Multiplayer maps: prefix labelling, terrain

[TosaInu]

Hello R'as al Ghul,

ml stands for misc large. As there proved to be maps that fit neither category of castle, flat or hilly.

Each terrain has cons and pros. A totally flat map with a tiny bump in the middle can give interesting games. A map like Rugged, while not being everyones favourite, can. There is no best type of map, but one that may have a good chance of being played again and again is free of bugs, not unpleasantly textured and offers various terraintypes: some woods to hide monks, a small ridge for guns, a plain to unleash cavalry, maybe a hole to lure the enemy in.

[Puzz3D]

It's not a big deal, but I prefer the two letter designator to be a suffix with no parenthesis. More of the actual map name will show in the hosted game listing, and players can, if they want, keep all the maps they create together in the listing by using a personal designator prefix. In any case, I think the parenthesis are unnecessary whether the designator is a prefix or suffix.

Maps with no designator are all small maps from STW. I retextured three large maps, Horselands, River Crossing (rivers removed) and Sacred Ground, which Obake made for WE/MI, and gave them the suffix 'fl'.

[R'as al Ghul]

I agree about the suffix.
I think it'd be nice to have: mapname-terrain suffix-personal suffix.
That way all map names should be readable.

Concerning the personal suffix I plan on having an extensive readme documentation (pdf?) where such things could be listed. Map creators should get credit but I see no use in having, for lack of a better example, "O" for Orda. Either you know it's by Orda anyway or you don't and then the "O" isn't helping you any. I suggest that we get rid of personal prefixes/suffixes.
Tomi once suggested to have more telling names but we also have to think of the limited displayable space. (how many characters of the mapname is the lobby showing?) I think placenames like Tokaido or Anegawa (my maps) are short, memorable and fit the theme of the game.

Just thinking out loud......

[Puzz3D]

Red Field of Patay showed in full.

[Tomisama]

My idea was to give a descriptive name that would instantly give a mental picture of the most outstanding characteristic of the map.

But that’s harder to do than it sounds.

Any “real” name will do (please no numbered maps).

They will be learned

For example, if I say Totomi, I bet you can see it in you mind

[|Heerbann|_Luculus]

For me the suffix like (fl) are helpful and easy to know. But real names are quite more interesting than numbers like flatinland_01 etc.

I would prefer a mix of it. At first the name should express for how many armies the map is used to be, then some information about the terrain and at last a name of the map.

For example:

(8f)Fields_of_Agincourt: You see its for 8 players, its almost flat and "fields" causes an impression of the terrain, and the name Agincourt makes it easy to remember it.

[Puzz3D]

R'as has correctly pointed out that all we have are large and small maps, and a single non-alphanumeric prefix would be enough to separate the large from the small in the list. The terrain type could be designated by the map's name, by an optional suffix or carry no designation as is the case with the original STW maps.