Hey all, Im creating a RTS at the moment and I want to know how people feel about random maps.. ie, whether or not they''re worth the effort. Generally larger scale games like Civilisation etc. include the option for random maps but in games like Warcraft 3 there are only fixed maps. Is this because of the "fairness" aspect? I know i''d feel ripped of if I got my first loss on battlenet because I only had access to one gold mine. Maybe if I made sure important items/locations such as gold mines etc. were located fairly. With terrain/landscape more randomised? ie, different choke points/rivers etc.. I feel that randomising my game maps is important, mainly because it adds to a players uncertanty. I dont know about everyone else, but I this its more fun playing a brand new game for the first time at a lan. (ie, where nobody knows whats going on). So let me know what you think! cheers, Fonz

Even better is to include the map editor with your game so users can create their own maps. You''ll notice that''s what games which don''t have a "random map" generator do (i.e. Warcraft III)...

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Go out to your local store and shell out $7 for Microsoft''s Age of Empire''s (the first one, it should be in the bargain bin) for "research" purposes. AoE has an excellent random map generator, I''ll see if I can dig up some articles on how it worked. You might also think about how random maps might help in saving space. The first RTS, Dune 2, actually used random maps (even though you couldn''t play a skirmish) and so for each level there was a seed value to generate the map, some corrections and placements for enemy units along with the mission objectives. In all each map only used a few hundred bytes of space.

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Random maps can be very dangerous in competitive games. The biggest problem is balance. Its not necesary or really a good idea IMO to always make maps symetrical, but they need to be fair. Each starting position should has several viable openings and mid-late game strategies.

You also lose a lot of the cool little tricks that people learn with each map. Blizzard RTSs are a good example of this. Yes, it does give an experienced player an advantage over a new player, but if you are looking to make a competitive game: thats how it should be. These cool tricks like chop-hoping, walling, and cliff trick do add a lot of depth and strategy to your game.

I dunno, they can be cool but I''d rather have well made and balanced maps that can be learned and mastered with time. I just think it adds some more depth to the game, rather than playing a similiar but random map each time.

RAtman

hey all. Thanks for your replys!

I''ve played AoE before and it has got a good random map generator.

I agree that players that "learn" the map are/can be very good. I think that the little tricks people can use are also very cool and fun.

I don''t think however that these little tricks increase peoples overall enjoyment of the game.

(I think) Too often nowadays people are winning because they have played this map several hundred times.
It''s just plain boring rehursing out the same tricks for one map over and over.

I want my game to be map independent. Players should be able to adapt to any type of map. If they want to do their little tricks they should look for terrain thats "almost" what they want.

Hmm... well this is how I feel.

cheers,
Fonz