Map Discussion

Now for the other major question I need from each team: what kind of map do you want? I'm going to provide some general maps scripts, which will serve as a basis for the customized map that will follow. What I want your team to do is let me know what kind of map you'd like to see for this game. Here are five general options to think about:

Wheel: One of the better Multiplayer maps for this sort of game, and a very "fair" map, with equal territory for all civs and access to each team. May be too unnatural for some teams' tastes. Also on the small side.



Donut: A fun script added in the expansion. All the teams start on the outside edge of the donut, with a large region of peaks in the middle. The peaks can also be replaced by water, or standard terrain, if desired. Lots of early contact on this map.



Islands: A map that features lots of water and naval combat. Each team has their own starting island to themselves, which may or may not be what you want. The islands by default are separated by ocean, but they can be bridged by turning on the "tiny islands" setting.

No Tiny Islands


Various Tiny Islands


Archipelago/Snaky Continents: One of my personal favorites, due to the crazy and unpredictable land forms it spits out. Navies will still be emphasized heavily on this script. Here are three different looks, with different settings:







Global Highlands: A more interesting take on Pangaea, IMO. The peaks make for all sorts of wacky geographical formations, and interesting decisions on where to settle. Lots of customization options in the settings too. The latter two pictures explore some of the peak options.







Now what I would like from each team is to discuss and agree on a ranking of your three top preferences. This doesn't mean that you'll necessarily get the script that you picked first, but I will take into account what kind of map each team wanted. For example, if your team was dead-set on an Islands map, I'll lean more towards the naval ones in the overall decision. You can also simply say, "we trust the map maker, come up with a mystery game that looks awesome" as I know a couple of teams have suggested. If that's the general team feeling, you can skip this discussion entirely.

Once again, I'm asking each team to come to a decision on their top three map preferences by Wednesday, November 19th of next week. At that point, I'll see what each team decided and do my best to come up with something agreeable to everyone (although that may be impossible...) Thanks for your input, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Well it doesn't seem like anyone else has posted here so I'll start.

I think my vote goes to global highlands, with a large single continent and clustered peaks. I played a single player game and it was a very fun map, with interesting routes and natural chokepoints, the peaks aren't too much of a handicap to build good cities around. Just make sure you pick Temperate instead of Rocky... I had way too many hills!

Wheel and donut are all right, a little unnatural, but they seem fun. The wheel shown would have to be bigger though, that one is way too cramped.

The snaky continent-style maps would be fine as well, plenty of interesting formations there. All I do not want is a one island per team map, where there's no rush for land or actual borders. Those don't sound too interesting.

i also like global highlands. just not too many mountains if possible.

I vote for mystery map. From the given alternatives I prefer Snaky continents and Global Highlands.

I don't really mind, although I am definitely opposed to any kind of "individual islands" map. Late contact was what made the last democracy game a little boring in the early stages. We definitely want a map where every civ will meet at least one other civ in the early game, so that diplomacy can begin nice and early.

So I guess that leaves two options that I'd support - either two continents with 2 and 3 players respectively, or a single land mass upon which all 5 players are located.

I don't really mind about the exact form of the land, as long as it's consistent for everyone (ie mountainous or whatever), and it looks nice and natural. For this reason I am also strongly opposed to the donut and wheel maps, because in my opinion they are boring and predictable.

I like Global highlands, because mountains make some nice natural barriers, which you can use as cover.

Okay, pretty much everyone here has included global highlands in their posts, so it seems like that's probably what we'll be agreeing on. If so, what sort of settings do we want? Scattered peaks? Clustered peaks? Single continent or what?

As I said earlier I'd prefer single continent with clustered peaks, lots of interesting routes and chokepoints there, though with plenty of large open segments for cities.

I like this option

Any of the 3 global highlands maps shown above would be fine with me. Clusters and chains of mountains do make things interesting, though.

A mystery map with early contact, & a unsettled new world kinda continent would be fine. Ultimately, what the map maker does is fine, so long as it's surprising.

Dux_ said:

Ultimately, what the map maker does is fine, so long as it's surprising.

Click to expand...

Agreed.

By the way, I've started a poll in this thread about the map type, so go vote for your favourite option(s)!

Based on the posts in this thread, I'm getting a pretty clear consensus in favor of a Global Highland map as first choice, and an "interesting mystery map" from the creator as a second option. Snaky Continents seems to be a distant third option.

Is it OK with Team 2 if I mark that down as your team vote?

There is a separate poll thread. At the moment global highlands, snaky continents and mystery map are having same amount of votes. However there are 3 global highlands alternatives, which all have 3 votes so that could be interpreted to be first alternative.

At present, there are two leading options in the voting thread:

- Global Highlands with Scattered Mountains
- Mystery Map from Sullla

So I guess the general consensus is that most of us don't mind too much, but are leaning towards a continental-style map, with a decent amount of highlands.