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New skirmish playable map - Cyprus


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Hello guys, I'm happy to submit to you my last map : Cyprus Island!

Here is Cyprus:

map.thumb.jpg.05d81577dbf71f5c66d172301b

And here is my new map:

screenshot0020.thumb.png.c2c10a8659cad6c

This map is a 2-player skirmish ATM. It will probably need some refinements, I'll improve it gradually. I'll change the "border river" crossing the island later too in future versions. Any feedback is welcome!

Here is the file:

Update: Now in beta1.2, check most recent posts for the file

And finally, some more teasers about the map:

Olympus mount

olympus.jpeg.acf8eda89b971fe2647f0b05f34

screenshot0021.thumb.png.4a136a03ff7087f

Limasol beach

limasol2.jpg.ec5740acfa03e85181d2fe0247c

screenshot0024.thumb.png.9709f43f5ca1b1d

Mesaoria:

mesaoria.jpeg.0eb7b3000536f071352101663b

screenshot0025.thumb.png.ef45c9862d5ee53

Etc. etc.

I hope you'll enjoy the map.

Looking forward your feedback, happy gaming.

CyprusSkirmishBeta.zip

Edited by AtlasMapper
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I've tried out this map, it's quite nice, but I do have some issues.

The CC of player one is too close to the cliff of the river. A unit can spawn between the cliff and the CC, and get stuck on one of those tiles. Either the impassable tiles should overlap a bit (so units can't spawn on passable but unconnected tiles), or you should make sure the CC is far enough from the edge so units can pass.

Secondly, I'd also like some more shores to place docks. A surprise attack over the water would be quite nice on this map, but you have to search really long to find a piece of shore where you can build a dock on.

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@sanderd17: Thank you for trying my map, and for your constructive comments!

When I tried the map, with the Romanian faction, I didn't experienced any cliff issue. But I am sorry you had some. Anyway, as I said, I was thinking about removing this big river that cross the island. It is actually a mistake I made : I misinterpreted the map I used to draw the island. You probably know that Cyprus is still under a kind of civil war, and there two entities disputing the ownership of the island. So the "river in the cliff" crossing the island is actually.. a military buffer line that separates the island in two parts. But it is not related to anything real on the island topography. Especially during 0 A.D.-600 A.D. time period, it has no sense. So I had in mind to remove it in the end. But when I first played this map, and after I figured out it was a mistake, I found quite fun to have the island separated in two, with only a single bridge, so I decided to upload this version. But it is a source of gameplay issues, and you underlined some.

About some dock places. It is a very important point, thank you for that advise. It is complicated for me to modify the topology of the island, because it is so realistic. But the reason I spend so many time in drawing realistic maps is because I trust that the real topography and places of cities is a really interesting source of gameplay fun. If you visit some places with a very old history, you'll see some fortified cities. If people built fortifications on defined places, it is because that's the most interesting place, regarding to the topography and in term of military strategies. So I think you had the right idea, by trying to put some docks.. With the actual map, you probably tried to place a dock in the mesaoria area, again because of my wrong "cliffs/river" won't let you place some anywhere else. I think it should be solved if I remove the cliffs/river part again. If I do so, I think you could easily place a dock in the Larnaca beach. If you look at the real map of Cyprus, you'll see it is the closest coast big city from Nikosia (where player 1 starts). From here, you could set up a surprise sea attack to Limassol (where player 2 starts). If I am right, the Petra bot is quite "direct", and always attack using the closest road available on any map. So it should try to attack you from the mountain area if I remove that "cliffs/river" part. And your sea attack should be successful from Larnaca (bot won't ever see you're building something there). It is the same for player 2 (if played online for example), from Limassol, the closest place for an another dock is Pafos beach in the west. So if player 2 is played by any human (in online mode, are skirmish maps playable ?), he could build a "backup" area in Pafos. So keeping the real topography (removing that stupid "cliff/river" part), and maybe placing some hints like roads (in the malta map, I placed some road respecting some old real roads), would help players to place buildings in natural strategic places. Now I know what I should do, I hope it will solve everything. Thanks for your comment !

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Its not Romanian , Its Roman. I know the origin of Romanian is closet to Roman ( because was part of a Roman province) but that term isn't correct.sorry for the off topic.

 

now returning by the topic can be nice use this maps as nomad game style starting with a dock or give enoght resources to build one.

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Fixed!

 

Changelog v1.1:
Removed river
Fixed topography around river
Added roads between major Cyprus cities
Minors visual improvements

I hope it will fix all the gameplay problems and improve experience. I am always looking for feedback to improve it.

@Lion.Kanzen: Thanks. Sorry, English is not my native language. I'm trying to do my best, but I often mess up with -ans -ians -nians -ananainainians. ;) I'll try to remember for the next time!
Should I create a scenario for this ? I suppose that I can't in Skirmish mode, as you need at least 1 CC for each players. Is it Ok if I build "gaian" villages, and put just a dock for player 1 ? Or should I put some "player 2" buildings ? How many resources should be enought for you ? I can try to create this one for you.

Edited by AtlasMapper
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1 minute ago, AtlasMapper said:

@Lion.Kanzen: Thanks. Sorry, English is not my native language. I'm trying to do my best, but I often mess up with -ans -ians -nians -ananainainians. ;) I'll try to remember for the next time!
Should I create a scenario for this ? I suppose that I can't in Skirmish mode, as you need at least 1 CC for each players. Is it Ok if I build "gaian" villages, and put just a dock for player 1 ? Or should I put some "player 2" buildings ? How many resources should be enought for you ? I can try to create this one for you.

Never mind, isn't my mother language neither . probably you know English better than me.

I'm not sure, may be  create an alternative version. and the cities start as Gaia and can be captured.(can be the first one map with this mechanic)

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So it will be close to the Malta's scenario I am also working on, with romans (see ? ;)) trying to capture the colonies on the island. I can try something similar. But I have a question, if I set up only "player 1" and "Gaia" as teams, and "conquer buildings or units" as condition, won't I win at start ? Does Gaia really count as an adversary ?

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8 hours ago, AtlasMapper said:

<...> if I set up only "player 1" and "Gaia" as teams, and "conquer buildings or units" as condition, won't I win at start ?

I made a quick test and it seems you won't win at start, but you also won't win after capturing/destroying all gaia buildings/units. I believe that's because a 'conquest critical' entities list isn't maintained for gaia.

I think it should be easy to solve with a trigger, but I expect it to be more interesting and challenging to allow a bot control some of the colonies.

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Thank you for the test, that was what I had in mind. But I wasn't sure, I wondered if you set "conquest buildings", you might win by taking Gaia buildings. Taking the whole Gaia flora/fauna would be a paint. Actually, does animals, trees counts as real ownership ? Is there any in-game way to transfer some goats, fishes or metal spots from Gaia to any player's onwership ? What is the role of the "onwership field" for such entities ?

I wasn't sure at start, but I might set a 4-player mode for this map. I think there is enought room, in the end. And the disappointing thing for me, as a map creator, is you can win the map by only visiting 30% of the total map, and totally skip some areas that took me hours to design/texture. With 4 players, people should be forced to explore more the map. The problem is I can't test any map with 3AI bots, so that would be difficult to test/balance the map alone. Anybody would be interested to play and test a 4 player version ?

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@sanderd17: There was still some dock/shore issues. Now fixed.

Update:

 

Changelog v1.2:
Added entry points on Larnaca beach + visual hints
Added more places for docks on Farmagusta bay, Larnaca bay, Limassol bay, Paphos beach
Added fishing spots

 

By the way, is there any way to add any "update status" to posts on the forum ?

Edited by AtlasMapper
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1 hour ago, AtlasMapper said:

By the way, is there any way to add any "update status" to posts on the forum ?

There should be a field where you can "add a reason for edit" if that's what you mean. Generally it's better to create a new post though, that way people who follow the topic, or are checking the "All Updates", will see that something new has happened :)

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Update.

 

Changelog v1.3:

Balanced the number of resource spots
Added metal and stone resources in Karpasia area (northeast)
Added visual hints to reach Morphou bay
Added resources in Morphou bay
Improved roads appearance
Minor visual improvements

Hints:

Spoiler

Maurya should have an advantage with mobile dropsite elephants to retrieve resources.
Discover many dock places to set up surprise naval attacks, thanks to sanderd17's suggestion.

 

Edited by AtlasMapper
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I think this last version (1.3) is good enough, in term of visual and gameplay. It is actually what I had in mind when I started it. I'll do visual updates time to time, and maybe set up a scenario later on it.

Any feedback is still welcome, if anybody is interested in playing this map. Happy gaming!

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