Planning cIV BTS MTDG III

I'll be up to make a map, if you can't find anyone else. I've signed up on team RB, but haven't contributed much and they definately have big enough roster without me.

Here is few words about the philosophy I would be using. I would try to find a balance between equal chances and still random looking map. These are competing goals and it is impossible to fulfill both needs simultaneously, but I'll do my best. This basically means that e.g. starting positions had to be very close to each other in value, everyone should have close to equal access to strategic resources, similar amount and quality of food and luxury resources etc.

All in all I would do this balancing, but avoid total mirroring outside of the capital BFC and the further away from capital the more random the map will be and the more it relays on map script used.

I recognize that not all this is in accordance with the current votes, but I won't start map making process from premise that starting positions will be random or close to it. The amount of whining will be monumental and having 0 chance right from the beginning is far from fun. e.g. In MTDG 1. Team Saturn had lost the game even before it started. I know that good games can come out of totally random maps, but I don't think this the game for that approach. I think in MTDG map should try give everyone equal chances.

So if you're alright with this I'm available. Especially, if I could get lurking rights also to some other sites ;). I'm not intrested being an Admin though. I'm totally ok, if you find someone else or if you think this is not the way to do it.
 
Plako :thumbsup:


But one thing LP. You said no votes against UNrestricted Leaders, but as i posted few days ago civforum was against it :)
 
Thanks for the update on the team votes LP. What about the no score mod?
Only one team has said anything about the No Score mod, and others have expressed a preference for no mods at all. It seemed there was so little interest that I didn't include it in the summary. :)

But one thing LP. You said no votes against UNrestricted Leaders, but as i posted few days ago civforum was against it :)
Actually, what I said was:

Unrestricted Leaders ON (3 agree, see below)
Selection process - general opinion is in favour of SNAKE PICK with UNRESTRICTED leaders (3 formal votes in favour, other informal votes in favour)
There were 3 teams which initially voted to have restricted leaders. Based on posts from Sommer it seems that CFC is in favour of having unrestricted leaders and a snake pick, so that would make 4 teams in favour of unrestricted leaders.

The issue is that restricted leaders is very much tied to having randomization heavily effect which teams get the best picks, because there is no way to balance the fact that the person choosing first is much happier than the person going last (especially with potentially 8-10 teams). It seemed that some teams were informally in favour of changing their vote after this was pointed out; though even if they didn't, it presently still seems that unrestricted would win. :)
 
Another way of looking at the unrestricted leader thing is this... With unrestricted leaders The person who draws first pick will get to pick their Civ or their leader first, but then they will have to wait until last to pick the other thing so its balanced. With restricted leaders, this balance is impossible because you pick your Civ and leader in one fell swoop.

And if you are willing to sit out to do the Map plako you are the man :thumbsup:. As far as I'm concerned that's a done deal and you should get started unless someone posts an objection here in the next 24 hours. No one else has volunteered so you're it. I would be happy to give you access to lurk our forum if you promise to be a neutral observer.
 
For the record, r_rolo1 - the game admin - has said via PM that he's willing to make/tweak a map for the game too, based on the teams' preferences.
 
Yeah count me as captain. Thank you Bowsling btw.

When settings will be decided, i am gona post them in our french forum and see if we can get a team. If so, we gona participate. I dont want that people say me they wana play and finally not cause of settings, that's why i am waiting for them.

I saw, even if we are all players from different places (SP/MP etc...), you well pointed out important things like Nuke/hutts/double moves etc.. then i am sure settings will be cool.

Yes we've picked it up and discussing among us.

So Far we like the settings, the only one I'm wondering about is the 'NORMAL Speed' one.
What is the rationale behind picking it ?

I've played a Pitboss on CFC (here) not so long ago and was very disappointed when the game collapsed with 50 turns in, what happened is that Zulu (myself) Mali & Egypt all choked to death or killed their neighbourghs.

I tend to believe that normal speed makes early game & choking very violent and a bit of metal/horse-fest; not to mention game takes longer.
 
Yes we've picked it up and discussing among us.

So Far we like the settings, the only one I'm wondering about is the 'NORMAL Speed' one.
What is the rationale behind picking it ?

I've played a Pitboss on CFC (here) not so long ago and was very disappointed when the game collapsed with 50 turns in, what happened is that Zulu (myself) Mali & Egypt all choked to death or killed their neighbourghs.

I tend to believe that normal speed makes early game & choking very violent and a bit of metal/horse-fest; not to mention game takes longer.

The big problem with that game (in which I participated, so I speak of first hand experience) was that the map was generated with quick-speed settings in mind, while it was left on normal speed (Indiansmoke's initial reasons behind this were to try and attract strong SP players from CFC, where Normal speed is the standard, in to the game). I was eliminated by a double attack from my 2 neighbors who was very close even for quick speed (like 10 tiles between spawning locations).

And after all, the game collapsed because of the inability to realistically be played with turn orders while playing with Always War.
 
I was going to object on the unrestricted leaders thing too, Pucc. :) But if CFC does indeed change their vote to yes for Unrestricted Leaders, I guess that puts it over the top, unless any further teams join in and vote against.

On the double moves mod: 3 may have voted no, but 3 vote yes, correct? And I believe some of the Spanish Forum posters said there's a new version of the mod in progress that will allow more things to be switched off (though I'm unclear whether that would include BUG integration). We'd hate to lose the double move mod.
 
Is Plako an established map maker with experience? Can he provide some examples of what he has created or plans to create with this map? Anyone can make a map, but making a balanced one for MP that isn't mirrored/tiled in some way can be difficult. I want to make sure we're entrusting this to someone who knows what he's doing. For all of my experience doing maps, I know even I'm not up to this task, so being aware of how difficult it can be I am wary of just trusting the first guy that shows up...

At the very least I want the map looked over by a veteran of these games, perhaps the admin, to ensure we've got something fair and playable.
 
Is Plako an established map maker with experience? Can he provide some examples of what he has created or plans to create with this map? Anyone can make a map, but making a balanced one for MP that isn't mirrored/tiled in some way can be difficult. I want to make sure we're entrusting this to someone who knows what he's doing. For all of my experience doing maps, I know even I'm not up to this task, so being aware of how difficult it can be I am wary of just trusting the first guy that shows up...

At the very least I want the map looked over by a veteran of these games, perhaps the admin, to ensure we've got something fair and playable.

Plako's made a lot of MP maps over the past two years at Realms Beyond, here's one of his best IMO (I was rego's teammate in the game, so I'm not entirely unbiased):

The 2nd and 3rd posts here:

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4596

That map stayed highly competitive through the Riflemen era and then some, so the balance worked rather well, and overall play was at a high enough level that map imbalances would've led to someone snowballing away. The map definitely wasn't mirrored at all. That was a water-based map, but plako's proved adept at either land- or water-based ones.
 
Plako's made a lot of MP maps over the past two years at Realms Beyond, here's one of his best IMO (I was rego's teammate in the game, so I'm not entirely unbiased):

The 2nd and 3rd posts here:

http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthread.php?t=4596

That map stayed highly competitive through the Riflemen era and then some, so the balance worked rather well, and overall play was at a high enough level that map imbalances would've led to someone snowballing away. The map definitely wasn't mirrored at all. That was a water-based map, but plako's proved adept at either land- or water-based ones.

Here are some other examples (both from completed games, no spoilers here). One where a more natural/random map based on big and small was requested, one for a big 3v3v3v3 medieval game with mostly mirrored land. From what he posted here it seems he would aim for a balance of fairness/naturalness in between these two.

Plako is a skilled mapmaker and the best I've seen for making completely unmirrored maps balanced. I would always be happy to play on one of his maps.

Additionally I will mention he is a pretty good MP player; just won a game despite a 3v1 dogpile on him at the beginning for example.
 
Thank you Mojo and SevenSpirits from the comments. Had to mention though, that I consider the big and small map the worst I've done. It wasn't balanced enough. However I think I learnt something from that failure ;).

Now I just need a verification, if I'm the map maker or not. Lord Parkin implied that r_rolo would be intrested in the task too.
 
Now I just need a verification, if I'm the map maker or not. Lord Parkin implied that r_rolo would be intrested in the task too.
Consider yourself confirmed plako, you are the mapmaker. The 24 hours deadline to raise objections is long past and you have a well established reputation as a competent mapmaker.

What r_rolo1 said he would do is give a second look at the map and tweak it if needed, but the job of mapmaker is yours. Thank you so much for volunteering:goodjob:.
 
Yay! A map maker, and an admin (and of course a host *cough*) has been confirmed! And the Game Settings discussion seems to be progressing nicely as well. Is this a new record for an MTDG in terms of the initial planning period? ;)
 
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