[Pocus]

Originally posted by Kristoffer O:
A world map migt be unbalanced, unless you move some nations to other parts of the world (caelum -> himalaya or north america, marignon/vanheim -> north america as colonizers). Perhaps with multiple starting locations it would work out fine.

I will change slightly of subject here :

The more I'm thinking about map making, the more I concur, and not only for an old world map. Designing maps with multiple start locations present at least 2 big advantages :

- you can do big maps but with fast interaction, whereas on the other hand big maps with single location tend to direct the player toward piling on power to have a boring end game.

- you can make wars without the problem of excluding a comrade too soon from a game, because he has lands elsewhere (thats somehow an issue, if people like to play with each other and must wait 6 months before doing so again).

We, at Last, ended our Elric pbem game. The map was rich and large, and I know that we procrastinated too much, stockpiling on weapons of victory . Thus it led to a boring end game (250 magicians total for a given nation, with others having from 200 to 100!!!). The conclusion is perhaps not as it seems first to only play on medium sized map, but to make maps which enable fast interaction, and thats possible on large maps with the aforementioned setting.

Also players should, IMO, not ask for settings above 40% site frequency. Even with this setting, you tend to swim in gems if you are successful in expanding. Anything above that is simply monstrous speaking of magical power. With maps heavily scripted, as the scripts often have added sites, I think it is even better to goes down to 30%.

just some ramble on map making and playing