MP Game - Cradle/Snurgle

[Cainehill]

As I mentioned, I think Zen went too far in clearing up bottlenecks that were part of what made Cradle so grand.

Tweaking the land types was fine, as that gave various armies some use of their strategic movement, but the many added neighbors removes the choke points that were of strategic interest.

In addition, it seems that the map may be _too_ rich now; 14 provinces generating over 1000 gold a turn might be considered high.

Oh Please! One swamp area on the right that had terrain pattern of swamp/forest that noone, except for fliers (Hello Caelum) could move more than one province a turn for 3 consecutive provinces?

Maybe I just don't see the point of having bottlenecks that don't allow some sort of advantage. Also the bottleneck in question has one single province that is the central connection from both sides so a castle there, will limit movement of enemies but still allow people to forward field.

As for the 14 provinces and 1000+ gold, depending on the provinces (if you got one of the sweet areas and all of them were the large ones, near the top and along the right) that should be obtainable. Considering that each patch of 'good high income provinces' is beside a big patch of 'thematic TERRAIN provinces'. So unless you are playing just a few nations on a 200+ nation map and each person controls vast areas of connective land between terrain types, those lands should be a heavy point of contention.

Of course you're entitled to opinion and play preference. But blood nations are no longer crippled and thus allows options that were not able on the previous original Cradle map and this Version of Cradle does not make swamps "something I have to control in order to get to these other good lands and have to slog through unless I have fliers" and instead makes them just as key strategically and economically as others.

Before you decry the adjusted bottlenecks, I'd suggest playing C'tis at/around those swamp areas and see if they are fitting as opposed to "With Pangaea there are not enough bottlenecks because they have Forest Survival"

[ July 31, 2004, 03:04: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Zen:
Oh Please! One swamp area on the right that had terrain pattern of swamp/forest that noone, except for fliers (Hello Caelum) could move more than one province a turn for 3 consecutive provinces?

Zen - clicking around, I spot 3 separate chokepoints that you added neighbors to. There may be others.

As far as the swamps go - that's an issue for Illwinter imo. My feeling is that there are plenty of maps that have few or no bottlenecks, while the original Cradle had a unique play and feel. (Some other new ones have some impassable terrain features, but are, IMO, somewhat illconsidered.)

Now, of course we all still have the original Cradle map, so it's not like I'm saying that you broke the map. But he asked people's opinions of what you'd done. I gave mine. Is there a problem with this?

Of course, I didn't see anything to not like about the original Cradle, aside from the fact that Caelum probably shouldn't be allowed as a nation on it. If blood nations were crippled on it (which is quite possible), well - that and Caelum were in my opinion the only imbalances with the map (once neighbors had been fixed and provinces #nostarted).

And if blood nations were crippled - so much the better, given that the blood nations have such a huge advantage in any magic site poor game.

[Stormbinder]

All right, thank you.


Anybody else could post thier opinion? In particular, I would like to know what you guys think about Caelum on this map - I am thinking if perhaps I should ban that nation from my Zen's Cradle game, in case if it is still overpowered in MP on this map, or it is ok now with Zen's modification to province types and connections between provinces.

Thanks,
Stormbinder

[Norfleet]

Arcoscephale (Frosted Flake) appears to be MIA. 3 hours remain before he stales.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Arcoscephale (Frosted Flake) appears to be MIA. 3 hours remain before he stales.

He's ... flaking out on the weekend?

[Norfleet]

The Pirate appears to be missing again, and looks to have staled his Last turn.

[Stormbinder]

Don't say I didn't warn you guys about this cheater, when you have decided to move to his server.

If it helps, I've heard that there was a free slot on the Mose's server earlier today. Perhaps you could use it for you game, and ask Mose to help you to set up the game so you could continue?

Regards,
Stormbinder

[Maltrease]

The Pain of humans game is ending on mose. So there will be at least 1 additional slot free when Rabulous (sp) ends the game.

[vigabrand]

Don't you think that was a little uncalled for Storm? I don't know his problem, but it doesn't seem typical of Norf to bail on a game, kinda looks like he was doing well.

Vig