Allegiances 2 (Large,Team-Based Game, PLAYING)

[archaeolept]

well, little water would help no doubt, especially as there is one land nation that is also amphib(agartha). i'm sure we wouldn't have any problem like this w/ just the odd sprinkling of a one province lake here or there.

you could just set that whole lake to plains even - anything so we have vaguely open axes of advance like the other nations. This has the added advantage of making the game more diplomatic, as more nations can conflict w/ a greater number of opponents. As is, it is set up as a pure grudge match helheim vs. agartha and caelum.

[Thrawn]

Dr. P, are you okay with removing the sea, and replacing with land? This seems like the easiest solution, to make the starting situation more fair for Arch.

[DrPraetorious]

I fail to find any of these arguments convincing, but I don't expect to convince you - however,
1) By the mathematical measures I used they are quite fair (except, again, Cyan, which is several provinces of screwed).
2) If you objected to 10 water provinces / 0 water players you could have said so when I was configuring the map, I left commentary open for an entire week and I think I was being pretty explicit about what I was planning.

I, for one, am perfectly willing to oblige you if that's what it takes to move the game forward.

If we're restarting anyway, I could easily:
1) Move the two black start locations so that they are on the same north-south latitude.
2) Change some border mountains in the southwest to regular mountains, connect them.
3) Add some sea lanes going up and down the coast so that black can reach green and/or blue more easily.

Does anyone *object* if I do any/all of this?

If there's anyone else who thinks that the black start location is not salvageable, speak up now and I'll just make another map.

[archaeolept]

the proper mathematical measure would be amount of possible axes of advance ... ie. a combinatoric measure of the total number of shortest possible paths to, say, 5 provinces out. That would be the measure that would indicate how constrained a start is, or, conversely, how open the geographic situation. The number of possible paths will be much much less for black than for other teams.

the other measures are simple strategic ones. The situation is too narrow for both allies to support each other going one way or the other. i don't believe that is the case for anyone else. As well, the other simple strategic measure is the two vs 1 nature of the southern front. the mathematics on that one are simple enough to do on one hand, even after a gruesome industrial accident.