Singleplayer Map Creation Contest - First Edition

[Mart]

First edition of Singleplayer Map Creation Contest

Requirements:

• Maps are standard format, 40x80 tiles. For SMAX
• Maps must be original, never submitted anywhere before.
• Remaining map settings are up to its author:
  - ocean coverage
  - erosive forces
  - native life
  - cloud cover
  However, the author has to specifically write what settings he/she has chosen
• Map must be first generated by the game, then it can be changed in the editor. There is a bug, I believe, if you do otherwise.
• No terraforming or human installations:
  - no boreholes, apart from borehole clusters
  - no roads, mag tubes, farms, condensors, etc.
  - alien installations allowed: borehole clusters, manifold nexus,...
  - multiple landmarks allowed together with author created new ones
• Each contestant can submit one map
• Map submission:
  To me on gmail address:
  marcin777 TA gmail TOD com
  Please, do not post it here.
• Ruling:
  Each contestant will receive all maps set from me, so he/she cannot know the author.
  Maps will be graded in 2 categories:
  - how much you like the map, 0 - 10 (zero to ten) points
  - is map adequate for play and sufficiently enhancing AI, 0 - 10 (zero to ten) points
  For the second grade, each contestant will be asked by me to play 3 singleplayer games on 3 selected by me maps. The games must be started by the game option "Start New Game", no manipulating with scenario editor.
  Settings:
  - map not visible
  - accelerated start is OFF
  the rest of settings as you wish
  *some explanation here, how to grade that second category. Play the game, make saves often. Later load them and with scenario editor observe, if AI was playing good, it had enough base-good locations etc. The point is, that in Singleplayer game can place you anywhere, so any location on the map should be made realising that both human and AI can play there.
  I plan each map tested in second category by 3 different players. Then there will be final grade 0-20 based on all grades.
• All maps will be included in Singleplayer Map collection. By joining the contest you agree for this.
• You are encouraged to comment maps, when giving them a grade, however, I would like anonymously post these comments in final rulling, so other people and authors can have more feedback on them.

============
Final notes.
1) This is in order to make more good singleplayer maps. I know there are people, who play only singleplayer, and they could use such maps.
2) Please be objective in your grading. Winning this contest will be for sure nice, but being a fair judge is more important here, I think.
3) Have fun when making a map.
4) I reserve here the right to grade the maps, but I will not be participating as contestant. I will only coordinate the contest.
5) Deadline for map submission.
None so far. However, I feel some time before "Unity" departs to Alpha Centauri. When I decide, there is need for deadline, I will post it at least 2 weeks before it.

[Mart]

Reserved for reports
I will post here contestants, etc.

[Mart]

You may find useful tips how to make a map more interesting in the article by Googlie in SMAC Academy
Link to article

I will also write some more remarks about my experiences with creating maps. In future posts.

The more I make maps the more I find it difficult. Making the map interesting is maybe only a matter of time, when you make it more rich in features. What is more difficult is to make good sites for AI to establish bases, for example, and balance it so various factions can grow at the level you desire.
Additional difficulty is to make a map, where in singleplayer the game places sufficiently scattered starting locations. I do not think they are hardcoded in original maps, and although they have their improved versions, I consider the original maps very well made. Sometimes a game starts with bad faction placements, but mostly they are ok.
Another very nice map is Rob's World, by Slimehorse. My favourite. AI plays very good on it.

[Illuminatus]

Thread stickied.

I am glad to announce that from now on, I am going to cover all future community projects, completed challenges and modifications with news reports.

[Net Warrior]

mart7x5,
I'm not actually interested in making a 40x80 map since I only play huges map PBEM's these days. Howerer, this thread has inspired me to try my hand at map making. I'm concerned about your comment: "Map must be first generated by the game, then it can be changed in the editor. There is a bug, I believe, if you do otherwise." To clarify, are you saying that I should start a new game and then clear everything off that map with the senario editor?

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Net Warrior
are you saying that I should start a new game and then clear everything off that map with the senario editor?

No. You go into the Scenario Editor and then generate a map (follow Googlie's instructions per his writeup in the SMAC Academy ). If you don't like the randomly generated map (i.e. its not close enough to what you have in mind for a map) then hit the "zero" button on your keyboard repeatedly until you get a starting map of your liking. Then edit away (and save often, as the editor is prone to crashing).

And remember that once you start putting units onto the map you need to save it as a scenario, otherwise if you try and save a map with units on it, the units will not be saved to the map file.

Good Luck!


D

[ForesterSOF]

You need to look at the map programs I have collected.

You do not need to have CIV even installed to make a C4 map.

[Mart]

map: Juno
size: 40x80 (standard)
ocean coverage: 50-70%, close to 65-70.
erosion: moderate
cloud cover: dense, added rivers
native life: abundant

Remarks
Added some natural landmarks, more monoliths.
Testing showed interesting developments during Transcend level games. I tested it several game starts playing like 50-60 turns and they gave decent challenge. However I did not optimize the map completely. I noticed AI still is often undecided where to place a base and misses some good spots spending a lot of time driving colony pods around.

-----
This map is here outside the contest, since I made it. I hope, which is HOPE ("hope") that it will convice some people that making maps may be very fun, challenging and gratifying. Because it is not only to play good for a player. The challenge is to make a map that AI plays good, it pleases player's eye and makes a feeling of an interesting place.

-----
Finding more and more about map creating I think I may write an article about it. I have already started one about land transports, that I should complete first.

[Mart]

Meanwhile, a new map to try. It's custom size, 30x60, and the base row length is 10. Description:
-----------------------------
SMAX Map from - Single Player Map Collection
Name: Genesis_map, version 1
Author: Mart
Submitted: January, 2009

Data:
Size - (Custom), 30x60
Ocean- 50-70%,
Erosion - Average
Clouds - Dense, added rivers
Native Life - Abundant

Description by Mart:
This map has been originally created for SMAniaC mod play. It is a dificult map with abundant native life.
Starting locations have been designed in a way that computer generated games distribute factions properly without unequal locations. Also 3 aquatic factions may be easily located on the map.
The map is small, however, abundant native life and fungus placement give a feeling of a size bigger than 30x60.
------------------------------------------

I tested the map a bit in Smaniac, not yet in SMAC.
Any reports of how the map performs in your games is welcomed

[Russia4Life]

Interesting contest. I do not much care for the really small maps, although, I may give it a shot. I didn't see anything about a deadline so I am assuming that this is still available for submission. The only question I have is, do we have to edit generated maps? I would rather start from scratch with all ocean tiles and build all the terrain up myself.

[Wobbo]

I prefer huge maps, perhaps the rules could be expanded?

Trying out you map now

[Wobbo]

Ok finished my first game on your map Juno Mart... fun map, Good Job! I want to upload a finished saved game but Apolyton won't allow Alpha Centauri saves (wtf?!).

Some comments:

- The AI seems to play really well, this was a more challenging game than some I've had in the past, the Cult in particular really wrecked shop.
- Why are there "rocky" squares in the monsoon Jungle? I thought this was widely understood to be a bug, since there obviously shouldn't be mountains inside a jungle...
- Not enough water, even for a standard sized map there should be a more realistic ratio of water to land. Interestingly this contributed to the map "feeling" bigger than it really was, and therefore was not really a bad thing.
- Opponents were spaced out perfectly, not too far, not too close, just like the original standard.
- Good use of natural bonuses and items, really rewards ICS imo.

(Note: I played in Manic's Mod SMANIAC, although that shouldn't really effect my comments as far as I can tell, except that it made fungus more useful)

[Mart]

Wobbo,

Thank you for playing on the maps created here and posting your comments.
Juno is quite older map, I can see, that it was made in 2006. I need to check it - I forgot how it looks...

You mention, that AI were spaced out well, that is a good thing! I put more attention to that in Genesis map, where I tested many times how smac generates random games. However, Genesis map is even smaller.

zip files can be posted. Afaik, civ4 saves can be posted directly, since they are already packed by some internal file compressor. Smac does not have that, and this is probably why Apoly prohibits posting sav files directly.