Leaderboard

Well, there were come requests to other balanced maps, I am not looking forward to change vanilla maps, instead I'm more excited to make new maps with unexplored dynamics in 0ad (or poorly explored). Balanced continent was one of those but I implemented it poorly for the last release so don't take it into consideration. I have now put balanced-maps aside for a bit while I'm focused on Monitor mod, the maps are good enough for a Bo5 on a competitive tournament which was the original goal. But I have taken some map suggestions into considerations and have thought of some ideas (maybe experiment with elevation and ramps is something I intend to do). Another important reason is that releasing a new version is a big disruption to players (migrating to 0.20 from 0.18 has been a big pain for example) so I'll just release a new version when significant improvements are made. This is one of the map ideas I am considering for the next map (with proper adjustments to 0ad):

Sure @mysticjim, I'm honored to have the mod in the spotlight :-). Some overview beforehand: balanced-maps was started at first to provide fair competitive maps, the current vanilla maps, especially with each civilization quirks are not suited for that. Most balanced-maps have these generator parameters: - 3-4 patches of wood near p1 range (global 3 or 4, means each player gets 3 or gets 4), except for savanna biome (the one with sparse wood). For hyrcanian shores, wood is not balanced - One stone and one metal mine around p2-p3 range. Except for maps like Cross or Slopes - Food for both players, this can be either berries or fauna. The total amount is global but if it's berries or fauna can vary for each player. Berries and fauna are valued equally, fauna can be at or just a bit away from edge while berries are usually inside p1 territory. Remainders of distribution of food (around 100-400 food) are placed as 'straggler fauna' inside p1 range. - The max for food, propensity for berries over fauna and the fauna types can vary with biome and map. Berries are restricted to at most 2 extra patches. These are technical stuff that you may want or not to share, but just to give you a detailed idea of how the generation works and how it tries to balance for players. 1) Fixed means fixed positions, so the order of players in game setup (the screen before the game starts where host can set things) is the order of players in map. For example if player 1 is just before player 2, player 1 will border player 2 while in vanilla the order of players within a team is random. There are some interesting games that can be played this way in TG, for example 12121212 (where each player is surrounded by enemies), 11221122 (2 player pockets), 11122212 (one vulnerable player for each team) etc... Valihrant uploaded a recent game on Wrench (fixed) if I'm not mistaken. 2) When a host starts a game with a balanced-maps map set, other players can't join unless the mod is installed. That said, players should still be able to join the game if a vanilla map is set and also host vanilla maps. The mod should block users from joining, but due to a bug on 0ad some players are stuck in 0.18 which might show some error messages. To fix that the player needs to remove the old folder manually and update to 0.20. 3) Some people have asked me to consider sending patches to vanilla a24. I'm not rushing to do that for some reasons. More importantly to do that I need to work on setting custom flags for maps so players can still play the old full-random type of map without having a lot of different map names. Casual players or players just wanting to have fun might want to play like that. There are some other reasons, like time, bureaucracy, having to refactor code to adjust to vanilla code style etc... It's on my mind but I'm not rushing to do it 4) Sure, here are some interesting settings to cover: - Cross 1v1 (medium), TG (one size bigger than vanilla) - Slopes 1v1 (small/medium), 2v2 (m), 3v3 (m,n), 4v4 (nor) - Balanced Mainland (vanilla size) - Balanced Hyrcanian (vanilla size or 1 bigger) - Wrench (1 bigger) Again, thanks for covering it and let me know if there's anything else you want to ask. Some map quirks: - Cross has lakes on the back and sides. The side lakes have more fish than the back ones, and include 1 metal and 1 stone mine, each facing opposite player. Cross is a very tactical game and with a more map control meta. - Slopes has better wood on sides, metal mines on mid, and two side lakes. Each side lake has 2 small patches of fauna and one of metal/mine. Slopes is very aggressive, securing/taking over other players ponds takes a big role in 1v1 and for TG trying to attack at the front is not always the best way, instead chipping away with map control is better.

The solution is actually to delete your matchsetttings.json (and the MP version) in your user settings folder, see https://trac.wildfiregames.com/wiki/GameDataPaths

And another Sunday brings another replay

Don't forget to listen to the absolute banger at the final 20 seconds!

That's it. Projectiles (mostly) don't have a trajectory from the simulation point of view, they are just distant delayed hit. Then a trajectory is rendered. The choice was a parabolic trajectory. <Gravity> is the graphical parameter which will adjust the height of the parabola. For now, artists have to tweak that so it fits what they want to see. Don't bother with anything else. More have to be said, but not enough place on that margin.

@badosu Thanks!

As mentioned before, the only thing this achieves is allowing vanilla games to be joined and vanilla players to join modded hosts. If you change the game state in any way, players will still get oos.