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Duke Ragereaver
March 30th, 2017, 10:15
Download it here (https://keeperklan.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=124)!

Tymnath Herez

Difficulty rating: Hard to very hard


This is an ancient realm. Its wealth and knowledge is desired by many despicable Keepers. As of late two powerful Keepers by the names of Prerun and Swailihr have set their sight on this realm. Both have their own wicked designs for this realm so it is likely they will not be on friendly terms. Against such overwhelming forces, the Heroes have retreated to their holdouts. Your location is central in the realm so you will have a lot room to manoeuvre. Make up your mind what areas should have your initial attention, but be watchful not to overstretch your lines.

https://keeperklan.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1754&d=1491048445

YourMaster
March 31st, 2017, 00:25
Thanks. Very nice to see another map of yours!

I was enjoying it, but unfortunately I have not been able to finish it. I used KeeperFX, but with all that lava it's hopeless and my game kept getting frozen because of the pathfinding bug. I've tried bridging my lava, but to no avail. So this is a map for people with an up-and-running original Dungeon Keeper.

Tiny bit of feedback: There missing a word in this sentence - "The Heroes have dug themselves in the rather naieve hope they ...."

Woudo
March 31st, 2017, 05:33
The -near- map freeze occurred when Green dug into the lava surrounding the player base. The fairies were trying to pathfind through the jagged dirt islands north of the south-eastern hero fortress. Revert that to plain lava and things will improve.

Other things to note;

Spelling errors in the opening text.
Naive
Onslaught
Possess

I count five locked hero doors that don't have spinning keys.

In the south-east hero castle, the S-bend near the scavenger room and the S-bend closest to blue both have torches on the same subtile as a door, making the torches hover in the sky.

All the hero guard posts still need to have their poles removed.

I'd open the impenetrable rock up a bit as the AI just can't navigate 90 degree corners to attack the player. Blue has absolutely no hope of reaching the player.

Duke Ragereaver
March 31st, 2017, 08:28
Mornin'.


Thanks. Very nice to see another map of yours!

I was enjoying it, but unfortunately I have not been able to finish it. I used KeeperFX, but with all that lava it's hopeless and my game kept getting frozen because of the pathfinding bug. I've tried bridging my lava, but to no avail. So this is a map for people with an up-and-running original Dungeon Keeper.


The -near- map freeze occurred when Green dug into the lava surrounding the player base. The fairies were trying to pathfind through the jagged dirt islands north of the south-eastern hero fortress. Revert that to plain lava and things will improve.

I had hoped the pathfinding bug experience would be limited for those playing KeeperFX. I thought it would occur with a lot of water with complex pathways.

What can I do to remedy that? Limit the lava lakes, make the lava corridors more narrow, have more dirt tiles or dirt pathways?


Tiny bit of feedback: There missing a word in this sentence - "The Heroes have dug themselves in the rather naieve hope they ...."


Other things to note;

Spelling errors in the opening text.
Naive
Onslaught
Possess

I count five locked hero doors that don't have spinning keys.

In the south-east hero castle, the S-bend near the scavenger room and the S-bend closest to blue both have torches on the same subtile as a door, making the torches hover in the sky.

All the hero guard posts still need to have their poles removed.

Sure, those are easy to fix. :)


I'd open the impenetrable rock up a bit as the AI just can't navigate 90 degree corners to attack the player. Blue has absolutely no hope of reaching the player.

From my test games the Blue Keeper generally succeeds in bridging the western lava lake to break into the Player's lake or western hero dungeon if the walls are not fortified yet. The Blue Keeper will also advance at one point in the south-eastern Hero Dungeon. But I will see what I can do to make it easier (and more threatening) in the former scenario.

YourMaster
March 31st, 2017, 08:48
It's a 'complex' pathway very quickly. And lava functions the same as water, since flies, fairies, dragons, hounds and reapers can cross it just fine. But any simplification helps, if there's a rock in lava that means there are two pathways through the lava, remove it and one remains. What also may help a lot is to make sure there isn't a circle of lava around the player by for example placing a rock wall in the southern lava river.
A reduction of routes on path/ground already opened may also help.

It may not take much to make it work, as I managed to play quite a bit before I crashed - I had the workshop and scavenger from down south, and the gold/gems from the north west and could break down the door to the torture room whenever I wanted.

I was attacked by both keepers by the way.

Duke Ragereaver
April 1st, 2017, 13:12
New version has been playtested and uploaded!

Hades
April 1st, 2017, 20:23
Pretty solid map 8/10. Only problem is when you get your bridge, the Fairy Alpha strike is brutal, albeit that's easy to counter with corner-to-corner fighting. That and was surprised to find no hero drop at any point in their bases, even a :lord:.

Still, the way to do it for me would be to eliminate the fairies with bile demons, while having a few dragons to mount pre-emptive strikes north against the greens, and it's plain sailing from there.

YourMaster
April 1st, 2017, 23:00
Hades, did you use FX or vanilla?

I tried the new version again, and gotten further, but it still hung. I loaded my last save and tried to simplify the level myself by changing multiple pathways into single rooms, locking off areas, removing bridges and whatever, but not long after it still hung.
It's a shame because I'm really enjoying the map, both keepers are really powerful - too powerful for me so far - and they keep attacking me with bridges forcing me to stay on my toes. I'll have a look at the map in the editor myself.

EDIT:
I've made some minor changes to the map, I'll test this version to see if it can be finished in KeeperFX. Main difference is I simplified the wet cosmetic area's in the southern hero dungeon, removed a few rocks within the lava and removed the ability of the keepers to build more than one guard post.

I did notice you've tried to use the 'tutorial flash button' command, but this is incorrectly documented. This does not work:

TUTORIAL_FLASH_BUTTON(​[button],​[player])
The command works like this:

TUTORIAL_FLASH_BUTTON(​[button],​[time])

EDIT2:
My adaptations did not work either. I guess this will simply be a vanilla only map until Mefisto comes back out of hiding. Multiple lava puddles, enemy keepers, several ways to access stuff is beyond what this version of KeeperFX can handle.
I guess my map lost it when blue took over the southern fortress.

And by the way, in that last play through green dug out to the eastern gems before he even touched his own gold and I was nowhere near ready to stop him/defeat the faeries.

Duke Ragereaver
April 2nd, 2017, 08:40
Pretty solid map 8/10. Only problem is when you get your bridge, the Fairy Alpha strike is brutal, albeit that's easy to counter with corner-to-corner fighting. That and was surprised to find no hero drop at any point in their bases, even a :lord:.

Still, the way to do it for me would be to eliminate the fairies with bile demons, while having a few dragons to mount pre-emptive strikes north against the greens, and it's plain sailing from there.

Thanks! I'd say this map is overall hard with some spikes here and there but nothing out of the ordinary. I had considered adding some Hero drops, but I think that would take the focus away on the main courses (the enemy Keepers) who are rather active.

@YourMaster
I am a bit saddened with your problems. Is there something I can do perhaps?

YourMaster
April 2nd, 2017, 09:14
@YourMaster
I am a bit saddened with your problems. Is there something I can do perhaps?

I don't know, it's not your fault, it's just really disappointing that the pathfinding-bug is so problematic in KeeperFX. I don't know what would be left of this map if you make changes until it is stable in FX. Perhaps it would require taking out much of the lava which this map centers around. I'm not sure but it wouldn't surprise me that the large number of lava-walking, flying and teleporting creatures add to the problem as well.

Yesterday I tried making the purely cosmetic changes I could, but that still didn't work: 1755
At this point it might be less effort to make another map without lava than it is to tweak this one for FX. This leaves the original for the people who own GOG, use dosbox, or for the long wait if Mefisto ever decides to come back and fix it.

Woudo
April 2nd, 2017, 18:52
I opened up your map to see if I could fix it.
but I got a bit carried away
did things
changed things
thinged things

1757

I'm not sure if I even fixed the crash. Hell, I probably made it worse. I couldn't get it to crash, but I also couldn't get Mark's fixed version to crash, so who knows.

YourMaster
April 2nd, 2017, 21:53
Well, did you try to play it til the end? Because like I said, it goes all right for a long time. I think each time I played for over an hour and had for a long time opened up the lava lakes without issues.

Endrix
April 6th, 2017, 09:46
I missing destroy walls for the green keeper :(

Duke Ragereaver
April 6th, 2017, 12:42
I missing destroy walls for the green keeper :(

Hello, you mean the Green Keeper walled himself in?

Endrix
April 8th, 2017, 10:28
Yes if I correct understand it. I can not reach the green keeper. I required destroy walls.

Duke Ragereaver
April 9th, 2017, 09:35
Yes if I correct understand it. I can not reach the green keeper. I required destroy walls.

Well, this is unfortunate as both enemy Keepers should be aggressive enough to prevent themselves from walling in.

Perhaps the destroy walls spell should be researchable after all? I am somewhat hesitant to include it by default.

YourMaster
April 9th, 2017, 10:50
Perhaps you can script it in somehow, so only make destroy walls researchable for example when all heroes are destroyed and green has not lost a single fight, or has not reached an action point near the eastern gems or whatever.

Woudo
April 9th, 2017, 14:10
The player having access to destroy walls changes absolutely nothing. The hero bastions are already very open.

Duke Ragereaver
April 13th, 2017, 10:16
The player having access to destroy walls changes absolutely nothing. The hero bastions are already very open.

Agreed.

I have uploaded a new version where the Player can research Destroy Walls.

YourMaster
December 14th, 2019, 19:09
Trotim (https://keeperklan.com/members/531-Trotim)provided a solution for the pathfinding bug. It's to make sure maps have 'filled corners'. So for ADiKtEd open the map.ini and set these settings 'FRAIL_COLUMNS=0, UNAFFECTED_GEMS=1, UNAFFECTED_ROCK=1' and make/update the map with these settings in place.
I took the liberty to do this for you (and fixed the tutorial_flash_button commands at the same time) and updated it on lubiki. Version 91 should play just fine on KeeperFX.

Download here. (https://lubiki.keeperklan.com/html/dk1_maps_lone.php?start=00301)

And in fact, I managed to play this version of the map to completion in KeeperFX without a hiccup, not a single triangle error in the log.
I enjoyed the map, even though I played the start several times before. There's a long time where the enemy keepers are stronger than you so you have to avoid them or die. At the end I managed to workshop enough gold together to abuse the fact that I was the only one with a scavenger room and tip the odds in my favor. At that point both keepers fell quickly.

Dr_Strange_Glove
March 2nd, 2020, 14:37
Gave this a play through yesterday and enjoyed it a lot, but had a few issues with it.

About 1.5 hours in the game crashed out completely and froze KeeperFX (using a recent build). Undeterred I loaded up a save from a few minutes prior and had no further crashes.

Also had to move quick to secure the eastern gem tile, as Green kept making a beeline for it despite having 3 tiles all to his own. I had to restart two or three times as I was too slow to do that.

Unlike YourMaster above I found the scavenger room unproductive initially. That may be because my entire army consisted solely of 12 bile demons and 12 dragons (couldn't see how to get a torture room or barracks for other minions to start with, and didn't want to take on warlocks or anything else). I managed to coax three dragons away from Blue keeper, but that was it! This left me with 27 creatures, less than either Green (28) or Blue (35). I gambled on Green having other rooms with which to attract different creatures, and hopefully a prison too. Although my army was cut down to 16/17 creatures, we managed to defeat Green and I took over his prison, torture room and barracks and was able to attract some mistresses and orcs to get back to portal max of 24. And these were slightly more productive in the scavenger room meaning I could get up to around 32 creatures total before capturing and converting heroes from what was left of the hero keeps. Blue stood no chance as I'd drained him of his mistresses, and outnumbered him with additional heroes/skeletons. There was at least two phases of significant frame skipping required - one just for building up the cash via workshop to fund the scavenging, and another to train everything up.

I'd say this is a solid 7/10 map when compared to Deeper Dungeons.

YourMaster
March 2nd, 2020, 17:49
That crash surprises me. You didn't happen to save a log-file of said crash did you? And when you said recent build, did you mean an 0.4.7U (https://keeperklan.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=137) alpha?

Duke Ragereaver
May 9th, 2020, 16:06
Trotim (https://keeperklan.com/members/531-Trotim)provided a solution for the pathfinding bug. It's to make sure maps have 'filled corners'. So for ADiKtEd open the map.ini and set these settings 'FRAIL_COLUMNS=0, UNAFFECTED_GEMS=1, UNAFFECTED_ROCK=1' and make/update the map with these settings in place.
I took the liberty to do this for you (and fixed the tutorial_flash_button commands at the same time) and updated it on lubiki. Version 91 should play just fine on KeeperFX.

Download here. (https://lubiki.keeperklan.com/html/dk1_maps_lone.php?start=00301)



Alright, thank you. I have edited the zip file on Keeper Klan for consistency.


I enjoyed the map, even though I played the start several times before. There's a long time where the enemy keepers are stronger than you so you have to avoid them or die. At the end I managed to workshop enough gold together to abuse the fact that I was the only one with a scavenger room and tip the odds in my favor. At that point both keepers fell quickly.


Also had to move quick to secure the eastern gem tile, as Green kept making a beeline for it despite having 3 tiles all to his own. I had to restart two or three times as I was too slow to do that.

Remember: since the enemy Keepers are not allied, it is also possible to manipulate them into fighting each other. But if I remember correctly this does mean giving up some crucial map control.

YourMaster
May 9th, 2020, 16:35
Alright, thank you. I have edited the zip file on Keeper Klan for consistency.

In new alpha's this change is not even needed anymore. Pathfinding is now completely fixed. But people playing the main 0.4.7 or earlier, still benefit from the fix.