Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

@ Hoplosternum: Awesome -- thanks for the answer and the feedback. Much appreciated.

Yes, I see what you mean about fixed starts being problematic (and tempting for prescient rushes or overland spells aimed directly at distant capitals) -- I love it for thematic value, but it's limited.

And I definitely see what you mean about bad start locations as well. I'm actually ailing in one of my test games about my set start location for Caelum because of its modest resource availability.

I will definitely make at least two versions -- one with the fixed thematic starts, and one without.

@ chrispederson: I would love to help with the map, but afraid I'm of little-to-no skill in the artistic department, myself. I don't know if I'd be any help shading regions, but I'd be happy to help out and contribute where I can.

@ Ballbarian: Thank you as well for the advice. I had been wondering about those things -- that makes things a lot clearer.

So, to be clear, if I set, say, 60 provinces to #start, it will pick randomly among those? Or will it, say, randomly assign players to the first 24 (or whatever number given the age and game layout) of them? If the former is true, that definitely seems superior to simply marking the worst ones #nostart.

And the fact that liberal sprinkling of #nostart provinces interferes with SR's fiddling only makes using #start instead of #nostart that much more preferable. (Plus marking 60 or 70 provinces is much less work than marking 500+ provinces.)



@ all
Thanks again for the feedback. I'll get to work on it shortly.

Again, to make it clear, I welcome opinion feedback on the names and the "flavor" of naming schemes. If you feel something is kinda stupid, please let me know. Naming all of them was mind-numbing, and it's probably certain that I came up with some less-desirable names...

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Having started some games, I have spotted one great imbalance in the startpos, that is Ulm starting all alone in the southeast corner, I was able to have a huge empire with no effort, the AI tien Chi on mighty can't hold the pace (but Ulm is a strong expander). I suggest putting someone north of their startpos. As is, they do a strong AI, but no luck for ulm's fans.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Thanks for the feedback, Humakty. Yeah, I think I definitely gave Ulm too much space, and poor C'tis has a hard time of it with where I put it.

Caelum, for its matter, has some breathing space, but its location ensures it'll never get more than 6 or 7 of its sacreds per turn without high production scales because of poor resource availability. I was thinking of plopping Caelum where I currently have Ulm (keeping them away, from the most part, from the early rush nations).

I was wanting to isolate that awful Hinnom in the corner, but would it be cruel to put it where Marverni is close enough to be eaten in an early rush? Any advice from anyone on a good spot to place Hinnom for a thematic map layout that minimizes rush bait for them?

I'm currently switching things around and setting up a second map for random start locs.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

I don't see how it matters if Caelum can make its sacreds, since I don't think anyone uses them in a competitive setting. And yes, it would be ridiculous to put Marverni anywhere near Hinnom/Niefel/Mictlan/Lanka/anyone. If not played by a god (Micah/Baalz/few others), Marverni is doomed.

Edit: haha, sitting 5 feet away and posting the same thing at the same time :D

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

one question: why does it matter how many sacreds Caelum makes per turn, they're hardly ever built. no flying. their bless only matters for their EK's

Edit: lol ninja'd

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Ooooookay! Nix that bit about Caelum. Bad temple guards. I spit on them. Pteu!

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Alright. I've posted version G5, which now includes a version of the file with no fixed starts. Instead, it has about 35 or so provinces set as #start.

For the fixed-start version, a few nations have been moved around and/or the start locs adjusted; check the image for the changes.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Something I didn't really notice until now, but putting Fomoria on an island might not be a good idea. Sure they can use their sailing to get to a few provinces, but they'll be stuck with the small amount of resources that they start with. I think you'll either have to move them, or jack up the resources on the island a lot, which has its own balance worries.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

And they also have three capital only mages. Only one of which has sailing I believe. Sure you ideally want to just recruit a King a turn in your capital. But the Nemedian Champion especially is a good commander choice if you are saving cash for a fort say (Good command limits, stealthy, sacred).

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Thanks for pointing that out, Trumanator. I've been trying to be careful for resource production balance for those nations that rely on high-resource, cap-only units, but hadn't noticed it in regard to Fomoria. That is a problem.

Moving Fomoria to another location is an unappealing idea because, thematically, its location works well, and I have a nice tight fit there with thematically-related nations (Tir na n'Og, Sauromatia, and to a lesser extent the 'heims). Technically as well, it works there (Fomoria requires a coastal province, and the amphib Fomorian Giants allow a nice edge in quickly getting into the water provinces distant from the water nations, expanding its breathing space before strictly needing to war on a neighbor to expand). To move Fomoria would involve a lot of shifting around and complications. Aside from resource production, it seems to be a good fit ("seems" being the functional word, of course).

That said, it would be preferable if the insufficiency could be fixed with one of two adjustments (or some combination of both):

(1) Changing some or all of the Fomoria provinces to pure Mountain and/or forest where the map graphics allow an arguable interpretation that way.

One thing I had tried to do to keep the island itself from slowing movement for Fomoria (what with its lack of forest/mountain survival on its troops) was to keep the four hill provinces on it set as "border mountain." Pure "mountain" would give more resources, and there's another that could be classified as forest, but that means that Fomoria will have to go through its home territories at 1 province per turn, slowing movement to and from the home provinces considerably.

As it stands, Fomoria is sitting on top of an island it can move at full rate through with the exception of one forest province (North Fomoria, 314). If I change two of its provinces to pure mountain (Fomoria 289 and East Fomoria 273), and switch one (West Fomoria 265) to forest, it improves the resources a bit, but still not enough to produce more than 9 unmarked and an unmarked champion or Fomorian King (about 260-280 resources with neutral production scales).

It's a slightly better trade-off in terms of resource production, but, absent some good luck (iron mine site or something like that), there's still an effective cap of 9.

(2) The sledgehammer-subtlety method: hard-coding into the map an iron mine in Fomoria's home province.

This one is fairly self-explanatory, though you raised the potential problem of this being imbalancing. Could you explain how exactly this would be imbalancing if used to alleviate Fomoria's below-average resource availability?


So, that said, what would you suggest as the best option to make it workable without introducing imbalances? Would making two or three of the provinces into outright mountain (not border-mountain) provinces be sufficient? (Switching two of them brought resources up to 260-280 with all surrounding provinces contributing.) If not, would it be too bad of an idea to program into the map, say, a 60-resource iron mine, in Fomoria's capital, to account for the below-average resource availability of its position? (Or, in the alternative, only switching one or two provinces to mountain and using a 100-resource Great Iron Mine, or even two mines.)

Finally, for comparison and in case anyone sees a potential problem in here for any nation (either the listed nation or its successor nations in MA or LA), here is a sampling from one quick test of what each nation got in its home provinces for resource production with all surrounding provinces taken (with production added from fortuitous production-boosting sites subtracted from each nation's total):

Arcoscephale: 378
Ermor: 271
Ulm: 338
Marverni: 326
Sauromatia: 225
Tien Ch'i: 246
Mictlan: 371
Abysia: 276 (income woefully low -- may want to add gold mine to balance low-pop desert provinces?)
Caelum: 216
C'tis: 314
Pangaea: 212 (problematic in MA?)
Agartha: 194 (this is also problematic, as it caps seal guard production at 5 -- Agartha's pos probably needs some fixing as well)
Tir na n'Og: 353
Fomoria: 276 (with 2 motion-limiting mountain territories instead of border-mountain, and with the southern province set to forest/farm instead of just farm)
Vanheim: 239
Niefelheim: 236
Kailasa: 271
Yomi: 254
Hinnom: 266
Atlantis: 154 (living pillars capped at 2-3, maybe 4 with better rolls, but that's as good as it's going to get
in deep sea as far as I understand)
R'lyeh: 172
Oceania: 234
Lanka: a whopping 434 -- go figure (Pangaea and Lanka could be swapped pretty easily without breaking thematic consistency, if anyone thinks that would be a good idea -- both are in position to be Hinnom's first meal)

(And anyway, Lanka's supremacy can be reasoned as follows: they're too busy climbing them to chop them down, so there are a whole lot of trees. Compare with Ulm: they've got all these forest warriors chopping them down, putting bits of metal on them and throwing them at people.)


Any advice would be appreciated. :)

And thanks again for spotting that, Trumanator.