EA Game Strolling, part 2 - send in pretenders

[johnarryn]

They are indeed random... however, you fail to notice a few things... there are little anchor provinces that actually connect many provinces... thus, the persons in (85) and (100) can, should and will soon have access to the southern provinces... you are correct that person in the NE has a good space of empty land underneath them, but such is the luck of the draw. Unless there is overwhelming discord in terms of starting positions, I am loath to reset, as it takes time and there is little chance that everyone will be satisfied with new positions.

[chrispedersen]

I didn't fail to notice. However, if you just do a simple race to strategic borders expansion, the disparity is huge.

Two player 27s
One player 24
One player 22
Two player 18
One player 15
One player 12
Two player 10
One player 9
One player 7

In other words, if each player moves to secure chokepoints that allows him to expand in the maximum number of territories (sure, lots of assumptions) - the disparity is ridiculous.

Try it out.. color one territory a turn for each race. One person from each of the NE and NW continents needs to be moved to the south.

[llamabeast]

I let Dominions place the starting positions. It's true that it doesn't always do a very good job.

This thing about the VPs is very strange. I just used the ordinary Cradle map. I will try to take a look later. Maybe someone could post a screenshot of the weirdness.

[johnarryn]

As llama says, the computer generally picks the starting positions, and there will always be some imbalance. chrispedersen is obviously very concerned about the more crowded northern positions, particularly given the possibility of a bless rush.

So, while I would like to continue, I am ok with starting over again... but i'm not sure how much that will accomplish without:
a) A lot of work on llamabeast's part in designating 12 "balanced" starting positions
and/or
b) Getting rid of VP's so that starting positions are not immediately obvious. We cold also make vp's randomly placed... but then once again run into the problem of the game ending very early.

Thoughts? My vote is to continue. Turns are still due as this debate goes on, btw.

[Kadelake]

I vote to continue, the starting position is always going to be more or less imbalanced. The terrain isn't the same all over the map and there are large areas with swamp and wasteland that isn't very valuable.

Personally I don't like my starting position, on the other hand I was really lucky with my position last time so I guess it evens out.

[johnarryn]

chris has informed me he will be leaving the game. I will look for a replacement.

[chrispedersen]

Good luck guys!

I don't mind a minor imbalance, it is normal part of playing the game. However in this case the course of the game will likely be dictated by the starting conditions rather than skill, luck or the clash of titans.

In this particular case, three players have ready access to half of the territories, with the remaining 9 sharing half.

I had really looked forward to playing this game, and am quite disappointed. I think it would be illustrative if the people that did not want to change the positions would say which their positions were.

[johnarryn]

Gregstrom will now be playing Lanka.

[Wrana]

I'm also getting it (attached, edited only to remove reference to my province number)...

[Herode]

Looks like TC is already going to stale... ^^