Bold New Maps

[Doc Paterson]

Should this one be castle or plain?

That is intentional. Part of the purpose is to control what sort of unit can/should be recruited by P1 there, early game, to take that nearby village. (A "standard" scout, rather than, for example, a probably-quick adept.)

EDIT: Oh, maybe you're talking about the fact that castle is not underlyed there? I thought it made too awkward of an overall shape for that portion of the castle.

EDIT 2: But woah! That village is supposed to be pre-flagged for P2! I forgot to adjust the config.

[Doc Paterson]

Alright, here it is, with the fixed config.

[singalen]

Hi Doc,
May I ask you - what is "string" meaning in "Thousand Stings Garrison"? I need to translate it into Russian.
Looks like my English is insufficient
Is it a bowstring? Or a thread? Or a jewelry? Or deception?
Thanks!

[Crendgrim]

It's "Sting", not "String", which refers to all those scorpions on the map.


Crend

[singalen]

Oh, my bad. Thanks.

[iLeeT_PeeP]

[Caphriel]

I think perhaps you are missing the point of this thread, which was for discussing Doc's "1v1 maps with atypical dynamics" or something like that. You should probably create a new thread, or possibly (it's been dead for a while) bump your old one

[Doc Paterson]

I think perhaps you are missing the point of this thread, which was for discussing Doc's "1v1 maps with atypical dynamics" or something like that. You should probably create a new thread, or possibly (it's been dead for a while) bump your old one

Indeed.

[Doc Paterson]

Hey, guys- Want to see one of the things I've been working on?

It's a new 1v1, called Tombs of Kesorak. I won't say a ton about it right now, but give it a try. Any feedback is cool, and replays are particularly appreciated.

Special thanks to Zookeeper for helping me with some of the localized-TOD WML.

Oh, and by the way, this will only work with 1.9x.

[Mint]

Here's a game of the new map, the Tombs of Kesorak. It was Honor's P1 Khalifa vs Mint's P2 loyalists.
Rather an all over the place battle ensued.


My loyalists tried grabbing villages by evading the defense with an army of cavs, and with sacrifices like that the game is quite even, until a horse archer levels up and I can't continue eating villages. The khalifa go on the attack, and steal some of my villages, and I can't defend properly. When my horses missed a lot, that fateful turn decides the game (if it wasn't earlier). Replay attatched.


This map seems rather quick faction friendly. They would be able to run around the slow ones. A flying village grabber seems to have a much easier time to grab villages and run away then a running one.

Anyway, nice to see new maps

[Honor]

My thoughts on this map:
The first impression I had about this map is its open-ness. As Mint went strictly horsemen/cavalryman for most of the match, I would have found it extremely difficult to protect/recover my stolen villages if I didn't have the benefit of Jundi's 6mp and 5-3 archery attack and my Muharib leader with its 6mp and 6-4 range attacks. I can imagine the frustration of someone playing UD or Dwarves and try to hold off speedy units. Also, because of the map layout, with 4 small keeps for each side and potentially 2 big attack fronts, north and south, this map would heavily favor leaders with 6mp movement, as it is mostly likely the leader would need to run north and south trying to reinforce sides. Also, I noticed that there is no first night rush with this map since by the time one side is within range of an attack, 1st night would've already passed, which sets it up perfectly for loyalists to charge in units to steal villages.

[Doc Paterson]

My thoughts on this map:
The first impression I had about this map is its open-ness. As Mint went strictly horsemen/cavalryman for most of the match, I would have found it extremely difficult to protect/recover my stolen villages if I didn't have the benefit of Jundi's 6mp and 5-3 archery attack and my Muharib leader with its 6mp and 6-4 range attacks. I can imagine the frustration of someone playing UD or Dwarves and try to hold off speedy units. Also, because of the map layout, with 4 small keeps for each side and potentially 2 big attack fronts, north and south, this map would heavily favor leaders with 6mp movement, as it is mostly likely the leader would need to run north and south trying to reinforce sides. Also, I noticed that there is no first night rush with this map since by the time one side is within range of an attack, 1st night would've already passed, which sets it up perfectly for loyalists to charge in units to steal villages.

Props for being the first to post a replay.


I haven't watched the replay yet, but I will soon. Here are a quick thoughts in response to what you said though.

It's cool that you were using the Khalifa and all, but the faction is very much in balancing flux at the moment, so I have mixed feelings about any new-map data that involves them. Don't get me wrong, it's way better to have such replays than to not have them, it's just hard to know how to interpret some of the map-to-faction interactions that occur with a new faction and a new map.

About the "openness" issue: That hadn't occurred to me; much of it looks quite dense (and horse-restrictive in many areas) to my eye. As for Knalgans potentially being weak, there are an awful lot of hills, and I've found gryphons to be quite useful there, but, I might be wrong.

About 6mp leaders: That's an issue that I always spend a lot of time with, and definitely did for this one, so when I read that you thought it took 5mp leaders more turns to reach certain keeps than 6mp leaders, I thought "He just didn't count it out." However- what I had forgotten was that I made a last minute change before posting the map (added one hill), which made it so that some 5 mp leaders need an extra turn to go from their north to south keeps. Other than that little glitch, which I just fixed, keep to keep travels should take the same number of turns for all leaders.

As for first night rushes, you ought to be able to do a decent hit on an enemy village on turn 5. Take a look at the replay I'm attaching- You can see that the Undead player didn't even really do it optimally as far as taking his villages and getting units in position for a first night rush, but was still able to set up a good turn 5 threat. Maybe such a rush can or should be made easier than it is- It's definitely something I'll be considering.

I'm guessing you guys noticed this during your match, but for anyone else who hasn't- the central coffin hex has a permanent-night TOD. The smaller, dark coffins do a "reverse-illuminate," making those hexes night during dusk or dawn, and dusk or dawn during day, etc. The campfires do straight-up illumination, and are meant to be somewhat compensatory. I've been considering adding two more of the smaller coffins in the central region, but I'm not yet sure about that.

Anyways, many thanks. Keep the tests going.

EDIT: I've attached the newest version, which fixes that hill mistake.

[Mint]

We tested random and got khalifa so that's how they got tested

[Doc Paterson]

Several changes in this new version, including starting gold being upped to 125, and chaotic rush being given a small boost. Each side also has an additional (albeit micro) keep, to make any journey from north to south a little more pleasant.

[The Black Sword]

Hey Doc,

I haven't played the map yet but I don't see the need for the micro keep. The way it is now you can traverse north to south without having even 1 turn without recruiting. In the previous set up, you had to give up just the 1 turn which doesn't seem too bad. I'd have to play it a bit to find out the dynamics but for example Sullas ruins has a similar keep setup with no problems.