Asymmetric 5p FFA "Oblikamets"

[batoonike]

And a lot of it. And then more.
I made a map inspired greatly by Forest of fear. As it is asymetrical, it is very likely terribly unbalanced when it comes to good players. However beginners and average players should already be abled to have fun on it without noticing the imbalance so much. I read some tutorials and viewed examples of maps but couldnt get the description and other wml stuff working, so its only terrain at the moment. So download it, I gess then it should be put into userdata/editor/maps and go play a nice 5 players FFA. Recommended settings 2gold per village, pretty long time limit.
Hardest faction to play is likely Loyalists, since the amount of open ground is quite small, but Im not sure where should I add more. Drakes should have a good time flying over all the stuff that others get stuck into. All reasonable commentary and suggestions are appreciated and taken into consideration. Im a beginning mapmaker so try to be as precise as possible, othewise I plain wont get it
Name "Oblikamets" means some forest where the sourdocks grow in estonian and is going to stay as "Oblikamets".
The file is .cfg since I couldnt attach it without extension. It works fine in the userdata/editor/maps anyway.

Starting gold: 100
Expected game length for the winner: 1 - 3 hours (usually 1 leaver and 1 joining observer)
Number of villages 35, 7 per player, in first 2 turns should get 4-5 villages and the rest is warfare.
Size: 42x42, corners cut out.

edit: Fixed some terrain issues that should make it now a little more possible to play loyalists and a little harder to play drakes and orcs.

[aokces]

I think you're missing a .map file, can't play with .cfg alone.

[Golbeeze]

The .cfg can contain the map information. You don't need to have them broken into two files.

[aokces]

Hmm.. I must have it in the wrong folder then.

[F8 Binds...]

I think I made a comment on this map before you posted it here, on the server, about it lacking enough terrain. (Forgive me if I'm wrong, here. )

I think you have gone to the complete polar opposite, and actually choked loyalists out of any clear pathways. Try looking at some of the mainline maps for their terrain density- it is a good starting point to get a basis of what proper terrain density is. The eastern 8-10 columns on the map are better, but in many other places loyalists will have a severe MP disadvantage.

A logical move here would be to segment the rather large terrain blocks you have here.

[ezysquire]

I like the fact that someone is trying to create assymetrical ffa maps. It is a very hard thing to do.

A point about ffa maps worth considering when building terrain is that there is no reason to have the entire map evenly balanced for all factions.

FFA game play does not lend itself to selecting "random" as faction choice and consequently the map does not have to have "fair" terrain everywhere as players will have chosen a faction that suits their starting point. - (for more info see the awaw/grrr post about king of the hill).

Sticking with the King of the Hill map (KOTH); This is easily the best ffa in mainstream and the four starting positions clearly favour different factions.

It is only the centre and likely points of battle that tend to have a terrain balance for all factions and even then not perfectly.

The true balance in KoTH is not created by having even terrain everywhere, but by giving a terrain advantage to certain factions in certain starting positions.

It's ok for certain factions to have advantages around the various starting points as it creates tactical balance by making it difficult for an enemy to push against you. This is an important aspect of FFA because it automatically removes any advantage of the "rush" strategy.

The tactical balance provided by this also ensures the contestable points become real hot spots of big battles which is always fun to play. By having strong secure "homelands" (like in KoTH) it means sizeable armies can be built up (with room to manoeuvre) and great tactics and approaches to attacking can develop.

So the overall point I'm making is I don't think balancing a large FFA map is about creating even terrain everywhere for "randon" faction. To my mind this is the wrong way to go about it and I would almost risk saying it is impossible.

Balance can be created in different ways; like by building terrain that generates opportunity for good tactical play, launched from "safe starting points".

Just to be clear on "safe starting points"; that does not mean an area of 'all mountains' or 'all forest'... but just some good solid points of defence in a relatively open landscape.

Hope I have been of some help or in the least got some ideas going on how to create some balance for a game format (FFA) that should be played more often by more people!



Just had a look at awaw and grrr's thread again... it really is very good.

It is in "strategies and tips" section and is titled "strategy guide for FFA".

There are some excellent points made in it about how FFA works tacticly (particularly on page 2) and learning and understanding these points will really help in any FFA map making effort.

Enjoy.