Sorry for the lack of screenshots, my computer can barely hold together long enough for edits, so I don't want to risk it.
Basically everyone has been moved around as per Bob's suggestion, and Ive tried to provide each with a cluster of mining resources to boost later commerce.
Additional I've balanced the capitals and tried to balance distance from neighbours.
Each now has a caved warrior with valor, magic immune, crazed, strong and stoneskin.
And held of course
The crazed is to stop warrior rushes, and the valor/Magic immune to make it a valuable unit, plus stoneskin to keep it alive
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
Balseraph terrain (they start 1west of the wheat).
BFC has two incense, wheat and 2 FPs.
For the caps I have decided to go the way of balancing with just commerce resources, all of which are calender.
This is reasonable to expect in FFH2, and while a boost to those with agri to start, evryone gets it.
Note also the 1 raw node and the one meta node - every start has these, with raw to give a choice early non, and meta to ensure no-ones screwed for mana.
Their "uber second city" is in the NE, with gold and gems and FPs.
I blocked their view of this with the peak, because calender resources are rarely apreciated outside of FFH, and we don't want him screwing himself.
Also note the hell terrain blocking off immediate access to his neighbour - this can be bypassed with the teir 1 water spell spring, which is why he recieves water mana. There is another path that is longer, but this should adequately deter warrior rushes.
Elf territory. The elves start 3N of the Pool of tears. They too recieve a plethora of commerce resources - for a total of slightly more commerce then the bals, because it requires more tiles to fully work.
Note in the west hell area the two obsidian plains. Though these will likely burst into flames long before any team reaches adepts, but I thought it a nice touch to offer a potential iron/FP combo for if they do.
There are two gold patches here - the more western one is unedited, but I may delete as it overpowers that area. Thoyghts?
Again, note the nodes distribution (actually they look like they're missing a water node, ill edit one in).
This is the area to the extreme west of the balseraphs/east of elves.
Also each hell area contains a useful level one node - death, body etc. that needs to be springed to be used.
Note also the weak patria, and the contested Ygg (neither edited, just turned out that way , Ygg is contested with the hippus).
Sheaim are 2e of meta node, in the silk patch.
Because there is no close neighbor, the hell patch doesn't close off the path (I think this happens with the other one too).
Note also the ancient forests. Everyone gets some of them.
Area between Sheaim and Sidar (sidar are 1SE of the incense).
They get riverside incense, incense and wines. They also have irrigated rice.
Hippus in lower LHC. They ahve desert incense, and two riverside dyes.
Next 5 are the ice. Ice has Letum Firgus, Ring of Carcer, Maenelues, a bunch of nodes, the worlds supply of mithril(!) and a bunch of sea/pearls.
That said, I don't expect to see it utilized much (if at all), but it adds another front for the player and reduces backline.
I'm tempted to add a bunch more resources here, but it might look wierd.
I'm saving this one for the caged warrior that everyone gets.
You may've noticed them in the screenies, each warrior starts with 10 promos (held, Heroic defence 1+2, Weak (weak+ heroic defence stops it being a unit to rush with - considering replacing weak with diseased and cutting off a heroic defence, thoughts?), Stoneskin (to survive while being freed) valor, magic immune (to make him worthwhile without taking over the game), prophecy mark (fits thematically - these are demons who have escaped hell to warn their comrades and gives strategic depth - you can delete it if armaggedons a-coming), drill1 (makes drill line worthwhile), Demon.
[img][/img]
Thoughts before I send this in?
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
If you want, I can tell you how to run it through novice's map balance analysis tool. It takes about 10 or so minutes, I'd say.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
I'd like that - I thought id didn't work for FFH?
They know its not balanced - I initially just edited stuff like mana and SR, but Bob advised to work on the starts (especially balancing commerce) and second city locations.
I think its relatively balanced - everyone has a chance to access a decent amount og land and get into a good position.
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
(February 11th, 2013, 00:54)Qgqqqqq Wrote: I'd like that - I thought id didn't work for FFH?
They know its not balanced - I initially just edited stuff like mana and SR, but Bob advised to work on the starts (especially balancing commerce) and second city locations.
I think its relatively balanced - everyone has a chance to access a decent amount og land and get into a good position.
Warning: Clicking on the quote link will lead to the EitB XXV Map/Lurker Thread
(February 11th, 2013, 01:17)Merovech Wrote: Oh, btw, in order to run a FFH or EitB map through novice's map tool, one has to edit a few things (thankfully, notepad has a find tool). Do all of this to a copy of the map, btw, not to the original map. Most of the following steps can be done through the worldbuilder or in notepad (or a similar program). I recommend the WB for easily visible things, like improvements, and notepad for easy-to-miss things, like base tile type. Also, these steps can be done in different orders, this is just the way I like to do them. Also, remember that most, but not all, text file editing has to be done in ALL CAPS.
First remove any mana nodes, raw mana, typed mana, and FFH-specific improvements, including map improvements, like volcanoes. You can treat mana like the resources below, but since it has no yield replacing it will artificially boost the average tile value, and because it is so militarily important, I prefer to manually balance it. FFH specific improvements (except for nodes) will actually not crash the map editor, as far as I can tell, but they may give screwy results.
Second, and this must be done in the text file, edit the FFH colors to any old color (that BTS has, like red, yellow, grey, etc.) that you want. For some reason, the FFH colors are not defined by color name but by civ name, so they are not compatible with the map editor. Oddly, FFH (or, at least, EitB) maps will correctly read a color name, so you can still open a map after changing the colors.
Third, replace hell terrain with the equivalent normal terrain (Burning Sands->Desert, Obsidian Plains ->Floodplains, etc.), marsh with tundra, and scrubs with forests. I don't know how the map deals with ancient forests, but I suggest changing those to forests, and maybe editing the plot to give the proper yield somehow.
Fourth, replace the FFH-specific resources with BTS resources. I don't remember what I actually ended up replacing what with what, but some suggestions: Pearls->Oil; Mithril->Aluminium; Cotton->Silver; Reagents->Spices; Shuet Stone->Stone; Toads->Sheep; just kill razorweed; Nightmares->Horses; etc.
If you make a mistake, novice's tool will tell you exactly what went wrong.
Note: Barb units may be a problem, as in they can alter the analysis of what land belongs to what civ. FFH-specific units, as far as I know, will not actually crash the tool.
I was going to explain this all in more detail, but I'm beat. Washed dishes for five hours tonight.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
This is sad, but I think I stumbled across another way earlier.
As mentioned my computer keeps crashing, so when I lost an earlier version I tried to load the WBquicksave.
When clicked on from desktop, it loaded correctly, but loaded in bts!
Wonder if this would work?
Erebus in the Balance - a FFH Modmod based around balancing and polishing FFH for streamlined competitive play.
(February 11th, 2013, 01:48)Qgqqqqq Wrote: This is sad, but I think I stumbled across another way earlier.
As mentioned my computer keeps crashing, so when I lost an earlier version I tried to load the WBquicksave.
When clicked on from desktop, it loaded correctly, but loaded in bts!
Wonder if this would work?
Try it. I know that one can open a ffh wbsave it BTS and get all the way through the leader screen before the game crashes, but it does crash eventually (unless you got it to not crash?)
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
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