Quest for a new TG map

[Yekaterina]

Dear all:

I would like to request for a new map that is suitable for 4v4 TGs. If anyone can help me make it or teach me how to make a map, that would be great!

 

Mainland is currently the most popular map for TGs, but aside from the spawn location issue that I mentioned before, it has 2 additional imperfections.

1. Berries spawn between mines. This is hugely inconvenient, so it should be prohibited. Berries should be far from the mines.

2. There are random hills on Mainland; they can lock a player inside at times. These hills are just an obstruction: either both sides are frustrated, or, the archer side gets a huge advantage. I think these hills are completely unnecessary and they don't make the match more fun or enjoyable for anyone. Their only real effect is offset the balance and foil battles.

This hill might look innocent but it will cause great frustration once fighting starts. This is not even the worst case; today I was barricaded into a cage by 3 hills and I couldn't help my allies nor escape enemy attacks...

Sad...

In conjunction with the spawn location issue that I mentioned in another thread, I believe that we need an upgrade, a better version of Mainland that is fair for all players. We can start from Mainland as a benchmark and tweak it such that:

• All players get equal, dense forests that are accessible in phase 1.
• All players get equal number of berries
• No geographical features
• All players get equal amounts of metal and stone
• Players can decide where they would like to spawn based on their choice of colour, e.g. yellow being team 1 border, orange being team 1 pocket...

Please comment if you have any additional suggestions.

Best,

Helicity

 

 

 

[Stan`]

How about @Feldfeld ' maps or Badosu's balanced map ?

[Akira Kurosawa]

Why not make two maps? One will be balanced and the other is random? For example, I like unpredictable terrain generation. Random terrain adds naturalness, intrigue to the game and adds ingenuity to the strategy ... But if you insist, then it would be fair to add an option to switch the generation from random to "e-sports" mirror.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Akira Kurosawa

[maroder]

ref:

This topics keeps coming up but I'm still unsure how many people would really like such a "plain" map. (The balancing options are a good idea regardless, I'm only talking about this "no hills - everything absolutely the same" kind of map).

At the end this description doesn't sound like a random map to me and more like a scenario map - specifically the option to choose the specific position for each player.

[Stan`]

5 minutes ago, maroder said:

At the end this description doesn't sound like a random map to me and more like a scenario map - specifically the option to choose the specific position for each player.

That's because random is the wrong word. The word we should use is procedural.

[sternstaub]

11 minutes ago, maroder said:

This topics keeps coming up but I'm still unsure how many people would really like such a "plain" map.

I would like it as much as a chess-board with only white squares, in other words: not at all.

[Yekaterina]

You can debate about whether the hills should be kept, but we can all agree that berries between mines is a disaster that must be removed.

[sternstaub]

Just now, Yekaterina said:

You can debate about whether the hills should be kept, but we can all agree that berries between mines is a disaster that must be removed.

It is true.

[Grapjas]

14 minutes ago, Yekaterina said:

but we can all agree that berries between mines is a disaster that must be removed.

Not sure why, you generally consume your berries before you (need to) start mining.

Edited February 28, 2023 by Grapjas

[maroder]

sure the berry placement can be annoying and could be improved (but I also don't think that its game deciding).

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

That's because random is the wrong word. The word we should use is procedural.

true. although procedural maps can/do also feature different levels of randomness and it seems to me that what some people want is _no_ randomness. So even if we get https://code.wildfiregames.com/D4053 committed, it seems like that would not satisfy what some of the mp people want?

[Yekaterina]

1 hour ago, Grapjas said:

Not sure why, you generally consume your berries before you (need to) start mining.

Yes, but there are 2 major disadvantages:

1. You cannot place your farmstead at the optimal position because your mines are obstructing you. This is especially the case for civilisations with large farmsteads, e.g. Persians, Gauls.

2. You must delete the farmstead later in order to place down storehouses for mines. The 100 wood invested goes to waste.

Even if you do not need to delete it, it is unlikely for you to be able to farm near it effectively as the field placement near the farmstead, mines and future storehouses will be much more awkward compared to a farmstead in the middle of nowhere. So that means you have to invest 100 more wood into farming compared to other players, meanwhile having a hindered berry gathering rate. In early game, this is a significant price to pay just for bad luck.

 

[Yekaterina]

At this point,  it seems like a deterministic map (skirmish/scenario) would satisfy everyone. But sadly few maps in the skirmish or scenario category can host 8 players, so what we really need is a 4v4 skirmish map. Atlas Mountains is off the table because of its lack of resources and uneven terrain. Mercenary civs enjoy too much advantage there.

[Yekaterina]

This is what I am talking about

[Yekaterina]

Save file and turn into mod pls

[norjay]

So the  basic requirements are:

• the map is for two parties, every party has several members
• between the members there are no obstacles, members should have easy access to the area of other members of the same party. Maybe the members of the same party are some more closer to each other than they are to members of other parties.
• there is a strict setting of resources in the proximity of every base, for example there should always be a stone and metal mine behind the base and 8 bushes of berries in front of the base, no trees in the proximity of 8 fields, but 200 trees in the proximity of 16 fields to the base.
• should there be natural obstacles between opposing parties, dense forests, water, ridges, everything combined ?
• what about additional resources ? How many additional mines should there be for every party ?

[BreakfastBurrito_007]

I enjoy the hills. We have feldmap in case we want 0 randomness, but I think the base version should have a lower standard deviation in resource amounts.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

18 hours ago, Yekaterina said:

berries between mines is a disaster that must be removed.

Idk about "disaster" but it can be annoying. But, how to address it?

I think for random (or procedural) maps a good solution would be to introduce variation in the position of metal and stone. This massively lowers the odds that the situation mentioned occurs, and also puts more "random" into the random map.

[LetswaveaBook]

On 01/03/2023 at 6:18 AM, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Idk about "disaster" but it can be annoying. But, how to address it?

I agree on the annoying part. and it can be addressed by editing the map script. I don't have the code rightly available, but I once did change the starting resource placement and made a screenshot back then.

On 11/06/2022 at 2:46 PM, LetswaveaBook said:

I have been modding a little today and I managed to create a variation of mainland where players start with walls.

 

[LetswaveaBook]

On 27/02/2023 at 6:19 PM, Helicity said:

2. There are random hills on Mainland; they can lock a player inside at times.

This can also be fairly easily be modded out. Making hills (or anything) appear is actually more difficult than removing them.

[gui456wSERTDYF]

If you want it to be perfectly balanced then you should give each player exactly the same. One way is simply to divide the map in x portions (like a pizza) where x is the number of players. Then define however you want one portion, i.e. place the CC, resources, etc. Finally copy-paste the portion increasing the angle by 2*pi/x. Then you have a perfectly balanced map, including not only hills and berries but also wood (which is not necessarily balanced in mainland), animals, etc. In such map it is not possible to blame the terrain for any imbalances that could appear.