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Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

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Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby crispybits on Fri Apr 05, 2013 12:34 pm

Map Name: Zombies!

Mapmaker(s): Crispybits (+ others?)

Number of Territories: Large, possibly around 80-100+

Special Features: Decay, auto-deploy, bombard, conditional borders, objective victory

What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: Originality of concept and gameplay, and hopefully decent gameplay experience too - looking to flesh it out somewhat here

Map Image:

Click image to enlarge.
image


OK, we all know the back story. You wake up in your house within a small gated community and the world has gone all to hell, with zombies rampaging everywhere, and now you are faced with a fight for survival. Can you manage to firstly escape wherever you started, and then find supplies and make your way through town, with others competing for the same survival basics.

First and foremost the artwork is VERY basic right now, I will sort this out but I want to get the playability right first.

There are a number of different kinds of territories on this map, so lets work through them 1 by one.

H territories: These are the houses in the community you live in. There are 8 starter houses, and each player, regardless of the number of players, will get one of these. These are marked with a * in the garden. All of the other houses, and any starter house not occupied will be a 4 troop neutral at the start. The houses have a +2 autodeploy, and if at any point you hold no houses, and none of the 5 special buildings on the freeway, you will be eliminated from the game immediately. Houses can assault their own gardns, and can assault the adjacent road directly if the garden around the house is held.

G territories: These are the gardens of the houses. These are not able to be secured against zombies, and so will suffer a 9,999,999 troop decay (effectively infinite decay). They will start as 3 troop neutrals. Gardens cannot attack adjacent gardens, only the roads that border them and the houses within them.

There are 44 houses and gardens on the current map, 36 not including the starter houses. I would like to reduce this by one (or increase it by 4) so that I have a multiple of 5 not including the starter houses. I will do this in a future graphical version of the map (and the reason for this will become clear when I talk about the 5 special buildings out on the freeway)

R territories: This is the road around the community. These are 2 troop killer neutrals.

Gate: This is the entrance to the community. It starts at 10 neutral, and gets no autodeploys or decays.

F territories: This is the freeway. There are zombies out here too, but they get less concentrated as you move further from the community. They are all killer neutrals. F5 has 10 troops. F4 and F6 have 8 troops, F3 and F7 have 6 troops, F2 and F8 have 4 troops, and F1 and F9 have 2 troops.

CP territories: These are the car parks for the 5 special buildings. They work the same as the gardens, with an infinite decay, and allow access to the building within them. These will start as 3 troop neutrals.

Hospital/Police/Mall/Market/Office: These are the 5 special territories. They start as 10 troop neutrals. Now I can explain why I want a multiple of 5 for the neutral houses and gardens. Each of these will have a colour, and will have a bonus effect depending on what houses and gardens you hold (note there are no colours on the image of the map right now, so just imagine the houses and gardens are randomly coloured in these five different colours and the colour of a house will be different to the colour of it's own garden):

Hospital: All green houses owned by that player are boosted to +4 autodeploy. + 1 troop deployment per 2 green gardens.

Police: All blue gardens have the decay rate removed. Can bombard any CP territory.

Mall: +1 troop deployment per red house OR garden territory

Office: All yellow houses and gardens can attack / reinforce to each other.

Market: All pink houses are boosted to +3 autodeploy. Can bombard any garden.

The victory condition for winning the map without wiping our your opponent is to control all 5 of these special buildings.

Bonuses:
All of 1 colour of house +5
All of 1 colour of garden +3
1 of each colour of house +4
1 of each colour of garden +2

That's about all I have in mind right now. It's my first real attempt to get a map through the foundry, so please be constructive, but don't pull any punches! :)
Last edited by crispybits on Mon Apr 15, 2013 7:53 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - concept only

Postby greenoaks on Fri Apr 05, 2013 7:10 pm

i dont see this working. atm i am picturing a map determined by dice fail.

you'll need to put up images to help us picture your vision.
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - concept only

Postby crispybits on Sat Apr 06, 2013 4:38 am

OK here goes, I've tried to tidy it up by using Excel to draw it (like I said I'm limited to plain squares and notes, can't draw to save my life)

Image removed as new map is now in first post

The autodeploy on the 4 specials should probably be higher (maybe 10), did the image before working out the bonuses.

The numbers in each zone are how many neutrals start the game there.

The yellow and orange houses all have infinite decay, as do the 4 specials. Buildings on the same block cannot attack each other, you have to go out into the road and back in again, except where I've put the little green marks which indicate a pathway through a broken wall or fence or something like that. The red rooftops have no decay and can bombard any neighbouring red rooftop (including diagonals), and the central ones can bombard the helipad, so for example the police station rooftop can bombard the rooftops at R2, T1, M2, L3, K3 or the helipad. The rooftop at C2 can bombard rooftops at D2, B4, E2, Q1 or the hospital. The rooftop at F1 can bombard E2, G2, S2, hospital or supermarket.

As you get closer to the centre of the city the killer neutrals get tougher and tougher because there's more zombies swarming there.

Deploys would be roughly as follows:

1 troop per 3 terts (min 3) - standard basically
per any 1 completed yellow block (including rooftop) = +1
Q1 or T1 (including rooftop) = +3
R block or S block (including rooftop) = +5

I would have liked to put some vehicles on the road for additional stopping off points as mentioned in the OP, but I think it might be difficult to make the artwork clear for them so kinda abandoned them. Would be interested in putting them back in if possible though. I also realise the green bits give advantages to some starting positions right now - I can change where they connect no probs. A final note would be that the rooftops can only bombard - you can't attack or reinforce back down into the building, so once you have troops there they are stuck there (kinda like the AA guns/cannons in Stalingrad)
Last edited by crispybits on Mon Apr 15, 2013 7:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby crispybits on Sun Apr 07, 2013 4:51 am

Right couple of quick updates - image has been edited above.

Moves the start zones so we can have 8 players

Updated the autodeploys and the KN values on the roads near blocks F and N - I think the 2KNs next to Q and T should also be beefed up to 4?

Got rid of the green connectors - now considering a tunnel network or an external ring road (a highway maybe allowing me to add vehicles like I originally wanted?) as the corner buildings are inaccesible from anywhere as they dont connect to a road and you can't attack directly from building to building.

Also drop the Q and T bonuses from +3 to +2 each?
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby greenoaks on Sun Apr 07, 2013 5:06 am

a zombie map might be interesting but there is nothing 'zombie' about this map.

the map is dead boring, and not the walking dead kind.
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby crispybits on Sun Apr 07, 2013 6:08 am

How would you suggest improving that? More irregularity? Is it just the map that is wrong or is there some other aspect?

I think the infinite decays, limited safe zones where troops get "stuck" and killer neutrals would be consistent with a zombie theme, so if it's just the map layout then I can go back to the drawing board for that, but if you think the whole concept is off I'll drop it.
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby greenoaks on Sun Apr 07, 2013 6:55 am

crispybits wrote:How would you suggest improving that? More irregularity? Is it just the map that is wrong or is there some other aspect?

I think the infinite decays, limited safe zones where troops get "stuck" and killer neutrals would be consistent with a zombie theme, so if it's just the map layout then I can go back to the drawing board for that, but if you think the whole concept is off I'll drop it.

the Realms maps are great, as are the King's Court. Feudal War is great, Feudal Epic not so much.

one of the great things about the maps above is that every starting position has a different strategy. as an individual or team you need to decide which of your starting castles is best. not just which is internally best but which is best against what the other side potentially has. rotate your map and it is exactly the same.

boring.

this needs to be irregular. you are going to have to learn Gimp to achieve that. no one else is going to do the graphics for you. ;)
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby crispybits on Sun Apr 07, 2013 7:04 am

OK, I'll learn that at the point where I need to, for now I'll use pen/paper scans/excel/paint/whatever I do know how to get the concept right. No use getting the artwork perfect on a map with no playability. Once I have a kick-ass but graphically poor concept map I can learn to draw :-P

Will come back with an updated map shortly.
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby mint-murray on Tue Apr 09, 2013 4:36 pm

Similar to my own idea i had for Zombie map, which would have played like Labyrinth - resources such as provisions guns, ammo. Zombie zones either nukeing or decay. Ill study your ideas more at weekend and help out anyway i can. Not great with graphic, but will come back with other suggestions to add atmosphere to map.
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby crispybits on Thu Apr 11, 2013 4:49 pm

Getting a concept down now for a different map but a planned weekend away will delay things - I haven't given up on this!
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby crispybits on Mon Apr 15, 2013 7:49 pm

OK update to the first post made, hopefully a less boring map, though gameplay has changed around a fair bit. I think it's different enough to other maps to be a worthwhile project still. Look forward to getting some feedback so I can continue to improve it :)
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby greenoaks on Mon Apr 15, 2013 8:25 pm

crispybits wrote:OK update to the first post made, hopefully a less boring map, though gameplay has changed around a fair bit. I think it's different enough to other maps to be a worthwhile project still. Look forward to getting some feedback so I can continue to improve it :)

8 starting houses is too few. bump it up to 12 and they'll be mystery on where teams are starting from.
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby crispybits on Mon Apr 15, 2013 8:25 pm

OK will do when I do the second draft of this artwork
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby kizkiz on Fri Apr 26, 2013 9:08 am

I agree with what someone said above. Any zombie map needs cache of weapons for small +1 deployment bonuses
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby waauw on Sat Apr 27, 2013 11:25 am

I got a couple of issues with this map:
  • Why would anyone go to the CP's if the bonuses there are so small and cost so much? Also it would take waaaay too long to get there
  • I think people will just move down the road searching gardens and killing other people in their houses, so if one guy immediately gets a good card set, he might be able to immediately take people out fairly early in the game
  • this seems like one of those maps where you get screwed if you get nuked
  • Some people's houses are further from the gate then those of others, which seems unfair

    some suggestions:
  • How about adding victory objectives or bigger bonuses beyond the gate? like +40 for example, that should make it worth the effort
  • to reduce the bad luck of nukes, maybe let people start with 2-3 houses instead of just 1
  • I'd love it if there were houses(neutrals to start with) with special bonuses like for example the house of a shotgunowner will give more troops due or some houses with dogs or something
  • maybe make sure that there are cars on the road, and if you take one you can immediately attack the gate(rapid get-away car to flee the neighbourhood). and make sure that cars don't decay as people are safely hidden within them.
  • also I suggest gardens can attack each other but they can only attack those adjacent, roads

Anyway, I really love the basic lay-out design you got here. I think this has potential.
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Re: Zombies! [5 Apr 2013] - very basic artwork

Postby ViperOverLord on Tue May 07, 2013 4:53 pm

This map may not work. But I am of the opinion that we could use a good zombie map.
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