Twisted River - A funny random map script for the AOE3 demo - by RF_Gandalf
Twisted River is a map with players or teams separated by a river crossable only by boat. The setting is an eastern woodland, with green terrain and 'new england' style forests. Player start positions are randomly varied. There is one Native American village on each side of the river (randomly Iroquois or Cherokee). Each side also has two small deer herds, 3 silver mines, plenty of forest and a few sheep or cows (randomly chosen). The river contains a reasonable number of fish, but the resource could run out during a long game with lots of fishing. Treasures are split equally on the two sides of the map.
The unusual feature on this map is that the two trade routes travel right across the river! Play the game and get control of a trade route, upgrading it while watching closely.
Be amazed at the bravery, perseverence, and lung capacity of the trader who pulls his travois across the bottom of the river!!!!
Watch in amazement as the stagecoach is pulled through the high water by strong horses!!!!
Drop your jaw in astonishment at the advanced technology that allows a locomotive to pull its cars right through the flood!!!
I am not sure what ES intended, allowing this kind of feature, but I had fun finding and designing for it!
Like the River map released at the same time as this variation, you can certainly play this map in earnest, even with the 'fun' feature as described above. This map gives a very different type of gameplay than those in the demo. In my demo testing the AI has not tried to attack over the water but does build up a formidible force on hard or expert on its own side; it has also fished in the river as British. It is fun to try to attack over the river and establish a beachhead for your army when the AI has already built up a force.
Because there is a limited amount of food and silver, you will likely benefit from fishing early and eventually moving to mills and/or livestock pens for food and plantations for coin.
I think this is a very fair, balanced map and expect to do a similar version for the game once the full version is released.
To use this map (titled twisted river), first go to the RM folder of your game directory, and rename the new england.xs file to new england-original.xs. Then unzip this twisted river.xs file to your RM directory, and rename it "new england.xs". The next time you play, pick New England map and instead you will get to play this one - just ignore the description. Switch files back to get the original New England map again. Eventually when the full game is released we hopefully will not need to do this to get a random map installed!
This is a very cool rm. The twisting river is teaming with fish and birds and the trade routes really do go "through" the water. I would definatly recommend this rm to everyone for download. Keep it up Gandalf!
I Love Bananas
Posted on 11/03/05 @ 02:17 PM
Really cool when the travois/stagecoach/train go down into the river. Really cool!