Fallen Spire Map Types

[Diazo]

Alright.

To satisfy my curiosity about a question some other threads on the forum have raised, when you are intending to follow the Fallen Spire storyline to its conclusion, what map type do you play?

(I'll post my reasons for this after I get some responses, I want to see if this discussion is worth starting first.)

D.

[zoutzakje]

I simply play on any map type I feel like playing I don't mind taking extra territory for Spire cities on any map type. My playstyle tends to be high-ish AIP anyways, I often won't even need to take extra planets because I already got plenty

[Eternaly_Lost]

Maze maps work wonderfully for the Fallen Spire, so well that I think the whole reason they added them was the for Fallen Spire. I person like Maze C. Although I sometimes do a Snake map so I can have an insane number of cities set up.

[TechSY730]

I don't really like the ultra-chokepoint heavy maps. Although chokepoints make it easy for me to defend, it also makes it easy for the AI to defend, as they will start focusing their defenses on their chokepoint.

However, I don't like chokepoint free maps either. So I don't really like things like grid or crosshatch either.

I would love something like a clusters map (there is a forum post somewhere suggesting that) as it seems to be the right balance between the two for my tastes.

Until then, I usually play on simple or concentric circles.

EDIT: It's actually a mantis post that the clusters style map suggestion is on. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1707

[keith.lamothe]

Concentric is my favorite for anything, really, and I like it for FS too.

It'd be interesting to see someone win a diff 9+ on grid (crosshatch is probably too brutal), as it really complicates the defensive situation.

[Kraiz]

I'm a maze kind of guy.  It seems to have a good variety of backdoor entrances, chokepoints, clustered systems, long dead ends of systems, and bottlenecks.  It does this while presenting it in a much easier to understand view, which helps for strategic planning of where to capture systems and how to manage my territory.

I played a FS game through on a Maze D.  Think I may give it another run through for fun.

[Shrugging Khan]

I would love something like a clusters map (there is a forum post somewhere suggesting that) as it seems to be the right balance between the two for my tastes.

+1
Me want clusters also. Just seems weird to have a Sci-Fi game without them; apart from them seeming like a damn good type to play.

Right now, it's realistic. Always realistic. Because any less would shame a hard-sci-fi man like me even more...not like my e-peen isn't already near-nonexistent due to me playing a game with maximum velocities in space.

[keith.lamothe]

maximum velocities in space.

As one of its first overt moves, the AI setup a VASFG (Very Annoying Subspace Field Generator) causing catastrophic structural failure to any ship travelling faster than a particular velocity that is oddly specific to that type of vessel

Over half the competent human commanders died of rage.

[LintMan]

The spacing requirements for the Spire Hubs seem to make Fallen Spire fairly problematic if you're playing a well-connected realistic or simple map.  Between the requirements of having a 2 planet gap between FS cities, no city on a dead end, and no bordering AI worlds, I wonder if placing 5 hubs would be impossible on some well-connected maps.  IIRC I had a map once (non-FS) with only about 9-11 hops between ANY two planets (which would prevent having 5 hubs).  So I avoid those for Fallen Spire. 

I don't care much for the concentric or snake map types with lots of strictly linear chains of 6+ planets, but I also like having some bottlenecks, so for Fallen Spire I like the X map type.

A cluster map type would be cool.  I'd also like to see a very weakly connected map type where no planet has more than 3-4 connections, but no planets only have 1 connection either, essentially making it small clusters, or perhaps a patchy grid.

[zoutzakje]

Concentric is my favorite for anything, really, and I like it for FS too.

It'd be interesting to see someone win a diff 9+ on grid (crosshatch is probably too brutal), as it really complicates the defensive situation.

I will take you up on that challenge when I have finished my current game. Not going to play with random AI types though... I'm not THAT confident.

[PokerChen]

I wonder if placing 5 hubs would be impossible on some well-connected maps.  IIRC I had a map once (non-FS) with only about 9-11 hops between ANY two planets (which would prevent having 5 hubs).  So I avoid those for Fallen Spire.

My gut instincts tells me it's certainly possible - although in such games you probably won't need all 5-cities. There are also situations where you stuff-up and can't place your 5th city.

Last time I built 5 spire cities was on a realistic map.

[keith.lamothe]

I will take you up on that challenge when I have finished my current game. Not going to play with random AI types though... I'm not THAT confident.

I was hoping someone would take the hint   Which AIs would you pick?  Double-no-waves-type would be kind of defeating the point

[Diazo]

Hmmm, now I'm wanting to try a game like this also......

Anyways, as for what prompted this thread is this:

The spacing requirements for the Spire Hubs seem to make Fallen Spire fairly problematic if you're playing a well-connected realistic or simple map.  Between the requirements of having a 2 planet gap between FS cities, no city on a dead end, and no bordering AI worlds, I wonder if placing 5 hubs would be impossible on some well-connected maps.  IIRC I had a map once (non-FS) with only about 9-11 hops between ANY two planets (which would prevent having 5 hubs).  So I avoid those for Fallen Spire.

To get information for the wiki I did a diff 1/1 sandbox run of fallen spire on a snake map and went "how the hell would I do this on a realistic map?" which is what I play my actual games on.

Note I've never played the entire fallen spire through to completion, I prefer blowing the AI up!

A few comments in other posts about alt-tabbing while waiting for a shard to return home got me thinking about what the map type actually does to difficulty and wondering how many people played the 'easy' maps vs. the 'hard' maps. On a realistic map I could not imagine alt-tabbing away while a shard returned, too many possible things could happen.

The spread of map types is bigger then I was expecting so I'm not sure if I have a point with this thread any more, but it was interesting to see.

D.

[Martyn van Buren]

Realistic all the way for me; it looks more various to me when I'm setting up a game.  That said I should really give maze and circles a try.  Would someone mind telling me what the difference would be between clusters and the current hubs setup?  I'm not sure what you mean by it.

But to answer the question, I've never had the patience to finish an FS game but I have played two to solid midgame states (2 & 4 cities, respectively) on 80-planet realistic maps (~7.6 diff, spirecraft medium and no golems or hybrids) and I don't think it's that hard, although I can't cover all the ways into my core with cities and thus wind up relying a lot more on the spire fleet.  It's pretty easy to manage the general direction that exo-waves come from with gate raiding, so I wound up with basically two fronts in the game I played farther into.  One was only two planets wide, and one connected only to a long chain, so I got the AI to ignore it by neutering the three or four worlds of the chain (it's possible the AI should be modified so this trick doesn't work) and funneled everything into a huge fortress world.  That actually didn't have a city, as I wasn't sure the backdoor trick would work when I build my first city, but it had two fortresses and a ton of spirecraft siege towers, attritioners, and implosion artillery, as well as a few martyrs for CPAs.  Then the other side had a less convenient setup where I had three border worlds all connected into a little clump, and I was able to hold that with more modest emplacements, two cities, and a quarter to a third of my spire fleet on defense.

Anyway, the end result was a very defensive game and a lot of rebuilding outposts outside my core, but the spire fleet was still massively powerful enough that I could often transport it out and take a couple of worlds or fetch a new shard between exo-waves.  I'd estimate this was possible every other or every third exo-wave; depending on what direction the attacks came from I'd either come out pretty much unscathed or lose enough to force me to use the whole calm period rebuilding.  But I think I could probably take out the AI from where I am in another two, three hours without going all the way to the capital, or probably finish that way with more time.

That said, it was a hell of a slog --- how long is a game normally on a more FS-friendly map type?  I got so tired of the length of that game I've been playing exclusively 20-30 planet maps since then.

[Eternaly_Lost]

My Fallen Spire games normal go around 20-30 hours or so. My 10/10 game I bought the final shard in at about it was at about 34 hours or so, although that game is up to 42 hours as I try and win even though the Exo-transceiver should have done it long ago when it went online close to the 35 hour mark.