Shadaoe's maps

[Private.NL]

Here's the (I hope so) final terrain of The Valley Of Dangers 2 :

Nice job looks better then the orginal.

[Shadaoe]

Thanks a lot :p

[`Maurice]

Very nicely done, it looks a lot better now if you ask me

[Shadaoe]

Thanks, I'm glad you like it

[Shadaoe]

The very beginning of a future 256*256 4v4 map named Delta :


On another topic : has anyone played The Valley Of Dangers 2 on the RC2 ? If yes, please give feedback and it'd be great if I could get a couple of replays with a lot of players to see how is the gameplay working.

[Bence791]

What about a test now? As I've seen you're online now.
I'm waiting for you in RC2.

[Shadaoe]

I'm sorry I've just let the computer on while sleeping and the forum index page was still on my browser, so it might have said I was online because of the chat refreshing, I would've play if I was here, sorry !

[Shadaoe]

Here is a replay of a 5 player FFA game, without PT and random locations on the Valley Of Dangers 2
http://www20.zippyshare.com/v/34639039/file.html

I post it here because it shows a key feature of the map : there are several choices a player can do for his development. On this replay, we can see 3 different ways (for 5 players !) of early building construction for woodcutters/coal mines/gold mines/iron mines :
-The Dark Lord rushed for gold in the valley and didn't go for the one in his are, he built several woodcutters in the valley and took coal in the valley
-Jeronimo built gold mines in his area, coal mines and woodcutters in the valley, and even tried an early rush for iron in the valley ! (it failed because he was under attack though)
-EDMatt, Bo and I built coal mines and woodcutters in the valley and gold in our area.

This gives us three different playstyles just for the early buildings, after that you have different combinations for expanding in the valley or not etc...
We don't see anyone going for coal in his area on this replay, but I've already seen that and it works well too, they are other combinations.

I'm really happy about the gameplay of the map, it feels different to play without PT ! I only tested FFA an 2v2 for now because I didn't find enough players, but I think it works well in 4v4 teams too.
Having different ways to do your city's development is in my opinion a really interesting thing, and none of these ways seems to be overpowered, I didn't see the same way winning again and again.

[Lewin]

I was watching the replay and I saw a problem with the map:


On the left side you can't go around the back of the mountains there, I think you should be able to on both sides. That should be a simple map fix.

You also said you wanted to add wolfs, and the fisherman's hut should be blocked because there's no water. Remember that the script should be edited by hand because it's been customised a lot (you asked me to add stone to the towers at the start) Talk to me about it on MSN, I can make the changes to the script if you tell me what you want and fix the map file.

[Shadaoe]

Oh thanks for noticing that, I'll fix the map asap ! Nice catch
Yes we'll talk about fixing the script on msn, adding wolves etc .. we should catch on msn friday

[thunder]

Hi Shadaoe!

I saw your map, and i like it;)
TVoD2 is greatful! I see you could saved TVod1's fellings, and developed it. Little harder.
I like the bases qualites and simmetricallies. (How did you mirrored?-)

-I miss outside iron and gold mountains on the top of the map. I dont know are those gold and iron mountains needly to there but six players have. (6players have/8-->2doesnt have) I counted, and i see not enough place there.--->if cut 5-7lines from bottom of the map,then will 5-7lines be on the top. I hope you could give those mountains some kind of way!

Really good work! I hope to funny games will be on the map.

t

P.S. im happy to gave those cuttable trees!

[Shadaoe]

Thanks, your comments are really making me happy ! I'm glad you like it.

I like the bases qualites and simmetricallies. (How did you mirrored?-)

I mirrored thanks to a modified version of the remake that Lewin sent me, he took on his time to do this, so ask him if you need it, and if he didn't keep it I could still send it to you if needed.

-I miss outside iron and gold mountains on the top of the map. I dont know are those gold and iron mountains needly to there but six players have. (6players have/8-->2doesnt have) I counted, and i see not enough place there.--->if cut 5-7lines from bottom of the map,then will 5-7lines be on the top. I hope you could give those mountains some kind of way!

Hmm I believe that it's better with having 6 mining spots for 8 players. It adds some strategy because one player can try to control a spot and prevent others from taking it. You can survive quite efficiently without these spots though, so don't worry too much.
Plus, the top and bottom players have an advantage, they can be attacked by only one way, so it's a way to balance things a little.

Really good work! I hope to funny games will be on the map.

Thanks again for the support !

P.S. im happy to gave those cuttable trees!

Yes, at first I thought it wasn't such a good idea, but it proved to improve the map, so it's great :p

[Remake 2012]

I like the bases qualites and simmetricallies. (How did you mirrored?-)

I mirrored thanks to a modified version of the remake that Lewin sent me, he took on his time to do this, so ask him if you need it, and if he didn't keep it I could still send it to you if needed..

Is this improvement appears in RC3? or the final version?

[Shadaoe]

I'm not sure it will ever appear on an official version, it was just a thing Lewin did for me because I'd have too much work to mirror by hand, but I don't know.

[Lewin]

The map mirroring tool I made for Shadaoe wasn't released for two reasons:

1. It was hacked together, not user friendly, and only worked on the terrain tiles Shadaoe used on the map because I had to write rules for how each terrain type would be rotated after mirroring (if you don't rotate them the tile transitions don't line up at all). It was also unable to mirror the tile transition data for the mirrored side of the map, meaning that you couldn't properly edit the terrain on the right side in Krom's editor. All of these things could be fixed but would take a lot more time than the hack I made.

2. I didn't want to see every map maker creating "mirror maps". The Valley of Dangers is a special case, each player is supposed to be perfectly equal. For example, these maps could be made by mirroring: "Valley of the Equilibrium", "Dead of Winter", "Enter the Heat", "Cross", "All for One", "Horseshoe", "Alice", "Multilands", etc. However, because each side was made separately, they're much better quality and more interesting. For example Dead of Winter looks quite similar on both sides, but if you zoom out and look at both at once, you'll see that the river and bridges are actually in quite different positions and the surrounding terrain is different. If people did start making lots of mirror maps we might not add them because in a lot of cases it's a "lazy option" and results in a far less interesting map than if you make both sides slightly differently. Perfectly mirrored maps look quite unnatural, Shadoae spent quite a while swapping objects in the middle valley so it didn't look so mirrored. But some people might have their own ideas like The Valley of Dangers that could be made with such a tool.

I still have the code and maybe one day it could be implemented into the editor (copy -> paste mirrored). But it would be released with a disclaimer: "Mirror maps will only be added into the Remake where the mirroring is used in a way that makes the map better, not just to save some time" (I believe The Valley of Dangers 2 fulfils this perfectly)

Does anybody have an opinion on the matter? Do you think such a tool could be used productively and without too much mirror map spam? I don't have time to develop it further now, but maybe it could be added in the future.