MP: ComfortZone - All MA Nations - Running

[JimMorrison]

Okay, as I really dislike that map (it's pretty and all - for an SP map) for the same reasons I dislike many maps; it is actually really awful for aquatics.

So as I promised you Cleveland, here are 4 examples of my efforts with the generator last night, let's see if I can figure out how to get the images to display properly, I seem to remember it's more complicated than it needs to be.....

[Valerius]

Thanks Cleveland, the map looks good to me.

[JimMorrison]

Okay, well that worked just fine! \/

Anyway, if there is any support for a change here (I think the one with the 2 lakes is fairest for water and land, and they are split perfectly for 1 aquatic in the small lake, and 2 in the large), then I will do up a quick job of fixing terrains, neighbors, and potential start locations, and post the completed file for mass consumption.

I ran the mapgen 30x last night, don't you want to sample my luscious fruits?

[DonCorazon]

i vote to stick with Cleveland's map

[Mithras]

Fallacy looks good to me, I'll just have to hope I'm not in the middle lake. I agree with Jim in that it forces conflict in the water, but thats what I want apparently, so looks ok for me

[Xietor]

Fallacy map sucks for water races? Ryleh likely was one of the top 3 powers in Fallacy. He started in the right hand side, made peace with Oceania(middle water) and Oceania and Atlantis fought in water. Ryleh went ashore and took large chunks of land on the Northern Continent.

I think your have tunnel vision if you think the water races are limted to water, or that the map should give them a huge water area so that they have no need to come ashore.

I actually favor Making the water races come ashore if they want to be a major factor in the game, and not giving them a huge water area where they can sit and build tons of forts and clam until the endgame.

[Valerius]

Hi Jim. I agree that water nations have a tougher position with the Fallacy map but I think water nations are just kind of problematic. With 3 water nations in the game you can win 1 or 2 wars and then just camp out the rest of the game, clamming and researching in relative security. This makes me lean towards making it tougher, not easier, for water nations. I also vote to stick with Cleveland's version of Fallacy (though I agree map 2 looks nice).

[JimMorrison]

Nonsense, Xietor.

The problem has multiple facets, with long strung out waterways.

First, it doesn't "force" underwater conflict, as you show with the strongest power out of the water being the one that made peace in the water. Also, it severely limits underwater mobility, so those early aquatic wars become brute force tug-of-wars in narrow channels. With more solid water terrain, raiding and other tactics become viable, beyond just "my army must beat his army in province X, if it does I win the war, if it doesn't I lose".


But beyond that, I have 2 major complaints with the long skinny stretches of water, and I think they become the 2 primary reasons that water nations rarely win games, beyond considerations of the national capabilities -

First: While aquatics can (and should) get onto land early in the game to get a foothold, they still produce most of their elite forces underwater. Your coastal castles can build "something useful" usually, and your inland castles make nothing but indie troops. The severe lack in most maps of adequate places to put decent underwater castles (most spots have 2-3 neighbors), puts a severe limit on production of a nation's best troops (such as Icthycentaurs, or Shamblers of the Deep - let alone 40ish resource Basalt Pillars). Ironic that you used R'lyeh as your example, again, as most people rely on lobos and Illithids, which only require 1 resource apiece.

Second: The logistics of Dominion spread force aquatic nations to struggle to not be Dom killed, let alone to propagate their own beneficial Dominion just for the benefits that they spent design points on.


In my opinion, Glory is bad enough for aquatics, but this Fallacy map is even worse.

[Xietor]

None of the 3 water races had dominion issues in Fallacy. I agree that can be a concern in a cradles of dominion map. But this map is not that.

And it was a Bit## for me to go in and dig out the Ryleh fort by fort, and that was using crumble every single time. He had a fort in every water province. You can imagine the nightmare if he had 45 underwater provinces with a fort in every single one!

And even with a clam nerf in Fallacy(cost more to make), I think Ryleh had a substantial clam income. You have no mods here, so clamming is an even bigger concern on a large map with the underwater nations.

Atlantis was alive as well at the end of Fallacy, but he lost a war with the Ryleh(after Ryleh had his clams and communions going). In fact ryleh crushed both Atlantis and Caelum at the same time. And both of those nations had won earlier wars.

So you are not going to hear anyone crying a river for how tough the Ryleh have it. They are easily a top 2 or 3 race in the middle era.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Xietor

So you are not going to hear anyone crying a river for how tough the Ryleh have it. They are easily a top 2 or 3 race in the middle era.

I already agreed that R'lyeh is the least hurt by the "decentralized lands" problem. I have not played MA Oceania, but I know that R'lyeh not only gets useful 1 resource troops in water, but their coastal castles have better recruits than Atlantis.

Just to clarify, I am not playing R'lyeh, so they are not my major balancing concern in the map. I'm playing Atlantis, which has some severe economic issues with spread out provinces, and whose coastal provinces only make Atlantian Light Infantry, which suuuuuuck so badly. Looking at Oceania, they will suffer even worse underwater when starved for resources, but I can't comment on their coastal recruits - though I am reasonably sure they are getting the worst of the deal.

While I agree that it's possible to turtle up underwater, and clam or whatever, it rarely seems to win the game - it only should if the rest of the world is either lazy, or deadlocked, otherwise once a land nation gets a strong advantage and leverages it, the aquatic nation with all those clams will likely be SOL by the time they realize they are actually losing.