FreshMeat - EA Newbie - (RUNNING)

[effeDom]

im adding you both, game is at 13 players, and closing it up, hows that for anyone else? hope no qualms with 1 extra

ive sent a request to llama to host the game. once he does ill see what i have to do as setup goes, and then you can all go to www.llamaserver.net and click on the FreshMeat game and check it, read the llamaserver FAQ to see how to send in your pretenders and all that, its here on the forum.

actually, heres the link, for convenience
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...o=&fpart=&vc=1

final issue is that the map still needs to be decided on...
i just looked more closely at parganos and i have one issue with it...the entire eastern plain area bordered by those mountain chains to the north and forest to south is wastes, i think i counted 11 provinces all next toeachother, all wastes....
if anyone lands there, they are going to automatically die i think....
i have 2 solutions to that unless i am wrong about the "landing in wastes and youre screwed" concept.
1) i have a good random map i use in SP (well, have started 2 games with it that havent yet finished hehe), its 200 provinces even, with small amount of water mostly land and well placed borders with mountains. lots of good chokepoints, ample farmland (i turned all swamps into farmland instead of swamps), and a good assortment all over the map of "extra sites" provinces and "large" provinces.
ive put it up as an attachment to the first post for whomever wants to look at it.

2) we just use cradle as previously planned, which i think is easier, though it will give us roughly 17 provinces per player with 13 players (the 200 prov random map gives us 15.x something per player, so its a medium map).

i dont care either way id rather that we get 6 or 7 people to look at the random map, and post their vote real quick and make the decision that way.

EDIT x2: ok i cant see where to add an attachment so, that idea is scrapped until someone can tell me .... or we just play on cradle....(unless that parganos really isnt a problem with the wastes area)

[Renojustin]

I'm up for Cradle now, or whatever the game organizer decides. I have had one or two small problems with neighbor connectivity before, but I've always liked the pure randomness of capital placement in random maps, just seemed to make it a lot spicier. But I liked your point on the openness of random maps, too. As long as it's not Glory of Gods; man that map is just pure crap! No mobility whatsoever. Cradle looks pretty fun to me.

50 sounds good for magic sites, too. Really it's the 7 indy strength that concerns me the most. That's a 40% increase from default, and can change a lot of things.

Other than that, I have no concerns. Er, llamaserver is PBEM isn't it? We could possibly get Gandalf Parker to host a network game on his server; it's sooo much easier and friendlier...

[effeDom]

Renojustin said:
I've been wanting to give Mictlan a try... with the additional caveat that I'd really prefer playing on a medium random map and default settings, like 5 for indy strength. Is there any reason why this is the chosen map? Also, is there any reason why you have pushed indy strength to 7? That can throw a lot of things out of balance! Improved indy strength is fun for SP but it can really hurt MP, in my opinion.

And the same goes for the 55 site frequency... this places a lot of emphasis on magic, so bless nations and nations with powerful troops, or even nations without a lot of magic diversity will be thrown very much out of whack. Failing changing things to default, could we at least have your reasons for doing so? It doesn't look good in the Hall of Honor when you have to put asterisks next to your win!

hi Renojustin
a few answers...
first of all, i just personally thought it'd be a bit slower and more challenging to learn better with indy at 7. i play SP with indy at 7 or 8 usually, from what i see it just makes you chose carefully which provinces you expand to, sometimes forcing you also to not expand one turn because you have to go back a province to attack another side, having come up against an elephant wall or heavy cavalry or something. also considering the map is big for only 12 players if we fill it up (i usually play SP with all nations on cradle), i think its better with higher indy making it not so easy to just wipe out every single indy prov.
the difference is small though. maybe im even screwing myself by this because i think i will start with a sleeping or dormant pretender, while SC pretenders can probably do pretty good just wiping through even at 7.

the reason for a pre-packaged map, as well as not having any mods, is for simplicity. this is a newbie game. i dont want to even have to expect anyone to know how to install a mod or map, much less distribute one. next game i probably will. for now i just want to play an MP, i havent done one yet so am looking for similar players who just want to learn a new nation, learn MP, or, well, in general...learn something.

secondly, this game wont go into hall of fame. its a newbie game, once again.

magic sites at 55. i changed it down to 50. personally, I see a very rare difference, and i tend to play SP with over 60, usually 70. then again I guess I do tend to have pretty good gem income with lots of extra gems but then again, i dont know how to use them up either hehe
so 50 will be fine, make gems more rare, though personally i like having lots of magic flying around

renojustin: all this being said i dont konw if you fit so well in this game? let me know, but it will be boring for you if youre at the advanced stage to be querying this kind of stuff, i think. i dunno. you have to decide. this wont be a high end "discuss every turn" etc type of game, its just going to be a fun romp through an MP on a standard map. learn a new nation, learn how to play against other players, etc.
and have fun

[Renojustin]

It sounds fun, but sort of randomly tweaking the settings more toward your SP experience has completely unforseen results, for most anyway. Which means that people who are a little more advanced will see things coming that others won't, and I really don't like to have an advantage. But I guess I can live with it, lol. Anyway it seems like you've put at least a bit o' thought into it.

Be advised that that map is ENORMOUS for twelve players, as well. Really the simpler thing would be to go for the medium random, but it's your show, your call!

And every completed MP game goes toward the Hall of Honors.

Looking forward to the game! I've only had one SP game with Mictlan, but I did like them. I'm dreading the micromanagement with a large map like this, though. Turns are going to be taking hours by the third year.

[Ubercat]

Random maps tend to be a crapshoot. I've seen some awesome starting positions vs. some really crappy ones on random maps. The chosen map is probably one of the best balanced in the game. If it's too big, perhaps the game could be upped to 13-14 players.

[Ossa]

Sign me up as Helheim plz!

[Executor]

Just one question is it still without no mods or are we going with Worthy Heroes, like Bwaha asked, couse I have some really good heroes I count on?

[effeDom]

reno: ya i agree, i think the map is too big, but it is reccommended for around 10 to 12 players, cant remember exact reccommendation but something like that.

id rather go random but random maps tend to suck at connecting neighbors, and the barriers are all too few, typically. plus the terrain tends to suck hehe

i have a few random maps that ive generated and edited myself to be all-around more fair but i opt not to use these as i dont want to get into any nonsense of accusations of unfairness etc. i was thinking of using one of the smaller maps, namely paraganos. i think ill swap it to that if the concensus is that we need a smaller map. its a nice looking map though i havent played on it before, seems to be well made and balanced.

5% more magic sites thing i really dont think will make ANY difference (well, it will, supposedly, add 5% more sites ....5% more sites if the average is 2 sites per province (i think thats probably the rough estimate, no?) means out of 100 provinces=200 sites=10 more sites on 100 provinces.
thats nothing.

mods: i dont know why ppl keep asking....if mods arent listed in the stats thread up top, then obviously they arent gonna be used, i would assume
so no....no mods. once again. keeping it simple.

lets have fun everyone