The Dark Lord's multiplayer maps

[Lewin]

The Remake and some editors won't be able to load Paradise island because it is larger than KaM maps support (256x256)
Newish versions of Krom's editor can load it.

[The Dark Lord]

Thanks for your comment, Leeuwgie. It took me quite some time indeed, but I still forgot some things. But as the map is too large for Remake, I'm not in a hurry fixing them.

[The Dark Lord]

I updated the first post a little. I added Majestic Waters' description (no screens or download yet) and I removed Warfare in the Wilderness 8P. Maybe I'll ask Lewin to remove it from the Remake as well, I don't really like it.

[Da Revolution]

Don't even try to remove Warfare Lord

[FeyBart]

I updated the first post a little. I added Majestic Waters' description (no screens or download yet) and I removed Warfare in the Wilderness 8P. Maybe I'll ask Lewin to remove it from the Remake as well, I don't really like it.

If people don't like it, it wouldn't get played, right? And if it wouldn't get played, I don't see a reason to remove it. If people do like it, I don't see a reason to remove it either.

[The Dark Lord]

Don't even try to remove Warfare Lord

Only the 8P version, I won't remove the regular WitW.

If people don't like it, it wouldn't get played, right? And if it wouldn't get played, I don't see a reason to remove it. If people do like it, I don't see a reason to remove it either.

It would actually be a reason to remove it if it doesn't get played.

Warfare in the Wilderness was never meant as a 8 player map. I just converted the 4P version to 8P because at that time we had a lack of 8P maps.

[FeyBart]

(...)
It would actually be a reason to remove it if it doesn't get played.

Warfare in the Wilderness was never meant as a 8 player map. I just converted the 4P version to 8P because at that time we had a lack of 8P maps.

If that lack is now solved, I guess it would be reasonable to remove it.

[Da Revolution]

I do like the map a lot (even with 8p). It requires some communication and space management, which makes it a nice map to play.

[Luki]

I Prefer 8p version than 4 p. Generally i prefer playing 6-8p instead 4 players map ;]

[kocsis1david]

Why would you prohibit players from playing the 8p version? Even if it's not used often, some may still want to play 8p on it.
BTW Paradise Island looks great, I would like to try it. I understand how hard is it to make the game fast, but the original game have done this amazingly.

[thunder]

Hi Lord!

Congratulations to Warfare in the wilderness. I think it is the hardest map where i've played on ever. The terrian and tree combo are...oh uniquely. I learnt a lot from the game on this map. Tx!
Have a nice day!

lw.: Hardest... to me.

[The Dark Lord]

Okay then, for now I won't remove it.

@thunder
Thanks for your compliments. Warfare in the Wilderness isn't that hard to play on is it? You have lots of space to build, there are many trees and just 2 narrow entrances to defend. The only thing is that resources aren't as close as on other maps. It requires some planning skill and patience. Maybe it's actually better to play this map with 65 minutes pt, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, thanks.

[Lewin]

Anyone who follows our Google code site might have noticed the word "optimisation" turning up quite a lot over the past few weeks in the code changes. I did some performance analysis and have been optimising the slowest parts of the game code. Surprisingly enough animals were actually using a lot of CPU time, because they were using path finding to decide where to walk. We changed this so they just move about randomly, which, along with lots of other improvements, has noticeably increased performance. In my tests the game runs approximately twice as fast, depending on circumstances.

Now, you're probably think "that's great, but why are you writing this on The Dark Lord's map thread?". Well, The Dark Lord's map Paradise Island is 256x256 tiles, which is twice as many tiles as our current maximum map size (192x192). In order to support it many parts of our code will be doing twice as much work as they were before, which wasn't really going to work in our slow old r3392 code.

Thanks to the optimisations we will be TRAILING supporting maps up to 256x256 during the beta test up the upcoming release. If it goes well you may find yourself playing public games on Paradise Island However, if performance isn't good enough we won't be adding it, so don't get your hopes too high. On a positive note my initial tests went well, the map runs smoothly at 10x speed with 7 AIs building villages.

Now some questions for The Dark Lord:
1. There are no animals on Paradise Island, could you add some please? (now that they don't noticeably effect performance feel free to add a lot )
2. There's a narrow passage on the left side leading to an area with iron and coal which is way out of reach of any players. I guess it is just for decoration, but it looks like the area about it was designed for another player. Did you intend the map to be for 9 players? Just wondering, supporting 9 players in future isn't out of the question.

[The Dark Lord]

Ah, great news! I'm glad to hear this!

Now to your questions:

1. There are no animals on Paradise Island, could you add some please? (now that they don't noticeably effect performance feel free to add a lot )

Yes, I forgot some things that still have to be done, adding animals being one of them. But since this map was unplayable I wasn't in a hurry to fix them.

2. There's a narrow passage on the left side leading to an area with iron and coal which is way out of reach of any players. I guess it is just for decoration, but it looks like the area about it was designed for another player. Did you intend the map to be for 9 players? Just wondering, supporting 9 players in future isn't out of the question.

I made this map in such a way that it can be played in much different ways. First of all you can do a 3v3 game (1+2+3 vs 4+5+6) without having gaps in your defences because a player is missing. Secondly, 4v4 is possible (1+2+3+7 vs 1+2+3+8). If you play 4v4, the area between player 7 and player 8 has extra resources in case player 7 or 8 runs out of resources. The distance to the iron may seem much larger for player 7 but the difference is pretty small. And indeed, it is also intended to be used as a place for a 9th player, if that would ever become possible. Then you wouldn't have the most balanced game, since all players on the left will have access to iron (although for player 9 it would be really far away) but that's something to take into account during the game. Or you just put the weakest team on the left. It's not ideal, but still possible.

[Lewin]

Also, please check over this map for areas that can't be built when the beta comes out. I was testing just now and there's some places on my coal field where I can't build, like in WitW.

Thanks for the info, 9 players sounds like a future goal to aim for
Cheers,
Lewin.