User:E7th04sh/Creating Multiplayer Maps/Chapter 1: Eye of Onis

In the first chapter of my tutorial i would like to describe a process of creation of map Eye of Onis.

I will add more screenshots later

Concept

The first thing you need to have is an idea of map. I really enjoy common duel map Den of Onis. I decided my first few maps will be fast duel maps, split into main battling area and wings for scouts.

Inspiration

It's pretty east to win typical Den of Onis match on MP simply letting enemy perform an attack on well covered positions. This is however boring and requires less thinking. On the other hand crushing the enemy on his retreat, blocking his routes with backstabbing scouts, it's a big temptation, so i like to try and win games this way.

Central villages

To give my new map some zest, and discourage defensive tactics, i placed most far-away village almost in the center. Let's theoretize on possible results of this decision. These days i play undead, and if i place my defence line in Den of Onis by evenly spreading my forces covering a line linking two villages, or possible put some units a bit farther toward the enemy, if he attacks he is highly disadvantaged, and even good time of day does not counter this:

• my freshly recruited units are ready to attack with a delay of 1-2 turns
• i have advantage of terrain with either one hex of exception, or none if i push some units a bit farther.
• i have 2 nearby villages and 3 others 1 turn away, which i can even use in defence, while enemy has to remove units from combat in order to heal.

Thus in most cases i heavily wound and kill enough units to have overwhelming advantage; unless of course enemy is either better in micromanagement, or uses some tricks to force me into attack.

Now, if there is less defensible village closer to the middle of the map, defending player has less time to establish good defence lines there. Additional turn of delay in recruitments causes them to be much less flexible - i can't wait to see enemy forces, i must pick more versatile units what means my recruits won't be perfect. And attacking enemy has of course his own keep closer, and a village for healing near.

Note: practice of putting lone, odd village in exact middle is highly unbalancing for map. Also the villages in the middle should not be farther than 3/7 of map toward the enemy, because of the differences in scouts movement.

Lake

The other major difference between Den and Eye is a lake in the middle of the map. While at first our path toward enemy is just normal flat terrain with some natural defense lines, the lake in the middle causes interesting tactical dillemas when maneuvering your troops. It's the question of either splitting forces or leaving one path hardly defended. It moves the focus of player a bit toward strategical problems, from micromanagement.

Just as the cenbtral villages, the lake also generates problems - mind, for omse factions lake is less important obstacle, the more flying units factions has, the more advantage this lake will be for it. At the moment i have no idea if this will cause balance issues.

Project

Now, that we have have to decide on more mundane things. Let's open the editor.

Symmetry

Our map (Eye of Onis, or the one you should create to practice skills) will be symetrical, since it's intended to be easy project, and balancing unsymmetrical map isfor sure beyond my current abilities. We can choose two different symmetries:

• axis symmetry, just like on the soccer field, there will be a line in the middle, and every hex on one side will be reflection of hex on the other side. Mind, you don't have to have your map symmetrical about two axis', one being the line linking keeps. You can fe. create a main battlefield, and add only one (symmetrical) wing for scouts. In result all natural attack lines will be meeting in the middle of the map.
• rotational symmetry, in this symmetry you can still lead the natural assault lines into natural critical points in the middle, but whichever keep player starts, a left route will be a left route, so you can fe. create a naturally defensive left route for both players, with less defensible right route. This way one could progress toward enemy faster with his right route, while defend easier tha attack on the left one.

In our map, Eye of Onis, i decided to, quite like Den of Onis, use rotational symmetry (altough i am not sure if Den is 100% symmetrical, but Eye will be).

Axis

The line that links two keeps, the main axis of the map, splitting it now to two identical sides, can come in two variations:

• unit moving along the axis stays exactly at it (the most obvious way to do it)
• unit moving along the axis have to move slightly to the left or right once per twice hexes.

The result is important for natural defence lines. As you probably know, the best defence line is straight, just like the former axis. If you want to have your natural defence line closest to the keep be orthogonal to map axis, you need to use the former axis variation. If you can live with the natural defence lines being slightly rotated (what actually makes for more interesting map), you will choose the former, more obvious axis.

Paths

Duel map like Den of Onis consists of paths, which are natural for movement toward enemy. Den has three main paths - middle battle, and two wings for scouts.

Each single path have two important numeric properties - length and width. Stay aware of how long would be uninterrupted march from one castle to the other. On a fast duel map it should really take no more than 6 turns, which is already pretty high. Width of a path determines how combat will go on it. The thinner paths means easier defense. The thicker are advantagous for attacker.

Generally, a main route toward enemies base should be no thinner than 5 hexes. 5 is a magical number anyways, since all the short distances should be around that length. When creating Eye of Onis, i first sketched the lake in the middle, than sketched the path in such a manner, that the middle of the path was third hex from water. The lake was just so big, that both paths around it consisted of three straight segments, each of 5 hex, summing up to... 13 hexes, since they interlap.

Each of twin paths was 5 hexes wide, and i've put cave wall as a boundary. Now, i made a path leading to the lake from the castles: it was longer, but of the same width.

Terrain

After you have created your map sketch, you will want to choose where to put more cluttered terrain (like hills, forests and mountains) and where to leave the field blank. Mark areas of greater density with different type of terrain, and those which should be blank with yet another.

For a greater discourage of defensive tactics, i decided to keep 3 width path of flat surface in the middle of main route leading to the lake. I marked all the shore around the lake with dirt, to remember it should be filled with forests and hills at least 75%. I marked the path encircling the lake with more dirt than the path linking keep and lake.

If you want to, you can use additional type of terrain to mark areas, which should be highly disadvantagous in terms of mobility and defence - for example take a look at small lakes with a bit of cavewall to the right of your keep on Den of Onis. On this map however, i had none such areas.

Uniqueness

The symmetrical dull map is not something i would like to sign with my nickname... Thus i added one hex of cavewall on the right side of the keep and removed some on the left, making map curved. I also replaced some cave wall with chasm, but this can further advantage flyers, so i will reconsider it.

Filling map with content

As the sketch is done, and you are satisfied with it, you have to replace the markers with real content. Create natural defense lines consisting of (necessarily!) mixed hills and forests. Throw in a mountain from time to time, but remember it is more like hill, so you need to balance it with forests.

If you have created positions that make defence slightly easier than on flat surface, you will want to put a single forest, hill or mountain two hexes away to give defending player some more dillemas. He will have to seize it, exposing one unit to damage and ZoC, or he will let enemy counter-counter-attack. Try making the lines in such a manner, that there different possibilities, each with it's own downplays.

Once you have created all these, put some villages - in our example i am putting one adjacent to the lake, two behind/on chokepoint between lake and keep, and two away from battlefield (one close to the keep, so it's seized on first turn, the other at least turn away to the left or right, so it's another dillema for a player).

I will add screenshot here, so you can take a look at how i filled my map. There a few important things - fe. put defenses on the right in different distance from keep than those to the left, and diversify their general utility.

One more thing to do - use shallow water and stones in water to create a path for mermen and naga's to get to the lake and later to enemies keep. In Eye of Onis i made it only one path, that for a short time disappears in the cave to the right, to later cross one path on it's way to the lake. If not for the kae, i would've made more than one path, to increase mobility of seawalkers.