Re: Map Preview: The Eight Gates
 

Thanks for the curiousity.

Edi is correct. I'm using Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic to make the maps... actually, I'm using a community mod that adds a lot more graphics to the map editor (I think its called Unofficial Patch 1.4). AoW:SM is a great TBS 4x game I think, and I found about about dom3 on forums for that game.

Afer I build the map, I stitch it together in powerpoint, then import to gimp and make layers for the provinces, and edit some of the graphics a little (blood pools are actually water pools originally, and I think I'll try to make air, water, astral nodes look more different, as they are too hard to tell apart in my opinion.)

I'm not sure if I will continue to use AoW:SM for maps after this one. It is rather time intensive, and while the graphics are pretty, I'm not sure if I like the feel/scale. I think my maps show individual mountains and trees more, whereas most dom3 map (and hence, my impression of what they should look like) show forests and mountain ranges. I do think this package would be great for a Single Player map, as there are SO MANY cool graphics that could be used for special sites. But I'm not using those really (aside from the gates).

If you have opinions about the look of this map, let me know. I'll hiatus after finishing this guy, but after that I'll decide whether to switch platforms before my next map I think.

Re: Map Preview: The Eight Gates
 

I was recognizing that also. I kept meaning to mess with that mapgen. Great mapgen altho I would probably have to generate a whole bunch of them and paste them together.

I also kept meaning to go to the forums for it and see if the devs there have provided any pages of the tiles for some of the special things they use in the maps. It would be great to offer it here.

Re: Map Preview: The Eight Gates
 

Hey, some of us like single player maps with crazy sites and stuff. It'd be nice to see a few more scenario type maps, where people actually start with things - less of the random map that looks nice feel.

What you've got here looks pretty interesting as is though, the gates are a neat touch. Will they just be odd neighbor connections? Or something else?

Re: Map Preview: The Eight Gates
 

Frostmourne - yeah, I've been thinking I might work on SP with lots of sites some time. Or a coop vs. computer, or some other type of map that isn't supposed to be perfectly fair, like MP maps.

Gates will play with connectivity, but depending on which .map file you use, will have different other properties also.

Re: Gandalf - If we can distribute their graphics that could be a worthwhile project if people like the map style.

Re: Map Preview: The Eight Gates
 

Just an update and apology for the delay. Setting special sites took some learning, and playtesting took longer than I thought because rl has been busy. I will upload the map whenever my roommates stop hogging all the bandwidth - soon.

4 versions:
1. Gates provide connections between faraway lands, but nodes are not special. Nodes are weakly guarded.

2. Gates provide connections between faraway lands, and nodes harm those who stay in them for long. Nodes are weakly guarded.

3. Gates provide connections between faraway lands, nodes harm those who stay in them for long, and each flavor of node allows recruitment of spellcasters with that magic path. Nodes are weakly guarded.

4. Gates provide connections between faraway lands, nodes harm those who stay in them for long, and each flavor of node allows recruitment of spellcasters with that magic path. Nodes have stronger thematic guards than versions 1-3.

This map should hoepfully be fun for SP, but is meant for MP. I'd love to see a MP game start on any of these versions. 2 and 4 makes the most sense to me, but then again, I've never played MP http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Still a noob http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Map Preview: The Eight Gates
 

Sounds fun! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Map Preview: The Eight Gates
 

This looks awesome. I'm very tempted to run a game on this map soon. I like how you've included multiple versions. How do the gates harm people in them? Do they cause disease or something?

Re: Map Preview: The Eight Gates
 

Just a reminder the file you updated is a .rar and some people ahve problems with .rar files. better to make them .zip

Re: Map Preview: The Eight Gates
 

Juzza - thanks, I'll do a zip as well. For some reason I have tons of trouble uploading any file (even like 1kb) to this forum. But I was somewhat worried.

Llama - The nodes have 0 population in all cases - no-one lives in these very weird and frightening places... and this makes them produce little gold, supplies and resources. The nodes hurt people with two sites... I think they are something like 1-5% horror mark and 1-5% disease per turn. (one is infinite vale or horror, the other is.. mayabe inkpot end). I wanted to throw a cursing one in also, but those all have other consequences I didn't want, like a city you can explore, etc.

Re: Map Preview: The Eight Gates
 

Just took a closer look at this map, zoomed in all the way and had a good look around. It really is lovely, I'm quite excited to play on it. Thanks Zylithan.