Wilderness polished version

[Leeuwgie]

Hello Kam fans,

I've decided to polish this map for reasons explained below. Take a look at the original map:


About this map:
This is an original KaM map from back in the day so to me it's the most important map for multiplayer and I think the most played too. If I thought it was playable for 8 player I would've changed that but actually it isn't because it's too small (176x176). What's interesting on this map is the fact that it's an open map (unlike many others). And this map must be the one with the richest details I noticed.

About the locations:
Player 1 has it all. All resources are actually in your starting screen. For some players there might be not enough space available. There are also more than enough trees.

Player 2 is very popular by most players. It's very easy/fast to digg in with towers and has more than enough space and has lots of trees.

Player 3 is seen by some skilled players as overpowered because there are so many trees around and there's lots of space. I like to play on this spot but the fact that this location is accessible from all sides I consider it a fair spot.

Player 4 is why I decided to do a remake of this map. Nobody really wants to play on this location. I see it as a challenge but in fact it has stone far away and has too few trees to begin with. Another huge problem is that gold is too far away (like 2 or 3 screens from the start). On top of this all the player is too vulnerable for attacks from all sides. However this player has iron access very early on.

So what did I changed?


Ok, for some of you who don't want to play the game "find the 10 differences" I drawed some circles:


Specific fixes:

01 Added some more coal and fixed the placement of a goldmine there.

02 Added gold to only the eastern side of this mountain (1 goldmine possible).

03 There was already the possibility to build a 3rd goldmine but no gold there, so I added some.

04 Created an extra entrance.

05 Removed a few trees so you can build right next to the storehouse.

06 Created an extra entrance.

07 Removed 1/3 dirt pools so you can manouvre with troops when attacking from the south.

08 Smaller ramps and a little broader entrances so it's more difficult to defend for the player in the north.

09 Removed this moutain so troops from the north can attack to the south without having lack of space when in numbers. Also harder for suthern player to digg in with towers.

10 Fixed the placement of an iron mine here so you can now place 2 mines.

11 Removed 2 annoying trees on coal.

12 Most imported tweak, closed 1 entrance to the south so this player isn't so vulnerable and don't need that many towers around his base.

13 Removed a few trees so you can build right next to the storehouse.

14 Solved another problem this player had: lack of trees.

15 Added gold to this mountain (2 mines possible)

16 Added some more trees.

17 This erea is impassable so you still need towers but not as many as normal.

General fixes/tweaks:

More sight (25) instead of 10 or 16 like it was so newbies don't have to ask me where their stone or gold is anymore.

1 extra serf for each player, it was 3 builders and 3 serfs(now 4).

BTW: I don't know why the locations (see below) of the players don't make sense but I've decided to leave it that way.

Player 1 (south-west) now has his storehouse placed a little further away from all those wonderful recources.

Player 2 (north-east) now has his storehouse a little bit closer to their stone and gold.

Player 3 (north-west) now has his storehouse a little bit moved to the east to avoid congestion sometimes when building straight up to the coal/gold when having 60+ serfs.

Player 4 (south-east) now has his storehouse a little bit closer to his goldmines in the north-east.

It was not my aim but I fixed some sharp tiles (there are many) along the way but there are some minor ones left.

My starting point was minimum change on the map itself so I've observed it for a long time to see if it needs more change but I like it the way it is now. We've tested this remake several times online and I think all works like it should.

Of course I'm open for your opinions.

Have a nice day,
To

[Leeuwgie]

Hmm, no reactions yet. Maybe a downloadlink will help: http://www.mediafire.com/?858sgtona0tnn29

I closed one entrance (marked as 06) to player 2 and fixed some more sharp tiles only.

Greetings,
To

[Lewin]

Overall these improvements look good. I am considering replacing the original version of the Wilderness map with this one. What do people think about that? (yes I'm looking at you Florek, Da Revolution, Mulberry, etc.)
The only thing I dislike is the removal of the ramp (08) because I think the ramp looked cool before But I guess there's a good reason for it.

I hope the positions on the map still have unique characteristics and haven't all become too similar, but I don't think they have.

[Florek]

I think those changes are good, it would be good to replace original (too unbalanced) map.

More detailed: I like changes on loc 4,(it will be hard to accustom with them), especially those closed passage right from lake and new gold mines. I like quality of all changes, you made it very care. Good you finally closed those 06 - position 2 would be even hard to defend without those additional valley.

[Da Revolution]

I think the changes are good. I do agree with lewin that the removal of the ramp is too bad for the overall look. Anyway the best way to prove if it is improved is by testing it some time

[Leeuwgie]

I'm glad you guys like my polished version, I spend many, many hours playing on that map. I'm not talking only the original (like when TPR came out) but since I found out about this amazing Remake... How many? I've actually just counted how many replays I saved (I normaly don't save replays against total newbies) on this map. I have 68 replays of this map alone whahaha. However I let you know so you might understand how important this map is for online gaming imo. This map is one of very few which is open and not too much dependent on the skill of players to build towers (which I think is no skill at all). I don't want to bring up a discussion about towers here but I do want to let you know I dislike maps with (in some cases only one) few narrow chokepoints to reach the enemy base. I played several times against players who did many towers, I remember one guy who builded 37 towers in one game . Ofcourse these players are easely to beat because they lack skill. But on the other hand it's very hard to break through some towers at a chokepoint guarded by bows (glad they nerfed them btw and I hope to see more succesfull charges of swordmen online). The main reason I started mapbuilding is actually to have more open maps out, so I don't have to play the same maps all the time. Nowadays I must admit there are some new open maps created by other players which will be luckely included into the new release (some also look very nice).

About the 2 ramps: my starting point was to polish this map and do minimum change so I haven't removed them, just made them a little smaller. Maybe you've also noticed it but I had several games (played on loc 1 and attacking the player on loc 3) I had about 60/80 troops and moved them straight up to the ramps. What I encountered were 2 enemy troops of xbows (sometimes no more then 20 total) standing on the 2 ramps killing my troops while I only needed some space for my troops to line up in formation. If you have only 20 bows it can be done but if you have them in numbers (and guarded by melee troops) it becomes annoying imo. So what I usually did was go around them to the right and even around the 3 mud pools < is that correct english? So if you have players with equal skill these 2 ramps in the existing version are too much bonus for the player on loc 3 imo. I think it's still a bonus in the polished version but it's worth to flank the enemy here now. So... that's almost half a page about 2 ramps getting nerfed wahaha.

Please feel free to test this version. I did 2 games online already and also tested all locs singleplay.

Florek, you mentioned the new goldmines for loc 4. In my tests I haven't used them because there is no coal nearby. However could it be a succesfull strat when building a quick goldmine there (because you need to go to that direction for stone/wood anyway) to unlock the goldsmelter building?

And about closing the entrance to loc 2. I noticed that many players wanted to start on that loc probably because it's very easy to digg in. But after showing Mully the map he adviced me to close it, not just because of the entrances but because loc 2 is actually a hard loc to play. I thought about that and I must confirm it is, so that's why I don't want to make a huge change for loc 2.

In fact it's good that everyone agreed that loc 4 is unfair to start and that's why I worked on this map to begin with. Believe it or not, I had quite some games (when starting randomly) that people quit the game upon seeing they were on loc 4. So, summarized concerning loc 4: I can't/won't change it into a 'wonderlocation', I still think this place is the hardest of all locations on the map because of the gold beeing far away but it's much better now.

Thanks for reading,
To

[Lewin]

Thanks for the feedback guys. The Remake will now use the improved version of Wilderness
@To: Did you change anything in the script? I've only updated the map file.

[Florek]

Florek, you mentioned the new goldmines for loc 4. In my tests I haven't used them because there is no coal nearby. However could it be a succesfull strat when building a quick goldmine there (because you need to go to that direction for stone/wood anyway) to unlock the goldsmelter building?

Yeah, I had exactly this on mind: fast gold mine -> fast market using and fast goldsmelther. It's very important boost for this loc imho.

Really good work To, I'm agree with you oponion about open maps. It's much more fun from playing them than camping-favourite ones.

[Leeuwgie]

Thanks for the feedback guys. The Remake will now use the improved version of Wilderness
@To: Did you change anything in the script? I've only updated the map file.

Yes I did, I used your editor to move the storehouses a bit and ofcourse for the improved sight from the start. So you'd better get all files changed... Am I right that the sight (!clear map thing) is the only feature that wasn't implanted automaticly in the Remake editor? Btw is it too noobish that I still didn't found out what a .mi file is and why it's needed? I only noted that without it maps won't run in the remake because they're not recognized...

[Lewin]

Hmmm you edited the file with version 0.9 of my editor so the script is all reformatted. I'd rather if you edited it with a script version of my editor and just tweaked the numbers, in case there was something lost from the script when converting with my editor. Could you do the changes by hand in the script?

There are lots of features that don't work in the Remake editor, and the script will possibly have things missing or changed because we use the commands slightly differently to KaM in some cases (e.g. AI attacks) Same with my editor to some extent.

.mi files are just a cache for the Remake. If you delete them the Remake will just regenerate them next time it runs. We store basic information about the mission there, to save us scanning the .map and .dat files for EVERY mission each time you load the mission list (which is far slower). We check the CRC of the .dat and .map files to make sure they haven't been changed since the .mi was last generated, and if they have it rescans them.
Basically you can delete the .mi file and you don't need to send it to other people, it is regenerated automatically.
Lewin.

[The Dark Lord]

To be honest I'm not really fond of this. The changes seem fair, but I just dislike the idea of changing an original map. Especially replacing it by a fan-made version seems wrong to me. If people want to play on a fair map, choose a different one.

[Leeuwgie]

Ok, good we checked this because for some reason I can't explain the prebuild I scripted was no longer in the script. I copied the content of the script into your 0.3 version and saved it. I've tested it afterwards in a local internet game and it looks good now. From what I can see now all 4 players have the same prebuild, same sightbonus, same wares etc. but correct me if I'm wrong cause you are the expert on scripting. Here is a new downloadlink: http://www.mediafire.com/?kkj089xga6y4k19

The script now looks complete:

  Code:

!SET_MULTIPLAYER !SET_MAP "\MapsMP\Wilderness\Wilderness.map" !SET_MAX_PLAYER 4 !DISTRIBUTE_MULTIPLAYER_POSITIONS !SET_CURR_PLAYER 0 // !IF VALID_PLAYER !CENTER_SCREEN 22 138 // Reveal Maps !CLEAR_UP 20 140 25 //klärt auf // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings !RELEASE_HOUSE 14 // Quarry !RELEASE_HOUSE 9 // Woodcutter's // Buildings !SET_HOUSE 11 23 139 // // Roads !SET_STREET 23 140 !SET_STREET 22 140 !SET_STREET 21 140 // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !IF MEDIUM_WARES // Reveal Maps // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings // Buildings // Roads // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !ENDIF !IF MANY_WARES // Reveal Maps // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings // Buildings // Roads // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !ENDIF !ENDIF !SET_CURR_PLAYER 1 // !IF VALID_PLAYER !CENTER_SCREEN 133 28 // Reveal Maps !CLEAR_UP 129 31 25 //klärt auf // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings !RELEASE_HOUSE 14 // Quarry !RELEASE_HOUSE 9 // Woodcutter's // Buildings !SET_HOUSE 11 134 29 // // Roads !SET_STREET 134 30 !SET_STREET 133 30 !SET_STREET 132 30 // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !IF MEDIUM_WARES // Reveal Maps // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings // Buildings // Roads // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !ENDIF !IF MANY_WARES // Reveal Maps // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings // Buildings // Roads // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !ENDIF !ENDIF !SET_CURR_PLAYER 2 // !IF VALID_PLAYER !CENTER_SCREEN 31 26 // Reveal Maps !CLEAR_UP 27 24 25 //klärt auf // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings !RELEASE_HOUSE 14 // Quarry !RELEASE_HOUSE 9 // Woodcutter's // Buildings !SET_HOUSE 11 32 27 // // Roads !SET_STREET 32 28 !SET_STREET 31 28 !SET_STREET 30 28 // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !IF MEDIUM_WARES // Reveal Maps // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings // Buildings // Roads // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !ENDIF !IF MANY_WARES // Reveal Maps // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings // Buildings // Roads // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !ENDIF !ENDIF !SET_CURR_PLAYER 3 // !IF VALID_PLAYER !CENTER_SCREEN 142 131 // Reveal Maps !CLEAR_UP 147 127 25 // // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings !RELEASE_HOUSE 14 // Quarry !RELEASE_HOUSE 9 // Woodcutter's // Buildings !SET_HOUSE 11 143 132 // // Roads !SET_STREET 143 133 !SET_STREET 142 133 !SET_STREET 141 133 // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 9 // Labourer !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf !SET_UNIT_BY_STOCK 0 // Serf // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !IF MEDIUM_WARES // Reveal Maps // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings // Buildings // Roads // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !ENDIF !IF MANY_WARES // Reveal Maps // Blocked Buildings // Pre-allowed Buildings // Buildings // Roads // Fields // Wine Fields // Units // Units at storehouse // Wares // Wares to Second // Weapons // Troops !ENDIF !ENDIF // Wares to All !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 1 90 // Stone !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 2 50 // Timber !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 7 40 // Gold !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 10 25 // Loaves !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 8 40 // Wine !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 13 10 // Sausages !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 27 20 // Fish !IF MEDIUM_WARES !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 7 20 // Gold !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 10 10 // Loaves !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 8 20 // Wine !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 13 5 // Sausages !ADD_WARE_TO_ALL 27 10 // Fish !ENDIF !IF MANY_WARES !ENDIF // Animals !SET_UNIT 25 2 61 // !SET_UNIT 25 17 55 // !SET_UNIT 25 12 58 // !SET_UNIT 26 8 57 // !SET_UNIT 26 14 59 // !SET_UNIT 31 6 58 // !SET_UNIT 25 170 165 // !SET_UNIT 25 165 173 // !SET_UNIT 25 151 170 // !SET_UNIT 25 141 173 // !SET_UNIT 25 123 173 // !SET_UNIT 26 131 170 // !SET_UNIT 26 156 173 // !SET_UNIT 26 171 170 // !SET_UNIT 27 164 169 // !SET_UNIT 27 135 172 // !SET_UNIT 28 146 166 // !SET_UNIT 28 135 165 // !SET_UNIT 28 125 167 // !SET_UNIT 28 120 168 // !SET_UNIT 28 169 158 // !SET_UNIT 28 172 156 // !SET_UNIT 25 118 108 // !SET_UNIT 25 122 109 // !SET_UNIT 25 120 111 // !SET_UNIT 25 131 111 // !SET_UNIT 26 129 113 // !SET_UNIT 26 123 107 // !SET_UNIT 26 119 109 // !SET_UNIT 24 22 168 // !SET_UNIT 24 15 171 // !SET_UNIT 24 42 44 // !SET_UNIT 24 46 50 // !SET_UNIT 24 74 33 // !SET_UNIT 24 68 30 // !SET_UNIT 24 169 37 // !SET_UNIT 24 172 46 // !SET_UNIT 24 170 76 // !SET_UNIT 24 162 73 // !SET_UNIT 24 58 104 // !SET_UNIT 25 18 62 // !SET_UNIT 27 146 171 //

[Leeuwgie]

To be honest I'm not really fond of this. The changes seem fair, but I just dislike the idea of changing an original map. Especially replacing it by a fan-made version seems wrong to me. If people want to play on a fair map, choose a different one.

I do understand your concern and tbh, I don't like it either and that's why I did minimum change on the map itself. The changes I've done are all about balance. I think the only thing that's more important imo then how a map looks is for me if it's balanced or not. Everybody wants to play this map but nobody wants to play on loc 4, that says it all for me.

[Da Revolution]

Maybe its an idea to keep both since some people like The Dark Lord think it should stay.

[Piko]

[...]

You should write those all script in

  Code:

, because it 's too long.