New Kinda Noob game Starting

[Ragnars Wolves]

I don't know how to change the Heading and get the word starting out of there

[attackdrone]

Also, with Oceania in the game we should ensure they do not start in one of the sea provinces which is only adjacent to two others (or the horrible tiny corner sea) as this would be crippling. This can easily be done by adding a "No Start" flag to the provinces in question.

Likewise most (though not all) of the map edge provinces should be flagged as "No Start." A capital adjacent to only two other provinces would cause me to despair. Personally I would recommend balancing out exactly as many available starting provinces as the number of players to ensure even distribution throughout the map.

This would be trivial to do.

As for the center island - I suspect it will be split between several players.

[Finalgenesis]

Corresponding the center island provinces can have the "many sites" flag taken out to make fixed start positioning much easier.

[attackdrone]

With three routes to the center island, the best I can do is place 6 of 8 land nations equally close to the ports. The other two start positions will be inferior. Therefore, I second the call to modify the map to remove the center island's "Many Sites" status.

[Kobal2]

I'm ambivalent. On the one hand, it removes the whole gimmick of the map, and starting on the island is a tough proposition without the gem boost to fend off 3+ opponents at once. On the other hand, I really have no idea how much of a difference "Many Sites" make, or whether it would shift the balance the other way round and make the central nation(s) roll over everyone else easily.

[attackdrone]

Normally, each player would have two land neighbors, plus one more if they are one of the players on the island.

X-X-X
|.....|
X....X
|.....|
X-X-X

Opening up the island as a start position for two people results in each player having three land neighbors (the usual two plus one on the island) with each island player having three neighbors as well.

X-\../-X
|...X...|
X-..|.-X
|...X...|
X_/.\_X

The second diagram is not completely correct, but it is fairly close.

[mscfish]

I'd like to join as OCE.

：）

[attackdrone]

I have the map 98% done, so I just need to double check for errors and make sure all of the starting positions are balanced.

The changes:
A: The center island no longer has the "Many Sites" modifier.
B: Eight land and one sea starting position have been added.
C: It is unlikely that the island player will take the entire island at the start and become neighbors with six players, they'll likely have 3-4 neighbors. But if they do extremely well, they get 6 neighbors as a reward!

My criteria for the starting positions are as follows:

A: Each start has at least 4 territories between it and another starting position (Excluding the water start).

B: Each start is adjacent to at least four territories, with the following ratio:
4 adj. territories = 2 farmland + 2 forest/mountain
5 adj. territories = 1 farmland + whatever else
6 adj. territories = does not need to be adjacent to farmland.
(The water start gets four adjacent sea territories, no tiny corner sea for you!)

Edit: Here it is, the map uses the regular image file. Land of Legends: Multiplayer. Two lucky players start with only three territories between them, but each has their capital adjacent to a large farmland province. Seems all right to me.

[attackdrone]

CBM 1.71 is released! This merges in the EDM among others (Armor Rebalance being a major one).

Buffs to EA Agartha (better provincial defense, slight heat preference), EA Arcoscephale + Abysia (Armor Rebalance means their troops have much less encumbrance, Arcos. Myrmidons are now 7 instead of 10, and Abysia sacred troops are 4 instead of 6 for example), and EA Ulm (their shamans now have a chance to get Astral magic).

Sounds good to me!

Edit: Other highlights:
-Sanguine Dousing Rods, Jade Knives, and Dwarven Hammers are now unique.
-Ring of Earth added: E4Const6, Misc slot, +1 Earth.
-Titans are less useless

[Finalgenesis]

Thanks to attackdrone for the ichy map stuff, the criteria looks good.

I'd vote to stick with CBM 1.6 + EDM 1.1 for this game and wait for CBM 1.7 to shake out a bit more first, there seems to be fairly drastic changes. We could consider throwing in the armour revamp mod on top. Otherwise if folks want to try 1.7 I'd cringe but will go along (Oh Noz big changes! Panic!). Though Agartha for sure could use the very interesting auto-darkness buff on pd

On the other hand, more good news, I heard from qm in irc that a newer CBM 1.7 with heavy nation rebalancing is being worked on.