Back to Back --- A 1on1 map

[Turuk]

I tried both (rename first, then conversion) and both failed.

[Velensk]

I just realized that I forgot to respond to this.

The two big problems this map suffers are side to side imbalance and the fact that it requires a big blind bid.

Like the other one (even after your revisions) you have a problem where you put critical things in the middle where they favor the first player who can reach them. On most maps (like the other one) this would be side one but on this map it is side 2. Because of the fact that it's a turn based game and inevitably one side will be able to reach any point that is important to control before the other, you need to have some kind of buffer zone of ground that isn't important between the two players domains (traditionally this is about one scout unit worth of move big) otherwise one players natural domain will include a critical area and give a massive advantage. This is especially the case with the time of day cycle. Normally, in 1vs1 the timing will work out so that a chaotic faction can rush to arrive in time to give an attack where for a very brief time they will have a ToD advantage and they have to weigh this vs the fact that if things don't go well they'll have a hard time retreating to an area which they do control and where they can heal as the ToD shifts. On this map with a combination of ToD timing and spawning close to the enemy you can get all the advantage of first strike without half the risk.
On this map this initiative advantage is particularly strong because it's for a castle which gives direct access to the sides villages and blocks them from taking any similar action that could effectively counter it. At worst you can take control of two villages, at best you could sweep the entire village rich south and then hold out at the narrow pass in the east which due to the way the terrain is positioned could be held indefinitely by four units.
Also, if you'll look at the positioning of the villages in the north passes, player 2s village planted in the center of the pass is much better suited for blocking mobile units trying to run by and steal villages whereas player ones village on the side can be run by quite easily.

On the note about blind bid: For practical force, this map forces you to commit to a course of action before you can gain any information what your opponent is doing. By the time you can see your opponent it would be too late to adapt in general so you have to rely on the choice you made when you did not know anything being enough. There's a certain amount of this on any map but the recruiting situation and shape of this map makes it even more apparent.

[Technaton]

Ok, I see how the village positioning favors particular players. I'll try to correct that. Thanks for the hints! And thanks for playtesting, I'm actually really happy to improve my maps. I know that it is probably hard, espacially with this map. Still, I'll try, and perhaps take the overall map theme to another one which doesn't suffer from these apparent disadvantages.

Sorry, DemoReplay1 is the old "Dwarven Mine" replay, whereas 2 and 3 seem to be corrupted. Could you please upload again?

Thanks

[iceiceice]

Hmm all replays worked fine for me on 1.10.4, what version of wesnoth do you have Technaton?

[Technaton]

It's Wesnoth 1.10.5:

Code: Select all

[eveith@basileia:~]% wesnoth -v
Battle for Wesnoth v1.10.5
Started on Tue Nov  5 00:34:32 2013

Battle for Wesnoth 1.10.5
[eveith@basileia:~]% wesnoth -l ~/Desktop/Downloads/DemoReplay2.gz          
Battle for Wesnoth v1.10.5
Started on Tue Nov  5 00:34:43 2013


Data directory: /usr/share/wesnoth
User configuration directory: /home/eveith/.config/wesnoth
User data directory: /home/eveith/.local/share/wesnoth/1.10
Cache directory: /home/eveith/.cache/wesnoth
Checking video mode: 1920x1180x32...
setting mode to 1920x1180x32
20131105 00:34:43 error filesystem: Could not open '/home/eveith/.local/share/wesnoth/1.10/saves//home/eveith/Desktop/Downloads/DemoReplay2.gz' for reading.

[iceiceice]

It's Wesnoth 1.10.5:

Code: Select all

...
20131105 00:34:43 error filesystem: Could not open '/home/eveith/.local/share/wesnoth/1.10/saves//home/eveith/Desktop/Downloads/DemoReplay2.gz' for reading.
...

Yeah, I think you have to actually copy the DemoReplay2.gz file into the directory "/home/eveith/.local/share/wesnoth/1.10/saves/", you can't just type the path "/home/eveith/Desktop/Downloads/DemoReplay2.gz" into the wesnoth dialog box. I can't tell you exactly why though.

[Technaton]

I'm not typing it into any dialog box --- I'm launching it from my zsh command line. It works fine with the first replay, but not with the others.

Funny thing: The others work when loading from ~/.local/share/wesnoth/1.10/saves.

Bug…?

Thanks, iceiceice!