Map Making for MultiPlayer

[darthdroid]

Ever since Mr. Snoopy alerted me (ok, so I finally just read some of his helpful posts) on how to avoid frequent crashing with custom maps... I've been trying them out online.

On the bright side, I haven't seen any crashes, they rolled smoothly and the only thing I found that slowed me down was that due to the new set of files in the SMR folder, I had to redo all my hotkeys...wondered why it kept my name, face, and a few other things...but not my hotkeys...hmm?

Anyway, HOWEVER, I noticed so far (3 maps) that these are all set up for single player mode it appears. With slight adjustments however, these could be equally good in multiplayer mode. I would also suggest that on one player you're not giving yourself a fair game if the starting points are not moderately balanced.

Case in point: On the Alaska map (which I liked a lot), the starting point that is just on the other side of the mountain from Anchorage is set up to win. I believe all the other start points are towns with only villages to connect to. On the built in game maps, this is not the case. The only one I find even set up for inequity to any degree is the NW map, but at least 50% of the time it's pretty equitable.

I know that most of the modders don't play online so why would they think of multiplayer when they built.... but it would be nice if they considered it when choosing the starting points. Yes, I know I can modify them myself and will. I just wanted to give the only constructive criticism I think is merited. Everything else is quite impressive so far, and once I can balance these maps out a little for online play, I think I can make some fans of them.

Take what you want and leave the rest

[Burlington_Northern_3140]

I have seen a few posts asking about multiplayer maps and they were always considering bulding one. Although, no one ever did.

[snoopy55]

Well, define for me what makes a map a 'Multiplayer'.

[darthdroid]

Fairness to all 4 starting points (and of course it needs 4 starting points .

As I explained, in Alaska (excellent map though) the one that starts right by Anchorage is set up to win. The advantage is large enough to be nearly done before another one gets there. The whole game is about building metropoli. So any map that only has ONE metroplolis and one starting point is right next to it and the other 3 far away... is very unbalanced and this kind of tends to ruin an online game.

So take that example, the start point simply needs to be changed to one that is more like the others....then it becomes kind of a race TO anchorage and is more challenging and fun. The one start point can get to Anchorage by selling ONE stock on Tycoon level and it's even easier if the level is easier. The others really have to work for it, and the other ones are small towns at best with only villages to connect to. The anchorage area, starts with a good town right by a large metropolis which also has 2 other towns near it.


Now back to your specific question Snoop:
It's generally a well balanced map that tends to promote equality with no severe weights toward any starting point area over other start points. Pretty simple.
I did the "war zone" map which I really liked due to its being so spread out and had very few resources. But again, the NE start point was the best by far. This means if the players are equal, it becomes almost a dice game based on starting points...we don't want that in multi-player.

You cannot avoid bad starts with random resources sometimes, but at least the game did it to you and not the map designer. Hope that helps clarify, but so far we've had a lot of fun with these maps.

[darthdroid]

Found another example:

Playing Australia as we speak, started at "Perth" on the West Coast, there's really nothing nearby. Other player starts with several cities on East coast by Melbourne...it's ridiculously unbalanced for multiplayer.

The perth starting point should be removed and all players should start on East Coast for a multiplayer reasonable game.

The only choice for example I had starting from Perth was to get a wine train going at Perth, and then literally move all the way across Australia (deleting my track behind me to get 30% of $ back or whatever it is) to get to civilization. Thus about a $900k advantage the other player has over the one starting at Perth...

[snoopy55]

OK, got it. It's as i expected, but since we have had maps made up and called 'Multiplayer Maps', i wanted to make sure.

So basicly with any custom built map all you really have to do is go into the Industries XML and remove all the locations.

One thing on that subject. A while back the random placement was questioned and i did some testing on it. The Original maps are 10 x 10. Call those 'units'. A random maps puts all industries in a 8unit diamiter circle. So, if you have a 15 x 15 map, everything is plastered inside an 8 unit circle in the middle. This is fine if you can make sure all the start positions are basicly the same position in relation to the circle.(I think I said that right....) Lowell once suggested a map made by dividing the map into 4 squares and putting equal amounts of everything in each one. The problem I saw was that no player would have to leave his little corner of the world, and instead of compitition, you'd have more of a race.

As to adjusting a map, just change the listing in each City's <bIsStartLocation> to true or false, setting up four or so positions, get rid of the Industry positions and give it a name of (map name)OnLine or (map name)OLSAM and post them in a 'Maps For Online Playing' thread. The editing is simple enough that it doesn't take much to do.

As to maps like Australia, that set-up may be the way the map was researched. I've been working, off and on, on a map of Mexico. I do research for it. Coffee is only grown at the bottom of Mexico, and certain mining is mostly at the top, so it would make a poor Online map as it is to be. But again, remove the placement of Industries, and with a bit of starting position relocating, it may work out.