Emil's inn - maps and more

[Simpson]

Wow  this map is absolutly superb, great work 

[art128]

these newest maps are fantastic 

[thundercrack83]

These mountains are simply outstanding, my friend! Wonderful job!

[BarbyW]

Can NHP members please comment in emilin's LEX candidacy thread here and/or at BSC?
These are beautiful maps but are they actually playable?

[emilin]

Can NHP members please comment in emilin's LEX candidacy thread here and/or at BSC?
These are beautiful maps but are they actually playable?

If you are talking about actual city-building: doubtful. I do think that there is an audience for this none-the-less, but that is mostly working with flora and terraforming, and perhaps some of the wilderness stuff from Peg's MTP packs, but not for regular gameplay, no.

I actually came up with the idea when I downloaded the available Everest map from STEX, and it was badly flawed in very many ways. So, at least one person was looking for stuff like this, I guess.

[CabraBuitre]

If you are talking about actual city-building: doubtful. I do think that there is an audience for this none-the-less, but that is mostly working with flora and terraforming, and perhaps some of the wilderness stuff from Peg's MTP packs, but not for regular gameplay, no.

I actually came up with the idea when I downloaded the available Everest map from STEX, and it was badly flawed in very many ways. So, at least one person was looking for stuff like this, I guess.

I'm not sure if I agree, in terms of normal playability...  Especially with the first three maps, they have flat areas between the mountains (uh, I think they're called valleys... would have made a lot more sense for me to describe them as such!) that would need to be manually flattened, but could be built on.  I can see maps like this combined with OTHER maps to create large regions that have some (very) mountainous areas, but also have more typical urban areas too.

[emilin]

papab2000: Thanks!

blade2k5: Thank you so much!

Ennedi: Thank you! We have a lot to talk about it seems. It's good to have some of this underway too.

Simpson: Thank you!

art128: Thanks!

thundercrack83: Thanks a bucnh, Dustin! Good to see you hanging around this thread too.

BarbyW: I already responded to that, but I would also like to thank you for all your good work. The maps have been scrutinized in the privat forum, and I am underway with fixing the issues that needed correcing.

CabraBuitre: Hehe... maybe you are right. I was merely saying what I was going to use them for myself... but when they are released I guess you can use them in several different ways. And I also think they could serve a purpose for, let's say, a story driven journal where the main characters go on some sort of trip...


A small update on the state of things

These maps have now been tested and are basically ready for release. However, Adam (Ennedi), told me that different terrain mods use different "max heights" and that these maps exceed the limits for most mods (if not all?). That does not effect the way they look if you just open them in the game (like I did), but it means that you can't build or terraform anything above max height, or the terrain collapses down to that height (I tried this myself and it looks ridiculous).

According to Adam this is rather easy to fix with an addon that changes the max height for any terrain mod, and he is working on that issue. So, even if there is nothing wrong with the maps themselves I feel that it would be appropriate to wait untill Adam's mod is done, before releasing them. They would be so much more user friendly with that mod. The maps WILL be released in packs, but I have yet to decide what numer of maps will feature in each pack.

While waiting for this, I decided to try something a little "easier". This map is still not finished (I am going to add more flat land) but I think the basic layout is pretty nice. It's mountainous, but not to the same extremes as the first maps. It is a combination of real terrain data, and handterraforming:

[art128]

nice looking map Emilin 

[Simpson]

WOW  this map is absolutly super 

[emilin]

Thank you art and Simpson!

I'm thinking this one is almost ready now. I have lowered it and smoothed over some areas to make it easier to develop (though I would still say this is a HARD map to develop).

Now, the question is: should I smooth it over a bit more, or leave that up to the user? What do you think?

[Ennedi]

Leave it as is. You will never know where (and how much) flattening will need various players, and flattening this map you can lose it's unique character. I like it a lot.
To be sure of my answer I should open city tiles 

Adam

[papab2000]

Looks good  Leave it! You would be surprised at what you can build in the mountains. 

[Pat]

Emil don't you dare touch that map at all!!! WOW I could do sooo much work with waterfalls on it that its just what I need....

[metarvo]

So, it's not Blackwater.  Even so, it's great to see you around again, Emilin.    I also like these maps very much, although you are right about the level of difficulty.  Almost every building would have some sort of retaining wall, or else it would have an insanely sloped base.

EDIT:  You should leave it alone, though.

[Heblem]

thats a great map! of course leave it 

[blade2k5]

Leave it the way it is.  Any messing around with it will ruin it's natural look

[thundercrack83]

I'd say leave it, too, my friend. I'm with the consensus! Wonderful work, simply wonderful.

Dustin

[art128]

nice map  and Leave it as is 

[Simpson]

This map is absolutly fantastic, the moutains are so réalistic 

[emilin]

OK. I guess that wasn't much to think about then.

Thank you, people. I have now released the map under the name Anna Valley,
It's on the LEX here: http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1797
and on the STEX here: http://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=20496