Battle of Arsuf

Looks nice, especially the ship scene

Thanks fintrollx.

I think I made it well. The right side of It is a bit distroyed to imitate the small crush of rocks which it has happen before to land.

Looks great! but i can see where you've put pitch
Looks like a no go area for me now

Wow, I'm deeply impressed of how beautiful creations you can make.
The waves of troops move me. Love those big dunes, too.

In the battle of Arsuf, the two armies acted like we often do in Stronghold/Crusader multi player: trying to smash the enemies' ranged forces. The Saracens charged into a disorganized group of crossbowmen just about to enter the city, and the Hospitaliters slaughtered among the dismounted Arabian bowmen.

Many details of the ancient city you recreated accurately, the sharp angles of the city wall, places of towers, and the Crusader citadel. Even the the little forest in the south-east and the main road.

Two critical remarks. At least from the minimap, the town buildings look like straight army barracks, not like a seemingly chaotic, vivid mess orientated towards the streets. Am excited to watch how the city works.

The broad trench of the stronghold lay above sea level, thus was not flooded. It looks tremendous now, maybe weird and cheerles then.

Thanks WL_D and Peter for comments,
Very happy that you like my creation.

Right now I'm working at the great beginning when both armies will crush. (by pausing the editor with Alt + H )
I think the map will be ready for submitting much sooner than I expected.

That looks like a well, organized city, LoH. I'd like to see what the citadel looks like.

Thanks Sir Hugh. First wanted to randomly place buidings but then I saw that don't looks so good so I created this concept of arrangement. Seems that is apreciated

btw, I have put two pictures with the citadelity.

Looks great! I see the ship has some broken walls. Is this to indicate that it has run aground and been damaged?

yes eric, that's what it means.

I didn't meant to be all "perfect" or full of "eye-candy". The broken walls of ship represent a small feature of the historical part of map. (somehow the ship should land directly on beach but it got stuck on some big rocks near the island and its men don't have a choise than to land there.)



The map is done now! I can offer the playtesting version for anyone who want.



And the battle scene from beginning

[This message has been edited by Lord_of_Hell (edited 02-05-2009 @ 05:51 AM).]

very creative map. I really like the look of that keep.

Great Screenshots! i see you've positioned the both sides of the army well.

Thanks guys! Nice to hear positive feedbacks. A little more playtesting and the map will be ready for submitting ... oh and of course a little work on story



And here's the layout of the whole map.

[This message has been edited by Lord_of_Hell (edited 02-06-2009 @ 01:28 PM).]

Nice panoramic . Well done!

Thanks eric! I made it from composed screen.

[Edit] The map has been inprooved with the following stuff:

- Less Gold - The amount of gold given at beginning will be twice less now, making the player to carefully choose one siege weapon to penetrate the city. However this thing is only optional and conquering & penetrating the city is possible without any siege weapon. (only the ram and siege tower is avaiable). The gold has been reduced from 300 to 150.
- No additional shields avaiable to build - The player will have no choose than to kill the enemy from walls with only 3 shields given at beginning (+ some archers behind them, of course). Another choise would be to use the siege tower and the macemen but this strategy haven't been tested.
- More traps - The battlefield of Arsuf will have more traps to kill the Crusader's army. (the traps belong to Saladin)
- More lions - More lions will be avaiable in the desert. This improovement comes as an update to the event which sais that something will happen (Can be something good or something bad, I won't tell you what ) if all lions from map will be eradicated.
- One more event - There will be avaiable one more "customized" event.
- Story - The story is now written in about 30 percent (30%) and will be full filled in a few days.

These are the improovements for map untill now. I can say that's version 1.1. More suggestions will be apreciated.

[This message has been edited by Lord_of_Hell (edited 02-08-2009 @ 07:31 AM).]

I like the irregular shape of the walls, adds a nice element to the mini-map. Your town inside also looks very nice.

Thanks

An impressive keep, and well done on the dunes. I'll try this map out as soon as my exam period ends.

Looks like the map has already got fans Thank you, Sir Hugh.

[This message has been edited by Lord_of_Hell (edited 02-10-2009 @ 06:41 AM).]

I'm sure you don't need reminding but we can only really judge creativity and map design at this stage (both exellent) and those 2 categories alone don't make a great map. I hope you spend just as much time on the other elements

Yes WL_D, that's why I'm hardly playtesting, improoving and writing the story . Don't worry, I'll do all my best in this map

Now, to show that the project didn't stuck, I will announce the version 1.2 of map which includes the folowings:

Eco-requests - Aside defending the city of Arsuf against the enemy, you will have to aquire the followings: 10.000 Gold, 100% Drinking ale, 35% blessed people, 170 population and to complete the castle.

More invasions - two more invasions will be avaiable at the end of map. Also, the space between the first 3 invasions was expanded with one year at the second inv and with two years at the trird inv.

More events - It all began with 'only' 4 events. Now there will be avaiable over 12 of them.

As the scripting of scenario is almost ready (probably some more improovements later), I think the final vesion of scenario will be 1.3.

Untill announcing the final version and submitting it,
Greetings and happy mapmaking to all,
Lord_of_Hell

Sounds good to me

Looking forward to how the scenario will pan out. The map itself looks gorgeous by the way!

Thanks.
If everything goes well, the scenario will be submitted on 28 February or 1st March.

[This message has been edited by Lord_of_Hell (edited 04-17-2009 @ 06:03 AM).]

Lord_of_Hell we will be looking forward to it.