New Fan Maps: Snake River and Voodooland (Now Available)

[Duke Davis II]

For this month

[KALONY]

cool, the voodoo 1 sounds great....hope u will finish it soon...

kalony

[GUNWOUNDS]

yea Gunwound's "Minotaur Deathzone" made years ago has the same concept as Voodoo's map... all mcv's start in center of map and they both go to their respective sides.  I'm glad someone else finally decided to make a map like that as well, as its prety fun.  I also designed similar maps for C&C Tiberian Sun back when it was popular. 

Altho making maps for Tiberian Sun was more rewarding because the maps auto-downloaded when you played with someone and then it was in their map inventory.  So playing fan maps in Tiberian Sun was actually fun, rewarding, and spread like wildfire due to ease of transmittance.  Sure wish emperor developers would have thought of that.

Guns

[Duke Davis II]

Here are some screen shots of the Snake River map.

[Duke Davis II]

Sorry about that Gunwound. I thought that the Voodooland map was the first with the concept of MCV starting in the center. I stand corrected. ;)

Auto downloading of maps would be a great idea for a future Emperor game.

[Voodoo Daddy]

HA.... well I guess that just goes to show, "Great minds think alike". It figures that I would spend a month driving up and up and down our highways pondering a way to throw a new twist into on line play, and here Guns did it years ago, LOL. Well anyway, what I was trying to achieve was a new way of playing. One where it was more like traditional warfare with,

1-A long salient (front line) between opposing forces.

2- A broad defensive line that must be maintained (due to the large base openings).

3- Increased teamwork, due to the fact that it is "Do or Die together" with all team-mates on the same rock, looking at the battle from the same perspective. No more one player getting double teamed because the 'Puter put him in-between two opponents. I think it would really be interesting to try this map with X-FIRE voice chat among team mates. I think that would REALLY raise the level of teamwork and co-operation. (plus I think it would really help with someone like me who isn't very good, to see from the get-go how the better players work their Mojo).

I think Duke Davis did a great job at bringing my ideas to life. It took a lot of work. He would make a map and then we would test it, find any problems and then he would make revisions. This is the fifth version of Voodooland. Getting the Spice allocations right was espesially difficult. But I think we have a winner here.

But please keep in mind, The idea here is to TEST THE CONCEPT of "Pick your teams then Host picks your rock" type of playing. If this is sucessfull we are going to make a four rock version. And down the line I have an idea for a FAIR 6 vs 2 map.

But that said, what is really needed is for YOU GUYS to try it. Because the better players might find things, with your level of play, that I didn't see. I would like to have feedback before we start on the four rock version.

The map has been uploaded, now we just have to wait for it to be posted.

If any of you have any thoughts or questions, lets hear em!

Voodoo 

[GUNWOUNDS]

One issue tho.... there is a reason why you dont see alot of Homeworld type maps... because their soil type prevents  feds from calling worms and doesnt contain spice.

I'm assuming that altho it is a draconis texture... it doesnt use homeworld soil ?  Correct?

For those who like to read old history... here's a blast from the past.

http://dune2k.com/forum/index.php?topic=8210.0

http://dune2k.com/forum/index.php?topic=10517.0

http://dune2k.com/forum/index.php?topic=15641.0

Guns

[Voodoo Daddy]

Duke Davis uploaded 2 maps, Voodooland and one he designed, Snake River. The screen shots are of his map, Snake River.  Voodooland is a sand map. I will try to post some screenshots of Voodooland this weekend.

And Guns, I pulled up Minotaur Death Zone and played it. I think Voodooland might work better for on-line play. Here's why. First, on death zone all MCV's start on the side connecting rock, not in the middle. This matters because in a four player game, you will probably wind up with one guy close to his rock, so he can just motor over and deploy, while someone else might have the opponents MCV in the way, and have to wait for the 'Puter to route them around each other. I can GUARANTEE that in an on-line game you will hear " WAAA, It took me longer to get to my rock" when that team looses LOL.

Second, on that map you can just sit still for a second and wait for the opponent to get out of sight and then deploy right there and rush him. We first tried several center rock designs, but finally settled on spawning the MCV's on the sand so they MUST motor over to their rock before deploying. Nobody gets a head start.

But like I said, we won't know if I got it right until we get some feedback from the better players.

Also, that link to the old *FEW* clan's website was interesting reading.

[GUNWOUNDS]

Yea i made the side rock tiles equivalent to sand tiles in the map maker... so that you cant deploy on the side rock so no worries  ;)  Sure it gets congested sometimes due to mcvs bumping into each other but does starting in the middle really alleviate that?

Here's some advice tho from my experiences:

1.) Dont make the maps too big.... bigger than fisher is fine... but waaaay bigger dilutes tactics and heavily gives ordos the advantage. 

2.) Dont give the base rocks too much base space..... sure its nice to have plenty of rock... but too much rock and the need for exapnsion is lost.  Thats a fun element ... sneaking the mcv over.... that shouldnt be lost.

3.) Dont make too much spice.... if the field can support both allies 30 harvs then its too big... its good for the harvs to have to move around now and then.  makes it interesting.

These are all mistakes i felt i have made in my maps.  They are oversized, have too much spice, and have too much base rock.  This causes games to be stalemated for lengthy periods of time or causes everyone to play ordos  ;)   For this reason i dont play my maps much anymore.  With my improved understanding of the game  ( i made those maps 3 years ago lol) , i think one day i will sit down and carve out a map that i truly love with inspiration from fishers, plus the starting in the middle.  But for now i just dont feel motivated  :P

I will download your maps and scout them out and give you some feedback, just thought i would share some mistakes i made in my experience as a map maker.

Guns

[Duke Davis II]

For the Snake River map, I used the Draconis Tileset so there is no spice mining and no calling of worms for the Fremen. Your mentate will deposit money to you every once in a while.

While I am on the subject of non-Dune maps, I find that setting the AI to hard make the game last a lot longer than if I set the AI to normal or easy. The AI does not give up as fast on hard. So I recommend that if anyone plays the non-Arrakis maps, set the AI to hard and have fun.

[Gobalopper]

Ok, they have been posted.

[KALONY]

great,....everybody get the voodoo map, i wanna do it online afap!!!!!!!!!!

[Voodoo Daddy]

YEAH!!! Now that's the kind of enthusiasm I'm lookin for! Don't forget to post your feedback here, because we are soon going to be starting on 2 other center start maps, and with community feedback hopefully we can make them even better for on line play.

Voodoo

[KALONY]

ill be back on tuesday, and i already have the map....so tuesday i wanna play it with yall

c u soon kalony

[kalem333]

i dont like voodooland, it is tricky. try to make a fairer map, to replace fishers plain. i will think about it, and post my design to here, but no promise

[Voodoo Daddy]

Hey Kal, what didn't you like about it? Did you play it online?

[kalem333]

just 2 bases, for 8 players, is very annoying. Enemy will build your base, so unfairness at the very start. I think a fair map needs to be designed so that, it should be similar to fishers plain.

That is just my opinion.

[Voodoo Daddy]

Ok Kal, I'll try this again. The idea of the map is for ONLINE play (2,4,6,or 8 players). After teams are chosen the host says "Ok my team goes east the other team goes west". The idea is for your whole team to be on your rock, working together. If the enemy is on your rock, then he cheated. The idea of this map is to test the CONCEPT of this kind of play. We are going to work on a center start, four rock version next. ( 2 teammates per rock) So try playing it ONLINE and let me know how you make out.

It's not designed for single player.

[erjin999]

Acouple more posts like that and I think there is a danger you may get through to Kaleeeeem :P

[KALONY]

i played two games yesterday, so here are my first thoughts about it.

it was realy fun, and and u need a dffrent gamestyle than on fishers.

the map is great for 6 players. for 4 players the rocks are to huge. u cant save the far away entrances i guess. so all in all the map could be a lil bit smaller, especially the rocks.

i like the idea that the spice in the middle of the map is empty soon, so that everybody has to conzentrate on the edge fields, but there r a few to much spice points i guess. it damages the units to much...especially inf.

and my last thing would be, that all mvc`s should start from the same line in the middle, to make it more equal...but thats not a big point, i like it also like it is right now.

kalony

[Voodoo Daddy]

Thanks Kalony, THAT'S the kind of feedbeck that I'm looking for, maybe if I'm lucky the other guys from the game will post as well.

it was realy fun, and and u need a dffrent gamestyle than on fishers.

the map is great for 6 players. for 4 players the rocks are to huge. u cant save the far away entrances i guess. so all in all the map could be a lil bit smaller, especially the rocks.

Yes you are right on this one. I WANTED the game style to be different. My thought was that each team would be forced to build defense for each opening, that's why I had Duke Davis make large openings. But I don't know if that will work in light of having to defend your spice as well. I also made the rocks large so the map would be a "one size fits all, 2 player, 4 player, 6 player, etc." kind of map to test the concept. I wonder if it would have gone any different for us if one player on my team had just done base defense?  I really need to work this one out before Duke Davis and I start the next one. Guns had also mentioned to me not to make the rocks to big. So perhaps I should just make them smaller and say screw it, if the game turns into an 8 player, they will just have to built a tight base.

i like the idea that the spice in the middle of the map is empty soon, so that everybody has to conzentrate on the edge fields, but there r a few to much spice points i guess. it damages the units to much...especially inf.

Yes, you're right again. Duke has a way of figuring out how much money they will produce before the center spice fields run out. The close ones are about 7,500 and the ones further out are about 10,000. On the sides I think the spice fields might need to be bigger still, perhaps going all the way from one base to the other. this way the spice blows could be spread out and not damage the harvies, and kill inf. so quick.

Voodoo

[erjin999]

How about making a 4 player, 6 player and 8 player version ? Actually, thinking back to my map making days, thats a bugger lot harder to do then simply scaling the thing, isnt it ?  ???

Scratch that idea, make it 6 player and the 4 & 8 player will just have to live with it.  :P

[alchemi2]

May as well design for 6, as 8 games are rare and 4 can cope with a 6 map easy enough. Now if only i could remeber how to download maps.......... ;) ::) :O

[KALONY]

its written down here http://dune2k.com/forum/index.php?topic=10549.0

just scroll down a lil bit