MP Game - Cradle/Snurgle

[YellowCactus]

Word-Up Mr. Pirate!
I've got pirate tendancies as well, so don't feel bad!
Yc

[Stormbinder]

Greetings all.

I will ressurect this thread for you to ask you a question.


Now that you have played it for some time, what do you think about Zen's Cradle map? Is this edition well suited for MP? Do you like it? Does Caelum stil have large advantage over other races even after Zen's modifications, or was it mostly fixed with this edition?


I am thinking of using Zen's Cradle for my next game. However since I haven't played it myself yet in MP, I would be interested to know your opinions about it. Norfleet do not need to bother to post, since I know his opinion already. What other players think?

[ July 30, 2004, 20:02: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[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.

[Pirateiam]

Yeah sorry the winds were not cooperating so I did not get back to land until 2 hours after the deadline. The weather was just too nice to pass up on sailing this weekend. Just as well for Cohen (Abysia) since I missed my chance to kill his pretendar.