Ctp Competition Rule Discussion..

[quinns]

Re: Quinns Map

Originally posted by yoda
I think we should vote on the "extra river" for the comp2 map. Personally, I don't mind if is not added as the game becomes significantly easier with the extra river. Also, Quinns map (comp3) has some errors in it. Blue has an extra 3 hex river with a forest hex and the beach is not quite right. If we do end up using this map with the extra river, could JBYTHEWAY make the adjustments as the "official map creator"?

yoda

Oops! Yes, J-Bytheway, you do it. I was too careless. In fact, we can leave the comp2 map/scenario exactly as is, with one settler, no extra river. After Yoda's test, I think that would probably work out fine for everyone...
Over 30 cities by 1300 B.C. and Democracy without using the rush-buy-switch!! Wow! Yoda has shown me that I MUST practice very much before playing him! I got 40 cities with the same map by 400 B.C., BUT THAT WAS 900 YEARS LATER. I think I had about 30 cities by 1000 B.C.

[Gavrushka]

Thats pretty valuable playtesting Yoda- Me and quinns will try one v one on map Saturday - See how that goes...

Quinns! - I will have 11 cities and be proud of them all as if they were my children!

[yoda]

Play Testing

I took the game out to 0AD (80 turns) just to see where I would be. I know I made a few mistakes but, for the record... (jbytheway's map with quinns river and 3 settlers 100 gold and no rush buy switching)
55 cities, 4 settlers, 1500+ science, working on railroad, gov = communism, only 12 trade routes. In democracy, my science would have been about 2500.

[blackice]

Democracy Yoda?

[J Bytheway]

Hmmm... The extra river and settlers only really speed this about 20 turns, so there will likely be a problem on the original map too. Do you think that removing goods will improve the situation enough, or will it require more drastic measures?

[quinns]

Personally, I think we should just go with J-Bytheway's COMP2 map and scenario. J is right in that the extra settlers and river only speed things up by about 20 turns. My vote is to use the COMP2 map the way it is ---- AND LET'S LIGHT THIS CANDLE! What are the pairings of the first round Gavrushka?!

I really don't think the space race will be the only option here. A well timed early massive Samurai via Trireme assault may put a wrinkle in the "pure infrastructure" Space Racer's plans... Who really knows until we try it? Gavrushka and I will test this COMP2 (one settler, 100 gold, no extra river) one-on-one tomorrow. We'll let you all know how it goes.

[J Bytheway]

I await the results very eagerly .

[Solver]

Yeah... I guess if you see the game as OK, we should start.

[quinns]

J-Bytheway -- First, again, thanks for all the work on the map. The more I see it the more depth it unveils.

I believe there is an error on the COMP2 map that may prove to be quite significant during play, however. Look at the southern large lake with the single tile island in the center. It is surrounded by four PEARL goods. I believe you meant for this large lake island to be surrounded by CRAB goods to match the southern small lake island that is surrounded by CRAB. The northern lake islands are surrounded by all PEARLS, so in conformance with your altering the type of good, I would have thought the southern lake islands would be surrounded by all CRABS. I think that these islands will be huge trade centers, but the dissymmetry will cause the north to be in a better monopoly position. You will see what I mean if you look at the large and small lakes for both northern and southern positions.

[J Bytheway]

Whoops... I knew it was too good to hope that I'd made no mistakes. I should be able to fix that sometime today.

[yoda]

print screen

Does anyone know how to print off the map? It would be nice to have a hard copy before the tournament games start. Also, if JBytheway has to fix the map anyway, I suggest taking out the quadruple goods and making them triples. That would probably slow things down enough without having to seriously re-engineer the map.

[J Bytheway]

Attached is an updated version, fixing the bug noted by quinns and also another scenario which is the same thing with some goods removed. There are now no quadruples and fewer triples. Both tested on hotseat for a few turns.

[Gavrushka]

I dunno how to print the map - which makes it a problem for the player who has a poor memory..... Anyone know??

J B- me and Quinns will be play testing tomorrow at 3:00pm London Time - We will, I am sure, send some saves

[J Bytheway]

There's a bmp2ctp converter lying around somewhere, isn't there? That might be able to convert the map to a bitmap image. Or am I thinking of Civ2?

[yoda]

Play Test

Originally posted by J Bytheway
Attached is an updated version, fixing the bug noted by quinns and also another scenario which is the same thing with some goods removed. There are now no quadruples and fewer triples. Both tested on hotseat for a few turns.

I have tested the new map. I think it will work just fine. Congratulations to jbytheway! Removing the river and the extra goods slows things down and even in modern age, science moves fast but not too fast (depending on how a person plays it of course).

One more BIG problem I see. Pollution! With all that lush production ground, any game that goes to nukes (and most should go there at least), I suspect we will have major pollution problems. Floods, wasted land, etc... Is this really what we want to see for the "end game" of the tournament games? I strongly suggest turning pollution off. I played out to 1250ad and found that even with basically a single player (second player had 2 cities...), pollution disaster was only a matter of 70 turns away (I was building recycling plants). I was just getting to nukes at that point. Double the pollution for two players and you are going to have a disaster in Modern Age.

I don't know if any of you have played out games into disasters, I have. The flood isn't too bad, but the radiation problems (every few turns) basically turns 70% of the land black. And, it isn't evenly distributed. In other words, one person can get unlucky and get knocked off the growth curve simply because of luck, not skill.

yoda