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Topic #1: Map Design and Resources

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Topic #1: Map Design and Resources

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

The maps for Ashes are being designed in a way that is similar to what we did with Sins of a Solar Empire. They are, in effect, a web.  However, since we take place on land, we decided to organize them as regions ala Company of Heroes.

Since our economic model is similar to that in Total Annihilation, we have some interesting map design options available to us.

Here is the way we're currently doing maps:

  • You have your seed region which has 4 metal deposits. 
  • This is attached to your "natural" expansion region which will have N resources (currently 1 radioactive and 2 metal is the thought). 
  •  Your natural is then accessible to multiple regions.
  • Other regions will have Y resources in them.

One of the first questions we'll be looking to answer is this: How many resources should be in a region.  This is not an easy question without a lot of play through (so don't answer until you've played a bit) because we have to carefully balance the amount of resources available. We want people to expand but we don't want the game to be purely about who expands the fastest (hence, your home region and natural currently have more resources than other regions).  But at the same time, it's "fun" and rewards better players if they have more resources to have to build on.

So what are your thoughts? How many resources do you like seeing in regions? What should be the ratio between external regions and your seed and natural regions?

 

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Reply #26 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I agree...on medium map even though my strategy seems to be working in the long haul, the loss of victory points ends the game way too soon....or maybe increase to more then 1000?

Reply #27 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

The network of nodes map design suggests to me that this game is supposed to be able to support very, very large maps. It's not really necessary with so few nodes, but it would be invaluable for giving structure to very large maps.

Having very large maps will also have a dramatic effect on the economy of the game, because your home base isn't really that important compared to controlling large amounts of territory. Capturing territory, or at least neutralizing enemy territory, becomes vastly more important than attacking the enemy's base directly. You wouldn't normally expect to see a large army marching directly on the enemy HQ (unless something has gone very wrong), although I guess bombers or something might be able to reach far behind enemy lines and damage enemy bases.

 

The other important effect of very large maps is the amount of time necessary for units to drive across the map. Slow land units would be making significant commitments by moving about on the map, such as choosing to advance an army into enemy territory. The other player can then make choices knowing where the army is, and that it can't reach distant locations in a reasonable amount of time, such as attacking the base it deployed from.

For strategic mobility, transports would be essential in order to move long distances. This creates a useful, important type of asset that provides very different functionality from just making more tanks. And transports do not contribute directly to the army blob; they are a soft target you can attempt to outmaneuver and destroy, rather than a hard target that you construct to contribute directly to your military force. Resources spent on transports give a different kind of utility than just troops.

Done right, this type of large map could create a kind of gameplay reminiscent of the board game Go. Players would need to expand by leapfrogging a long distance in order to build a forward base to act as a forward expansion source. This is because driving from your main base and expanding linearly all the way across the map would be much slower than transporting directly to carefully selected forward positions and expanding from several different positions at once.

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Reply #28 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Just bare in mind i was awnsering a question made by a developer in no way i mentioned starcraft II or i want starcraft II style natural expantions.

 

In FAF you can use the term natural expantion to qualify the 6-8 mexes around your starting 4 mexes its just a terminology people use and ive seen it used in FAF and in other games.

But its fine really we dont have to discuss terms its a boring and pointless discussion. I just disliked how you associated starcraft II natural expantions to what Frogboy was saying.

And i think Frogboy in no way mentioned starcraft II in his original post.

 

Also when you have a dropship that can take tier 1 engs to take metal spots thats no longer early game. And you have at least 5 to 8 metal spots taken.

Again terms are terms and we are going in circles with this discussion.