Acken Challenges - #1 Carthage Immortal (6)

[yung.carl.jung]

Chiming in on the discussion here:

I do not think Desert Folklore is too strong. Rather desert starts in general are too strong and DF just pushes it over the top.

Since desert tiles are so sucky the algorithm will give you more bonus ressources for desert in general, meaning more strategics, pastures and luxuries.

If desert starts were weaker overall I think DF would not be a problem.

The same goes for Tundra. Personally I think Tundra faith is garbage because most of the time I am not working any Tundra besides Hills and Deer tiles. If Tundra in general was better though so would the Pantheon.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

You misunderstand me. I don't mean only blank tiles. I mean tiles with no resources. So farms and mines are OK, but not Iron, Sheep, Lux, etc.

But who wants to work plain tiles in the early game? You are suggesting to gimp players on an already gimped start because flood plains is the last think you'd want to work while buildings settlers, and if you want a religion, you need early faith. Besides, pre-CS, farms on flood plains are still meh tiles. If you started on grassland, you would get the same unimproved tiles with cows and some +1 food luxuries. Or salts on plains.

Besides, the Sweden map you posted has the potential for Dance of the Aurora, which is basically DF but better because tundra tiles at least give food.

 

[poxpower]

DF is good because it scales, unlike most other pantheons. It starts by generating about as much faith as other faith pantheons, but then grows to 15-20+ faith for your empire as your cities grow, whereas other pantheons stay at small 4-5 bonuses all game.

 

[consentient]

But who wants to work plain tiles in the early game? You are suggesting to gimp players on an already gimped start because flood plains is the last think you'd want to work while buildings settlers, and if you want a religion, you need early faith. Besides, pre-CS, farms on flood plains are still meh tiles. If you started on grassland, you would get the same unimproved tiles with cows and some +1 food luxuries. Or salts on plains.

Besides, the Sweden map you posted has the potential for Dance of the Aurora, which is basically DF but better because tundra tiles at least give food.

1. After Settler production, let's imagine that a city wanting to grow has 5 citizens. So it works three river farms that have 3f each, and 2 sheep (2f 2h each).

Presently, if all are on desert, that would be 5 faith a turn. I'm proposing that the sheep do not generate faith. That's still 3 faith a turn from the farms, it's just not so OP.

It sounds like you really want to be able to earn a load of faith while building Settlers, and of course that's really nice and we all like that. But what I'm arguing is that DF is OP compared to other pantheons. Working 3 Earth mother resources while building Settlers gives 3 faith a turn, but on T40 when you're done building them, you're probably not going to work those mines. That's where DF becomes silly.

2. Yes there is potential for DotA on the Sweden map, but by no means is DotA in general 'better' than DF, for the above reasons.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

My point is desert starts generally suck. I do not use any map scripts and play on vanilla, except some of my recent excursions with the new modded challenges. But in most of my unmodded games, rolling a desert is suboptimal, especially on Deity where you can't even guarantee Petra. In fact, I think that it was the reasoning of devs to overload DF and DotA because desert and tundra starts simply suck compared to regular grassland/plains. When I get home, I will take a screenshot of the barren desert I rolled in a recent Acken mod game.

 

[consentient]

Get the Hellblazer map packs and put them in your Maps folders. It makes the game much, much better.

The vanilla map scripts are really bad, and yes, if I was playing on those, I would not consider DF overpowered. But I really doubt anyone else is playing AckenMod games with vanilla scripts. That is just silly.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

I think AckenMod uses NQ map script, but I am not 100% sure. Like I said, I am going to make a screenshot when I get home.

And I am going to try those Hellblazer maps, thanks.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

My point is desert starts generally suck. I do not use any map scripts and play on vanilla, except some of my recent excursions with the new modded challenges. But in most of my unmodded games, rolling a desert is suboptimal, especially on Deity where you can't even guarantee Petra. In fact, I think that it was the reasoning of devs to overload DF and DotA because desert and tundra starts simply suck compared to regular grassland/plains. When I get home, I will take a screenshot of the barren desert I rolled in a recent Acken mod game.

No offense but in my experience the complete opposite is true and Beetle has actually cited the source code once to prove that Desert starts are "better" than all other starts because more bonus ressources are given-

Even on Deity I think Desert starts are the best.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

No offense but in my experience the complete opposite is true and Beetle has actually cited the source code once to prove that Desert starts are "better" than all other starts because more bonus ressources are given-

Even on Deity I think Desert starts are the best.

From last year: The Deity Challenge Line-up #24 - Arabian nights.

Check the screenshot: capital location has 1 oasis, 1 wheat on straight desert (so it's a 1 food tile), 1 cotton on floodplain and 2 incense on plain desert (again, no food). There are only 4 hills to mine, and no sea resources. I believe there is also 1 oil reserve. That's it. Some expo locations have more hills, but the same wheat, cotton, and plain desert incense, so there is not that much resource diversity.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

But isn that just.. anecdotal evidence? On a more serious note: If it's actually written in the code then there is no debate. But I don't have a quote for you so we will need to have someone more knowledgeable resolve this conflict!

 

[consentient]

I made that map (DCL #24) and I tweaked the resources, and it was not made with a normal map script. So sorry to puncture your 'evidence'

 

[adcarrymaokai]

That's not evidence — that's an example of my personal experience with desert maps.

 

[Acken]

I think AckenMod uses NQ map script, but I am not 100% sure. Like I said, I am going to make a screenshot when I get home.

And I am going to try those Hellblazer maps, thanks.

Both scripts are very similar considering mine is only a mod of the nqmapscript

 

[adcarrymaokai]

Anyway, here is a screenshot of my recent game. Obviously, I did not spawn in that desert, but it takes a lot of space which is simply unsetllable, unless you are Pocatello.

 

[stormtrooper412]

Well yes that's not a desert *start* but I think base game map scripts do that, and NQ mod scripts do not

 

[miaasma]

currently 120something turns in

Spoiler :

managed to avoid war with denmark via a small iron donation and a trade route, but the inevitable happened and a bunch of berserkers and trebuchets came knocking on my door. i have yet to take any city damage, and elephants + swords + comp bows are keeping him at bay for the moment, but i'm nowhere near strong enough to advance on him yet; probably have to wait for xbows to do that

only on 4 cities at the moment despite maxing liberty, stopped expanding when i saw the opportunity for a very early NC and my cities were getting quite tall due to sea resources and good dirt. no screenshot at the moment but should be able to update sometime tomorrow. morocco and i are best friends forever, and denmark's army seems split between me and boudicca, so i'm not concerned about being overwhelmed at the moment despite having a comparably weak army

looks like it's going to be a fairly long game

managed to score last religion thanks to vatican city being a pal with the easy quests. tithe, happy shrines and faith from amphitheatres + opera houses was definitely not bad for a last religion. did something uncharacteristic and got defender of the faith since i knew mr. dane was going to be an issue early on

i also accidentally began building the temple of artemis and did so for about 3 turns without realizing because i am a stellar player. once i noticed what i was doing i decided to roll with it due to the decent production in the capital, and with the help of some chops managed to score it pretty quickly

edit: i'll probably try this one again after i finish this run to optimize my decision making in the early game since there were a few blunders. love the map

 

[beetle]

Sorry, I am missing your point of these examples.

Check the screenshot: capital location has 1 oasis, 1 wheat on straight desert (so it's a 1 food tile), 1 cotton on floodplain and 2 incense on plain desert (again, no food). There are only 4 hills to mine, and no sea resources. I believe there is also 1 oil reserve. That's it.

There are five flood plain tiles in opening screen shot. It is about the weaker t desert start I recall, but it is not terrible by any means.

Anyway, here is a screenshot of my recent game. Obviously, I did not spawn in that desert, but it takes a lot of space which is simply unsetllable, unless you are Pocatello.

Yes, but like ST pointed, that is not a desert start.

 

[adcarrymaokai]

There are five flood plain tiles in opening screen shot. It is about the weaker t desert start I recall, but it is not terrible by any means.

How useful are five flood plains in the early game? The food to production conversion when building settlers is bad in vanilla, and then you have to basically grow very slowly, if you want to build anything.

My point is that desert is just weaker in general because you get 0 yield tiles when there are no resources and no river. There are also less resources in the desert in general. Consider grassland: you get the same stone and iron you get in the desert, but you also get 2 on top of it, you instead of a 1 tile in the desert, you get 2 1 tile on grassland. Moreover, grassland also has horses which give production, cows which give food, and deer. You also get forests which can be chopped for even more hammers.

On plains, forest can be chopped without even losing production, and plains get wheat tiles, which also provide both food and production. There are also horses and deer.

Jungle is another one which gives a slow start, but at least there is food in the jungle. You get bananas, and once you remove the jungle, you get either 2 or 1 1 tiles. Additionally, jungle gives 2 science with universities.

Desert by itself gives NOTHING. Even with additional resources, the yields are still lower than when you have the same resources on any other terrain, even tundra. The only thing desert has going on is oil, but that is so far in the game that it doesn't affect early game.

My point is that desert starts are just straight up worse than any other start and take longer to get going because the terrain itself provides no yields.

Yes, but like ST pointed, that is not a desert start.

No it is not, but I have had starts close to this, though of course not that bad. This is just from a game I rolled out recently. There was another game I played a month ago which had 2 desert patches like this (in AckenMod), so it is not an isolated case I have encountered.

 

[beetle]

I did not play this map, and so have not read the comments, so please feel free to correct me by pointing me to posts where others are sharing your concerns about the map being awful.

How useful are five flood plains in the early game?

You have the cotton flood plain as a decent enough first tile. How quick can you get the oasis? Those and bare hills are okay for building settlers. After that, a water mill and the pre-CS farmed flood plains -- so it should be okay.

It is a weak start for sure, and definitely below average for a desert start. But again, I don’t think it is terrible. Three luxes, 0 resources, a river, and a single bonus tile seems like my typical average boring start. Now that I have gotten more in the habit of playing shared maps, those mundane starts are so much less appealing!

My point is that desert is just weaker in general because you get 0 yield tiles when there are no resources and no river.

I think everyone agree that desert is weak in general. But the fertility algorithm over compensates for this, so desert starts on average are the best available.

My point is that desert starts are just straight up worse than any other start and take longer to get going because the terrain itself provides no yields.

What people don’t talk about so much is that a desert start may be gimping your expos. I am with you that I would rather start on grassland, just to have more flexibility.

There was another game I played a month ago which had 2 desert patches like this (in AckenMod), so it is not an isolated case I have encountered.

I don’t think large patches of terrible land is that rare. But is not that kind of variety actually a feature?

 

[Phenril]

hey, when do you plan to post a 2nd game?

Can we send you games if we get a pretty coold one?