Map: The Great Escape
Description:
can you survive without resources surrounded by six hostile forces? can you outproduce seven opponents when you have every possible disadvantage? Intended to give a big challenge to a human (blue) playing 1v7 against AI. It makes no sense otherwise. HINTS: follow the dry riverbed to the sea. make a port, settle the islands. you have no coal, so you'll need charcoal burners. the enemies have more resources than you, so you should be fast in killing them. standing stones in the starting valley indicate resources. Play this map only if you are really good, or suicidal.
Comment by uploader:
this map is intended for competitive game of a human player (blue) against 7 computers. it makes no sense otherwise.
there are many balanced maps, but only few intended to give a hard time to a human in single player mode. those few (anchor and turtle mountain are the only ones i know) rely on close start and limited space to make your life difficult, but once you can establish an economy, they become easy. I wanted a map that would still be difficult even in the late game. So I gave the human every possible disadvantage. Need to abandon the starting land and relocate elsewhere? Making sure (by forcing you to abandon your starting land) that you will start establishing your economy hours after your opponents? Check. No coal mines? Check. Land divided in various islands, to force you to deal with the idiosyncrasies of boat transport? Check. Rugged land to limit building space? Check. Limited mineral resources? Check.
Furthermore, I wanted the game to still be difficult after you kill the first AI player, so I gave the first enemies you encounter limited resources, and more resources to those that come later. So if you take too much time to kill, you won't be able to conquer any new ores, and you won't be able to make new soldiers to kill the other players. Of course, you could always use exhausted mines for a 5% chance of production; and since the computer does not do it, you will eventually overtake it. But that's easy and does not morally count as "winning the map".
In the end, this is probably the hardest map uploaded to date (but it is winnable, I playtested it). Play this map only if you are
1) very good, AND looking for a challenge, or
2) a masochist
Basic Information:
| Author: | King of nowhere |
| World: | One World |
| Dimensions: | 256 x 256 |
| Max. Players: | 8 |
| Downloads: | 1387 |
| Comments: | 11 |
| Rating: | |
| Upload: | by king_of_nowhere at 2015-07-15, 12:49 |
Comments on this Map:
einstein13 |
Yes, the map is very interesting and for almost 100% I will play it soon, but for me the performance of the map (look) is a bit too artificial. You had perfect idea, but you should work a bit to create more realistic riverbed, mountains and so on. |
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Tomash |
Played on bzr7484[trunk] release. Eradicated the other players one by one in against-side-clock direction, and finally the white one. Out of the head: blocked out black one, attacked green one shortly before arena construction finished, then finished black one and started working on green while keeping away from yellow where possible. First thing I did was building basic arena and upgrading couple soldiers there, to keep losses at minimum, still attacking green one to crush their arena cost a bit. Upgraded arena fast, from their on there was little problem. By the time I finished black green and yellow, orange one was near already but I kept them at bay by planting forest on that side (or, basically, replanted what was there originally but harvested by that time). |
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king_of_nowhere |
i tried that in playtesting, and failed. I could kill two players, but the remaining two killed me. another possible unconventional way of winning could be running away from the first 4 players, making an arena/labirinth while on the march, kill the orange or purple, and take their land. I did not playtest that possibility. However, my purpose was to make a challenging map, and alll those other strategies are no easier than the one i envisioned. so it's not bad that it can be won in other ways, as long as they also are difficult. |
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Tomash |
Something I rarely do, had to build more massive economy for this map, 2x armor smithy and 2x weapon smithy (still just one training camp). It felt that helped (though I play intuitively mostly, don't crunch numbers about economics so to speak). It helped that the white one was relatively slow at getting there through the rock wall. And that the red one seemed relatively slow (I didn't advance toward them myself) and they sent most soldiers to forts around the mining area on the left side, which I noticed, ignored that side and attacked from the other side. Good challenging map, thanks! |
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Granada |
Nice challenging map and I also had to think a bit on how to attack best and how to best build up my economy. I erased the other players clockwise gaining fast access to the coal and iron north and northwest of the starting position. After that I could build a training camp and sit back a bit, the rest was quite easy. Fastest way to erase white and orange in the end is to build a massive economy with a massive production of iron, coal and weapons. In the end I had three training camps. But anyways thank you for uploading the map, finally a challenging map again. |
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Tomash |
Wanted to test the idea of following riverbed and settling islands, but changed mind in the middle. Just upgraded a couple of soldiers than eradicated the player in the south. That seems easiest way so far, if you move everything to the riverbed you end up only facing one opponent from the right instead of three, and there is plenty of time before the player from the north reaches riverbed. |
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king_of_nowhere |
The most difficult setting for this map is playing barbarian against 7 atlanteans, settling the islands (no taking shortcuts like tomash did), so you have the added difficulty of barbarian soldiers being weaker and more expensive. Took me several tries before managing, and some 40 hours of game. |
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Granada |
Yes, that one is tough, but manageable. I think the main task is to prevent white from crossing his rock border, then the rest is quite easy. |
WorldSavior |
Just played with barbarians on it, defeated a team of normal atlantean AIs. Great map! It wasn't necessary to play the escape-strategy, I just fought them down normally... I managed the same already two times with atlanteans against teams of normal random-tribe AIs and with empire it's probably easier than with barbarians. |
Kralle |
Ich gegen den Rest als Team (KI): Dem Flußbett entlang wie empfohlen ist völlig sinnlos. Dauert 5 Stunden - bis dahin ist der Gegner schon voll aufgerüstet. Es ist schwer aber man kann es so schaffen: Schnellstmöglichst die schwarzen Gegner im Süden angreifen und erledigen, das eigene Hauptquartier aufgeben. Auch die grünen Gegner muß man gleich in die Schranken weisen. Man hat dann zwar praktisch keine Soldaten mehr, aber etwas Ruhe zum Aufbauen. Schlösser am Rande bauen um Gegner auf Distanz zu halten. Die Inseln braucht man nicht! Sehr herausfordernd! |
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Hey! very interesting map and idea!!!
other players: I would be glad to have some feedback if you managed to win over 7 (teamed) AIs. So if you can stop by and leave a comment here, please.
There is another bunch of AI changes stuck in review process, and these should improve the performance further...
Oh also, write down a revision number...
Thanks