Corner Starting Positions

Ironhawk · #1 October 29th, 2007, 02:37 PM

So, we all know that players who start in corner positions almost always do better in a game due to the defensible nature of thier capital placement. I had a thought about a way to fix that tho:

Place corner/edge capitals directly in the corner or on the edge of the map.

This would cut down the number of connections thier home province has significantly and act as a balance for the defensive nature of thier placement. So, players in the middle would have high connections and good production at the expense of being located in a vulnerable place. Whereas players on the edges would be very secure but have more trouble producing and fewer avenues of expansion (if they hit hard indys).

What do you think?

Morkilus · #2 October 29th, 2007, 02:45 PM

Sounds like a good idea. I maintain that diplomacy is always much more important than starting position, but a tad more difficult when dealing with 4 or 5 neighbors instead of 2 or 3.

Zylithan · #3 October 29th, 2007, 02:49 PM

Or play on maps without corners

The corner placement will, imo, hurt resource needy races more than gold needy races.

KissBlade · #4 October 29th, 2007, 03:20 PM

Corner placements aren't always advantageous. Keep in mind if your few neighbors are extremely powerful you are effectively cut off from any help or even expansion that you may hope to take.

archaeolept · #5 October 29th, 2007, 04:09 PM

i don't like corner placements personally.

Ironhawk · #6 October 29th, 2007, 04:40 PM

Zylithan, I assume you are proposing the use of wraparound maps. Which is fine, but it sidesteps the issue. There are more static maps than there are wraparound maps and as a result you may not be able to find a wraparound which is the correct size for your planned game and number of players.

Zylithan · #7 October 29th, 2007, 04:48 PM

Ironhawk - you are correct, I was suggesting wraparounds (or things like my 8 gates map, which is not wraparound, but doesnt have corner issues because of gate placement and nostarts)

and you are correct that there arent that many warpped maps now.

Hopefully that will change soon. It's really not hard to make (warpped) maps. I have to think mods are much harder to make and there are so many of those, I'm really surprised to find so few user-made maps. Also, I wonder if someone couldn't start a better database or something for custom maps. I used to play age of wonders a lot, and age of wonders heaven had a really convenient system.

http://aow.heavengames.com/downloads...tart=0&s=r&o=d

I don't know if this is possible, either for Shrapnel people or just regular folks to put together, but it might encourage more people to make maps if there were a better distribution system. I think many people dont go into the maps/mods forum unless they make maps and mods... meaning most users dont see the maps/mods to download. I know some people are hesitant to use mods, but I cant see why not get maps. I mean, shoot, there could be like a new version or patch for dominions that just added maps.

I'm trying to get my PhD this month, so my mapmaking is out of the question, but I'll try to kick out a few more, "normal" maps once I get back in business.

Velusion · #8 October 29th, 2007, 06:26 PM

Quote:

KissBlade said:
Corner placements aren't always advantageous. Keep in mind if your few neighbors are extremely powerful you are effectively cut off from any help or even expansion that you may hope to take.

Yea I've been in that position before. While I think it can possibly be advantageous to start in a corner you have much more limited options expansion wise. I'm pretty sure I'd never elect to start in the corner if it was the exact corner. Of course that doesn't mean that many maps (randomly generated ones probably) give out corner starting positions that are too generous.

I'd be interested in seeing the statistics proving that more winners start in the corner...

lch · #9 October 29th, 2007, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Zylithan said:
Also, I wonder if someone couldn't start a better database or something for custom maps. I used to play age of wonders a lot, and age of wonders heaven had a really convenient system.

http://aow.heavengames.com/downloads...tart=0&s=r&o=d

That just a list of maps. They aren't even divided into some categories, like for Warcraft I/II you could at least filter by map size on the fan sites with maps. There are already some lists like that for Dom3 maps, too:

The Map list in the Maps/Mods forum
Gandalf's Dominions III Random Maps (the subdirectories have HTML overviews)
Gandalf's Dominions II Random Maps
Illwinter's Dominions II maps page
Arryn's Dominions II community maps

Zylithan · #10 October 29th, 2007, 08:22 PM

i agree what i linked to isnt perfect, but...

it does have a more complete list than "The Map List" in the forums I would say.. as that is missing many of the ones in your other links.

Do Dom 2 maps work? Or do they need to be changed? I've always assumed they would need to be editied, which doesnt help non map makers. some of these maps are beautiful. do they still work? are they balanced? i dont see any mention of this.

The AOWH site i linked to has comments and reviews on maps, for various scales if you click on the names. When I looked at hte Ilwinter Dom 2 maps page, I can't tell if the maps are balanced, etc.

I'm not trying to be a hater, I'm just trying to point out that, at least in my opinion, several fractured map lists that require manual updating and dont provide a lot of detail about the maps is not as useful as one central node to which stuff is uploaded and searchable and sortable with number and text reviews and ratings, etc.

With this incredible community, and all the mods I see, I'd expect to see a searchable database of hundreds of different maps, balance, wrapped, whatever you want.. rated, sorted, different sizes, etc.