as you know there has been an indefinite hiatus for a year and a half with no new versions. I had some big things planned for the next version: though I had a test version ready, I never pushed it to live because of lack of testing.
Shortly after this, new warcraft 3 patches broke the outdated editor the map was coded on. Despite trying to find alternate ways to edit the map, nothing was fruitful and I decided to abandon new versions for a while due to frustration.
Recently I tried again to get the editor working and failed. In the end I came to the conclusion that it was time to code the map from scratch myself using a more up to date editor which will (hopefully) be future proof. This took a long time and as such I decided it will only be worth it if I can make some large changes to the map and meta game. I won't be holding back quite as much as I did in the past for fear of changing this 'classic' game too much.
Anyway, here is what I have planned. The map is in the finishing stages but I can't give any promises for dates for release, as it has bitten me in the ass before. Some features will be missing from the old map since I focused on what's essential.
Version 2.36
Spoiler!
New: Lane rewards/market system reworked extensively: -Basic material income is 20 for each player. -Top/bot now give both materials and gold. These bonuses are modified to 4/4/4 per node. -Mid now gives half of this material bonus in addition to it's food bonus (2/2/2 per node)
So: Ancient era: (4/4/4) materials/gold for controlling top or bot. (2/2/2) materials for controlling mid, as well as food bonus. Medieval era: (8/8/8) materials/gold for controlling top or bot. (4/4/4) materials for controlling mid, as well as food bonus. Industrial era: (12/12/12) materials/gold for controlling top or bot. (6/6/6) materials for controlling mid, as well as food bonus. Modern era: (16/16/16) materials/gold for controlling top or bot. (8/8/8) materials for controlling mid, as well as food bonus.
-Rather than increasing the bonus gained based on the first person to upgrade a capital to the next era, the game now gives a notification every 15 minutes that the world has entered a new era. Upon this notification bonuses will stack up by 1 each time. Food bonus does not change for mid.
Markets: -All markets can now buy and sell materials. Selling materials now requires Banking. -Buy materials adjusted from 300 gold for 200 materials to 200 gold for 150 materials. -Market costs adjusted: Trade Market: 150g/150m/1food up from 150g/50m/1food Food Market: 50g/150m/2food up from 50g/50m/2food Material Market: 50g/400m/1food up from 50g/130/1food
BL system rework:
Mid starts with 4 BL (up from 3). Top/Bot start with 2 BL.
You can research build limit at the capital but can no longer give it to your allies. The cost of researching build limit has been adjusted from 100/50 to 150/100, and the cost no longer increases per level. You can research to a maximum of 10 extra build limit.
Previously levels were locked as follows: Lvl 1: Writing Lvl 2: Medieval Capital Lvl 3: Industrial Lvl 4+: Modern
This is now: Lvl 1: Writing Lvl 2-4: Medieval Lvl 5-7: Industrial Lvl 7-10: Modern
Going over build limit would previously decrease your income. It is now not possible to go over build limit.
Previously when your lane's outer towers were destroyed, your build limit in middle would be lifted. This is still the case, but your lane opponent on the other team also has his build limit lifted in middle.
Removed the BL free spots on top.
Towers and railroads no longer cost BL when built in other lanes.
-Redesigned the terrain.
-Removed pulling. Workers are now invulnerable and can no longer repair towers/leave the base. You can use -kill to kill your worker if you want to recover food. Defensive buildings (including capitals) now regenerate their health after 180 seconds when not attacking. Other buildings have a normal regen rate of 240. (For reference, one worker repairing a tower repairs it after roughly 80 seconds).
Balance: -Removed Atilla's Hut from the Medieval Wonder Builder (Still upgradeable from The Old Stables) -Atilla's Hut upgrade gold cost increased from 550 to 650. 650 was my original intended cost. The 100g reduction was supposed to be a reward for upgrading: I had envisioned that ppl would steal Atilla's Hut from people who built stables by building it using the Medieval Wonder Builder. Due to tech costs to get the worker this never ended up happening. As a result I am reverting the upgrade cost. -Rather than landing normal land units, ships will now land a modified version which reflect the exact stats of the ship. -Ranged sea units will now change to their land counterparts as soon as they reach the land. Carriers will disappear once they reach the main base. -The Great Obelisk no longer gives material income. Instead of providing a flat +10 gold income it now acts as a Food Market instead. Gold cost increased from 540 to 625, no longer costs materials. -Detonate now gives back 75% of the gold cost, up from 50%. -Any defensive structures can no longer be built past the base limits. -Towers can no longer be built. -East Zipang Trade Company cost adjusted from 1000/100 to 1250/0. Now produces 20 gold per circle controlled on any lane. -Saint Michel adjusted from 4/8/4 materials for bot lane to 4/4/4 materials for top lane. Gold cost reduced from 1600 to 1400. -Cathedral now acts as an aura rather than giving buffs. -General's Heliport now upgrades into Interceptor Airbase and Divebomber Airbase again. -Carrack damage changed to 150-170 (this is the same DPS). This change means they will now always kill a junk in 1 shot. -Dromon hp/damage increased to mirror the Penteconter. -Dismounted dragoon dodge changed reduced from 30% to 20%. -Leader chance removed. Instead, all spawn wonders can be deactivated to return 35% of the cost of building the units without the wonder.
General/Bug Fixes: -Updated some tooltips/UI things (like wonder finished sound) -Starting towers no longer cost 1 food, to compensate the capital gives 4 less food. -All buildings which had a build time of 20 (bar towers) reduced to 10. -Docks/Camps build time reduced to 5 seconds from 7. -Removed lane capture text, it will now ping the minimap instead. As such removed -notext command. -Changed Detonate hotkey from D to E to prevent accidental detonations while trying to select and deactivate a building -Changed Medieval/Industrial Capital upgrade hotkey to C to prevent clashes with Increase Build Limit hotkey, which is changed to I. -Removed everything related to -space/nukes. -Workers now move faster and spawn at lanes. -Increased the range at which units will begin attacking in order to prevent units passing by. This will change how unit pathing behaves somewhat significantly, but I expanded the size of some of the lanes and as such this is necessary. -Optimised the regions for taking circles in mid/bot: The losing team should steal it less often. -Bank/Stock can no longer be built if you have one already. -Desync after leaver fixed. -Unit movement triggers are different and units will act differently in some ways, in particular they will run along the ledge on top lane when assaulting the base. -Fixed bug where Mech Infantry (Commando) would not land a commando.
Features not yet re implemented, *may return eventually*: - Modes: XvX is now default based on the number of players in the game. -Floating text for income, capitals, etc -Panama Canals/Hoover Dam/General Mills : These were never used and won't be returning, will use the wonder space to make other wonders eventually. -Dromon ship capture: will rework this unit eventually.
Things I'm currently looking at for future versions: -Black hawk unit upgrade from medic. -Ram ships upgrade from quinquiremes. -Ingame tutorial. -Rework of unit upgrade paths, looking to simplify the system (e.g you can't upgrade to some tiers from guerilla etc currently) -Panama canals/hoover dam/general mills rework. -Rework of all aura unit/wonders. -Expanded modern era and rebalanced (e.g mech commando) -Friendly sea units changing to melee to kill units at top island towers. -Ability to switch capitals between players before game starts. -Worker blink before game starts to make moving around faster. -Minor aoe given to various units and bunkers+ to reduce the effectiveness of staggers. -Reducing number of workers. -More UI updates (e.g notification that towers have been upgraded) -More modes (allowing variable amounts of gold to be set, etc. May be only for inhouse) -Moving flamer troop one tech higher. -Increase movement speed of units slightly to improve circle take times (sometimes they miss it by a splitsecond on small fights on mid for example) -Fireship landing unit. -Rework of limited unitspan. -Me getting good at the game.
-East Zipang Trade Company cost adjusted from 1000/100 to 1250/0. Will now produce 20 gold per circle. Not taking into account the cost of Banking/workers, this means when 3 circles are controlled, it will pay itself off at the same rate as a Trade Market does currently (not taking into account material cost) when 3 circles on it's own lane are controlled (20 ticks) and faster for every circle after that. -Saint Michel adjusted from 4/8/4 materials for bot lane to 4/4/4 materials for top lane. Gold cost reduced from 1600 to 1400. -Removed pulling. Workers can no longer repair. Defensive buildings (including capitals) now regenerate their health after 120 seconds, and other buildings 240. (For reference, one worker repairing a tower repairs it after roughly 80 seconds)
As I recall these were basically just implementations of libraries, so they should be easy to implement if wanted. I am pretty sure we could rip the system from the old map or from the engine of my map. let me know.
The new blizzard update seemed to have some effects on the critters on the map. Units now try to attack the critters such as the vulture and the worst offender the frog.... There is a frog in the southern water ways between mid and bot. If the frog wanders downward the bot units just stand there trying to get to the frog.
Mid starts with 4 BL (up from 3). Top/Bot start with 2 BL.
You can research build limit at the capital but can no longer give it to your allies. The cost of researching build limit has been adjusted from 100/50 to 100/100, and the cost no longer increases per level. You can research to a maximum of 10 extra build limit.
Previously levels were locked as follows: Lvl 1: Writing Lvl 2: Medieval Capital Lvl 3: Industrial Lvl 4+: Modern
This is now: Lvl 1: Writing Lvl 2-4: Medieval Lvl 5-7: Industrial Lvl 7-10: Modern
Going over build limit would previously decrease your income. It is now not possible to go over build limit.
Previously when your lane's outer towers were destroyed, your build limit in middle would be lifted. This is still the case, but your lane opponent on the other team also has his build limit lifted in middle.
In the current build, there's a bug where sometimes if a building that takes up build limit is killed, freeing up build limit, you would be unable to build on any other lane, saying that you have negative income, even though you do have free build limit. Hope that bug gets fixed with the new version too. Looking forward to a new season of civ!
Civilization Wars x2.36 test6 is now online on the public hosting bot. Apart from some bugs with build limit after outer towers fall, the version worked as intended on the first playtest. If you find any more, report them here please. The load code is 1zjrw.
My beautiful gray color!