"Seize The Throne" submitted for playtesting

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

From the libraries of Tower Grump I have drawn a tale for your enjoyment.

This is a "short story." There is hopefully enough of a story to get you going and to establish the flavor of the map. Below is the map description.

When emperor Claudius III died, his son assumed rule of the empire. He overthrew centries old monarchies in the kingdoms that make up the Thalacian Empire and enthroned puppets.

Claudius IV has now died leaving no heir. Will one of his puppet kings assume rule or will someone else seize the throne?

"Seize The Throne is a single player map with all positions playable. Chose your faction by changing your flag. It has been designed to give a decent challenge on normal difficulty. Hard will be hard and heroic will require a truly heroic effort and you may wish to play with a campaign heroe in a good defensive position if you try it.

The homeland of each faction has been tailored for it. You will hopefully find my exploration of the terrain morphing capabilities of the editor pleasing.

The factions all vary in their defensive positions. Haven has the best position, followed by the Necropolis, Inferno, Dungeon, Sylvan, and lastly the Academy.

My thanks to the Round Table Mapmaker's Guild for all the help with learning LUA and with scripting.

I look forward to your feedback on my endeavors.

GOW

[Sir_Toejam]

sounds great.

uh, link?

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Keep an eye on the maptesting section. I sent it in only a little while ago and it hasn't been posted yet.

GOW

[alavris]

Great news! I can't wait to try your map

I'm also finishing process of making my own scenario. It should be released in about 3 weeks...
.

[myythryyn]

yes, ill for sure be playing your map GOW just after i do some more terrain on my map...and place some more objects....oh and put resources down...oh and fix that piece of terrain, i see a blue chunk.....must pull myself away from map editor....must stop making map....

i think for sure ill check it out this weekend

[alavris]

yes, ill for sure be playing your map GOW just after i do some more terrain on my map...and place some more objects....oh and put resources down...oh and fix that piece of terrain, i see a blue chunk.....must pull myself away from map editor....must stop making map....

Just as if I heard myself
.

[Angelspit]

The map is up in the maptesting section. Or just click here.

[Sir_Toejam]

OK, I'm through the second week.

chose inferno for faction, hard for difficulty.

so far, it's very punny. :p

"let loose the dogs of war"

lol

anywho, I've only run into minor issues so far:

SW of the starting town, there is an area around the mercury mine that is not lit at all (very hard to navigate).

and i keep getting the following script error:

"parameter lost: function name"

followed usually by:

"script error: 'nil chance'"
"attempt to compare nil with number"

or close to that. It doesn't seem to affect anything, but I haven't seen the error message before.

(you only see it if you open the command console).

overall, the layout is interesting and spread out well. looks like around 3-4 weeks before contact with any AI enemies.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

OK, I'm through the second week.

chose inferno for faction, hard for difficulty.

so far, it's very punny. :p

"let loose the dogs of war"

lol

anywho, I've only run into minor issues so far:

SW of the starting town, there is an area around the mercury mine that is not lit at all (very hard to navigate).

and i keep getting the following script error:

"parameter lost: function name"

followed usually by:

"script error: 'nil chance'"
"attempt to compare nil with number"

or close to that. It doesn't seem to affect anything, but I haven't seen the error message before.

(you only see it if you open the command console).

overall, the layout is interesting and spread out well. looks like around 3-4 weeks before contact with any AI enemies.

Some of the lighting in the underground is intended to be dim but I'll take a look at the lighting around the mercury mine. The chance variable is only meant to be used by a function for the academy so it'll have not affect on gameplay for you. I'll look at the script and see if I failed to limit it to the academy player.

Edit: Yes, that area was too dark I have added some light. I also looked at the script the console was complaining about and fixed it. The script does what it was intended to do for the academy so there is no cause for alarm for anyone who has started the map.

I have made both changes and will include them with the first update.

GOW

[Sir_Toejam]

still working through the underground. so far, still no major issues.

one more minor issue:

the trigger for the text box in front of the second inferno town didn't hit until after i took the castle. I suspect it's just because i came it at an angle that allowed me to miss it when i approached the town the first time.

maybe make a copy of the trigger on the approach to the town from the "road" side? or expand the size of the trigger to completely surround the town?

ah, one thing i forgot to mention:

I personally would like to see some teleporters on the map; the slog gets a bit tedious in such a large area.

maybe add a teleporter at each town that becomes accessible when you first capture the town?

couple more in some of the in-between areas maybe?

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

still working through the underground. so far, still no major issues.

one more minor issue:

the trigger for the text box in front of the second inferno town didn't hit until after i took the castle. I suspect it's just because i came it at an angle that allowed me to miss it when i approached the town the first time.

maybe make a copy of the trigger on the approach to the town from the "road" side? or expand the size of the trigger to completely surround the town?

ah, one thing i forgot to mention:

I personally would like to see some teleporters on the map; the slog gets a bit tedious in such a large area.

maybe add a teleporter at each town that becomes accessible when you first capture the town?

couple more in some of the in-between areas maybe?

Thanks for your continued feedback. I'll fix the trigger for sure.

I'll consider more teleporters but I did not add in a lot of shortcuts because I want to player to have to use more than just one megaarmy on the map. While the main heroe is doing most of the conquering your growing territory must be defended by other heroes.

If you have not already done so you'll find teleporters located fairly close together that let you jump from one side of the surface map to the other, which is a pretty good shortcut.

GOW

[Sir_Toejam]

as to the teleporters; all the entrances to the surface are essentially in one spot, ergo it takes forever to get ANY army from one town to the surface.

teleporters that activate upon the taking of a town would tend to speed this up a bit.

the one megarmy strategy should be countered by addding MORE teleporters, not less, as the AI will use them to attack your towns too.

this forces the player to keep a decent sized army near their towns to protect them from the AI, which can strike quickly using the teleporters.

just my 2 cents.

I also have to say that your designs and lighting scheme for the underground areas was very attractive; i really liked the uphill path to the dragon utopia area.

aside from that, I had to stop playing when I hit the surface.

just like the androma map, Nival wasn't kidding when they said "too big for you", as this size map really is too big for anybody who doesn't have double the recommended specs, apparently.

bottom line, my puter gacks when both topside and downside are loaded on these ultra-sized maps.

best I can do, sorry.

gotta be the poorest caching algorithms I've ever seen for a game. I do hope they will be addressing this in the expansion and in future patches.

good luck with your map.

cheers

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. It'll take a few days for me to upload an update since I'm working 12 hour shifts for the next couple of days

GOW

[Sir_Toejam]

I'm working 12 hour shifts for the next couple of days

Youch!

I suggest a vacation instead of programming, then!

[Razeriel]

I don't understand why the map is singleplayer...
I changed it to multi and we enjoyed a good game (2 humans against computers)

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

I made it single player so scripts could be used. Scripts don't work in multiplayer. I am glad that you enjoyed it as a multiplayer map. What factions did you play?

I am awaiting feedback from a playtester who is finishing the map before I upload an update.

GOW

[Sir_Toejam]

hey hey! I'm back in the game.

turns out the reason the extra large maps were gacking was because of excessive fragmentation on the area of the harddrive where the map data was being cached.

I continued on last night and am now down to facing the last faction (which turned out to be necromancer with undead and elven troops).

some very tough battles coming up!

the surface is as attractively decorated as the underground; i really like how you mixed terrain types for realism.

also of note is how well the areas are separated from one another.

allows for "trapping" strategies, as well as giving the player time to build up defenses.

[Sir_Toejam]

finished!

took me a little over 4 months, primary army was nymus with urgash's call.

some tough battles in the middle against the AI, but was never threatened underground. Yellow was the final faction remaining other than my own.

one small error noted on the surface:

the gargoyle recruitment site near the academy town farthest to the NE was unaccessible.

no other errors noted other than the ones I already mentioned.

very nice map; though a little large for my tastes. It would definetly have been more challenging to play the academy town, I think, as two factions can attack it at once (elves and necro).

I note some elemental recruitment sites readily available to the academy main town to help balance that out.

[Grumpy Old Wizard]

Thanks for all the feedback Sir_Toejam.

I just sent in an update, version 0.91 based on the feedback you and Caradoc have provided me. I'll likely be sending in version 1.0 in a few days.

GOW

[Razeriel]

Ah! That's why the scripts didn't work!
I played for Wizards (in the desert) and my wife for the Elves.
We encountered no bugs (as I can remember)