Isles of Sorcery [9.0] is submitted for review.

[somenpotatis]

New map: Isles of Sorcery [9.0] by somenpotatis.
Map editor link: Isles of Sorcery [9.0]

[somenpotatis]

My first attempt at making a map. Saw an old thread of someone wanting a remake of this map, but i could'nt find one so i thought i could give it a try. Those of you familiar with with Warlords II should recognize this one.


At first i tried staying true to the original, down to the last square of shoreline, but later on decided to add look out towers, money generating sites, some guard towers on the central island and deep water. Concerning deep water i'm not sure it adds to the experience, and i guess it gives flyers an advantage (Black starts with 1 ghost), some feed back regarding this would be welcome. I haven't measured distances from the different starting citys to nearest towns and ruins or such but have rather chosen to stick with the original proportions.


I've made a FFA-version of the map but that seems to randomize team names and starting units, if anyone knows a solution to this i would be grateful, although in the end such a version would probably be more balanced than this one.


Have fun trying this one out and tell me what you think!
/Johan

[BrutusButcher]

Well done in capturing the spirit of that Warlord II map!

For the central island, 4 mountain passes guarded by a tower each, the 2 on the East are forced to go through the tower, the two on the West can simply walk past the tower on the diagonal, maybe slight edit to force all of theses passes to go through a tower?

-Brutus

[somenpotatis]

Aha, i see! I'll straighten the roads a bit and replace the towers.

After doing changes to the map, will i have to re-submit it in order for you to see the effect?

/Johan

[KGB]

I also see the ruin rewards on the home island are pretty different. Blue gets 750 gold while the other 3 only get 500.

Also not sure the creature rewards are equal (Devil, 2 Wizards, 2 Pegasi, 2 Ghosts). The 2 fliers will easily capture neutrals on other islands. At the very least they are going to be REALLY easy to get in L1 ruins. Is that the intention that they are handed out so easily?

Also see that the island between White and Blue has only 1 neutral city while the other islands have 2. Is that really how the original map went because it seems strange to be unbalanced like that. Also those neutral islands don't have their ports in fair spots. For example Black easily gets access to 2 islands while Green / Blue have to sail a LONG way from their ports to reach those same 2 islands. It's going to make Black have big advantage. I suggest multiple ports on those neutral islands.

I think Green / Black have big advantage in that the 2 neutral cities are in the only direction they expand. The other sides have neutrals on opposite sides of the capital so you have to split your armies on turn 1. It may be thematically correct but I suspect it's not going to work well for game balance in Warbarons.

KGB

[somenpotatis]

Thanks for the feedback, it's always helpful to get new perspectives!

About the ruins and gold, it's because i've gotten used to Warbarons giving you several starting units as opposed to 1 unit in Warlords II. Not wanting to deviate to much from the original i nonetheless decided to stick with 1 and instead award easy allies and gold in nearby ruins. Perhaps random allies or the same unit for everyone would even the odds? Playing the map back in the days I always thought white had the worst start, so perhaps the extra 250 gold should go to white instead of blue?

The number of cities on each island is, again, staying true to the original, but at least i doubled the income from that lonely town. And i guess since no side is forced to go to that particular island, there will be more of a struggle to reach one of the others first, giving room to some interesting conflicts on the way. The ports on the other hand, are unecessarily unfair, i should be able to reposition them somehow.

I'd say black has the biggest advantage since green has to walk quite far and later decide on a split to take two cities fast or take one city at a turn and being forced to back track for a bit (actually the AI never seems to go north from the capital, maybe because of the long distances?). Perhaps giving black disadvantageous ports could balance things a bit?


Thanks again/
Johan

[BrutusButcher]

I think a map re-submitted with changes/edits, will be seen as a submission as a completely different map and does not get linked to this discussion thread ?

When you do re-submit, probably list the scope of changes when this map to the new one in this thread, and write to please added comments to the new thread Isles of Sorcery [X.X].

[somenpotatis]

I resubmitted the map, so please leave any comments on the thread for version 12.0 instead of this one.

Changes implemented in the newer version:
- The roads to the western guard towers on the centre island are rerouted so that you can't skip past the towers
- The fixed awards of the main island ruins are now the same for all teams (1 ruin gives random gold and 1 ruin gives 1 elemental unit)
- All teams have approximately 5-6 squares from their port to one of the larger accessory islands with 2 cities on them (the exception being the smallest island with only one city).

I have started a test game of this newer version which you are welcome to join!

/Johan