This is a series of maps (currently 4) in which I showcase the types of things you can do by controlling cliff placement in a random map. Normally it's quite difficult to get cliffs to generate where you want them to in a map and I have only recently worked out how to do this. I haven't seen many (any?) maps that do this to a great extent.
In any case, my hope is to use cliff placement to create interesting and unusual game play opportunities.
Currently I have 4 different maps available:
Cliff Rush
The center of the map is filled with densely packed cliffs, while the outside is water. There is plenty of gold in the cliffs, but not all of it is accessible. This is intentional. Some of it will never be accessible while other gold piles will only become accessible after blocking piles have been mined away. The intention is to ensure a steady trickle of gold all the way into the late game because it is so difficult to efficiently mine gold in the center. This will protect it from being depleted too quickly.
Cliff Arena
It's Arena, but the outside forest is absolutely packed with cliffs. This makes wood a much scarcer resource and forces more of the action into the center of the map. There is a chance of getting palisade walls or no walls at all, instead of the usual stone walls.
Cliff Alps
An icy mountain range (well, cliff range) divides the teams. It cannot be easily walled, however it still provides defensive opportunities in that you only have to guard a limited number of mountain passes. In a FFA, each player is separated by the mountain range.
Rocky Fort
A frozen map where players start with walls that are part cliff and part wall. Players on the same team start in the same fort. Sometimes the gates are in inconvenient/unusable places. The map was designed by Lildbehr with a few minor improvements by me.
Cliffscape
Randomly selects one of the 4 maps above. You can easily modify the percentages if you want to.
Feedback is welcome and appreciated.
If you have any questions about how I made these maps or if you have any map suggestions, let me know!
Wow! These look pretty cool, have you put how to organise cliffs in your guide? I would like to try making some maps like this.
Zetnus File Author
Posted on 05/25/15 @ 04:42 PM
I haven't explicitly laid out out how to do it; however all the information you need should already be there. Namely:
-Cliffs are placed after lands but before terrain
-Cliffs avoid lands made of any water terrain (including ice) and also avoid player start areas
-min_terrain_distance can be used to control how far cliffs stay away from water
Using these three bits of information, along with some clever replacement of terrains is enough to do some pretty cool things with cliffs.
EDIT - I've written a guide about cliffs: http://aok.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forums/display.cgi?action=ct&f=26,42261,0,365