CDG Series Discussion Thread

[raider980]

I'll give making up a map a try. I'd like to do England if that's ok. Do you all just use the IGE mod on Steam to edit the map?

And are there any pitfalls I should watch out for? Like mistakes that noobs make when creating a map?

 

[Grendeldef]

You don't have to necessarily cook the map in any way unless you want something specific. It's just that rolling a nice, interesting and playable map isn't an easy task hence the IGE.
I have no idea about the cooking mistakes as the Cathy map is first I've touched and even that will be finished by someone else as I like to keep things secret until I encounter them in the game.

Askia map had a lot of everything, too much for my liking but it also had a purpose and achis to spice it up so I'm fine with that occasionally.
The more seasoned editors might have better tips but everything in moderation seems like a good starting point.

Aztecs
Carthage // Gren
Dutch
Egypt
England // Raider #32
Greeks
India
Japan
Mongolia
Morocco
Rome
Siam

 

[beetle]

The achis will go along with (modestly) wide domination and that's not gonna change however compelling arguments against this there might be.

Thanks for posting. The achievements look excellent! I might even be able to pick up a goodly number of them too!
I will postpone the next game in my versus series. One game per week is a pretty aggressive schedule!

Do you all just use the IGE mod on Steam to edit the map?

The only things I use IGE for are (1) clearing ice near the top and bottom of the map, and (2) deleting Settlers and Workers for the “Lite” versions. IGE can do pretty much anything, but I find it very clumsy and awkward. It eats half the window when it should be coming up in own floating palette. I assume those limitations are because Firaxis is not modern.

And are there any pitfalls I should watch out for? Like mistakes that noobs make when creating a map?

The only problem we ever have ever had was with with achievements that were not very thoughtful.

 

[Grendeldef]

The achievements look excellent!
I will postpone the next game in my versus series. One game per week is a pretty aggressive schedule!

Goodie. Actually those look more or less ok to me as well. Sure, they are weighted towards wide and/or domination but I didn't like mutually exclusive achis in the past either. Hopefully there'll be other games were the emphasis is somewhere else to cater everyone's taste.

The only things I use IGE for are (1) clearing ice near the top and bottom of the map, and (2) deleting Settlers and Workers for the “Lite” versions. IGE can do pretty much anything, but I find it very clumsy and awkward. It eats half the window when it should be coming up in own floating palette. I assume those limitations are because Firaxis is not modern.

Yup, clearing the ice is something I'm very supportive of even if there're no other alterations with the map. It's just a huge boost to gameplay and fairly quick to do and like few other things there should be an option for it in the UI while rolling a map.

The only problem we ever have ever had was with with achievements that were not very thoughtful.

Yup, this. I think one famous example of how-not-to-do-it was Enslingkorp's Shoshone(?) game in the past series. Basically everything in the process went wrong and resulted more rage quits than achis. Not to mock a fellow forum user but to present it as an unfortunate case from the past though I'm hardly impartial here as I was one of the most vocal critics.

---
Correcting myself right away - it CDG7: Shoshone was in the current series. Time flies as usual.


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Also the CDG 31 has now the T0 saves and is open for business.

 

[beetle]

I have no idea about the cooking mistakes as the Cathy map is first I've touched and even that will be finished by someone else...

I am so jealous that you (apparently) have staff!

Also the CDG 31 has now the T0 saves and is open for business.

Thanks!

 

[raider980]

The only problem we ever have ever had was with with achievements that were not very thoughtful.

Hmm, I didn't realize achievements were such a big part of the CDG. I guess it was originally for good players that needed something extra? I'm always just trying to survive in a game so I haven't even paid attention to the achievements. And given the way people reacted in that Shoshone thread I'll need some help coming up with achievements.

 

[Grendeldef]

As I said earlier when Beetle rebooted the series - I wouldn't worry about the achis. If there'll be some, awesome but if not then, meh, no big deal.

The achis were indeed originally Consentient's brainstorm to get peeps off their comfort zones and doing things a bit differently but with just few of us left I feel pretty comfortable stating that we'll manage few games without them.
Also, there's no need for having excatly 5 achis each capped @6 points but if you open up the discussion what you want the England game to be like we can offer suggestions but ultimately the choice is yours.

Besides, this is already going much better in general with consensus of who will do and what than that Shoshone map which just came out of the blue.

 

[Grendeldef]

I also have an idea for Genghis but I assume others might be interested in hosting it so I'll be on hold until the Dido game whichever it'll be.

----

Aztecs
Carthage // Gren, will be friendly towards the UA
Dutch
Egypt
England // Raider #32
Greeks
India
Japan
Mongolia // (Gren, pure domination)
Morocco
Rome
Siam

If it isn't too much of a hassle the list could be tagged along with the posts where peeps call civs to their future maps or there's detailed information with the CDG # and/or date of releasing the map for public.

 

[beetle]

I cannot believe we have not had Aztec in the CDG series yet! They were a lot of fun with my recent Versus game. So I would like to host them, but it will not be for several weeks. (Certainly after Carthage, and my sixth Versus map.) But that is okay, as it will give me time to think of some achievements, and to play test some games. Would a Boreal Lakes map be okay with folks? (See CDG10, Denmark.) I definitely do not want unlocking the UB to be an issue, and I would very much like for the Woodsman promotion to be noticeable.

The basics of the map are std TI, 8 civs, ***18*** CS, low sea lvl & some addtional land on top of that, raging barbs, few additional NWs.

Spoiler other civs :

Assyria
Brazil
Celts
Dutch
Maya
Shoshone
Spain

EDIT to ask @Grendeldef: Was there a theme to the above set of AI?

 

[Grendeldef]

EDIT to ask @Grendeldef: Was there a theme to the above set of AI?

Nope, they were a random roll but I put out the list as I knew it anyway and to boost peep's confidence that Shaka was indeed an absentee. Also, I was generally satisfied with that bunch - no psychos but a decent selection of civs generally pushing for different objectives. At least one for dom, culture, piety, expansionist, naval and so on which should open up various avenues for a player to pursue and probably make the players' experiences different from game to game.


I'm fine with Aztecs pretty much on any map at this point - I probably hate the idea of it when I see it but I shall overcome besides WC is probably already going on so for a month I'm most likely a happy camper even if I had to play daily maps were the largest land mass is 2x2 tiles.



Aztecs // Beetle
Carthage // Gren, will be friendly towards the UA
Dutch
Egypt
England // Raider #32
Greeks
India
Japan
Mongolia // (Gren, pure domination)
Morocco
Rome
Siam

 

[raider980]

IGE is not as good as I was hoping, Beetle you are correct, it is clumsy and awkward. So I probably won't edit the map as much as hoped and it may take me some time for the England map. I wanted to make it a Domination oriented map utilizing the two UU's, Longbow and Ship of the Line. So an achievement could relate to killing civs (or taking capitals) with SotL (i.e. before Battleships).

 

[beetle]

Also, I was generally satisfied with that bunch - no psychos but a decent selection of civs generally pushing for different objectives. At least one for dom, culture, piety, expansionist, naval and so on which should open up various avenues for a player to pursue and probably make the players' experiences different from game to game.

Agreed, it was set. Nice to see RNG working out!

 

[Grendeldef]

I wanted to make it a Domination oriented map utilizing the two UU's, Longbow and Ship of the Line. So an achievement could relate to killing civs (or taking capitals) with SotL (i.e. before Battleships).

Domination is possible on pretty much any map so it doesn't require any cooking in that respect and as for Lizzy some iron surely is helpful so if there's iron anywhere near starting position, fine and if not add one or two somewhere within reach and it's fine for a map especially if/when the ice has been cleared from the coast. The two of my maps where way overcooked for an average series map and unrealistic to assume every map to be like that.

For achis you could browse the early games in the series and achis in those. Some were excellent, some not so much but it shouldn't take too long of a time to see what was well received. Copy and/or modify the better ones, add a twist like turn/time/prerequisite/something along those lines or you can use the achis from the last two games as a baseline if those seem ok - I'm fine with that as seems Beetle which makes us a trio probably forming a majority of whom will finish the game

Post the raw achis here when you have something and we can tune them if needed before starting the game and don't sweat on it, it's just a game after all.

 

[raider980]

Should the map be the exact same for regular and lite versions? I've noticed that the only thing people alter is the units and bonuses such as gold. But what about adding more goodies in the terrain for lite?

 

[Grendeldef]

The concept is so novel that I don't think there're rules for the Lite version so do what you wish but at some point there's a vague line after which the two version have very little in common rendering the challenge effectively two challenges.
I think adding some resources, luxes, NWs or some alterations otherwise would be fine and on the other hand I'm not planning to play the Lite versions any time soon so I don't much care about the details.

 

[raider980]

The England map is ready. I can try and post it whenever its a good time to start a new game.

I thought of the following achievements but I'm not sure how realistic or hard/easy they are to achieve. I'm not good enough yet to attempt achievements so I have nothing to gauge them by.

• Conquer X civilizations with Longbowmen as the most advanced ranged/siege unit. 2 points for each civ capital taken.
  
• Conquer X civilizations with Ships of the Line (i.e. before Flight). 1 point each.
  
• Win a Domination Victory before Flight (perhaps should be before the Modern era?). 3 points.
• Build the Great Lighthouse. 1 point.
  
• Finish the Exploration Social Policy. 3 points.
  
• At any point in the game have X Lonbowmen with Logistics:
  
  • 6 = 1 point.
    
  • 9 = 2 points.
    
  • 12 = 3 points.
• Finish game with X Ships of the Line:
  
  • 10 = 1 point.
    
  • 15 = 2 points.
    
  • 20+ = 3 points.

 

[Grendeldef]

The England map is ready. I can try and post it whenever its a good time to start a new game.

Any time is fine by me as are the achis in general. Few notions though.

• Conquer X civilizations with Longbowmen as the most advanced ranged/siege unit. 2 points for each civ capital taken.

• Conquer X civilizations with Ships of the Line (i.e. before Flight). 1 point each.

"Conquer" needs to be defined. I assume it means killing off a civ but others most likely have other views and the 'taking capital' part here suggest otherwise.
Some sort of scaling and/or capping the max points might be in order - 14 pts for a single achi seems excessive. Also the "the most advanced" needs a definition - perhaps the era could be the demarcation line.

Also with that wording the 2nd one doesn't require SotLs at all and if that's the intention, fine but I assume that's not the case even with the other achi with SotLs so you could define it in other terms. X ships sieging/damaging the city before capping or something more elaborative.
[/QUOTE]

 

[beetle]

The England map is ready. I can try and post it whenever its a good time to start a new game.

I would say that now is a good time to start! FWIW, I plan to drop the next versus map in about 12 hours, but I do not think that should effect your timing. The easiest way to get started is to Reply to a post that has most of the formatting you like, then delete the QUOTE and /QUOTE tags at the end.

I think your achievements are mostly fine, and only need some minor tweaks or clarification.

"Conquer" needs to be defined.

I read “Conquer X” as the title, and after that, “2 points for each civ capital taken” as the definition. I think that (and the next line) are okay.

...14 pts for a single achi seems excessive.

If one can win a Dom VC with XBs, is that not worth 14 points? But I don’t think that should stack with the 3 points for winning before the Modern Era.
I agree that “the most advanced ranged/siege unit” is a bit vague, so I would write it as “before unlocking either Chemistry or Industrialization”.

 

[raider980]

I was trying to emphasize the UU's which is why I wrote the achievements the way I did. But yea it is confusing; I've altered them. I can't imagine anyone getting all 7 capitals on this map before Chemistry or Industrialization but maybe I underestimate what's possible for a good player.

How's this:

• Elizabeth the Conqueror.
  • Each capital conquered before discovering Chemistry or Industrialization: 2 points.
  • Each capital conquered before discovering Flight (not additive with the first achievement): 1 point.
  • Capture all enemy AI Civ's coastal cities: 4 points.
• Build the Great Lighthouse. 1 point.
  
• Finish the Exploration Social Policy. 3 points.
  
• At any point in the game have X Lonbowmen with Logistics:
  • 6 = 1 point.
  • 9 = 2 points.
  • 12 = 3 points.
• Finish game with X Ships of the Line:
  • 10 = 1 point.
  • 15 = 2 points.
  • 20+ = 3 points.

That's 28 points possible if all achievements are obtained.

 

[raider980]

I found an error in the map so I had to correct it. New games were just posted in Beetle's VS Series and GotM so I'll wait until this weekend to post the England game.