Gilgamesh; Coordinates on pg 20

[the.killing.44]

The issue is not just the cities. Its the Cities and the Challenges. The Cities is a 9% chance of giving someone an edge.
The Challenges, another 9% or so (2/27). So your chance of having no starting bonuses or so is about (1-9%)^2.
So you are talking about a 18% chance of either 1 or 2 starting with an advantage - which would beat the 10% level you quoted

I'm not going to go into your other complaint, but your math is wrong. If you're saying that it's 9^2 with a max of 18. Which is blatantly wrong. 9^2 = 81.

.44

Edit: weird wording …

[whitestazn88]

jesus christ wong... get it thru your thick skull that you're not gonna get the map changed for your 1v1 desires.

2ndly, i'm tired of seeing you post stupid shit comparing every map in the foundry to your stupid prince of the city map. that thread is where you should discuss it

finally, there are probably 1000s of examples where people have had crazier drops... for example, you can drop asia on classic, its just rare... fucking deal w/ it.

oaky, i've been a strong supporter of this map since it was in the centerscape revamp. i haven't checked in in a while, but i like where its gone. my number 1 concern is the fact that the cities are packed too closely together... maybe if there were 1 city in each bonus region the board would be more balanced, rather than having an orgy in the middle over the fact that 5 of the cities are within 2 territs of each other

[Incandenza]

Appreciate the, "there are maps already up with this flaw" standard but no one is particularly nice to map makers who try that excuse when trying to defend a lower graphical standard. And if exceptions are made, it looks bad and discourages other contributors for ex-moderators and moderators to get those exceptions.

NO, that is NOT what I said, and willfully misrepresenting people's posts isn't the best way to make yourself heard. What I said was that holding every map to your australia standard is insane and unworkable. As it stands, the only map I can think of off the top of my head where bonus drops are a real, persistent issue is Pearl Harbor, and discussions are underway to remedy that. And as whitestazn said, sometimes shit happens. I played an AoM 1v1 where the other guy dropped, get this, over 20 armies worth of bonuses. Needless to say, I lost. Should AoM be drastically overhauled? No, because A) the vast majority of the time, the drops are fair, and B) when you so obsessively drop-proof a map for 1v1, you really run the risk of substantially diminishing the map for every other game type, a point I made that you so cleverly chose to ignore.

Wong, you've made your point. Poorly and combatively, but your point has been made and refuted to the satisfaction of everyone but you. Since that puts you in a minority of one, and since you yourself in the Poison Rome thread said that one disagreement should not be enough to derail a map, let's move on. If you have additional comments on other aspects of the map's gameplay, knock yourself out.

whitestazn, the clumped cities actually works, both historically (those were the centers of civilization back in the Sumerian days) and gameplay-wise (they add bonus options to a large, not-terribly-likely-to-be-held-for-bonuses are, making the middle of the map more of an option for a standup fight than was previously the case when this was a Middle Earth revamp). Sprinkling the cities around the map would be, IMHO, a mistake.

[whitestazn88]

i see what you mean about the cities not being spread out.

and i did figure it was historically accurate... but it doesn't mean that our map makers have never stretched the truths of history... for example, pearl harbor features no japs (whats up with that?)

and i actually like pearl harbor although there are definitely a lot of unfair drops in it...

[Merciless Wong]

The issue is not just the cities. Its the Cities and the Challenges. The Cities is a 9% chance of giving someone an edge.
The Challenges, another 9% or so (2/27). So your chance of having no starting bonuses or so is about (1-9%)^2.
So you are talking about a 18% chance of either 1 or 2 starting with an advantage - which would beat the 10% level you quoted

I'm not going to go into your other complaint, but your math is wrong. If you're saying that it's 9^2 with a max of 18, 9^2 = 81. Which is blatantly wrong.

.44

I'm not sure if you noticed but ^ is the power symbol.
(1-9%)
=91%
91%^2
=approx 81%

Chance of no bonus is 81%
Chance of bonus is 100% -81% = 19%

Just giving you the numbers and letting the game play people read and decide. I'll just say they have to draw a standard
and it should be the same across the foundry, with no exceptions for mapmaker status.
I don't think having people just say "you are wrong" or "I don't care" contributes very much. Approach this with a genuinely open mind and stop fighting for your map or that of your friends.

I've reported the whitestazn88 post as a flame. I haven't mentioned Prince of The City in my comments. So this is uncalled for.

jesus christ wong... get it thru your thick skull that you're not gonna get the map changed for your 1v1 desires.

2ndly, i'm tired of seeing you post stupid shit comparing every map in the foundry to your stupid prince of the city map. that thread is where you should discuss it

Lastly, cairnswk was effectively forced out for refusing one item of feedback. I agree thats seems stiff, but it seems unfair to leave Poisonrome out and let this through.

[sailorseal]

I'm horrible at math. If both of your numbers are low percentages, I could care less.

You can't eliminate random good luck drops, and I wouldn't anyone to really want to. It's part what I like about some of the older maps that don't take into account everyone trying to fix the randomness.

So both of you, place nice, or I'll thump your skulls for you.


--Andy

No banana comment? Seems odd...


[To Wong]
Dude, we see your numbers, great! It seems to be in agreement that no changes need to be made because of it

4. All sound advice must be followed unless a logical rebuttal by the cartographer or another member of the community is provided.

[the.killing.44]

[bleh. You're not worth it, Wong. Edited]

As for the map, I agree with whoever said to make the lion and scorpion. The bull's fine, though if you add a glow to the others you might want to add it to the bull as well, if only for uniformity's sake. Map seems good to go.

.44

[Merciless Wong]

Depends, is the 18% low?
If it is, fine.

Andy can whack on the stamp or order the gameplay guy to do so if gameplay is settled. Guys saying the issue is settled with no logic in their posts shouldn't effect this if its a quality driven process.

Alternatively, if the standard is a forum support thing. Whack up a poll and leave it up for a decent time period.

I picked this version out from a January post. Has much changed? Or has it just been changed then had changes removed in a fake imitation of an open process? Same map, same gameplay problems.

[quote="oaktown"]

Click image to enlarge.

[Incandenza]

Okay, Wong, I have a couple of questions for you:

1. using your methods, what's the chance of a person dropping australia in a classic 1v1?
2. what exactly is your goal here?

I ask the first because, despite your repeated protestations, I remain unconvinced of your math, and would like to see your australia calculations as a control. If you're a professional that works with numbers for a living, as several foundry contributors are, then that's one thing. But if you're deploying half-remembered high school math, then I feel that you may need to dig deeper.

I ask the second because if your goal is to become a member of this community whose opinions are valued, then I'd venture to say you're going about it the wrong way. Despite what you may think, the only elitism that exists in the foundry is that of results. People become valued contributors over the course of time by working well with others, by posting valuable feedback, by knowing when to concede a point. And while I have no doubt that you believe that you're right, and it's possible that you are, I very much question your methods and dogged persistence, as all they're doing right now is alienating people.

And fyi, it's indicative of your short time here that you think that Andy orders anyone to do anything. When you make accusations like that, it makes people much much less likely to pay attention to your opinions, and much much more likely that people will say "who gives a shit what that annoying twat wong thinks, I'll just put him on ignore."

From your posts, I get the impression that you see yourself as a foundry cleaner, as a breath of fresh air, as the person who's going to reform this forum and expose the foundry community for the nest of elitists that it truly is. I can tell you right now that if that is the impression under which you are laboring, then you might want to rethink your basic assumptions.

[AndyDufresne]

Lets keep the posts in this topic, on the map at hand--Oaktown's Gilgamesh Map. IF you'd liek to discuss users, take it to PM, or process, take it to Not Maps.


--Andy

[lgoasklucyl]

This map is simply gorgeous and should not be subject to the fugly-brightness of the site's current bright color scheme (army #s)

It deserves better!

[oaktown]

thanks for the breakdown, wong. As far as I am concerned, your basic numbers for dropping one region are not in disupte. As you've noted, this is a simplified way to break down the odds - to get the numbers exact you would need to model all of the possible drops across the board - but this provides a decent working number.

I should also note for the rest of our audience that the numbers given without assuming neutral starts are not applicable to this discussion, so please don't be confused by them. 1v1 games at CC split the territories three ways. I'm guessing wong just presented them as examples of the math.

Wong, can I ask where the 18% number came from? Figuring out the odds of any bonus being dropped at the start are indeed higher than the odds of a specific bonus being dropped, but simply adding the %s together doesn't work. The notion that there is a 1 in 20 chance of somebody dropping Australia OR S. America in classic is dubious - this is a case where the additional modelling you speak of is probably necessary. Perhaps we should start a Not Maps thread calling for some math heads to help settle this.

I just want to go on record as saying that it is my hope to see this map improve, and if this discussion helps me do that I welcome it. I'm not just here to get the map quenched ASAP and this isn't just a map-making exercise between me and a bunch of friends. I don't know any of these people, and while I'm sure they are very pleasant I don't really care. This discussion has led to a lot of gameplay change proposals, many of which have been abandoned for one reason or another, and it may very well lead to more. I'm cool with throwing ideas out there until the community thinks we've gotten it right.

So as long as Wong keeps his side of the discussion here to this particular map and not to foundry politics, cliques, or baiting, I would please ask the rest of you to back off and do the same. I'm trying to run a producitve and happy map thread here.

[Merciless Wong]

the.killing.44 wrote:

Merciless Wong wrote:
The issue is not just the cities. Its the Cities and the Challenges. The Cities is a 9% chance of giving someone an edge.
The Challenges, another 9% or so (2/27). So your chance of having no starting bonuses or so is about (1-9%)^2.
So you are talking about a 18% chance of either 1 or 2 starting with an advantage - which would beat the 10% level you quoted

I'm not going to go into your other complaint, but your math is wrong. If you're saying that it's 9^2 with a max of 18, 9^2 = 81. Which is blatantly wrong.

.44


I'm not sure if you noticed but ^ is the power symbol.
(1-9%)
=91%
91%^2
=approx 81%

Chance of no bonus is 81%
Chance of bonus is 100% -81% = 19%

Not added, multiplying. Just happens to be close to be the additive number.

Other issue which is the focus on 1 continent (even if it fits the theme).

[iancanton]

The issue is not just the cities. Its the Cities and the Challenges. The Cities is a 9% chance of giving someone an edge.
The Challenges, another 9% or so (2/27). So your chance of having no starting bonuses or so is about (1-9%)^2.
So you are talking about a 18% chance of either 1 or 2 starting with an advantage - which would beat the 10% level you quoted.

I think 1 more neutral city and 3-4 hardcoded starts in Sumer would be the way to make this work without correcting the Sumer balance issues.

Any chance you could make one more city neutral.

Trouble is that with the current XML options, coding one more city neutral means one less starting territory for all games. I'm not willing to drop to 41 starting territories - it'd mean I'd have to add a territory somewhere else on the map, which just screws thing up even more.

can we solve this one by moving the starting neutral to the bull of heaven? code the 3 sumerian cities (and nothing else) as start positions, so that, in 1v1, there is only a 2/81 (2.5%) chance of a non-neutral player starting with the 4 cities bonus and none of starting with the 3 challenges.

a 7.2% of a bonus drop with the cities is pretty damn good... lowering it too much more might so devalue the cities as terits as to make them extremely unattractive targets.

the cities and - critically for the storyline - the challenges will no longer be unattractive targets if we increase their bonuses by 3 each, that is to +4 for the 3 challenges (to compensate for having to kill 3 neutrals), +5 for 4 cities and +7 for all 6 cities. this is nowhere near enough to make them game-winning objectives, but saves them from being as unloved as the cities on the scotland map.

ian.

[Merciless Wong]

Agree with the 1 neutral on the challenges but would make it Humbaba - if you make bull of heaven neutral you make Sumer even more defendable.

The start positions would also go along way to making Sumer balanced in 1v1v1. If everyone gets Sumer they have a chance to stop someone getting Sumer.

Can you also connect Ur to Anshan .. that would make Sumer 1 harder to defend (5 terits nic the dead end bull of heaven)
Getting in balance with the the other 2 big continents (4 to defend for +4, 6 to defend for +5)

I agree with the higher city and challenge bonus once the neutral starts and hubaba is made neutral.
If the start issue is settled the size of the bonus can be made larger.

[oaktown]

MrBenn has been schooling me on the mathematics of probability, so here we go...

Using a hypergeometric probability calculator we found online, I first worked the odds of somebody picking up the three challenges on the drop in a 1v1 game.
p1% = 3.2 = (odds of getting three of three in a 14 terit set out of 42 terits)
p2% = 3.1 = (odds of getting three of three in a 14 terit set out of 28 terits) x (odds of p1 having scored 0 of 3 in 14 of 42)

Add these up and there's a 6.3% chance of somebody dropping all three challenges on the break in a 1v1. Half of this is the odds of the first player to move having the bonus, which is something I can live with.

Next, the odds of a player dropping the cities bonus in a 1v1 game.
p1% = 3.5 = (odds of getting four or five of the five cities in a 14 terit set out of 42 terits)
p2% = 7.3 = (odds of getting four or five of the cities in a 14 terit set out of 28) x (odds of p1 having dropped just zero or 1 terit)

So there's a 10.8% chance of a player nabbing the cities in a 1v1 game. That's pretty high, and it means player 1 gets a +2 bonus to begin the game in about 1 of every 20 games. It's not terrible, but it's a bit high for a map that intend to be the best map on CC (as I do with every map).

Anyway, I need to eat something and then I'll consider possible fixes.

[AndyDufresne]

Using a hypergeometric probability calculator we found online

I feel like I should worship you two with veneration. **Looks at his calculator, wonders where the hypergeometric probability button is.**

The odds you've outlined to me sound pretty good--even the 10.8%, but if you can find solutions that don't dramatically impact play, I'm all for it.


--Andy

[LED ZEPPELINER]

Why does P1 have a better chance of getting the Challenges then P2?

[Incandenza]

10.8% does seem a touch high... so here's my question: how does this all play out if 1 city starts neutral and 2 cities are coded as starting positions, meaning a player would have to get 3 or 4 of 4 cities out of 14 out of 40 (42-2)? And why is there blood seeping from my tear ducts?

[oaktown]

o here's my question: how does this all play out if 1 city starts neutral and 2 cities are coded as starting positions, meaning a player would have to get 3 or 4 of 4 cities out of 14 out of 40 (42-2)?

You're about to be sorry you asked.

Option 1: code one city neutral, code two cities as starting positions (as incandenza just suggested). Each player in a 1v1 will start with 1 city, so the only way to start a game with the bonus would be to drop all three. There would still be 14 territories/player to start. For the odds of dropping the three remaining cities I get .029 + (.29 x .098) = .0574. 5.7% chance of somebody dropping the cities. Note that it would be the same odds of somebody dropping the challenges; the odds went down when we reduced the total # of territories (population) and the # territories each player i assigned (sample). I don't know how the hell you'd figure out the odds of one of the two things happening.

Option 2: code three cities neutral, and code the remaining cities and the three challenges as three starting positions, two terits each. In a 1v1 game the most cities you could start the game with would be two, and the most challenges two - nobody starts with a bonus. In a 3 player game everybody would start with at least one city and one challenge - again, nobody starts with a bonus. In 1v1 games players would start with 2+(36÷3)= 14 territories, plus 15 neutrals. In 3 players games everybody would start with 2+(34÷3)= 13 territories, plus 4 neutrals.

Option 2 drops us to 40 territories being split up; we like 42 around here, but when you think about it the only numbers that go nicely into 42 are 3, 6, and 7. We've already fixed the games with three starting positions, and who the hell starts seven player games anyway? So really we're just screwing everybody in a six player game out of one territory to begin the game with.

Why does P1 have a better chance of getting the Challenges then P2?

He doesn't... that's just the way you do the math. Imagine you were the only player receiving 14 of 42 territories: you'd have a 3.2% chance of getting all three challenges. But as soon as there is a second player who is also receiving territories, the odds for the first player goes down because P2 may get one of those territories first as they're shuffled out. With every player that you add the odds change. (Wow, I sound like I understand this shit.)

[Merciless Wong]

I think option 2 is your best best. Just using the in the head stuff - you get a sense that
1v1 and 1v1v1 are the problems.

Option 1 solves 1v1 but not 1v1v1 and they are nearly the same (if as I understand it there are no neutral starts in 1v1v1)

Other than that I have only this other item.

Can you also connect Ur to Anshan .. that would make Sumer 1 harder to defend (5 terits not counting the dead end bull of heaven)
Getting in balance with the the other 2 big continents (4 to defend for +4, 6 to defend for +5)

Alternatively you can:
disconnect emar and tuttul, mari and dur kaltimmu
connect emar and dur kultimuu

That would reduce the 2 other big continents to 3 to defend for +4, 5 to defend for +5. This would balance better against Sumer's (4 terits to defend + bull of heaven).
Especially in conjunction with the starts.


Plus: here's a link to a calculator.

http://stattrek.com/Tables/Hypergeometric.aspx

[Incandenza]

You're about to be sorry you asked.

Actually, I followed that much better than I did your head-clutchingly prolix colloquium with MrB. (I'm a writer, thus I need to resort to unnecessarily multisyllabic words to melt people's brains).

The upshot is that I can live with 5.7%. Certainly it wouldn't hurt for that percentage to be lower, but again, I don't want to so 1v1-proof the map that it becomes less interesting for, say, a 6p escalating game. Having a bunch of neutrals can make those games a bit of a bummer.

As far as 1v1v1s, as oak mentioned earlier in the thread, those games are self-correcting. If player 1 drops a bonus, then both player 2 and player 3 are going to take an immediate interest. If they don't, then they deserve to lose anyway. The larger point, I feel, is that we only really need to be vigilant about bonus drops in head-to-head games, and even then only really in 1v1 and 2v2. Non-1v1 singles games and 2v2v2/v2 games are, as I said, self-correcting.

Further, I'm not terribly inclined to support an Ur-Anshan connection. As it stands, this map has a nice variety of small bonuses, which can make for really bitching gameplay (I'm currently playing a 2v2 on cairns metro, and it's astonishingly awesome for a map that I, quite frankly, kinda dismissed during production). Weakening one of those small bonuses, IMHO, would detract from the balance of the map.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go scream profanities at my television, as the ducks are losing to the goddamn red wings.

[Merciless Wong]

Just remember its 5.7% on the cities then an additional % for the challenges (unless Humbaba or Bull of Heaven is neutral)

But good to get a genuine sense on what is the standard for starts on gameplay.

If th ur anshan doesn't work - consider this

Alternatively you can:
disconnect emar and tuttul, mari and dur kaltimmu
connect emar and dur kultimuu

That would reduce the 2 other big continents to 4 to defend for +4, 5 to defend for +5. This would balance better against Sumer's (4 terits to defend + bull of heaven).
Especially in conjunction with the starts.

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

Gameplay changes to this version:

• there are three preset neutrals, each cities, each marked with "n3"
• there are three preset starting positions, color-coded with 88s. The positions were chosen so that each potential start borders one neutral city
• dropped the river crossing between Tuttal and Emar... I toyed with adding some new crossings as wong suggested, but I thought I'd role with this for a bit... the new set-up creates a comfy safe zone within Subartu that Sumer doesn't have.

A quick word if I may about regions and bonuses: all regions are not created equal. If you take a look at the classic map, Australia and S. America are both +2 regions; while most would say that +2 is appropriate for both regions, any veteran player knows that they do not play the same on the map. having one less border makes Australia a much easier start, but the proximity to N. America and Africa gives S. America certain advantages as well. And the bigger the region, the greater the differences in how they play: N. America and Europe are both +5 regions, but they are completely different in terms of size, borders, neighbors, and how they play on the map.

I firmly believe that region bonuses on a map should be in line with each other, but that does not mean that two regions of like bonus need to be precisely the same.

[gimil]

For purly athetical reasons oaktown would you consider redrawing the river at nagar to hug the mountains more. The clump of pale stone across the river from nagar sticks out and isn't paticularly attrative!

I also found where you got your influence for the boarder!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ngLeft.jpg