[Abandoned] - Lorn Empire

[ISN2]

Lorn Empire

Many years ago in a forgotten land, there was a glorious empire called "The Great Empire". The empire controlled a vast amount of land, from the mountains in the North, to the seas of the South. After the death of King Glore, the empire fell apart, as his eight sons fought for control. Eight empires were formed by each son and to this day the empires still fight for control. What was the Great Empire has descended into just a Lorn Empire. End the wars and reunite the former Great Empire.

Map Size: 82 Territories (Total)
Play Type Support: All Types
Starting Territories (Where Players May Start): 8
Auto Deploy Territories: 12 (8 Barracks, 4 Villages)
Bonus Territories: 8 Castles
Combined Bonus Territories: 56 (All Territories In Empires) + 26 (All Territories In Farmlands)
Winning Conditions: Take Out All Other Rivals
Losing Conditions: Get Taken Out Or Have No Castles

Update 7:
1. Empires now can one-way attack into farmlands and farmlands can not attack back.

2. Posts are renamed into Villages.

3. Each village can now one-way attack into two empires through tunnels that can bee seen on the map.

4. Graphical tunnel ways added into the map to show exactly where each village can attack.

5. A change in Snowy Lands borders is made to make the Snowy Lands Castle connected into all other Snowy Lands territories like all other Empires (For balancing things).

6. Legend has been rebuilt with 50px more height for adding new info, a small map added to show where are Empires and where are Farmlands, also symbols are added and new rules are written in legend.

7. A few small problems fixed.

8. Natural numbers changed into new rules on the map.

[bigimg]http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/2392/lornempire7.jpg[/bigimg]

Map Rules:

1. Each player starts the game on 1 or 2 castles depending on number of players.

2. Each castle has 4 armies at start and has a +1 bonus.

3. Players get 1 army per every 3 territories. The minimum army getting is 3 armies (Like normal maps).

4. There is a barracks territory in each empire bordering the castle with 4 naturals on it. The barracks territory has an auto deploy bonus of 4 per turn.

5. All other empire territories will start with 2 naturals on them except 2 bordering territories with other empires that will start with 16 naturals.

6. Having any 5 empire territories will have a +3 bonus.
Note: castle and barracks are counted as empire territories too.

7. Having any 2 farmland territories will have a +1 bonus.
Note: villages are counted as farmland territories too.

8. Every player must have at least 1 castle or will be eliminated.

9. Six of farmlands in middle of map have low number of naturals on them, 2 or 4. Sixteen of bordering farmlands with empires have 8 naturals and the other four farmlands are villages.

10. Villages are territories in farmlands named "Grail Village", "Silk Village", "Viller Camp" and "Tent" and will start with 16 naturals on each and will have an auto deploy of 8 each turn.

11. Villages can one-way attack into empires using tunnels shown on them map.

12. Empires can one-way attack into farmlands.

--------------------------

[spoiler=Older Posts]Update 6:
1. Several gameplay rules are changed.

2. Two graphical docks are added and an extra sea connection has been removed.

3. Some other small graphical changes are done.

4. Default natural armies are shown on the map.

5. Legend is updated.

http://img859.imageshack.us/img859/1107/lornempire6.jpg

----------------------------------------------------

Update 5:
1. River has been removed!

http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/1449/lornempire5.jpg

----------------------------------------------------

Update 4:
1. All trees, mountains, hills, castles, barracks, posts and any other image that was not drawn by myself has been removed due the copyright matters.

2. Drawed mountains using relief shading technique (I did try many ways and could not do something better than this).

3. Drawed 7 different type of trees from first (I have my layered PSD files for your concern [player]MrBenn[/player], and will later make a guide on forums on how to draw these trees).

4. Drawed 4 different type of tents, 1 of them used for posts and 3 other used for barracks.

5. Drawed a new similar castle with flags on it to show colors.

6. In some places trees got replaced for mountains and hills and a lake.

7. Some border drawings got changed due the above updates.

8. Added map title, story and legend under the map.

http://img828.imageshack.us/img828/2559/lornempire4.jpg

----------------------------------------------------

Update 3:
1. Added 2 new borders for each empire, so every empire will be connected to 2 other empires directly, those 2 new borders in each empire will be protected with bigger naturals.
2. Some border, territories and barracks places has been changed.
3. Position of all territory names and armies are changed.
4. All army circles are now removed and a little white glow is replaced with them.
5. Middle green area color has been changed a little in order to let armies be seen better without circles ...
6. All territory names are now black with a white glow, this is because most of territories are named with numbers and as there aren't army circles anymore, white territory names could be seen as natural armies.
7. Sample armies with Green and Gray color are added to make sure that they can be seen well.
8. Some map rules are changed (See blow the image).

http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/9276/lornempire3.jpg

----------------------------------------------------

Update 2:
1. New names for each of 8 empires
2. Used Feudal War idea and removed extra names, just numbers for territory names inside empires
3. Added a barracks territory
4. Changed some borders and territories

http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6781/lornempire2.jpg

Here is the exact thing I'm thinking for the map:
1. Each player starts the game on 1 or 2 castles depending on number of players.
2. Each castle has 4 armies on it at start and has a +1 deployment bonus.
3. There is a barracks territory in each empire bordering the castle with 4 naturals on it. The barracks territory has an auto deploy bonus of 4 per turn.
3. All other empire lands will start with 2 naturals on them. having 3 empire lands will have a +2 and 6 empire lands a +4 bonus, castle and barracks are counted as empire lands too.
4. Every player must have at least 1 castle or he will be eliminated.
5. The farmlands in middle of map will have low number of naturals on them, 2 or 4 except some important ones that will have more naturals.
6. There are territories in farmlands named "Grail Caravan", "Silk Villages", "Viller Camp" and "Tent" that will start with 10 naturals on each and will have an auto deploy of 8 each turn.
7. Out ways if each empire will start with 10 or 15 naturals at start.

----------------------------------------------------

Update 1:
1. Changed map name from "Eight Empires" to "Lorn Empire" ...
2. Designed map graphics.
3. Made a background and story for the map, "It's an imaginary ancient empire that got split to 8 parts because of king's death and now all parts are in fight with each other to control all empire back" and I will try to continue game play on it.
4. Did draw borders based on my idea and also balanced connections for all 8 empires as much as possible.

All 8 Empires will get auto deploy bounces, 4 Posts in Farmlands will also get auto deploy bounces, any 3 empire lands will also give a bounce, all empire lands will give another bounce.
Empire lands and farm lands will be protected with natural armies.

Here is designed graphics:
http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/9514/lornempire.jpg
Click on the small image to see original one.

I was exactly working on it 10 hours without break, just eating and drinking between!

Please feedback ...

----------------------------------------------------

Eight Empires
This is the idea that came to my mind today, a land with mountains and snow in north, green lands in middle and a plain land with a sea in south ...

First of all, I wanted to make 4 empires in corners of this map, each empire would have a border and then a big free land in middle that those 4 empires could fight for it ...

But after I looked at game settings and thought about them, I decided to make it 8 empires so it could be balanced on a 8 players game and so the name of my idea comes from it, Eight Empires ...

Then I worked on a very simple graphical plan to just show what is my idea ...

Here is the draft or graphical plan:
http://img838.imageshack.us/img838/2489/eightempiresplan.jpg
Click on the small image to see original one.

The borders are just for showing my idea and won't be actually this messy.

OK, as I said there are 8 empires that you can see, each empire would have 7 lands in it and the main land of each empire is connected to all other 6 lands of that.

When game starts, each player will get 1 or 2 empires depending on number of players.

Each empire has 2 ways out. Each of those ways will be shared with another empire's out way, so there are a total of 16 ways out on 8 lands in empires outside as you can see in image ...

There are also 4 posts on map. every empire has 1 post withing 2 lands outside of it ...

I guess the main land of each empire can get a bonus and also posts should get bonuses so players can fight for them and middle of map would mean something for players.

I'm also thinking to shared bonuses, for example a main land of an empire and a post could get another bonus together or if some one takes all of an empire could have another bonus.

The middle lands, posts, empires and specially out ways of empires can be protected with large number of natural armies to make the game more interesting in start as taking an empire or going out of it can be hard and dangerous ...

The winning on map can be achieved by killing all other enemies ...

OK, that was my idea, what do you think about that? can a such map be a good map?

About graphics I can do a decent work myself and about XML, I still didn't see other maps XML codes but as I'm a web developer I'm sure I can do it easily [/spoiler]

[natty dread]

Develop a theme for your map. "8 empires" is sort of vague. Where/when are these empires and why are they fighting?

[ISN2]

Develop a theme for your map. "8 empires" is sort of vague. Where/when are these empires and why are they fighting?

It's a plan from my mind, nothing is real in the map, so if I make a fake theme and story won't there be any problems?

[natty dread]

Not if the story is good enough to support a map.

Check out some existing maps in CC. Look at Feudal Wars, Age of Realms 1-3, Thyseneal, Age of Merchants... these are all fictional maps but they have a strong background story which is well reflected by the theme and gameplay of the maps.

The idea is not to make up a "fake theme", it's to make up a theme that is fictional but believable. It should be something that is not just made up to fill in the gaps of a map, but something that could stand on it's own as a story. You don't need to write a whole novel for this, but the basic idea of the story should be something you maybe could base a novel on.

[benga]

Develop a theme for your map. "8 empires" is sort of vague. Where/when are these empires and why are they fighting?

It's a plan from my mind, nothing is real in the map, so if I make a fake theme and story won't there be any problems?

if you make up a story and theme
its not fake anymore

[ISN2]

The first thing that came to my head is something like this:

A king who was controlling a big empire with 8 sons, and after his death every son called himself the new king and because of that discrepancies has began and the empire has been divided to 8 small empires around the mainland farms. from that time, all of them are in fight with each other and every son is trying to kill other sons and be the only king.

What do you think? is that good for going on something like it?

[natty dread]

That's good for the immediate reasons of the war. But it still doesn't tell us anything about this empire. What is it, where, when? Is this in an alternate universe, or on our world, but in an alternate history, or perhaps a future scenario?

Try playing some of those maps I mentioned. Check out the Age of Realms -maps in particular. See how much work there has been done for the background? And how well it shows in the gameplay and theme?

Like I said, don't just try to come up with something that fits the current draft you have. Just pretend the map doesn't exist, and try to come up with an interesting story. Then when you have a strong background story, fit the map to the story.

Protip: Look into histories for inspiration.

[ISN2]

Thanks a lot for your help.

That's good for the immediate reasons of the war. But it still doesn't tell us anything about this empire. What is it, where, when? Is this in an alternate universe, or on our world, but in an alternate history, or perhaps a future scenario?

Try playing some of those maps I mentioned. Check out the Age of Realms -maps in particular. See how much work there has been done for the background? And how well it shows in the gameplay and theme?

I checked those maps in "Feudal Wars" I saw a 1 line explain only and I think this map is based on real and Feudalism era, am I right?

At "Age Of Merchants" I saw a long story something like you say and I didn't see any story for "Thyseneal2" and "Age Of Realms" maps ...

Like I said, don't just try to come up with something that fits the current draft you have. Just pretend the map doesn't exist, and try to come up with an interesting story. Then when you have a strong background story, fit the map to the story.

Protip: Look into histories for inspiration.

The reason that I'm going for this draft is that the shape of a such land came to my head and I based the map on that shape, I explained what came first for me in first post.

Now for example if I say "Thousand years ago, in the Europe or Asia or Middle East or anywhere a such thing happened for empire of that area and the story that I'm writing from my mind comes here" won't be it some kind of lie?

I have some inspirations already but non are real and don't have a real place or date.

Also I got another name for this map in mind after thinking to the story I told, "Lorn Empire", how is it?

[natty dread]

At "Age Of Merchants" I saw a long story something like you say and I didn't see any story for "Thyseneal2" and "Age Of Realms" maps ...

The story is there. It doesn't have to be spelled out for the map to have a story.

The point is creating a theme. Like I said, you don't need to actually write that story. Just that the story exists, and everything about the map is consistent with that story. This way your map will have a strong theme, no matter if the story is fictional or historical.

[ISN2]

I did some big updates, check first post and feedback, thanks : )

[Industrial Helix]

Nice graphics! Very pretty... and since when has dark been a color?

The gameplay is going to need something to differentiate it from Feudal or Age of Realms... btu I think you're on your way with that.

The last thing that bugs me is that the image is way too tiny... you should be able to post the image using the big img tags. Generally, you're not going to get a whole lot of support if anyone has to do anything more than open your thread to see the image... its lathargic, but its the way the foundry rolls.

[grifftron]

those graphics are amazing man, can't wait to see what else you got up your sleeve since your only in the Melting Pot! Ill be following.

[ISN2]

Nice graphics! Very pretty... and since when has dark been a color?

LOL, I know dark is not a color but if I wanted to name it black, there was a blue one too so I could not name it's land with BE * ...
I will change it later to another color or maybe using some alternative name if I find any for black or blue!

The gameplay is going to need something to differentiate it from Feudal or Age of Realms... btu I think you're on your way with that.

I'm trying to play those maps to see what are they that everybody talks about them, but first thing I see is that I think my map supports 8 player but Feudal Wars not if I'm right?

The last thing that bugs me is that the image is way too tiny... you should be able to post the image using the big img tags. Generally, you're not going to get a whole lot of support if anyone has to do anything more than open your thread to see the image... its lathargic, but its the way the foundry rolls.

Edited first post. Thanks for the note ...

those graphics are amazing man, can't wait to see what else you got up your sleeve since your only in the Melting Pot! Ill be following.

Thanks body : )

[Industrial Helix]

Feudal War supports 6, Feudal Epic supports 8.

And overall, don't be too keen to stick with the color empire names. It might be better to come up with something that has a sort of story to it rather than simple colors.

[ISN2]

Feudal War supports 6, Feudal Epic supports 8.

And overall, don't be too keen to stick with the color empire names. It might be better to come up with something that has a sort of story to it rather than simple colors.

Oh, I didn't see Epic one.

About names, you are right, but more I think, less I get any ideas, I just got 2 idea, 1st naming them on races like Humans, Undeads, Elfs and so on that is completely different from the story I have, so this idea is out, 2nd I name the son's of the king and then use them for Empires, for example, Philip's Empire and so on ...

What do you think about this? any ideas?

[Teflon Kris]

Feudal War supports 6, Feudal Epic supports 8.

And overall, don't be too keen to stick with the color empire names. It might be better to come up with something that has a sort of story to it rather than simple colors.

Oh, I didn't see Epic one.

About names, you are right, but more I think, less I get any ideas, I just got 2 idea, 1st naming them on races like Humans, Undeads, Elfs and so on that is completely different from the story I have, so this idea is out, 2nd I name the son's of the king and then use them for Empires, for example, Philip's Empire and so on ...

What do you think about this? any ideas?

I think it might work better, to fit the backstory (following natty's discussion above) to have unique names for each empire rathers than species (where it would be unlikely they all have equal standing) / colours / princes (why would they be at each others' throats anyway)? Along the lines of Aor / Feudal - each empire has it own name, Harkenden, Dunwraith, Kalrune ... ?

Gameplay

To make the gameplay unique, perhaps you could have a central region with a big auto-deploy? Somewhere accessible from the edges of each kingdom. A deserted palace / castle or something?

And / or, maybe portals with killer neutral decay - 3 of them, each bordering the outskirts of 2 empires? Would make movement around the map quicker?

Another idea could be to use the new losing conditions xml feature and set things so players have to keep hold of some region or other within their kingdom. If you made it the auto-deploy spot then players would stack on there too much perhaps, maybe stagnate games. Instead, a region next to the auto-deploy (some kind of settlement), so players have to tactically decide whether to fort their home region, or their 'front line'.

[natty dread]

Firstly, I have to say the updated graphics are certainly nice, and I hope you stick around in the foundry, we always need new blood with good graphical talent.

Secondly... you shouldn't put too much effort to the graphics at this point - the gameplay will most likely change many times, and you should wait until the gameplay is fixed in place before you do the graphics. That graphical draft wasn't wasted effort though - it shows that you are capable of doing graphics on your map, and this will certainly help you get your map forward.

[ISN2]

Thanks [player]DJ Teflon[/player] and [player]natty_dread[/player] for ideas and helps.

I think it might work better, to fit the backstory (following natty's discussion above) to have unique names for each empire rathers than species (where it would be unlikely they all have equal standing) / colours / princes (why would they be at each others' throats anyway)? Along the lines of Aor / Feudal - each empire has it own name, Harkenden, Dunwraith, Kalrune ... ?

I'm going to choose some unique names for them.

Gameplay

To make the gameplay unique, perhaps you could have a central region with a big auto-deploy? Somewhere accessible from the edges of each kingdom. A deserted palace / castle or something?

And / or, maybe portals with killer neutral decay - 3 of them, each bordering the outskirts of 2 empires? Would make movement around the map quicker?

These are good ideas, but I don't want to make the map so complex, I want it be somehow that everybody learns it with 2 or 3 times playing and then playing of the map would goes for experiences and strategies, not complexity ...

Another idea could be to use the new losing conditions xml feature and set things so players have to keep hold of some region or other within their kingdom. If you made it the auto-deploy spot then players would stack on there too much perhaps, maybe stagnate games. Instead, a region next to the auto-deploy (some kind of settlement), so players have to tactically decide whether to fort their home region, or their 'front line'.

But about your last idea, you made me to think about adding a land to each empire so players have to keep one and another one will be the auto deploy, for example players should keep at least one castle or they eliminate and there will a barracks in each empire land that is the auto deploy land. how is this?

I'm also thinking to add 8 ways between empires themselves, please look at this and tell me what do you guys think?

[bigimg]http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/5734/lorn.jpg[/bigimg]
Each red arrow will be a land that connects every 2 empires, and I'm thinking to protect them with a massive number of naturals at start ...

Secondly... you shouldn't put too much effort to the graphics at this point - the gameplay will most likely change many times, and you should wait until the gameplay is fixed in place before you do the graphics. That graphical draft wasn't wasted effort though - it shows that you are capable of doing graphics on your map, and this will certainly help you get your map forward.

I think I needed it to show that I'm going to do make good and get a little support.

[Victor Sullivan]

Looks very nice!...though I noticed the apparent lack of a legend - how do the bonuses work? What are the impassables? Etc, etc...

On another note and partially paralleling "Dark Empire", I think you should come up with more fun names for your empires. Here's what I thought of:

Red Empire ---> Rose Empire
Blue Empire ---> Azure Empire
White Empire ---> Frost Empire
Yellow Empire ---> Sun Empire
Orange Empire ---> Vermilion Empire
Dark Empire ---> Dark Empire
Green Empire ---> Spring Empire
Violet Empire ---> Orchid Empire

I know some of these names aren't fantastic, but you get the idea.

[ISN2]

Looks very nice!...though I noticed the apparent lack of a legend - how do the bonuses work? What are the impassables? Etc, etc...

On another note and partially paralleling "Dark Empire", I think you should come up with more fun names for your empires. Here's what I thought of:

Red Empire ---> Rose Empire
Blue Empire ---> Azure Empire
White Empire ---> Frost Empire
Yellow Empire ---> Sun Empire
Orange Empire ---> Vermilion Empire
Dark Empire ---> Dark Empire
Green Empire ---> Spring Empire
Violet Empire ---> Orchid Empire

I know some of these names aren't fantastic, but you get the idea.

Thanks for suggestions, I'm having an update coming withing a few minutes that I some changes both in game play and graphics and names and ...

About legend I still didn't decide on how exactly be the amount of incomes but I will explain more wisely in first post after update how I want to it work ...

[ISN2]

Update 2:
1. New names for each of 8 empires
2. Used Feudal War idea and removed extra names, just numbers for territory names inside empires
3. Added a barracks territory
4. Changed some borders and territories

[bigimg]http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/6781/lornempire2.jpg[/bigimg]

Here is the exact thing I'm thinking for the map:
1. Each player starts the game on 1 or 2 castles depending on number of players.
2. Each castle has 4 armies on it at start and has a +1 deployment bonus.
3. There is a barracks territory in each empire bordering the castle with 4 naturals on it. The barracks territory has an auto deploy bonus of 4 per turn.
3. All other empire lands will start with 2 naturals on them. having 3 empire lands will have a +2 and 6 empire lands a +4 bonus, castle and barracks are counted as empire lands too.
4. Every player must have at least 1 castle or he will be eliminated.
5. The farmlands in middle of map will have low number of naturals on them, 2 or 4 except some important ones that will have more naturals.
6. There are territories in farmlands named "Grail Caravan", "Silk Villages", "Viller Camp" and "Tent" that will start with 10 naturals on each and will have an auto deploy of 8 each turn.
7. Out ways if each empire will start with 10 or 15 naturals at start.

[Teflon Kris]

The links between kingdoms look good to me, although it will take some work to make the routes and impassables clear.

I'm guessing each kingdom will have equal access to the farm-lands? (this area would also be a route to attack other kingdoms, although a long-ish route).

[natty dread]

One tip: lose the army circles.

[ISN2]

One tip: lose the army circles.

Won't it be hard to see numbers in green and dark parts of the map?

[natty dread]

You don't have that dark parts in there. Most of your territories are pretty light.

The army circles do not fit the semi-realistic style of your map. They clutter it up, and cover up the nice graphics you have. If you remove them, your map will look 156.2% better.