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Gilgamesh; Coordinates on pg 20

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Re: Gilgamesh; update on pg 5

Postby Incandenza on Sat May 02, 2009 3:12 am

oaktown wrote:Removed the City State from Ur. There are still seven city states so the bonus structure for holding cities isn't disrupted, but it reduces the value of Sumer because now the region doesn't come with an automatic city state bonus


The history weenie in me recoils at the idea, since Ur was pretty much the First City. I know, I know, form follows function, but could possibly Uruk be sacrificed instead?

oaktown wrote:In 3+ player games there will be 42 territories split up for starts. In 1v1 games each player will start with 14 territories (40Ć·3+1), and there will be 16 neutral territories. Player 1 (and for that matter player 2) will have an 11% chance of starting the game with the city bonus - those are odds I can live with, especially since player 2 will get to drop 4 armies and try to do something about it.


11% isn't awesome, but you have jumped through an awful lot of hoops to mitigate the chances of a bonus drop... tho it's worth pointing out that if first mover drops the bonus, it's not much of a stretch to think that if he properly utilizes his 5 deployment and gets just a touch north of statistically average dice, the other bloke's at 11 terits and pretty much hosed. What about dropping Karkemish and coding a different city as a neutral start?

Then again, it is 11%... and I feel like it's in bad form for me to excessively nitpick this map for its 1v1 drops when I'll probably never play one on here.

oaktown wrote:Since I'm already coding start positions, I may as well code two of the challenges as well to avoid anybody starting a 1v1 game with that bonus. It won't affect the number of starting territories/player.


Okay, I'm not the world's foremost authority on starting positions, but wouldn't that just throw 2 more "starting position" terits into the general kitty, thus possibly allowing one player to drop both cities and the other to drop both challenges?

Another thing: that blue mountain in northeast Urkesh looks kinda lonely... unless it's supposed to represent a prominent peak, it could be tucked in a bit.
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Re: Gilgamesh; update on pg 7

Postby oaktown on Sat May 02, 2009 3:25 pm

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Incandenza wrote:The history weenie in me recoils at the idea, since Ur was pretty much the First City. I know, I know, form follows function, but could possibly Uruk be sacrificed instead?

I was hoping nobody would call me on that. And Uruk can't go, because that's the city of Gilgamesh! Part of me wants to stay true to the epic and put the city on Shurupak rather than Babylon, but people will freak out... what Ive done instead is found a subtle way to represent the flood.

(For those of you who do not know, the biblical story of Noah borrows heavily from the earlier Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh: man had become noisy and was keeping the gods from their rest, so rains were sent down to cover the earth. As the rains began to fall, Enki (the creator of mankind) spoke to the house of Utnapishtim and said to build an ark and secure into it two of each creature on earth. After seven days Utnapishtim sends doves and ravens in search of land, and the ark came to rest on Mt. Nimush.)

Anyway, I've restored the city to Ur, removed the cities from Susa and Mari, eliminated the starts, and simplified the city bonus situation.

For those of you scoring at home, there is now a 7.2% chance that a player will start with four cities in a 2 or 3 player game, and a 3.6% chance that player 1 will start with the bonus in a 1v1; in most maps the odds are similar that somebody get lucky in a 1v1, so let 'em take their chances. There is 3.7% chance that a player will start with the Challenges, and 1.8% that this will be player 1; I don't much give a crap about eliminating a 1.8% chance of something happening, but just for good measure I've dropped the challenges bonus to +1.

Incandenza wrote:Okay, I'm not the world's foremost authority on starting positions, but wouldn't that just throw 2 more "starting position" terits into the general kitty, thus possibly allowing one player to drop both cities and the other to drop both challenges?

Coding starts is always problematic, in that you throw off the total number of territories a player has to open the game. As it is now, Player 1 (in a 1v1 or 3 player game) will bein the game with 14 territories, and a four army first placement (unless he was fortunate enough to drop a region). So unless player 1 somehow manages take three territories from player 2 on that first round (I count account for dice), player 2 will also get a four army first placement and should be able to undo whatever damage player 1 did in the first round. Unless they are stupid, which I also can't account for.

Incandenza wrote:Another thing: that blue mountain in northeast Urkesh looks kinda lonely... unless it's supposed to represent a prominent peak, it could be tucked in a bit.

Fixed.

Also made my sig more cuneiform, and played around with some other little things.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby sailorseal on Sat May 02, 2009 3:35 pm

I am not sure whether or not you changed the cities but they look better. I don't see why the Bull of Heaven gets it's own kind of smear, if its not to much work I would change it but otherwise its fine.

I really like the GP of this map
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby oaktown on Sat May 02, 2009 3:40 pm

sailorseal wrote:I am not sure whether or not you changed the cities but they look better. I don't see why the Bull of Heaven gets it's own kind of smear, if its not to much work I would change it but otherwise its fine.

It actually doesn't need a smear at all, since the background color of the territory is so light. The old smear was on there, but there were many comments about the fact that it wasn't visible. I just did that to make people happy - personally I'd like to just remove it entirely.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Incandenza on Sat May 02, 2009 3:46 pm

Okay, 1v1 bonus drop percentages look good, I like what you've done with the cities (can't believe I forgot that Uruk was ole' Gilgy's city, been awhile since I actually read the damn thing), sig looks good... someone get this map a gameplay stamp, stat!
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Merciless Wong on Sun May 03, 2009 6:58 pm

Any chance you could make one more city neutral.

With 5 free cities in 1v1 and 4 to get a bonus...there are 32 possibilities (each city can be with player 1 or 2)
Of those 12 scenarios give someone the starting +2.

If you get it down to 4 free cities and 4 to get a bonus, there are 16 scenarios and only 2 give someone the starting +2 . I t would be like "Starting With Australia" odds in Classic Risk.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Incandenza on Sun May 03, 2009 7:22 pm

Merciless Wong wrote:Any chance you could make one more city neutral.

With 5 free cities in 1v1 and 4 to get a bonus...there are 32 possibilities (each city can be with player 1 or 2)
Of those 12 scenarios give someone the starting +2.

If you get it down to 4 free cities and 4 to get a bonus, there are 16 scenarios and only 2 give someone the starting +2 . I t would be like "Starting With Australia" odds in Classic Risk.


You'd be way better off talking about percentages. And 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.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby oaktown on Sun May 03, 2009 11:43 pm

Merciless Wong wrote: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.

As I've said before, changing one thing affects everything else.

Merciless Wong wrote:With 5 free cities in 1v1 and 4 to get a bonus...there are 32 possibilities (each city can be with player 1 or 2). Of those 12 scenarios give someone the starting +2.

Wow, 12 of 32... a 37% chance of somebody starting with the +2 would be really bad!! It's a good thing your numbers are wrong because you aren't correctly representing the way Conquer Club games assign territories. A 1v1 game has two players, but three starts (1 is neutral). And there are 42 territories on the board to be assigned - how are there only 32 possibilities?

I calculate the odds of one player getting four cities as 7.2%; logically the odds of player 1 having all four is half that. I can live with a 3.6% chance that somebody starts the game with an unfair advantage... that's the nature of 1v1.

In other news, anybody care which city starts neutral? I stuck in the middle, because I figure it can't be ignored and sit neutral all game. And that's probably the last region to fall, so it shouldn't ruin somebody's start.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Merciless Wong on Mon May 04, 2009 1:18 pm

Wow, 12 of 32... a 37% chance of somebody starting with the +2 would be really bad!! It's a good thing your numbers are wrong because you aren't correctly representing the way Conquer Club games assign territories. A 1v1 game has two players, but three starts (1 is neutral). And there are 42 territories on the board to be assigned - how are there only 32 possibilities?

I calculate the odds of one player getting four cities as 7.2%; logically the odds of player 1 having all four is half that. I can live with a 3.6% chance that somebody starts the game with an unfair advantage... that's the nature of 1v1.


Here's my working:

2^5 = 32. There are 5 provinces with cities, assuming conquer club will place them all with on player or the other there are
2x2x2x2x2 possibilities.
In 1 of them player 1 has it all
In 1 of them player 2 has it all
In 5 of them player 1 has 4 of the 5 cities
In 5 of them player 2 has 4 of the 5 cities
That's my 12 out of 32 = 37%

The reamaining 20 out of 32 are scenarios where player 1 has 3 cities (10 possibilities)
and player 2 has 3 cities (10 possibilities)

If you wish to model the number of neutals in 1v1 (I presume its 1 out of 40+ territories) it should make a slight difference.

If its 3 starts (1 neutral, meaning neutals will be 1/3 of the board):
3^5= 243 scenarios (focuing only on non hard coded neutral provinces that matter for city bonus)
2 of them they have it all
5 of them p 1 has 4, neutrals have 1
5 of them p 2 has 4, neutrals have 1
5 of them p 1 has 4, other has 1
5 of them p 2 has 4, other has 1

Makes it 22 out of 243 = 9.1%

Note in classic, the chance of starting with australia with
2 players (no neutrals) is 1/16 = 6.25%
3 players (no neutrals) is 1/ 81 = 1.23%
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby MrBenn on Mon May 04, 2009 6:25 pm

Wong, your numbers are wrong, and just add confusion :?

oaktown has answered your call to add more starting neutrals to the map with a much more measured response than my "1v1 = shit happens" in my thread where you raised the same concerns.

It might be time to drop the dead donkey :roll:
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Incandenza on Mon May 04, 2009 6:29 pm

oaktown wrote:In other news, anybody care which city starts neutral? I stuck in the middle, because I figure it can't be ignored and sit neutral all game. And that's probably the last region to fall, so it shouldn't ruin somebody's start.


Assur works, like you say it's right in the middle of the map and won't be like one of those poor outlier AoR terits that only get attacked maybe once every couple hundred games... :D
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Merciless Wong on Mon May 04, 2009 8:00 pm

Wong, your numbers are wrong, and just add confusion :?


I gave you my working with and without the third start of neutrals.. I'll take a look (eventually) if you post something with content I can respond to.

Trying to settle map questions by "you are wrong" is unproductive and looks more like friends weighing in to push a map forward instead of responding to the content.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Incandenza on Mon May 04, 2009 9:53 pm

Merciless Wong wrote:Trying to settle map questions by "you are wrong" is unproductive and looks more like friends weighing in to push a map forward instead of responding to the content.


This is a math question, not a map question. And when someone is wrong in a math question, as you are here I'm sorry to say, then the appropriate response is "you're wrong."
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Merciless Wong on Mon May 04, 2009 10:47 pm

I'd love to see the working for the 7.2% number.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby oaktown on Tue May 05, 2009 12:44 am

Merciless Wong wrote:There are 5 provinces with cities, assuming conquer club will place them all with on player or the other there are 2x2x2x2x2 possibilities.

As I have already said, this is where your first set of numbers were wrong. CC can place the players on specific territories if you tell it to, which I'm not. So 1/3 of all territories will start neutral.

You're close about the odds of a player dropping four cities being about 9.1%. My ability to do math ain't what it used to be, but I think that your way of working the numbers is a bit simplistic. Yes, in a three-start scenario there are 22 possible combinations for the four cities, but those combinations are replicated many times over in the millions (I'm being conservative) of possible starting scenarios. The 4-0 and 3-1 starts aren't replicated as often as are the other starts.

I got the 7.2% from the spreadsheet that MrBenn developed... he's come out with two versions, one for strict bonuses and one for "make your own" bonuses like this one. His formula may be off and this number may be low, but if it is I would bet that the actually number falls somewhere between his and yours, since his formula considers the total number of starting territories and how that impacts the start %s - yours do not.

Anyway, all that really matters is that player 1 not drop a bonus, since player 1 gets a chance to break it. Even your calculation of a 4.525% chance of this happening is something I - and I'd imagine most CC users - can live with. 1 in 20 games will be lopsided... so what else is new in 1v1? I'd say 100% of 1v1s are lopsided because somebody gets to go first. :lol:

I'm comfortable with the odds, as is the gameplay crew. Let's please move on. If you'd like to continue the discussion about how to calculate start odds I'd be happy to do so (because I'd like to better understand it) but let's not do it in the map thread.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Merciless Wong on Tue May 05, 2009 10:30 am

I think if you look at the thread that you got Mr Benn's spreadsheet from - there are considerable qualifications from those who tested it and Mr Benn himself.

I'll stand by the number I put up for 1v1 with neutral starts which is 9% not 4.5%.

I mean everyone can weigh in and just support their friends without any actual knowledge of the method being used to calculate start odds but its certainly inconsistent with the "quality map approach" and the "open to feedback or else" that is used by moderators and stampholders to justify their actions.

I'm not sure what the exact threshold on starting bonuses tolerated by gameplay is - I have no view on that issue. Just doing the foundry a favor and putting a number and some working out there.
I'll note in the England map, there's been some hardcoding of start positions so it still seems to be an issue.

I'm comfortable with the odds, as is the gameplay crew.


Oh, I'm sorry - I didn't know you spoke for them or had settled the issue through some alternative private process and avoided forum discussion. That seems fair. You should just move this to quenched without discussion then. Congratulations!!! =D>
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby AndyDufresne on Tue May 05, 2009 10:41 am

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. :)


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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Merciless Wong on Tue May 05, 2009 10:44 am

What's a low percentage? Curious to know because there must be other maps out there that could benefit from clarity on this issue and arguably reached this impasse first.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby oaktown on Tue May 05, 2009 7:58 pm

Merciless Wong wrote:I'll stand by the number I put up for 1v1 with neutral starts which is 9% not 4.5%.

As I've said, Wong, the 4.5% came from your figure. Using your figure of there being a 9% that somebody will drop the bonus it means that the first player to go only has a 4.5% chance of getting the bonus on the start. Two players, one is half of two, half of 9 is 4.5. If the second player gets the bonus, so be it - the first player has a free turn and 4 extra armies to do something about it.

I consider 4.5% to be a low enough percentage that I can live with it. If you don't, then we'll just have to disagree with each other on this one and leave it to the gameplay stamper. 8-)
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Merciless Wong on Wed May 06, 2009 11:40 am

I'm just wondering if other maps got held up on the starting issue. I think the England map had 4 hard-coded starts over a similar issue. So the threshold seems pretty high.
That is if we are being consistent here.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby AndyDufresne on Wed May 06, 2009 2:01 pm

Well the math seems to be settled.

Graphically, the only thing I might consider doing is adding a little more strength to the other two animal outlines (Bull of Heaven looks fine). But other than that, this map is splendid, and I can't see much else.


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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby MrBenn on Wed May 06, 2009 2:02 pm

The issue on the England map is to do with the fact the bonus regions are so large. The collections on this map belong in a very different kettle of fish...
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Merciless Wong on Wed May 06, 2009 4:21 pm

An advantage at start is an advantage at start... regardless of the bonus structure that gives rise to it. It's just a question of how large it is and how often it happens.

The chance of starting with 4 cities when there are 5 being randomly distributed is larger than the odds of starting with Australia in Classic Risk - clearly. I'm just saying, if you stick in one more meutral city you get there to the Australia level which would settle the city starting advantage thing.

Is one of the animal challenges still being coded neutral? That made great sense to me (especialy Humbaba). Also for the starting risk issue.

The Sumer balance issue is still back though. As previously pointed out, Sumer has 4 territories to defend if you expand and take the Bull of Heaven dead end and the one across the water. Clearly better than the only other large continent around.

I note for historical reasons you want sumer to be uber-sumer but without coding the starts in (can't see in the map on the front post whether you are still doing this or not) and putting them all in Sumer.. the game is likely to go to the best lay.

I just feel that a lot of the feedback changes has been put in to 'settle' issues then removed again. I don't see a lot of honest gameplay change to the map.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Incandenza on Wed May 06, 2009 4:30 pm

No, one of the challenges is not going to be neutral to my knowledge.

You have to understand something: if every map were held to the "any bonus drop % for 1v1 must be <= that for australia", then many maps would be basically unplayable, and neutral starts would spread like smallpox. Personally, my rule of thumb is that anything below 10% is doable (not ideal, but doable). For the record, that threshold is based on the odds of someone dropping a flag bonus in a 1v1 waterloo game.

And believe me, I'm right there with ya in terms of trying to keep map drops reasonably fair. But the fact is, there's no perfect solution, and 1v1s are always a bit, well, dicey anyway. Blind chance cannot be eliminated from this game. At this point, oaktown's done quite a bit to mitigate unfair 1v1 drops, and to do more would potentially ruin the map for settings other than 1v1, of which there is a preponderance.
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Re: Gilgamesh; cities simplified pg 7

Postby Merciless Wong on Wed May 06, 2009 4:42 pm

He actually hasn't done that much other than remove a few cities and hard code 1. Much of the changes he made have been reversed.

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.

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.

Looking more at it.. the overall continent balance is lacking. Its going to partly be a who gets Sumer game, with a slight chance of getting a victory out of the niche +2 positions. There are 2 continents that are next to undefendable with little combination options. Sumer has too many obvious opportunities to reduce the number of territories it has to defend and too many synergies with the neighboring small continent.

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.
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