Vold's map collection - Feedback

[iceiceice]

New version looks a lot better. However I can still spot at least one definite problem, and other possible issues.

- It looks like P1 has a guaranteed village steal if he or she has a faction with an 8mp flying scout, for example a bat or a glider. The bat or glider is recruited at either spot which is 5 mp from the north east crater teleport entrance on P1 side. After porting, the scout is only 11 hexes from the P2 side north east village which adjacent to 1 hills, 3 flat, 1 sand, 1 sand + scrub brush. So with the remaining 3 mp from this move and 8 mp from the next move can grab that village on P1 turn 3, and there is no possible way that P2 could get there earlier. Considering what options P2 has I think its clear that P1 can get at least half of P2's villages on the right side by turn 4 if he or she sends two such scouts, and since the keeps are so small P2 would have to use all the turn 1 recruits to try to defend, not grabbing villages and leading to certain defeat.

- I'm concerned that the vast expanse of sand at large portions of the edge of the map will make it too easy for drakes. If a drake glider ever starts to pillage, there's not really any way that a faction which is slow in sand could scare it away. Instead of withdrawing back towards his own side, the glider would "withdraw" deep into his enemy's sandy desert where he can't be reached, and the enemy would need to commit a small army to prevent him from jumping out again to pillage later, or to eventually kill him. This is also true I suppose for ghosts and bats. One possible way to counteract this is to mark some of that sand with the ``impassable'' overlay, then at least you won't be getting rid of the desert feel.

- Maybe you should consider making the starting keeps a bit bigger? I don't know how much gold you intend for the players to start with but if each side has 8 villages... it feels like if you can only recruit 4 on turn 1 you will be quite cramped to take all your villages. On many (most?) mainline 1 v 1 maps you are able to grab all your vills comfortably on turn 3, although that's not set in stone or anything... Also this will definitely have an impact on chaotic rushes.

- It's interesting that you say that the teleports stop working after turn 5. I think that after this happens, P2 will have a very difficult time defending his keep which is furthest west from a chaotic faction, for the following reason. Suppose my leader is an orcish warrior or crossbowman, or some type of dwarf. It will take me exactly 4 turns to move such a leader from my starting keep to the P2 keep in the west, using the teleport that takes me west. Suppose I use the teleport at the last possible opportunity, on turn 5. On turn 8, an afternoon, I would be able to arrive, and if I can take the keep I can recruit for a brutal night attack beginning on your turf at dusk. If you try to block the keep, but I have a large army and my leader, I can kill all the defenders, and its very hard for you to block both keep positions -- you will definitely lose the fight if I get to either of them. Since I will basically get there just before night I can definitely force a fight at night which I should almost certainly win. Moreover P2 doesn't really have any villages near that keep -- suppose I send an assassin and poison the defenders in advance of my leader arriving. You won't even be able to heal them without moving away for multiple turns. If you send your leader there to defend, before the teleports shutdown, you risk that I take my leader to my east keep instead and recruit alot of units on that side. It looks quite hard for you to scout the teleport entrances to see what I am doing... most likely you would need to play a few games with someone who thinks like this to see if this makes the orc rush or hodor rush too strong. It would be quite funny to me if even though the map has so much sand, northerners still end up advantaged because of something like this.

[Vold]

Thanks for taking the time to post those suggestions.

The new version should cover all the issues (the portals now work 24/7, from the center to the edges and contrariwise, the units spawn at the side of the crater when teleporting).

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[Vold]

I've played the last map with a friend a few times and I've enjoyed it a lot, although, there is something bothering us about the portals, since they are usable by both factions, if a skirmish or fast unit manages to enter into the portal at the edge of the other player, they can start jumping from one village to another, which makes it a little stressful to play because both players have to focus on blocking the path and also fighting on the middle; maybe this is hapenning because we are noob players. , so I have an idea about how to stop this from happening (making a nested event of the portals of each side, so that only if a unit stands on certain hex (close to the first portals of the centre), it will allow the units to use the portals. That way players can control the flow of the portals at their side as they please. An enemy will not be able to enter into the enemy area through the portal of the edges (unless that the other players allows it).

Anyways, anyone else feels like this should be implemented at all; btw and most importantly has anyone played the map?

[iceiceice]

So I actually did try to load it and play it, but on both 1.10.6 and 1.11.7 I got "invalid tile" errors and it wouldn't load. Maybe you should upload your map pack to the add-on server so that I know I'm getting the working version?

About the teleports: It's up to you how to make them work the way you want. But I would suggest that if you make it too easy for the defending player to control them exclusively, and they always work, it will make playing this map very defensive and could ultimately create imbalance in favor of Knalgans. Think about it -- if the teleports work all the time and theres no risk for an enemy scout to sneak by, and they don't really help a player to attack, the biggest impact might end up to be helping the big slow dwarves to always be in perfect position. Idk, there's already a lot of mountains on the map, so that would be my hunch. You might ultimately decide its better if they only work in first few turns, or only work in day, or only one direction, or something like this. But not having actually played the map its hard to say.

[Vold]

It is already in the addon's server (Vold's Map Collection) ; altho maybe the problem is that I am using v 1.11.8 (not sure).
About the portals, I managed to create a way to control the portals; it works like this. If a unit of any side steps on certain hex (which is located inbetween the central craters), it opens the portals of that side of the map, if the unit moves away, the portals disappear.
The thing about the portals is that one quick unit with a lot of MP could mess everything up jumping frrom one village to another one. So, instead of focusing on attacking at the center of the map, you'd have to be sending a units to the edges; and the map is set not to have so many units (125 g / 2g per turn per village / village unit support = 1).

[iceiceice]

Hmm, I upped to 1.11.8 and downloaded your addon. I got the first map to work, I like the way it looks and feels although I bet it could still benefit from more balancing changes. The sand sea one gives me this:

"Map could not be loaded: Illegal tile in map: (Dd^Tshy) 'Dd^Tshy'
The map cannot be loaded."

[Vold]

I removed the trash from the sand hexes, lets hope that it solves that issue.

[iceiceice]

That helped but I got a different bug afterwards...

I managed to debug it by just getting rid of whatever the ^... stuff is whenever it was unhappy about a terrain code... I don't know if that was wise but now I can load at least. It looks similar to the pictures you post when I do this, although I'm not 100% its the way its supposed to be.

Changed:
Rd^Tshy to Rd
Rd^Tbny to Rd
HHd^Tbny to HHd

I'm attaching the modified version I got this way, you can tell me if it is correct or not or if there is a better way I guess.

[Vold]

There is no real change to the balance of the map, because the ^Tshy terrain code was linked to an embellishment that I added (Trash()); so removing it from the map only fixes the problem without any consequence; altho rats ain't gonna like it but that's life.

Updated the addon. Thanks again!

[Iris]

Hmm, I upped to 1.11.8 and downloaded your addon. I got the first map to work, I like the way it looks and feels although I bet it could still benefit from more balancing changes. The sand sea one gives me this:

"Map could not be loaded: Illegal tile in map: (Dd^Tshy) 'Dd^Tshy'
The map cannot be loaded."

Are you sure you were using 1.11.8 and not 1.11.8+dev? The terrain strings for the trash overlays were changed after the release (for 1.11.9), so that’s why the game will treat the previous strings as nonexistent terrains.

[iceiceice]

Yeah I was using +dev... didn't know about this change, that explains it.