hatchfactory wrote:Coming down to counting grid squares from a tower to a city is pretty silly in my opinion to pass judgement on whether a map should be pulled. Sure it should be fixed, and what do you know it has. I'd bet you you'll find grid discrepancies in every other map too.
Hatch, in a map this small, the difference of a few tiles is everything. If I can reach a crucial city in one turn that takes you a turn and one more step, then you've lost. Such minor differences are magnified to critical flaws when the map is this small. Once those differences are discovered and become a major advantage to one spawn or the other, then it comes down to what random spawn you draw. Even on a map the size of Four Lords, the northwest spawn never wins because of 5 or so instances of a slightly longer path to reach anything. You can outplay your opponent and still fail just to catch up to him.
Counting tiles is the unfortunate duty of the "mirror map" maker. Believe me, Crescendo has included a lot of counting tiles over the last couple of incarnations. It's intentionally off-kilter to look organic, but the travel distances are all there. Thankfully, Jingleyman is willing to put in the time to perfect an already wonderful map. He's already done the homework and given his update in another thread.