The Nobles' Club Bullpen: Second Cycle

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!! ), 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:

1. Any advice to pass along to Noble-level players about how to play isolated? I think r_rolo1 posted a guide at one point.
2. 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?

dalamb said:

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

1. Any advice to pass along to Noble-level players about how to play isolated? I think r_rolo1 posted a guide at one point.
2. 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?

Click to expand...

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 with Asoka is up. Sorry again for the delay. There was more delay this morning because:

NC 82, Roosevelt, is up.

In the Roosevelt game Tommah posted an appropriately spoilered reflection on the position of the AIs: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 ...

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

1. 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).
2. 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?

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+

NC 83 Peter 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 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