Random map "Coast Range"

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Hi all,

After my enjoyment of 'hyrcannian shores' which is a nice hybrid (water+land) map, I decided to make something a little similar. 

Coast Range is a hybrid map with players placed in the middle with forests, food and some small rolling hills. The nearby sea has plenty of fish, but on the other side, a plateau rises from the hills with plenty of metal and stone, but no forests and no food. There is stone and metal among the middle, 'rolling hills' section, but it is only the small stone and metal mines.

There's a couple additional things I'd like to do:

1. Make the coast a little more beach-like.

2.Give the plateau a little variation. It looks too straight.

Any other suggestions?

Edited October 27, 2023 by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

The nice thing is this will also work with the 'Grouped lines' placement option, and probably the stronghold team placement. The Circle and Alternating circles could work if there was an approach to convert the circle to an oval and align the teams to either side.

[chrstgtr]

@real_tabasco_sauceDo you have a downloadable mod so that I can toy around with the map in the game? The map looks nice, but it looks really similar to hyrcannian shores, so I don't think I really appreciate the differences by just looking at the screenshot/description. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

map_placement.zip

This has all the placement options on the random maps, and also contains the new migration as well as the Coast Range map.

For coast range, there is a bug with a couple of the biomes, so just use subalpine for the time being.

[chrstgtr]

1 hour ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

map_placement.zip 1 MB · 0 downloads

This has all the placement options on the random maps, and also contains the new migration as well as the Coast Range map.

For coast range, there is a bug with a couple of the biomes, so just use subalpine for the time being.

Thanks. I'll take a look and let you know if I have any thuoghts. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Ok I "managed" to add stronghold, both circle placements, river placement, and grouped lines which is nice.

[chrstgtr]

I played around with it a little bit. 

It seems fine. A couple recommendations from me.

First, I would make stone/metal more scarce in the starting positions by eliminating extra mines outside of the mountains and/or making the starting mines smaller. That would force players to decide between (1) pushing hard early; and (2) going for a long game where they control the mines on the edge of the map. I would make this dramatic by giving players only like 1-2K in starting metal/stone.

Second, I would create a larger dead space between the trees and mines where there are no resources. Right now, a player could place a second CC where that would allow them to get a bunch of extra wood/mines. On maps like hyrcannian shores, players almost always expand for extra wood. When they expand for extra wood, players will also get mines at basically no extra cost. I would make the choice to get extra mines a conscience one where the player has to sacrifice an opportunity to get more wood. This would also have the effect of making wood more scarce.

Third, I would make it a high food spawn map. That allows for lots of early rushes, which I think is fun on these maps where the players start so close. 

Edit: Fourth, I would make a lot of hunt on the inland side of the map. Having half the players have easy access to fish creates a natural imbalance in early game. 

Edited October 28, 2023 by chrstgtr

[real_tabasco_sauce]

2 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

First, I would make stone/metal more scarce in the starting positions by eliminating extra mines outside of the mountains and/or making the starting mines smaller. That would force players to decide between (1) pushing hard early; and (2) going for a long game where they control the mines on the edge of the map. I would make this dramatic by giving players only like 1-2K in starting metal/stone.

I could just eliminate the small metal mines, and just keep the small stone ones.

3 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

Second, I would create a larger dead space between the trees and mines where there are no resources.

I see, in that case, I could increase the separation a good bit. You will still be able to access both with a cc of course just because of how much territory a cc has, but you won't be able to have both wood and the mines right next to the cc for protection.

[chrstgtr]

Overall, though, it looks like a fun map. I really like maps that encourage early skirmishes like this. I would just try to make it a little more unique than hyrcannian shores. 

[chrstgtr]

6 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I see, in that case, I could increase the separation a good bit. You will still be able to access both with a cc of course just because of how much territory a cc has, but you won't be able to have both wood and the mines right next to the cc for protection.

Yeah, depends on how big the map is and when it is placed. I think this map is probably best played in a large map, which allows for quite a bit of seperation. 

6 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

I could just eliminate the small metal mines, and just keep the small stone ones.

Seems reasonable given some civs reliance on stone for slingers. The reason why I suggest this is so that players actually go after the mines. I like the idea. But I don't want it to be like Ngorongo where everyone ignores the center mines. I don't know how the math works out, but maybe making it so that you have to expand to get all military upgrades would help. Your choice on how dramatic to go. 

Edited October 28, 2023 by chrstgtr