Yes, yes. After much talk and tears, it's finally time for another competition. What sort of competition, you ask? Why, a Pretty Town competition, of course. Has you read the title of the thread, you'd probably know that.

Anyway, there's really not a lot else to say.... it's basically the same as the PTCs we've held in the past with a handful of minor modifications. For more information on those contests, feel free to click m'ya and m'ya. But enough blather -- onto more important things.

Well, not exactly. See, one key stipulation of the contest is that the town must be pretty. As in appealing to the eyes. What's more, we don't want to just be handed a boring old collection of buildings. Thus, we require that you guide us through your town, highlighting key areas and the like -- a tour, in other words.

But perhaps a little more explanation is in order. Now, this tour can be conducted one of two ways; either a scout unit is provided to us, the judges, to explore the town according to triggerized, message-based instructions, or a cinematic is played at the beginning of the scenario highlighting areas of interest. Either method is acceptable, and, as roughly the same amount of work is involved in each, both methods are considered equally good in the eyes of the judges.

So that's the method to be applied to this madness. To recap, you must create a map containing the most ridiculously pretty and fantastic town you can, with either a trigger- or cinematic-based tour to showcase points of interest to the judges. Savvy? Feel free to ask any questions you might have.

Rules:

1. The map must contain a town of some sort. Small, medium, large, whatever; it must be a collection of buildings laid out in some coherent fashion.

2. All accessible areas in maps must be complete and coherent. Points will be deducted for any poorly-designed areas that may be visible to judges.

3. All entrants must make a scout unit available for judges to tour the map.

4. All entrants must create a tour to "guide" judges through their map using either triggers or a cinematic. Designers have the choice of which method to use -- both methods will be judged equally. Maps will be judged primarily on what is shown, so plan carefully.

5. Cinematic entrants: The tour cinematic must end with the map and UI visible and accessible so that judges may explore the map at their leisure. The cinematic may not exceed 15 minutes.

6. Music and/or sound effects will be optional. Inclusion of music and/or sound effects will not affect judgement.

7. Simple AI scripts are allowed. Inclusion of simple AI scripts will not affect judgement.

8. Modpacks, aside from the use of reyk's New Editor, are not allowed.

9. Map size must not exceed 500 x 500.

10. Designers may only enter one map. Multiple submissions are allowed (ie. should a designer decide to make changes to a submitted map), but only one such submission will be judged.

11. Only maps created after the competition opens will be accepted.