Game: Shadow People (started)

[jutetrea]

First turn in, would be cool if we could bang out the first few turns quickly between today and tomorrow

[BigDisAwesome]

What's the deal with the little crowns on the map?

[Saint_Dude]

I really do hate to gripe about the map (which looks nice by the way), or my start position (which is lame), but I think this layout may potentially produce a very unbalanced game.

Has anyone else noticed that there is a vast ocean in the south? By my count 20 contiguous water provinces, plus an island (5 provs), that are all presumably off limits to everyone except R'lyeh. I am playing Atlantis, but I am no where near this vast ocean (I would probably have to carve through 2 other empires to get there). In addition to these 25 contiguous uncontested provinces, R'lyeh can easily expand into the southwest corner in order to pick up an additional 3 water provinces by simply crossing a 1 province land bridge. In other words, R'lyeh should be able to easily put together a 30 + province empire without having to confront anything but low level independents. LA R'lyeh is not a major powerhouse, but this is an incredible starting advantage.

I really feel guilty posting this - seems like bad etiquette.

But if this is map is designed to have 15 provs/player, and 1 player has nearly uncontested access to 30+ provs, then the other players have 13.5 provs/player. Not only that but it is very difficult to expand efficiently into your allotted 13.5 provs without coming into conflict with your neighbors. Wars are likely to break out before any other player locks up more than 7 or 8 provs.

Seems like it would be easier to restart at turn 1 on a different random map, than to embark on a clearly unbalanced scenario, no?

[jutetrea]

yup, going to be insanity everywhere...ick

[vfb]

BigDisAwesome said:
What's the deal with the little crowns on the map?

They are Victory Points, and don't let anyone tell you they are unimportant because you don't have a victory point conditions set up in your game .

They will act as a Dom strength 5 temple, and help spread and defend your dominion. This could be very useful if you have an imprisoned pretender, low dominion scale, or cannot afford to build more temples. Even if that's not the case for you, it's a good idea to take the crowns to deny them to the other nations. (Note the crowns do not contribute to your temple count for the purpose of adjusting the limit on the number of recruitable holy units).

[BigDisAwesome]

Really? I've never played a game with VP's.
So if VP's aren't in the game setup, then how did they get in the map?

[jutetrea]

Did the server get restarted again? 23H till next hosting? What's up with Caelum?

[solo]

According to the first post, the server is set to quickhost or will host every 48 hours.

I did not notice anyone signing up as Caelem so it's hard to tell why the turn is delayed.

[jutetrea]

Hmm, sorry another game had the first 18 at 24, then moved to 48...

Still, considering the first turns only take a few minutes this is going real slow.

[BigDisAwesome]

So, should we all patch now?