Medieval Britain [2.0] is submitted for review.

[Jeremy]

New map: Medieval Britain [2.0] by Jeremy.
Map editor link: Medieval Britain [2.0]

[Jeremy]

I update this map continually. Based on play experience, and other player feedback. So always look out for the latest and greatest version.

[KGB]

Just finished playing 3 games on this map in scenario mode (2 humans,3 AI's - no teams). I played as Saxons, Danes, Scots and the other player played Scots, Welsh, Saxons respectively.

A couple of comments:

1) The city of Egremont (west coast mid way up) doesn't have production limits like all other cities. This makes it the most valuable city to own since it will be the only place you can build Archons or Crows and one of the very few where you can make other good units like RD, GD, Demons etc). I'm guessing this is an oversight.

2) The Saxon and Danish positions are *vastly* better than all the others. All 3 games were won handily by the player starting in those spots. They jumped to a big city lead early and kept expanding it. The following things would help balance that out:
- Move the L1 ruin to the left of the Saxon capitol to be a bit more out of the way. Remove the road that goes partway toward the cities to the left of that so that units have further to walk toward cities in that direction.
- The forest to the south of the Dane capitol doesn't need roads leading half way through it. Make players go around or through.
- Increase the defender of York (Wizard city) to add a 2nd Wizard and L10 walls. This city is really key for expansion. Also remove the road that goes from it to the Gold site.
- Remove the bless site entirely to the right of Greenwich/London. This would help the Normans since they can get cut off easily and would make their own bless site a nice compensation for that.
- Remove most of those partial roads between the Saxon capitol and London/Greenwich as they help the Saxon player really cut off the Normans before they can make landfall.
- The Red Dragon city is VERY powerful in such a limited production game. It needs at least another defender of some kind so that the Red Dragon doesn't get easily taken with Wizards/Elves. 1 Hv Inf or a couple of Lt Inf would be good.

KGB

[Jeremy]

Thank you very much for this feedback!

I'll make changes based on it.

Yes, Egremont is an oversight. It should only be able to produce boring, human, things.

I am very amused by reports that the Saxon and Danes are the most powerful areas, because early reports had the Scots, Welsh and Normans being the top three positions, with the Danes -- and certainly the Saxons, having no chance.

The Scots were considered particularly powerful, as they has access to plenty of cities, but those cities were so far away that they generally were not worth attacking.

Now it's possible that we're seeing this swing because I did beef up the Saxons and Danes based on earlier feedback. Or it could be the law of small numbers that see extreme results.

I do want the Saxons and Danes to have an early city advantage -- but have the disadvantage of likely getting attacked by the other three nations.

Nonetheless, I will implement many of these changes. Thanks!

[KGB]

Jeremy,

Understand that there were only 2 human players in these games. So bear that in mind against the other comments you got before that may have used 5 human players. AI's are very very poor substitutes for human players. Most of the things I suggested though are just minor tweaks and I doubt they'd upset 5 human player games in any way.

Your comment about the Scots would be in line with my experience with them. The downside being that if the south falls quickly to 1 player (Saxons) they get overwhelmed by sheer numbers of cities and armies in the south.

We thought the Welsh/Danes matchup would be a good one with AI's in the middle between us but the Welsh literally stood no chance as the Danes get cities 2x as fast since the Dwarves are so slow once they get out of the mountains (Danes turn 1: Capture cities north-non hero/south-hero on the roads and enter the water in the north with the best boat. Turn 2: Capture city north on the coast and south through forest with your hero stack (Barbarian is so useful). You have 5 cities to at most 2 Welch cities and are well spread out for future expansion).

I've started a 4th game, this time Scots vs Normans (with the other sides as AI) to see how that plays out since neither of us had used the Normans yet. I'm hopeful this matchup at least will prove to be fun for 2 players + 3 AIs.

KGB

[Jeremy]

My teammate Borogrove writes:

Maybe great that someone's coming up with the exact reverse of my impression, because it means all sides have a chance? Playing the Welsh, I felt overwhelming rich in cities and options and relatively secure in my hills (against the Saxons and Danes, anyway), and the Normans were a solid strategic position which was a bit slower and cramped for space at first, but was hard for it's enemies to get to and could build up the best offensive I've ever built. Looking from the outside, the Scots, in any of the games we played, started expanding slowly and then just kept expanding, and had reason to be afraid of no one.

Against that the Saxons and Danes were meant to have early rich expansion. Which is perhaps what he's noticing. It could be unbalancing in team play, but in a free for all with quality players, I'd go for the edge powers every time.

Of course, as you've pointed out, the game often doesn't have quality players, at which point what happens is anyone's guess. If no one's doing balance of power, a middle power could break out quickly and get strong before the other players do. I'm good with that. Others?

(Thinking about Warbarons a bit too much like it was Diplomacy.)