New Scenario: Metropolis

[Yavin]

Dear 0ad players,

as I still consider me as "young" and thus as "moody", I feel coerced to bond to existentialism what gives me as my maths test went horribly wrong today the will to publish a new map of mine. Being satisfied with this decision, I'm happy to present you the scenario Metropolis (which I started to create in July 2021)

Metropolis, as the name says, features multiple fictitious miniature polises in an savannian, mountainous steppe filled with trees, bushes, palms and grass. Alongside rivers and wide beaches you can find quarries all over the map; the variety of animals include elepahnts, giraffes, gazelles, lions and wildbeests.

The map is mainly aimed to singleplayer demoniacs (as I am, obviously :D). To defeat the enemies you have to use a wide range of tactics and knowledge of the map itself (or rather its terrain) coming with differnt levels of difficulty. For example, playing the Mauryas or the Athenians is harder as doing it with the Persians. Worth mentioning, the map does neiter pays attention to historical accuracy based on my plan to just build a simple sort of mythic sandbox nor fair starting conditions between each player as some of them even shall trouble more than others
 

• Player 1: Persians - starting with a huge and well defendable city, many troops and lots of resources at the start, this player does not only control all mayor transit areas but also is able to erade smaller civs at once
• Player 2: Romans: providing a little city on their own island, they rather lack of land than of resources
• Player 3: Ptolemies: being privileged to have a small starting city, the difficult terrain and uncomfortable position does not depict a threat too huge for the Persians
• Player 4: Macedonias (team 1) - bringing a moderate starting city with them and being bond via a quarry with the Athenians, they don't lack of resources, but heavily of land to build and grow crops on
• Player 5: Athenians (team 1) -bringing a moderate starting city with them and being bond via a quarry with the Macedonians, they as well lack of land and not that much resources
• Player 6: Mauryas (team 2) - being exposed to enemy charges, they don't bring any advatages with them (besides 10 maidens)
• Player 7: Mauryas (team 2) - being exposed to enemy charges, they also don't bring any advatages with them (besides 10 maidens)
• Player 8: Carthaginias: firstly looking quite impressive and strong with their starting city, they barely stand charges of the Persians, though they have moderately enough resources and troops

To be honest, I'm not as satisfied as with my first map The Legend of Avilava, but I thought if I would like to fix some issues I'll just do it - loading up that next small versions into this post. Nevertheless, I consider it as a properly done map you're able to play on. (Still I gotta tell you I like the 0ad models - you're really able to build authenticly! )

Last but not least, I tell you straightforward that Metropolis comes with it's lags, yep. The map is very huge and as The Legend of Avilava has shown maybe does not work on every elder laptop or PC (not to mention MacBooks).

Well, as my existentialism brought me to this point, I think I shall show you some screenshots to get a better understanding of the map.
The players 1 - 8:

 

Well, followed by some different insights:

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you can download the map. Wish you a nice day guys!

 

Metropolis 49.pmpMetropolis 49.xml

Edited February 4, 2022 by Yavin

[asterix]

@Stan` @maroder @wowgetoffyourcellphone can it be included in main game?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

It looks really nice. Just wish it used the new terrains.

[Yavin]

@wowgetoffyourcellphone Thank you!

As I for the first time built on this map in early July 2021, I hadn't downloaded alpha 25 and thus was not able to use the terrain that got added to the game. As I installed a25 I quite liked the new terrain textures, but at the end decided to go on with the old ones.

That's for not using them.
 

[wackyserious]

@Stan` I was thinking about this for the obstructions, and maybe like just have defensive towers, or cc as map simulation files which are to be captured or destroyed in mission scenarios, also with walls, like only one segment of the wall will be a simulation file where that segment is to be attacked as part of the strategy etc.

[Freagarach]

7 hours ago, Yavin said:

Last but not least, I tell you straightforward that Metropolis comes with it's lags, yep.

Stop-motion still is motion.

[maroder]

It does look nice, only the lag part is unfortunate.

[Lopess]

 

I like that, I've already created something similar for my fun but not with this beauty that you achieved, something cool that I can imagine and create maps of a campaign mod in which you choose a civ and fight scenarios (similar to : https://github.com/wraitii/0ad_grand_strat ) to the one with cities already created, to conquer the map you must defeat enemies and capture all cc or strategic points on the map for "x" minutes.

[Yavin]

Thank you!

@Freagarach, @maroder Indeed, if applicable one can lower / reduce the graphic performance. For my part it worked pretty well, actually. If the lag goes really bad, you even could delete all the grasses / bushes actors because they are the most used objects and are therefore probably a main cause for lag but serve no certain reason (besides good looking)

As for @Lopess, yeah that's sorta what I wanted to do with this map, like playing a "story" from different perspectives. Nevertheless, the "for x minute" part including all campaign making features my level of programming knowledge isn't sufficient enough, unfortunaltely :p For now, I'm just capable of creating maps in the altas editor.

[alre]

@Yavin another thing you could do if you want to, is embellishing some of the maps in the Macedonia campaign, which is going to be included in the next versions of the game. The creator asked for some help on that side, for the city of Thebes, and it seems you are the best man here. What do you think?

 

[SciGuy42]

16 hours ago, alre said:

@Yavin another thing you could do if you want to, is embellishing some of the maps in the Macedonia campaign, which is going to be included in the next versions of the game. The creator asked for some help on that side, for the city of Thebes, and it seems you are the best man here. What do you think?

 

By all means, someone please make the city of Thebes better, just need to keep the same number of defense towers and fortresses to maintain difficulty. 

There is also the city of Magnesia in Scenario 5 which could be a lot better. 

Finally Tyre, but I don't think I have converted that one to a25 yet so perhaps later.

Generally, my main contribution with this campaign is the code and scripting. I could use help making the maps beautiful.

[wackyserious]

23 hours ago, alre said:

@Yavin another thing you could do if you want to, is embellishing some of the maps in the Macedonia campaign, which is going to be included in the next versions of the game. The creator asked for some help on that side, for the city of Thebes, and it seems you are the best man here. What do you think?

 

This plus the concept of having obstruction for actor files makes a good idea. Like it can make the campaign more gameplay and objective focused, no more units running around capturing houses or other buildings, just straight point unit to unit combat or objective targeting of defensive obstacles to the mission

[Yavin]

Thank you for this offer!

I've already checked this out once. It's a truly nice campaign. Currently I gotta say I'm not building on maps cz there's no distance learning here in Austria at the moment. I've built three maps in total, The Legend of Avilava, Metropolis and some aegean-like map I'm actually done with already (but wanna wait before putting it into the forums).

I'll thank you for appreciating me as a "good map builder" - but currently I'm not building anymore.

Maybe I'll have a look on it later when time's suitable!

[Stan`]

@andy5995

[andy5995]

1 hour ago, Stan` said:

@andy5995

@Stan`

That's an intricate and great-looking map, but judging by the size, it would take literally forever to load for most people. The largest xml in cm2 right now is 2.7mb.

[Stan`]

Alright. Maybe we should have a category for unplayable ones. Could go in the trailer mod maybe.

[Yavin]

Hello there!

Oh, is it regarding the community maps mod? Of course I would love to have it included into your mod @andy5995 since I've put so much work into building this map; but if it's unplayable for rather low performance processors I understand it to be problematic to have it included.

However, you guys inspire me to have a look onto the last map I built last year I have not published here in the formus yet. I'll go over some little hitches, fix them and put it online, hopefully I'll be able to do so before my vacation in Italy starts. As far as I can think of map seize it should not be as big as my previous two maps.

And thank you for letting the conversation come alive here in this topic, @Stan`!

[Yavin]

On 08/02/2022 at 4:10 AM, SciGuy42 said:

By all means, someone please make the city of Thebes better, just need to keep the same number of defense towers and fortresses to maintain difficulty. 

There is also the city of Magnesia in Scenario 5 which could be a lot better. 

Finally Tyre, but I don't think I have converted that one to a25 yet so perhaps later.

Generally, my main contribution with this campaign is the code and scripting. I could use help making the maps beautiful.

Hello @SciGuy42!
Indeed coming a bit late, but better late than never! I've ever since kept your request in the back of my head, pondering whether or not I want to contribute to your maps. As I am a very individualistic map creater, and creative on that in the sense of not keeping up with rules or requirements (like those of your maps, where I would have needed to follow certain requirements as for example keeping the same number of fortresses and defense towers), I never brought me to look forward to build on your already half-completed maps requiring or expecting certain outcomes of my contributions. Lastly, I had the fear of messing your maps up, making them in a way unappropriate of any kind or submitting them to you too late.

Thing is, I'd like to build on a map again. What's important, I've had a "character change" as you would maybe call it. Now I'd say I'd like to help you on your maps if you only wouldn't be to strict on me, haha. Say you would not give me a deadline or expect too much of my creations. However, I will probably be able to keep the number of defense towers and fortresses, that's not too bad So I'd welcome you contacting me in this chat or wherever else if you still like me to help you out.

Lastly, I wanna say that I'm sorry for having denied your well-meant offer so long (while even building another map myself). Though, as I've said above: Better late than never we use to say (even if it's one and a half years, jesus! xD). If you do not contact me or don't want me to help you out anymore, this is no problem and I will build on a new map of mine, probably. Though I'd be surely pleased if you welcome my help!

Have a nice day!
 

[SciGuy42]

On 07/02/2022 at 5:40 AM, alre said:

@Yavin another thing you could do if you want to, is embellishing some of the maps in the Macedonia campaign, which is going to be included in the next versions of the game. The creator asked for some help on that side, for the city of Thebes, and it seems you are the best man here. What do you think?

 

If anyone wants to embellish my maps, please do! But before you do, let me know which ones so I can tell you which buildings cannot just be deleted due to scripts that refer to their IDs, and generally, let you know if there is stuff that absolutely should stay as it is.