Two Sides

[Vatrix]

After a long time I've done and published a map I made a lot of another maps, where I was testing my map skill, now I had an idea, so I created a map and I want to share it with you

In this map I watched every map tile and wanted it to be nicely placed, not randomly placed grass tiles, object, etc like in Revenge in the Gardens. So here it is, say your opinion.

DOWNLOAD: http://knightsandmerchants.net/forum/ka ... php?id=124

[Vatrix]

I don't want to cry here, so please post here your opinion.
Thanks
Vatrix

[pawel95]

Yeah inspired by a nice tsk mission where you have to fight against purple player? XDDD
I will try it in a few days, if I can find some time and will write my feedback then

[Duke Valennius]

I haven't played this map, so I will provide only feedback on visuals. First, those mountains (two vertical strips) look very unnatural. Elevations are alright, but their borders are perfectly straight, which looks weird. Second thing I've noticed is overall flatness of walkable area. There are little one tile elevations which is good, but having also larger "hills" where building is still possible would perhaps look good, so when you place roads, they are not perfectly straight (I am talking about elevating with brush size 8 or larger). One more minor issue I've noticed are rocks near the ice. Having a group of 6 or 7 same objects next to each other doesn't look good in my opinion. Try using more types of rocks there if it doesn't have any special meaning as it is .

I hope I don't sound too negative, the rest of the map looks quite good. As a personal preference I would make entrances to villages wider, but that's your choice

Just a little question: Is there any particular reason to make those stone hills north of your village not mineable? Block walking tiles result in stonemasons cutting only one tile and it is not obvious why they cannot cut more...

[Vatrix]

@Pawel, waiting for your feedback
@Duke, thank you for your opinion, idea with the two straight mountains was they were mined and cities are in caves (but then your city maybe can't be on grass?), so yes I could do it more natural and I will. Mountain in the north is just decorative I like how this tipe of mountain looks so I made it non mineable. And I'll do something with the same rocks in south.

[cmowla]

I played this map (in r5503) and the enemy AI is setup and designed very well (it's not easy to penetrate without losing some troops) except that I think there should be a bunch more units trained for town defense. For example, maybe have some knights behind the swordfighters which are behind the front towers. In addition, have a larger army defending the inside of the town (put troops to the far north to protect the northern store house and school house, and put more troops to protect the barracks).

Perhaps the defense was too easy because one can probably lose 0 troops quite easily with this map on the defensive aspect (just fast forward the replay to 1h30m and 2h to see how I effortlessly killed all AI troops losing maybe 3 troops in both attacks).

I'm not quite sure what the purpose of the ally AI is because it does nothing (at least within the first 2.5 hours that I played it). It would be quite interesting to include a mirror town which is an enemy. Then we could have two militia villages fighting each other simultaneously as we (the SP and the iron enemy AI) fight.

cmowla Two Sides.zip

[Vatrix]

Cmowla thx for your feedback, too! I'm now working on better hills and bigger entrances, so it won't be so easy next time, because you would't be able to build houses like you did and you'll need to use more troops. About AI defending troops I was suggesting about spliting this one big town for 2 or 3 smaller towns and then combine their troops in defences (so every town will have more troops for attacking and defence positions will be more carefully worked-out), but then the cities will be small and unnatural. Village in north was firstly meant to be your allies, but now I connected them with your enemies, so it will be north defence for school and storehouse. But your idea about two militia villages is nice, I'll think about it .

[Vatrix]

So I made some big improvements like you said, hope you enjoy it, download in the first topic.

Changes:
- Two vertical hills improved to be more natural
- Added some hills like Duke said
- Rocks near the ice deleted
- Bigger entrances to villages, added one more entrance to enemy village in north
- Deleted one useless village in the north
- Stone mountain in north completely blocked from mining
- Splitted one big enemy city for 3 smaller cities
- Combined all three villages defences, so if you destroy one city, another will partially block your way in other two cities (I need to test this, tried to make it smartly, but I'll see, post how successful it is)
- Improved attacks (2 cities attack, 1 is still in defence)

One special event: Make it harder for Cmowla (hope I succeed, just a little bit )

[pawel95]

Ok this post will be edited step by step, due the fact I have no time to finish that mission at once and I don´t want forget any point

+On the first look, the idea is very cool
+Good Terrain and Objectplacement

-Would set the serfs and the builders somewhere on the top of your city maybe (You can make a script, to pop them up like after the enems is going back home. Like a "hey here are some citizens that have survived" pop out script out of nowhere) Just because I personaly don´t like it, when you start building a schoolhouse and then you have to wait for your serfs thaat "long"
-You should fix the mapdescription or give it someone to fix it, nothing important but some language mistakes.
-A bit "boring" map. It´s my own subjective opinion, but somehow you have like a "valley of dangers" and two cities on the west and east side, that´s all. I don´t want to bring my own ideas into your map, because your ideas are cool, but maybe you could do sth in the middle or an useless ally town, close to yours, because right now it´s a bit "empty"

[cmowla]

I played "Two Sides Final" (in r5503) and won in 6 hours.

I wasn't expecting gold mines and iron smithies to be blocked (and thus no iron weapons production and gold production except with the market). I guess this mission tests one's market skills?

Anyway, the AI's defense in the two entrances directly across from me were very good. But the top entrance was weak, and that's ultimately where I penetrated fairly easily. I guess the main improvement you can do is strengthen the top entrance to be as defensive as the other two somehow, because they are really really really good. Of course, I think the intensity of the waves remained the same throughout the mission, and maybe you could increase the intensity as time progresses. Regardless, I think this map, once you are satisfied with it, deserves to be in the next official remake release because it's phenomenal. I'm not sure if you meant to not allow gold and iron weapon production, but this certainly adds flavor to it.

The inner town defense was greatly improved (in fact, you improved it in the way I asked you to, and it's fantastic!). You have great talent, I mean that. I pitty the person who plays your SP maps!

This mission certainly can be won faster (I'm not used to using the market), because I over prepared and didn't know where to strike at first.

cmowla Two Sides Final.zip

EDIT:
Oh, man, the replay breaks (replay bug) a little after 5 hours (before I even went to attack). Oh well.

[Vatrix]

Thank you, I'm very happy you like my map. About the mines, I was testing if you can stand only with market, but then I forgot to set it back . In next version of this map, you will be allowed to build mines, but not any smithies, so you'll have to use market for trading with ore. I'll finish goals and lost goals and add two more cities (one friendly, attacking enemy and one neutral, which is only for decoration. I'll also make better defence for the top entrance, but there isn't any place for them so I'll use the neutral city as "walls").

[cmowla]

About the mines, I was testing if you can stand only with market, but then I forgot to set it back

Thank you, I'm very happy you like my map.

I'm glad to hear that. Yes, I LOVE your map.

but there isn't any place for them so I'll use the neutral city as "walls").

This is such a creative idea. I love it! I hope pawel95 plays it, because he will definitely enjoy it!

Let us know when you make the next update (I couldn't tell that you made "Two Sides Final" without looking at the link).

[Vatrix]

I will surely inform you .

[Vatrix]

Next update is here!

Changes/Upgrades:
- all mines are allowed
- all smithies are blocked
- added friendly city attacking troops of your enemy
- added one neutral city (decorative, blocking your way straight to the top entrance)
- added defence positions behind the neutral city
- script to not share fog with your allied village and neutral village
- moved serfs starting location + script to make them go to the city + script to cover their way into city with fog
- flattened ice, because ice is NOT uneven
- some minor terrain improvements

Download in the first post!

I think these are the last todos:
Still need someone who will improve english texts (let me know and I will send you text files)
Story will be updated
Some in-game messages will be done

*edit:
Don't forget to rate my map in Repos!
Please try to play map in latest Nightly because of better AI behavior and defending allies.

[cmowla]

I played "Two Sides Maybe Final" in r6108 nightly and won it in 4:18:21. (Again, I breached through the top opening. It was more difficult this time, mostly due to the nightly version, but still not as strong as the other two openings).

The map was as good as always, but it was a little different playing in this new version of the game. To prevent the xbows from firing at my troops behind my 3 barracks, I had a single bowman fire at them from the south before they got there. They followed him to the ally and it took them out (that's pretty much the key to surviving an attack).

Having the ally makes this map easier; I noticed that I only was attacked a few times during the entire game (and some of them attacked the ally maybe twice the entire time). The enemy attacked me very often in "Two Sides Final". Was this an intentional change, vatrix (CZ)?

The enemy AI troops defending the two southern openings did not protect their village's buildings (a bug I presume): I effortlessly destroyed their buildings and killed all of their villagers and they didn't budge.

In addition, the xbows to the north (right by the neutral village) kept starving to death without me killing any of their serfs. Another bug, I presume.



This replay breaks before the 2 hour mark, and I'm not sure why. I didn't play this all in one setting, and thus I reloaded saves from that as well as a few times for other reasons.

cmowla Two Sides Maybe Final.zip