Map: dolomites v2

I wanted this map to be faithful to real terrain, so I used google maps coordinates to ensure that the positions of the valley floors and mountain tops are exactly identical to what they are in reality. One step in game equals to about 100 meters of real distance, and one unit of game height equates to 30 meters of real height up to 2300 meters, above which everything is flat because the game allows only elevation up to 60. Mountaintops and valley floors are to scale, but not the rest of the mountains; I found that keeping the map to scale would even out the ground asperities and turn the majestic mountains into gradually sloping hills, and I tried to preserve the sense of being in narrow valleys instead. The mountain streams are of course represented as much bigger than they are in truth, because I can't make them any smaller than one tile. The lakes are instead up to scale.

I also tried to reproduce in a somewhat-recognizable way some notable geographical features like the Cinque Torri, the Serrai gorge, or the Città dei Sassi, without caring for scale there. For the Marmolada glacier I was instead able to make it look realistic while still preserving the scale.

The six players start from the locations of real towns: in order, Alleghe, Canazei, La Villa, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Arabba and Andraz. The positions of buildable terrain generally are based on real towns or hamlets located there. Some exceptions to this rule were made to ensure that all players have equal space. The main break from reality concerns Andraz (orange), which is in truth a town of 30 inhabitant. All of its terrain is mostly uninhabited, but I needed a player there for map simmetry and balance. Also the size of Arabba (black) has been considerably increased.

While artistic considerations came first, I made sure to balance the players, giving each an equal amount of buildable space and resources.

This map can support games of 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3. Several team balances can be made, the only recommendations are to split players on opposite corners of the map (blue and yellow, red and green) and to divide evenly the players in the middle (black and orange). Unfortunately the AI is bad at dealing with restricted building spaces, so it does not offer a good opponent for this map.

I consider this map my masterpiece, but I have two regrets about it. The first is that, given the size of the mountains and the scale I used, the mountain tops are often not visible to the players, unless they build towers everywhere (unlikely, with the scant building space) or they build scouts to explore unreachable terrain. Well, I could think of nothing to do about it. And I am sorry that my map does the real place little justice. But then, the dolomites would hardly be that beatuful if they could be easily captured on a widelands map.

This is an improved version of the map I posted a couple of months ago. I discovered I accidentally posted an unfinished version of the map, a backup without some of the later fixes. Differences are minor and mostly aesthetics.

Thanks are due to kaputtnik for the forested mountain terrains.