Winter 2009 - Map Making Contest! UPDATED

[Drunken_Pirate]

Ok version 3.0, think it is getting to be a great map! I'm not biased or anything

4P - Valley of Death 3.rar

Newest Version File

(514 Bytes) Downloaded 289 times

4p_Valley_of_Death.rar

The .cfg

(518 Bytes) Downloaded 288 times

VoD_replay.gz

A replay that shows the tables can turn, and turn and turn

(17.14 KiB) Downloaded 295 times

[lancebramsay]

I have done quite a bit of testing and have worked out all flaws and/or balance issues.

A very balanced map, there are no inherent race advantages as well as no advantage to being first.

Are you a newer player? Looking at this map, I'm certain that neither of the above are true.

So from looking at it what issues do you see?

I also don't appreciate the personal attacks. The remark about whether or not I am new is not only irrelevant, it is also uncalled for. You could try playing the map before writing it off, or if that is too much, you could ask me how it plays... I have played the map a good 100 times so I know it quite well. Either way I would like to keep this non biased and non personal and I would appreciate it if you, as a judge, upheld those standards.

LaZrO

[Caphriel]

My initial impressions, just looking at the screenshot.

• Unless P2 gets a quick flying unit in the right place, P1 will beat him to the top right village and the bottom left village. This is exacerbated by the fact that small, low-village maps tend to devalue scouts, so recruiting fast units to respond to this will hurt in other ways, also, see below.
• Small, low-village maps tend to devalue scouts, so factions with cost-effective high MP units will have an advantage over factions that don't, and if my scouts happen to beat your scouts (footpads vs bats, for instance), you have a serious problem.
• There's no good way to get aquatic units to the river, so factions with flying units will have an advantage crossing the river.
• Defending the river near the sides of the map against drakes would be difficult.
• Undead may have an advantage because most of their units require expensive, specialist counter units (burner, mage, HI, wose...) that are not good recruits initially, and are difficult to acquire on the income from five villages. This applies to all low-village maps, though.

Doc Paterson asked if you were a new player probably because issues like the first one on the list (assuming I counted hexes right - screenshots with the grid on are infinitely better than screenshots with the grid off!) are one of the first things an experience player looks for when evaluating a map.

[Wintermute]

any idea when 1.7 is gonna become the official version of wesnoth?

When it becomes 1.8

Correct. IIRWIIR.

Also, the Dec 1st. deadline is looming large. Now is the time to get those submissions in, and for those of you who have already submitted you map (or maps, but try to limit to 2 maps, 3 tops, and that might hurt your chances - give us your best shot at the moment and save the rest for another contest ), please test it out a bit more - if you uncover balance issues there is still time to tweak your design before Dec. 1st.

[Drunken_Pirate]

Ok, so this is the last version I am posting before dec 1st. Hope I am not spamming here too much lol but I guess I am a bit of a perfectionist. I am really enjoying this map and have been getting a lot of positive feedback from you guys in game. I'd like to give a special thanks to Enqirehu who played a larger roll than most in helping me tweak tiles for gameplay and aesthetics. I am looking forward to hearing what the judges have to say, I think there is always room for improvement, but I am happy with this version fow now. The archives have probably accumulated a fair amount of replays of this map, all with varying factions and even more varying results. I have not had the same game twice yet. Cheers!

[lancebramsay]

My initial impressions, just looking at the screenshot.

• Unless P2 gets a quick flying unit in the right place, P1 will beat him to the top right village and the bottom left village. This is exacerbated by the fact that small, low-village maps tend to devalue scouts, so recruiting fast units to respond to this will hurt in other ways, also, see below.
• Small, low-village maps tend to devalue scouts, so factions with cost-effective high MP units will have an advantage over factions that don't, and if my scouts happen to beat your scouts (footpads vs bats, for instance), you have a serious problem.
• There's no good way to get aquatic units to the river, so factions with flying units will have an advantage crossing the river.
• Defending the river near the sides of the map against drakes would be difficult.
• Undead may have an advantage because most of their units require expensive, specialist counter units (burner, mage, HI, wose...) that are not good recruits initially, and are difficult to acquire on the income from five villages. This applies to all low-village maps, though.

Doc Paterson asked if you were a new player probably because issues like the first one on the list (assuming I counted hexes right - screenshots with the grid on are infinitely better than screenshots with the grid off!) are one of the first things an experience player looks for when evaluating a map.

I appreciate the feedback and I will make the necessary adjustments for improvement. Thank you

[lancebramsay]

Legend says there was once a fierce warrior that went by the name Ina'ar. An epic battle took place along the banks of a small river, countless soldiers were lost. Ina'ar was the last unit for his side, fighting ferociously he claimed many lives. Having shown much valor, the river was named Ina'ar in his honor.

Rushing your opponent will not win you the match, in most cases it will be signing your death wish. The key is to slowly push forward and pick out your opponents weaknesses. The middle is a key strategic position on the map due in part that it allows you much flexibility in your attack. It allows you the option of either going north or south or directly at your opponent. You also have the decision of taking your king into battle; this can often make or break your success. In addition there are several choke points for the teams as well, mostly being around the starting castles. This allows for each team to defend itself and fight back.

This is a small sized 1v1 map. With the newest version I moved several village locations, specifically the villages in the northeast and southwest corners. I transferred them to be slightly farther away from the opposing team, hopefully solving the quick scout unit issue. I also decreased the accessibility in crossing the river on the far west and east sides of the map. You will notice the addition of mushroom groves as well as the addition of water access from the castles. I went ahead and added two water villages to the map as well.

I would also like to thank all those who helped me, this map would not be what it is without your input. The name was the final edit so those who helped me may not recognize the new one. I had originally named it Bolt after the lightning bolt looking river but decided it was not fitting for the map.

-LaZrO

There is a new updated version of my map on page 7

2p - River of Ina'ar

[Doc Paterson]

Legend says there was once a fierce warrior that went by the name Ina'ar. An epic battle took place along the banks of a small river, countless soldiers were lost. Ina'ar was the last unit for his side, fighting ferociously he claimed many lives. Having shown much valor, the river was named Ina'ar in his honor.

Rushing your opponent will not win you the match, in most cases it will be signing your death wish. The key is to slowly push forward and pick out your opponents weaknesses. The middle is a key strategic position on the map due in part that it allows you much flexibility in your attack. It allows you the option of either going north or south or directly at your opponent. You also have the decision of taking your king into battle; this can often make or break your success. In addition there are several choke points for the teams as well, mostly being around the starting castles. This allows for each team to defend itself and fight back.

This is a small sized 1v1 map. With the newest version I moved several village locations, specifically the villages in the northeast and southwest corners. I transferred them to be slightly farther away from the opposing team, hopefully solving the quick scout unit issue. I also decreased the accessibility in crossing the river on the far west and east sides of the map. You will notice the addition of mushroom groves as well as the addition of water access from the castles. I went ahead and added two water villages to the map as well.

I would also like to thank all those who helped me, this map would not be what it is without your input. The name was the final edit so those who helped me may not recognize the new one. I had originally named it Bolt after the lightning bolt looking river but decided it was not fitting for the map.

-LaZrO

2priverofinaar.jpg

River of Ina'ar.zip

There are still several factional combinations where player 1 has 3 guaranteed village steals. They have two guaranteed steals in every matchup except when player 2 is Rebels, in which case they have 1 guaranteed steal. This ought not to be hard to test for- If player 2 cannot take a village on this map on turn 2 (their first turn of movement), player 1 can steal it, guaranteed. That is practically unavoidable on a map this small, unless you have all of your P2 villages 8 hexes or less from your P2 keep. You may be thinking that if this happens, player 2 will just be able to kill the player 1 thieves, but you will not be able to do that and still grab your other villages before they too are stolen, because your starting unit density is so low, with only 3 recruit hexes per keep. You might also say that player 1 will have to skip over some of their closer villages to make the thefts and slow themselves down that way, but that too barely matters; a smart P1 will just take those villages last if need be, and hold the stolen villages until a stronger unit arrives to rotate out the scout and lock the stolen village(s) down.

A stolen village is almost always a swing of 6 gold every turn. +2 gold for you, -2 gold for them, +1 upkeep for them, and -1 upkeep for you (+3, -3 swing). Many people don't get this because they don't understand how upkeep actually works; they think it's as simple as paying 1 gold per L1 unit per turn. Just pointing that out, in case you weren't aware.

It has also been proven time and again over at least a five year period that mountains next to villages make a map practically unbalanceable (and certainly very unfun) against Knalgans. That explanation is very long, and if you don't want to take my word for it, you can search the forums, or see if someone wants to go over it again.

There are other smaller problems here too, but those are the core issues. Maybe it was a little insensitive for me to ask if you were a new player, but these are mistakes that new players make, and I felt a little annoyed by your declaration that there were no balance issues of any kind here.

[Dharokan]

I like maps that provide fast action but also allow different approaches for strategy.
So here's my entry.

Two Tribes

It's a map which enforces real teamplay. Both players of a team share one castle, so they should combine their forces well to defend their adjacent "village". The "village" is actually a bunch of villages, but who cares?
The map is devided by a large mountain ridge. So the main action is taking place around the center lake or on the two flanks.

I'm still not sure about the ballance. In many games I played, some players complained about ballance-lacks for one or the other faction. Since it has never been the same opinion, I didn't get very useful hints with that.

In my opinion it should be quite ballanced, because every faction could benefit from it's strengths:
Fast units can scout the flanks better or do a surprise flank attack.
Good defenders have less trouble to keep the lake. So do poisoners.
Skirmishers can cross the lines more easily and occupy villages.
Merfolk or nagas are helpful to keep the center, to get the water villages or do sneak around the map.
The same for fyling units, of course.

The only faction, that I was worried about for a time were the elves. But healing is a great advantage to keep the lake. And woses do pretty well in defending the flank with the woods.

Well, these are my thoughts... Any suggestions or advices are very welcome of course.

EDIT: Oops, totally forgot the Replay. Now I added one with 3 elves and one dwarvish player. It might show that elves are not particulary underpowered here.

Cheers,
Dharokan

[Elephant]

I am submitting Hibernation for this map making contest. It is a two player map.

I really like the way that the ice looks while it is floating on water and I decided to try and find a map theme that would allow me to use this. This map is supposed to have one easier place to defend and one harder place to defend. The holes in the sides and center of the mountain ranges are supposed to provide ways for attacking players to separate the defending players forces. The small castle/mountain area on the sides are used to help units across the river.

I have done some testing on this map. There are still some balance issues that I would like to look into. I do not have time to make any real changes to this map before the end of the first part of this contest.

Hibernation Screenshot

blin_vs._Elephant_(Hibernation).gz

Hibernation Replay

(37.61 KiB) Downloaded 294 times

[Dary]

Hi everyone!

Here's my map called "Venice".
I couldn't manage to do a screenshot so far.(I'm too dumb to make one or... I don't know ) Also I only have a replay of the older map version but I'll try to upload a replay of the new version today.
Well, about the map: it's meant to be played as a 4vs2 while only the 2 players in the middle are allied and the other 4 (can) make temporary alliances with each other.
So far, the map is balanced with 3 factions (Loyalists, Drakes, Undeads). Well, Drakes are rocking the house a little bit too much and land units must fight on small beaches to get on the little islands but when they are finally on it, it's difficult for the previous defending player to take control of an island again. So the defenders and attackers change roles very fast (especially the 2 players in the middle have to attack and retreat often).

As I said I only played it with the 3 factions above but I can say already that dwarves maybe could become problems because they are slow and only have 1 flying unit.

So the map is going to fail by its balance probably.

Greetings

Dary

[Dary]

uhm yeah. Here it is (+ old map version replay)

Edit.: It's not possible for me to upload... It always says: "The extension is not allowed" :S
Edit2: ah, it wasn't zipped

[Dary]

Ok, here's the new replay + the fixed version of the map.
Thanks to "cesco" and "fefo" for playing!

[lancebramsay]

Legend says there was once a fierce warrior that went by the name Ina'ar. An epic battle took place along the banks of a small river, countless soldiers were lost. Ina'ar was the last unit for his side, fighting ferociously he claimed many lives. Having shown much valor, the river was named Ina'ar in his honor.

This is the last version I am releasing before the Dec 1 deadline. There have been some drastic changes since the last release. The starting castles have one more recruiting hex and have been moved slightly more towards the center. You will also notice several villages have changed locations. With these two location changes there are now 6 villages within 8 hexes of the starting castle. 2 of these villages are 7 and 8 hexes away from the castle, one being near the snow(8), the other being the water village(7). This distance makes them 1-2 moves away compared to the other 4 villages which are only 1 move away. This will mold your strategy and what units you recruit which ultimately could decide the match. I would also argue that scouts still hold importance despite the map being so small. Since you have a low village count, you will not be able to recruit enough units to safely guard all of your villages. Scouts can move around and steal villages, increasing income and decreasing your opponents. Depending on what units are recruited, player 1 can still possibly steal a village but this can prove to be quite dangerous. Often times this thieving unit is too far behind enemy lines and will perish quickly. So one has to ask them self if it is worth sacrificing the unit for stealing a village. Most people would come to the conclusion that a 6 gold swing for a round is not worth the loss of a unit. There is no longer an issue with villages being next to mountains. I removed some mountains and added in some more castles. The map also has some major ascetic changes with the addition of snow.

All in all the map plays very well. You get exciting action right off the bat and it continues till the end of the match. It will seem like the tides may be turning for you when suddenly you find yourself backed up defending again. The battles will go back and forth, back and forth. All of the front five villages can be considered contested which makes for fast and fun game play. I will continue uploading replays for better examples on how the map handles.

I would like to thank all those who helped me, this map would not be what it is without your input. The name was edited so those who helped me may not recognize the new one. I had originally named it Bolt after the lightning bolt looking river but decided it was no longer fitting for the map.

-LaZrO

2p - River of Ina'ar

River of Ina'ar 1.6.zip

Contains the .map file, .cfg file, .gz file, and readme file

(17.52 KiB) Downloaded 319 times

[Doc Paterson]

Excellent job with your revisions, LaZrO. The balance is greatly improved.