It's not your fault! Lack of start forests aside, this map looks pretty nice, if perhaps kind of small. I just got incredibly unlucky (low chance for a big bad, and even lower odds for the strongest possible type of very early big bad spawn), and Ellimist got lucky with his lair luck, scouting, and defeating the barb dwarves while not losing any lizards.
Oh, no, I meant that the games that use my maps don't last nearly as long in FFH/EitB as tey do in BTS.
Here's the final map, btw:
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.
Okay, looks like Sian died to... a single unit of goblins, probably the +1 strength variety from the fort. Hard to tell from his latest screencap if he had anything defending, but I'm guessing he just got really unlucky, Sareln-style.
This is one of the things I find incredibly frustrating about FFH. The potential return of exploring Lairs is too great to ignore, so you either have players with an enormous advantage like double lizards or a T8 Great Sage or players that are crippled or outright eliminated early in the game. It is a fun mod, but doesn't lend itself very well to competitive multiplayer in its current form.
Hmm, I get your point but I stated this in another thread as well. I'm kinda "known" for being aggressive for some reason, but I'd never open a Dungeon without the proper defenses in place. I don't spend hours for pre game preperations just to lose it all over an early Dungeon pop. Though a lot of players do, and either almost win the game right there and then or lose it and ruin it for the rest of the players.
FFH/EitB is still a lot of fun without huts and lairs though, taking a lot of imbalance out of the game.
"Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. This is the War Room!"
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Does anyone know how the game is going? I got busy a few weeks ago and stopped following. It doesn't look like too many people have been updating, anyway.
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.
