Tackle the Tower
 

Here is a new map which creates a different game to play.
Its what I call a Tower map.
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/Tower_01.zip

Of course you can also create one of your own. The specs are:
Heighth 10000
Width 100
Mountains 50
Provinces 1500 (or 300 would be more reasonable to most people)

This gives a really thin but tall map. You will only have to battle one or two nations at a time but some of them are going to have a long time to prepare for your coming. This map pretty much gaurantess that you will be forced to develop new tactics along the way.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

This is a great idea, I love it. Considering it, I'd really like if there were a way to split up a map into several maps to create a Yggdrazil map where you've got a bunch of "worlds" around a central "world". I'm thinking the central one could be wraparound to simulate a round world, while the others could be fixed to simulate flat planes. Perhaps an additional "world" could represent the World-Tree itself, and be a long and thin "tower" with long, thin branches. You could then add special features to the map. For instance, in addition to the 8 Norse worlds, you could have an ocean world at the base of the Tree where the three ocean nations would live. This ocean would contain islands on which Sauromatia would live, and the central island would contain the cave (perhaps a cavern-system) of the Norns, who would be guarded by the immortal dragon Nidhogg-a buffed out hero-version of the Tarrasque. From the province of the Norns, you could go to any other province of the map-or atleast to every world, without having to brave the World-Tree, once you get past the dragon (he'd have to be beat every time you used the cave). The Bifrost province would be a Heat3 region that granted the possessor 1 gem of every type, and each province of the Tree would have some kind of nature bless or nature-based recruitable unit. Kailasa and Lanka might actually live on separate branches of the tree, since they're monkey-nations. Caelum could live in the top of the tree, while Pangaea would live at the base. Inside the Tree could be an extensive "cave" system of tunnels, within which could dwell giant blind worms (from which the Dwarf race were transformed). Vanir would live past Bifrost in the lands of Asgard, while Niefelheim would live outside these, past a mountain range with few passes, in Jotunheim, which would be the largest of the outer "worlds. The roots of the World-Tree would connect to three cavern-systems, the land of the Dockalfar where Yomi would be found, the land of the Dwarfs where Agartha would be, and the lands of Helheim.
Abysia would be found past the root system of the World-Tree and only connect to the Helheim lands.

The rest of the nations would live in Midgard.

Another possibility for the Norns could be the three ages of Ermor present on the map in separate provinces, each led by an independent Pretender-Lady of Love for early Ermor, Great Mother for middle, and Lich Queen for late era. They would surround the Nidhogg province, which would still be guarded by the dragon and connect to all worlds.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

Well, I think you could do all that. The worlds would all have to be on one big picture, but you can draw any picture you want and have the provinces connected in any way you want, as I understand it.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

Sounds fun. Im just starting a game on the tower now as MA caelum.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

Yeah, I'm working on a map for this now. It's a bit tricky, but it should turn out nice. I'm starting to go into project-overload, and I start 10 hour shifts at work next week, so it may be a little late in coming.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

Gandalf,

Do you have a state of art computer or something? I can't imagine how people could play a map with 15000 provinces--or even 300--with the turn generations lasting over 10 minutes late game!

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

1500 provinces actually isn't too bad, for SP. I've got a laptop, and while it's a powerful laptop I had custom-built, that was 3 years ago, and it wasn't by any means state-of-the-art at the time. Turns take maybe 15-30 minutes to process, tops, by mid-game, which means you can get a few things done while you wait.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

Well I have a decent desktop computer (only a couple of months old in fact) but I cheat. I set the games up on my server machine and play them from my desktop machine. That way the turn generation is done on a completely different machine. I can easily jump in and out of other programs

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

I can't do that at the moment, because all I've got is my laptop and my work computer, and I don't download anything on that. It might be worth it at some point to invest in a separate computer, but it'll probably be years until I can afford it-we're currently looking for a new house. Still, for those who can, it's a good idea.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

Just wait until you have your first major upgrade.
The computer that cant run the latest greatest games can be a linux server capable of replacing all of your internet services.
http://any1can.blogspot.com/

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

That's what I use my work computer for, the internet. I have to switch over to laptop when I want to download anything. Really though, I have little trouble and not terrible delay running even 1500 province SP games.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

Thanks for sharing the link Gandalf. Nice articles! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

I made a smaller version at something like 6000 x 100, and its a fun game. my only complaint is the game was having trouble zooming out on a map with these dimensions.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

Yes, i made lots of tower or row map with 100-150 provinces (usually something like 500x5000 or 5000x500, to prevent the provinces to be too small - it's not fun when the castle + temple overlap with other provinces-), and it seems that zooming out stops as soon as one of the map dimensions take ~ half the screen.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

For people with lesser machines (or even average ones) I will give a hint that I recently realized. When I was creating maximum 1500 province maps I was also setting the map size really huge. It turns out that you dont need to do that. They dont affect each other at all.

I probably should have realized it sooner. It sounds dumb to put it in print now but I hadnt thought about it. Setting the map size (heighth, width) larger only increases the amount of detail. On a smaller map the trees and mountain features are fuzzier and dont zoom in well. Actually Ive decided that I like that effect since it makes the gaming features (fort, units, arrows) stand out more.

It also helps the game process faster. So now instead of 10000x10000 maps of 1500 provinces Im messing with 1000x1000 and 1500 provinces. Im still trying to decide where to leave it.

Re: Tackle the Tower
 

Gandalf, I like to use Height 2400 X Width 3600 with 1500 provinces. That seems to work out fairly aesthetically, and doesn't crash my computer. I can get a map in maybe 20 minutes tops, with Antialiasing.