Tileset Type: Archipelago/Archipelago Completion

Size: 50 x 50 (7.8 meg download)

Players: 2-8

AI: profile set to hover

Notes: Another map that attempts to redo a real place... inspired by an Ikonos satellite image of the atoll from space.

This is a large map which does a more than decent job (if I do say so myself) of recreating the actual atoll. This map uses Cavedog Archipelago and Chinahook's archipelago completion (beta) tilesets. Land units can traverse the shallow areas, but many of the smaller ones will be almost completely submerged and their weapons will not work until they hit land. This leads to interesting tactics that change over time, as level one land units can easily be destroyed when mostly submerged, but the larger level2 and level3 units hae both more armor and can tend to fire back as they are larger and their firepoints tend to be above the water level.

All areas of the map can be reached by either land or sea... a couple of liberties had to be taken with actual map topography (as referenced to reality) to allow this, but hey, it's just a game. Resources are plentiful, even excessive, and mayhem should ensue in short order. Even the standard Hover AI runs well on this map, and games against allied AI's can be tense.

The map is graphically attractive, at least until the lovely archipelago forests start to burn.

Thanks to Chinahook for much help and support in making additions to his on-going archipelago completion tileset  project which specifically supported making a map like this. This tileset builds on the work of a few others (some fixed archi shores (Sphere) and shallow water tiles (Tangaroa)), and then added many other sections such as narrow shallow channels and corners which allowed for diagonal coast. He also helped with a major heightmap change in mid-map construction due to a shift in shallow water height for all archi-completion shallow water tiles. And best of all the tileset isn't finished  being worked on, more stuff to come.

The map supports 8 start positions, with positions 1 thru 4 starting in rough corners, with the possiblity of using odds and evens as teams for the first 4 positions.

Greybeard