I wasn't sure whether to put this in the scenario design thread but I decided it was better here. This post is all about in game map design (hence the name). Basically this involves (for those of us who make defined bases) you base look as eye pleasing as possible in an rm or online game. I know it sounds wired but it’s fun, especially for people like me who turtle and need something to do while they wait for the enemy to wear themselves down. Here I will discuss things that I do 'strategies', if you will, and ask for anyone else's work in this field.
Here it is Squid Empires guide to In Game Map Design.
Firstly some basics: I use small buildings like granaries, planted then deleted, to create strait paths or roads. Bigger buildings are used for large paved areas. The rotate buildings in game mod is very much recommended as it lets you join buildings much more realistically. Also no one wants their houses from door to back up into their neighbors.
The single most annoying thing when trying to pave and area is tree patches. Once the trees have been cut down, not only do they leave an invincible tree stump, but the terrain they are planted on (be it pine, palm, oak or beech) never disappears. Many is the time one road from a town will disappear into a once-wooded patch and reappear on the other side. The best you can do for this is build something over it, or use some god power like plenty vault or healing spring. And what if the patch is far away from your town? Build a tower as a checkpoint on your road or, if you are the Greeks, a storehouse that could be a kind of roadside ‘refuelling’ station.
A note on town centres: I like to link most of my town centres with roads that are as strait and direct as possible, so that any lama/camel/ox caravans travel on it. Also don’t use all your houses on your main town centre, save a few for you lesser towns. It makes them look must better than a bare tc.
With trees, you may be tempted to leave a few in you base, and although these look nice, you must be careful where you leave them or else you’ll get that terribly blue shadow appearing behind them whenever a citizen moves from his/her farm etc. On the subject of farms, I usually leave them for my outer cities (country towns) and build them in rows, not clumps.
You may find it nice to put a temple in a few of your
city’s … DON’T. Although all the teams’ temples look nice and townie earlier on once you reach age 4 they become more like monasteries and look really dumb in your lesser towns unless they are huge, like your main town centres)
Now the different civs and their advantages and disadvantages in regard to their ability to make nice city’s in game.
Atlantians: The Atlantians, specifically Kronos, are my favourite team for in game map design. With Kronos ‘time shift’ ability you can make use of those cool major god statues or tents given to you at the start of some maps. Their disadvantage is that you can only build 5 (or so) manors. This makes it hard to make a city look really prosperous but I make do with markets and armorys. Their last level wall is particularly good at looking like a marker of or pillar (see screenshot 2). I also love their automatons which look great marching up and down your city streets. One problem though; Gaia almost entirely destroys in game map design with her creep and I still haven’t figured out how to make Oranos’s sky passage look good in a city.
Egyptians:Another one of my favourites, the Egyptian monument look really good in almost any city plus their obelisks look good in front of a temple, wonder, titan gate or even in the streets as ‘street lights’. One thing with the Egyptians; please only do in game map editing on desert maps. There is nothing that looks worse than Egyptian mud brick houses on snowy plains.
Greek:I don’t really like using the Greek much. Their buildings and houses appear too blocky and white to use successfully in the last ages. Other than that they are not too bad. When you use the Plenty Vault power (who actually picks anyone other than Herspities) you combine it with a few granary’s and storage houses and it can look very cool. Their Titan gate is probably the best looking for its team and it blends well into city roads.
Norse:The Norse are a difficult team and surprisingly they don’t look too good on snow, then again no one really does. Their limited building options might make it harder but not really. Who has ever seen a Norse city? They lived in towns not cities, so the best Norse maps are usually on Islands or some other seafaring map and they have sparse buildings spaced out well. I love the Norse dwarven armoury. They link really well together, rotated, and look really cool. Aside from that there isn’t much to the Norse.
Well that’s it for now; the screenshots below are a bit old and were taken when I was still experimenting. I hope you’ve found this post to be entertaining, thought-provoking and above all enlightening. Please comment with you own ideas or screenshots.
1. Here is a titan gate with walls around as Kronos. Note the patrolling Automatons and row of temples.
Here is a lesser town from the same game. Note the road and pillars made from walls.
PICTURES BELOW ADDED ON 18 MARCH
Here is a possible solution to the dreaded forest terrain problem. I just removed the stumps (place foundation then remove) and built the road as I would normally. The result is what appears to be a snowed over road.
[PNG, (1.26 MB)]
Just a nice way to use the healing spring.
[PNG, (1.79 MB)]
Here is an interesting road ides. I love the Norse walls!
Here it is Squid Empires guide to In Game Map Design.
Firstly some basics: I use small buildings like granaries, planted then deleted, to create strait paths or roads. Bigger buildings are used for large paved areas. The rotate buildings in game mod is very much recommended as it lets you join buildings much more realistically. Also no one wants their houses from door to back up into their neighbors.
The single most annoying thing when trying to pave and area is tree patches. Once the trees have been cut down, not only do they leave an invincible tree stump, but the terrain they are planted on (be it pine, palm, oak or beech) never disappears. Many is the time one road from a town will disappear into a once-wooded patch and reappear on the other side. The best you can do for this is build something over it, or use some god power like plenty vault or healing spring. And what if the patch is far away from your town? Build a tower as a checkpoint on your road or, if you are the Greeks, a storehouse that could be a kind of roadside ‘refuelling’ station.
A note on town centres: I like to link most of my town centres with roads that are as strait and direct as possible, so that any lama/camel/ox caravans travel on it. Also don’t use all your houses on your main town centre, save a few for you lesser towns. It makes them look must better than a bare tc.
With trees, you may be tempted to leave a few in you base, and although these look nice, you must be careful where you leave them or else you’ll get that terribly blue shadow appearing behind them whenever a citizen moves from his/her farm etc. On the subject of farms, I usually leave them for my outer cities (country towns) and build them in rows, not clumps.
You may find it nice to put a temple in a few of your
city’s … DON’T. Although all the teams’ temples look nice and townie earlier on once you reach age 4 they become more like monasteries and look really dumb in your lesser towns unless they are huge, like your main town centres)
Now the different civs and their advantages and disadvantages in regard to their ability to make nice city’s in game.
Well that’s it for now; the screenshots below are a bit old and were taken when I was still experimenting. I hope you’ve found this post to be entertaining, thought-provoking and above all enlightening. Please comment with you own ideas or screenshots.
1. Here is a titan gate with walls around as Kronos. Note the patrolling Automatons and row of temples.
Here is a lesser town from the same game. Note the road and pillars made from walls.
Here is a possible solution to the dreaded forest terrain problem. I just removed the stumps (place foundation then remove) and built the road as I would normally. The result is what appears to be a snowed over road.
Just a nice way to use the healing spring.
Here is an interesting road ides. I love the Norse walls!
[This message has been edited by Squid Empire (edited 03-18-2011 @ 07:52 AM).]