Lord Vekta: do you want to do a joined map project?

[Nigel 53]

Hi Lord Vetka,

 

like the title says: would you like to do a joined map projecct with me?

 

I have an idea in my head for a Crusader 2 multiplayer map, which should be quite interesting.

Unfortunately, I am not a very good artist and making maps which look beautiful is not really my strenght.

 

From what I gather, you have quite some experience and you like map making. So a joined project could be the thing to do.

Let me know if you are interested in principle, and I will tell you more about what I have in mind.

 

Nigel

Edited December 15, 2014 by Nigel

[Lord_Chris 203]

Personal discussion/conversations should really be held over the PM (unless it was a general question for everyone and I misunderstood?). I'll leave the thread open this time, but you know for future reference :)

Edited October 12, 2014 by Lord_Chris

[Mathew Steel 147]

Lord Vetka is very good with map design and it would be a good idea to ask him for some help :)

 

If he can't help you im happy to help, im not as good as Vetka but Id say im better than average :D

[Lord Vetka 63]

That sounds interesting.

 

I'm still learning the editor though , it's not as easy as the older editors were.

 

Tell me what you have in mind, lets see what we can do, all I ask for is a bit of patients! I do have several projects on the go.:-)

 

Chris, I think this is a good thread, it might be of interest for people to see how this is going, we can report as we go!

[Lord_Chris 203]

Chris, I think this is a good thread, it might be of interest for people to see how this is going, we can report as we go!

 

Yes, I never thought of it in that way, I'll leave it up to you. :)

 

Good luck on your project, and apologies to @Nigel for my misunderstanding!

[Nigel 53]

No problem, Chris. Thanks for keeping this thread open.

 

And thanks, Mathew, for your offer of help. I may come back to it in the future. I still have some more ideas up my sleeve :cool:

Also, keep watching this thread here and feel free to comment. Never a bad idea to have an additional pair of eyes look over it.

 

 

Now this is what I have in mind:

The name and theme of the map is "A Tale of Two Cities".

There are 2 village estates in the centre, which are actually well developed cities with city walls, towers and such. They will also have some guard posts, who will provide a (weak) defence of the free cities.

 

The castles of the Lords are to the North / South of the cities - perhaps located on a hilltop. They are fairly small - big enough to build an interesting castle, but not so big, that the lords can set up a huge economy in them. They will have to depend on taking control of their city to get large amounts of supplies.

 

 

The cities should have several gates in their city wall. The one close to "their" lord should be weakly defended and easily captured (and perhaps each player could get a few free assassins with their starting troops). The gate towards the rival city should be well fortified.

 

There is also the possibility to walk around the cities. So players dont have to attack the oppsing city head on. They can also choose to attack from one side or try to go aound the city completely and attack the opposing castle right away.

 

For a 1v1 it should be quite straight forward. For a 2v2 game, of course only one of the allies can control the city. The other one will have a supporting role and will depend on shipments of goods via the diplomacy menue from his ally.

 

The map gets an evil twist if it is played as a 4 player ffa game without teams xD. In that case, the two players on the same side of the river will be immediate enemies and race for control of their city. Finally the two survivers will battle it out between them.

 

 

I hope this gives you a good idea of what I have in mind. Let me know what you think and if you would like to have a go at making it, Vekta, I'd be very glad. There is no rush to get it completed - but I like your idea of using this thread to keep discussing and updating. Even the making of it could be good fun. :)

Edited October 13, 2014 by Nigel

[Mathew Steel 147]

I really like the idea of the map. Sounds like you've though this out very well, I look forward to seeing and playing it :)

 

I think assassins as starting troops is not so good, for someone can just send them in straight away mostly unseen and do a lot of damage, but that's just my view :)

[Lord Vetka 63]

That can be an interesting map, not to hard to make, my concern would be the ability of the cities to supply enough goods to make it work like you want, we might have to make the cities specialize on stone and iron as an example and have the player estates able to get wood and food. Or the other way around with the cities set in a green scape and your in the mountains with stone and iron, making sure your people are fed is priority though.

 

I do have a few ideas, proper map size will be important here, I was playing in the editor the other day and was making mountain roads, maybe two mountain roads to take to pass by the cities like you suggested with the cities down in a bit of a valley.

 

Maybe put the cities or one at the edge of the water with wharfs and have a ship at dock, how far apart should the player estates be from each other, maybe a road to the estates one then a little further along the next estate and do something different on the other 2 estates.

 

Now I have an idea to work with, I will see what I can do in the editor.

[Nigel 53]

Thanks Lord Vekta. I am gald you like the idea and will give it a go.

 

Map size: I was thinking Extra Large, but you might want to make a first draft and see how it pans out. Maybe Large is even enough.

 

For the player estates there are 2 possibilities: have allied estates touch each other so that players could build a single joined castle (if that is possible), or have them somewhat apart. Me may have to try this out a bit, before we decide. In any case both allied players should have the same distance / chance to capture their city.

 

 

About cities not producing enough - again we need to find out if this is a problem or not. But if it is, I think the castles should produce the stone and iron and the cities the food and weapons. One thing we need to watch out for is not to make cities so big (population wise) that they cause lag in MP.

 

 

Mathew: good point about assassins early in the game. Maybe it is indeed better not to have them. Or only have 1 to get that gate open (until we get ladders :) ).

[Lord Vetka 63]

I have been busy with the SHC2 map editor and have made a Two Cities test map, I would like to post a screen here but, it is not my expertise working with the forums and putting screens in the threads.

 

I did try and use the BBcode and could not even submit, and had to come back and do it again, sorry!

 

I will send you the map via email.

 

Edit- The map is in the mail.

 

Lord Chris, I sent you a folder with a few screens and wanted to put the last screen "1 g" up here, could you add that one in or does it have to be posted somewhere else first, I told you guys:-) I'm totally illiterate when it comes to the forums, I can't even get links right:-)

 

Edited October 27, 2014 by Lord Vetka

[Lord_Chris 203]

I did try and use the BBcode and could not even submit, and had to come back and do it again, sorry!

 

If you like, I'll edit your post and add it in if you give me the link.

[Lord Vetka 63]

I have a screen up now, click the link. You should have the map in your email Nigel.

 

This is just a test map, It would be good if you could give me some feed back on this map so I can get started on the real map.

[Nigel 53]

Thanks Lord Vetka,

 

I got your mail with the map and comments and was able to load it in the map editor.

Understood that this is only a test map and that you want to present different options of the castle site layout.

 

I will lake a closer look and provide feedback over the next couple of days.

But what I can say from the first look: the landscape looks great! Just what I had hoped for :)

[Mathew Steel 147]

When you start on the real map I'll happily test it for you. From what I've been reading so far this looks great :)

[Lord Vetka 63]

Glad that you like the map Nigel, I am not happy with the amount of stone and iron that is being placed, the last iron deposits I tried were the smaller patches on the NE site but I never tested to see if they would work.

 

The picture you provided leaves me thinking about making the map the same way but instead of putting keeps up in the hills they can be down the valley above the village estates and they would have to travel a bit to get the stone and iron and could be side by side, maybe raise the ground by 1 level and leave the villages at level ground.

 

I have also thought about interlocking the castle estates so they overlap, kind of like bricks, or maybe at 45 degree angles and with the borders touching. It would be good for allied but for enemies together would be hard.

 

I made a medium 4 player map Sunday and will post it here soon, it's just a bit to small for the map we want to make, it could work but it would be tight, the large map does have more than enough room, maybe to much.

 

I found a disappointment in my new map, I used the raise ground to raise the ground on the east side of the river by about a third of what you get with the first height, when testing, the map worked until you attacked the keep, the keep is under the sand enough that you can't get troops up onto the keep, so I had to lower the ground to sea level, not to happy about that.

 

Anyway, I will be waiting to hear from you!

 

Mathew, we will be needing a play tester, you will be the first to know!

 

Thank You for the positive feed back!

[Nigel 53]

I played around with the map a bit and, as promised, here my thoughts and comments.

 

I like the touching or interlocking castle estates idea. That woud go nicely. Also, you are asking me, which basic layout of the estates I perfer. I think I like the one of Estate 4 best (top left in your picture). It has the keep on the highest point and the resources at equal level or below it. I could imagine that players will want to place the hovels close to the keep.

 

As for the size, each castle should be able to support a polulation of perhaps max. 80 on its own. That can be done with 6-8 bakeries (+ 2 mills and 2 farms). If players want to go beyond that, they have to rely on the village for more food.

 

I agree that there is too much iron and stone available to the castles as it is now. But that is no problem, if you want to keep the looks of the iron/stone deposits, it can be done by placing pathing points into the area to allow only a few mines to be build there. I think perhaps 2 stone mines and 1 iron mine inside the castle should be enough. Again players need to take a city to expand beyond that.

 

 

As for map size, I look forward to seeing your experiments with the medium size map. But like you, I have the feeling that large will be better (extra large will probably be too much). Putting the caslte estates in a valley at the top and bottom of the map may be one way to do it. Another thought I had was to turn the map by 45?, have the river run diagonally and the castle estates in the corners.

 

 

This allows for more space between the cities and the castles, but the downside is, that gates can only be placed at right angles, and that would make city design more difficult with this layout.

 

Either way, we could also have some additional iron/stone deposits on neutral land left and right to the cities - just to give players something to fight over outside of the cities, if they want to do that. It is just a thought - we dont want to overload the map and we can see if we want to add that later when we do the finishing touches.

 

Have a think about the orientation of the river and castle estates and choose the one that you feel is best. About the cities, I am perfectly happy to build them myself (or Mathew, if you want to have a go at that, that's fine, too). I am very glad that you are doing the landscape, for that's what I am not very good at. If I get a nice landscape to work with, that is just great. :)

Edited October 29, 2014 by Nigel

[Lord_Chris 203]

I'm looking forward to seeing this set-in-stone now, it's looking good! :)

[Lord Vetka 63]

Or maybe looking forward to seeing the map set in Sand!

 

I have an idea of what I will do with the map now, I am working on an invasion map but will start on this one soon.

 

I plan on making the map similar to the first one, but this time I will make the iron and stone separate on neutral ground in the corners and have one level up area for the 2 castle estates and the 2 city estates can be where they are, I will add a few screens when I have something.

 

If you want to see the map I made it is posted in the downloads, "Abnar River Valley"

[Nigel 53]

I plan on making the map similar to the first one, but this time I will make the iron and stone separate on neutral ground in the corners and have one level up area for the 2 castle estates and the 2 city estates can be where they are, I will add a few screens when I have something.

 

This sounds good. I like it.

Looking forward to some screenshots.

 

 

Oh, and I just had a go at Abnar River Valley. Very nice map. I love how you have to make do without iron. Quite a change. :)

[Lord Vetka 63]

Here are a few screens of the map I have for you, it's the basic start of the map, no detailing of the terrain, I wanted you to see this part in case you wanted to make any changes, I will also send this map to you for a closer look.

 

 

 

The screens are zoomed out to fit the screen and leaves the water looking odd, it looks good when zoomed in, any changes you want let me know, changes are easy to make so feel free to ask.

 

The castle estates will be on the high ground at the back and front of the map and close together and the village estates can be in the middle by the river, the iron and stone for the castle estates will be in the hills in the corners, each castle estate has 5x5 squares clear for building, that should be enough, 5x5 is just the main area they do have more room, the village estates have 5 squares from the river to the high ground and from edge to edge W-E if you want.

[Nigel 53]

I had a go and put in some city walls. I am not saying that they should be like that, but it is just to get a feeling for the size.

 

 

If we put them as shown in this draft, the main towers of the cities are probably within bowshot of each other.

I don't know if this is a good or a bad idea, but if we do not want this, we will have to shift the cities sideways and have one more the the East and the other more to the West.

 

That in turn means, that there is not an equal distance for the Lords on the same hill to reach their city. One will always have an advantage. But that is probably a minor drawback - most of the time these two Lords would be allies (but I am happy to hear your and other people's thought on this).

 

 

EDIT: On further thinking, I guess we have to make the cities so, that you cannot shoot into the enemy city from the towers of your own. Otherwise, whoever manages to bring his archers onto his towers first, is guaranteed to win the game....

 

 

The landscape itself is great. The only thing you could adjut if you want is to move the elevation in the centre a little back to make more room for the cities.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Nigel

[Lord Vetka 63]

That looks good, in my mind I was thinking of the slight bend I put in the river and that along the river would be farm land, so the city walls would be back a bit and the city stretched out more.

 

The cities will need extra care in building them, I believe that for each good you might want to city to produce you will have to make sure each good has it's own setup from farms to carter post, so for bread you would have to have a few wheat farms a couple of mills some bakeries and carter posts as well as the villagers and their needs filled in order for the city to be able to send the bread to the castle, and the same for each item you would want the city to produce, and that will also determine the placement of the walls and buildings within.

 

But yes it would not be very good if the city towers were in range of the cities! There is the possibility that the cities will be in range of the castle towers though.

 

I will add in some grass land and see how the cities will look adjusted for farms.

 

Another thought to is the walls do not need to be conventional straight walls, maybe a zigzag across the back would be interesting and fit in with the extra raised ground you are concerned about, we have lots to play around with, it should be good when we are done.

[Nigel 53]

There is the possibility that the cities will be in range of the castle towers though.

 

That should be ok.

After all it is "your city". So your troops won't fire at the city while it is under your control, but if the enemy takes it over, it is quite ok that you can shoot at his troops from your caslte towers.

 

 

 

Also, I would not mind if the cities are within trebuchet range of each other (just the outer wall, not the city centre).

Only having them within bowshot would be too close.

Edited November 4, 2014 by Nigel

[Lord Vetka 63]

Well I got into the editor again and put all of the farmland and trees in plus the stone and iron, gave the landscape a bit of texture, added in the Castle estates and made one village, all that is left is to make the 2 villages and put in the final detailing, here's a screen of what I have been up to.

 

[Nigel 53]

That looks great. :)

I like what you did and making the city oblong is really good. I had not thought of that.

 

Check your mailbox. I played around with this map and sent you an experimental version with some things I tried out.