Predetermined spawn locations on Mainland / Random maps

[Yekaterina]

Dear players and developers:

Mainland is one of the most popular maps in the game lobby for its balanced resources and non-obtrusive terrain. However, I have found a few imperfections that perhaps we can improve on.

The first and foremost issue is the random placement of players within a team. Before the start of a game, we can only decide the player's colours and the team, then we just know that all team members are placed together, but we don't have the freedom to choose who spawns bordering an enemy and who spawns as the centre. This is a source of imbalance: the positioning of the stronger players (pro) and weaker players (noob) can hinder the team's performance as a whole. Please allow me to explain with the example scenario of placing 1 noob and 1 pro:

In this setup, the blue team has an advantage over the red team. This is because the blue noob is immediately next to an enemy, so they will be pressured into taking actions, be it passive (being invaded by the red pro) or aggressive (trying to attack the red pro). Even though the blue noob may be defeated by the red pro, they gave time to the blue pro to further upgrade their army and reach an advantageous position. This is assuming the 2 pros are of comparable skill levels and the 2 noobs are quite weak or just not responsive, meanwhile the other side of the map isn't exerting any influence here (which is often the case).

Let's consider some strategies here:

1. The red pro takes offensive position and attack the blue noob

Any invasion comes at a cost: the red pro will certainly loose a few units and injure a dozen, so now the blue pro can come with their prime specimen army and defeat the weary red pro easily. Even though weak in comparison, the blue noob would have committed their whole army including towers and civic centres to defend them and wear out the red pro. In the mean time, the red pro cannot expect any significant contributions from the red noob, who would still be slowly doing their economy in a false sense of security or wasting time on some lost cause. Hence the red team will lose this side after a joint counterattack from the blue pro and blue noob.

2. The red team plays defensively

Now, if the red team decides to play it safe and turtle, unless the red noob can actually coordinate with the red pro in late game, they will be smashed by the blue team as well: Suppose the blue pro launches a direct attack on the red pro and we see a huge battle, the location of this battlefield would be on the doorsteps of the blue noob, who will most likely be startled by the huge enemy force near their base and join the fight. Immediately, the situation is 2v1. Given the rate at which units die, the red pro would have lost before the their noob teammate comes to help. The red noob is still under no pressure to help out. Even if the blue noob can remain calm, the worst case scenario for the blue team is being pushed back into regeneration and stalemate, and this is the best scenario for the red team at this point.

3. The red pro attacks the blue pro

It's hard to predict the outcome of the first battle, but the red pro will have to reinforce their front line over a greater distance and possibly fight under towers and fortresses of the blue pro. It's unlikely that either noob can join at the appropriate time, therefore the chances of red succeeding is extremely low.

 

In conclusion, the red team is predictably lost if the map generated like this. Therefore I believe that it is necessary to let the players decide where they would like to spawn before the game starts, which would add an extra layer of strategy and teamwork consideration into the game, meanwhile avoiding this.

 

[Yekaterina]

In order to circumvent this, we can:

• Fix the positions of each colour, very much like the scenario maps and skirmish maps, then let the players choose their position through colours.
• Create a new 4v4 skirmish map which has all of the advantages of Mainland, in temperate biome.

 

 

[Yekaterina]

Furthermore, another minor issue with Mainland is the random non-traversable hills. They can protect a random player very well or give them a huge disadvantage by trapping them where they need to fight. It can be frustrating and in my opinion, the hills are completely unnecessary.

Latium and Ratumacos have the best spawn layout as the position of noobs and pros does not affect a team greatly, however, these maps have too many hilled terrains, scarce forests and river bottlenecks which are frustrating for pathfinding and favour archer civs / turtling too much. If we can have a map which have spawns like Ratumacos, has the flat, open terrain of Anatolian Plains and the abundant resources of Mainland, that would be the perfect map!

 

[Yekaterina]

You can make your own map that suits your needs. Then you need to turn it into a mod and convince others to use it. Another easier solution is only allow known players or players with decent profiles to play.

[Lion.Kanzen]

@andy5995 Wasn't he working on something like that? Related to starting positions.

[Yekaterina]

Yes I remember such a map, I think we can download it from mod.io

[Yekaterina]

3 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

Yes I remember such a map, I think we can download it from mod.io

What is the name of this map / mod?

[andy5995]

5 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:

@andy5995 Wasn't he working on something like that? Related to starting positions.

There was D4303 but I abandoned my attempt to have that patch merged.

 

Most of the random maps @Jammyjamjammanand I did that are included in the community maps 2 mod have extra placement positions available (stronghold, line, beside allies). The "Beside Aliies" option uses an algorithm Jammy made, the other two we pinched from Frontier and Ambush.

[andy5995]

53 minutes ago, Helicity said:

What is the name of this map / mod?

Several random maps from the Community Maps 2 mod have more options for Player/Team placement.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

10 hours ago, Helicity said:

In conclusion, the red team is predictably lost if the map generated like this.

I have to disagree here. I have not done any statistics on these outcomes, but to say the red team is more likely to lose is a speculation. It may be easy to assume this if you find yourself a "noob" on the edge with a poorly supportive ally, but at least in my experience, the other factors (all gameplay related: player skill, civ choice, map generation) are much more influential on the outcome.

There are also many scenarios in which the red team wins, for example: red "pro" overbooms while the noob gets ruined and gets champ cavalry and is able to beat blue without any help from red "noob".

While there may be some minuscule significance to player positioning and game outcome over the massive sample size of 4v4s available, the other variables are much more influential.

That being said, I do agree that some additional player positioning options for mainland would be nice. There are some choices for "unknown" fyi.

Edited February 18, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

It would be nice to have choices for team player positions, although I do disagree that having the better of two players on the border is an inherent advantage.

[Yekaterina]

You can disagree but this is my observation so far, during my ~2 weeks of playing in the public lobby. Perhaps, in most high level games, there will be no such noob players when an abundant amount of pro players are online. This mostly happens when we have 2 very weak (<1100? 1200?) players joining a game full of medium (1400? 1500?) to pro (>1600?) players. I'm not sure how the rating system works so the numbers are just a relativistic illustration of skill level. Also a teammate who doesn't speak your language is difficult to deal with...

If the blue pro ignores their noob completely, then the red team does stand a chance if the red pro piles up some champion units while using the population space freed up in fighting with the blue noob. However, if the blue pro comes at any point before the complete destruction of the blue noob, then the red pro will be in a dangerous 2v1 situation, under fire from enemy CC or towers.

The foundation of my theory is that "noobs" will not actively involve themselves in battles (nor make any significant contributions) unless they are directly provoked.

In one of the games I played, I had a Spartan noob as my pocket, when I called for help, he did promptly commit his entire military of ~130 infantry to battle. In the end, he heroically sacrificed all of them for 9 kills... This is the type of situation I am talking about. 

[andy5995]

Looks like @maroderis now doing some related work for us in D4948

[maroder]

10 hours ago, andy5995 said:

some related work

Indeed, it's too late for a27 now, but a28 will feature different placement options for mainland (and potentially other maps as well)