Map Difficulty: Hard (Limits to resouces & space)
Ideal play : East vs West : 2vs2
Plot:
The King is dead and the barons have battled to the bitter end leaving the land in complete chaos. Amongst the ruins of an extinguished royal line, emerge several prominent village leaders. Banding their villages into makeshift keeps, the four village leaders will begin the ultimate struggle for control of the wildlands.
Can you become the one true ruler, or will you share the lands with one of the other village leaders? Or will the outlaws and vast wilds wreck havoc on your attempt to gain power over Vespen lake...
Balance:
Balance between each individual castle location is not precise. While each contains one iron location & one stone, there are slight differences in landscape which can offset the balance slightly. This has more of an effect during a siege then any economy effect.
Also map location to estates notably different between the north two castle plots and the south plots. Players would do best to work together on an east vs west team setup. A free for all or 2vs1 could also be played. 3 vs 1 might be ruff with the outlaws about too.
Intended for 2 vs 2 play. All castle areas are afforded limited but sufficient space for building. Each contains room for one stone and one ore, of various ranges of distance.
Intentions:
I like pinch points but I was getting tired of maps based upon them, so I made a map with a few pinch's but also much free roaming space to allow for different assult plans. You will notice that the estates are not close to player castles. This allows for more advanced play. Not only does a player have to defend an estate, but they must also secure the supply lines. Estates are almost required to hold a complete economy. I have play tested this alot, It's my favorite map right now. Alot of the battles are open field battles, due to the mass of open space. If your looking for a tuffer map thats interesting here ya go.
Map Notes:
In real life villages were not commonly close by. Often there were vast woods, mountains lakes or other forms of landmass'es in between. Guarding the trade routes was a common concern for the lords of that time.
This map has extreamly ruff terrain. This limits the build space of all plots, and effectivly makes owning additional estates a requirement. A player can make a viable economy and a small castle on each players plot, but you will not be able to make a large town. I estimate max desireable population to be 40-50. This map is tuff, I've taken more losses on this map then any other I've made or played.
This sounds like a lot of fun. My type of map. I love hard kingmakers where you can play a realistic "economy style" as well.
As the standard AI warfare in this game gets fairly old and rather predictable no matter what map you play, I find that the "estate and supply line" style of playing really makes this game a lot better.
Looking forward to playing, and you can expect a review within the week.