Map Script

[remake20]

The map script is going to be voted on by teams so here is the poll. Here is a link to the different map scripts.

 

[Viva_Chingon]

I actually really liked the idea of letting Sullla make a map for us based on 'criteria' and not on 'type'.

 

[General_W]

I propose we do that.
Adds an extra element of surprise to the game!

 

[mostly-harmless]

I have played a lot of the Sullla-sponsored RB events to have full confidence that Sullla will make a fair map whatever the script is.

mh

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I agree with allowing sulla sway.

In the Civ III MTDG, we got a world no one would have guessed.

 

[azzaman333]

I like the sound of going with whatever Sullla feels like.

 

[Sullla]

Again, you guys were ahead of me here on this issue. For purposes of fairness, here's the post that's gone into the other team forums:

Now for the other major question I need from each team: what kind of map do you want? I'm going to provide some general maps scripts, which will serve as a basis for the customized map that will follow. What I want your team to do is let me know what kind of map you'd like to see for this game. Here are five general options to think about:

Wheel: One of the better Multiplayer maps for this sort of game, and a very "fair" map, with equal territory for all civs and access to each team. May be too unnatural for some teams' tastes. Also on the small side.

Donut: A fun script added in the expansion. All the teams start on the outside edge of the donut, with a large region of peaks in the middle. The peaks can also be replaced by water, or standard terrain, if desired. Lots of early contact on this map.

Islands: A map that features lots of water and naval combat. Each team has their own starting island to themselves, which may or may not be what you want. The islands by default are separated by ocean, but they can be bridged by turning on the "tiny islands" setting.

No Tiny Islands

Various Tiny Islands

Archipelago/Snaky Continents: One of my personal favorites, due to the crazy and unpredictable land forms it spits out. Navies will still be emphasized heavily on this script. Here are three different looks, with different settings:

Global Highlands: A more interesting take on Pangaea, IMO. The peaks make for all sorts of wacky geographical formations, and interesting decisions on where to settle. Lots of customization options in the settings too. The latter two pictures explore some of the peak options.

Now what I would like from each team is to discuss and agree on a ranking of your three top preferences. This doesn't mean that you'll necessarily get the script that you picked first, but I will take into account what kind of map each team wanted. For example, if your team was dead-set on an Islands map, I'll lean more towards the naval ones in the overall decision. You can also simply say, "we trust the map maker, come up with a mystery game that looks awesome" as I know a couple of teams have suggested. If that's the general team feeling, you can skip this discussion entirely.

Once again, I'm asking each team to come to a decision on their top three map preferences by Wednesday, November 19th of next week. At that point, I'll see what each team decided and do my best to come up with something agreeable to everyone (although that may be impossible...) Thanks for your input, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

* * * * *

Can I assume from your previous posts in this thread that your team is OK with me designing the map as I see fit? Because that would make things easier for me, to say the least!

 

[General_W]

That's a fair assumption Sulla!
No one hear is speaking out against you... and you've got a wide base of support

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

 

[Joe Harker]

Thanks Sulla for your mapmaking

I am more inclined towards a island type map, or at least a map which will require a certain degree of naval power to be successful in the game just because it adds an extra layer to the game.

 

[azzaman333]

I like the sound of "whatever Sullla feels like"

 

[Karhu]

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

Roger that.

As the base script, I'd like to see:
1) Global Highlands
2) Archipelago/Snaky Continents
3) Islands

I have a "personal problem" with the wheel/donuts maps.

 

[mostly-harmless]

I have a "personal problem" with the wheel/donuts maps.

Axissymmetricalphobia. Terrible thing to have.

mh

 

[General_W]

Axissymmetricalphobia.... now I need to find a way to start working this into everyday conversation around the office here...

 

[Krill]

I'd advise the team that an islands map is an easy map to screw up balance on (as is continents like). If there are only going to be 5 teams in this game, and each civ gets it's own island, it's possible to not get contact with 2 teams until caravels come around, making diplomacy a little boring. And on a continents map, with only 5 teams the split is either 3/2, 4/1 (with some team all on their lonesome, it doesn't make for good diplo so Sullla probably wouldn't do that) or 2/2/1 (again unlikely with a good map maker).

I'd suggest a pangaea type map that allows contact between all of the teams would be the fairest, with the added advantage that with 4 other teams to interact with, diplomacy is a lot more fun (border treaties, tech exchanges, alliances, warfare etc) and easier to do. Navies still have their place in the game, as so few people every expect you to send 3 galleys with 6 HA on them around to flank them, and you still have to defend from teams trying to pillage your sea food.

Personally I don't mind either of the global highlands (though I prefer less clustered and fewer peaks) or a good snakey continents game, but the other options for smaller demogames don't play out that well. Which means that my choices will be (though may be changed before final deadline if someone can can convince me ):

1. Donut (with grassland interior for extra yummy space to grow into, I trust Sulla to make such a map very interesting, as you can have land borders with 4 other teams to defend against :b: )
2. Snakey continents
3. Pangaea

 

[azzaman333]

I trust Sullla is a good enough map maker to make something interesting and exciting anyway.

 

[Krill]

Again, you guys were ahead of me here on this issue. For purposes of fairness, here's the post that's gone into the other team forums:

Now for the other major question I need from each team: what kind of map do you want? I'm going to provide some general maps scripts, which will serve as a basis for the customized map that will follow. What I want your team to do is let me know what kind of map you'd like to see for this game. Here are five general options to think about:

Wheel: One of the better Multiplayer maps for this sort of game, and a very "fair" map, with equal territory for all civs and access to each team. May be too unnatural for some teams' tastes. Also on the small side.

It's quite unnatural which I always find distasteful for no apparent reason, even if it is balanced. Personally I don;t like it, but that is never a good even reason to condemn the mapscript, though it is enough to not vote for it.

Spoiler :

Donut: A fun script added in the expansion. All the teams start on the outside edge of the donut, with a large region of peaks in the middle. The peaks can also be replaced by water, or standard terrain, if desired. Lots of early contact on this map.

Depending on the terrain in the centre, this can be an awesome map. Peaks in teh centre make this effectively an inland sea/ring mapscript.

I added an extra picture, showing a tiny donut with a filled centre, which is 25 tiles wide and long at the "diameter", which is enough space for 5 teams spread equidistant around the circumference. With torodoidal world wrap navies can be used to boat anyone, you can easily get in contact with every team for lots of diplo fun and even some warmongering. Alliances can shift quite quickly and suprise attacks can happen at any point. It is a very fun game to play, and even if we don;t play this setting in this game I'd suggest everyone that you play a game on it at some point with your friends because it can be a real blast depending on the changing era and civs that you can play on it I'd seriously suggest that people consider this map, and then ask Sullla to overlay the mountains from global highlands over the map to make it more interesting, because it is easier to balance this map and add peaks to it, than balance global highlands with the irregular shapes and still balance the mountain paths.

The fact that it is a regular shape isn't to say that Sullla couldn't add and remove from teh map to make it look and feel different. I'd just hope people could think a little outside the box and see how someone as skilled as Sullla could manipulate ordinary maps such as donut into something more ambitious and entertaining. Truth be told I think that Sulla might use this map script as the starting point if lots of teams chose the pangaea and globular layout (but it'd be a long road to the finish line if I know how dedicated Sullla can be )

Spoiler :

Islands: A map that features lots of water and naval combat. Each team has their own starting island to themselves, which may or may not be what you want. The islands by default are separated by ocean, but they can be bridged by turning on the "tiny islands" setting.

No Tiny Islands

Various Tiny Islands

What can I say other than diplomacy will be quite slow in an already slow game, unless Sullla does something along the lines of making extra islands to colonize that link the islands together. Still makes for slow warfare though, and isn;t that interesting for demogames (been done in another Apolyton DG, and almost everyone said it was a let down).

Spoiler :

Archipelago/Snaky Continents: One of my personal favorites, due to the crazy and unpredictable land forms it spits out. Navies will still be emphasized heavily on this script. Here are three different looks, with different settings:

Now, as stated by Sullla some of these would be balanced so that no one gets their own continent...but the problem with snakey continents is that it can be hard to balance it so that every team has a fair chance of getting contact with one another due to the, well, snakiness of the mapscript. Can be interesting, would require us to use a fin civ to make use of the coastal tiles for gold, probably more peaceful than any other pangaea game because of the relative shortness of hammers.

Spoiler :

Global Highlands: A more interesting take on Pangaea, IMO. The peaks make for all sorts of wacky geographical formations, and interesting decisions on where to settle. Lots of customization options in the settings too. The latter two pictures explore some of the peak options.

A good map, with choke points to ease defense, suggests a land grab in the early game (I really would try to get Catherine, grab what land we could and then hide on hill cities with walls and castles with a few longbows trying to bait people into attacking us...). Hammer intensive, scarce food, and some very irregular shapes, and unless you use ridgelines and dense peaks you rarely see the mountain chains. Also slightly larger than the corresponding map size (ie small on GH is larger than small on pangaea for example).

Spoiler :

Now what I would like from each team is to discuss and agree on a ranking of your three top preferences. This doesn't mean that you'll necessarily get the script that you picked first, but I will take into account what kind of map each team wanted. For example, if your team was dead-set on an Islands map, I'll lean more towards the naval ones in the overall decision. You can also simply say, "we trust the map maker, come up with a mystery game that looks awesome" as I know a couple of teams have suggested. If that's the general team feeling, you can skip this discussion entirely.

Once again, I'm asking each team to come to a decision on their top three map preferences by Wednesday, November 19th of next week. At that point, I'll see what each team decided and do my best to come up with something agreeable to everyone (although that may be impossible...) Thanks for your input, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

* * * * *

Can I assume from your previous posts in this thread that your team is OK with me designing the map as I see fit? Because that would make things easier for me, to say the least!

so long as you give us a nice start and an easy neighbour to kill I'd be happy. Though I'd prefer it if we new what sort of map we were looking at playing on (pangaea, islands, snakey continents/archipelago) before picking our civ and leader.

 

[Sullla]

I'm going to put Team 3 down for the "customized mystery map" option, since there seems to be an overwhelming amount of support for it. And I'll try to keep in mind the lengthy list of suggestions provided by Krill.