The Launch of Africa: Developer's Insights

[Tiralan]

===[The Launch of Africa: Developer's Insights]===

This post is to show you my way of creating a new map. It has been a project of 6 months and I'm glad it's time to show it to you all. First of all, the goal of this post isn't to gather credits or to receive constructive feedback, there will be other topics for that. This is merely showing you my decision making and process during those months.
However, talking about credits: this map wouldn't have been here without the help of Nubby and Killerlady (GFX), Glaurung (Unitstats), Mikayel (Terrain Rework) and the other devs.


=[Step 1: Deciding on map and theme]=

After re-implementing Rome, I wanted to create a map from nothing. Since trying to fix Rome, from an existing balance, to a better one, was not an easy task. Some might even argue that it's still not in the optimal condition. So, something new was strongly desired by me, so I could balance it the way I would see fit. From the ruins of another game there once was, I found a core map of Africa. It needed a lot of adjustments, since it had a grid and harbours. But, it saved a lot of work and I didn't have to come up with citynames and/or draw challenging borders, as that was already set.

Then the Theme. Africa it was, but then what to do with Africa. It has a rich history, with a lot of tribes and grounds changing hands through the years. But the colonial period won it over any other idea, simply because it gives a nice contrast. On one hand the national tribes, with their traditional units, weapons and way of living; then on the other hand the more advanced colonial empires to bestow upon the continent of Africa. They would bring gunpowder, advanced weapons and trained soldiers. How would the tribes defend against all that power? Well, here is the chance to rewrite history!


=[Step 2: Getting the map playable and ready]=

For some reason we didn't have a small map for africa, but only a large map. Remember those days you had to click on a map to show the larger variation? So this was the first hiccup in the project. We had to come up with a way to make the African map fit in our current system. Luckily Myth had ideas to rework the map and make it zoomable instead. The map-system rework was on itself very needed, but also saved a lot of work on Africa.

This map on the worldmap in that other game there once was, had very concentrated grouping of terrains. Like, you could cut africa in four pieces, and have one terraintype on every piece. That had to be reworked into a challenging setup of terrains. Mikayel came here to help and designed a setup which will hopefully prove to be challenging and fair for the different countries, which have different terrain bonusses ofcourse.

I decided to only have 4 terrains on this map. I couldn't really fit a fifth in. Yes, Savannah was an option, but that would require the whole map to be overhauled again. Was that lazy? No, not really, it was a educated decision. Since the map is slightly smaller than the other maps, it needs more potential for action. And the other maps have 30 countries, this map will only have 12 countries. Ofcourse this is based on the current playerbase. We could increase the amount of countries, but thats a matter for later.


=[Step 3: Coloring in the blueprint]=

Then the research started into the African History. I needed 3 colonial forces which would reside on different sides on the map. The obvious France, Britain and Portuguese were selected and they were allocated on the spots they had the most power. This is also the first time we see a continent (= zone where you can buy certain regional units) splitted up in different zones. Normally countries belonging to a certain continent are grouped/bordering, but this provides danger for the inhibitants of Africa from all sides.

I must admit I had a lot of fun researching the African tribes and countries. I decided to go with existing country names, since they were mostly already called by those names during the colonial period. The African history is a lot richer ofcourse, with great tribes, but that would not really fit well history-wise with the colonial countries. So I decided to show the true African flavour in the units and weapons, and not perse in the selection of countries.


=[Step 4: Units]=

Thusfar the project was slow, but sure. It was slow because it's a lot of work to put everything in database. Imagine putting all the nations, continents, cities and borders in. Luckily I had help on all that work, but it's not the part I enjoyed most. I was also getting tired of fiddling with the map, redrawing borders, creating sealines and whatnot. I am a perfectionist in it. And I'm not even that happy with how several things look, but at some point you just have to leave it, as it's playable and fine. It would drive a soul crazy to fix every pixel possible.

Onto the fun stuff. Well fun, knowing this part of the new map would require the most work, attention and testing. The units are key to the rise or fall of a new map. Everything falls or stands with a good balance. After my researching period, I send a list of unit names with a description of how I see them in my mind, to Glaurung. I gave him full power to design the units statswise as he would see fit, aslong as it would make somewhat sense with how I envisioned the units and the trees. Weeks, if not months went by and a spreadsheet of the first setup was handed to me. And no, that's not lazy, Im glad he took his time to puzzle through it. Then a telegram channel was created with experienced players to look over the units and test with them via the battle simulator. Ofcourse I did my own bit of research and mathematics. Together we finetuned the units till pulp, got the sharp edges off. And I hope not a single unit will dominate the map, as that danger will always be there, if not careful. In my opinion we came up with a set that is divers, balanced and exciting. And then when Nubby put icons on them to give the units a face, it all came together.


=[Step 5: Finetuning]=

After all the work coming in from all the people who thankfully helped towards this project, it all had to be put together. A new map was created and installed on our dev-server. To put in perspective, this was give or take mid-december, so thats two weeks prior to launch. And yes, a lot was still going wrong. Borders of the northside of the map were all wrong, heroweapons were poorly taken care of and needed a full restructure, some units still proved to be overpowered and beating every match-up. Back to square one it felt here. But still happy for all the extra eyes looking along to make sure that Africa will not be a failure.

I installed a few things that we don't see on the other maps, which could be seen as tests, but I'm confident about them. An example of that is increasing terrain bonusses. Tier1 units start with a bonus of +1 (or -1) on respective terrains, and if they promote to higher tiers, the terrain bonus grows accordingly. Hopefully this motivated players to promote their soldiers when they should, since the difference of 1% is virtually an extra unit or two, give or take. Also I finetunes into the heroweapons. Changing from ranking to pvp setup will be more expensive, pike/cavpike weapons are boosted quite a bit, compared to other maps and other fun stuff going on to create a nice balance in the hero-part of the game.

Meanwhile it leaked to the public that Africa was the map that I called my secret project for so long. I mean, suprising players is hard enough, and it was not even my initial goal to suprise you. But I didn't want to announce it, so Africa would have been shot down with prejudice and unconstructive comments already. And that's just not motivating for me or anyone else helping on this project. But, the word was out, and only positive responses came back, along with constructive comments, which I tried to change immediatly. With some sigh or relief, I gladly towards step 6.


=[Step 6: Launch and Advertising]=

Well this part is still in the future. The launch is on the second of january and I'm very excited for it. And we will also take this opportunity to advertise the game via Facebook (and via other ways). I will setup and pay an advertising campaign for the duration of the first age of Africa, hopefully to attract new players with a possitive vibe and bring older players home to challenge themselves on new grounds. I already received additional donations for advertising, as people believe in this project as I do. (leaving out names on purpose, you can comment with saying you donated if you wish to do so..)

Every thing that is wrong, strange, unbalanced, etc. Is all my responsibility. None of the people who helped me, have to take any critics. I had the final decisions, so blame me for it.

Sincere thanks to everyone that contributed to this project!

It's time, Proudly I give you: Africa.

~Tiralan

[Ice]

Map zooming is bugged, can't scroll

[Ice]

And can't promote

[Ice]

Also Patrol some more and action buttons like Investigate should be aligned so you can just click without moving the mouse.

[Myth]

And can't promote

Probably because the units you can promote are injured

[Myth]

Map zooming is bugged, can't scroll

Hold shift

[Ice]

I see, new map is worse than the old one though
There's a bug with multiple battle notifications for a single battle