New MP game Map: Saephi

[Wish]

Designed this map for play in MP games. It is very different from siltrock, in that I attempted to stay true to the illwinter map styles. (for those that don't like to play on cartoon maps)

124 provinces, 13 of them underwater. The map is sperated by seas and mountains into 17 autonomous regions, each passes or islands that serve as bridges between the various sectors. no start possitions are set so that each sector only has two options to start (to ensure no nation shares a sector with another nation)

Play with it, tell me what you think, let me know if you find any bugs.

heres the file (http://www.importantlife.net/saephi/Saephi.zip)

[Arralen]

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/405576-Saephi_small.png

[Arralen]

Looks nice, if a bit glowish.
Not that I ever managed to do a better color palette for my own map: it looks far more glowish, that's why I haven't finished it :/

I notice, though, that there are lots of mixed-terrain provinces again. After a whole lot of blitz games I have come to the conclusion that those aren't really good: While you only need 1 survival skill to get full movement through a 2-terrain province (eg. mountain forrest), there's always 1 unit in an army which will bog the whole bunch down to 1 prov/turn. And that's not only too slow especially on such a big map, but gives big advantages to flying units as well.

But it's not only the movement that suffers, but the province stats as well: farm land should give you high pop, low ressources, woods give medium/low pop and good ressources. If you combine them, everything cancels each other out and you end up with a prov that is very much like plain .. plains .. but with restricted movement and .. oh, just had an idea: Mixed terrain might be detrimental to magic sites!!
Kristoffer said:
..
Forest: (site freq) + 10
Farm: (site freq) - 20
..
Only the most beneficial counts.

So a forest-farm should count as forest as long as the chance to generate magic sites is concerned. But there can only be sites generated which can appear in both forest and farm land !!

[Endoperez]

I think it would allow any sites that can appear in either Forest or Farmland, but I'm not sure about that.

Map looks very playable, dividing it into sections is probably a good idea, but I think Arralen has a point with the double terrains.

[Wish]

I'll see what I can do to make as many single terrain provinces as possible

[Wish]

p.s. I used urgaia as my color pallete, it did come out glowy, but not to bad, I think

also, updated the link. I fixed the maps so each land is only one terrain type.

[PashaDawg]

Thanks for the new map!

You're right. The colors really pop, but very playable nonetheless!

I think I will give it a whirl for some SP practice.

Pasha

[Tom_Scudder]

I gotta say, with the CB mod, the recruitable trolls are out of control. 150 gold for a troll king? That's sick and wrong.

[Arralen]

This discussion surely doesn't belong into a map thread, but you're so much wrong: CBM does not change the Trolls cost. In the unmodded game, the Troll (#518) comes @60 gold, the War Troll (#1037) @70 gold and the Troll King (#519) @150 gold.
Yes, the upkeep is meant to cost you insane amounst of gold.

[Tom_Scudder]

I was complaining that they were too cheap, actually. Didn't realize the king was 150 unmodded as well. And 30 gold for a vanilla troll (under the CB mod) is kind of crazy.

[Wish]

yeah, but think of the upkeep. summoned trolls have no upkeep, but when you buy them in enough numbers to be effective, you'll end up in the poor house.

[Ironhawk]

summoned trolls do have upkeep

[Wish]

really. thought all summons where free.

[Tom_Scudder]

That's why they changed them in CB, to drop the upkeep a bit and make 'em a bit more attractive as a summon. (or so I surmise).

[Endoperez]

Trolls you recruit are the same ones you summon. Because they are exactly the same, and the recruit cost and upkeep are variables of the UNIT, not of the recruited province/site/summon spell, ALL trolls have the exact same upkeep.

Sea Trolls might be free. If they aren't used, no recruit (and thus upkeep) cost would have to be set.

[Tom_Scudder]

Sea trolls are also recruitable at some special sites, so they're also not free. Dunno about Sea kings.

[Oversway]

Sea Trolls are not free, at least not in the base game

[Edi]

Sea trolls are 50 gold unmodded, sea kings cost 150 like troll kings. Unmodded trolls cost 60, so taht'd be 4 upkeep per turn per troll.

As for sites appearing in mixed terrain provinces, consult the site DB. Sites can appear in any terrain listed for them even in mixed terrain provinces, except for certain very few sites that have a negation flag for some terrains. There was one site that could appera anywhere except a swamp, some that could appear in swamp and mountains but not if forest was present and so forth. There are only four to six randomly appearing sites with negative terran controls.

Edi

[shovah]

yea, trolls get expensive if you try to mass them

[castigated]

is there any easy way on this map to tell where the special sites are?...or just going through all the provinces 1 by 1 to check them?

[Wish]

look for the red boxes, as opposed to the black ones.

[Morkilus]

This map is nice, but I do miss the style of Siltrock. Any chance you're working on another like it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Wish]

always a chance