Random map auditing

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Hello random map players,

There are new some random maps in the works, but we want to avoid cluttering the random maps menu with too many maps. So the idea is we should add good maps but also remove some of the very worst maps.

I think we should have pretty substantial agreement to fully remove a random map.

Lastly, I'd like to float the idea of adding a new random map category where players can find some of the more crazy random maps that are overlooked but loved by few. I think an example of this would be snowflake sea rocks. Perhaps the name could be "Random Map Experiences", or something like that.

So, please comment a random map or two, maybe with a screenshot and a couple arguments why you don't like it.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I'll start with river archipelago.

Ship pathing up and down the rivers is pretty terrible, the rivers make the flanks of the map much less accessible which would be ok if only they provided an advantage.

[LetswaveaBook]

15 minutes ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

we want to avoid cluttering the random maps menu

Maybe it would be an idea to catagorize random maps and employ that to avoid a messy menu.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 minute ago, LetswaveaBook said:

Maybe it would be an idea to catagorize random maps and employ that to avoid a messy menu.

Yes, we have this, but I think we can do a better job of organizing.

[Gurken Khan]

I never got why there's demos and tests in the random random maps. Maybe move'em all to Atlas?

[real_tabasco_sauce]

I think they are just in skirmish maps and scenarios. They are designed to test gameplay and performance, so I think its important that they are in the game and not atlas.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

May I suggest we find that one thread where someone made a cool chart ranking all the maps on various criteria. Then perhaps agree on a "top 20" list of maps we will definitely keep and improve, then the next 20, and maybe have a max of 50 total we will bother putting effort into improving. The rest can be moved to an official maps mod. 

[real_tabasco_sauce]

well, we have 80-something random maps, so with better organization, the clutter won't be such a big issue. I'd rather do that first than have to delete any maps.

This way we don't any players in this situation:

Currently, we have these options as "filters"

how about this set of categories:

• Favorites (replaces default with a larger selection of the "Best for MP" maps.)
• Water Maps (naval maps + water/land hybrid maps)
• Dynamic Maps (Player vs enemy maps (Trigger maps) + evolution maps like Extinct Volcano)
• All Maps
• Demo Maps (maybe we should eventually just group all the demo/testing maps regardless of whether they are random or skirmish or scenario)

Some other ideas could be "open maps", "closed maps", and "Madness Maps" with only the really crazy ones.

[Lion.Kanzen]

The first criteria must be gameplay.

The second performance.

The third beauty.

The fifth... originality.

[chrstgtr]

Thoughts. If you disagree with any I can explain. There's a pretty strong association between maps being based on a real place and the map being unenjoyable. 

• Great
  • Ambush
  • Archipelago 
  • Continent 
  • Hyraccian Shores
  • Mainland
  • Cross
  • Foothills
  • Frontier
  • Slopes
  • Stronghold
  • Unknown
  • Wrench
• Fun
  • African Plains
  • Alpine Lakes
  • Alpine Mountains (but basically the same as alpine valley)
  • Alpine Valley (but basically the same as alpine mountains)
  • Ardennes Forest
  • Atlas Mountains
  • Corinthian Isthmus (I personally hate it but others like it)
  • Deep Forest 
  • Flood
  • Gear
  • Guadalquivir River
  • Gulf of Bohemia 
  • Harbor
  • Hell's Pass
  • Lake (basically the same as Harbor, though. I would make these consolidated the way that Gulf of Bohemia is for frozen lake)
  • Latium (I personally hate this map but others like it)
  • Lorraine Plain
  • Ngorongo (a bit unbalanced, though)
  • Oasis (I personally hate this map but others like it)
  • Persian Highlands (could use more wood, though. If it had more wood it would be a better version of Ngorongo)
  • Pyrienne Sierra
  • Ratumacus
  • Rhine Marshlands
  • Saharian Oasis (I personally hate this map but others like it)
  • Schwarzwald (very similar to deep forest)
• Meh
  • Arctic Winter
  • Brittanic Road
  • Cantabrian Highlands
  • Canyon
  • Kerela (just a worse version of Hyrancian Shores)
  • Lion's Den
  • Marmara
  • Migration 
  • Neareastern Badlands
  • Phoencian Levant (Just a much, much worse version of Hyrancian Shores)
  • Rivers (basically Harbor but more ship focused)
  • Sahel Watering Holes
  • Syria (getting close to feeling the pain)
  • Nile
• Feeling the pain
  • Belgian Uplands (borderline painful but would be fun if wood wasn't awful)
  • Botswana Haven (borderline painful but would be fun if wood wasn't awful)
  • Caledeonian Meadows
  • Fields of Meroe (the spam spot positioning on this are nonsense but if that was fixed it could be fun) 
  • Hellas (the spam spot positioning on this are nonsense but fixing that still won't make it fun) 
  • India (could be fun if wood wasn't awful)
  • Lower Nubia (the spam spot positioning on this are nonsense but fixing that still won't make it fun) 
  • River Archipelago 
  • Sythian Rivulet
  • Wild Lake (basically the same as other good maps except it throws AI units in to make it a bad map)
• Painful
  • Anatolian Plateau 
  • Northern Lights 
  • Pompeii
  • Snowflake Searocks
  • Volanic Land (also basically the same as Pompeii)
• AI Maps
  • Danubius 
  • Jebel Barkal
  • Survival of the Fittest
• Gimmick Maps
  • Empire
  • Extinct Volcano
  • Fortress
  • Polar Sea (but really belongs in the painful category)
  • Sahel (it's a trade map)
  •  
• "Atlas" Maps
  • Mediterranean (the spam spot positioning on this map are nonsense and make balancing impossible)
  • Red Sea (the spam spot positioning on this map are nonsense and make balancing impossible)
• "Creator" Maps
  • RMS Test
  • Wall Demo
• Naval (unplayable right now because of issues with ships but still deserving of their own category and shouldn't be deleted because hopefully ships become playable in the future) 
  • Aegean Sea
  • Bahrain
  • Corsica vs Sardinia
  • Cycladic Archipeliago 
  • Dodecanese
  • Elephantine
  • English Channel
  • Island Stronghold
  • Islands

[Lion.Kanzen]

3 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

Painful

• Anatolian Plateau 
• Northern Lights 
• Pompeii
• Snowflake Searocks
• Volanic Land (also basically the same as Pompeii)

 

This group, they are definitely the worst.

Latium was not far from this group.

Volcanic maps would need new ideas and mechanics.

Anatolian plains is very boring, is a empty map, almost a demo map.

Northern Lights needs more concentrated resources( closer together).Maybe more fishing and hunting.

Maps with little wood can be improved by creating groves with lots of wood and perhaps having them regenerate.

[Gurken Khan]

5 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

• Great
  • Ambush

I usually don't play it; not a fan of that restricted basin, the paths to useful terrain are often painful.

 

5 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

• Fun
  • Hell's Pass

Meh. Both positions can be painful. Sometimes there's no wood for miles, sometimes the back position is extremely limited by a body of water.

 

5 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

• Meh
  • Kerela (just a worse version of Hyrancian Shores)
  • Marmara
  • Neareastern Badlands

I actually like those, except the ~Istanbul spawn points; just the other day I re-rolled for another spawn point and then played Marmara.

 

5 hours ago, chrstgtr said:

• Feeling the pain
  • Fields of Meroe (the spam spot positioning on this are nonsense but if that was fixed it could be fun) 
  • Hellas (the spam spot positioning on this are nonsense but fixing that still won't make it fun) 
  • Sythian Rivulet
  • Wild Lake (basically the same as other good maps except it throws AI units in to make it a bad map)

I like Fields of Meroe and Wild Lake. (I assume "spam spot" is supposed to be "spawn point"?) I don't see the problem with FoM. Hellas I look at the map and then decide if I want to play it (~50/50); sometimes I think the terrain is just BS, not a fan of that one Gaia siege unit. Scythian Rivulet I also look at the map and count trees, access to wood is very unbalanced; same goes for Volcanic Lands.

I like Mediterranean (although it has issues) and Red Sea, never felt like the later had an issue.

[chrstgtr]

@Gurken Khan your dislike for a lot of maps is your dislike of the strategy involved, which is what make them fun (generally a need to expand if the game lasts longer than one push). 
 

The spawn spots are issues because the spots are so different from each other with some much, much better than others. Also, the positioning doesn’t have teammates aren’t next to each other (could be good or bad, but def not balanced). 

[Gurken Khan]

16 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

your dislike for a lot of maps is your dislike of the strategy involved, which is what make them fun (generally a need to expand if the game lasts longer than one push). 

I almost always expand; map's gotta be tight from the beginning if I don't.

Spoiler

Doing only SP and the AI being pretty predictable it creates a nice "welcome center" where fighting is advantageous for me and shields my Hinterland; and since I like to capture fortifications and infrastructure it's best when my territory already pushes on theirs.

What I really don't like is scarce or no wood, it's soo sluggish; but I felt it was unnecessary to explicitly agree when you didn't rank those maps high.

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

On 16/11/2024 at 7:59 AM, chrstgtr said:

• Hyraccian Shores

On 16/11/2024 at 7:59 AM, chrstgtr said:

• Kerela (just a worse version of Hyrancian Shores)

On 16/11/2024 at 7:59 AM, chrstgtr said:

• Phoencian Levant (Just a much, much worse version of Hyrancian Shores)

 

In cases such as this, let's just outright remove the worst versions and consolidate them into the "Hyrcanian Shores" map with custom biomes. So, choosing Kerala uses the India biome assets, while choosing Phoenician Levant uses the Aegean-Anatolian biome assets. There are probably a lot of other examples of "lakes" style maps or "a river runs through it", where multiple maps can be consolidated into one and you can get variety with custom biomes. 

[alre]

I support many things that have been said here:

- having a customizable "favorites" selection would help immensely with clutter

- more categories would also help, and it would help if they weren't mutually exclusive. Examples of this kind of categories would be "naval", "co-op/scripted", "Gaia enemies", "geo-realistic", etc.

- I also agree that a general review of all maps would be good, because some maps are just very bad and nobody likes them, and also because some maps are good (even very good) but could be better if some flaws were addressed. Uknown, for instance, can have issues with wood distribution that mainland and continent don't have.

On 16/11/2024 at 1:59 PM, chrstgtr said:

Red Sea (the spam spot positioning on this map are nonsense and make balancing impossible)

I think Marmara is less balanced than Red Sea, south team has a noticeable strategic advantage. Red Sea is less predictable, and flexible team strategy is necessary to turn the game around. Lower Nubia is another ridiculously unbalanced map.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

1 hour ago, alre said:

- having a customizable "favorites" selection would help immensely with clutter

Oh i meant a multiplayer favorites category, so the most balanced, "best for MP" maps. This will include maps that have good potential. Although i see that this category could be confused with user defined favorite maps, which might be a good idea.

1 hour ago, alre said:

- more categories would also help, and it would help if they weren't mutually exclusive. Examples of this kind of categories would be "naval", "co-op/scripted", "Gaia enemies", "geo-realistic", etc.

I think in addition to the categories I listed earlier, I will add "Map Experiences", or maybe call it "Novelty Maps", these include geo-realistic maps and maps like snowflake searocks and lions den, where the gamplay is centered around the map.

I support removing Kerala, especially since hyrcanian shores has biomes already.

Edited 15 hours ago by real_tabasco_sauce

[real_tabasco_sauce]

thoughts on stronghold? Now that there are placement options that include stronghold placement in many maps, I am beginning to see this map as a worse version of ambush with stronghold placement.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

i did all of this for each and every map and accidentally did git reset --hard

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Ok, it looks like I have to keep the "Default" category name because it is baked into the gui setup defaults for random maps AND skirmish maps.

^makes me want to vomit.

So basically I will rename "Favorites" to "Default". 

Actually, because of this, it is not worth my time. I think we have a good idea of the way forward though. In the mean time, I will do some miscellaneous improvements to several maps, especially looking at wood resources. In that patch I'll delete kerala.

Edited 7 hours ago by real_tabasco_sauce

[chrstgtr]

8 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

thoughts on stronghold? Now that there are placement options that include stronghold placement in many maps, I am beginning to see this map as a worse version of ambush with stronghold placement.

I find them to be different. I actually tend to prefer Stronghold. 

Ambush tends to have more cliffs, which can be good or bad depending on what you are looking for. It leads itself to towering and "ambushing" of units passing through valleys. I tend to disfavor Ambush because the cliffs tend to create chokepoints that are good for turtling and impossible to attack if your civ doesn't have catapults. 

Stronghold tends to be flatter and have more hilltops, which, unlike cliffs, can be attacked from all sides. It can also be more or less flat with mountains dividing the terrain. 

I've always found the random map generation to be too variable for both Ambush and Stronghold. Sometimes you get an awesome map. Other times you want to do a quick re for a better generation. 

I think these differences are significant enough to keep both maps. It's not like Hyranccian Shores, Kerela, and Phoencian Levant, which are all essentially the same map with just a larger and larger portion of the map being excess water that doesn't get used (and a random island for Phoencian Levant that isn't worth colonizing). Nonetheless, I think most people will confuse them. 

[Gurken Khan]

18 minutes ago, chrstgtr said:

a random island for Phoencian Levant that isn't worth colonizing

In general I agree with your above post, on this point I don't; if I spawn at the coast I always colonize it, just for the wood. Wood tends to be a little too sparse on the mainland for my taste.

 

On 16/11/2024 at 1:59 PM, chrstgtr said:

AI Maps

• Danubius 
• Jebel Barkal
• Survival of the Fittest

Any opinions regarding those? I never played Survival of the Fittest, I believe it says that it doesn't work with AI players. I'm too dumb for Jebel Barkal. On Danubius I think the Gaia ~cities are enough to chew through, as I consider the Gaia armies and flotillas materializing out of thin air complete BS I don't play it anymore.