Conquer Club

Map Name: Knights & Warlocks
Mapmaker(s): DiM, Zimmah
Number of Territories: 105, 97 start as neutral
Special Features: bombardments, lots of neutrals, winning objectives, non-classic gameplay
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: it's awesome
Stamps:


map of neutrals:
[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V16.jpg[/bigimg]

large: http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-1.png
[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-1.png[/bigimg]

small:http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-S-1.png
[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-S-1.png[/bigimg]

[spoiler=V15]V15:
*i've tweaked it more i hope it's ok now
*added a light glow to the icons. it should make the icons more visible.
*moved zlogy and costelul and gave some distance there.
*fixed the roads.
large:
[bigimg]http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/4748/knightswarlockslv15.jpg[/bigimg]
small:
[bigimg]http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/4250/knightswarlockssv15.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V14]V14:
*fixed & in the legend
*moved the legend top border

large:
[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V14.jpg[/bigimg]
small:
[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-S-V14.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V13]V13:
*fixed wording in legend.

large:
[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V13.jpg[/bigimg]
small:
[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-S-V13.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V12]V12:
large:
[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V12.jpg[/bigimg]
small:
[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-S-V12.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V11]V11:
*changed title and legend border
*changed terit names colour
[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V11.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V10]V10:
*bolded/underlined some parts in the legend
*tweaked stroke/outline/glow for darker couloured terit names
*changed "strait" and "bonuses"

[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V10-2.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V9]V9:
*improved readability of darker coloured terit names (blue, violet and red)

[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V9.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V8]V8:
*made the paths more visible
*added 1 way arrows
*changed the legend.

[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V8.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V7]V7:

*finalized legend.
*added arrows requested by andy

still haven't added the wining/losing conditions. would that add anything to the gameplay? should i add them?

[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V7.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V6]V6:

*started working on the legend
*changed some bombardment rules.
*tweaked some text

[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V6.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V5]V5:
*increased terit font size to make it more visible
*improved visibility of the roads
*added neutral values (a lot of discussion needed to balance these)

[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V5.jpg[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V4]V4:
reduced size to 1000*857
added some graphic touches

[bigimg]http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8872/knightswarlockslv4.png[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V3]V3:
*added buildings
*finished terit naming, and also added some new terits bringing the total to somewhere a little over 100.
*changed the fonts used and the styling
*added rules for bombarding and bonuses as well as icon explanations in the legend (of course they will need to be made pretty)
*added icons on the map


[bigimg]http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/1085/knightswarlocksv3.png[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V2]V2:
*added: forests, rivers, terits, connections, some terit names and icons, title, legend space

[bigimg]http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/4449/knightswarlocksv2.png[/bigimg][/spoiler]
[spoiler=V1]this is not even worthy of a draft yet but i'm excited about the map and i wanted to post something to get things going.
it will be a conquest hybrid type map.
there will be two types of starting positions. one where a player gets one knight to start the adventure, but also he'll have a few followers that heard of his honourable deeds and wish to follow him and aid him in his path of becoming king. so basically 1 knight plus a few randomly distributed non important terits. and another starting position where a player starts with an evil warlock that plans to usurp the throne and kill the brave knights. just the same as in the previous case there will also be some random terits. what i want now and not sure if it is possible is to have a little control over the random terits.
basically if you start with a knight you also get some terits from pool A and if you start with a warlock you get some random terits from pool B. it would be great if this is possible. if not then i'll deal with it.
there will be various resources to gather, villages to liberate/plunder, capitals to take over, etc.
also the knights might get help from the clergy to kick some warlock ass but getting help from the curch has a hefty price and your income from villages will be halved as you have to pay church taxes.
more will come soon.


as i said this is still an unfinished first version as i have to add rivers, forests, terits links icons and of course a legend which will be in the top part of the map in case anybody is wondering what's with the big empty space over there.

V1:
[bigimg]http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/9493/ageofknightsv1.png[/bigimg][/spoiler]

nice so far, but very BIG

cairnswk wrote:nice so far, but very BIG

yeah i know, because it's so big my photoshop just froze and crashed and i lost a lot of what i did for the next update

Love it.

i made a second draft with forests, rivers, terits, connections, some terit names and icons, title, legend space etc. updated it in the first post.
regarding the size i honestly don't know what the supersize limits are so i just made it 1400*1200 and then i'll reduce it to fit within the guidelines.
also, despite doing all my work on a 15.6 inch laptop display i still like having a big image in front of me and most of the time i'm zoomed in at 3-400%.

If that is version 2. God only knows what this will look like at the end. Just proves that as a map maker, Dim is one of the best.

Looks bloody fantastic so far.

The aesthetics of this remind me of a draft of a map someone worked on long ago, but I can't quite remember who or where it is. The only thing I remember is that it had little homes/huts on it, and it might have been mega big. Maybe it was a mibi/wm playing around map? I can't recall. Hm,


--Andy

Seems cool Dim

I know that's the Supersize measures.. but I think that it would be 'friendlier' if it worked the other way around, with 1200 Width x 1400 height.

anyway, seems like a epic coming

This is certainly pleasing to the eye, but could be reduced to an image much smaller. In all honesty, there aren't that many regions on it, and many people - particularly those with slower machines/internet connections - will be kicking themselves when a random map throws this up, simply because of its dimensions.

ManBungalow wrote:This is certainly pleasing to the eye, but could be reduced to an image much smaller. In all honesty, there aren't that many regions on it, and many people - particularly those with slower machines/internet connections - will be kicking themselves when a random map throws this up, simply because of its dimensions.

as i already said:

DiM wrote:i made a second draft with forests, rivers, terits, connections, some terit names and icons, title, legend space etc. updated it in the first post.
regarding the size i honestly don't know what the supersize limits are so i just made it 1400*1200 and then i'll reduce it to fit within the guidelines.
also, despite doing all my work on a 15.6 inch laptop display i still like having a big image in front of me and most of the time i'm zoomed in at 3-400%.

it will be a supersized map but not at this size. i shall reduce it at some point but for now i prefer to work on it as it is.

right now i'm working on the gameplay which will use system similar to the rock paper scissors game but only with some added elements (shotgun laser cannon )

finally a complete draft with a working legend terits names bonuses and everything needed.

V3:
*added buildings
*finished terit naming, and also added some new terits bringing the total to somewhere a little over 100.
*changed the fonts used and the styling
*added rules for bombarding and bonuses as well as icon explanations in the legend (of course they will need to be made pretty)
*added icons on the map


image is on the first post. there's no need to post it here since we're on the same page.

AndyDufresne wrote:The aesthetics of this remind me of a draft of a map someone worked on long ago, but I can't quite remember who or where it is. The only thing I remember is that it had little homes/huts on it, and it might have been mega big. Maybe it was a mibi/wm playing around map? I can't recall. Hm,


--Andy

I believe you're thinking of mibi's Trojan War map.

here's how the gameplay works.

each player starts with either a warlock or a knight. nothing less and nothing more. so there are just 8 starting positions. what i need to know is if it's possible to limit the starting terits to just 1 regardless of the number of players. that means that in a 4player game people won't get 2 knights/warlocks. as far as i know it's possible but i need confirmation.

every is terit is a village/town and they all start neutral. neutral values will have to be carefully decided and analysed for each terit but it will be done.
some villages are special and they have a big farm or a mine or they train griffins and flying monkeys.

each player gets 3 armies from the knight/warlock and can use those armies to expand. getting a farm/lumberyard/mine will give +1 for each village that is connected to it.
let me give an example. let's say i start in the lower left corner of the map with the warlock Leja. i move left and conquer the lumberyard in Okkyna. this will give me an extra +1 since my village (Leja) now receives lumber from Okkyna. next turn i get Vikt and Znigors. now the lumber is delivered to 2 more villages so that's another +2. but Znigors is an assassins camp so each turn i get a -2 on the overall bonus and a decay of 5 to any troops hosted in that terit. then i take the farm in Ve. now the food from the farm gets delivered to all the villages that form a chain connected to this farm. this means Znigors, Vikt, Okkyna and Leja. so an extra +4 and the lumber gets delivered to Znigors, Vikt, Ve and Leja so +4. on top of the +3 from the warlock i get 3+4+4=11 troops. minus the 2 for the assassins that's a total of +9.
now i feel the need to get even more so i move for the capital in Tombi. the capital doubles the bonuses from any resource as long as that resource is connected to it. so on top of adding a new place to take food and lumber to, i also get double bonuses for farm/lumber/mine.
so that +5 for lumber +5 for farm which are doubled to +10 for each and i get a total bonus of 3+10+10-2=21.
but some other player comes and takes my port in Vikt. now food from the farm only goes to Znigors and the bonus is not even doubled cause i lost the connection to the capital and the lumber is delivered only to Tombi and Leja so just +2 which is doubled to +4 since the lumber mill is connected to the capital. so when i ended my turn i had +21 but by losing just 1 terit i'm down to 3+1+4-2=+6

basically this scenario can happen at any time since the map is very open thanks to the huge number of ports and especially thanks to the bombardments.
you have to plan every move and make sure no terit is left unguarded cause your whole economy might go to the crapper.


PS: in case anybody is wondering why terits are colour coded to form continents, it's because i'm afraid the current bonuses won't be possible in the xml so i might have to limit the farm/lumber/mine bonus to just the villages in the same continent.
oh and they also act as a psychological stimulus for attacking. it's like when you start in the red continent and you see another player taking a red terit you feel like he's tresspassing even if you didn't own that terit and you'll seek vengeance. or i might be crazy

It will take a bit of coding, but I believe the bonuses you have in your legend are doable. I'll have further comments tomorrow when I'm not quite so tired - it's been a long day for me!

-Sully

I've reviewed your post above. Everything you mention is feasible, though the code may be lengthy. This is a very gameplay-heavy map, so I'm thinking we're going to be in the Main Foundry Workshop for awhile - neutral values, bonus values, etc. I'm sure TaCktiX would be pleased

Oh, and as far as supersize goes, I believe the max is 1000 (wide) x 800 (high).

-Sully

V4:
reduced size to 1000*857
added some graphic touches

[bigimg]http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8872/knightswarlockslv4.png[/bigimg]

Your Supersize Application has been approved!

thanks for the stamp.
here's
V5:
*increased terit font size to make it more visible
*improved visibility of the roads
*added neutral values (a lot of discussion needed to balance these)

[bigimg]http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w250/DiM-topia/KnightsWarlocks-L-V5.jpg[/bigimg]

Roads for me at least are still a bit hard to red. Perhaps make them bigger and/or darker?

Looks like it could turn into something nice but what's with the flying monkeys ???

Gillipig wrote:Looks like it could turn into something nice but what's with the flying monkeys ???

it's a special request. also: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gLab9XcP63o/TUC2dFETzyI/AAAAAAAAACk/wOEPAPXrZkU/s1600/flying+monkey.jpg

DiM wrote:http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gLab9XcP63o/TUC2dFETzyI/AAAAAAAAACk/wOEPAPXrZkU/s1600/flying+monkey.jpg

Damn that's one mean monkey! I think I prefer the tree climbing ones.

i need gameplay feedback people. this one is going to be difficult to balance so i need all the help i can get.

I'm normally better at giving gameplay advice than graphic advice but Flying monkeys, Cleric's, Assassins etc is having me somewhat perplexed.

This should work for here!