Map and Game Settings: Results

[Sullla]

With Wednesday here, I can now report the results of the team voting on map and game settings. First the map settings:

Map Vote

Team 1
1) Islands
2) Wheel or Mapmaker's choice

Team 2
1) Global Highlands
2) 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. - Lord Parkin

Team 3
You should probably consider Team 3 a vote for the "Map by Sulla." - General W

Team 4
Custom mystery map, possibly along Snaky Continents lines

Team 5
Custom interesting mystery map within the following parameters:
1. tactically and strategically challenging terrain, preferring water barriers to mountain barriers, or a combination thereof.
2. roughly equal starts, but not a formally balanced map.
3. contact between all teams should be possible without Optics
4. Mundus planus non est.
- peter grimes

Based on these results, I will be designing a custom mystery map for the Demogame. I already have several ideas about what to do, thanks to great suggestions from several of the teams. Without giving too much away, here are a few basic principles that will be included in the map:

- No isolated island starts. All teams will be able to contact at least one other team by land.
- All teams will be able to contact all other teams using land units and/or galleys. No waiting for Optics for full contact.
- Most of the map will be left alone, and therefore random, but there will be an effort to ensure roughly equal/fair starts.
- I guarantee that there will be one or two surprises that you'll have to figure out by playing.

Now, for the Game Settings:

Huts

Team 1: Off
Team 2: On
Team 3: Off
Team 4: Off
Team 5: On

Huts Off narrowly wins, by a 3-2 vote.


Events

Team 1: On
Team 2: On
Team 3: Off
Team 4: On
Team 5: On

Events On wins with a 4-1 vote. No thanks to oddball Team 3.


Vassal States

Team 1: Off
Team 2: Off
Team 3: Off
Team 4: Off
Team 5: Off

Vassal States will be Off, with a clean sweep of the vote.


Barbarians

Team 1: Normal
Team 2: Normal
Team 3: Normal
Team 4: None
Team 5: Normal

Normal Barbarians for this game; Team 4 the dissenting minority this time.


Tech Trading

Team 1: Normal
Team 2: Normal
Team 3: Normal
Team 4: Normal
Team 5: Normal

Clear agreement on having unrestricted tech trading.


Difficulty Level

Team 1: Medium
Team 2: Monarch
Team 3: Medium
Team 4: Medium
Team 5: Low/Medium

Based on the voting, we will be using Monarch as the default difficulty. I think this will make most teams pretty happy.

* * * * *

With these settings in place, your team should now be able to finalize your choice of leader. We will be using Lord Parkin's suggestion of how to deal with duplicate leaders:

Step 1: All teams make a list of five preferences for leaders.

Step 2: If a team has chosen the same leader as another team for their first preference, and they are happy with this, then they are allowed to keep that leader.

Step 3: If a team has chosen the same leader as another team for their first preference, and they are not happy with this, then they have the option to change their leader to the next-highest preference on their list that is not a duplicate.

Thus, your team will need to decide on two things: your leader pick(s), and are you OK with having duplicate leaders? If you are OK with having duplicate leaders, then you will simply get your first choice. No further discussion needed. If your team would prefer not to be playing a duplicate leader, you will need to come up with a top five list. Then, if a duplicate arises, you have the option of swapping to the next leader on your list. I hope that makes sense.

The deadline for picking your leader(s) will be Monday, November 24. Please also finalize your team name and any other appropriate nicknames/description by that date. Once I have all of that information, I will create the map and we will get started, hopefully around the end of next week. I will also post this same message in each team forum, for those who might miss it in the general forum.

Good luck!
- Sullla

 

[oyzar]

Can you please post the size of the map we are using? it is not specified above...

 

[Theoden]

I'd think that map size is part of the mystery, so we have discover either by exploration or calendar how big the world is.

 

[Ginger_Ale]

Thanks for spearheading this effort, Sullla.

oyzar, I think we'll be using a standard sized map (I believe that's what the first MTDG used). The default for that is, what, 7 civilizations, so I guess there'll be extra room (or ocean). I'll let Sullla answer that, though...

 

[DaveShack]

I would hope it's not excessively large, since we have been promised that contact prior to optics is possible.

 

[Sullla]

Standard map size. I didn't mention it because I thought it had already been stated somewhere...

 

[Diamondeye]

... This means that both barbarians and events are on. What do we do if the Barb uprising kills off a team? I did vote mystery map, but Attila the Hun is not a joke, so I'd prefer we sorted this out somehow. Can Sullla configure the randomseed so that the event will never occur for this game?

 

[Lord Parkin]

Team 2 would like to be the first to reveal the name of our civilization for this game. Hereafter, we shall be known as Team Saturn.

... This means that both barbarians and events are on. What do we do if the Barb uprising kills off a team? I did vote mystery map, but Attila the Hun is not a joke, so I'd prefer we sorted this out somehow. Can Sullla configure the randomseed so that the event will never occur for this game?

I have to agree with this. It's bad enough having one player destroyed by barbarians in a quick online multiplayer game, but in a long-term game like this it would be disastrous. Potentially one team could spend months playing the game and then have it completely wasted by being utterly destroyed by the "barb army spawn" random event.

I can think of a few potential solutions for this problem:
(1) Sullla configures the random seed as mentioned above, so that the barb army spawn event will not happen at all.
(2) Slight modification of the previous option, Sullla makes it so that the barb army spawn can still happen, but only much later in the game (after some tech like Metal Casting or Machinery, perhaps).
(3) Nothing at all is changed. However, if the barb army spawn event occurs before a certain date in the game (say 1 AD), then the admins will edit the save file to delete the barbarian army. (I assume this is possible, though I don't know how myself.)

Either way, I definitely think we need to arrange something so as not to spoil the game by having one team be eliminated by barbarians in 2000 BC.

 

[mostly-harmless]

Well, Diamondeye, your team voted for events on. Barb uprising is a possibility.

EDIT: dito Lord Parkin
mh

 

[Lord Parkin]

Huts

Team 1: Off
Team 2: On
Team 3: Off
Team 4: Off
Team 5: On

Huts Off narrowly wins, by a 3-2 vote.

I think it's a shame that Huts Off won. Aside from the Vassal States Off vote (which was unanimous, probably mostly to do with its bugs), all of the other game options were the standard ones. With Huts Off, we've picked the only other non-standard game option (when the standard option is not at all bugged), and by the narrowest of margins.

Because of this, teams that start with Scouts will be slightly disadvantaged compared to those who start with Warriors. I wonder if those teams voting for "Off" realised this...

 

[HUSch]

... This means that both barbarians and events are on. What do we do if the Barb uprising kills off a team? I did vote mystery map, but Attila the Hun is not a joke, so I'd prefer we sorted this out somehow. Can Sullla configure the randomseed so that the event will never occur for this game?

I don`t know who had voted so, but this is a result of events on.
That was 4 teams. also barbs. First vote and then cry.
So it`s a game of luck!

 

[Calis]

I don`t know who had voted so, but this is a result of events on.
That was 4 teams. also barbs. First vote and then cry.
So it`s a game of luck!

You are VERY fast with judgements. Team 4 did not vote for this combination. A look at the voting results would show that. Thus, Diamondeye just commented that the combination might result in problems for some team.

 

[Niklas]

Well, Diamondeye, your team voted for events on. Barb uprising is a possibility.

Actually, our team consensus was more along the lines of Events On assuming Barbs Off. Had we known Barbs would be on, our vote for Events would have gone the other way. That wouldn't have changed the outcome though, the 4-1 would have become 3-2 instead but still a win for Events On.

Because of this, teams that start with Scouts will be slightly disadvantaged compared to those who start with Warriors. I wonder if those teams voting for "Off" realised this...

Yes, we did. It was one point in favor of allowing them during our discussion, but in the end the fairly large possibility for unbalance made it swing the other way.

All in all I'm pleased with the outcome, if we could only ensure that there will be no Barbie Uprisings, as has been noted by Diamondeye and Lord Parkin. Personally I feel that the "admin deletes uprising army" option is the least intrusive, and I believe it is doable. Can we agree on that?

 

[oyzar]

I don't see how that is possible.. And now that the prereq's for the events are changed anyways they hopefully shouldn't have too much impact(at most they'll take a couple cities, not wipe out a civ).

 

[Sullla]

The voting is over, let the griping begin!

The one thing that I would remind teams who didn't get exactly what they wanted is that their voice was only one out of five in this Demogame. Different teams wanted different things, each of which were mutually exclusive. It is impossible to give everyone wanted they wanted to see. Fortunately, there was a broad consensus on almost every issue. Huts was the only one that went to a 3/2 vote; everything else had an 80% majority (4/1) or complete agreement amongst the teams. I take that as a good sign, as there was a great deal of unity on most of the votes.

As far as this concern over barb uprisings... I'm not sure there's a good solution. Teams 1, 2, and 5 all voted for Events On/Normal Barbarians, so there's a majority vote right there for having them both in play. Now I am not a modder, nor do I have any desire to start mucking around in the XML and making this game significantly more complex. Given that the barb uprising event is one of the rarest ones, and rather unlikely to come up, I'm more of a mind to wait and see what happens, dealing with the situation if it would happen to rear its ugly head. After all, that *IS* what the teams voted for... (Don't blame me, I just counted up the votes. )

 

[Earthling]

Well, not that I want this thread overrun by team 4, but yeah basically our whole discussion came down to turning barbs off IF events were on; to avoid this event. But I support any plan by the admins to ensure it won't be a problem. About huts, I know I'm not speaking for the whole team here, but I would have only preferred huts at a higher difficulty (say, immortal). Otherwise, huts are too likely to give someone an early tech imbalance (also, our team came down for turning barbs off, which would remove the whole risk aspect from huts). I did somewhat feel before that teams could at least know what each other were thinking to come up with compromises; however we all voted and I can live with these settings, as you pointed out they are mostly pretty standard anyway.

 

[Diamondeye]

I don't see how that is possible.. And now that the prereq's for the events are changed anyways they hopefully shouldn't have too much impact(at most they'll take a couple cities, not wipe out a civ).

This basically ensures that barbs will only spawn if you have a counterunit. But having your first axe does not mean you can handle six swords, neither does having a single spear make it possible to defend your lands frm six roaming horse archers...

I still think we should somehow take precaution for this event, and I am shocked at how rude some of the replies to my post was. I was merely trying to assure a fair and fun mtdg, not trying to ruin anything. If you like having six barb axes thrown at your gates 1500 bc, you're welcome, but I certainly would be sorry that a civ exited the game this way.

 

[plako]

How often barb event occurs and how often it is more than minor annoyance? I've played on monarch (bts 3.17) and I haven't seen this event often and usually when it has happened it has been manageable. I might have been lucky since I remember AI losing some cities.

 

[Niklas]

Teams 1, 2, and 5 all voted for Events On/Normal Barbarians, so there's a majority vote right there for having them both in play.

You're right. Three teams obviously were aware of the barbarian uprisings (right?) but still voted to have both barbarians and events on. So who are we to complain?

 

[Joshua368]

Hey I didn't want events on, my team's insane!