MP: NewbsWithLowSelfEsteem - Year 8: A Dance with Illithids

[Hylobius]

I'll try MA Vanheim for a change. These guys give me fits when I meet up with them so maybe I'll find some weaknesses by playing them.

The quicker the turn around for the early turns the better for me. Also I'd be happy to wait for a stable patch or use an older mod.

Not sure what to suggest for a map.

[iRFNA]

Well, cradle of dominion would work for 15 players, but it still seems on the rather low end of the water:land ratio. Galadia has quite a bit of water, and would work well with 14-15 players. Of course, I think I'd kill a couple connections between harbors on galadia so it operates via the cradle of dominion harbor rule (harbors connected only if they share an adjacent water prov).

Anyway, I'm kinda leaning toward galadia since I was hoping to use a wraparound map, makes it harder to turtle. However, with 177 land provs and 40 water provs, it'd be pretty ridiculous if we only have one water player.. I think. I'm not too sure on exactly how the land vs water thing is typically balanced, but having one nation with an advantage in a fifth of the provs seems iffy. On the other hand, it really lets nations abuse sailing, especially with the choke points formed by the harbors, which I think is cool.

edit: I've taken the liberty of implementing the fixes done with galadia 1.1 and the starting locs only with 3+ adjacent provs (of the same type, so land needs at least 3 adjacent land and water needs at least 3 adjacent water). I also fixed what TheConway mentions in the last post of the thread, and checked all coasts for any other problems.

[Samhain]

In that case, I'll take Fomoria. As for hosting preferences, I like 24 hour quickhost to start. Once we start really locking horns, so to speak, 48 hours with quickhost off seems to work well.

[iRFNA]

Well, I probably won't drop below 36, just due to all the timezone confusion and people having things to do. But I would be ok with a 36 hour quickhost for starting, until some undetermined point of time. Also since we've got someone sorta amphibious and it helps me drop the player count to 14, I'm gonna switch to galadia unless there are objections.

You can check out my altered version of the map on the first post. I had to change the image cause one of the docks had become obsolete. If you see anything dumb or wrong, post it!

[Finalgenesis]

Some input and past experience on maps in regard to land/water ratio:

Crown5 has 245 provs total, 17 of which is water. the map averages 15 provs per player with 16 players. While it seems a lone water nation gets 17 water all to itself, but since your version has no river connection, a lone water nation can be looking at 5 water provinces at most if he's lucky enough to spawn in the middle pond, or sitting in a lone or 2 water prov pond if unlucky which pretty much means it's doomed, though more likely in a 3 water provs pond, which isn't much better. having only 1-5 water provinces realistically to start in is a huge handicap, a lone water nation should be fine there, fixed start in the 5 provs pond is also a good idea to prevent a 1-3 prov pond start. Oh, last I checked it was wrapparound. This would be a challenge map for water nation (with river connections removed).

Galadia has around 13.5 provs per player for 16 players, with 40 water provs, I'd say 2 water nations is too little, 3 water nations would be preferable, which was the case in a MP I was in, with UW mod enabled. 2 Water nations would be conceivable I suppose.

Cradle of dominion as you say has no wrapparound (I do like wrapparound), for a lone water nation with 15 ppl it is quite good though, you get quite a good swath of water to yourself, but being squeezed in the middle results in heavy dom invasion even if you temple up with high dom and allows being ganked geographically (both I had ran into in past MP games in this map with water nations), a pretty good balance I'd say.

CBM 1.81 also enables some UW mod spells, which mitigates the water nation entrenchment problem by quite some bit, as UW combat penalty can be negated (I recall a bonus to non-water troops fighting underwater with the spell too, I'll have to check to make sure) via battlefield spell, and also a vine ancient that can be cast into the water to create a cheap leader with magic leadership (kind of as an enabling water pd for land nation if I understand correctly). I should boot up 1.81 cbm and take a look...

[iRFNA]

Well, with galadia, I'd prefer to do 14 (maybe 15) people to go for that 15 prov to player ratio. Since both MA ermor and EA fomoria have limited underwater capabilities, I'm sorta hoping for another underwater nation to step up to make everything roughly balanced. I've looked over some of the UW spells, and I guess they may make it easier to raid into the sea, but I dunno.

[Finalgenesis]

I certainly won't complain with 2 water nations for galadia .

[iRFNA]

Haha, I'd imagine not. Maybe we'll get 3 or 4, wouldn't that be nice.

[iRFNA]

Ok, I've considered how the water prov to water nation ratio should be, and I believe that you're right, finalgenesis. 2 or less water nations on galadia will be pretty unbalanced, so I think we're going to have to use cradle of dominion if there are under 3 water nations. As much as I'd love to use a wrap-around map, it's not worth it if it unbalances the game.

[Finalgenesis]

If wrapparound is a big consideration (I'm a fan myself, though cradle is a very solid map despite no wrapparound and is one of my fav map), enabling river connection for Crown5 should do as well, water nation would face the same pro/con as cradle from my brief glance at the map, pro being 17 water provs (pretty good!) but con being squeezed in the middle of everything on all sides with the same land dom invasion and geographic issues, I imagine a water nation in crown5 will play similar to Cradle (promotes heavy diplo, info broker, mercenary type of play, don't turtle or get dom stomped, just my style!).

On the other hand, if you prefer not to have water at all I'd be happy to accommodate too.