Erebus mapscript starts

[MetalMilitia-]

I tried this just today as i noticed it was in the new build. I found it pretty awesome but there are some issues.

Civ starts are based on flavor, which works fine for the most part, except for 2 civs that i know of. Malakim and Doviello.

Well, Malakim gets tossed in a all desert area, not much to do here, they are screwed.

Doviello will start like illians, in tundra/ice. Great for the illians, not so great for Doviello.

The flavor starts are kinda neat, but they cause some serious balance issues, which kinda ruins it for me.

I think it would be a lot better if the valleys had more varied tarrain instead of just grassland/forest as example

 

[Blackmantle]

Malakim do terrific in some games though (i play on higher difficulties usually, also a huge factor). Had them outtech/outtrade everyone so wildly that they did get to found 6 religions! in a game with! Khazad and Svartalfar in. (And thats far from the only time i had them go skyrocket in Score on erebus)
It all depends on the ammount of Oasis and Floodplains near where they start... So overall it seems more or less ok if very random for them...

Doviello really suck most of the time though...

 

[orangelex44]

Actually, IIRC the rough starts for the Doviello and Malakim are intentional - by the original maker of the Creation (i.e. Erebus) mapscript, cephalo. It's a roundabout way to.... encourage.... the FFH team to make these civs play better in their lore-intended environment.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

eheh I started a game with random civs on 0.34 a couple hours ago. I got Charadon.

right in the middle of a useless snowy area.

needless to say, that one got regenerated

 

[GeeJo]

It also encourages the Doviello to get warmongery early and take the fertile lands of some unsuspecting neighbour by force. Which seems perfectly fitting.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

that's right GeeJo, but unless you're playing on a forgiving difficulty level, if the neighbour has fertile lands while you're stuck in snow or tundra, there's little you can do. they are easily going to outgrow and outproduce you with their grasslands and plains

 

[Bitwise]

Actually, IIRC the rough starts for the Doviello and Malakim are intentional - by the original maker of the Creation (i.e. Erebus) mapscript, cephalo. It's a roundabout way to.... encourage.... the FFH team to make these civs play better in their lore-intended environment.

This would be a poor design decision as Kael has stated that the team has no intention of making the Malakim and Doviello into Desert/Tundra versions of the elves. They want the civs to fight over resources and making them flourish in less hospitable terrain just leads them to be isolationist.

 

[JeffSteel]

Eh, the script is fine to me, except it often goes a bit too far with the mountains, often requiring many extra turns of researching the naval techs just to get at a neighbor or neighboring valley. If you don't have any metals for more advanced ships, you practically trapped (unless you build a huge, inefficient, expensive to maintain, and vulnerable fleet of galleys).

 

[GeeJo]

that's right GeeJo, but unless you're playing on a forgiving difficulty level, if the neighbour has fertile lands while you're stuck in snow or tundra, there's little you can do. they are easily going to outgrow and outproduce you with their grasslands and plains

I suppose it depends on what game speed and map size you're playing. On Normal/Standard/Emperor, if I send the entire starting forces out together, with the settler going out ahead to scout, the Doviello are easily capable of taking down the first capital they find.

 

[FireBlaze]

Last time I played an eberus map, I got stuck with 3 cities
But it made me feel good inside when I was still the most technologicly advanced civ out there

 

[Psycho_Ivan]

Erebus needs to include some customization options-- ones that don't require a person to go digging through files they dare not touch.

I really love the Erebus script though. Works wonderfully, aside from a few glaring issues with it...

 

[DioBrando]

Yeah, Erebus sure is an awesome map. I just wish that there was an option to reduce the amount of mountains. Sure, it's a nice concept, but to reduce the mountains with 25-50% would be a nice way to make the map more interesting once in a while.

 

[Blackmantle]

@ DioBrando: Then find someone who does it for you. Im sure if you go into the mods-subforum you'll find someone doing it for you and uploading a file. It isn't all that hard.
In case what you want only one number needs to be changed (cephalo did include a variable for that in the .py file itself. If you want to do it yourselves try notepad++ the variable is called "soften peak percent")

@ Psycho_Ivan: Remember FFH2 is still beta (if a very polished one). Cephalo is on it (his decision to include any dropdowns on his mapscript is just a few weeks old. See how far he has went with it allready?) and if some players do come up with kickbutt settings, they might like to share and plenty of testers like, im sure cephalo will include them in the climate-dropdown, not that it whould be much hard i presume.
(if it doesn't go right against his principles. Like less mountains. Erebus is all about enclosed valleys with separate climate and altitude. Might bother some poeple.
But you whouldn't expect pangea to have more than one big landmass whould you? So what you expect the creator of pangea-mapscript might have said to a suggestion to add an option for more landmasses? There someone else simply has to do it (or just take an appropriate different mapscript. Like highlands with ridgelines. Works out in a very simmilar way.).
Cephalo has done it easily enough and handed it over for free. Its not that you can command him to devote his time as you see fit. Notepad is not the pinnacle of coding and the options are usually well explained in this file...)

But he can't do it all by himself (that includes suggestions for good climate options / kickbutt settings). If you don't want to mess with the variables / contribute you'll have to ask someone else from the community to do it for you or wait until it is all worked out. A bit of patience sure helps.

 

[DioBrando]

@ DioBrando: Then find someone who does it for you. Im sure if you go into the mods-subforum you'll find someone doing it for you and uploading a file. It isn't all that hard.
In case what you want only one number needs to be changed (cephalo did include a variable for that in the .py file itself. If you want to do it yourselves try notepad++ the variable is called "soften peak percent")

Oh, nice! I'll try that right now!

 

[Psycho_Ivan]

Very good point...

 

[zbelg]

I suppose it depends on what game speed and map size you're playing. On Normal/Standard/Emperor, if I send the entire starting forces out together, with the settler going out ahead to scout, the Doviello are easily capable of taking down the first capital they find.

If you aren't taking down your neighbor's capitals you're not playing the Doviello right. There seem to be a lot of misunderstanding about them, it really doesn't matter what's going on in Urslo, Lucian and even a very small amount of beastmen topple early defenses.

The Malakim are another matter. Sometimes it's a nice challenge playing in deserts and if you can find an area with hills and oasises or an access to a shore you can make a viable city but other times you're just shafted. When I'm near flood plains as the malakim I'm fine, so I think if they're guraunteed to spawn near some they'd be okay.

Keep in mind if you really, really don't like your starting area settlers have 4 movement, so it's always an option just to move. Balance aside, I personally kind of like the flavor starts.

 

[brucedecatz]

As the Malakim, finding food resources to offset floodplain unhealthiness is a challenge. Sea food is very welcome, so fishing is usually the first tech I go for.
But the AI may not think like that.


I agree Doviello need to take down an AI capital to start out right. That also means that the AI Doviello will very seldom be able to do this.

Also, the dwarfs need to adopt agriculture to have a chance at growing in their mountainous plains. The AI does not appreciate that as well.

So I guess the point is not that the player does not know how to adjust, it is the AI that fails to adapt, so if these AIs are in the game they are bound to perform extremely poorly, making the game less interesting.

 

[Ahriman]

The single biggest problem with the Erebus map IMO is that plains regions are dominated by grasslands regions, because of how the agriculture civic works. With grasslands or mixed grasslands/plains, you can exploit agriculture without losing any tile yields. Not so, with all plains everywhere.

Also, it just doesn't encourage enough conflict. Its too hard for the AIs to be able to get to each other. Very often there are some civs completely inaccessible except by naval units, and the AI is lame at using naval units or intercontinental invasions.

 

[Blackmantle]

As onedreamer put it well in another thread:
If you play the erebus mapscript you should overcrowd it (put more players in) or it will be unbalanced.

Also it is very good a map to overcrowd (Because it then plays like a normal map with no overcrowding. Sorts of...).

8-10 civs on a normal map, 12-14 on a large map and 18+ on huge maps really plays out well. Playing below small is not recommended because it will generate very odd starts / setups for quite some civs (which is also why overcrowding a small map is not all so much a good idea.).
Duel-size maps might even ourtright break once in a while (all grassland or even python exeptions. At least it did so in the past...)
And that are still settings were raging barbs + barbworld + wildlands + dungeons work out better than on other maps. Only if you put in something like 30 civs on a huge map there will be no room for barbs...

If you do overcrowd you will have competition in such a game. And the game will last longer. Also it might not be such a bad idea to lower the sea-level until the AI gets a better grip on Naval Warfare + transportation.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

yes, these are my gripes with the mapscript: not enough conflict, landlocked civs, and grasslands being way better than plains

btw, the other day ( 0.34 patch A ) I took a look in the worldbuilder. the Malakim capital was a coastal city with 3 fish tiles right beside it ( workable ) , while all the land around it was mined desert hills. problem is that the AI was not working any of the fish tiles, and the population was at 1 ! this was around turn 250... WTH??!!