Help needed...

[Lord_Icewind]

I've already sent this post on the AC: Creation forums, but it seems no help can be given there. Can anyone here help me?

Original post:

Hi!
As I have absolutely no experience in mapmaking, I need your help guys!

The problem is I want to make an absolutely equal-chance map, but very asimetric and "real" like. It is destined for a paper RPG I want to make for some conventions here in Spain...the main idea is that all players play as a faction leader (with a possible helper/s) and they have to roleplay all the way through the game (exchanges, territorial disputes, council, etc).
It would be a rather long game, and I would give a paper to each faction explaining in detail its ideologies and what does it think about the other factions, as wel as its objectives, etc.

Terrain effects and random effects will be just the same as a Thinker level (Not all of them have played SMAC. But most have played a Civ.)
The actual gameplay would be a Hot-Seat one, but most of the roleplay and contacts between any factions would be in "realworld".
I guess it would end up in a kind of mixture between a paper rpg and the actual game, were the players of each faction would have to decide Democracy Game-ish.


Its a bit hard to explain, specially in a foreign language. but I hope
you guys get the main idea...
Thanks in advance!

[#endgame]

That's a really spiffy idea, wish I had some mapping experience to help you out.

[johndmuller]

The Poly 'tournament map', while probably no longer in use, has 4 pretty much identical islands with a little bit of everything, terrainwise and two polar strips also with an assortment of goodies. It makes for a reasonably equal start for 4 players; copies of this are presumably available somewhere.

There is also, on CGN, another equal-start map with 4 big landmasses surrounding a bunch of islands in the center. This map, used for the 'Veterans' series of games also has an assortment of landmark goodies (multiple copies of them) distributed equally to each landmass and the central islands have a band of jungle.

The landmarks are the items that would be unequal in a standard game. Certain landmarks are also more useful to some factions than to others, and so can be used to balance otherwise unequal-looking positions.

Most any map without radical differences in basic terrain (particularly raininess), can be turned into a reasonably level playing field with some judicious tinkering. For a good tutorial on using the scenario editor to do your tinkering, see Googlie's article on CGN.

[Lord_Icewind]

Why, many thanks john...I was thinking in making a map by myself as I already have the Vets map, and altough very balanced, it is too simetric.
I'll look that article...and give it a try I guess...

[livid imp]

Originally posted by Lord_Icewind
altough very balanced, it is too simetric.

This is the problem I find with all the maps I have downloaded. I wish there was a function within 'random map' to pick a number of continents