Allegiances 2 (Large,Team-Based Game, PLAYING)

[Thrawn]

Fine by me, I'd like to see the new stuff as well.

[archaeolept]

well, clearly i would like the start situations fixed... as is, I haven't been able to talk to my ally, but the situation is bollocks IMO. perhaps w/ a day or two delay, if the map is to stay the same, we could find a sub for me, since I have little interest in playing such a start. And I don't much care if Dr. P thinks it is fine, to set it up such that one player is necessarily fighting against 2, w/out help from his ally really due to the narrowness of the constriction...

this was not a random start. As such, my standards for what is acceptible are rather different.
and to have what is clearly a mathematical situation dismissed by the person who created the error in the first place, as "whining" is pretty fscking insulting. I've played this game enough to know the score.

[Velusion]

I can re start the game if need be.

I wonder if pretenders need to be resubmitted or if we can use the created under 3.08?

[DrPraetorious]

Pretenders should be reusable.

Does anyone else feel that the black start is so bad that it is unplayable?

I can do another map, with the wheel setup maybe, which is more scrupulously fair, but very hard to do the 15-turns no violence because the people in the middle are awfully close together.

I can also do zero water, or I could move the two black start locations to anywhere within the region to the west of the lake, if Archeolopt sees other provinces that he would rather use; as long as they are at least 4 provinces from both neighbors I don't see as it makes any difference.

[archaeolept]

well, little water would help no doubt, especially as there is one land nation that is also amphib(agartha). i'm sure we wouldn't have any problem like this w/ just the odd sprinkling of a one province lake here or there.

you could just set that whole lake to plains even - anything so we have vaguely open axes of advance like the other nations. This has the added advantage of making the game more diplomatic, as more nations can conflict w/ a greater number of opponents. As is, it is set up as a pure grudge match helheim vs. agartha and caelum.

[Thrawn]

Dr. P, are you okay with removing the sea, and replacing with land? This seems like the easiest solution, to make the starting situation more fair for Arch.

[DrPraetorious]

I fail to find any of these arguments convincing, but I don't expect to convince you - however,
1) By the mathematical measures I used they are quite fair (except, again, Cyan, which is several provinces of screwed).
2) If you objected to 10 water provinces / 0 water players you could have said so when I was configuring the map, I left commentary open for an entire week and I think I was being pretty explicit about what I was planning.

I, for one, am perfectly willing to oblige you if that's what it takes to move the game forward.

If we're restarting anyway, I could easily:
1) Move the two black start locations so that they are on the same north-south latitude.
2) Change some border mountains in the southwest to regular mountains, connect them.
3) Add some sea lanes going up and down the coast so that black can reach green and/or blue more easily.

Does anyone *object* if I do any/all of this?

If there's anyone else who thinks that the black start location is not salvageable, speak up now and I'll just make another map.

[archaeolept]

the proper mathematical measure would be amount of possible axes of advance ... ie. a combinatoric measure of the total number of shortest possible paths to, say, 5 provinces out. That would be the measure that would indicate how constrained a start is, or, conversely, how open the geographic situation. The number of possible paths will be much much less for black than for other teams.

the other measures are simple strategic ones. The situation is too narrow for both allies to support each other going one way or the other. i don't believe that is the case for anyone else. As well, the other simple strategic measure is the two vs 1 nature of the southern front. the mathematics on that one are simple enough to do on one hand, even after a gruesome industrial accident.

[Velusion]

I'm taking down the game since it looks like we are going to restart at some point.

[Janlm]

I don't really understand the problem, however I haven't really been calculating any mathematical formula to the advantage of my own position really, yet any others for that matter

I have no objections against you changing the map a little to satisfy black, now that we seem to be restarting anyway...