The Dark Lord's multiplayer maps

[The Dark Lord]

So I finally finished my new map: Paradise Island. Unfortunately it is too large (256x256) so it won't be playable (yet?). I hope this puts some pressure on Krom's and Lewin's shoulders though.
I made the map in such a way that it is suitable for both 3v3 and 4v4. If you play 3v3 you won't have a gap in your defense because a player is missing. I could even add a 9th player for 3v3v3 (although the team on the left would have a substantial advantage), if ever supported. If you play 3v3, one player per team will have access to iron, while two players per team will have access to iron if you play 4v4.
Well here is a screenshot; a download link can be found in the first post. Now enjoy the look of a map you can't play on.

Screenshot:

[Lewin]

So I finally finished my new map: Paradise Island. Unfortunately it is too large (256x256) so it won't be playable (yet?). I hope this puts some pressure on Krom's and Lewin's shoulders though.

Hehe you're funny
Well I tried increasing the MAX_MAP_SIZE constant in the game to 256, but unfortunately when I loaded your map it got a stack overflow when trying to compute a floodfill of walkable areas. I tried hacking it to make it use less stack space but it still crashed. We're going to have to rewrite the floodfill iteratively not recursively so it doesn't use the program stack (probably write our own custom stack) but that code needs to stay REALLY efficient because it is run so often (every time part of the terrain changes that could stop or allow someone from walking somewhere...)

So we certainly won't be supporting this in the up coming release, but maybe in the one after seeing as The Dark Lord is so persistent

Here's what the minimap will look like (from the preivew in the Map Editor menu)

So that's not too bad scaled to 192x192.

I'm a bit concerned about allowing larger maps because at the moment most people seem to make 192x192 maps, so if we increase it I assume most people will make 256x256 maps. We already get sent enough maps with poor quality terrain, and if you increase the size of the map it means there is a lot more work to make it look nice (even your map seems a little bit less detailed than say Warfare in the Wilderness, but it's still well above everyone else's ). People might also get bored marching their soldiers all the way across it to reach the enemy, waiting for the serfs to come with food, etc.
Those are just things to think about, I don't think they'll stop us from supporting larger maps.

Now PLEASE don't make a 512x512 map to put more pressure on us

P.S. Actually that "hack" I made in FloodFill was a good idea, it saves us about 4.1ms every time the flood fill runs, so I'm keeping it. 4.1ms doesn't sound like much, but if you're running at 10x speedup it will add up. FloodFill is a known bottleneck in our code.

[GreatWhiteBear]

Now PLEASE don't make a 512x512 map to put more pressure on us

Well, how about a 384x384? And maybe make it 10player?

[Remake 2012]

Dear Lewin

"People might also get bored marching their soldiers all the way across it to reach the enemy, waiting for the serfs to come with food, etc."

Its NO PROBLEM!!!
If you improving large maps to KAM, ( 256x256)or more !
Enough that it will be possible to build separate villages. This will allow you to build a village "from eating" near the troops. Army will go with the "mother village" or from the new village..
and... include 12 players on map ! Teams 4x4x4 ^^

[GreatWhiteBear]

Yeah!
Lewin, remember my brothers idea with the "Food Camps"?
You build a food camp somewhere, it doesn't require roads and can hold a reasonable amount of food.(Like 10-20per kind.)
Serfs will feed from there.
BUT... then the serfs still would have to walk all the way. SO... I thought, why not also "store" serfs in the food camp?

[The Dark Lord]

So we certainly won't be supporting this in the up coming release, but maybe in the one after seeing as The Dark Lord is so persistent

That's good to hear! The minimap indeed doesn't look bad at all.

(even your map seems a little bit less detailed than say Warfare in the Wilderness, but it's still well above everyone else's ).

Could you tell me what you don't like about it? It's not too late to improve. I know there are less objects than on Warfare in the Wilderness, but I did that on purpose because I thought I'm putting too many objects on my maps (not just WitW, others as well). Especially compared to the original maps, where you find whole areas without any objects.

Now PLEASE don't make a 512x512 map to put more pressure on us

Aww, I was just considering that...
Nah, it would take me a decade to make one, so don't worry.

I'm not really fond of the idea of 'food camps'. Personally I just retreat the hungry soldiers (it's mostly one group and not your whole army).

[Lewin]

Well, how about a 384x384? And maybe make it 10player?

Increasing the map size requires more memory and CPU to run the game. Because of the added CPU usage you won't be able to run the game at such fast speed up (you'll already notice that it will lag with x8 on large maps with lots of players)
Increasing the number of players adds a lot more CPU usage.
If we do either of these things then speeding up the game will basically become impossible. (including for replays) And seeing as everyone seems to want multiplayer speed up, that is kind of a problem.
Think about the number of tiles in the map:
192x192 = 36,864
256x256 = 65,536
384x384 = 147,456
512x512 = 262,144
The game runs quite well at the moment with a maximum of 36,864 tiles. Allowing 256x256 is almost DOUBLING that number... That means twice the memory and CPU usage for the map. In my opinion even 256x256 is pushing the limits, I doubt we'll support anything beyond that, at least not for a long time.

Its NO PROBLEM!!!
If you improving large maps to KAM, ( 256x256)or more !
Enough that it will be possible to build separate villages. This will allow you to build a village "from eating" near the troops. Army will go with the "mother village" or from the new village..
and... include 12 players on map ! Teams 4x4x4 ^^

Lets not get too excited here. I find one village very hard to manage when I'm also fighting the enemy (usually I find I neglect my economy and don't build much) so how am I going to manage two villages at once AND fight the enemy? I can see two villages being interesting for special singleplayer missions, but I think it will make things very hard to manage. It will also be hard to implement (each village probably needs separate BuildList, DeliveryQueues, etc. so they don't interact, basically a whole new player)
I'm not sure how multiple villages improves things anyway.

I'm not sure about food camps... you'll still have to carry the food there and keep the serfs waiting there. In a way it's kind of nice that you have to retreat your army to feed them sometimes, it adds more tactics to the game.

Could you tell me what you don't like about it? It's not too late to improve. I know there are less objects than on Warfare in the Wilderness, but I did that on purpose because I thought I'm putting too many objects on my maps (not just WitW, others as well). Especially compared to the original maps, where you find whole areas without any objects.

Yeah I was mainly talking about the lack of objects, I like lots when they are placed well. But also there were a few grassy areas that didn't have the same amount of detail as WiTW. Still it's a great map, there's nothing to complain about.

[Piko]

include 12 players on map ! Teams 4x4x4 ^^

I think the best max. number of players is 9. It allow 3v3v3 game and 8p + 1AI player. It will be very good.

[Lewin]

I increased the maximum stack size in the compiler options and now the map loads It's laggier than other maps but not too bad. I can see us supporting 256x256 maps in a future version when we've got a few more optimisations implemented so it still runs smoothly.

@Piko: 9 players is quite feasible, I think we can support that in a future update.

[The Dark Lord]

That's awesome!
I didn't suspect putting pressure on you would have such a swift effect. Quite an encouragement to do it again.

[Remake 2012]

I increased the maximum stack size in the compiler options and now the map loads It's laggier than other maps but not too bad. I can see us supporting 256x256 maps in a future version when we've got a few more optimisations implemented so it still runs smoothly.

I do not know what to say. Super news
My next map will be... 256x256 ^^ OŁ JEE !

[Piko]

My next map will be... 256x256 ^^ OŁ JEE !

Do this map before end of week




You know this is English forum, and "O YEA" will be better than "OŁ JEE", right?

[Lewin]

Do this map before end of week

I said we'll probably be able to support larger maps in a future update, not the one we are preparing to release. When I tested it was laggy because there are nearly twice as many tiles to update. We might be able to find ways to optimise it so it doesn't lag but that will take time.

[Piko]

Ok.


But maybe you increase the max. map size? There are some problem with space for 8 players on the 192x192, maybe 208x208 or 224x224 will be good? It's not a much more, but it will be useful.

[Leeuwgie]

I could write a whole review about the Paradise island map by seeing the screenshot alone but let me formulate it in just one word: Amazing! (unfortunately it gives me an error on the game.dat when I try to load it in the editor).

Als ik er aan denk hoeveel tijd het je gekost moet hebben om dit resultaat te krijgen, ongelofelijk.

To