Map ideas

[amitp]

• City arrangement - 6 labs + 4 extractors - right now they're placed randomly, but I think it'd be nicer if they had some layout that matched the functionality. 4+4 might work better, because we could use 4 directions for resources and the diagonals for the labs.
  
• Buildings are too uniform in behavior, but I think this just mirrors the resources & labs being too uniform, so maybe that's the thing to look at first.
  
• Enemy layout - seems like whatever we come up with for player towns could be applied here
  
• The density seems uniform; it'd be more interesting if nonuniform. I'll play with this a bit to see if it produces anything interesting. I'm thinking we can combine three noise layers:
  
  • One layer can be enemy/player gradient
    
  • One layer can be natural resources
    
  • One layer can be density
    
  
  
• Change map as territory is conquered - already some of this, with the "oily" patches clearing up. It's incredibly satisfying to see the map improve and I think that'd be nice to see everywhere.
  
• If it's a "sandwich game" without chat then the map can serve as a way for people to communicate
  
  • Where battles are going on
    
  • Where we are attacking enemy towns
    
  • Where enemies are attacking our towns
    
  • Where our towns are being built
    
  • What resources are available in which areas
    
  
  All the map information should support decision making
  
• Since movement is a big part of this game, having the map affect movement could add to the gameplay
  
  • Booster zones >>> that accelerate you in a certain direction
    
  • Healing zones
    
  • Slick areas that make you slide forward with momentum
    
  • Slow/fast areas
    
  • Lightning areas that charge you up, and it releases a burst after a few seconds (you'd move onto this square, charge up, then go towards the enemies)
    
  • Plasma areas that negate all shields while driving through (maybe you'd guide the enemies to run through this)
    
  • Areas that burn up the terrain as you drive around
    
  • "Pressure plate" tile that opens up a walled-off section like the examples in this demo
    
  
  
  

[amitp]

So here's one idea I'm playing with —

• Towns have access to all 4 resources, but not in the same amounts.
  
• Distribute the 4 resources randomly in large chunks.
  
• Towns only form where all 4 resources meet.
  

Here's an example of what it looks like:



It seems to work ok. Towns are scattered around and not too uniformly.

The other direction would be more designed and less random:

• First decide where towns will be. We'll probably use perlin noise to generate a density function, then blue noise. It'd be a variable density version of
  
• Then, since we want towns to have access to resources, place resources near the towns.
  
• Using the “good vs evil” noise function, decide which of those towns will be enemy vs player towns.
  
• Fill the remaining wilderness with resources.
  

I think “place resources where towns are” is better if you want to design the gameplay and then make the map fit, and “place towns where the resources are” is easier to implement but harder to control.

[amitp]

I think towns would make more sense if the resource buildings were connected together, and all resources of the same type were in the same part of town. Here's a sketch of what it might look like, with each resource type having a different shape/pattern, and labs looking very different from extractors:



You'd know how much omnium the town has by looking at the omnium deposits nearby, instead of reading the little icons in the center of town. As you build new omnium extractors, they'd be placed in the omnium part of town.

[amitp]

I'm playing with the idea of using perlin noise layers to lay out resources. With variable density, players would have to scout and look at different towns to figure out that that town is the best place to expand. Resources:



And then towns placed on the map:



You can see that some towns have much more potential than other towns.

I'll keep playing with this and see if I can make it pretty.

[amitp]

Last one for now. Isn't Perlin noise great?

Each tiny square would be a tile, I guess, and the white squares are potential town locations. You probably don't want all of them to be actual towns because they're too closely spaced, but maybe that'd be ok.



(Note: for stupid reasons this image looks different in Firefox and Chrome on my machine, and neither looks the same as the original.)