[Release] Jorney to the past - a Dune 2 kind of map

[Cm_blast]

Here, I created a new single map using the Dune 2 tileset. On this map Ordos try to rewrite history going back in time to the beggining of the war, but they end by mistake in 1992, a time period where Ordos didn't exist, so the Atreides and Harkonnen join to face that new enemy.

The story it's just an excuse, what matters it's the gameplay from the game. I tried to emulate the old Dune 2 behaviour as much as I could. Not only using the tileset, but trying to make the AI to act like it is 1992 again, including the well know team bug that prevent the AI to group units to attack.

List of Dune 2 behaviour for this map:
*AI "Cheat" on the money they got, to avoid running out of credits.
*No wandering units around the base, just the normal units placed on the map.
*AI passive until hostilities begin (via reinforcements or if the player goes too far).
*Both Enemy and allied reinforcements dropped on some random spots.
*The Atreides won't use the Fremen expected from Dune 2000 but dune 2: visible Fremen spawns an amount of units (bewteen 5-10) in a different spot each time (with some kind of limit).
*Atreides don't train Troopers. Harkonnen don't train Infantry and don't build Trikes.
*The Sandworm won't spawn unless you scout certain areas. They don't fully dissapear (not possible in Dune 2000) but a sandworm shooted/feeded will remaining in sleeping mode for near 18 in game minutes.

Mission v1.0 & Mission v1.07 + fix
The single map includes two versions, one based on Dune 2 v1.0 and another one inspired on Dune 2 v1.07 plus the extra fix. The briefing tells the player the changes on that second version compared to the first one. The most noticeable, it's how the "team bug" it's fixed and now the AI will group vehicles to attack too.

Screenshot:
Double click to enlarge the imagen.

File and instrucctions:
Journey to the past.rar

HOW TO INSTALL:
Unzip the file and copy every folder into the root of the game.
Any folders included will go to the path that it is suppose to go.
Do not copy any pgn (screenshots) nor the readme.txt (instructions).

Mission launcher 1.2 is required.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Cm_blast

[Klofkac]

Thanks for this! This map looked interesting so I gave it a try.

I played some real Dune 2 recently, so being familiar with its gameplay style, I was just amazed how you managed your mod to be as close to Dune 2 as possible. The "enemy unit approaching" message and changing music is how I imagined these new events would be used. The enemy behavior and way of defeating enemy bases and guarding units was pretty faithful.

It looks very interesting how you managed to script random enemy reinforcements (I mean, the initial reinforcement may appear on one of three possible places randomly) and how enemy starts to build units and attack you after these reinforcements. You made some sort of "hack" with the events and flag conditions chains. Also giving Hark or Atr barracks, light factory and heavy factory to three different sides is nice hack how you make attacks of groups of infantry, light and heavy vehicles.

There are still some differences from real dune 2 which could, but mostly could not be replicated with Dune 2000, like enemy having IX and sending special tanks (in Dune 2 they don't), spice won't be destroyed when shot, concrete in enemy bases cannot be built on, "static" spice blooms, and some other details which I don't mind.

However there are two things I disliked (these are rather related to the tileset):
- You cannot build on the edges of rock area (in Dune 2 you can and it's more fun to play like that) - changing this would really improve gameplay and fidelity
- The thick spice doesn't look good (it's cut on some sides) - just visuals

But still, great work! Will you make more maps in this style? (didn't try your Dune 2 campaign yet)

Edited October 23, 2019 by Klofkac

[Cm_blast]

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Thanks for this! This map looked interesting so I gave it a try.

Thanks to you for playing!

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

I played some real Dune 2 recently, so being familiar with its gameplay style, I was just amazed how you managed your mod to be as close to Dune 2 as possible. The "enemy unit approaching" message and changing music is how I imagined these new events would be used. The enemy behavior and way of defeating enemy bases and guarding units was pretty faithful.

On my dune 2 based campaign, Once you introduced the addition of the "play sound" was one of the first things I added, although in the dune 2 based campaign the audio/message triggers more closely to the enemy units dropped, not when they enter (here I went straigh to the same timer).

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

It looks very interesting how you managed to script random enemy reinforcements (I mean, the initial reinforcement may appear on one of three possible places randomly) and how enemy starts to build units and attack you after these reinforcements. You made some sort of "hack" with the events and flag conditions chains. Also giving Hark or Atr barracks, light factory and heavy factory to three different sides is nice hack how you make attacks of groups of infantry, light and heavy vehicles.

And if the game didn't have a limit to script I would like to make enemy units that spawn out of nowhere when you reach X specific square and going against the player. The "ambush" order. But that would required at least 7-10 tile revealed more to do it propertly.

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

There are still some differences from real dune 2 which could, but mostly could not be replicated with Dune 2000, like enemy having IX and sending special tanks (in Dune 2 they don't), spice won't be destroyed when shot, concrete in enemy bases cannot be built on, "static" spice blooms, and some other details which I don't mind.

They have at mission 7 the IX centre, they lost it at mission 8 for whatever reason (I guess building limits or something). On my map both factions have the Palace which doesn't happen either on the game (only 1 have the Palace).

Of course, the other things are dune 2000 style like the spice that no dissapear; the concrete I had a tile which you still could build on top of it. It behaves as normal rock so placing a building over that concrete the building still have 50% HP. The reason I changed that it's because then would appear crates on top of the concrete but the concrete (tile) still appear, looks really bad. And the bloom, I wish one of those 4 limited blooms behave to a "only once deploy".

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

However there are two things I disliked (these are rather related to the tileset):
- You cannot build on the edges of rock area (in Dune 2 you can and it's more fun to play like that) - changing this would really improve gameplay and fidelity
- The thick spice doesn't look good (it's cut on some sides) - just visuals

The main problem it's how dune 2000 works. Besides how blocky can appear (just like in Dune 2), the main problem are the crates. The crates on dune 2000 don't generate at the middle of the tile but in bewteen the tile you are shooting and the tile on top of that.

If the upper-side tile it's shoot, the crates will take half the sand, so I prefer having this way.

I know I am sacrificing fidelity with the rock-edges, but look:
 this is what happens with the crates, they appear on the tile on top of the one being shoot; and this is using "blocky rock tiles", now imagine if I use the edges as buildable area.

The thick spice, unfornatelly, generates at random, wich means I can only use a limited set of tiles or only 1 tile for all but... which one? The full block just look too blocky; and the others, well, you know, random corners, random all. And the 1 tile only thick spice in a big field doesn't look like you are into a big mine field at all, but like cheese or something like that.

If Dune 2000 thick was like the normal it could be easy to add, but nope, 4 random tiles, any combination will look bad.

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

But still, great work! Will you make more maps in this style? (didn't try your Dune 2 campaign yet)

Just keep in mind that campaign although it's also close and heavily inspired it's much less closed to the source material. Overall the timers have been speeded, like instead 12 minutes takes 8 or something like that. Loops works all the time and the reinforcements are doubled (it's not the same figthing 1 tank and 1 trooper in dune 2 that in dune 2000); you start with 2.5 amount of money compared to the original and things like that.

Although in this map, this "jorney" I place the reinforcements as "vehicle - triple infantry - vehicle" so, if you play on easy, you still get a "vehicle - infantry - vehicle" so they keep the original reinforcements.

Dunno if I do more like this. For example the last map it's impossible to recreate with the amount of Ais required, even on this I wanted to drop imperials being troopers, but since no AI available (but the sandworm one, but that can't be activated) then I was forced to choose Atreides-Harkonnen sides and use Sardaukar instead.

But I may use the tileset at some point in a campaign.

By the way, did you play both versions of the same map?
I added a few "bugs" on purpose for the sake of the version xD.

Edited October 23, 2019 by Cm_blast

[Cm_blast]

I changed the concretes pre placed on the map, which weren't buildable now they are. You can place concretes on top of those other concretes (but if you place a building will act as if there weren't any concrete at all, keep that in mind), will create crates when shooted, etc... I realize that sometimes crates are created even on top of concretes, I don't know how (the ones you build are mean to be destroyed when shooted, so dunno); for this reason I just decided to add a new concrete-tile that behave as buildable; but only that one tile in the middle of the tileset, so... now you can capture any AI building and expand your base at you will.

first post updated, file updated.

Edited November 1, 2019 by Cm_blast

[Klofkac]

On 10/23/2019 at 10:32 PM, Cm_blast said:

Once you introduced the addition of the "play sound" was one of the first things I added, although in the dune 2 based campaign the audio/message triggers more closely to the enemy units dropped, not when they enter (here I went straigh to the same timer).

I actually think that having longer delay between the message and units dropped is better. The player has slightly more time to prepare for that, and it gaves more sense to me. I think it is even more like this in original Dune 2 - the message is told when enemy carryall enters map, not when units are dropped on ground.

On 10/23/2019 at 10:32 PM, Cm_blast said:

And if the game didn't have a limit to script I would like to make enemy units that spawn out of nowhere when you reach X specific square and going against the player. The "ambush" order. But that would required at least 7-10 tile revealed more to do it propertly.

Just wondering (a little off-topic) if Dune 2000 could be modded to support more events and conditions.

On 10/23/2019 at 10:32 PM, Cm_blast said:

The main problem it's how dune 2000 works. Besides how blocky can appear (just like in Dune 2), the main problem are the crates. The crates on dune 2000 don't generate at the middle of the tile but in bewteen the tile you are shooting and the tile on top of that.

If the upper-side tile it's shoot, the crates will take half the sand, so I prefer having this way.

I know I am sacrificing fidelity with the rock-edges, but look:
 this is what happens with the crates, they appear on the tile on top of the one being shoot; and this is using "blocky rock tiles", now imagine if I use the edges as buildable area.

Well, not sure, just thinking, when you use the Dune2-graphics craters, it will probably not look that much bad. Don't remember, but craters in Dune2 could generate on border tiles as well?

So in my opinion, for me it would be more fun to be able to build on border tiles (like in original Dune2), while having craters on them which "don't look that good". So you can give it a try.

On 10/23/2019 at 10:32 PM, Cm_blast said:

For example the last map it's impossible to recreate with the amount of Ais required, even on this I wanted to drop imperials being troopers, but since no AI available (but the sandworm one, but that can't be activated) then I was forced to choose Atreides-Harkonnen sides and use Sardaukar instead.

You could save some AIs by using only two AIs to a side (Atr/Hark) instead of three. Like merging part of base having only barracks with the part having light factory.

On 10/23/2019 at 10:32 PM, Cm_blast said:

By the way, did you play both versions of the same map?
I added a few "bugs" on purpose for the sake of the version xD.

Yes, I tried both. I actually fully finished the first (buggier) version and noticed that famous revealed tile on bottom-right corner of map. Pretty good mimic to the original (but originaly, I was not even thinking it was a bug).

I also tried the second version for comparison, but did not finish it (destroying all enemy base was quite time consuming).

[Cm_blast]

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

I actually think that having longer delay between the message and units dropped is better. The player has slightly more time to prepare for that, and it gaves more sense to me. I think it is even more like this in original Dune 2 - the message is told when enemy carryall enters map, not when units are dropped on ground.

It's the other way: https://youtu.be/X3fec0zzGFg?t=800
You can see the Ordos carryall entering the screen but the line it's not told until it dropped some troopers.

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Just wondering (a little off-topic) if Dune 2000 could be modded to support more events and conditions.

I leave that for thsoe code-programmin-breakers guys, I honestly have no idea. Fey will be happy (but, I feel like we both will fill the room available anyway xD).

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Well, not sure, just thinking, when you use the Dune2-graphics craters, it will probably not look that much bad. Don't remember, but craters in Dune2 could generate on border tiles as well?

So in my opinion, for me it would be more fun to be able to build on border tiles (like in original Dune2), while having craters on them which "don't look that good". So you can give it a try.

I am currently playing my own Dune 2 campaign using the retro-style; and I Feel like not building on those tiles feels a bit wrong... so yeah; I am taking in consideration to actually change the tileset and make 9 tiles as buildable.
The 4 corners, the 4 sides (top side, bottom side, left/rigth sides) but also you can see there are other 4 tiles that are really small... all but 1, the one looking to the right it's acctually buildable (I just pick dune and build a concrete on top of it to be sure you actually can).

When I finish playing my own Atr campaign with the actual set up; I will do the change and try to play another house using the expanded version; will make building a base much more easy (will give the player like 2 rows and 2 columns of extra space). I will look what the overall feeling is, and if It is not too wrong, I'll change those tiles to be also buildable.

Of course, this specific mission, "jorney to the past" I will reduce the rock area available for the player, but since you will can build on tiles you couldn't before it should be the same amount of room to build as before.

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

You could save some AIs by using only two AIs to a side (Atr/Hark) instead of three. Like merging part of base having only barracks with the part having light factory.

But then how you make the AI to actually build 1 trike and sending it to attack but keep grouping infantry?
I could get use of proportions to place 1 trike per 7 infantry, but even then, that AI:
a) will build 6 infantry straigh, meanwhile, no extra trikes or quads are produced (and waiting outside the factory since the infantry AI it's using a delay time bewteen attacks)
b) infantry are much slower than the other vehicles, when the fast vehicles died and the infantry are still on his way (or figthing whatever other unit you have alone), the AI won't produce any infantry anymore while but producing several trikes/quads that attakc together due the time bewteen attacks, big enough to group at least 2-3 vehicles togheter.

Placing together heavy and light factory Ai's it's a bit the same; this AI already struggle to get a full rotation of the 4 tanks, and that's just thanks that I place tons of dunes to slow doen the enemy AI. If they share the AI, I doub you will see devas/sonic tanks, or even missile or siege tanks (but you may argually said that dune 2 behaves a bit like that, like producing 2-3 siege tanks and only combat tanks if not enough money to build the siege one).

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Yes, I tried both. I actually fully finished the first (buggier) version and noticed that famous revealed tile on bottom-right corner of map. Pretty good mimic to the original (but originaly, I was not even thinking it was a bug).

I did a record for a channel (the video on the link it is myself playing it) and, because the owner of the channel want to make it as international as possible and using the original material; I asked MrFlibble to let me know the "clean" copy (no bug-fixes, no super-dune-changes, no altered versions, even for the anti-copy question) and he told me about the version v1 which I wanted to patch into the v1.7, somehow I did it wrong, so I found the reveal map on the bottom side and thinking "well, this is weird... but I am used to the european version in spanish, so maybe the US version it's this way".

I knew I wasn't playing the correct version because the AI didn't ever cheat, on 1 map he was sending 1 missile launcher per wave... literally, no quads, no infantry, just a missle launcher... and on the next map with the starport disable the whole game... because AI has his own starport... only when I took the starport I could do orders myself, but here I was 100% sure "ok, not just because it is the us version, this is not v1.7 at all".

Patched the game and all was fine.

And since in this forum there are a couple of post talking about the differences bewteen v1, v1.7 and the "fix" It was easy to me to find what things I could affect; like the trooper for Atreides, on the final mission on dune 2 you get a squad of three troopers; I always like to preserve these guys alives, since it's the first and last time you will use it; wait until I spawn fremen and, if they spawn near my area, I send my own troopers and join the raid (talk about fun strategies xD).

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

I also tried the second version for comparison, but did not finish it (destroying all enemy base was quite time consuming).

True.
Well, since this is only a single map I don't mind lasting for a while.
The dune 2 campaign based shouldn't take this long figthign 2 enemies, not just because you have a much better start in credits, but the enemy don't make use of a emergency value, so attacking or not attacking the AI still builds always at a 500 ticks, which it's not too much too figth against.

Edited November 5, 2019 by Cm_blast

[Cm_blast]

On 11/4/2019 at 11:14 PM, Klofkac said:

So in my opinion, for me it would be more fun to be able to build on border tiles (like in original Dune2), while having craters on them which "don't look that good". So you can give it a try.

Alright guys; check the first post.

I updated the file. Now you can build on the edges; of course, the rock area around the player base now it is smaller because the point it's controlling a bit the room available; overall, you will have the same exact buildable tiles as before (maybe 1 or 2 squares more or less).

Because of that, I changed a part of the surrounding rocking areas, players now can reach an area it shouldn't and deploying a refinery or things like that withouth recurring to a MCV; now you can still expand a bit (concretes and maybe turrets) but I removed a bit the available area so you cannot place a 3x3 building.

The other amount of rock-islands are the same as before; same size (thus bigger room to build); but those are fine since you need an MCV before. Same for the enemy's bases; they are the same as before but on a few parts the building (or the concrete) it's touching a sand tile, just like in Dune 2.

The "fake" Concretes are also buildable, so you can do whatever you want into the enemy's inner base.

[Klofkac]

On 11/14/2019 at 11:01 PM, Cm_blast said:

I updated the file. Now you can build on the edges; of course, the rock area around the player base now it is smaller because the point it's controlling a bit the room available; overall, you will have the same exact buildable tiles as before (maybe 1 or 2 squares more or less).

Thank you! I quickly tried this out and it seems to be working.

However, one thing you did I dislike, that you disconnected the upper "narrow rock spread area" from the main player's base area. Placing concrete and buildings on those lower and upper narrow rock spread areas was exactly what I primarily wanted and looked forward to do when you would make those edge tiles buildable, but now I can do it on the lower area only anyway. Could you please change it back and make the upper area reachable again? Also I think leaving possibility to build at least one 3*3 building on that upper area would make it some more fun. Thanks.

[Cm_blast]

1 hour ago, Klofkac said:

Placing concrete and buildings on those lower and upper narrow rock spread areas was exactly what I primarily wanted and looked forward to do when you would make those edge tiles buildable,

The only reason those areas were connected in the first place was because you couldn't build on top of them. If while doing the tileset I opted for the "edges were buildable" the player base will be 100% isolated from the rest to avoid concrete jumping into another area. Or you think it is a coincidence that any buildable room was exactly 5 tiles away from your main land?

I didn't wanted yet another "player main base it's an isolated land", but because now you can actually build on top of those tiles, I was forced to remove the connection... or doing other workarounds like here; I wanted to encourage the use of an MCV to deploy into a new area and/or make use of carryalls; letting the players to expand that easily remove any purpose to build or purchase those two units; I am trying really hard to make those units to be usefull T_T.

Even right now you can exploit even further the "deploy turrets into the enemy base" because now you can do it into the 2 enemy's Ais while I wanted to give the option to use it only against 1.

I still can reconnect the top-side, but I won't leave any 3x3 area to deploy more refs; place windtraps, turrets or barracks all you want, but I prefer letting the MCV and the carryall to have some kind of purpose (if the map was much bigger I won't mind, but it's not). Probably I need to edit a bit that part too avoid more concrete-jumping.

If you want to have more fun by being more "free" to do whatever you want I highly recommend you to play the dune 2 campaign with the retrotileset:
https://forum.dune2k.com/topic/27503-release-dune-2-based-campaign-for-dune-2000-old-campaign-rearrange/
I did a retranslation on that campaign, not an adaptation, which means that all those rock-island that were separated 5 tiles (to avoid concrete jumping) now are only 3, so here in multiple maps you can expand your base in areas withouth any trouble.

I consider the "classic" version the official one, an the retro it's more to a nostalgic value so I don't mind having some "break-maps" by letting the players deploying buildings where it shouldn't.
Also, I think you may find more fun since the AI doesn't make use of an emergency build, they always build the same pace whatever under attack or not (the pace decrease the more Ais you fight against, so the unit build rate it's slower the more Ais are present), so doing quick-small skirmish/target attacks (to take 2-3 buildings and retreat) it's not punished by a increase unit build production; you can even capture the enemy silos full if the map doesn't drag for too long.

Maps are also much faster to beat because there there are not multi Ais controlling every single factory, and the initial money given to the player it's always 2.5 from the original; so the beggining of the map will be much more fast paced.

So if you want to have some fun by doing things that weren't suppose to happen initially, play the campaign instead. You may exploit some of the maps in ways I didn't even think of.

Edited November 16, 2019 by Cm_blast

[Klofkac]

21 hours ago, Cm_blast said:

The only reason those areas were connected in the first place was because you couldn't build on top of them. If while doing the tileset I opted for the "edges were buildable" the player base will be 100% isolated from the rest to avoid concrete jumping into another area. Or you think it is a coincidence that any buildable room was exactly 5 tiles away from your main land?

I didn't wanted yet another "player main base it's an isolated land", but because now you can actually build on top of those tiles, I was forced to remove the connection... or doing other workarounds like here; I wanted to encourage the use of an MCV to deploy into a new area and/or make use of carryalls; letting the players to expand that easily remove any purpose to build or purchase those two units; I am trying really hard to make those units to be usefull T_T.

Even right now you can exploit even further the "deploy turrets into the enemy base" because now you can do it into the 2 enemy's Ais while I wanted to give the option to use it only against 1.

I still can reconnect the top-side, but I won't leave any 3x3 area to deploy more refs; place windtraps, turrets or barracks all you want, but I prefer letting the MCV and the carryall to have some kind of purpose (if the map was much bigger I won't mind, but it's not). Probably I need to edit a bit that part too avoid more concrete-jumping.

Yes, I think I'm getting your point. However, even if the upper area is connected to your base area, it won't give you that much extra room to build (even if there's place to build just one 3*3 building), so if you still want to expand more and have more space, you need MCV anyway and take over some other isolated island.

I remember in original Dune 2 I played a mission where player's area was connected with enemy area so I could build a concrete path to them. In some missions the player's areas had very bizzare shapes, something similar to lower and upper narrow areas in your map, and I could build long concrete paths on them. It was something like an iconic thing to Dune 2 terrain. So I expected your map was made to mimic aspects of original Dune 2 as much as possible, including this terrain quirk, and your map was very exactly desigled like that, the only missing thing was buildable edge and narrow tiles.

The only problem in this map I see is that the upper narrow rock area is too close to quite big isolated area above it, so that you could concrete-jump on it. You could fix it by moving the areas farther to each other to avoid that.

Note that in Original Dune 2, I seldom built a MCV to expand my base on other island, so if I don't build it in your Dune 2000 map, just don't worry, that's the way how I'm used to play. When I earlier played your map, at the time edge tiles were not buildable, I didn't build a MCV anyway. And in my opinion, if there are other players who like building and using MCVs, they will do that anyway even if they can now expand a little bit more on those narrow tiles. It's more about "making both kinds of players happy".

[Cm_blast]

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Yes, I think I'm getting your point. However, even if the upper area is connected to your base area, it won't give you that much extra room to build (even if there's place to build just one 3*3 building), so if you still want to expand more and have more space, you need MCV anyway and take over some other isolated island.

I may workaround and giving the option of a 3x3 area that it is not too near to the spice to make something in the middle.

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

I remember in original Dune 2 I played a mission where player's area was connected with enemy area so I could build a concrete path to them. In some missions the player's areas had very bizzare shapes, something similar to lower and upper narrow areas in your map, and I could build long concrete paths on them. It was something like an iconic thing to Dune 2 terrain. So I expected your map was made to mimic aspects of original Dune 2 as much as possible, including this terrain quirk, and your map was very exactly desigled like that, the only missing thing was buildable edge and narrow tiles.

Well, in Dune 2 you have a limit of buildings, limit of units, slow pace, slow 1 by 1 movementet... in Dune 2000 you can even do more things like selling buildings and tricking the Ais much more easily; I already left the players the option to build from 1 safe spot into the enemy base and do that cheap tactic, but at least the player need to work a bit for that.

It's hard to make a line of what somebody wants:
a) A map that requires to do some work to beat it.
b) A map easily beateble not because it's easy, but because how broken it is.

For example, Atreides mission 4; do you think Westwood really planned to do a map you can beat at 3 minutes by just using the initial units? maybe you find fun playing that way, but I wonder Westwood creators was even aware that people will try to do that, and it's not like you need to be a pro, just send your units and that's it, a gun turret out, heavy fact out and the barracks out and you are playing alone.

There is an idea on a video I saw long time ago: if you add in a Doom kind of game an OP weapon, doesn't matter if the weapon it's so OP that make the game dulls and boring... people will be compeled to use it at any cost... and it's not until you finish the game that your realize that you weren't having fun since you get that superweapon; but now it is too late, you finished the game with an empty feeling... you won't be playing this game anytime soon or maybe never, so you think on how bad the designed and how bad the game it´s just for a simple flaw.

I always feel that If I add any kind of cheap way to win, people will use it and then complaign and how easy the mission it is. I wonder how many people played that Atreides map for the first time, beated that easily and said "what was the point of this map? these designers have no idea how to make a game".

People still replays dune 2k original maps, I wonder if anybody ever replay any custom maps or, once that mission it's beated, proceed to delete the files from their computer.

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

The only problem in this map I see is that the upper narrow rock area is too close to quite big isolated area above it, so that you could concrete-jump on it. You could fix it by moving the areas farther to each other to avoid that.

I guess you mean the area I disconnect in the current version, yes, you can concrete jump into another area, but since I didn't ever give you the 3x3 area enough for a MCV I didn't care. Now I found another place you can concrete jumps.

If I connect that area I will fix those problems. And maybe I make enough room for a 3x3 building but not giving too much advantage for placing a ref there, just like a slighy advantage.

2 hours ago, Klofkac said:

Note that in Original Dune 2, I seldom built a MCV to expand my base on other island, so if I don't build it in your Dune 2000 map, just don't worry, that's the way how I'm used to play. When I earlier played your map, at the time edge tiles were not buildable, I didn't build a MCV anyway. And in my opinion, if there are other players who like building and using MCVs, they will do that anyway even if they can now expand a little bit more on those narrow tiles. It's more about "making both kinds of players happy".

In Dune 2 I rarely build MCV; game has a unit limit so with 3 refineries and 4 harverstersts it's more than enough to me to have an economy and, since you reach the unit limit so soon, you will end having "silos needed" text so I keep stoping the harversters from time to time to avoid loosing money.

Here, on this map, building the MCV it's a positive effect that I tried to make vaild by:
a) Making a big area on the top-left area (safe from any attack, except some Fremens that may spawn over there).
b) Placing 4 reaaaaallly big mine files really near over that area.

So it's not a "don't worry, I don't build them, other people may do"; it's a "I, the author of this map, I want people to build and deploy an MCV". The reward; 4 big mine fields that will raise your economy.
"But I don't like/I hate/I don't let myself/... to build an MCV"
"Well, then you will get punished".

If I let refineries (1 or 2) being builded on the top (now discconected) area, then there is no purpose of waiting for the expensive MCV, you already will have refineries closer to the spice areas. So, you are not getting punished, the player that actually use his time and money on that slow-expensive MCV it's the one that it is punished.

For example, I play the game by killing the infantry with bullets, not crushing over them (for the most part), but on the Fey's map, with waves that go 40 troopers per 4-5 combat tanks, I don't follow my own rule because his maps not just are hard, but the player it's expected to actually use tanks to crush over them. I cannot go into him and say "reduce the production of troopers and make the AI to build slower because I never crush into enemies with my tanks, and don't have enough money to build sieges and infantrys all over the place to counter them".

Anyway, in short; I will think I will do with the map; probably I will connect and maybe I let you to expand more although you still don't have a 3x3 area, but you build turrets in other places or something like that. I won't let the concrete jumping to go too far.

Edited November 16, 2019 by Cm_blast

[Fey]

It's a pity about D2k's graphics behavior If it were a bit more flexible, we could have the edges be buildable without hecking up the graphics when a structure is sold or destroyed, and then there are the craters...

Still, I've been following your progress on this oldschool campaign and it's great what you worked up, man.

Just commenting here to let you know I've been looking at places other than the secret modder Discord. (which you should totally join @Klofkac!)

[Cm_blast]

On 11/16/2019 at 9:57 PM, Klofkac said:

Yes, I think I'm getting your point. However, even if the upper area is connected to your base area, it won't give you that much extra room to build (even if there's place to build just one 3*3 building), so if you still want to expand more and have more space, you need MCV anyway and take over some other isolated island.

First post updated. The screenshot now reflex how the map looks now, so you can check the changes on the map even before downloading the map; there is some room to place at least a 3x3 building or even a 10 tiles building, but only one (still enough room to windtraps, barracks and other smaller buildings); anyway; you can see the path connected once again.

I also slighly changed a few tiles here and there to avoid the concrete jumping that I didn't notice first. So yeah, map fixed but also the tileset itself was fixed with the fixed graphics for Ix (although not present in this map). I hope it's good enough.