Map The Eight Gates

Zylithan · #1 September 28th, 2007, 02:21 AM

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.

Zylithan · #2 October 2nd, 2007, 01:01 PM

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

Still a noob

PashaDawg · #3 October 3rd, 2007, 03:23 PM

Sounds fun!

llamabeast · #4 October 4th, 2007, 09:15 AM

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?

Juzza · #5 October 4th, 2007, 10:00 AM

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

Zylithan · #6 October 4th, 2007, 11:34 AM

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.

llamabeast · #7 October 4th, 2007, 12:36 PM

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.

jutetrea · #8 October 4th, 2007, 11:52 PM

Starting my first game on it now, one thought if you want to spend the time on it:

Would it be worth making all adjacent provinces to a node a no-start? I'm restarting my game creation as my castle has a node as an initial neighbor. Some folks might like it though, but I like a buffer from the get go. 10 players on this one for a bit of expansion.

edit: Never mind, probably not feasible - not too many provinces don't border one or the other. This should be interesting

Zylithan · #9 October 5th, 2007, 12:06 AM

Yeah. Many start spots have a neighbor node.

Start spots all have the same number of (non-water) neighbors, and are prevented from having a gate in the start spot, and prevented from having bad terrain or bad neighbor terrains, or multiple neighbor gates. Also edges are avoided. I can imagine that especially version 3, where nodes let you recruit and aren't guarded that well, that starting next to a node you don't have magic access to could be a big advantage... but that's why there are versions 2 and 4!

I like to think of this map as being "mostly balanced" whatever that means. I guess it means its not symmetric. But a perfectly symmetric map can only be played by a very specific number of people.. this map could go for 2 or 16...

Thanks for the feedback, and let me know if you have more observations as you go along.

jutetrea · #10 October 5th, 2007, 12:49 AM

One observation - its already fun and I've only just started. I'm only playing with 10 nations and I'm already "bordering" 6 of them.

I've just been concentrating on taking territories, not rushing a neighbor. I'll be curious to see how mighty AI with its big armies move them around the nodes.

I'm playing 4? guarded/recruit, so I'm trying not to take advantage of the sites right away for recruiting, letting the AI take what they will and just PD'ing the jump spots on my territory.

Did you specifically put a good amount of the gem priestesses around? onyx, jade, etc? I've got like 20 territories and already have 5 of those pop types. Bit odd.

So far so good.