Ha, Just when you think you're almost there...
I put this topic here, because it's a map related thing.

We discovered in our last game that Egypt really had a hard time dealing with its AST requirements.

It was the first civilization for West to have two cities for Early Bronze and this really ment a downside which had its influence on the game.

Maybe after some map adjustments this problem is somehow solved, but Egypt certainly isn't that privileged civilization anymore it used to be in Advanced Civilization.

That is why we propose to give Egypt one extra space in Stone Age, leaving the rest as is.


So:
Current:
X X X 0 0 0 @ @ @ $ $ $ & & & #
New:
X X X X 0 0 @ @ @ $ $ $ & & & #

(Stone Age X)
(EBronze 0)
(LBronze @)
(EIron $)
(LIron &)
(End #)

I think we then can do the same for Indus and Babylon, since at least Indus is even harder to play than Egypt. On the other hand, Saba is not that hard to play I believe, so maybe Saba can be given one less round being on the Stone age, so X X X X 0 ... instead of X X X X X ...

You might be right, but let's playtest these East requirements first.

We playtested the Egypt thing last sunday.

Playtest MerlokDD january 3rd:



AS long as it isn't nessecary, I suggest to go for change anyway, as is doesn't hurt. I see no need for only Egypt to have this one step earlier. But after all, we have to do a 'movement'-playtest for AST purposes anyway.

I mean, a real definition can be made this way, both for east and west mapboard.

In the topic about the A.S.T. order I wrote some statistics about what the nations will get in practice. In this topic it is useful too, because I also have looked about which age will be hard or easy for each civilization. To state that, I base my opinion on the following:
Stone Age (X): Acquireing the region. Will be easy if no ships are required to reach all associated areas before cities are built.
Early Bronze Age (0): Building up the cities. Will be hard if there are only a few city sites usable to build and support 7 cities.
Late Bronze Age (A): Basic recovering from calamities. Will be easy if there are several city sites on areas with population limit 3 or higher.
Early Iron Age ($): Recovering from calamities with using advances. Will be hard if there is lack of city sites on areas with population limit 2+, and/or if there is few space to have or reach.
Late Iron Age (&): Getting 9 cities. Will be hard if there is few space to go from.

When an age is easy for a civilization, I propose an A.S.T. requirements scheme with only a few spaces for that age. Only the difficulty of the Early Bronze Age also affects the number of stages in the Stone Age. For the nine civilizations on the west map this results in the following (with the number before each name also being equal to the A.S.T. number):

1 Minoa (hard - easy - medium - medium - medium)
Scenario handbook: 8 1/2 city sites, 7 support.
Expected in practice: 9 1/3 city sites, 6 5/6 support.
Proposed A.S.T. X X X X X 0 0 @ @ @ $ $ $ & & #

2 Celts (medium - very hard - hard - hard - easy)
Scenario handbook: 4 city sites, 23 1/2 support.
Expected in practice: 3 city sites, 28 support.
Proposed A.S.T. X X X X X 0 0 0 @ @ @ $ $ $ & #

3 Carthage (medium - hard - easy - easy - easy)
Scenario handbook: 6 city sites, 13 1/2 support.
Expected in practice: 5 city sites, 12 1/2 support.
Proposed A.S.T. X X X X 0 0 0 0 @ @ $ $ $ & & #

4 Hellas (easy - medium - hard - hard - medium)
Scenario handbook: 6 city sites, 20 support.
Expected in practice: 5 1/2 city sites, 16 5/6 support.
Proposed A.S.T. X X X X 0 0 0 @ @ @ @ $ $ & & #

5 Assyria (easy - easy - easy - easy - hard)
Scenario handbook: 6 1/2 city sites, 16 1/2 support.
Expected in practice: 7 1/3 city sites, 16 1/2 support.
Proposed A.S.T. X X X X 0 0 @ @ @ $ $ $ & & & #

6 Iberia (medium - hard - medium - medium - hard)
Scenario handbook: 6 city sites, 13 1/2 support.
Expected in practice: 5 city sites, 14 support.
Proposed A.S.T. X X X X 0 0 0 @ @ @ $ $ $ & & #

7 Egypt (easy - easy - easy - medium - medium)
Scenario handbook: 8 city sites, 8 1/2 support.
Expected in practice: 8 city sites, 9 1/2 support.
Proposed A.S.T. X X X X 0 0 0 @ @ $ $ $ & & & #

8 Hatti (easy - medium - medium - easy - hard)
Scenario handbook: 6 1/2 city sites, 13 support.
Expected in practice: 6 5/6 city sites, 12 1/3 support.
Proposed A.S.T. X X X X 0 0 0 @ @ @ $ $ & & & #

9 Rome (medium - very easy - medium - medium - easy)
Scenario handbook: 6 city sites, 19 support.
Expected in practice: 8 city sites, 17 1/2 support.
Proposed A.S.T. X X X 0 0 0 @ @ @ $ $ $ & & & #

I hope I can do the same for the east map, but until now we already can start the discussion on the requirements on the west map.
And yes, I know there will be made slight changes on the (west) map, but as long as the starting positions doesn't change I expect that it hardly will influence my A.S.T. (requirements) proposal.

For the remainder of this week I'm busy, but I will make a visual AST from your description to understand it in one view somewhere next week.