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Update of map post alpha 23 (version 1.0.7 in the download section) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi everyone! I wanted to share my first 0 A.D. map - well, rather a preliminary version - with you. I was inspired by the map of Assassins Creed Origins which just crammed everything Egypt into a single place, often disregarding realism in favor of aesthetics and gameplay, which I did as well. I did for example borrow the idea of moving Cyrene, which is around 700km to the west into Alexandrias vicinity in order to add some Mediterranean environment. A further reason for me to pick that setting was that it allows me to have a lot of different cultures on the map. The upper Nile area is dominated by ptolemaic retro-egypt buildings, whereas the city of Alexandria is dominated by hellenic influences. Cyrene gave me an excuse for adding the Romans with some greek buildings, while I put the Persians, who were admittedly not really present at that same time, in the east. For purely aesthetic reasons I let Carthage occupy the Siwa oasis, and the Red Sea became a tourist destination for Mauryan coral reef divers. Map variants First of all, please take note, that this is not a final product, not even close. The map already includes most of the geological features and special locations I intended to add, but there are many areas that severely lack in detail, which is quite ok for sand deserts, but looks odd in places like coasts, riverbanks and rocky deserts. Blocking the map is also an issue, mainly because it feels strange, when the AI builds farms in the middle of the desert. The greatest thing that needs to be taken care of is balancing. Basic properties Type: skirmish Map size: giant Players: 6 Game version: alpha 23 (re-release) Right now (8.2.2018) I will only publish a 1 vs. 1 map. This has the benefit of being at least a little easier to balance out. I will provide A regular day version And a full-moon night version, because it looks just darn beautiful. I really love what you can do with the lighting and ambient conditions ... Update march 2018: A 3 vs. 3 map variant is now available and several small fixes regarding terrain, blockings and balancing have been made. On the long term I will try to release two varieties of the map regarding gameplay An all-in map: This one is outfitted with full grown cities and you will start with huge amounts of resources and a sizable army. Don’t try to play this with 7 AI players, as it will probably lag horribly. A stripped down version: Everything, except for the most prominent points of interest (e.g. the library) will be deleted. The difficult thing about this is that I will need to create a mod in order to achieve what I desire: See, if I make these buildings actors, all units will just pass through it, and if I leave them as entities, they will be taken over by the players within a few seconds and this would severely unbalance the game. Thus, I need to create a mod, which has all these buildings in a special version. I will increase those buildings capture points by a huge amount and also make them invulnerable, such that capturing them remains the only option. In some cases I might also try to reduce their functionality. Thanks to all the guys who helped me with useful tips and insights regarding modding. Gameplay In this map I tried to elongate the distance between neighboring players and create straight routes between the distant ones. In order to achieve the first requirement, the rare shallow banks of river Nile, meandering mountain tracks and marauding packs of soldiers prohibit straightforward shifts of large armies. On the other hand far away players can often be reached via wide patches of desert, which act like highways on this map. One major problem was the city of Memphis, which is located almost in the center of the map. I order to provide this city with a slight chance for survival I shaped the eastern and western desert like a bypass circumventing Memphis and relocated the city to the eastern shore of the river Nile, which I made impassable from north to south, while only the western riverbanks remained open. The Mediterranean Sea and the river Nile are navigable, which serves as much better means of transportation than the walk along the river by foot. Every player has wood in close vicinity to the starting point. No player will run out of wood easily. The banks of river Nile are especially rich in palms for obvious reasons. Stone is predominantly located in mountainous regions. Limestone can be found close to the pyramids and there is a rather large granite quarry in the very south. As I wanted the player to travel through the sandy dunes a lot metal can be found on the borders of sandy deserts. If you play the map, please let me know where you found too much resources and where they are missing. Players & Matches (and faction recommendations, mostly for esthetic reasons) Currently (9.3.2018) only the six players are available. Player #1: Alexandria (with greek and ptolemeaic entities) in the center north as Seleucids Player #2: Thebes in the very south as Kush Player #3: Siwa/Charga Oasis in the west as Carthage Player #4: Sinai in the north east as Persia Player #5: Memphis in the center as Ptolemeis Player #6: Cyrene in the north west as Romans Player #7: Red Sea in the east as Mauryan (buildings might be reverted to random later) Player #8: Desert nomads from the south west (random) Note: The AI does not get along with that map too well. It will soon be very crowded and very laggy if you choose a game with too many players. Proper matches would be: 2 players: Lower Egypt (#1 Alexandria) vs. upper Egypt (#2 Thebes) Lower Egypt currently has the edge, due to access to the Nile delta. 3 players: Lower Egypt (#1 Alexandria) vs. upper Egypt (#2 Thebes) vs. Siwa (#3) 4 players: Egypt (#1 and #2) vs invaders (#3 Siwa and #4 Sinai) Slowly approaches being balanced (version 0.19.10) 6 players: Egypt (#1, #2, #5) vs invaders (#3, #4, #6) Slowly approaches being balanced (version 0.20.7) Points of interest (selection) Alexandria: library, harbor, lighthouse Memphis: necropolis, pyramids, Apis sanctuary Fayyum: Crocodile sanctuary, Bahr Yussef channel & dam Thebes: Temple district, valley of kings Western desert: Siwa oasis with fortress, Great sand sea, Quattara depression, guelta Eastern desert: Red Sea coral reefs, mount Sinai, "Suez channel", deep wadi I collapsed some more screenies for you here ... ToDo and Changelog My ToDo-List is growing and shrinking all the time. If you have suggestions, please let me know. Unfortunately I cannot promise you, when or if I will implement them. You know, real life can be unpredictable ;-) Download Download the files and put them into the specific folders for maps and preview images. The paths I will state below are default paths for typical Windows 10 installation but may vary depending on your system and installation path. In case subfolders do not exist yet on your system, simply create them. Map files: Download: Version 0.19.6 (1 vs. 1) Version 0.19.10 (currrent) Version 0.20.7 (for upcoming release alpha23, new route through the red sea for balancing) Version 1.0.7 (30.12.2018, based on published version of 0 A.D. version alpha 23, design enhancments: red sea riffs, more nile river bank vegetation, parapets for persian base, fire places for town centers, small secret garden, other small fixes like missing ground textures, etc.) Path: “C:\users\yourname\documents\my games\0ad\mods\user\maps\skirmishes” When is the good time for deleting older versions from a post? Can I make the XML files all use the same PMP file? I noticed a zipped xml is about 10 times smaller. is the community OK with zip files? Map preview images: Download: Path: “C:\users\yourname\appdata\local\0 A.D. alpha\binaries\data\mods\public\art\textures\ui\session\icons\mappreview” In case you are playing this map, please let me know about anything that can be optimized. Thanks a lot in advance. Greetings mimesot