre civ and such a bizarre script match :D

Ill today; Pericles late tonight or else tomorrow.

Cool looking forward to it. :)

NC 73 Pericles (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=420936) is up. This is the first time I've tried this map type; some explanations are in the script commentary in the first post. Sorry for the delay; my head cold has visited upon me four of the seven dwarves: Sleepy, Grumpy, Sneezy, and probably Dopey.

Sorry for the delay with Isabella; the map should be up in an hour or so later today. Just so y'all notice, here's an important change in the boilerplate:

The WB-saves are attached (zipped; they are bigger than standard saves). To play, simply download and unzip it into your BTS/Saves/WorldBuilder folder. Start the game, and load your favorite MOD (if you use one, if not, check out the BUG MOD), select "Play Scenario", and look for "NC number Leader Noble" (or Monarch, etc., for higher levels)In each scenario file you can select your level of difficulty, but that doesn't give the AI the right bonus techs by itself. Use the Noble save for all levels at and below Noble. The Monarch save gives all the AI Archery. Emperor adds Hunting; Immortal adds Agriculture; Deity adds The Wheel. This means you can play with your favorite MOD at the Level and Speed of your choice. From Quick-Warlord to Marathon-Deity, all are welcome! We stuck with the name "Nobles Club" because it has a cool ring to it.
Basically, I've added Hunting and Agriculture one difficulty too high in the past; Emperor should have introduced Hunting, not Immortal. Thanks to Habitus for the link to the explanation (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=9444104&postcount=4).

Edit: NC 74 (Isabella) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422834) is up.

@dalamb

Just realized that NC 36 Gilgamesh was missing from your list of first round.
thread link: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=340421&highlight=XXXVI

@Amao: :blush: Embarrassing that I missed it for so long. Maybe I'll blame TMIT.

I've started a separate thread on resources for learning to play at Noble (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=423172), to which the OP links.

As you can see in the first message, here's the tentative schedule:
75: De Gaulle (Cha/Ind) May 27
76: Charlemagne (Imp/Pro) June 10
77: Hammurabi (Agg/Org) June 24
If anybody wants to suggest a map they'd like, feel free. The only suggestion I recall so far is for a Fantasy Realm map with Charlemagne, but if Charlie is somebody's favourite for a more normal map, we can push Fantasy Realm later with one of the unplayed leaders.

Since this series is mean for teaching Nobles, would it be appropriate sometime for a map where on of the options turned on is Aggressive Barbarians (and ask people not to go for Great Wall)? If I did that, of course people could turn it off, and I'd give instructions in the first post. We'd also need to post advice on how to deal with the situation. Would a PRO leader be appropriate? After Charlie we have Gilgamesh (Cre/Pro), Mao Zedong (Exp/Pro), Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro), Tokugawa (Agg/Pro), and Wang Kon (Fin/Pro). Alternatively we could pick someone with an axeman, spearman, chariot, or archer UU; I'd make sure copper or horses were nearby, as I usually do with resource-dependend UUs. Hatty's war chariots would be pretty good.

Maybe a Less common MapScript again, like Ice Age, Lakes, or Oasis. The last 2 are ones like Inland Sea where you might have to drop the size/add civs i think. Or do something special, recently i had a mess about game where i generated a normal map and then replaced all non-resource plains tiles not in a starting location with peaks. It created a map with lots of choke points for some fun with Raging Barbs + Aggressive civs + all Warmongers + only Conquest/Dom Victory :)

I like Habitus,s idea for a game with more choke points,I usually play small map scripts where choke points are more common,it makes building and defending forts alot of fun.Maybe a tinkered with tectonics map might work as you have lots of mountain ranges to begin with.

If you want choke points, then try the Erebus mapscript (formerly called Creation: it should be in the downloads section under that name). It was written for FfH II and has many isolated mountain valleys linked by (infrequent) passes.

If you want choke points, then try the Erebus mapscript (formerly called Creation: it should be in the downloads section under that name). It was written for FfH II and has many isolated mountain valleys linked by (infrequent) passes.

I almost suggested that actually,I love FFH2,but im not sure it would create the right "feel" for a BTS game though.Id be building forts in every pass to repel the imaginary hordes of pyre zombies from Paris:crazyeye:

I feel fairly confident about being able to figure out how many civs to add to a Lakes or Oasis map -- we did Oasis a while back and found it very difficult because a couple of civs expanded too fast, but that was before I was using my map analysis software regularly. However if a Standard map with one of those requires more than a few extra civs, as we had for Pericles, maybe I need to shift to the next smaller size.

With a "block the passes" map we should decide on a leader like I asked in message 263 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=10525241&postcount=263).

This (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=261688) appears to be the Creation map thread. I'll download the script and see how good it looks for regular BtS, since that's an FfH2 thread.

@dalamb.In post 263 you have Hammurabi following charlie,Bowmen for Block the passes maybe?or Wang Kon with his PRO archers and Hwacha UU.To create choke points you dont have to use just mountain ranges,1 tile land bridges also work.To add those it may just be a case of enlarging a fresh water lake or adding a bit more ocean.Pangea with a natural shoreline seems to create some possibilities for that kind of map.:goodjob:btw,Looking forward to the next NC game with De Gaulle.

I almost suggested that actually,I love FFH2,but im not sure it would create the right "feel" for a BTS game though.Id be building forts in every pass to repel the imaginary hordes of pyre zombies from Paris:crazyeye:Yes, I know. The terrain in Creation/Erebus is obviously artificial, but it does provide barriers.

As for Pyre Zombies from Paris, I think you mean Mimics. The Balseraphs speak French, the Sheaim speak Urdu (?), an Indian dialect. :D It's in the XML.

NC 75 De Gaulle (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=424556) is up. It's Medium and Small, which I'm not familiar with; if anybody wants to summarize what it's like, please do.

I've started to record what maps we use in my spreadsheet. A lot of the early maps don't list the map type in the original post, so we've only got complete data since #30, with odds and ends before that. Eventually I'll program a list that counts how many of each we've done; this is the 2nd Medium-and-small.

Medium and Small is like Continents but only generates Medium and Small ones iirc

It's like Continents but more broken up. Generates a lot of straight coasts IIRC.

[URL="http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=424556"]I've started to record what maps we use in my spreadsheet. A lot of the early maps don't list the map type in the original post, so we've only got complete data since #30, with odds and ends before that.
If you open the game save, in the Settings Tab you can see all the game settings, including the Map ones.
Just trying to help. :)

Greetings,
yatta.

Not in Worldbuilder saves, the Map types = nam of Worldbuilder save then.

Not in Worldbuilder saves, the Map types = nam of Worldbuilder save then.
Aaarrgh! True! My bad. I never used WB saves before, but I've noticed what you mention in the games posted here, and I just forgot about it replying. Sorry about that. :)
(btw, in facts I was mostly wondering how come that you guys didn't think about it)
Greetings,
yatta.

Sorry for the delay with NC 76. I'll need to delay it until next week (June 17). After that the normal schedule would be July 1 but that's the Canada Day weekend, so it'll be delayed to July 8. After that I hope to resume a 2-wk schedule.

Part of the reason for delaying NC 76 (Charlemagne) is trying to figure out which map type to use. The current policy is to have some reasonable mix of "normal" with "unusual" map types. The two most recent suggestions for "unusual" map types are Fantasy Realm and Creation.

I think the main feature of FR is random placement of resource types: that is, similar amounts of resources but placed in unusual terrain, e.g. bananas on tundra.

To get an impression of what Creation is like, I generated seven maps and ran them through my "count useful land tiles" scripts. For the Standard option maps are 52x52 and mostly land. There's no map wrap. There are usually 2-3 continents, sometimes navigable pre-astronomy and sometimes not. On one of the maps, an AI was isolated on a small continent. However, lots of land is unusable: there are a heck of a lot of mountains. This means three things:

There are a lot of defensive choke points. It should be easier than on many maps to protect yourself from invasions and block off barbarians.
Lots of otherwise nice sites will have mountains in their BFC.
You're pretty much required to go to war to get the amounts of land you're used to.
It seems to me that means PRO might actually be a reasonable trait for this map type -- maybe even IMP too, to claim land a bit faster and get GGs faster if you're playing defensively. So maybe Charly is a good leader for this map type -- but I'm not convinced I've analysed the situation correctly.

Any opinions on which type to use for Charlemagne? I'm currently somewhat inclined towards Creation, being rather unhappy about the recent Fantasy Realm BOTM. I'd especially like to hear from those who have used Creation often enough to be able to guide us on what it's really like to play. I'd also appreciate comments from anybody who likes maps where you have limited land to expand into peacefully; I get the impression a lot of people don't like such maps. But maybe Nobles need a chance to try out such situations once in a while?

Was going to test out Creation and forgot all about it, lately for UR i've been using Planet Generator as with the options you can get a very wide range of map types. The problem is cause of the large amount of options you have to play around alot to get the type of maps you want to generate :)

I'd vote Creation then purely cause not used it before :)

Charley will do well in any chokepoint-ish maps. That's why I use Global Highlands as him, so I suggest Global Highlands.

Well, we've done a couple of Global Highlands over the months, so if we go for a chokepoint map instead of FR I'd pick Creation unless someone experienced with it pipes up to say it's a bad idea.

Haven't been around much lately since I'm on another FfH II kick, but since I suggested Creation originally, I'll try to provide some feedback.

Creation is a good map for turtling as the high number of mountain valleys make defense easy. On the downside, the limited amount of land means rapid early expansion is important, as is aggressive exploration to find worthwhile sites. {Chuckles' IMP trait will be valuable here.}

Another reason aggressive exploration is important is that the while Cephalo (the script's creator) worked hard to make sure every mountain valley is accessable, the path is not always obvious or direct. It is quite possible in order to get to your immediate neighbor in the next valley over you may have to go four valleys north and fight through two intervening AIs and a barb city or two, and only then can you go south to your primary target. Paratroopers and missiles will be useful on this mapscript should the game go on so long.

The defensive aspects of the script can also work against you, as the AIs can turtle and fortify the chokepoints as well, and BtS does not have Fireballs and Summon spells like FfH II does. {As a number of more skilled BtS players have pointed out, there is no such thing as too much Siege ...}

Since barbs in FfH and the mods thereof are so dangerous in the early game, rapid early expansion is not possible. In fact, the experienced player simply queues up four Warriors before building the first Worker, unlike BtS where Worker first is usually the wisest opening. One reason Cephalo wrote this script was to make the FfH opening game easier. He also wrote it to foster more conflict, being that epic struggles between Good and Evil are a recurring leitmotif of the fantasy genre, thus the limited amount of useful land.

@dalamb: I found another typo: the actual nc 73 thread was named as roman number 63. http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=420936

Thanks; I fixed it. Also, NC 76 (Charlemagne) (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=10599429) is up.

Just a quick question.

I know the posts were made a year ago, but on the first page you guys keep talking about a leader named Sid.

Who exactly is that?

@dalamb

after looking at the last NC map I think it would be nice to use some heavy food map for next game (and ideally low commerce at the same time).

Is there even one?

rain forest?;)

@dalamb

after looking at the last NC map I think it would be nice to use some heavy food map for next game (and ideally low commerce at the same time).

Is there even one?

That would be good, I'd like to try that

I don't know if there's a map type that guarantees high food, but I'll ask in the General forum later today. I suspect Planet Generator or Full of Resources might, but I haven't figured those out yet.

It wouldn't be all that hard for me just to take a normal map and add lots of food -- might take less time than examining how Creation worked.

Just a quick question.

I know the posts were made a year ago, but on the first page you guys keep talking about a leader named Sid.

Who exactly is that?

He's the leader of the Minors, who are civs that are automatically at war with everybody else, and he has no starting traits or UU's. I don't actually know how to be Sid, but i think TMIT had a guide that told you how.

This is the LHC with him here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=333474).

Hammurabi (Agg/Org) is scheduled for July 8, and given that the current game is an unusual map, he should get a more "ordinary" one. Given the request for a food-rich map I'll probably play around with Full of Resources but it has a huge number of options, which AFAIK let it simulate a lot of other map types -- so free free to suggest what basic map type you'd like it to resemble. Org is good for a larger early empire, the Hammam good for large cities (+2:health: as well as the colliseum's usual +1:)), and Agg good for early conquest. The Bowman is a good defensive unit (getting +50% versus the usual melee attackers) but not so great on offence; nevertheless as long as there's copper for axemen the UU helps with conquest by letting you feel safer with fewer defenders when you conquer a city. All this means I think the map should allow some early REX and an axe rush. But feel free to suggest something different.

I am thinking of modifying the initial boilerplate slightly:

The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice. If you're new to Noble, consider the list of learning resources (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=423172).
The stuff in italics is the revision; the link is in the first Bullpen post, but I think it belongs in each game, too.

dunno rain forest mentioned before heared good... but there is usually a lot of jungle involved.

dunno rain forest mentioned before heared good... but there is usually a lot of jungle involved.

I played my most recent game on rainforest, partly with this suggestion in mind to see what it was like. Copious jungle but loads of food (like 3 rice adjacent, wet corn in cap etc).
I tried a game with full of resources to try a game on a lower difficulty without iron or something. Think I did something wrong because I had absolutely ridiculous amounts of food, gems and stuff. It was madness. But it shouldn't be so bad to work out with time...

NC 77 Hammurabi (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=430327) is up. As requested, it's a food-rich map.

I'm starting to plan the next round of 5-6 leaders; for perfect trait distribution, one round covers 5 unique combinations and the next covers 6 combinations with one duplicate trait. At the moment every trait has been played four times. Feel free to suggest which unplayed leader(s) to try this time. For some reason I'm partial to Shaka today (Agg/Exp) though we'd play him a bit later in the round because Hammy is also Agg, but we can leave him out for now if people prefer some other Agg or Exp leader.

Out of all the civs with more than one leader, there hasn't been a Russian, Indian, or Mongolian leader this cycle, maybe one of those leaders?

High food maps are too easy, as of NC 75/77. It's fun, but not much challenge.

High food maps are too easy, as of NC 75/77. It's fun, but not much challenge.

Yeah... 809 thousand points for me on NC77. That's so far beyond the bounds of ridiculous I don't know what else to say. And I could have 'juiced' that for another 300 years and likely gotten substantially better.

Hello all, just-registered-lurker here, ready to jump in on this round for Nobles' Club. Look forward to gaming with you all!

I personally think I've erred to far in the direction of "nonstandard maps". I also think the high food on NC 77 was a serious misinterpretation of what someone was asking for. So I expect that in future there'll be maybe only one "nonstandard" map per mini-cycle, and if somebody asks for something specific, I'll try harder to make sure I understand exactly what they mean.

I'll make sure to put in at least one of Russia, India, or Mongolia this time; likely I can fit in two of them given that they all have multiple choices of trait combinations.

A good old Pangaea for next NC then? :) I'm a week late with IU and didn't post a UR last week either feel like I'm slacking :p

Ummm how about something really weird like hubs or donut?

I recall a snaking continent/maze map game once which was very interesting and refreshing.

I'll make sure to put in at least one of Russia, India, or Mongolia this time; likely I can fit in two of them given that they all have multiple choices of trait combinations.

Thanks:D

I vote a good old Pangaea map for the next one.

I afterall enjoy the full resources map, but peops shouldn't get the view that it's kind of normal for other kind of maps lol :-)

thanks dalamb that you did what you did even if I at start was too negative about it.
Nice to have fun map here and there...

Upon reflection it occurs to me that occasionally putting in an easy map, to encourage Nobles to step up to Prince or Monarch, might be a good thing -- as long as I can tell in advance it's likely to be easy. Unfortunately I've not been so great at figuring such things out. The one exception I'm moderately happy with is the Huayna map last cycle, which was designed to encourage Nobles to step up to a Monarch-level Quechua rush.

Pangaea definitely for at least one map this mini-cycle, likely the first unless it turns out best to pick some leader for whom a different map type seems appropriate.

Here's a tentative schedule for the next mini-cycle:

78: Wang Kon (Fin/Pro) Jul 22
79: Kublai Khan (Agg/Cre) Aug 5
80: Asoka (Org/Spi) Aug 19
81: Cyrus (Cha/Imp) Sep 2
82: Roosevelt (Ind/Org) Sep 16
83: Peter the Great (Exp/Phi) Sep 30

Constraints in making this group are the usual (each trait once, except that every 2nd group has to replicate a trait to get all the others in) plus getting in at least 2 of India, Russia, and Mongolia. This particular group gets all 3 countries. It's OK to reorder these, except neither Agg nor Org should be first since those were Hammy's traits in #77. The first one, whoever we finally choose, will be Pangaea -- so if you think Wang Kon should have a "snaky continents" map instead (another requested map type), 'cause FIN is often good on such maps, I can reorder.

Let me know if you have any suggestions for change. In particular, should I avoid the Labour Day weekend and push the Sept 2/16/30 to Sep 9/23/Oct 7?

Maybe archipelago for Roosy so we can have some GLH spamming?

I goofed and put Asoka first, who is Org/Spi; we should delay another Org leader for a bit. I'll be posting the game late afternoon (Eastern time) so if somebody wants to recommend which of the ones listed in the first post to use, feel free. I'm inclined to do Pangaea with Cyrus.

NC 78 Cyrus (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=432489) is up -- good old Pangaea. I'll probably combine suggestions from Horgh666 and GGracchus to put Roosevelt on a "Snaky Continents" map, which probably counts as an ordinary map type. The suggestions we have this time for "unusual" are ring or donut and (from a while ago) lakes; let me know if anyone has preferences for one of these and, if so, whether you think it goes with any particular leader.

I had an unexpected degree of Dealing With Real Life today, so Kublai will be delayed until tomorrow (probably morning Eastern time).

NC 79 Kublai (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=434563) is up. I've rearranged the boilerplate somewhat and updated the first post accordingly.

I'm considering what map type to use for Wang Kon (Fin/Pro) for this Friday. The policy is now to aim for one (or at most one) "unusual" map type for each 5-6 game mini-cycle; we've had Rainforest already this round, so I need to pick an "ordinary" map type. So I started to wonder which were "ordinary" and which "unusual". Of the map types we've used, it seems to me that:
the "ordinary" ones, those that present few strange or unusual features, are: Archipelago, Big&Small, Custom Continents, Earth 2, Fractal, Global Highlands, Highlands, Medium&Small, Pangaea, Tectonics (basic; Mediterranean is "unusual"), Terra.
the "unusual" ones are: Arboria, Creation, Full of Resources, Great Plains, Inland Sea, Maze, Oasis, Rainforest, Ring, Shuffle, Tectonics (Mediterranean variant).
I'm pretty sure I remember a "Lakes" sometime but didn't notice it on the pass I made through all (!) the games identifying each's type. Also "Continents" is ordinary but apparently not used (or at least, if some other map-maker used it, I couldn't tell from the game's first post).

Does anyone want to suggest moving some from one category to another? There are also several map types not mentioned above, all of which I'd consider "unusual."

What about "Islands"? I'd consider that unusual but perhaps not terribly so; it seems to me that it can lead to isolated starts frequently, which are kinda tough for novices (and which used to have its own series, the Lonely Hearts Club).

If in doubt then go with Fractal, it's known to give good results most of the time. Also i guess it's the script the AI was most thoroughly tested with.

I'd put Highlands into unusual (i don't like it all that much :lol:)
If you pick it, consider putting "Watter Setting" to "Large Lakes" or "Seas", which i find gives nicer result.

Archipelago i found gives quite different results depending on what you set for "Landmass Type" [archipelago / snaky continents], maybe make a distinction here.

"Medium & small" seems comparable to"Hemispheres". So you could maybe use that one too once you run out of scripts to use.

Arboria doesn't look that unusual, a pangea variant with more straight coastlines.

Islands in it's default setting i think will give each player their own, isolated, island.

Lakes i think you should include in the unusual category. Does seem to generate some nice looking maps.

"Shuffle" is just one of (pangea / fractal / continents / archip) at random. (Says so in the map-selection when you start the game via "Play Now")


Based on my quick impressions, map script groups based on type of landmass created:

Water heavy maps
Archipelago
Archipelago - snaky continents.
Fractal (sea level med or high)
Big&Small (one bigger landmass, lots of smaller ones mostly connected together)
Tiltet Axis (this seems interesting. Instead of East/West you have a North/South passage)
Islands (each player gets his own isolated start)


Pangea type maps
Pangaea
Arboria
Global Highlands, (pangea with more mountain ranges)

Fractal with sea level low, (gives more snaky versions of pangea. Sometimes gives isolated isle / continent)


Continent maps
Custom Continents (Result is more random and varied than Continents)
Continents (2 big continents with some small islands maybe. Maybe should put this into Hemispheres Category)
Tectonics (basic; Mediterranean is "unusual")


Hemispheres (divides world into x large continents/island groups)
Medium&Small
Mirror - (wide continents, snaky continents, archipelago)
(you'll get two "hemispheres" which are the mirror images of each other)


just a lot of land, no surrounding sea
Great Plains
Highlands
Lakes -- has water mixed in --
Rainforest -- similar to lakes, but with lots of jungle
Boreal -- similar to lakes, but lots of tundra


give earth like continent config (eurasia / america)
Terra
Earth 2


Land is on a ring around the edge of map
Inland Sea
Tectonics (Mediterranean variant)
Ring
Oasis -- similar to the "ring" maps, desert instead of water in the middle -

Do you guys have any recommendations for fun, less challenging maps in the series one can use to attempt a higher difficulty? So far I've played JC, Suleiman, De Gaulle, Hammurabi, and Churchhill.

Do you guys have any recommendations for fun, less challenging maps in the series one can use to attempt a higher difficulty? So far I've played JC, Suleiman, De Gaulle, Hammurabi, and Churchhill.

Hammy. Full of Resources makes everything SO easy. A 1780 SR win on emperor is pretty good IMO.

played him already

Judging from the results of that recent Nobles Club full of resources map, any leader on that map would be strong.

Other easy combos would be:

Darius/pangea
Egypt/pangea

A fun combo is:

Boudica/pangea

Do you guys have any recommendations for fun, less challenging maps in the series one can use to attempt a higher difficulty? So far I've played JC, Suleiman, De Gaulle, Hammurabi, and Churchhill.

NC XXIV Wang Kon: easy for lower levels if you can out expand your neighbors.

NC XL Mehmed II: very unbalanced modded map. got 307 bpt at 1AD for me on monarch/normal.

NC XLVI Isabella: a nice map for rex practice, far away neighbors.

NC LV Huayna: rush a neighbor or two, maybe a couple more...

NC LXXX Wang Kon (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=436657) is up. Apologies for the late posting; it was a busy day. The current BOTM (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=435249) uses the same leader, but I scheduled this one before we knew that.

How do people feel about using the Islands map script sometime? It tends to lead to isolated starts unless the tiny in-between islands work out just right, and isolated starts mean little tech trading early on, which can make the game slower. On the other hand, and unlike some isolated starts, Islands tends to make everyone (or almost everyone) isolated, so there isn't so much of a problem with the AIs ganging up on you with tech trades.

It does have a few advantages for Nobles: no competition for what land you do have, ability to get away with just minimal defenders (just anti-barb, fairly easy with well-placed fogbusters), less worry (initially) about diplomacy (which Nobles aren't usually very good at just yet).

It won't happen this round because we already have a request for Archipelago and lots of people wouldn't want more than one "watery map" in a mini-cycle.

Opinions?

Go for it, atleast it will be different :)

Dalamb feel free to use islands. I don't think i'll be playing civ anytime soon since i have just finished repeat exams and I have started playing Starcraft2. And on top of that i have work, somewhat of a life (i swear i have one!!:D ), and i'll be returning to college. Im probally going to take a hiatus from civ for a few months, at least untill december.:(
If anyone wants to upload a LHC or take over the series feel free, i really don't have time for it at the moment.
By the way hemishperes set to islands,with a certian number of cointents can create fairly balanced and fun maps, like the one i created for LHC Zara.

Thanks for the "OK", stevoh. A couple of small questions:

Any advice to pass along to Noble-level players about how to play isolated? I think r_rolo1 posted a guide at one point.
If I do an Islands, would you like it if I posted that as an LHC in parallel with the NC? Or perhaps a brief note in the LHC bullpen that there's an "isolated" NC available?

Thanks for the "OK", stevoh. A couple of small questions:

Any advice to pass along to Noble-level players about how to play isolated? I think r_rolo1 posted a guide at one point.
If I do an Islands, would you like it if I posted that as an LHC in parallel with the NC? Or perhaps a brief note in the LHC bullpen that there's an "isolated" NC available?


To your first question, for the nobles I would recomend the Article that Rolo wrote. It really helped me to do decently in isolation you should link that bdw.
I would recomend TMIT's lp of lhc peter. And i would also suggest to not panic, if they see AI's that are say half an age ahead.
The best thing to do in this situation is to analysis the game on the fourms and to learn from your mistakes. Although be aware that some scripts (fractal or islands with low sea level) can give an AI 40% land and pop, but this is more of a problem for higher levels of play

I would recomend the polycast eposiode where r_rolo was actually interviewed. They gave an entire Segment filled with info. The episode is two years old but it is still relevent to the game. Here is the link:http://civcomm.weplayciv.com/polycast/polycast/season3/episode62.mp3

Imo starting semi-isolated is a LOT harder than isolation, especially if your next to a warmonger like genghis or monty. I improved my isolation play from this experience.

As for your second question, feel free to do whatever you want. I dont own the LHC. Anyone can take it over and shape it to their hosting needs.:)

Oh and don't worry i will do the SGOTM! I won't take a hiatus from that just incase if anyone is wondering. And I will check into the fourm from time to time, just to keepup with stuff.

Sorry for the delay with Asoka -- it was a busy day. It should be available tomorrow.

NC 81 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=438514) with Asoka is up. Sorry again for the delay. There was more delay this morning because:I tried several Tectonics first before I fixed my spreadsheet to discover we'd had a lot of them before. I consider Earth 2 an "ordinary" map because the one thing that makes it special (an empty New World) doesn't have to affect game play much.

NC 82, Roosevelt (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=440100), is up.

In the Roosevelt game Tommah posted an appropriately spoilered reflection on the position of the AIs:
... but IMO some of the AI's don't stand a chance in this game.. Namely ragnar and Elizabeth (Tokugawa should count here to, but he didn't last long enough :lol:) unless it was just unlucky for them in my game. Ragnar had 4 citys by 1000AD and Elizabeth had 5, one which was surrounded by desert tiles mostly.. neither had lost any by wars and I don't have huts or events on so it pretty much leaves crazy barbarians or really bad spawn placement imo. While other leaders like Izzy and Joao are around 12 each at this time
This once again raises the issue of how much editing I should do. For a while I did a fair bit; lately upon request I've been doing much less -- sometimes none. However, ISTM there are 2 kinds of edits:

Those that make our position "too easy". I now think these are the ones that those who objected to edits were especially concerned about.
Those that make sure the AI positions are "reasonable".
For the latter I've mostly just tried to make sure no AI has a huge amount of territory, since that makes the game very, very hard at Immortal+ when that AI runs away with massive numbers of cities and the consequence :hammers: :commerce: :science: :espionage: ...

So, how much "improvement" of AI positions is appropriate?

Ensure they have at least one early-game strategic resource (copper, horses, iron, maybe elephants)? This primarily makes sure they aren't toasted too early by a neighbour -- but maybe some neighbours deserve such a tasty snack? After all, the human usually makes it a high priority to take over at least one neighbour. This is easy to do (just takes a couple of minutes, plus some judgement about where to put such a resource).
Take a careful look at their territory and make sure they have a "reasonable" amount to expand into? For Roosevelt this seems to be the problem Tommah was talking about. This is the flip side of "not too much territory" but is a noticeable step up in work for the mapmaker -- not enormously difficult, but not trivial either.
There may well be others -- maybe even some that are easier to do than #2.

Opinions?

The problem was that Toku and Elizabeth who we share a continent don't really have many viable cities to expand peacefully. That desert to Elizabeth's south didn't help either.

Toku has above 3 viable cities before he is shut in by the player. If one was at least trying at Noble/Prince, he's shut in to 2 effortlessly before he needs to build a galley. And even then there's like no grassland for him.

Also, AI doesn't seem to handle Forrest heavy starts in the case of Liz very well. They chopped very poorly. Her capital is also extremely poor compared to the rest-- only one cow and no seafood.

Joao has a fairly large piece of land to himself.

Add in the fact that we have desert to the east and tundra to the south, it makes sense that the only real way to get around is to kill your neighbors.

But honestly AI is simply bad at handling these maps.

Given Archon-Wing's analysis of the Roosevelt map, it looks like some AIs had little territory or bad territory into which to expand, and at least one had a start the AI has a hard time exploiting well. The issue for me is: do I go looking for such things to fix them when I create a map, or treat it as "the RNG giveth and the RNG taketh away" and leave the AI territory along?

I'd prefer no edits at all, and the reason is i think it's quite hard to judge what type of edit will change the balance "for the better". It may just be that a change you do changes balance actually for the worse.
Runaway AI with too large territory is no real concern for me as i don't play, or expect to win, on immortal+ :D

NC 83 Peter (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=441608) is up.

It's time to start planning the next round. I plan to include Islands as the "unusual" map; on this one, everyone usually starts isolated, which gives Nobles a chance to learn a little about isolated starts without being at a severe disadvantage against the AI. I'd want a civilization that starts with Fishing, which given the list of unplayed leaders means Alexander, Augustus, Hannibal, Lincoln, Tokugawa, or Victoria. We did America recently, which I think might cut out Lincoln. Victoria's UU (Redcoat/Rifleman) is the only post-Astronomy one (with Lincoln omitted from this round), as is Tokugawa's UB (Shale Plant), so they're the only ones not "wasted" in an Islands game. Vicky is Fin/Imp and Toku is Agg/Pro, so which one to choose will be based on how well the various trait combinations balance out for the round.

I have been hoping for a Tokugawa NC and islands might work out pretty well, especially to emphasize the power of drafted AGG/PRO gunpowder units (Toku's "other" UU.)

I meant Toku's UB, Shale Plant, instead of Toku's UU (Samurai); fixed.

Proposal for the coming round:

Tokugawa (Agg/Pro) -- Islands script
Brennus (Cha/Spi)
Huayna Capec (Fin/Ind)
Sulieman (Imp/Phi)
Suryavaraman II (Cre/Exp)

It's easy to vary the order.

NC 84 Tokugawa (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=443204) is up.

I may have to get back into playing these... Suleiman is a particular favourite, so I might wait for that one :)

I can rearrange the order so he's next, if you like. any favourite map type for him?

Pangaea, and a non-coastal start. Levy philosophical+imp for a nice engineering rush.

OK; I've swapped Sulieman with Brennus.

Thanks :)

Ooops -- we already played Sulieman this round (LXX); I should have noticed before. I'll need to revise the leaders this round to balance out the traits. I hope to publish the proposed new list later today, which would give a little less than a day for people to respond before I create tomorrow's new game. The goal of using each trait once might mean a very different collection of leaders.

Here's the proposed new lineup:

Hannibal (Cha/Fin) Oct 28
Gandhi (Phi/Spi) Nov 11
Augustus Caesar (Imp/Ind) Nov 25
Suryavaraman II (Cre/Exp) Dec 9

Great! Hannibal is another personal favourite :)

Because of the Cothon, Hannibal is probably best on a somewhat watery map; I'm wondering if having another so soon after Toku's is OK? I could swap him and Augustus, for whom I was planning some form of continents (maybe just 2) so you couldn't stomp the whole world with praets.

any idea when this is going to be up? :)

In an hour or two -- just gone done with Real Life errands, and the map is the next thing on my to do list.

Alrite thanks, should get it done tomorow hopefully.

NC 85 Augustus (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=444805) is up -- a little later than I expected.

Finally a SPI hero next! IMO the strongest trait in the game.

I would have wished for Asoka, he's more educational in that it's more difficult to leverage his traits than Gandhi, but your call.

Friday's new game might be delayed. My ISP (a cable company) is having problems; access was intermittent yesterday and entirely absent this morning -- I'm writing this from work.

The ISP problem is fixed but Real Life (TM) has piled up too many things for me to do over the next couple of days. I'll have to postpone the next (Gandhi) for a week (Nov 18).

NC 86 Gandhi (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=446748) is up. Sorry for the week's delay, but it might be providential that the new schedule avoid having a game over American Thanksgiving next week. Or maybe that's a negative -- depends on whether you have less time for Civ because of celebrations or more time because of not working.

In two weeks it's Hannibal's turn. His UB suggests at least a coastal start, or maybe a very watery map like one that gives Snakey Continents. Let me know what you think.

Archipelago/Snaky Continents perhaps?

We've done Archipelago and watery maps quite a bit lately. Main problem is that the AI is especially bad with them.

Big and Small could work, then. Just make sure the start is coastal, of course. :D

Is this open for anyone to play? IF so, how do I join up?

Thanks!!

Just go to the link dalamb posted above (post #352) and follow the instructions from there.

NC 86 Gandhi (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=446748) is up. Sorry for the week's delay, but it might be providential that the new schedule avoid having a game over American Thanksgiving next week. Or maybe that's a negative -- depends on whether you have less time for Civ because of celebrations or more time because of not working.
LHC Peter is due up next week. I'll be posting it a bit early mostly because I have the week off, which happens to be heavily back loaded :p It should be up by Wednesday.

Also many players dislike watery maps because they force large amounts of micromanagement.

Also many players dislike watery maps because they force large amounts of micromanagement.Big and Small could work, then. Just make sure the start is coastal, of course. :DI think I may follow the good General's suggestion; Big+Small means a fair bit of seacoast but also lots of interior.

BTW, what do you mean about micromanagement? I'm not with-it enough in my playing to see how that has to happen.

BTW, what do you mean about micromanagement? I'm not with-it enough in my playing to see how that has to happen.

Well, in a Normal map, if you want to settle a city, you load up a Settler and run to the nearest (hopefully guarded:)) settlement point. In an Archi map, you need to load him onto a Galley, sail over, drop him, sail back, and basically keep monitoring all your galleys for transportation purposes.

And transcontinental invasions. In Pangaea/Inland Sea, they don't really exist. In Continents, they only require one huge trip to the other continent. In Archi, your ships are sailing everywhere. A lot of the extra micro comes from those things.

And the pirates, dear lord those pirates are annoying.

I want to see a Noble's club where we have some nasty neighbors that are breathing down our neck in a close quarters situation.

It's probably one of the worst fears of players at these levels, including myself, to be suddenly disrupted by some jerk in the BCs or being blocked by them.

Learning how to defend and use diplomacy would help dispel the common misplacement of "building a massive army to deter DoW"

Hmm. I suppose that would be Shaka and Monty and... Napoleon? backstabbing Cathy?

The easiest way to do this might be to wedge the player between a toku and one of the aforementioned leaders. Is this mean? Why, yes. You could make it up by offering a riverside gem or something like that ;)

Hmm. I suppose that would be Shaka and Monty and... Napoleon? backstabbing Cathy?

Well, I tried messing around yesterday for a nasty combo, so I handpicked Shaka, Monty, Ragnar and Zara Yaqob. The first 3 are a nasty combo while Zara's not above backstabbing. It also randomed Sury and Louis XIV, which got super annoying because of Sury's culture boost and massive expansion while Louis was also able to grow large while Shaka and Monty were annoying the crap out of me.

Monty/Sury/Shaka is definitely a nasty combo.

In my opinion, the nastiest neighbors we could get are a combination of the strongest AIs and the game's douchebags. Probably:

Charlemagne
Zara Yaqob
Joao II
Montezuma
Shaka
Genghis Khan

Well, at least the global tech rate will be really slow...

If we do this we'd need to post some good advice about how to cope with the scenario, since it would be pretty intimidating for Nobles even with advice. We'd also need to pick which of the remaining leaders to put in this nasty situation (either a good defender or a good diplomat or both, according to what Archon_Wing wanted to suggest as a strategy). Any suggestions? Here's a copy of the unplayed leader list (though by now I ought to go re-verify I haven't accidentally deleted somebody after all these months). If we want diplomacy we might want Spi (Brennus, Hatty, Justinian, Mansa); I'm not sure which of those is the best defender. Defence might mean Pro (Giggles, Mao, Qin) or maybe Imp (for faster GG's when on the defensive: Cathy, Cyrus, Ghengis, Justinian, Vicky).

Alexander (Agg/Phi)
Brennus (Cha/Spi)
Catherine (Cre/Imp)
Cyrus (Cha/Imp)
Frederick (Org/Phi)
Genghis Khan (Agg/Imp)
Gilgamesh (Cre/Pro)
Hatchepsut (Cre/Spi)
Huayna Capac (Fin/Ind)
Justinian I (Imp/Spi)
Lincoln (Cha/Phi)
Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi)
Mao Zedong (Exp/Pro)
Mehmed II (Exp/Org)
Napoleon (Cha/Org)
Pacal II (Exp/Fin)
Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro)
Shaka (Agg/Exp)
Stalin (Agg/Ind)
Victoria (Fin/Imp)

on noble every leader will work.

for high levels, SB offers some good defending capability.

Since you mention HC... HC is great choice too ;-).

Mansa Musa. SPI is valuable for diplomacy and all hail skirms (arguably even superior to PRO when it comes to early defense) while maintaining an excellent tech rate with FIN.

Or Brennus. Maybe we'll actually build a dun for hill cities... :lol:

Taking the deity toku ai would work (Genghis, Monty, Shaka, Sury, Just, Zara). Good mix and no push overs, thou using Toku for NC probably wouldn't work so well.

*edit*

Giggles would work well, I think he is one of the easiest leaders to play since he is ok for any play style (thou not amazing at any).

Brennus with a stone/copper start could be nice, or maybe ivory?:mischief:

NC 87, Hannibal of Carthage (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=447964), is up.

Oh, I see that sury is planned!
Any thoughts on what educational factors will be involved?

Sury is very easy to rapidly expand with, and a commere-resource starved beginning could spell disaster.
Could be a good place to learn how and when to put a leash on good old REx?

Show the importance of early cottages and such?

NC 88 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=449118) is up.

Time to plan the next round. If the original post is correct the unplayed leaders are:
Alexander (Agg/Phi)
Brennus (Cha/Spi)
Catherine (Cre/Imp)
Frederick (Org/Phi)
Genghis Khan (Agg/Imp)
Gilgamesh (Cre/Pro)
Hatchepsut (Cre/Spi)
Huayna Capec (Fin/Ind)
Justinian I (Imp/Spi)
Lincoln (Cha/Phi)
Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi)
Mao Zedong (Exp/Pro)
Mehmed II (Exp/Org)
Napoleon (Cha/Org)
Pacal II (Exp/Fin)
Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro)
Shaka (Agg/Exp)
Stalin (Agg/Ind)
Victoria (Fin/Imp)

With 5-6 leaders per round, and 19 leaders, we have 3-4 rounds left in this cycle. We have 2 Russians left (Cathy and Stalin) so I plan on using one of them this round. Let me know if you have a favourite.

We also need to pick this round's "unusual" map type. Of the games whose map types I know, and which aren't totally weird like Fantasy Realm, we haven't used Boreal, Lakes, or Mirror. I do have a vague memory of a Lakes map but don't recall which one it is. Shall we try Boreal (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=246788#boreal)? It appears land-heavy, so I'd normally add several civs, but given people's reactions to the huge number of civs on the Mediterranean map, maybe we should go with Small and 6 AI instead of 4?

Boreal was played on previous round of Genghis Khan.

Hmm. My records say #38 was Genghis on Arboria, which is a big forested island. Boreal has lots of tundra and ice IIRC.

Hmm. My records say #38 was Genghis on Arboria, which is a big forested island. Boreal has lots of tundra and ice IIRC.

ok. i thought they were the same... :blush:

I tried to play a game at Lakes.
Thought it was abit difficult to orient oneself though, everything looks the same!

arboria/boria... the forested one, sounds like a good idea.

Boreal is definitely unusual, I'll give it that. Look for deer and furs. Lots of them.

Here's the list of leaders I propose for the next cycle. The "unusual" map type will be Boreal, which, since it has lots of deer, seems best with a leader who starts with Hunting (shown via an asterisk):

Alexander (Agg/Phi) *
Hatchepsut (Cre/Spi)
Napoleon (Cha/Org)
Stalin (Agg/Ind) *
Victoria (Fin/Imp)
Mao Zedong (Exp/Pro)

I expect to make the first map tomorrow. There's a bit of time to comment on which leader to do first, but at the moment I plan on Alexander/Boreal.

You can change the WB from Small to Medium if you have around the same number of tiles as a normal map, to make it play the same. Leaving it as Small is just as good thou :)

Update: today's a little busy, so I'm going to go with some other leader and a more normal map, rather than take the time to figure out Boreal in more detail. Still a few hours for people to make a request.

Well, it looks like this has not been a good weekend for map prep. I'll postpone until this coming Friday (Jan 6).

NC 89 with Victoria (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=450863) is up. I haven't updated the first post (with scheduled games) yet, but hope to be able to make time for that tomorrow.

One of the goals of this series is to try different map scripts, which, as I've unfortunately discovered, doesn't always correlate well with "map types". In particular, "watery maps" (those with lots of coastline and seafood) play very differently from non-watery ones.

I had meant a recent Hemispheres map to be non-watery, but many hours of experimentation led to my giving up. "Lots of land" always led to "lots of room for one particular AI to expand into," which can make Immortal level play nearly impossible. We're aimed at Nobles, but I'd rather not make the games un-fun for other levels if I can.

So I'm looking for guidance on what scripts I should use and what edits I should make to achieve "non-watery" maps, preferably without limiting us to just Custom Continents, Pangaea, and Tectonics. Here's a few thoughts:

Big-and-small have some continental interior regions but there's often enough water IMHO that they might count as "too watery" for some people.
Mostly-land scripts like Highlands or Great Plains tend to (a) fall in the "unusual" script category and (b) give so much land to some AIs that I need to add extra AIs to compensate -- which complicates the diplomatic situation. Maybe I could use these on Small size but with a Standard number of AIs?
On those "big continent" maps, it's not that easy to just move the AIs around to fill the territory better. Starting positions are usually better than anywhere else, so I'd need to do a fair bit of editing to each moved AI's new start position.
Given #3 I could "fix" a too-much-territory situation by eliminating some territory (turning it into ocean), or cutting some territory off into a post-Astronomy minicontinent. Those things are fairly easy to do but when I've done it the results look kind of odd to me. Also mini-continent privileges whoever is nearest to it -- and, ironically, this kind of edit increases the ratio of coastal to non-coastal tiles, making the map a little more watery.
I could alternatively add one new AI to contest the "large/uncontested" territory. That just means adding ONE start position instead of shuffling around several (it requires editing the WBsave to add the civ and AI, but I more or less know how to do that already).
I could mostly just use the non-problematic scripts I mentioned above, treating "watery" as one more kind of "unusual" map type that we have only one of per mini-cycle of 5-6 games.
I'd be delighted to hear of more alternatives and to see reactions.

One of the goals of this series is to try different map scripts, which, as I've unfortunately discovered, doesn't always correlate well with "map types". In particular, "watery maps" (those with lots of coastline and seafood) play very differently from non-watery ones.

I had meant a recent Hemispheres map to be non-watery, but many hours of experimentation led to my giving up. "Lots of land" always led to "lots of room for one particular AI to expand into," which can make Immortal level play nearly impossible. We're aimed at Nobles, but I'd rather not make the games un-fun for other levels if I can.

So I'm looking for guidance on what scripts I should use and what edits I should make to achieve "non-watery" maps, preferably without limiting us to just Custom Continents, Pangaea, and Tectonics. Here's a few thoughts:

Big-and-small have some continental interior regions but there's often enough water IMHO that they might count as "too watery" for some people.
Mostly-land scripts like Highlands or Great Plains tend to (a) fall in the "unusual" script category and (b) give so much land to some AIs that I need to add extra AIs to compensate -- which complicates the diplomatic situation. Maybe I could use these on Small size but with a Standard number of AIs?
On those "big continent" maps, it's not that easy to just move the AIs around to fill the territory better. Starting positions are usually better than anywhere else, so I'd need to do a fair bit of editing to each moved AI's new start position.
Given #3 I could "fix" a too-much-territory situation by eliminating some territory (turning it into ocean), or cutting some territory off into a post-Astronomy minicontinent. Those things are fairly easy to do but when I've done it the results look kind of odd to me. Also mini-continent privileges whoever is nearest to it -- and, ironically, this kind of edit increases the ratio of coastal to non-coastal tiles, making the map a little more watery.
I could alternatively add one new AI to contest the "large/uncontested" territory. That just means adding ONE start position instead of shuffling around several (it requires editing the WBsave to add the civ and AI, but I more or less know how to do that already).
I could mostly just use the non-problematic scripts I mentioned above, treating "watery" as one more kind of "unusual" map type that we have only one of per mini-cycle of 5-6 games.
I'd be delighted to hear of more alternatives and to see reactions.

Oh, a first reaction is:
"wow, you are really putting in an effort into this!" :D
Whatever path you eventually choose will at least be guaranteed to be better than most of the longshots maps I generate and hope for a good game. ;)

And personally, I have no problem with watery maps, but I don't like when it's to fractured land.
Usually check any options for "solid" continents when I'm able.

What do you mean by "fractured land"?

And I don't put in anywhere near as much into these maps as the xOTM people do for theirs!

I could alternatively add one new AI to contest the "large/uncontested" territory. That just means adding ONE start position instead of shuffling around several (it requires editing the WBsave to add the civ and AI, but I more or less know how to do that already).

I'd be delighted to hear of more alternatives and to see reactions.

IMO this is probably the best solution, and what I initially thought of.

What do you mean by "fractured land"?

And I don't put in anywhere near as much into these maps as the xOTM people do for theirs!

With fractured land, I mean alot of ocearn and land, mixed together. Small stripes of land all over the place.

It has turned out that Fridays haven't been a good day to create a map, though IIRC past polls suggested it's a good day to post one. I have time on Mondays and/or Wednesdays that work better. So I've moved the next NC one week (to this coming Friday) and will make the map earlier in the week to make sure I have it in hand. On a "good" mapmaking day I might manage a couple of them, which will make it less likely I'll fall behind as I've done a couple of times recently.

In this round I plan to do another Hemispheres at some point but with larger continents to make it non-watery, or at least far-less-watery, adding an AI if necessary to avoid the "too much unopposed territory" problem. There'll be a Boreal with Alexander; I'm not sure yet whether Stalin, the alternative, would have got his horses on a "normal" Boreal map but copper seems fairly likely. Also I plan to try one Small map.

Tentative schedule is in the first post.

A question about appropriate edits; spoilered because it refers to the current Victoria game.AbsoluteZero posted a video (http://www.youtube.com/user/Chris67132?feature=g-user-a#p/u/5/UeTs_L7xqz8) about his playing out a deity-level NC 89 Victoria, wherein one of the things he said very early on is that one of the other continents has 3 heavy tech'ers, and there's not much Victoria can do about that. Should I be checking that situations like this don't arise? I usually go for random opponents, which is how we got so many tech'ers, but I could check for their distribution -- it's fairly easy to swap around AI starting locations.

The trouble is, this might be the tip of the iceberg with respect to where the AIs go. I already knew about "watch out for where Monty and Shaka show up" -- not avoid them, but make sure they aren't both near neighbours and that there's a buffer between the Noble and them such as another AI or even an ocean. "Too many tech'ers too far away" might be another. Is there anthing else about AI balance that I should try to achieve?

A question about appropriate edits; spoilered because it refers to the current Victoria game.AbsoluteZero posted a video (http://www.youtube.com/user/Chris67132?feature=g-user-a#p/u/5/UeTs_L7xqz8) about his playing out a deity-level NC 89 Victoria, wherein one of the things he said very early on is that one of the other continents has 3 heavy tech'ers, and there's not much Victoria can do about that. Should I be checking that situations like this don't arise? I usually go for random opponents, which is how we got so many tech'ers, but I could check for their distribution -- it's fairly easy to swap around AI starting locations.

The trouble is, this might be the tip of the iceberg with respect to where the AIs go. I already knew about "watch out for where Monty and Shaka show up" -- not avoid them, but make sure they aren't both near neighbours and that there's a buffer between the Noble and them such as another AI or even an ocean. "Too many tech'ers too far away" might be another. Is there anthing else about AI balance that I should try to achieve?

On diety, Absolutezero found difficulties keeping up in tech.
However.
I managed to win it on immortal, without too much difficulty.
To see that dreamteam of techers on the other continent accually made the game more interesting, since that proved more challenge in the post-astronomy game.

On Noble, I do not think that a bunch of peacefull techers would pose that much of a threat.



I had loads of fun with the Victoria game, thank you very much for putting in the effort dalamb. :)

On Noble, I do not think that a bunch of peacefull techers would pose that much of a threat.



Monarch is my normal difficulty, but to be honest I didn't find that map very difficult on Noble. I ran Great Lighthouse/Colossus abuse and beelined Optics, and I probably could've gotten by with just one of the three. Even on that map, something as simple as, for example, switching Genghis with one of the AIs on the big continent would've been an okay fix, but I don't think it's one Noble players would even need. I didn't think it would be too tough a map for a Noble player (and it's a good map for learning the power of things like intercontinental trade routes that most Noble players might ignore), but it's of course I'm sure "1690 cultural victory by Mansa on Deity" wasn't accounted for. :p Nor should it have been for Noble's Club, of course!

I think it's on the hard side, if you're playing at a difficulty that challenges you. If you're a high level player, Noble will be easy regardless. But for those that struggle on Noble and hit Lib in 1300....

The hardest parts are


Inability to rush the biggest players out of the game. And later on, the difficulty of invading them period.
Pacal steals religion so they tech faster due to less religious strife.
Poor teching on your side, Pacal won't trade unless you meet other people
Khan is looking to dominate his continent and attack you
Half of the land reserved to you is wasteland.

Oh sure, you can horse archer rush Pacal out of the game. But if people knew how to do that well, they won't be playing Noble. :p

#90 with Napoleon (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=452510) is up.

#91 with Alexander (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=453652) is up. I fear that few will play it, given the map type.

NC 92 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=454778) with Hatty is up.

@dalamb - Just thought I'd say (as a Prince Vanilla player recently upgraded to BtS and playing on Noble to learn the new rules) that these games are fantastic! I'm learning so much from seeing how the higher level guys approach these games, even with tactics not specific to BtS. Am picking games at random to play, currently having a blast with the Sury game a few weeks back. Your efforts (and the others who take the time to write up their game) are much appreciated.

NC 93 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=455911) with Mao is up.

Next is Stalin (on or about March 23), so I need to start planning the last round-and-a-bit. Available leaders are: Brennus (Cha/Spi), Catherine (Cre/Imp), Frederick Org/Phi), Genghis Khan (Agg/Imp), Gilgamesh (Cre/Pro), Huayna Capec (Fin/Ind), Justinian I (Imp/Spi), Lincoln (Cha/Phi), Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi), Mehmed II (Exp/Org), Pacal II (Exp/Fin), Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro), Shaka (Agg/Exp). Last round had 6 leaders and doubled up on Agg, so this round should have 5 without an Agg leader. We ought to push Catherine to the last round since we have Stalin in this round, which leaves Justinian for the Imp leader. Aside from that I'm happy to take suggestions for which other leader(s) to include.

Maybe Freddy? Asks the question: Are the great traits enough to balance out the utterly useless UU and UB?

Lots of people think so -- and the UB isn't so useless in a space race game, if I recall various discussions correctly. Lots of us think the current Panzer is too weak; the old 3-move Panzer may have been too strong, though, especially with Blitz.

Here's a tentative schedule for the rest of the cycle. It was a little tough spreading out the traits now that we're down to the last 1/3, so to fit in Frederick I had to use an AGG leader plus Catherine, contrary to my original plan.

Apr 6: Frederick (Org/Phi)
Apr 20: Brennus (Cha/Spi)
May 4: Huayna Capec (Fin/Ind)
May 18: Shaka (Agg/Exp)
Jun 1: Catherine (Cre/Imp)

Jun 15: Mansa Musa (Fin/Spi)
Jun 29: Genghis Khan (Agg/Imp)
Jul 13: Mehmed II (Exp/Org)
Jul 27: Qin Shi Huang (Ind/Pro)

Aug 10: Lincoln (Cha/Phi)
Aug 24: Justinian I (Imp/Spi)
Sep 7: Pacal II (Exp/Fin)
Sep 21: Gilgamesh (Cre/Pro)
Each of the 3 groups should get one "unusual" map type; I'm open to suggestions for which map and which leader.

NC 94 Stalin (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=456972) is up.

NC 95 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=458512) with Frederick is up, after a 1-day delay for Good Friday.

I'm a little swamped at the moment so will postpone the next game for 2 weeks, until May 4. I've also rearranged the order of leaders slightly.

For this round of leaders I never figured out what "unusual" map type to try. I was toying with Lakes but am not fond of it, since it seems to have less food than is typical and so can be less fun. But it occurred to me that we once thought that the occasional Large or Small map would be instructive for Nobles. What do y'all think about one of those for one of our four remaining this round (Brennus, Shaka, Huayna, Catherine)? Note: we warn people about map size differences OUTSIDE the map spoiler, so it's obvious. We'd need some advice-for-beginners on how to play a non-Standard map size.

I should be in a position to create the May 4 map sometime in mid-week, so if Brennus is the "unusual" map there is a reasonable amount to discuss which kind to use. Hmm. Maybe Shaka on a Small Pangaea with a challenge to go for an early conquest victory? Impi's speed advantage might make for easy conquest of a few cities, followed by bogging down when the enemy got axes.

Brennus could be fun on a highlands map. It would make the UU/UB a little more useful.

Would love to see shaka on a "Noble's Club Map" pangea xD.

@MrKlew: NC XXX was Boudicca on a highlands; we discovered that I'd have to either shrink the map or add some AIs to take into account that all that extra land gives Immortal level AIs too much unopposed land into which to expand. But that's certainly doable, so I think that'll be the next map.

@Freakz: Do you prefer a standard size map or do you like the suggestion of going with a Large or a Small?

In all honesty, I am not sure, I'm not against the idea of having a large map but you have a wide "fan base".
A small map as shaka though is abit unappealing to be honest :D.

Hey guys - been a bit of a lurker the last month. Installed Windows on my Mac (I know, I'm the devil) and then rediscovered all my old PC games - like CIV! Have been addicted the last month or so.

Anyway - just wondering if it's ok to post in an older Nobles Club thread? I started playing Nobles' Club XCII: Hatshepsut of Egypt on the weekend and have a boatload of questions about the game I'm currently playing.

Hey guys - been a bit of a lurker the last month. Installed Windows on my Mac (I know, I'm the devil) and then rediscovered all my old PC games - like CIV! Have been addicted the last month or so.

Anyway - just wondering if it's ok to post in an older Nobles Club thread? I started playing Nobles' Club XCII: Hatshepsut of Egypt on the weekend and have a boatload of questions about the game I'm currently playing.

It should be fine. Thread necroing(resurrecting an old thread, although this isn't too old) is OK as long as it has a good purpose.

NC 96 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=460971) with Brennus is up. I hope I didn't make any mistakes, since I'm about to leave town for the weekend and won't have internet access.

NC XCVII Shaka (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=462091) is up. I expect a lot of people to do at least a little early conquest with Impis, but we'll see. At least we won't have to fight him, though I haven't checked who else we might have to deal with.

At least we won't have to fight him, though I haven't checked who else we might have to deal with.

Maby we should have shaka or some other psycopath for a neighbour in the next nobels club, might be a good lesson for our lower level on how to deal with an aggressive neighbour.(and a lesson of fustration for our higher level players heheh)

Justinian should be for NC C. I have an interesting save on my laptop from that game somewhere, I'll post it either later today or tomorrow.

NC 98 Huayna Capac (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=463202) is up.

I've tried Terra/Earth 2 maps sometimes, and almost always people ignore the new world and conquer the old; people want to treat it pretty much like Pangaea. Any ideas on how to make the existence of the new world more relevant?

Do the opposite of what you did: fill up the New World with early-game strategic resources and make the new one a haven for oil and coal and uranium.

All of these club-wielding explorers will cross the sea on their rickety wooden ships and sigh, "Oh my god, horses, they're actually real, we've had ideas for riding these guys for centuries!"

Alternatively? Always Peace, Cultural wins off.

Use WB to give everyone Optics at the start of the game. :D

Place us in the new world? ;) But that would make it isolation

I suppose one NC for isolated start might make sense, but there's a whole separate series for that.

I think you should go with that , its something new after all,i dont think there are many games on the fourm where people have started in the new world (apart from one game of Mad's RPC, i think it was pacal IICR).It wont clash with the LHC this week because im gonna upload a map with Ragnar on archipelago.

The Pangaea(-like) maps are good fun, not just because it's my name :P but as I prefer not to have to assemble a navy and go shuttling over to other continents. Diversity is always good of course, but I've really enjoyed these last two maps - the only ones I've tried so far, as I just got back to playing Civ 4 and didn't know about them before. It's a fantastic way to learn more about the game, particularly reading about how others are playing and planning things out.

NC 99 Cathy (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=464534") is up. Sorry for the 1-day delay.
I suppose one NC for isolated start might make sense, but there's a whole separate series for that.Actually we did an Islands start once upon a time with Toku, in which everyone starts isolated. I could put us and one other civ in the New World, I suppose, so we wouldn't quite be isolated.

What about Pacal? I think it has been a long time.

What about Pacal? I think it has been a long time.You're right. He was due to be last in this cycle but I can pull him up earlier if I rearrange the schedule to spread out traits a different way. SamSniped wanted Justinian for the next game (#100) but hasn't posted his sample map yet unless I missed it.

No rush, just because I was playing NC 94 with Shaka and Pacal was around. I don't really like him as a neighbor (don't like financial neighbor) ...

You're right. He was due to be last in this cycle but I can pull him up earlier if I rearrange the schedule to spread out traits a different way. SamSniped wanted Justinian for the next game (#100) but hasn't posted his sample map yet unless I missed it.

Tonight or tomorrow, I completely forgot about it :p

You're right. He was due to be last in this cycle but I can pull him up earlier if I rearrange the schedule to spread out traits a different way. SamSniped wanted Justinian for the next game (#100) but hasn't posted his sample map yet unless I missed it.

Wow, 100? I guess so, huh. You've probably seen a lot of member like me come and go over the years. In any case, whether its Pacal or anyone else, I look forward to it! Thanks for posting!

Well, here you guys go!

@SamSniped: Looks like you are using a mod, "Special Forces", so I can't load it (let alone use it for Nobles' Club, which has to be mod-free).

...it saved over the autosave when I was testing my mod, I guess. Well, that sucks. Sorry :(

If there were any special characteristics that made your map more fun, let me know via PM and I can see how hard it would be to incorporate into a new map.

We had requests for Justinian (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=467032) and Pacal, so those will be the next 2.

Trying to load Justinian save but I can't, it isn't showing up. I was able to load NC Shaka no problem, but NC Justinian isn't showing up even though it's in the same folder as NC Shaka.

If I can't see the file, I can't load it!

Hmm. I had no trouble downloading the .zip file in Firefox and opening it with WinRAR, my zipfile reader. Does it not show up in the "recent downloads" list of whatever browser you use?

It's not the rar file, I extracted that no problem. It's the beyondthesword save file itself, which you load directly into the game.

As I said, NC Shaka worked before so baffled by this not working.

It's nearly certain at this point in the day that I'll be unable to post a map by the end of the day. Sorry.

Given that this has been happening a lot lately, and given that I've finished only 5 games in the past year, is it time for someone else to take over the series? or are you content with me continuing to make the kind of maps I've been making on the somewhat irregular schedule I've been keeping.

It's nearly certain at this point in the day that I'll be unable to post a map by the end of the day. Sorry.

Given that this has been happening a lot lately, and given that I've finished only 5 games in the past year, is it time for someone else to take over the series? or are you content with me continuing to make the kind of maps I've been making on the somewhat irregular schedule I've been keeping.

You're doing a great job dalamb, a slight delay doesn't matter much to me.

You're doing a great job dalamb, a slight delay doesn't matter much to me.

I absloutly agree, you are a great host, and a day or two later isnt a big deal. :D

Boo! Fie on him! A pox on dalamb! A pox on the entire dalamb flock!

...nah, man, it's fine. ;)

Hi dalamb,

I've been playing the old NC games in the bullpen for a while now and credit that as one of the reasons I've gotten a lot better recently. I've been meaning to thank you for all the work you put into creating fun maps. I have been looking forward to Pacal but you could be a week late and I'd still be happy. Thanks again, I really appreciate it =]

But if you're feeling like you need some help I wouldn't mind chipping in. I know it must be a lot of work for you guys - I'm new to the forum and don't have much experience making maps but with a little guidance I could learn!

@Herodotus_Rex: Thanks for the offer. It's probably a good idea for more people to know how to make maps? Do you want to make one for Gilgamesh? I can give you some guidance; PM me if you want to try.

NC 101 with Pacal (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=469208) is up, finally. Sorry for the delay.

Do you change the generated maps much for the ones you provide in the NC? Is it mostly on changing the start location a little, or much more than that?

@ dalamb: I would love to! Boy that's a big responsibility - I'll do my best =]

I haven't quite figured out the mechanics of the forum yet so I sent you a friend request - is that basically the same thing or? Let me know if there's something else I should do!

Was about to offering the same, Rex, and searched therefore for Advice at the Forum, TMIT made a tutorial in the forum (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=322396) and also on Youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xy8gnmM-34). More Information about the WB-File can also be found here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=135669).

It would be fine if each of you created a map, perhaps Herodotus_Rex with Gilgamesh and Marvinlegend with Lincoln. I pick the order of leaders to spread out the traits and avoid duplicates, so I'd prefer you not pick other leaders instead. Next cycle starts in a small number of months and the choice of leaders is much freer.

I also was going to point to TMIT's guides, but there are a couple of other guidelines I use based on the notion that this is intended for Noble-level players and meant to be less challenging than an arbitrary map might be. I do a moderate amount of regenerating maps and editing to achieve a few effects:

I choose map type first. We try to spread around the type of map, with at most one "unusual" map type like Boreal every 5-6 leaders. Popular "ordinary" scripts are Pangaea, Big and Small, Medium and Small, Custom Continents, and to a lesser extent Tectonics and Fractal (some people have expressed a dislike of those two). With some scripts like Custom Continents you don't always get the number you specified so sometimes you need to regenerate.
If the civilization starts with a food tech, I regenerate until I get a start with that food source (so a Fishing civ gets seafood, and an Agricultural civ gets rice or corn or wheat). There's an issue with Hunting civs, since deer usually occur only in otherwise less desirable locations. Once or twice I've put deer somewhere the scripts don't usually put them, but some people don't like that. Sometimes a hunting Civ starts with a normal food source and elephants, which is also reasonable.
If the UU needs a strategic resource (horses, copper, iron) I make sure that resource exists somewhere nearby. If it's in a SIP BFC I use that; otherwise I usually put it where a 2nd city makes sense.
I usually go with random AI, but if a psycho starts nearby I sometimes interchange Monty/Ragnar/Shaka with some AI further away. Because of how the difficulties work, you don't do this by moving units; you do it by changing starting locations (StartingX and StartingY) between the civs. IIRC TMIT pointed out that you delete all the AI units but not the player's, since that makes sure the starting scout or warrior is in the same place for every player and that the AI gets the right number and kind of starting units (if you leave the AIs settler and warrior, they don't get the archers and scouts and extra settler they should get at higher levels). When you exchange civs like this you need to select the "reveal tiles" tab and, for each of the moved civs, click on the button that recalculates what tiles to reveal. You also do this if you move the starting warrior or scout.
If you change the player civ's starting location, you have to delete the player civ's units too, run a Custom Scenario to find out where the starting warrior/scout shows up, then save the worldbuilder file again before making TMIT's other edits. You can probably deduce why this is necessary from the other instructions.
Since some people play at high difficulty levels, you need to look out for one AI having some huge nice territory into which to expand without serious opposition: it makes them so powerful that Immortal+ players face a very difficult AI towards the end of the game.
It's a little tough for me to judge whether the map outside the starting location is going to be a good one, and I'm not sure what other advice to give. Generally you want to make sure that you're not isolated (unless you deliberately chose Islands, which I did only once IIRC).
You should feel free to make other edits that you think make the game more fun, but don't overdo it (I've made some maps that wound up being "too good" but a few of those "too good" maps arose spontaneously). I sometimes add a hill or two if there aren't enough in the BFC to give reasonable production -- unless there is a good-looking production site close by. I often extend nearby rivers so the starting location is riverside. As I've said before, the more edits you make the less some people will like it (I used to hate deserts and changed them to plains, but stopped).
If you happen to use Emacs, I can give you my macros that automate some of this. I started a Java program for it a couple of years ago but that has been on the back burner for a very long time. To satisfy everyone you need one map for Noble (which covers Prince and below), and one for each level above Prince. You also need to generate the original map with huts, create one set of maps for all the necessary difficulty levels, then create copies with huts deleted and events turned off. I'll do this for you the first time you each make a map (with my macros that step only takes 10-15 minutes including trying out the Noble Huts and Deity No-Huts scenarios to make sure I've done this step right).

Let me know if I need to explain any of this further. I suspect in the 3rd cycle we'll need to put these instructions in spoilers in the 2nd or 3rd message of the new bullpen thread so they're easier to find.

Awesome! I'll get started today and I'll contact you if/when I have questions as I go. Thanks for the guides/tips, they're very helpful =]

I haven't quite figured out the mechanics of the forum yet so I sent you a friend request - is that basically the same thing or? Let me know if there's something else I should do!I have no idea what the "friend" mechanism in CivFanatics is for; I never use it. A Private Message is different; it's just a within-cf mail system to avoid revealing external email addresses.

Herodotus_Rex got me a map for NC 102 on time, but I was delayed in checking and posting it; I hope to get it done by mid-afternoon Eastern time. Marvinlegend's NC 103 is done, so ought to be posted on time in 2 weeks.

Nice looking forward to this next game been pla
ying through some games and enjoying comparing my strats to others

Herodotus_Rex got me a map for NC 102 on time, but I was delayed in checking and posting it; I hope to get it done by mid-afternoon Eastern time. Marvinlegend's NC 103 is done, so ought to be posted on time in 2 weeks.

Hoping you might post soon i got tommorow off hoping to play a game

I'm sorry to disappoint everyone. I sent the map a while ago but dalamb had some stuff come up in RL and couldn't finish/post the map, while I've been out of town until today. If someone else will volunteer to help me we could have them up now.

I first made a map I think will be balanced and fun on Noble difficulty with huts. I then deleted all huts and made a No Huts save. I went through and made a new save for each difficulty, adding techs as I went. Finally, I went back through the saves and made only Gilgamesh playable and fixed the starting warrior's position. Is this correct, are these maps playable on all difficulty levels? As this is my first map I just don't know.

I do know that there is one problem with the map. The No Huts saves start with more territory initially revealed. I don't understand why, and deleting the revealmap line didn't help. Maybe because there was a hut in the BFC? I don't know.

If you understand this stuff well enough to either do it yourself (or preferably help someone new to making maps learn what to do) please post or send me a PM. Here is a .zip with the files 327819 and here is the boilerplate for the match 327820. It is missing the picture of the starting location, because I didn't know how to fix the initially revealed map.

Thanks for any help you can provide, and again I'm sorry this has been so late.

Never mind, he did what I said to do...

You have to find&Replace with a blank "TeamReveal=" too, then you get the same mapreveals for both settings.

In Deity No Huts, you've took the Immortal Handicap. It doesn't matter though, I just removed the lines, but with this the player get the wrong preselection for Deity.

Also you should make Speed=NONE and MaxTurns=NONE, for choosing speed.

Due to the difficulty levels, Team two misses Archery in all Huts-Saves but Monarch, rest should be right.

As Herodotus_Rex said I've had some real-life issues delay my dealing with the next game, the draft of which he got to me in plenty of time last week. Thanks to him for making the .zip accessible. Given all that work I may be able to post an "official" thread with the last couple of fixes (such as the unit's starting location) by tomorrow.

Unfortunately Herodotus_Rex' WB save files have AI units in them, which means they don't give the AI their extra units on Monarch and above. It will take me longer to fix this than I have time for at the moment, though it's possible I might be able to do so this evening.

NC 102 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=471488) with Gilgamesh is finally up. Sorry for the long delay.

Marvinlegend has posted NC 103: Lincoln (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=452510). Thanks for the map!

Marvinlegend has posted NC 103: Lincoln (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=452510). Thanks for the map!

That appears to be a link to Nobles' Club XC: Napoleon of France. :)

Correct link is http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=472785

@dalamb:

Who is up for consideration as the leader for the next game? I anxiously await...

tap... tap... tap... (goes Lemon's bunny slipper) :lol:

I don't really have suggestions for maps, but I have to say that I enjoyed plaing the Justinian inland map. Maybe have more specifics maps instead of the regular 1-2 continents one.
For leaders, I was thinking someone who is known to be more religious. What about Isabella, Charlemagne or Montezuma?

We can try any of those in a couple of months when we start the 3rd cycle. By "religious" you could mean 2 things: how the AI plays, and how the human does. As far as AI, Isabella is a prime religious fanatic; she'll go for an early religion and gets more unhappy than most if you have a different one. I haven't known Monty or Charlie to be anywhere near as fanatic, but my experience is limited. Humans are rarely religious fanatics (maybe madscientist once played an RPC that way?!?)

Note for today's map: I haven't heard back from someone who thought they might do one, and have been out of town for more than a week, so today's scheduled map won't happen until I get a chance to create one (possibly tomorrow, but I don't know how long it's going to take to catch up with other stuff).

I'm just putting the final touches on NC 104: Genghis Khan now and will have it posted in an hour or so. I didn't get it done in time for anyone to check it (as this is only my second map creation) but I think it looks good.

One question, if I may - what does events/no events look like in the map script? I just want to make sure that aspect of the game is golden. Marvin told me it's Option=GAMEOPTION_NO_EVENTS, but I can't find that line so far and I'm not positive on where to insert it!

The option lines go in the overall game section at the start, the same section with speed settings and the like. You can always check such things out by creating a custom game with the option set and seeing what happens, which is how I figured it out.

To get no huts, you have to delete the improvement=improvement_goody_huts (with proper capitalization) lines from the begin/end plot groups that have them. You can't see the effects of the no-events option without running the game and waiting long enough to find out that none have happened, which can be a very long time.

Thanks for making the map(s)!

Hi,

My two cents on the maps lately. Admittedly, the Nobles club is targeted towards beginners and people struggling with Noble. However, Civ is a game where the human player will probably not get better until he or she jumps into the 'deep end' so to speak. There is a boundary between a fun map and a joke, I feel that the Nobles club has lately been crossing this boundary and the maps are becoming less and less serious and more of an attempt to have a laugh.

To remind the map creators of the objectives of the Nobles Club:
The Nobles' Club series started out as a way for Noble-level (and below) players to improve their game. Most of the original participants now play at much higher levels, so this has become a way for advanced players to help others learn to play better. You can play your own game at any level and with any mod, but it would be nice to comment on the games of other players and give them advice.

With the maps that have been put on lately, I feel that players are no longer learning or the learning is minimised. Rather, the target seems to be to create a map in which a win should be easy. One does not learn or improve by constantly winning; to learn, one should have to see an actual chance of a loss and how to evade this. Losing itself can be a valuable lesson and the human player can remember and learn from their mistakes. Rather, with such easy maps, the human player will win without a doubt and overlook most if not all mistakes they make.

I hope I didn't offend any of the map makers here; a large population of the fanatics, if not all here really appreciate the effort and time you put in (I included) but I'd just like to post this as some constructive criticism for the Nobles Club and hope to see a future round in which new players will have an opportunity to learn and improve their game. :)

Regards,

Jaffer

I'm not offended personally. My thinking about editing has evolved over time; I've wound up editing less as time progressed, except for the few I consider essential for NC, which I've listed before (such as making sure the UU resource is reasonably nearby). I should probably cut out my other favourite edit, which is adding or rerouting rivers.

A good point that someone made to me privately is that NC maps have to be a balance between what's good for Nobles and what's good for Emperor+, so the latter are willing to play and advise the newbies. Making a map too easy alienates experienced players, while too hard frustrates newbies.

Maybe it's time for another poll (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=474415), like the one that resulted in no huts/no events being the default save file.

The Oz Man will be creating the September 7 map (if he still has time after my confusion over who is doing Mehmed).

I'm going to start a new thread for the 3rd Cycle bullpen, where the first several posts are all infrastructure like the boilerplate and summary of map creation suggestions/guidelines. It won't be meant for posting by others until I get those first few messages.

Subscribing.

Wait, isn't it every two weeks? H-Rex's was 8-31; I wouldn't expect the next one up until 9-14.

It's not a big deal if you want it tomorrow--I have the day off anyway--but I just want to make sure the date is what I expected.

Oops, you're right -- I postponed an earlier NC and forgot to update the dates. It's the 14th. I'll edit the first message.

NC CV with Mehmed is up. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=475409) A little bit early, but my classes aren't going to teach themselves (unfortunately), nor will my essays grade themselves (even more unfortunately).

Middle aged business tyrants teach classes? :)

Thanks for the map!

Well, in real-life I'm neither middle-aged nor a business tyrant (more like Optimistic Young Adult Comma Splice Tyrant), so that helps. :p Elizabeth certainly is both (and would be both more often if I could finish the danged merchant game).

NC 106 - Mansa Musa of the Mali is now up (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11866261&postcount=1).

Anyone interested in making a Qin map for Friday? I can do one late Friday or early Saturday but am fairly busy this week.

Anyone interested in making a Qin map for Friday? I can do one late Friday or early Saturday but am fairly busy this week.

Well I did the last one but I would be able to do this one as well if you wanted.

That would be nice, NobleZarkon. Things have been and will remain busy (for a few days at least).

That would be nice, NobleZarkon. Things have been and will remain busy (for a few days at least).
No problem.

That would be nice, NobleZarkon. Things have been and will remain busy (for a few days at least).

Qin is up.

Enjoy!