Playtesting on old projects

Hi all, I'm a regular (PAIAT) over at Stronghold Heaven. This looks like a great forum, I'm hoping to be able to contribute around here :)

Anyways, I have several maps from many years ago that I want to finish up and publish. I'll be sure to upload them here as well, if that's ok with y'all. One map I'm working on is a SH1 rendition of Castillo de Bellver in Spain, and progress is going slowly. If anyone wants to work on scripting for that map, I'd be very grateful.

I would also be very happy to help out on any maps anyone is working on. I'm best at SH1 and SHC. I can also do SH2, SH3 and SHL, but I don't have SHC2.

Thanks!

Welcome! :)

We'd be more than happy to help you test and script your maps. Whatever you need help on, you can be sure that we can assist. You might also want to check out our range of tutorials for Stronghold 1.

If you have any maps you'd like to share, you can upload them here, we'd love to have them!

What would you say you're best at with map-making?

I look forward to seeing you around the forum! :)

Hi, thanks for the quick response. SH landscaping/castle design, particularly for invasion scenarios, is my forte. I don't really do many skirmish maps.

Here's the map for reference, it's from an archived thread over 4 years ago.

http://stronghold.heavengames.com/cgi-bin/forum/display.cgi?action=ct&f=17,3834,,all

Sorry, it won't let me post links

That was an anti-spam measure for spammy new members. I've promoted you now, welcome! :)

Landscaping is more my expertise in Stronghold 1 too. Unlike Stronghold 2, I'm much better at the scripting .etc there. That map really does look very nice indeed. It's very clear you've put some time into it, and I particularly like the part to the left-hand side of the image.

That may well have found a place into our Stronghold 1 gallery, if I can post it there? ;)

Thanks again, feel free to post any of my content on this site. I'll be sure to upload some of my past finished work in the following days.

Am I permitted to attach the map here? That would be very convenient, anyone can download to edit the script as they like.

And here it is: http://www.stronghold-nation.com/gallery/image/210-castillo-de-bellver/ :)

Am I permitted to attach the map here?

Of course! You don't need my permission to attach it - add it to whatever post you wish :)

Here's the map :)?Lord_of_Hell playtested it for me once before, the problem is mainly with the script, although some changes in the map may be necessary.

Bellver_CastlePlaytest.zip

Great. I'll add this into my schedule tomorrow and let you know what happens. :)

First of all, looking at the map in more detail, I really can see that you've gone into meticulous detail, it's really good! The village layout has been very well thought out, and it looks very real indeed. I particularly like the fact the village has been built around the trees. This makes both placing new buildings difficult until you place woodcutter huts and destroy some trees.

The scripting is pretty good too; it demands quite a bit of skill to get far in the map. There are however, a lot of events which seem to come all at once, not entirely sure if that's how you wanted them, or whether you wanted them staggered or not. I can see how it could be useful both ways though, so I don't really see a problem with it.

It's quite difficult to get an army up at first, and especially with the invasions it can make it harder - this can make it much more challenging for you. The objectives were fairly well implemented, and it's a very good map for a few hours of fun!

I think that there are an awful lot of events in the map too which could have contributed tot the scripting problem you mentioned, from what I can see. I briefly took a look at the editor screen to find this out. This does mean it could be very easy to get lost in them all and not understand them. I've once had a similar problem to this in Stronghold 2, and the easiest way I found to fix this was to completely do them all again from scratch, keeping a note of the ones that were there before.

Once you talk through the objectives out loud, it becomes clearer to understand and you can proceed. But the best solution I find, is to slowly add objectives, and test as you go. Once one thing works, move on to the next, test again, then move onto the next .etc.

Overall progress is slower, but you have a much bigger idea what's wrong when something does go wrong, because you can pin-point the cause to a certain objective or action, rather than blindly looking through all of them and guessing which is to blame.

When I do this kind of thing, I start with a simple win & lose condition. Invasions are normally one of the last things which should be added because they are unpredictable and can require a lot of time to get just right. Often when you add additional objectives invasions are slightly different, so you end up wasting lots more time testing and changing things to make it right again. And then the same process happens again.

Anyway, feel free to ask more specific questions if you'd like. :)

Awesome, thank you for the feedback! Glad you liked it.?I'll be sure to work on it some more as soon as I get back from vacation.

Not a problem! Hope you enjoy your holiday :)