Faction Ranking Map 01

[Mart]

This is the first map planned for faction ranking. There would be other maps, this is just something to start.

Any comments?
The faction graded/judged is supposed to be in the middle, while 6 opposing factions are going to be around on connected by narrow passages continents. Factions would be placed in scenario editor.

Intended to play with Yitzi patch.

[Edit]
Well, I'm still adding some jungle...
And new map version...

[Mart]

Map with jungle.

And while we are here. I am making scenario for Gaians. I thought about checking first the seven original faction i just that setting first.
Do we go in usual faction order?

Gaians
Hive
University
Morganities
Spartans
Believers
Peacekeepers.

Any proposals where to place Gaian opponents?

[ete]

How will you test, all AI set to play each other? AI foes and and human controlling main faction? All human (you playing all factions at once?)?

Map looks mostly good, glad you have connected landmasses, but some features seem unnatural (too large uranium area, the rivers and geothermal area seems extreme and would never be randomly generated). Also there seems to be far too little fungus on most of the map, even on low fungus settings you'd expect a whole lot more than that. This will cause native factions to be significantly underrated. And I don't see pods, is that just the zoom?

Oh, and if you're doing AI opponents/human middle, make sure the AI have comms, else the human can easily play tech broker for a large advantage with no other faction being able to contact each other for ages. Plus I'd at least consider making the narrow passages less narrow, humans are much better than AI at holding down chokepoints.

[Mart]

We will never get all possible combinations, so this will be just selected cases attempting to be a good representation. Human controlling main faction, 6 AI opponents. Typical singleplayer game.

Yes, map is engineered There is more geothermal, a bit more uranium, jungle is scattered.
That's zoom. There is enough fungus, it is only not visible on this screenie.
In Command Nexus section there are already two first games (scenarios) Gaians on transcend and librarian difficulty. You can check how that plays, and initially the map was generated with dense cloud cover and abundant native life.

I was thinking of making that map moderately difficult. Being in the middle is already difficult. Let us see how does it turn out with these settings.
Tech brokering would be some strategy, and AI would eventually get Doctrine Flexibility and sail to other continents, but as you say, not immediately. That is making game easier. On the other hand after a player having some "quiet" turns may be facing sudden difficulty increase, e.g. some AI faction builds Empath Guild, or finally all AI get few foils. Playing there Gaians, I can already see, that yet another way of AI contacting each other may be teleport event from unity pods.

[Kilkakon]

One thought--is the world round? It seems most of the landmass is divided sharply on the map wrapping boundary.

[Mart]

It is round, but that's true, at longitude 180 I did ocean tiles only.

[Nexii]

On what basis are you trying to rank the factions?
Human Vs AI - How good a faction is to play as a Human in a vs AI game**
Human vs Player - How good a faction is in Human vs Human game
AI vs Human/AI - Generally the AI players the same vs a Human or other AIs, so I'll group this

** Noted you are judging the faction power on this one.

So much can go into this, depending on customized rules, difficulty level, the map (which looks good btw).  A bit small so that map might favor aggressive factions.  Where it takes so long to play a game out, I think it's better to try to rank the factions in a more heuristic manner than by trial of many matches.  That is, compare their overall benefits vs downsides in a mathematical way.

I think most experienced SMAX players concluded University was top, but with Yitzi's drone fixes I'm not so sure they are top any more.  My opinion is that geography and diplomacy both have a much bigger impact on success than faction picked.  For that matter the RNG of early game Unity Pods probably has more long term impact than faction picked.  For example in a Human vs Human game, I think you'd have very little chance of winning in the middle.  You'd have to devote a lot to military to defend all fronts, and you'll get pressured/bullied if not run over completely by a few opportunistic enemies.  Even if you did get the lead all 6 enemies could easily reach you...if the AI was smarter they'd do the same..