Map ideas

[The Dark Lord]

Please post your ideas in this topic!

I'll start.

I think it would not be very hard to make some sort of 'tower defence'. I know, it sounds boring: in KaM we only have towers that can throw stones. But I think it could be quite interesting. It would be much easier with a lot of new script commands but actually I think I only need one really badly to be able to create this: the possibility to add resources to a storehouse at a certain time.
My idea is this:
Every player (probably 4, I'll need lots of space for the AI player) starts with a small village. At least a storehouse, a school, a barracks and an inn; but probably also 2 farms and a swine farm. In their barracks, the players will find some weapons: crossbows, bows, iron and leather armor. The storehouses contain just food and a very low amount of gold. In the center of the map is a large patch of land that none of the players can reach or see. This is the place where the AI's army will be placed. Somewhere near the edges of the map, there is a building or unit that the AI will target. The AI can only reach this building or unit through a labyrinth of walls. And the players have to defend the labyrinth.
When the game starts, people can spend their low amount of gold on some crossbowmen to deal with the first wave (yes, the AI should attack in waves). When the players have dealt with the first wave, additional resources are added to their storehouses: some new gold to train more troops (obviously it should get harder and harder so they will need more archers/crossbowmen) and also timber and stone! With this timber and stone they could build watchtowers near the walls to help defend, make a tannery and weapon workshops to make additional weapons for more archers or set up an iron weapon production for more crossbowmen (that's why I think the players should start with some farms and a swine farm: producing crossbowmen should take more time). The players aren't able to get in the labyrinth themselves, otherwise it would be too easy.
Maybe I could even make different difficulty levels, where the waves have more troops or I might come up with something horribly evil like a wave of crossbowmen that will blast your defences away, and then a wave of knights that will run to the AI's target.
If the AI destroys the target from one of the players, that player loses. The players can see what the other players are doing, they only can't see the AI army in the center. If all targets are destroyed except your own, you win. It's not very complicated. There are much more possibilities though, like 2v2 or all vs AI.

What do you think?
And also a question to Lewin: wouldn't it lag too much (4 AI attacks at the same time through a labyrinth...)?

[Bence791]

Seems a great idea, but how would you give players resources when an AI attack is repelled?

[Da Revolution]

interesting idea Too bad you can't give units more hp(?) like you see with most rts with a TD scenario.

[Lewin]

I think it's a cool idea. You could use events to trigger stuff being added to storehouses (although it's not possible yet we could add new actions/triggers to do that). It would be nice to design our event system to allow stuff like this

AI pathfinding depends on a few things:
Imagine you poured a bucket of water at the place where the troops are, how fast does it reach the target? (where obstacles are like walls the water must flow around) The ground is sloped slightly in the direction of the target so the water tries to flow that way first. That's sort of how A* works. If the area is fairly small and the route is in roughly the same direction as the target by line of sight it will do well. If they must go in the exact opposite direction and around it will be slowest. By designing the map properly you should be able to make the AI's pathfinding very quick. Either way, we plan to eventually fix the AI using too much CPU pathfinding when they attack, we just don't know how yet

[Shadaoe]

Aha I thought of a TD map for kam some time ago, I designed some sort of labyrinth with areas for players and a big area for the AI (which could have buildings so it's easier to change the difficulty (by removing buildings or slowing the AI training), but I thought it would be too boring so I didn't make much more than a really quick draw of the map :



I think that you could do a great TD with your scripting skills ! I already thought of some other maps inspired by custom maps from warcraft 3 : a footman could be possible (with some heavy customizable scripts), and I'm sure there are tons of other fun maps that could be done.
Some "arenas" custom games could be quite fun too, you start with a limited number of recruits in a castle, and a lot of weapons, and each player would do the army he wants, in a chaos FFA fight, or in some 1v1 fights.

[The Dark Lord]

Thanks for the support! I changed the topic's name, I think it's a good idea that people can post their ideas somewhere in case one lacks inspiration. Hopefully there are people who will come up with some brilliant ideas.
I still have a lot of other things to do and university starts at monday so I won't have much time, but eventually I might work this out.
@Shadaoe: I think your arena idea won't work in FFA, people will just camp. But it might be nice 1v1 or in teams.
@Lewin: I've seen on one of the images you posted around here how pathfinding works. We'll see how bad the lag will be. Does the amount of units matter? Or will it take more or less the same route for every unit?

[Shadaoe]

@Shadaoe: I think your arena idea won't work in FFA, people will just camp. But it might be nice 1v1 or in teams.

Yes you're right, that won't work

[Krom]

It would be great to take some thought through idea and implement it. We can add new scripts, thats doable )

[pawel95]

I have talked about may map idea in the Forum-chat, but i will replay my idea´s here.

I have 2 ideas:

1.) Making a 2vs2/3vs3 (2/3 humans) + 2 AI players.
The AI has only a Knight as a "King" (and an inn+storehouse). You have e.g 60 Min PT, than the 2 players must defend his AI ally(the king) and try to kill the enemy King. Maybe there are a couple of maps with highe difference, that the "kind" will build his own village and attack after 80 minuts, and you must go with him, becaue AI is not such good as a Human player. Or maybe only like a mutator, a new "Defend ally King"-Mode.
For this idea, the AI must be better and can build own army-buildings. But what do you think?

2.) Simple a map, that is for example 4vs4 and there is only ONE entrance. So that means, (Like in a pair of good singleplayer maps) you must go+attack one player and if you win, you can go to the others one. So that type of maps mean big Battles, because all 4 player of one team will go to the "front line" and fight against the other team.

You know what I mean, what do you think?



pawel95

[Shadaoe]

The first idea sounds good, not sure if it would be different from a simple 2v2 / 3v3, but if it is well tought through, It might work well.

[Nayot]

I have talked about may map idea in the Forum-chat, but i will replay my idea´s here.

1.) Making a 2vs2/3vs3 (2/3 humans) + 2 AI players.
The AI has only a Knight as a "King" (and an inn+storehouse). You have e.g 60 Min PT, than the 2 players must defend his AI ally(the king) and try to kill the enemy King. Maybe there are a couple of maps with highe difference, that the "kind" will build his own village and attack after 80 minuts, and you must go with him, becaue AI is not such good as a Human player. Or maybe only like a mutator, a new "Defend ally King"-Mode.
For this idea, the AI must be better and can build own army-buildings. But what do you think?


pawel95

This was practicly implemented in singleplayer map ,,Smart''. In that map was goal to kill the knight.

[pawel95]

I have talked about may map idea in the Forum-chat, but i will replay my idea´s here.

1.) Making a 2vs2/3vs3 (2/3 humans) + 2 AI players.
The AI has only a Knight as a "King" (and an inn+storehouse). You have e.g 60 Min PT, than the 2 players must defend his AI ally(the king) and try to kill the enemy King. Maybe there are a couple of maps with highe difference, that the "kind" will build his own village and attack after 80 minuts, and you must go with him, becaue AI is not such good as a Human player. Or maybe only like a mutator, a new "Defend ally King"-Mode.
For this idea, the AI must be better and can build own army-buildings. But what do you think?


pawel95

This was practicly implemented in singleplayer map ,,Smart''. In that map was goal to kill the knight.

Ehmm. yeah clear and the mission was quite nice too me, but I mean this idea in Multiplayer.and later on the king can maybe move or sth like that, but as a AI so you cannot influence them.

Maybe something like: "The King is going to xxxx Village, please defend your king" and then,the other Human players must kill him and you must defend him and he cannot be under your control?!

[Nayot]

I had an idea for singleplayer maybe multiplayer which was propably mentioned before but whatever.
What about labirint from which you have to find way out there and it's limited by time (until your soldier/army die). There can be enemies if you decide to find the way out there with army. If only with 1 soldier there may be not any enemies.
+ selection of units (knight, militia...)
+ 1 or more soldiers
+ hidden areas
+ dead ends
+ enemies from 0 to infinity
+ map size is optional
+ singleplayer
+- multiplayer would be able with armies. If are 2 players selected =2 AIs. 3 players = 3 AIs...
- map can be seen before playing