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Topic: Give me ideas for new challenge maps

king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-07-18, 19:29

those of you who look the downloadable maps section of the site know that I like to make challenge maps: extremely difficult maps where the human player is at some sort of huge disadvantage and must play extremely accurately to win after an extremely long time.

You may also have noticed that I haven't posted one of those maps in a while. the reason is, I run out of ideas.

I would like to make a new challenge map, but I just can't think of anything that I haven't done already. No metal? no metal challlenge. Start without resources surrounded by hostiles? the great escape. great mess with multiple harbors and an expanded economy? both dust in the wind and concentric rings.

So I decided to open this thread to gather suggestions. the new map should be about as difficult as my other challenges, and significantly different from any of them. If I like the suggestions I get, I make it

EDIT: also, i prefer maps for longer games. Ideally should take some tens of hours to complete

Edited: 2017-07-18, 22:54

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fuchur

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Posted at: 2017-07-18, 22:36

Maybe you could vary win conditions and create something with bad terrain for woods in combination with wood gnome win condition. But I think that would require an AI which performs good in those win conditions.

Or you could delay expansion to ressources by blocking important spots on the map with extreme amounts of stone or trees.

Maybe you considered these ideas already, I don't know your previous maps. They seem to be too difficult for me face-wink.png


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Ex-Member
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Posted at: 2017-07-19, 11:00

I enjoyed fjords, restricted builing possabilities. perhaps a larger version would be good, with uneven resource distribution and longer fjords further apart, or a four player version?

Another good restricted building map was Neptunes revenge by Hessenfarmer, it was built for a scenario and is very unballaced for normal play but the idea might help you with a challenging map. You have no iron, yje only iron is on another island so you need a port and ships to get there. You do not have enough wares to build ships and expeditions and not enough apace to build all the sites needed.


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soulless
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Posted at: 2017-07-21, 12:18

king_of_nowhere wrote:

those of you who look the downloadable maps section of the site know that I like to make challenge maps: extremely difficult maps where the human player is at some sort of huge disadvantage and must play extremely accurately to win after an extremely long time.

Didn't know that but as I read this thread I looked at the maps and downloaded them.

..... concentric rings.

That's the one I tried first and I now have a question. As the message box in maps is to short I will ask it here: Is it possible that there is a error in this version at the black position? I defeat red yellow and green and as I want to go to the black ring the port space was used by the black player. He did not have the whole ring, only half of it. So I take a look in the editor and if you go left from the black starting position there comes ice. And the black player didn't go there. If you go right there is a lot of mines and stuff and than comes the port space and than a lot of stones and than a very big forest and than you are at the ice again. Shouldn't the port-space be on the other side of the stones? In the middle of the forest or near the ice. Because the black got all of the stones away and began to go into the forest, only a little but the stones are all gone. And that was about hour 16 gametime and for all the stones he must have built the port a while ago and than one must be very, very, very fast. I don't think that I'm able to be that fast. I mean, I don't want to cheat but from my experience with the other rings, where there is stone and forest left and right of the port space, that looks more like an error than me being to slow (at least I hope that this is the explanation that I don't manage to go there face-smile.png )

But a great map, I think that not barbarian vs atlanteans is the hardest, I think empire vs. empire or atlanteans on the first ring is very hard. Because than If you on the first ring there are nearly no animals, not that much fish and the marble mines are nearly empty. And than you have a big problem to build farms, piggeries, wells and so on. That were my first 2 games as I set ai to random and get first empire and than atlanteans .... and no marble. The third I did what you mentioned to be the easiest: vs 7 barbarians.

Anyhow, to come back to this thread: I will try the other maps to know what you already have and perhaps than have a idea ... or not.


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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-07-21, 13:24

soulless wrote:

..... concentric rings.

That's the one I tried first and I now have a question. As the message box in maps is to short I will ask it here: Is it possible that there is a error in this version at the black position? I defeat red yellow and green and as I want to go to the black ring the port space was used by the black player. He did not have the whole ring, only half of it. So I take a look in the editor and if you go left from the black starting position there comes ice. And the black player didn't go there.

No, it's correct as it is. the black player land is made to force the black player to go quickly and take your port. You must kill the previous two players quickly to take that port before the black player.

On the other hand, you want to be quick regardless, because resources are limited and the more you wait, the more ores the AI will mine and the less you will have. The first two rings are especially bad. You definitely were too slow, and even if black hadn't stolen your port space, you probably wouldn't have had enough metals to kill everyone.

Still, not bad. I think most players could not even kill the second ring.


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soulless
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Posted at: 2017-07-21, 14:36

king_of_nowhere wrote:

soulless wrote:

..... concentric rings.

That's the one I tried first and I now have a question. As the message box in maps is to short I will ask it here: Is it possible that there is a error in this version at the black position? I defeat red yellow and green and as I want to go to the black ring the port space was used by the black player. He did not have the whole ring, only half of it. So I take a look in the editor and if you go left from the black starting position there comes ice. And the black player didn't go there.

No, it's correct as it is. the black player land is made to force the black player to go quickly and take your port. You must kill the previous two players quickly to take that port before the black player.

On the other hand, you want to be quick regardless, because resources are limited and the more you wait, the more ores the AI will mine and the less you will have. The first two rings are especially bad. You definitely were too slow, and even if black hadn't stolen your port space, you probably wouldn't have had enough metals to kill everyone.

Still, not bad. I think most players could not even kill the second ring.

So you destroyed my hope face-wink.png But you're right with resources because my military also was half from the black players military so even with that port I think I got killed there. So I will try again sometime.


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2017-07-21, 16:16

I destroyed the black player in b19, but after that I was so bored from the match that I didn't continue face-wink.png

I think that with current trunk it is much easier to beat the map

king_of_nowhere wrote:

those of you who look the downloadable maps section of the site know that I like to make challenge maps: extremely difficult maps where the human player is at some sort of huge disadvantage and must play extremely accurately to win after an extremely long time.

You may also have noticed that I haven't posted one of those maps in a while. the reason is, I run out of ideas.

I would like to make a new challenge map, but I just can't think of anything that I haven't done already. No metal? no metal challlenge. Start without resources surrounded by hostiles? the great escape. great mess with multiple harbors and an expanded economy? both dust in the wind and concentric rings.

So I decided to open this thread to gather suggestions. the new map should be about as difficult as my other challenges, and significantly different from any of them. If I like the suggestions I get, I make it

EDIT: also, i prefer maps for longer games. Ideally should take some tens of hours to complete

Your maps have already used a lot of ideas. The only really new one which I have is that one: A map where invasions by ships are actually possible, even if the hostile islands are (almost) completely conquered. This could work if the invasion ports are very close to their base ports, so the challenge would be to transport enough soldiers into the invasion port when it's just created. (When the new port is finished, it would be attacked, but the defending soldiers have to been transported even faster into this port).

In this case, the coastlines should be very close together, so you can/must build castles next to your first ports which make it possible for you to build the invasion ports, and the castles make it also possible that the invasion ports are distanced enough from the hostile military buildings.

The fast construction of the castles could also be part of the challenge.

Or maybe it is not a challenge but rather an extraordinary attribute of a map, I haven't tested it yet.

Before I forget it, a useful hint: Trunk is really helpful for the map editor because of the zoom face-smile.png


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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king_of_nowhere
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Posted at: 2017-07-21, 17:24

WorldSavior wrote:

I destroyed the black player in b19, but after that I was so bored from the match that I didn't continue ;-)

yeah, well, if you beat black and you have still lots of resources left, the rest of the map tends to be easier. you still need to hurry up with building stuff, but the hardest part is probably beating the second ring with enough resources left to beat the third. Although, it's also fairly difficult when you're approaching the final ring, to keep your economy working over the long distances involved.

Which reminds me of another trait I would like: the difficulty should remain high for most of the game. If the map is very difficult to start but it becomes easy once you set yourself up, then it is not right. Ideally, it should be made to keep challenging you to do your best for well over ten hours.

For example, in concentric rings, when you conquer an opponent and take its resources, you are not done, because the next opponent will have more resources, so you can't just sit on your previous accomplishment. in the great escape, white player has limited resources, so once you kill him you face four new opponents who had plenty of time to prepare and you have to take them down fast too. And after that the last two players will advance on the valley and threaten to conquer you, and they will have had some dozen hours to prepare soldiers while you fought and bled all the time, so you're still challenged to the end. In dust in the wind, if you conquer one opponent you are fine, but you have to get a working economy and then breack the rock wall, and it still takes a while. And anyway, I'm not fully satisfied with that map.


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soulless
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Posted at: 2017-07-21, 17:35

WorldSavior wrote:

I destroyed the black player in b19, but after that I was so bored from the match that I didn't continue face-wink.png

I think that with current trunk it is much easier to beat the map

In the actual state of the ai in trunk it would be cheating to not play b19 face-wink.png


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WorldSavior
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Posted at: 2017-07-23, 18:21

king_of_nowhere wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

I destroyed the black player in b19, but after that I was so bored from the match that I didn't continue ;-)

yeah, well, if you beat black and you have still lots of resources left, the rest of the map tends to be easier. you still need to hurry up with building stuff, but the hardest part is probably beating the second ring with enough resources left to beat the third. Although, it's also fairly difficult when you're approaching the final ring, to keep your economy working over the long distances involved.

Which reminds me of another trait I would like: the difficulty should remain high for most of the game. If the map is very difficult to start but it becomes easy once you set yourself up, then it is not right. Ideally, it should be made to keep challenging you to do your best for well over ten hours.

I just had three more ideas:

  • a map without any stone

  • a map with up to 16 players

  • a challenge map where the AI should have trading outposts, not headquarters again face-wink.png

. In dust in the wind, if you conquer one opponent you are fine, but you have to get a working economy and then breack the rock wall, and it still takes a while. And anyway, I'm not fully satisfied with that map.

But: A participant of the last tournament said that he sees "no way how to beat the map", so maybe it is not too easy face-wink.png

soulless wrote:

WorldSavior wrote:

I destroyed the black player in b19, but after that I was so bored from the match that I didn't continue face-wink.png

I think that with current trunk it is much easier to beat the map

In the actual state of the ai in trunk it would be cheating to not play b19 face-wink.png

Maybe you're right about that face-wink.png


Wanted to save the world, then I got widetracked

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