Warcraft Zone Control - 2nd Edition

[Prometheus]

You need a resource interval. I was playing for the first time and had no idea what to do and then when I had no cash I waited thinking there was gona be some cash comming in.
(Doom, you really need to get a messenger, like Windows Live Messenger)

 

[Doomhammer]

hmm, resource interval?
what about another type of building for this purpose?
so you have production buildings producing units, and (don't know how to call it) a gold building insuring constant income.

whilst finishing this version, the 'classic edition', I'm already planning for a
Second Edition map, which will be different in many ways:


-denser: 6 players and prolly about 20 zones instead of 33, so it'll be a tougher fight for one's zones

-candy terrain even on the battlefield

-casual look, away from the flat 'football field', towards sth. less structured and more nature-like, including lakes, hills, custom tree models, etc.

-another race will be included (most probably the Naga)

-more heroes will be included, and they'll be purchasable again: so you could either go with my two heroes per race, or choose out of 3-5 neutral heroes with custom jass-triggered spells

If you have some good hero ideas which would suit that map, please post them!

 

[Prometheus]

The map leans to heavily on who upgrades first. I have lvl 6 attack and defence upgrades and 1 chimera wiped out like 7 of my dragons

 

[Doomhammer]

true.
I attacked the AI(difficult) with 12 meat wagons, and two dozen skeleton footies on armor level 5 and damage level 7.
a single enemy knight (armor level 18, damage level 21) smashed it all down in less than a minute.

even though it's really cool, I think I'm going to make the AI take it easy now on upgrading.

 

[Gravedigger]

I like the AI the way they are they're pretty difficult on even normal difficulty I just played with AI a minute ago. Great map, but I agree you need a income. I also agree with decreasing the zones because 33 to many

 

[Mr Zero]

I love your AI, but takes only 3 zones, because it is free. You will need a variable so the AI can see its income, when caulate, do I (AI) need more zones and can I (AI) affordt it.

But I allways get my a** wipe out. I never good at zone control ^^.

In other words: Your AI (and map) rocks ^^

 

[Prometheus]

try fightning them on easy. get 2 tier 1 buildings ASAP and mass upgrade atk and defence and try to kill someone, it worked for me.

 

[Doomhammer]

last update on the AI:

after numerous more hours of changing parts of my AI script, I've had the following progress:

1) (as seen in the first picture):
set to difficult, the AI now uses about as many buildings as it finds of use and masses enormously with fully upgraded tier1&tier2 units. I couldn't stand a chance here, yet I wasn't really satisfied with such an outcome.
Then I choked the AI's damage and armor upgrading speed at the benefit of researches and the ability to be more flexible in higher tiers.

2) I made more changes, and got the AI to a point it behaves more flexible in selling buildings of older tiers, and switching to tier5 and tier6 units instead.
In image 2 and 3 the AI insane (green) on the left and AI insane (orange) on the right kicked me out pretty quickly, so I stayed in spectator mode and watched the final battle: Mountain giants + Chimaeras vs Tauren + War Dragons. Finally they're fully making use of all the abilities available. It's a dream! (from the perspective of the creator of the AI), or rather a nightmare! (from the perspective of playing against insanity). In any way, I can proudly claim that I managed to further push the envelope.

 

[Jo.O]

Holy SHIZZLE!

This is seriously the best zone control ever, and one of my absolute favorite custom maps.

I played a 2 on 2 with 3 easy computers and won pretty fast, Trying insane computers next time.

And, why doesn't it work on b.net?
I tryed hostimg but everyone except me lost after 1 minute.

 

[Prometheus]

You should have 2 modes, normal and you select your team, like in WotE.

 

[Doomhammer]

You should have 2 modes, normal and you select your team, like in WotE.

please elaborate - I haven't played WotE.

 

[Doomhammer]

Holy SHIZZLE!

This is seriously the best zone control ever, and one of my absolute favorite custom maps.

I played a 2 on 2 with 3 easy computers and won pretty fast, Trying insane computers next time.

And, why doesn't it work on b.net?
I tryed hostimg but everyone except me lost after 1 minute.

Hey J!
Thanks for your comment.

Crazed, who is my top beta tester and concept critic, and me, we've been doing numerous bnet testing sessions so far.
Yesterday we could play a full round of 2 on 2 against an easy and a normal AI over bnet. Apart from the issues that still need working on, it's fully playable in multiplayer, granted both connection and CPUs are top notch. My map is fully jassed, and with Vexorians map optimizer even further sped up, so it runs very smooth up to the point the sheer amount of units brings the connection (and the machines ) into its knees.

I can pretty exactly tell you the reason why people disconnected: it's the Insight ability, which makes your coordinator unit fly into any targeted player unit on the battlefield and change the game perspective to 3rd person view. I've worked many hours on this single ability and I'm more than fond of this extra feature, but there's no way to get camera positions synced up in multiplayer - a frustrating experience with some of the undiscovered flaws of the jass scripting language. :banghead: So I will make this ability available for singleplayer only. Thing is, I changed this quite some time ago, and WE crashed before saving it in that very map version, so I remembered to have done the change, but wasn't really aware that the ability is still available in multiplayer. So playing THIS version in multiplayer, just tell your buddies to "keep the hell their mouse pointers away from that eye thingy", and they won't disconnect!
Final bugfixing and bnet testing are now my main issues before proudly releasing the map. As said so far, this map still circulates as 'pre-release' to give you a good taste of it all, but without the guarantee that even the last detail is elaborated and failsafe. So stay tuned, it's still getting better!

 

[Prometheus]

-Wote-

-ally red

-ally yellow

there is also -truce which give allyness but not shared vision

 

[Doomhammer]

-Wote-

-ally red

-ally yellow

there is also -truce which give allyness but not shared vision

hmm...interesting. Looks like another good feature to implement as I go along.
Now, how is this done, I mean, is it as it appears to me? - you write a chat message like "-ally red", and all of a sudden the red AI will be your ally?
And how do you choose in between the modes? Is it done by dialoge directly after gamestart? And does it work for AIs only or can you also set and dismiss alliances between humans? I can't quite imagine the technicalities of that feature yet.

 

[Gravedigger]

Awesome map, I think you should have free for all though. But this tier 1 and tier 2 and stuff thing is awesome, and every tier has a cool intro, except the heavy air support one, why doesn't it have an intro? When is version 2 going to be finished?

 

[Doomhammer]

are we approaching a release date yet?

Awesome map, I think you should have free for all though. But this tier 1 and tier 2 and stuff thing is awesome, and every tier has a cool intro, except the heavy air support one, why doesn't it have an intro? When is version 2 going to be finished?

FFA, custom alliances...I'm not sure how to work that out...yet.
I'm open for suggestions on this one...if you tell me exactly how you wanted it to look like

The tier6 intro...why is it not there?
-hmm, let me see on my list...down there, just two items after "finish AI"...there it is
It doesn't have a tier6 intro yet, because the tier6 intro is the longest and most extensive interlude. I'll work on that in the next few days - I just haven't visualized it yet. I also thought about a final camera sway over the whole battlefield or some little gimmick to have the winner (in case he's human) feel that extra bit of glory. so, yeah, I'm working it out! - the proper release will have these details included.

oh, and your question about ZCE2...that'll be a whole different map - I'd say I'm in the planning phase, where my main concern is that the Naga are missing a building and a siege unit. But let me finish Zone Control evolutions first.

All in all I'm getting closer to a proper release. Every day I'm working on various details and doing fine-adjustments. If things work out, then we're talking about releasing it about next week. Otherwise it'll take till october, as I'll be abroad the whole of september.

 

[Gravedigger]

I don't think there should be any alliances, just FFA

 

[Jo.O]

Here, it's the second time everyone gets dissconnected. :nuts:

 

[Doomhammer]

I'm working on it!

Here, it's the second time everyone gets dissconnected. :nuts:

sure, the intro cine causes disconnections at the point where the heroes are selected and ordered to turn to the cam. To not have it disconnect is what I'm working on atm. Disconnects are my single nightmare when writing code. I've changed some function calls, and I hope it works on my current version (1-78)
so apart from the -intro cinematic and the -insight ability, your version (probably 1-76) should be fully playable on bnet - at least we couldn't produce any other server splits during our recent test sessions.
I'm sorry you had this frustrating experience, but as said in this thread as well as in the map submission, I still regard the map as pre-release, which means that once I'll release it as "Zone Control evolutions 1.0", I'll give you the guarantee that the whole map includes all the details I regarded necessary and is 100% playable and failsafe.

 

[Doomhammer]

update on current version

I've got an update on this issue (disconnects). Last night's bnet test went through all the intro and the tier cinematics without causing server splits!
Insight is not available for multiplayer any more, and hence can't cause server splits (it still is for singleplayer!)
So these problems belong to the past!

If things work out, then I can finally and completely release the map as soon as next week. The main issue left open for now is the tier6 cinematic.

current changes:
-slight re-balancing of some hero abilities.
-added functions in the AI to unstuck heroes and peons; the problem of the double contingency situation is still there, I'm afraid - maybe I will find a solution on that in the next few days.
- further changes to make the AI spend less gold on upgrading for the benefit of more flexibility with buildings an heroes. The AI_insane is probably less insane than it was before, whereas the AI_newbie profits from the better resource management. There are still huge variances however, meaning that an AI insane can be somewhere in between playing rather normal on the one side and absolutely overwhelming on the other extreme.

There's still some time to include extra features like these custom alliances as requested, but I have absolutely no clue how this is supposed to look like.

Anyway, stay tuned for the proper release - it's coming soon!