So here's the mysterious project I've heard so much about =) Congratulations with going beta!

3 types of water thing sounds interesting. Did you go all the way to add new terrain types or substituted something for additional two kinds of water?

Adding new terrain types is far beyond our capabilities, we use map objects that change the movement types of water hexes, and we made Swimming and Sailing work differently with these movement types.

[This message has been edited by PawelS (edited 10-29-2012 @ 05:14 PM).]

your link leads nowhere.

A shame, as anything by PawelS is worth a look imho.

Yep, he set up the link incorrectly. What it says is correct though, go here http://aow2.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=1126

Note Swolte's comment there though which says to not download yet.

[This message has been edited by TravisII (edited 10-30-2012 @ 12:54 PM).]

Congratulation Jaszmiej & PawelS!

So this is the secret project and the name of the modmaker.
I hear from this project sometimes when I talk to PawelS.
Congratulation for keeping it secret for such a long time while working on it - without honor from no one.

I am no beta freak but I will download and try it if it goes final or if it is available for a longer time in alpha version.
In any case I will try it out.
I really waited for a long time (since PawelS and I talked about it a long time ago) for this fantastic kinds of water.
We had the same ideas and maybe more of my secret ideas will come to life during the time...?

Maybe your work it will drown me deeper into mapmaking again?

Whatever!
Congratulations you two modding heroes!!

[This message has been edited by The Groll (edited 10-30-2012 @ 04:12 PM).]

Dear Sir Groll
You should have written "Congratulations Jaszmiej and PawelS!"
Please correct it

[This message has been edited by Jaszmiej (edited 11-03-2012 @ 04:40 AM).]

I have thought about this.
And will do.
I only thought (and I know PawelS) that he does not want such praise if he feel he have not done so much for a project but here of course...
See my last post please.

And now an update on the main post!?
This image!

Breathtaking!
Super stylish even in this resolution!
What a beautiful and true looking landscape!
Really great!
Suggestion!
Make a higher zoom AND send both to Swolte for the HG main post random picture slot!
this image is really worth to be there!

Hat from! I donīt know how to say it in true English but I draw my hat for this image!
Need to see this map!

[This message has been edited by The Groll (edited 10-30-2012 @ 04:16 PM).]

Hehe, I think you mean you 'tip your hat to this image' mister groll. I agree it looks very nice indeed and I look forward to checking out the mod when the download is working.

I hope it will be soon!

Kirky

The map looks very nice.

I'm curious, how long have you two been working on this?

There are still problems with the download, so we put an alternative download link in the main post. Now you can check the mod out, so let us know what you think about it

@Groll:

1. We put a link in the main post to the map in 1:2 scale, so you can download it to see more details (click on "Download" to get it in a bigger size than the preview).
2. Speaking of your "secret ideas", the Griffites race have a unit that you might like
3. Jaszmiej says mapmaking with this mod is more pleasant than without it (although some of the objects from the 1.4 patch are missing, which you may dislike)
4. So we have nothing against "drowning you deeper into mapmaking again"

@Travis: The idea of the mod appeared in 2006-2007, but serious work started in August 2011, with a break in the first months of 2012.

We started working on the map this summer.

[This message has been edited by PawelS (edited 10-31-2012 @ 01:21 PM).]

Thanks for the reply! I can use it to judge that my own secret endeavors will come out sometime in the year 2016!

Really I respect any mod creator for this game. There is so much work to be done, all of it is very time consuming (and usually not even difficult). And when you have big plans...

1. We put a link in the main post to the map in 1:2 scale, so you can download it to see more details (click on "Download" to get it in a bigger size than the preview).

Does not work.

What happens when you try to use that link?

This is as big of an image as I could get from the link.

Click me!

When you click at the "Download" button at the top of the screen, you should get a 6060 x 6060 image... I don't know why it doesn't work for you and The Groll, you're not seeing that button?

Oh, I did not read everything fully. When I click the actual image it takes me to a site I cannot read, so I don't know if there is a download link there. But I now see the dropbox link to download it in the main post. I get an error from dropbox when I go there though.

Did you painstakingly take screenshot after screenshot and piece the image together, or do you have some program/way I do not know about which is easier? It's something I've always wanted to do.

I checked it and there is an error indeed - seems something happened to the DropBox servers, earlier today it worked properly...

Did you painstakingly take screenshot after screenshot and piece the image together

Yes

Edit: The DropBox link works now.

[This message has been edited by PawelS (edited 11-01-2012 @ 09:13 PM).]

@
TravisII

It's quite a pleasant work, you just need some patience, accuracy in picking pixels where to cut a screenshot, and some dexterity or a lower mouse sensitivity - and the "little big map" is ready.

P.S.
(if you play our mod and research the wizard skill tree that starts with "Patient", you''ll be good at making such maps )

[This message has been edited by Jaszmiej (edited 11-03-2012 @ 04:39 AM).]

Interesting wizard skill system.

Map looks nice too.

Did you painstakingly take screenshot after screenshot and piece the image together

Yes

- gasp -

Well, excited to see this finally come to the light! Apologies about the HG download. Still waiting for upper management to clear pathway for large files reaching the new server.

oh - seeing this (with the large map) - I did exactly the same one week ago on my new map for Upatch 1.5 just to see, how well I transferred the original map of the world where all takes place into the AOW Format and what should I say - I was surprised how well it fit in the end
Itīs not such a hard task after all even though itīs an XL map for I zoomed down ingame to 50%, so at the end of the day it was no more than 5 times 5 = 25 screenshots which had to be merged (although I have to admit that the level of detail in the final result is not perfect but absolutely sufficient to have a brilliant overview and even to see all details!)
Took me one hour to do it - just as info for those who always were asking themselves whether itīs worthwhile doing the dirty work - it absolutely is !!!
Itīs a phantastic feeling to see the final map after countless hours of work in a total view !!!
and the jpg has 'just' 17MB !

It's a known fact that the bigger the map, and the more AI units, the longer the turns last. The Mistle World map is very big (256x256), so with AI players set to Emperor, the first turn can last 2-3 minutes... later it speeds up a bit, and slows down again. During the entire game it's a lot of time, when the human player has nothing to do. But there is a little trick that allows making the AI turns about 3 x faster: after you finish your moves, switch the view to the Shadow World. Regardless if you play in the simultaneous or classic turn mode, this saves a lot of time, in simultaneous mode it allows fluent play in later turns, in classic mode it saves a large amount of time too.

Because of the above, if you're interested in playing on our map, but you don't want to wait so long for the AI moves, we made a version of our map with an added (empty) Shadow level.

Thanks

Fascinating

"Mistle World" map update: 7.XI.2012
version 0.7.0.253
*****

the most important changes:
- corrected spawn "bandits"
- added new spawns (like ghost ships and mermaid)

Thanks

Hi there,

I tried your map for some 60 turns and gave up, this mod not being my cup of tea.

Since I'm not here to diss the mod and its design decisions, I'll just provide the feedback that I think may be constructive, if negative. Keep in mind that this is based on single player experience only.

-Stone walls have so many hitpoints that most independant stacks attacking my cities had no chance to even break the doors in the 25 turns limit. Even those who could make it were sitting ducks for way too long to hope to live through it.

- Independant stacks are too strong for AI players. Four of them were killed by day 30.

- The drastically decreased damage for all units doesn't make the game any more tactical, combats just last way longer since it takes three times the usual number of hits to actually kill something. There are many changes in units stats that I don't approve of, but I only mention this one since I don't see the point and think it only lessens the tactical combat part instead of improving it. What was the idea behind this ?

-Finally, the units are really small, it's still playable but not really enjoyable since it makes it hard to see how many units are in a stack without zooming in. If it's the only way to make such a huge map, it's worth it though.

Even if I didn't like it, thanks for modding this great game, its nice to see the AoW community is stil alive and kicking (even if with only two or three measly points of damage per kick).

[This message has been edited by Lonely Vazdru (edited 11-30-2012 @ 05:01 AM).]

I have to check this out. The map looks awesome.

I like this a lot!!!

My monitor is large enough to see almost everything clearly, the smaller characters fit beautifully into the magnificent environment of the map.

The new movement-system causes hardships, with for instance cavalry-units not being able to traverse dense vegitation, but this is actually very credible and so ... a good thing.

The low-damage of most units and the movement-system do cause for very slow gameplay, I like this. It's easier to save units by pulling them out of a melee.

The mod is not yet finished, of course, but the playable races should all have equal opportunities, I didn't see any siege-machines with the amazones and darkelves. (only tried them briefly)

Many units lack for a block-animation or other kinds of mishaps. I could make a list if you guys want.

I am not a native English speaker but I think plural of forgotten is forgotten. (not forgottens) The same thing goes for fallen.

The map is awesome!
I did find some errors.
In some places the area-guard spawns just keep on coming untill you are dead.
Or is this meant to be like that?

OK
Keep it up!
Can't wait for the final thing.

Thank you for all comments and notes. We anticipated that this kind of mod won't appeal to everyone, so critical notes are expected

@Lonely Vazdru

About walls: Realistically, the walls should be a serious obstacle to the attacking units. You need specialized units to capture walled cities effectively. The problem is that the AI doesn't always know how to do it, but, as mentioned in the main post, we decided to keep all the fun features, even if the AI doesn't use them well.

Note that the normal sections of walls have less HP than gates, so a wallcrushing unit should be able to make a breach pretty fast. Also, you can use flying units.

About the independent spawns: we're still tweaking them, if you use the latest version of the map (see the first link in main post), they shouldn't be so dangerous for the AI players.

About the reduced damage: I (PawelS) think that it's one of the best changes in the mod. It makes combat less random, so it's not as easy as in the normal game to lose your favorite unit or hero by accident, when enemy units are lucky. Also many units have Physical Weakness (which represents the lack of armor), so the actual damage is not that low.

Generally, our idea was to make units more specialized, for example:

Archers are weak in the field without a cover, but they are good at defending at the walls, and at air defense.

Common infantry is quite good at defense, so it's useful in a large group, or as a cover or support for higher level units. Also it's good in automatic combat.

Healers are usually weak in combat, but their healing ability and other bonuses (especially at medals) make them good support units.

High level units aren't just better at everything than lower level ones. They may seem not very strong, but there are situations where they are very useful.

So we made units more different than each other, you need to use right ones in right situations, for example:

If you want to go underground, leave cavalry on the surface, and take infantry with you.

If you need a garrison against independent spawns, archers and basic infantry are good for this task.

If you want to capture a walled city, you need machines, wall crushers or flying units (unfortunately it doesn't work well in automatic combat, where you can "cheat", we can't fix it).

There are many more situations like those described above - making different units useful in different situations was one of our main goals when making the mod.

About the change of unit scale - we think it looks better now, as the size of units compared to structures, and relative size of different kinds of units, is more realistic. Note that you can change the map zoom level (using the mouse wheel), if you want to see the units better.

@feargus

Thank you for your appreciation to the new unit scale, movement system and the map

About the machines - some races won't have them, we don't want to make all races good at everything. The "flavor" of the races is important for us, and such a nature-oriented race as the Amazons shouldn't be willing to produce machines.

Those races have units different than machines that are good at capturing cities (we're going to give the Wall Crushing to the Evil Treemen of the Dark Elves, the Amazons have the flying Sisters of Mercy). Such units are better than machines as companions for heroes walking across the map, so, unlike machines, they are quite useful for other purposes too, not only for capturing cities.

We're working on a new version of the mod, where we already fixed the missing Dodge (formerly Block) animations and the animation shifts, where we noticed them.

We fixed the Fallen and Forgotten race names, as you suggested.

We're working on improving existing events and making new ones. Can you describe the problem with Area Guard spawns in more detail? They should activate only when units belonging to a human player enter an area.

The patch should be ready before Christmas

(This post was co-written by Jaszmiej and me.)

---

A proud member of the Unofficial Patch team.
Creator of the AoW1 Mod.

hi,

I tried all of the available races now, and am loving the mod even more.

Here's some things:

About walls: Realistically, the walls should be a serious obstacle to the attacking units. You need specialized units to capture walled cities effectively.

This feature is really great! Big cities can be a tough nut to crack. It would be even greater if not every watchtower had stone walls, like, those that appear to be made of wood on the main map. This may be more of a Hellbrick thing (if possible at all)

About the machines - some races won't have them, we don't want to make all races good at everything. The "flavor" of the races is important for us, and such a nature-oriented race as the Amazons shouldn't be willing to produce machines.

I understand this. Still, I think these races should benefit from building these structures. Maybe there are other solutions, like animals or mystic creatures.

We're working on improving existing events and making new ones. Can you describe the problem with Area Guard spawns in more detail? They should activate only when units belonging to a human player enter an area.

For instance, take the Den with 3 Shoveltusks guarding it, a little to the west of the Darkelf starting city. When you approach, lots of nasty spiders appear and attack you. When you defeat them, more come, and more and more, some rats, and more spiders. Last time I fought 13 battles in a row and survived. Then I got away. When I entered the area again with another stack, it happened again and I perished.
I think that after a battle the game thinks you are entering the area again, but i'm puzzled by why it stopped all of a sudden.

Ok that's it,
good luck

by the way, you did notice the slowmo-animation on Spiked Maw and Weaver Sight, didn't you?

Cheers

It would be great if wooden watchtowers have wooden walls (not only in this mod, I suppose it would be a good change for the unofficial patch as well), but as you noticed it's something that only HellBrick can do

The issue with spawns is caused by strange behavior of events when using classic turns, it doesn't happen with simultaneous turns, which we used to test the map. It can be fixed by reducing the spawn chance, but then the number of spawns in simultaneous turns would be too low. We're working on fixing this problem so it works properly in both turn modes, we have some ideas how to do it...

It's possible that there are other problems with events due to bugs in the game, so tell us if you notice anything unusual.