Ok, so money_revisited_r3 is finally here. Most changes are "under the hood", so to speak, such as HDR and flag system issues that should be resolved. Amount of refineries has now been reduced to 4, with 2 being up-front. Resources are cut from the ridiculous level they were at, but it's still at an emp_money rate. Main bases now have pre-built LV3 MLs to discourage early-game rushing or ninja-raxes. I love that shit, but this is not the map for that kind of thing. Ideas for R4: A few strips of nocomm-build near the edges of the middle area should stop buildings from being placed that overspill the sides. Apart from making the map look better, this should prevent any VFs being placed, which look dumb, block access and are overall detrimental to gameplay. The north bridge roof could do with a few bits of cover horizontally (as opposed to the current vertical cover from arty). This should make for an easier time advancing along, rather than being pinned by a turret. The south bridge corridors need opening up quite a lot. Right now, combat in there takes place at point blank range, which sucks. They need opening up, with more access in, rather than being a tight maze. Minimap needs updating to better reflect a few small changes, such as the different placement of cranes from R2, the new ML turret platforms, and a few other minor issues. The minimap above is just an edited R1 minimap. The new forward refs...maybe not such a good idea. Weird effect with the flags in the bunker when looking through the glass. THE WATER ON THIS MAP WILL NOT WORK IN THE CURRENT STEAM VERSION. This will not be fixed, because I don't care. Next Empires patch has the Lost Coast content re-enabled, fixing the water. The map will be cycled on EPIC server. If Vicki wants to put a map with missing water (although not used for gameplay) on her server, then it's on there too. If not, then it won't be. Download: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1034763/Maps - final only/money_revisited_r3.7z If I don't hear about it, it won't get fixed, so post any issues you have at all, in this thread. Many mappers have helped with this map over the course of development, and this latest iteration was fixed up by Chris0132 and compiled by Smithy, so thanks and credit goes to them for this version of the map. Next time I fire up the test version of Empires (in which this map has water), I'll take some screenshots. Until then, I'm too lazy.
do we need water? I don't give a shit if its just a pit you fall into and die. Vehicle training map has that. Refineries up front sounds lame but, we do need more space between refineries to make it harder to deny the enemy ref points through arty. What about placing the refs at the front into the slopes? Lower that part of the slope till its even with the rest of the map that way its much more difficult to arty since it is surrounded by 3 walls. This way your more likely to loose your two back refs but, still possibly maintain half res flow.
The map is designed around being a dock-like thing, no water would be pretty fucking dumb, and look bad. So yes, we need water, and we'll have it after the patch. The refineries were always being cut down to 4, but Chris0132 thought it was worth trying out shoving 2 up front, to see the effects, otherwise they'd have just been on the back line. The idea was that infantry would hit it from the roof and thus you'd have a real reason to push across. Sadly, the first thing I see is an artillery parked at the edge of the opposite side and taking down the refinery, which is somewhat less ideal.
Yeah, when I started on it years ago I thought Money could be fixed, but it can't. This still has the same problems, and it always will.
there's a really easy way to fix this. Remove everything except starting positions and ref nodes. make the map completely flat and concrete. Have fun. edit: keep the mid bunker
The idea of the refs being up front is that you can use something other than arty to deny the enemy res. Taking the middle of the bridges lets you pepper them with shots from mortars and tanks easily. I figure that anything you do to make bases arty proof is only going to encourage arty because it encourages turtling, whereas giving non-arty ways to attack might actually encourage other strategies, such as they are. But yeah it might well suck ass, but money sucks ass anyway, if it sucks more ass maybe people will stop playing it.
Maybe moving them to the other side of the bridge, forcing the enemy artillery closer to the middle, thus opening them up to attack from both bridges, could work out. But I don't really know. I really need to see how R3 players, which probably won't get thoroughly tested until the next patch.
