Game Set-up and Bad Start Positions

[GodKing]

Just suck it up. If you get a bad start, deal with it. No need to b*tch all over the place. Who knows, every body may start in an amazing place!!! oh well, that is just life.

[alva]

How about, we generate the official map,
show it to , let's say grampho (if off-course his willing to do this, duh), he check's out the different starting positions, and then gives the ok??

[Inverse Icarus]

if you get a bad start location Aeson joins your team. simple as that.

[Meshelic]

Yes we should generate the map first and have a mediator look over the starting positions and give the if it looks like all the positions to start from look playable.

Still, in real life many many nations started out in basically crap to their knees? Lots of them. Some that chose the worst places to settle would eventually either move to a different location or work with what they had and just do it.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Suck it up, and play it out. If worse comes to worse, you have an 'excuse' for losing. 'We werent outplayed, we just started on a crappy location'

There is no way to make it all fair, someone is bound to have the worst position, and someone else is bound to have the best.

[alva]

no prob for me, as long as we all agree on it

werent outplayed, we just started on a crappy location'

This will be used, by someone, no matter what

[Arrian]

I like the idea of a neutral third-party looking at the map and making sure nobody is totally screwed.

-Arrian

[WarriorPoet]

Third party....I don't know, I'd rather believe in the honesty of random number generation....besides, whose definition of "totally screwed" would we live by?

Finally, with a third party, how could we be ensured of their impartiality? What would be the appeals process?

[Randolph]

I also think this is a good idea. We're all going to be spending a great deal of time on this; I'd like to see everyone have a real chance. If this were a "normal MP" game (or a personal SP game) I'd probably be of the "suck it up; better luck next time" opinion, but due to the scope of this game I'd hate to see anyone be "put off" by a horrible starting position. I also dislike the idea of "losers joining other teams" (the coherency of a team is important) making a reasonable chance more important (in my mind).

[WarriorPoet]

How would you manage the third party situation? I say develope a small piece of code or have a tabular system ready for the third party human evaluator. Let them spy the start locations and run a numeric calculation based on terrain and resource values and distance required to find a position with at least "x" points.

[asleepathewheel]

I don't have a problem with someone like Gramphos or Mark or someone else looking at it. There are so many steps that people could cheat, this one seems rather small to me. And i think eyeballing it should be sufficient. I mean, if its not in tundra or jungle, it should be ok. Its obvious which starts are just awful and should be restarted. Anything less than completely awful, I say play on.

[WarriorPoet]

Okay AAW, I'll go with that...but what if one person is on a riven with four nearby hills with wine and on a river, and let's say there are also three cattle resources, and the other squares within city range are shield bonus grassland...meanwhile every one else started in flood plains with no hills...is this justifiable for a restart???

[Randolph]

I don't think it should be about comparative disadvantage, just about "god awful". We should make some general statement to send to the moderator, like: "A starting position that makes a competitive game position during the ancient age beyond realistic probability" (Obviously needs some tweaking)

[punkbass2000]

One thing I like about the third party idea is that we can ensure that the AI doesn't get bad starts either.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
One thing I like about the third party idea is that we can ensure that the AI doesn't get bad starts either.

how nice of you loooking out for the AI