New Maps: Paths, Wars and Chaos

[Angelspit]

<img src="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/images ... dom_ug.jpg" align=right vspace=10 hspace=10>Originally started in 2002, <a href="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/search ... h">Chaotic Playgrounds</a> is described as a "pseudo-random map" that includes some of the most complex scripting ever seen in Heroes of Might and Magic IV. Thunder (Humakt in the forums) allows you to control the map size, the number of computer players, the number of heroes, the difficulty level and how rich in resources the map is. The map offers a good amount of replayability and a challenging AI: <i>"I even had to abandon my towns to it in order to survive,"</i> admits the mapmaker. Please note that the <a href="/http://equilibris.celestialheavens.com/">Equilibris mod</a> is required. You can find more of Thunder's excellent work at <a href="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/thunde ... dermaps</a>.



Cyntefyn has been hard at work too with a pair of Hammers of Fate maps for Heroes V. Both <a href="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/search ... athways</a> and <a href="/https://www.celestialheavens.com/search ... earch">War Grounds</a> are small 1-on-1 maps with underground that you can play against a friend or a computer opponent. I'd really feel like playing a hot seat game right now.

If you would like to take a look at the original page visit this link:
https://www.celestialheavens.com/1168749771

[Humakt]

Thanks for putting up an announcement. Could you also put link to my site on the links page?

I actually had to abandon towns twice to the AI, though the second time was also because my main forces were nowhere near to them. That was with XL map. I was able to conquer back my towns after my forces and especially heroes were a lot more improved. AI had level 70 heroes with the hardest setting on XL map (they'll be little lower on smaller maps and/or easier difficulties).

I had trained three forces in the map:
1st: Level 21 Paladin (with almost maxed out combat and maxed out life magic, Level 21 Archmage with maxed out Nature magic (with GM Summoning providing my army), Level 20 Pyromancer with maxed out Chaos magic and lots of Tactics, and Nature armies.
2nd: Level 21 Battle Mage (maxed out Order magic), Level 23 Paladin (maxed out Life magic), Level 22 Crusader (maxed out Tactics) and Life forces (19 Angels, 97 monks, etc.)
3rd: Level 22 Ranger (with GM Pathfinding), Level 21 Battle Mage (with 4th level order magic and maxed out combat skills and Might forcers (37 Thunderbirds, etc.)

Toughest battle (which I won and didn't lose ) included 2 Level 70 heroes (who cast Berserk, Armageddon, Mass Cancellation and stuff) and over 200 Waspworts with other stuff versus my then little meager Life forces. Got ridiculous amount of artifacts from it.

[Angelspit]

You used to have a link under the Community section, but I guess it was lost when I had to roll back to a previous version of the layout in a hurry after I messed up something in the code -- yes, I do that kind of thing on a regular basis. I'll fix this soon.

[alavris]

Hmmm... this Chaotic Playgrounds map looks very interesting. Great idea, Humakt!

[Humakt]

Hmmm... this Chaotic Playgrounds map looks very interesting. Great idea, Humakt!

Thanks, though it is not entirely my idea. There has been couple pseudo-random maps before. What I basically did was to enchance pseudo-random idea and make it more like random map generator within the editor powers. Result is still largely like a custom map, but not knowing the paths or whereabouts of your opponents and few other things mimicks RMG.

[infael]

Hm. I have the current Equilibris mod and the map keeps crashing during town randomization. Ah well...

[HodgePodge]

Hm. I have the current Equilibris mod and the map keeps crashing during town randomization. Ah well...

I play most of my Heroes IV games with the Equilibris Mod too; but have you tried this map in the original Heroes IV game without Equilibris?

[Humakt]

Hm. I have the current Equilibris mod and the map keeps crashing during town randomization. Ah well...

All the time? I know it crashes sometimes as explained in readme, but if it really crashes all the time, could you tell me what map setup you're trying to run?

I've tried every setup myself, and crashes seem to happen on all sizes occassionally at start-up (only at start-up though), though it crashes fairly rarely on smaller map sizes. The script works, but just causes game to crash sometimes.

Since Small, XL and L & M use different scripts to give player towns and determine areas, has led me to believe that scripting loops just is taking too long sometimes and fills the memory quote which results crash to desktop. Even small map setup of giving towns to players does at least 7 different triggered scripts (it is very likely some of the town scripts are retriggered) and larger maps do a lot more. If it's bug in the scripts, I haven't found it (with 100+ events just for town randomizing it is possible that bug exists, very small possibility though ).

I could make the randomizing system bit simpler but it would require complete overhaul of the major map scripts including rescripting sixtysix long town events, so I don't feel like doing it. Especially when I don't know if it even increases the stability of the game.

Note that the map seems to crash only during randomizing towns, so once you've passed that, there should emerge no crashes during game anymore.