Required Modpack (if not included with the download):
Userpatch
Style:
Build and Destroy
You start with 1TC, scout, 10 archers and 10 spearmen.
Stone walls plus watch towers protect you from rushes.
Plenty of trees all over the map. Few berries in the nearby woods.
Just 1 pile of gold nearby.
Water with fish on the left, Forested hill with deers on the right. In the middle you will find gold and stone, protected by jaguars.
- Wolves have 40 HP
- Jaguars have 300HP and increased attack
Thermopylae is a random map script by vlad905313. Set within a vast dense forest, you objective is to scout the woods to find the resources necessary to conqueror the land.
Theme: 3
The random map combines elements of various random map styles, notably Fortress, Gold Rush and Black Forest, all into one custom map random map script. The map is set on within a thick dense forest where each team of players are group together. Each player starts with a small city, completed with walls towers and houses. Surrounding the cities is the thick forest. In the centre of the map is a large mine full of stone and gold. Jaguars have made their home here so watch out when you send your villagers along. To the south is the coast where fish are plentiful. Each team also starts with a small force of archers and spearmen. The map suits it theme okay but there’s not really anything unique or original in it.
Visual Appeal: 3
The visual appeal of the map varies depending on where you look. The forest that make of the majority of the map is actually really well designed. The trees are spaced out really well and allow the forest to look thick and dense whilst allowing unit to move through it easily enough. The mines are also designed pretty well with GAIA rocks around the mines to create some added eye-candy. Where I take the most issue is with the design of the players cities. They’re quite small with a lot of blank space in the middle. House are located on the edges next to the wall. Worst of all is that the terrain with in the cities is all Road. It makes it look very bland and boring, and the Road look out of place compared to the leaves and forest outside. While there is a solid use of different terrains, they haven’t been mixed together brilliantly and again, eye-candy, cliffs and elevation have been used but not to an extent that one would hope for. The real thing that spoils the visual appeal though is the countless piece of single GAIA walls that scatter the surroundings of each base. They’re pretty pointless, especially when playing single player as your the only person who can collect them.
Playability: 3
The scenario has enjoyable elements to it and can create a nice game to play. It’s certainly much more enjoyable on multiplayer rather than singleplayer due to the GAIA things hidden around. There were however several issues with the maps playability. Firstly is the random placement of objects. Trees would block gates, rocks would block access to gold mines and relics and sometimes even jaguars and wolves would be trapped between objects. This created a lot of frustration playing the map as units had to take long detours to get to their destination. The random palisade walls scattered around the map made the mini map very difficult to use as I struggled to find line units using it because of the hundreds of wall pieces. Pathfinding also had issues for units due to the random placement of objects. Finally I noticed a few balancing issues and it seemed as those who were located closer to the coast had a greater advantage then others due to access to fish and naval warfare.
Additional Comments:
Overall Thermopylae is a decent random map script for a beginner and is full of potential. Unfortunately it suffers from a number of playability of visual issues that spoil the overall quality of this maps theme.