Warcraft: Lordaeron Wars - Official Thread
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I have moved what was originally on this post to the second post and this post will contain current information about the map.
-Will contain map information when I get around to writing it.
Version History 0.6 WiP as of August 2023 Scourge/BurningLegion/TwilightsHammer/DarkIronDwarves/DarkHorde/Stormwind/Ironforge/Horde/Forsaken/TrollTribes all completed. 2/3 of the way their and done. 0.4/0.5 Sometime in 21/22 ??? I forgot I had this. Stuff added and design bloat. 0.3 - 11/5/21 *Suffered from design bloat so now I added in alot of stuff to Scourge (90% done), Scarlet Crusade (60% done) and Burning Legion (30% done). 0.2 - 1/1/21 * Added farms and gold mines. Decreased the PU of the territory theyre on to compensate. * Added some events relating to conquest. E.g. taking control of all of Stromgarde. * Added TUV values to neutral units. This should make the AI more likely to attack with them instead of believing theyre a 20~ PU value unit. * Cursed power decreases enemy power instead of increasing it. 0.1 - 11/12/20 * Map release -
Editing this here for what was originally in post 1.
I would like to announce the beginning of this project that I have been working on the past few days, Warcraft: Lordaeron Wars.
Introduction
It was inspired by both my love for the large macro rts maps in Warcraft 3 which use various warcraft continents and time periods as their base, and the joy that I've had recently playing against the TripleA ai on the various fantasy maps here.
The setting will be some amalgamation of the Eastern Kingdoms during and after the Third War, before the setting of WoW happens.
Initially I wanted to do a full map similar to what Frostion is currently working on and including Northrend, but while I found I could do the Eastern Kingdoms in a reasonable number of territories, their were only several territories for each wow region whereas I wanted to do much more. The other reason I chose to focus on just 1 continent was that both of the other two continents are rather bland when compared with the Eastern Kingdoms in terms of race diversity, settlements and conflicts.
Gameplay
The final playable map I hope will include the whole Eastern Kingdoms using their pre-cataclysm states.
Their will be territory effects but some these will do the same thing, just renamed for flavour (Snow, marsh, beach)
The following 12 races are those that I intend to place in the final map:
- Scourge (Scourge, Cult of the Damned)
- Scarlet Crusade
- Blood Elves
- Amani Trolls (Zul'Amen, Hinterland trolls)
- Forsaken
- Dalaran Remnants (Dalaran, Southshore and Stromgarde)
- Orcish Horde (Revantusk Trolls, Kargath, Grom'gol Base Camp, Stonard)
- Dwarves (Ironforge Clan, Wildhammer Clan)
- Dark Iron Dwarves
- Dark Horde (Blackrock spire forces, Dragonmaw Clan)
- Stormwind
- Gurubashi Trolls (Zul'Grub, Temple of Atal'Hakkar), although this could be merged into 1 troll player
All factions will use mostly the same unit roster, with some various differences and some unique units for flavour.
For example, the Scarlet Crusade infantry will have higher attack then average, flavour wise this is due to their fanatasim; and the Scourge caster will provide a penalty to enemy infantry, flavour wise this is a banshee using a curse spell.
In terms of unique units, the idea I have for the Scourge is a necromancer that after a battle involving it is concluded, it takes the TUV of enemy units defeated and divides the number to convert it into very bad but free skeleton units.
Although I have envisioned some events regarding units or territories being captured, I am not sure on how large a scope I should do these yet.
Roadmap
Due to this being my first mod, I wish to first make a small test map of the Western Plaguelands for my use and then move on to complete the Lordaeron area before doing the rest of the Eastern Kingdoms. This would let me get a handle on things and to also at the minimum release a playable map of the Lordaeron area. Hence I have decided to split this project into 3 phases:
Phase 1
- Unit and flag icons for Scourge and Scarlet
- Decide on die value, unit stats and balancing for base units and their Scourge and Scarlet counterparts
- Territory PU values
- Territory effect values
- Complete and get a playable xml
Phase 2
- Finish Lordaeron to get a playable game map, and perhaps keep it as a standalone map in the mod for someone to play a smaller map
Phase 3
- Finish the rest of the Eastern Kingdoms with every player included
I am currently in the process of making a test map for the Western Plaguelands, which will serve as a mostly 1v1 area for the Scourge and Scarlet Crusade which will help be get a better idea on balancing the game.
This is the current map I am using for the Western Plaguelands:
Due to the importance of Stratholme (and also Blackrock Mountain furthur down the line) I wished to create a seperate connected zone for it.In my initial making of the Eastern Kingdom map, I intended to use a road system where the map roads would provide access to large swaths of each region but I found that this just bloated the number of territories in each region with the road themselves and furthur bloated each region by having to divide up the map in such a way that made both the location features (e.g. towns and towers) and the roads meaningful, hence I abandoned doing this.
Their are currently 15 territories in Stratholme and 28 passable territories in the plagueland. Although this single region comes in at a huge 43 territories, from my initial border making this was easily the largest singular region on the whole map, and it also includes the city of Stratholme in it which will be 2 of a kind with blackrock mountain. Hence although I have yet to make a finalised version of the full Eastern Kingdoms map, I am not particularly worried at this time that the playable area will be to huge.
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@Zaroph Very exciting! I welcome any parallel development of another Warcraft map. This can really motivate me in regards to speeding up the development of my own map
I really like this map's contrast to my map in development, as my map is “zoomed out” to the biggest scale possible of the Warcraft world. My map will actually be a bit thin in regards to regional differences, story and lore. It will have a lot of randomness and will be a big scale 4 vs 4 player map. Its seems that Warcraft: Lordaeron Wars could be a good counterpart. It seems much more zoomed in on an area of the world and the factions and races that actually resides there. Plus there could be some “real” lore and history represented in Lordaeron Wars. If this works out well, there will be a potential more similar maps
I would really like to have shown you a playable version of my map, so that you could get ideas and stuff. But my map still needs tweaking and some features are not done yet. Very many errors still keeps popping up. But then again, I would also like to see what you come up with by your own so that maybe I can get inspired
I will gladly help you out with some of the map making stuff if you need it (and if I have time, as I am often occupied buy real life stuff for many days in a row). In regards to stuff like graphical style, sounds and music, it would be cool if like the Warcraft maps would share some resemblance and players could feel some consistency, even though the maps have totally different focuses. If you are very into the lore of Warcraft, then you can probably help me out with some soon needed flavor and lore texts for my map, when I need to implement it?
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@Zaroph Looks cool. I'm guessing you've already talked to Frostion given that you are making a related map and seem to be adopting a similar graphic style.
Thank you and I havent but this map style is done with combing all the in-game maps in 1 big continous strip so I think its the most straightforward thing to use.
@Zaroph Very exciting! I welcome any parallel development of another Warcraft map. This can really motivate me in regards to speeding up the development of my own map
I really like this map's contrast to my map in development, as my map is “zoomed out” to the biggest scale possible of the Warcraft world. My map will actually be a bit thin in regards to regional differences, story and lore. It will have a lot of randomness and will be a big scale 4 vs 4 player map. Its seems that Warcraft: Lordaeron Wars could be a good counterpart. It seems much more zoomed in on an area of the world and the factions and races that actually resides there. Plus there could be some “real” lore and history represented in Lordaeron Wars. If this works out well, there will be a potential more similar maps
Thank you im glad to hear it could help motivate you. I think any events will be the last thing I focus so that theirs a playable map without them. I also saw the code in Greyhawk Wars being much more full with event related code so that would slow down making the actual map first.
In regard to lore and such, I would like to do some passive events such as if the Scourge hold Scholomance the necromancy school, their is a chance for them to get Necromancers that spawn there representing a batch of students graduating.
Since Warcraft lore is full of noteworthy and powerful individual characters I would also like to represent them with bigger events. They would give the player something to work towards as a mini-objective (like PU objectives but for units), and for the ai it could be chance based so that they would get a power boost and be more threatening to the player.
I would really like to have shown you a playable version of my map, so that you could get ideas and stuff. But my map still needs tweaking and some features are not done yet. Very many errors still keeps popping up. But then again, I would also like to see what you come up with by your own so that maybe I can get inspired
There wont be anything as intricate as your hero, item and back pack system since thats beyond my capability to code and I dont think the rest would really inspire you
Unless I could get a flying Naxxramas unit with territories out of bounds on the map to work.I will gladly help you out with some of the map making stuff if you need it (and if I have time, as I am often occupied buy real life stuff for many days in a row). In regards to stuff like graphical style, sounds and music, it would be cool if like the Warcraft maps would share some resemblance and players could feel some consistency, even though the maps have totally different focuses. If you are very into the lore of Warcraft, then you can probably help me out with some soon needed flavor and lore texts for my map, when I need to implement it?
Thank you for the offer. Im following the structure of other map xml's and the example xml so I think I am fine in that regard and anything basic since theirs examples of every little thing in them for me to look at. If anything comes up that I struggle with I'll be sure to post and ask thanks.
In regards to the sounds, I've always played with sounds off so I've never really thought about them.
In regards to graphics, the resource that I was going to use was wowheads model viewer for a clean image of units e.g. a ghoul, and then stick it in a border with a letter representing its role. The inspiration for that came from your dragon wars since its a nice visual cue to tell what it was.Since I havent started the graphics and I wasnt going to do sound since I completely forgot about it, I wouldnt be opposed to collaborating to make them more consistent with each other for the reason you said.
I would love to help you with any lore stuff but im most familar with pre-cataclysm lore from playing wow and almost all the relevant maps I play on warcraft 3 that bombard me with lore are pre-cata as well, so if thats relevant I would like to help.
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I wanted to make a post regarding the direction units and combat etc will go. I was inspired by LotR Battle for Arda's system of various supports and territory effects so this map will use something similar.
PS im bad at presenting information like this.
Battle Supprt
Units will have a unit type(s) governing what support they receive:
- Front
- Back
- Cavarly (Cavarly are also Front)
- Caster (Caster are also Back)
- Air
- Siege
- Fortification
Battle support
- Charge - Cavarly has a chance to hit a front unit before combat begins
- Retaliation - Unit has a chance to hit a cavarly unit before combat begins
- Anti air - Ranged unit has a chance to hit a air unit before combat begins
- Magic - Unit has a chance to hit a caster unit each combat round
- Flank - Unit has a chance to hit a back unit each combat round
- Leadership - Unit gives +support to friendly units
- Curse - Unit gives -support to enemy front units
- Sieging - Siege units have a chance to hit a fortification each combat round
- Defenses - Fortification gives +support to friendly back units
Terrain Support
Units will have a movement type that effects the support they recieve from terrain
- Infantry
- Ranged
- Mounted
- Flying
They will mostly be paired to unit type (e.g. Front units are Infantry).
The following terrain types are those that will be present in the test map (a couple more like snow will be present elsewhere)
- Open
- Hillside
- Forest
- Settlement
- Mountain
My initial draft with how they interact with each other is below. (Attack/Defense)
Units
Their are 7 base units and 3 (or 4 if made by another unit) extra units per player.
The base units will mostly be the same with some differences.
The extra units will be player specific and they will differeniate each player from one another. I have conceptualised them but not properly drafted them yet.
The die value is going to be 10.The base unit statline that all players will have is below: (I dont know how to convey this any better so I apologise if its hard to follow)
As a text example:
- Heavy Infantry - 9 PU / 5 attack / 4 defense / Front battle support / Infantry terrain effect
Support 1 is Retaliation / rolls 0 attacking and 3 defending against retaliation targets/
Support 2 is Leadership / gives 1 support to 1 unit when attacking/defending
For different players, I intend for their to be 3 stats that are weaker (red on the graphs) and 7 that are boosted (green on the graph)
Base units for the Scourge:
As a text example for whats different for the Scourge:- Light infantry- 5 PU -> 4
- Heavy infantry- 4 defense -> 5
- Ranger- 2 Anti air defense -> 3
- Cavarly- 3 attack -> 2 / 3 charge attack -> 2 / have curse support for 1 when attacking/defending
- Caster- instead of leadership, curse support for 1 to 2 units when attacking/defending
- Air- 3 attack -> 2
Base units for the Scarlet Crusade
Looking at these it can be seen that Scourge Cavarly and Caster units work abit different, and Scarlet Heavy infantry and Casters are stronger then their counterparts.
I expected the base values to chance as I test them since this is only a first draft.
That was abit long winded but I think that sets the tone for the direction I want to take units and battles on the map.
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@Zaroph said in Warcraft: Lordaeron Wars - Official Thread:
Unless I could get a flying Naxxramas unit with territories out of bounds on the map to work.
If you tell exactly how this should work, the solution may be even not very hard.
In regards to the sounds, I've always played with sounds off so I've never really thought about them.
Until maybe @Frostion will share a warcraft themed sound set, just paste into your map a "sounds.properties" file with this line inside it:
Sound.Default.Folder=classicalAnd you should be mostly fine.
However, I strongly suggest also to pick a favourite for the "game start" sound and for the "your turn" sound, to always play, meaning adding only one amongst the following lines:
game_start=classical/game_start/game_start_01_start_of_lotr_company_of_the_ring.mp3
game_start=classical/game_start/game_start_02_gladiator_entrance.mp3and only one amongst the following lines:
required_your_turn_series=classical/required_your_turn_series/required_your_turn_series_01_middle_of_lotr_company_of_the_ring.mp3
required_your_turn_series=classical/required_your_turn_series/required_your_turn_series_02_colosseum_games_begin.mp3
required_your_turn_series=classical/required_your_turn_series/required_your_turn_series_03_eerie_fantasy_horn.mp3
required_your_turn_series=classical/required_your_turn_series/required_your_turn_series_04_warhorn.mp3
required_your_turn_series=classical/required_your_turn_series/required_your_turn_series_05_fantasy_battlemarch.mp3The main sound issue remaing, then, I believe would be the fact that TripleA doesn't offer "classical" specific sounds for placement, that is especially a problem if you are placing air units. But, in any case, placement sounds are weak in the moment you may have very different kind of units to place, anyway. I've a feature request open about this in here (this may be of interest to @Frostion, if he plans to make a customized Warcraft sound set):
https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/275/units-specific-placed-sounds/4If the air units in the map are mostly bird-like creatures, you can add this line inside your sounds.properties file:
placed_air=classical/battle_airOtherwise, I guess having the same "foot stomping" sound as placing land units may be preferable over the default ww2 aircraft placement sound, at least:
placed_air=generic/placed_land -
@Zaroph said in Warcraft: Lordaeron Wars - Official Thread:
The following terrain types are those that will be present in the test map (a couple more like snow will be present elsewhere)
- Open
- Hillside
- Forest
- Settlement
- Mountain
My initial draft with how they interact with each other is below. (Attack/Defense)
No default terrain? I guess so since it seems those terrains are omnicomprensive. If so, I don't think there is much of a point not having a non default terrain. For easy of use, the most common type of terrain may be taken as default. You can still define it as a terrain, if you want, leaving it without any actual impact (in this case, it would be better if it is not offered in the battlecalculator).
Also, forest or woodland? Woodland would be technically the better term from traditional British usage, where forest just means wildland, and may be not wooded at all. Theorically, deserts are forests, but I'm under the impression this is not the current usage. I personally like forest better than woodland as a term, if they would be currently synonym (are they?). This is what wikipedia says:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest
Uses of the word "forest" in English to denote any uninhabited area of non-enclosure are now considered archaic.[16] The word was introduced by the Norman rulers of England as a legal term (appearing in Latin texts like the Magna Carta) denoting an uncultivated area legally set aside for hunting by feudal nobility (see Royal Forest).[16][17]
These hunting forests were not necessarily wooded much, if at all. However, as hunting forests did often include considerable areas of woodland, the word "forest" eventually came to mean wooded land more generally.[citation needed] By the start of the 14th century, the word appeared in English texts, indicating all three senses: the most common one, the legal term and the archaic usage.[16] Other terms used to mean "an area with a high density of trees" are wood, woodland, wold, weald, holt, frith and firth. Unlike forest, these are all derived from Old English and were not borrowed from another language. Some classifications now reserve the term woodland for an area with more open space between trees and distinguish among woodlands, open forests, and closed forests based on crown cover.Units
Their are 7 base units and 3 (or 4 if made by another unit) extra units per player.
The base units will mostly be the same with some differences.
The extra units will be player specific and they will differeniate each player from one another. I have conceptualised them but not properly drafted them yet.
The die value is going to be 10.The base unit statline that all players will have is below: (I dont know how to convey this any better so I apologise if its hard to follow)
As a text example:
- Heavy Infantry - 9 PU / 5 attack / 4 defense / Front battle support / Infantry terrain effect
Support 1 is Retaliation / rolls 0 attacking and 3 defending against retaliation targets/
Support 2 is Leadership / gives 1 support to 1 unit when attacking/defending
For different players, I intend for their to be 3 stats that are weaker (red on the graphs) and 7 that are boosted (green on the graph)
Base units for the Scourge:
As a text example for whats different for the Scourge:- Light infantry- 5 PU -> 4
- Heavy infantry- 4 defense -> 5
- Ranger- 2 Anti air defense -> 3
- Cavarly- 3 attack -> 2 / 3 charge attack -> 2 / have curse support for 1 when attacking/defending
- Caster- instead of leadership, curse support for 1 to 2 units when attacking/defending
- Air- 3 attack -> 2
Base units for the Scarlet Crusade
Looking at these it can be seen that Scourge Cavarly and Caster units work abit different, and Scarlet Heavy infantry and Casters are stronger then their counterparts.
I expected the base values to chance as I test them since this is only a first draft.
That was abit long winded but I think that sets the tone for the direction I want to take units and battles on the map.
This doesn't seem an easy system to understand, and playing with anything is always much harder than understanding it, so I would suggest to try to do what feasible to simplify it, but it is totally your choice, and I'm not against complexity, in principle, if it serves the purpose of being truer to the setting (if I would actually play a map that I feel I cannot even try to optimize strategically that is a totally different matter, but we do have a few people that are undaunted by complexity and may gladly take all the complexity you are willingly to throw at them).
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No default terrain? I guess so since it seems those terrains are omnicomprensive. If so, I don't think there is much of a point not having a non default terrain. For easy of use, the most common type of terrain may be taken as default. You can still define it as a terrain, if you want, leaving it without any actual impact (in this case, it would be better if it is not offered in the battlecalculator).
Im not much of a fan of default terrain because even in the most common type (likely something like a open field or a plain) their are advantages and disadvantages to different units, e.g. cavarly can move easier and flying units can spot enemy units easier but conversely theyre spotted easy in a open sky as well.
And then if that terrain is taken as a base, all the other terrain have values relative to that one and then it gets a bit awkard deciding "how much better is x at attacking in a mountain instead of a plain?"
Also, forest or woodland? Woodland would be technically the better term from traditional British usage, where forest just means wildland, and may be not wooded at all. Theorically, deserts are forests, but I'm under the impression this is not the current usage. I personally like forest better than woodland as a term, if they would be currently synonym (are they?). This is what wikipedia says:
After thinking about it more, I agree forest is a better term. When I was thinking of what to call it, I was thinking of the areas with trees in WoW Classic and due to scaling issues most of them arnt really forests.
This doesn't seem an easy system to understand, and playing with anything is always much harder than understanding it, so I would suggest to try to do what feasible to simplify it, but it is totally your choice, and I'm not against complexity, in principle, if it serves the purpose of being truer to the setting (if I would actually play a map that I feel I cannot even try to optimize strategically that is a totally different matter, but we do have a few people that are undaunted by complexity and may gladly take all the complexity you are willingly to throw at them).
I wanted to make it similar to the Battle for Arda: Middle Earth map, with different terrain types and special attacks, but that map is much more asymmetric and alot of factions dont have e.g. a unit with "flanking" that can attack archers and so I wanted to make it more symmetric but yeah I think I can simplify it in some areas and I have some ideas on how to do that now.
I have a working, almost finished map of the east plaguelands now, its just missing: flags, map decorations to show which zones in the city are adjacent to zones outside the city, custom unit placement in each territory and most importantly notes.
After playing it for abit I have some ideas how to give each unit a better identity and simplify things.
These are the unit models for each faction, the images are taken from blizzards warcraft 3 or various free custom models:
And this is the current map for Lordaeron.
I still need to finish some territories, and redraw and add in Ghost Lands + Quel'Thalas. It comes in at 210~ territories, 10~ are impassable small bits of river or lakes and such. At the end that would be 250-260~ without any sea zones.
Since thats alot im worried atm that the whole Eastern Kingdoms + all the sea zones will be way to large but Khaz Modan and Azeroth are both smaller then Lordaeron, with 6 zones + 7 zones vs Lordaerons 9 zones and theyre all pretty big ones. Khaz Modan also has tons of mountains. Even if it gets too big I can see lots of territories to cut and make bigger so I dont think it will be that much of an issue.
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@Zaroph Ah, so I understand you consider a woodland something like a low density forest or a forest something like a high density woodland? I don't really know if this is the common use, since I'm not a native English speaker (and, from what I read, the matter is not clear at all), but I tend to see the two terms as just synonyms (woodland=forest).
Without default terrains (and if TripleA would not stalemate your units), you could have all terrains giving only positive or null modifiers, and have the weakest attack/defence units, per each terrain related type (infantry/ranged/mounted/flying), just at attack/defence 0/0 (both on a same unit only if that unit is the weakest in both cases). I think that would make the most sense, lacking a default terrain, and may also be easier to compute.
Still, are you really confortable that your default att/def units values, that the battlecaulculator prompts you to use, don't actually exist? I guess, for such a game, the battlecalculator should not allow you clicking on the button until you have at least one terrain selected.
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Sorry for the late response, I just dont really like responding in this sort of thing if I dont have a update post to make
@Zaroph Ah, so I understand you consider a woodland something like a low density forest or a forest something like a high density woodland? I don't really know if this is the common use, since I'm not a native English speaker (and, from what I read, the matter is not clear at all), but I tend to see the two terms as just synonyms (woodland=forest).
I dont know the exact definitions but yeah youre spot on in the first line. I see them as rather synonymous as in theyre both areas that have trees and wild life, but the imagary I get of a forest is that it has a higher density of trees and other plants. Not many areas in WoW fit that so I would rather just use the word that to me means a low density forest.
Without default terrains (and if TripleA would not stalemate your units), you could have all terrains giving only positive or null modifiers, and have the weakest attack/defence units, per each terrain related type (infantry/ranged/mounted/flying), just at attack/defence 0/0 (both on a same unit only if that unit is the weakest in both cases). I think that would make the most sense, lacking a default terrain, and may also be easier to compute.
I think I understand and this will be something I try when I get back to doing the unit stats after I finish other stuff.
Still, are you really confortable that your default att/def units values, that the battlecaulculator prompts you to use, don't actually exist? I guess, for such a game, the battlecalculator should not allow you clicking on the button until you have at least one terrain selected.
Im not quite sure what you mean. Pressing ctrl+b on a territory brings up the battle calculator for that area and it automatically sets the terrain effect. Changing the terrain in the menu, I can see the attack/defense values change to what I expect them to be.
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Been a month+~ since I posted an update but I've working along on my spreadsheet and it can now spit out the code for the game when I make changes to unit stats or territory effects etc. I was redrawing Quel'Thalas and the Scarlet Enclave onto the map which was a pain and made me want to temporarily stop doing work on it. I also redrew on 3 rivers that flow into the central lake so that theirs an option for speedier sea travel.
I got a working version to load in game just to see how it looks and to spot any glaring issues like an island polygon space taking up a river or sea zone, which their was a few instances of.
From playing it in game and from doing in the details, I can see some big issues to fix:
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Decrease the unit sizes on the map. After playing with the in game unit zoom, I am thinking to make them 15%-25% smaller then what they are right now
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Adjust the center points of zones so that the text is in a better location
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Start doing manual placement because alot of the auto placements are pretty bad but the auto placer may yield a better result after making the models smaller
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Some zones and terrain types dont match. I didnt want to go overboard with terrain types so I tried to fit mis matching areas to the closest type. First example: theirs many farms that litter all of Lordaeron and I was really confused on how to classify them so I just used open. Second example: A zone with a lone magic building or spire, a zone with a camp of lots of troll huts and the zone of Silvermoon City all share the terrain of Settlement. I think in this example I need some sort of minor/major settlement differentiation. Third example: theirs lots of caves as in WoW you explore them for quests and the only terrain effect I had that fit was Hillside.
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Colours of provinces and on the map. Also, I used 2 different red hex codes for BloodElves (pure red) and ScarletCrusade (scarlet red) but they look much similar then I expected in game
I wanted to make section here about unit placement since its its own thing with several paragraphs. I did unit placement by looking at what was in the zone in WoW and approximating it to the units I used, e.g. for a troll camp they have units x, y and their chieften is z so I put in 2 units of x,y and 1 of z. But after entering the game, I think this approach of winging it was pretty bad since their lots of areas that have un even spreads of units. The biggest offender this was the Amani Trolls who after I looked at the unit count for, had a much larger number compared to the others for their size.
I think I am going to solve it by linking the PU of the zone to the number of units it starts with. For example a capital (that is worth the most PU) starts with 8 or 10 units, a major city/outpost has 6, while some far off distant camp (likely with 1 PU) has 1-3 units.
But this may still be a problem since in WoW, factions like the Scourge or Scarlet Crusade have many more zones then player factions like Forsaken do. This was also something I noticed since Dalaran barely controls anything so it feels like I had to overbloat the few provinces they did have with more units.
Some pics:
1st pic is of Silverpine Forest + Hillsbrad + Dalaran. It doesnt look as bad as the other areas because theirs less units then other places.
2nd pic is of Ghostlands + Eversong Woods. As can be seen and I mentioned earlier, I think I went overboard with the trolls.
And the zoomed out map
Overall its all coming together in one unseemly but hopefully "playable" map once I have taken care of issues and added some missing things like boats.
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Thanks to Frostion for the wooden bridge models he created since I was struggling to find 1 that I liked that I could orient into different angles. -
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@Zaroph To me it seems like that some territories are maybe a bit to small, taking into consideration that two armies consisting of several unit types and allies might stack up and go into a single territory, containing yet another big army. Maybe you should consider 50-75% larger map? Or 50% larger map and 25% smaller units?
Also, the units look good besides jagged edges of the circles. I hope you have kept all the original unit pictures without the circles. I guess that they are much larger. Then you can make much larger circles and with a graphical program scale them down to the wanted size, before or after adding unit avatars. If you need help with unit work. I will gladly help if/when I got time
PS: Map work is much more important at this stage of the creation process, as you can always return to the detail of unit pictures.
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@Zaroph To me it seems like that some territories are maybe a bit to small, taking into consideration that two armies consisting of several unit types and allies might stack up and go into a single territory, containing yet another big army. Maybe you should consider 50-75% larger map? Or 50% larger map and 25% smaller units?
Although I agree that their are territories that are small in size which is why I was thinking of decreasing the unit size by some %, I think part of the problem is that in WoW, their are areas of interest that are typically a questing hub or some sort of camp of monsters, and between these are passing by areas with generic area appropriate monsters. So when drawing borders on the map, the territories are centred on the areas of interest and so the size of the tripleA territories ive done is limited by the size of the area of interest and whats around it. I think a good example of this is Shadowfang Keep and Pyrewood Village in Silverpine forest. Theyre both right next to each other, take up a small amount of room, bordered by the sea and mountain, but theyre very distinct areas that I wouldnt like to merge unless gameplay necessitates it.
Before making the copy of the map i posted, I tried merging similar territories together. E.g. their are 4 farms in north Silverpine Forest, 2 of them have undead and 2 of them have Wolves/Worgan in them so I merged the 2 similar ones together.
I looked for the largest conjoined map of vanillia or TBC available and this was the map I found, which included Kalimdor on the other side which I have cropped out. The size of the in-game map at the moment is 5058x4500. Since only the right half is used its more like 2500x4500. The thought of increasing the map size hasnt occured to me, but I imagine doing a large increase like 25%-75% would stretch it and make it not look nice? But I guess the only thing to do is try it in combination with a unit decrease to find a good solution.
Also, the units look good besides jagged edges of the circles. I hope you have kept all the original unit pictures without the circles. I guess that they are much larger. Then you can make much larger circles and with a graphical program scale them down to the wanted size, before or after adding unit avatars. If you need help with unit work. I will gladly help if/when I got time
After looking at other maps and considering the size of the map, I decided to make the units 50x50 pixels in size. So I set the options in the properties folder to be 50 height/50 width, and then I made the final images to be a 50 pixel diameter circle. The two sets of black edges on the circles are a single pixel in size. Would it look less jaggered if I say, made the coloured border circle 500x500 pixels and then made them 10% smaller?
PS: Map work is much more important at this stage of the creation process, as you can always return to the detail of unit pictures.
Yeah changing anything on the map leads to having to start up gimp and do editing, run the map creator in tripleA to generate the center and polygon files, whereas for the code I just pop it in easily.
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If you really want to be true to the small areas of WoW (I like the idea
) and make them their own territories in TripleA, then you should really make the map like 100% bigger. You could make a map like 9000x9000 if you cut the water (if this is the intention?). I don't really think that the less sharp map image is huge problem, actually the bit blurred background might make the details less eye-catching and help the players keep focus on the units and borders. I get the impression that quite a few players actually don't like detail and sometimes turn details off all together. (you should also prepare the map to look at least decent without details turned on)50x50 is ok unit size, but you can go as large as 54x54 without units becoming too big to show in menus and windows (larger than 54x54 will get pixels cut during various displays)
It would be much better if the units were like 500×500 and then scaled down to what you want. Gimp should do a fine job. You can also scale you original unit avatars up/down to fit the large circles and then scale it all down at ounce. When I made my Dragon War images, I added the small unit type symbols (like L and H) afterwards. Sadly I did not use Gimp when I made my units, but I used an inferior program and I am not that satisfied with he sharpness of my units and circle edges. So I actually think your units could be made to look better.
I know it is tedious work redoing stuff, but I am sure you will find the end result all worth it
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Its been a couple months since I posted an update and truthfully I havent done any more work on the map, mostly due to being disheartened after finding the initial graphic work I did was too small.
However due to the recent world events I find myself with lots more free time and more spirit to continue so their will be more updates.
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@Zaroph said in Warcraft: Lordaeron Wars - Official Thread:
Its been a couple months since I posted an update and truthfully I havent done any more work on the map, mostly due to being disheartened after finding the initial graphic work I did was too small.
Don't get disheartened. My first two projects had to be essentially taken back to the drawing board after my initial attempts were fraught with issues. Persisting on and seeing it to the end will more than compensate for whatever frustrations you might be feeling right now.
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@Zaroph Melius abundare quam deficere.
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After finding motivation over the past 2/3 weeks Ive been resuming this project by doing bits of work every now and then.
Now, the first version is almost complete. The only remaining major thing to do is finishing the notes section so that a player is clear about everything in the map.And also minor things like:
- Removing the PU values of mountains that I've missed.
- Unit placements in Gilneas, Hinterlands and East Plaguelands.
- Custom placements for a few territories so that they dont start overstacking after the first placement. (This can be seen in the top right of my second screenshot)
- Making some units for future factions that are in Lordaeron, such as Dwarves which control Dun Garok and Aerie Peak so that those territories have unit presences.
After releasing a initial 0.1a version, there are other short term goals I have in mind before hopefully proceeding to do my long term goal of doing the entire Eastern Kingdoms area:
- Look at the base line stats of units + support/targeted attacks once again since this was a depriotised thing for me since its much simpler and easy to change. My suspicion from initial testing is that after the early land grabs and fights, its difficult to relocate units to other fronts so I was thinking of having a timed event on turn 10/15 that increases the movement of units by 1.
- Probably look at sea zones again since I did them rather arbitrary and I have a feeling that some of them have poor sizes and connections.
- Add in 2 (3 if spawned by another) unique units for each faction. This is tricky in some cases, but one that I am sure on is the "Scourge" faction having a "Necromancer" unit that either creates free weak "Skeletons" per turn or interacts in some manner with the # of TUV or PU destroyed in a battle containing it.
- Add in some sort of unique mechanic for each faction. In this case, I am relatively sure on one of them: The "TrollTribes" faction will be able to select which major and minor tribes they start the game with, with an option to have them all (if a player wants to and probably for the ai) and a option that limits the numbers they can pick.
- After this, write some random events such as "Faction gains/loses X/Y/Z PU", neutral faction related events such as bandit raids spawning bandit units or murloc raids spawning murloc units on a coast territory etc.
2 Latest screenshots.
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Is this downloadable yet? Thanks!
