Map Design

[Cannibal]

After playing for a while, I noticed that most MP maps are balanced in terms of villages. There is a empty middle ground between two opposing armies, and each army has the same amount of villages in their territory. Many of my games reminded me more of WWI trench warfare, especially undead vs undead or knalgan vs knalgan. The gameplay is too gradual for my tastes, it isn't dynamic enough.

My proposal is to create new types of maps where the majority of villages are in the "middle areas", instead of in the player's home territory. This encourages players to play more agressively, since sitting in your home territory is no longer a option.

I realize that this gives an advantage to players who move first, but I haven't thought of any good solutions to this problem yet. The only idea so far is to put neutral monsters in the middle, but that breaks more than one FPI rule.

[Cannibal]

61 views, 0 responses

I sense that something is wrong here

[Sapient]

There are some unofficial maps like this and they do favor an aggressive style, although as you will note most of these maps are unbalanced.

However, if the number of units you can recruit is twice smaller than the number of midpoint villages to be grabbed, then it is possible to reduce starter advantage. Also, a 1221 team lineup can reduce starter advantage.

One thing you have to keep in mind when designing such a map is the principle of "cumulating advantage" in Wesnoth; this means that any advantage in the beginning can have a disproportionate effect on the ending.

[Inigo Montoya]

My proposal is to create new types of maps

61 views, 0 responses...I sense that something is wrong here

I suspect that people may be waiting for you to produce such a map, to prove your point.

[Sapient]

Or you can play Royal Rumble Lava-Village from my mappack: quick, brutal, and funny. Drakes are underpowered on that map, however; it is a bit unbalanced.

[Baufo]

After playing for a while, I noticed that most MP maps are balanced in terms of villages. There is a empty middle ground between two opposing armies, and each army has the same amount of villages in their territory. Many of my games reminded me more of WWI trench warfare, especially undead vs undead or knalgan vs knalgan. The gameplay is too gradual for my tastes, it isn't dynamic enough.

My proposal is to create new types of maps where the majority of villages are in the "middle areas", instead of in the player's home territory. This encourages players to play more agressively, since sitting in your home territory is no longer a option.

I realize that this gives an advantage to players who move first, but I haven't thought of any good solutions to this problem yet. The only idea so far is to put neutral monsters in the middle, but that breaks more than one FPI rule.

I thought exactly like you some time ago, I went and made a map with villages in the middle. I started to play it and enjoyed the quick and aggressive gameplay until I realized that nearly always player 1 was going to win. So even if I agree such maps appear quite desirable I think they simply can't provide balanced gameplay.

[Airk]

As pointed out, can't this be sidestepped by providing, say, 14 villages, two in each players 'back court' and 10 in the 'contested' area, and only allowing people to recruit 5 units per turn? Assuming that the map was large enough that even a scout unit would be unable to reach the 'contested' villages in one turn? (Probably around ten hexes away)

This means that even if player one runs all five of his initial recruits towards the middle villages, player 2 will still be able to grab a comparable number of villages?

Maybe I'll finally do something useful for the community and try to cobble together a map along these lines.