I have been playing quite a bit of Biomes of America lately, a beautiful map with crazy different gameplay employing progressive bonuses. For those who haven't tried it, give it a shot.

https://www.warzone.com/Map/30404-Biomes-Americas

I would like to introduce it to my friends and play it 3v3, but my friends and I prefer to play random spawns (random distribution). Does anyone have any suggestions on how to set up the distribution on Biomes for balanced play with random spawns?

Currently the 3v3 settings are 3x4 per player, on a map with full distribution (154 territories) with 120 wastelands, leaving a total of 34 potential starting spots. Teams start with 3 gift cards and 3 sanction cards.

Any thoughts?

p.s., Yes, I understand that manual starts are a huge part of the game, especially with the Biomes of America template. However, in team games, especially 3v3 team games, manual picks are problematic. There is often quite the struggle to coordinate picks at the start of the game, which would only be worsened on a template like Biomes. Moreover, one player's poor picks can destroy the game for a team. Often it is just easier to play random distribution and accept that quite a few games end up being uneven based on spawns. At least you get to stay friendly with your fellow players :)

If there is enough starts combined with enough blockades you could probably mix and match em till you get something reasonable.... still the negative income being a huge part of this template makes a viable random start template problematic.

Aura Guardian wrote:

If there is enough starts combined with enough blockades you could probably mix and match em till you get something reasonable.

Yes, good point. Any ideas on what combinations to start with?

still the negative income being a huge part of this template makes a viable random start template problematic.

Oh I agree this is a problem. Maybe increasing blockades and gift cards? Or maybe even include +3/+5 reinforcement cards from turn 1?

But if reinforcement cards are added, do we need to drop base income?

Just some ideas.

you could include a negative sanction card per team to give someone with a poor start some income. Although it could also be used to boost the strongest teammember to make it even more unbalanced

I think more spawns and blockades could be a decision. That from e.g. 15 random spawns per team 6 can be blockaded. With blockade and 4 starting armies most spots are playable.

I think the easy way to fix this would be a base income of 0 (like on the 1v1 template), and a bunch of given reinforcement cards at the start (e.g. 6 cards of +3, or 9 cards of +2), also like in the 1v1. Add a bunch of blockades as well (minimum 5), and you have options to get somewhere to positive income from about every start.

However, it does require some discussion on turn 1 then, on who takes the cards. There is the argument of taking an equal number of cards, but ideally, a player with potential negative income should take more cards to guarantee not ending the first turn with some negatives somewhere. This level of discussion should be less than picking though.

I haven't read the above posts. But, couldn't you just setup a 50% sanction card for x number of turns. Then if someone gets insanely lucky they come back down to normal incomes

Cards will help remedy the problem. Gift cards, sanction cards, blockades...

I like the 50% sanction card idea. And yes, it looks like cards are the answer.