Spring RTS Engine

So, here we go with yet another new map, or should I say, maps.
Oh, a big thanks to FU for hosting and those who have helped with the testing of these maps, especially zwzsg who I constantly annoy to get some opinions from on #sy

First up I have to say that the use of tiles could have been more effective, but especially the smooth transitions between textures is a cause of a large amount of added tiles I'm afraid. They also lack any custom skybox and instead use the game generated ones. I'm a bit reluctant to release it now too because of the newer maps with some nice looking mountains (both in the texture and the heightmap department), but hey, I can blame the fact that I didn't use any terrain generator such as L3DT or terragen and instead only used image editing software.

Secondly, there are four maps in this .sd7 which all use the same tile file, so if you want Sparewood for example you have to download the entire .sd7 which includes all four maps, this might lead to some confusion with people who don't visit the maps forum but hopefully it won't be the end of the world.

Note also that the main testing of these has been done with XTA, the different climb values that the OTA units have will change the balance quite a bit, but it obviously has the same effect on everybody.

This is the link to the download: http://www.fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=1592

Now, to the maps themself, to begin with we have River Dale, a 12x20 map using an asymmetrical balance which I especially would like to recive some comments about. It is made for team games with odd vs. even (north vs. south), because of the layout and size it might become a bit too centered on air wars but I suppose only time will tell.
The map can support up to 10 players and because of problems with the mapconv it lacks any terraintypes (which, by the way, I only use to change the hardness value with on the other maps, not any speed modifiers). A minimap of River Dale;


The three smaller maps are, as I said, only smaller pieces of River Dale, from the beginning I hadn't even intended to release River Dale itself. All should be quite balanced but as always, comments are welcome.

Of the smaller maps the largest one is Hill Haven, the northern part of River Dale, it's a 12x12 map with a river going through it from the west to the east. The river has two fords which can be crossed by every vehicle while the river itself can be crossed on all places with the (XTA) amphibious units and hovers. There is a larger concentration of metal and a geo in the middle which should be worth fighting over. The smaller valleys in the hills can be used by every vehicle, while (XTA) kbots can use the mountains and hills to their advantage by climbing them (all except the tallest mountains. It is made for 2 to 4 players, though with teams it can support more.

Sparewood is the third map and is the SE part of River Dale, inspired by Sherwood (but far from a carbon copy) it also has a larger concentration of metal in the middle, note though that vehicles can't drive through the single small valley on this map. The water on the west part is not deep enough to hide the commander in and is as such not any advantage for the player that starts there. It is a 8x8 map made for 2 to 3 player FFAs.

Cliff Run is the fourth and final map, being the SW part of River Dale it was mainly inspired by Lava Run, but just as Sparewood it is far from a carbon copy. It has a geo in the middle and some metal in the deep water on the east side. It should be noted that kbots has a large advantage on this map because of the hills, you should also be aware that neither amphibious units nor hovercrafts actually can enter the bodies of water because of the steep cliffs. It is hover possible to build a shipyard in it and thus gain the two metal patches there and bombardment support.
Made for 2 players its a 4x8 map.

And now for some screenshots :D





And by request: This is the metal map, note however that it only shows where the metal spots are, not the concentration, the geos also vary depending on the map (Sparewood doesn't have any geo for example). It also show how I split River Dale into three smaller pieces.


I can't mention this too many times so here we go: I need comments, comments, and more comments. Especially comments about gameplay issues (terrain layout, metal/geo placement, start positions)

Wow.

The screenies look beautiful.

How does the metalmap look like?

that looks amazing!!!

The texture on the minimap looks a bit plain, but trees and hills seem to complement it fine.

Beautifull screens!

looks like a hill domination map, good.

:drool:

I have got to get myself a new cpu + videocard ... it's just simply jaw-dropping. If the SY's don't use these screens for the screenshot section, I'll eat my hat :)

Anyway, nice works on the maps. Downloading them now ...

sweet! been a while since we've had good maps! loil

omfg. The picture with the intimidators looks AWESOME. Makes the battlefield seem almost majestic.

Yay you finally released it.

Btw, the first and the 3rd screenie would make really good addition to the loading screen pics.

SecurE, gets a cookie for insanely pretty mapmaking.

WE NEED BETTER TREES NOW!

AND ROCKS N STUFF............

otherwise, this just looks WRONG. Perfect terrain, but with LEGO (tm) Trees all over it.

I agree, the trees look just dinky as hell...

what did you make the map texture with ??? plzz tell me
should i be using terregen ??

it doesn't look like Terragen to me.

SecureE wrote:I'm a bit reluctant to release it now too because of the newer maps with some nice looking mountains (both in the texture and the heightmap department), but hey, I can blame the fact that I didn't use any terrain generator such as L3DT or terragen and instead only used image editing software.

He used image editing software of some description. Nice work. I love the map.

ah, good times...

Well, responding to some general comments about the map and some questions.

Most of the comments I have recived has been about River Dale, which is perhaps understandable, I will try to respond here on some criticism I've gotten before I make any potential changes to any of the maps.

The top has the early advantage, yes, that was something I had forseen, what I didn't think would happen though is that from what I've heard from some, this temporary advantage plus the large area the bottom team has to defend leads to a permanent advantage for the north.
I'm not entirely convinced that such is the case, using the hills as choke points one would think you could defend yourself at least decently if you are at the bottom of the map, but then again, I could be wrong. I don't see how I could fix this though without reducing the concentration of the metal for the top team, but I'm afraid that would simply shift a permanent advantage to the south team.

What I though would happen in mid game (pre moho mines) would be that the balance would have shifted southwards, as the total amount of metal you can get from the south metal spots are actually greater than the north ones. Not to mention that the 3 spot near the pass to the south, which is included in the north sides metal calculation, is actually quite easy to deny for the north side. I thought it would actually be the south who would take them if anyone at all, because of the closeby hills where they could position artillery.
It has been claimed, though, that the south never gains this advantage, the north simply manages to raid them so they can't use the full potential of their metal, and at the mean time the north is setting up lvl 2 units and subsequently, moho mines, which leads us to...

The mid-late game, well, once again I knew that the north would be better off, with the moho mines bringing in a lot of metal because of the high concentration on the metal spots. But with the temporary advantage I'd hoped the south would have had for a while, I'd thought they would have been able to stall the enemy lvl 2 production for a short while so that they could get more mohos faster. Well, sounds reasonable to me.
Min3mat claims though, that by this time the north has practically won, bringing in large amounts of metals from their mohos while the south is still suffering from having to defend such a large area. It would practically be game over by now from what Min3mat says for the south side.

Late game I had thought the balance would shift, only slightly though, to the souths advantage, by now the smaller total build area might be a problem, but on the other hand LRPCs on those mountains have quite an impressive reach. They also will get more metal once again from their mines, if they have replaced them all with mohos. I don't remember the exact number but it was quite a large advantage. It is however anyones game by then. My hope would have been that the south would either have been broken in the mid-late game, or if not, the south would gain the advantage they need to win during the late game.


So, if I now try to consendate that a bit; The north has a too large advantage from the start that snowballs throughout the entire game. The north would as such be the better position, period.
Now, this was with two pretty good players though, I wonder if it changes with somewhat worse players? Is it more "balanced" then, as they aren't as good at using their temporary advantage? Or is this something that runs through all skills.
If it is the same for every "skill level", then it is obviously a major problem, if it isn't, well, then I don't really know what to do. There are reasons to why this isn't a symmetric map, and two major components are that I wanted a map that was fun and balanced enough to play on, but I also wanted one that was fun because it wasn't simply the same thing independently on where you start. No, I wanted it to be a bit different, so you could try new tactics easier, perhaps not the type of map you'd play every day, and especially not for tournaments, but something that you would play when you want to get away from the ordinary symmetry that is so common. I wonder if I've achived that at least.

Further more, a last comment about River Dale; The lack of any very important amount of metal in the middle that you have to fight over is simply to save me from a bit of the headache of trying to balance it

Now, moving on to the next map, Hill Haven. It seems that Hill Haven only has one major problem, and that is that the pop-up cannons rules the day, the one with the last standing cannon wins. The simple solution would be to move the metal a bit further away from the middle, leaving only the geo there, which is still a quite cruical part of a quick economy. I'd like to hear know if I should modify it in that direction.

Finally we have Sparewood and Cliff Run, and, well, lets just say I have hear almost nothing about them. I watched a replay of a game on Sparewood where it seemed quite okay (even though I now belive the first player position got an advantage). Otherwise there didn't seem to be any problems with it, still, I'd like to know if others finds that the first player position has an advantage or not.
Cliff Run, nothing, so, right, I guess nobody plays that one, I can guess why but I still like to hear the reasons.

Oh, and on an somewhat unrelated note, I will probably make a re-release of Ashpen, fixing the notorious bug on it. I had some problems locating as it didn't crash on my old comp, but a new comp helped me with that . I also like to know if I should decrease the metal on it or not, Foe said that I should keep it as it is at least.

<Disclaimer: That was a long post, and I'm a bit tired, so if I don't make sense or any major spelling/grammatical errors are probably partly because of that>

River Dale is probably my favorite map of all of them, it looks nice and plays well. The only thing that might be worth changing is upping the metal a little on the southern side of the map because they get raided horribly early in the game and can't defend easily. I would also say that the most important spot on the map is probably the small outcropping slightly north of the central metal patches. A cannon or doomsday there will deny a lot of area.

Hrm, well, instead of ressurecting my old Ashpen thread from the depths of the forum, I decided to post here instead.
Just want to say that I have released a new version of Ashpen, where crash bug which has haunted it has been squashed, there has also been some other minor modification.

You can get it at FU as usual by following this link:
http://fileuniverse.com/?p=showitem&ID=1750

And for those of you who have forgotten what Ashpen looked like, screenshots/minimap can of course be found on FU, plus one here for the lazy people out there:

WTF IS THIS MOD I WANT IT NOW MISTER ! hmm... TTL and Rhyoss whos converting em to spring ?