Parameters for building custom maps

[KingOfKyuss]

I have a few quick questions, feel free to opine...

1) Do you think it is best to design your maps where both sides are more or less 95-100% symmetrical for both sides, leading up to the center? i.e don't have one side with more elevation, more access to glyphs, etc. Why or why not?

2) How many glyphs do you include per map? I have generally been including about a half dozen. Is that too many/not enough....?

3) What about elevation? After perusing this site, I notice a lot of the maps are relatively flat, except for castle walls, glaciers, trees, etc. Is it bad to have maps where there are hexes that reach 8 or 9 in height?

4) What are some popular scenario ideas for maps that are balanced, aside from just doing a straight up "kill em all to win" or "capture the flag" scenario?

[rednax]

Hello! A lot of your questions depend on what kind of atmosphere you're going for. If you're playing very casually, things are much more open-ended. However, if you want games that are balanced for a tournament mindset, here's what I'd suggest.

1. Most maps should be more or less symmetrical to ensure fairness. Of course, it's also possible to have fair maps that are asymmetrical, but there are fewer of those, so they're harder to build. For example, if one side has more elevation, give the other side more access to glyphs. Even still, it's hard to get it exactly balanced. If you want to see a bunch of fair asymmetrical maps, check out this thread:

The Tournament-Worthy Asymmetric Map Workshop

2. Most tournaments maps use 1-2 glyphs, occasionally 0, and occasionally 3. Using more than 3 is unadvisable, as the game becomes too focused on glyph grabbing. (Sometimes even 3 is too much, IMO.) Also, if you use too many glyphs, it rewards armies with more activations per turn such as 4-person squads and bonding armies, giving others no fair chance at grabbing glyphs.

Additionally, many of the glyphs are considered overpowered. The most common glyphs used are Move, Defense, Initiative, Healing, Wound, and sometimes Lucky 20-Sider. Most of the other glyphs are overpowered.

There's also treasure glyphs. Most maps use only a handful of treasure glyphs. I'd say usually no more than 3.

3. Most tournament maps don't go above height level 4 or 5. Higher elevation gives a huge advantage to range units and flying units. There are some fair maps that go higher, but they're much more difficult to make.

4. For other playing styles, I'd recommend skimming through these threads. There are a lot of cool options.

Exhaustive List of Ways to Play
Draft Tournament - Options and Tips for TDs

Hope this helps!

[KingOfKyuss]

Ok great.

I'm not going for a "tournament" map per se, and I am able to control some of the stuff you are talking about. For instance, my wife and I play, and she HATES drafting her own army. So I just draft two fair armies for both sides, making it so that they are pretty equal (i.e I don't give one side a bunch of flying units and the other side gets none) so I don't worry as much about the height of the map I don't think since both teams have equal access more or less.

I do see what you're saying about the glyphs. Probably right - I should maybe cut back a little on glyph placement. And I definitely know what you mean as far as the glyphs go....the Thorian glyph seems WILDLY overpowered.

What about the summoning/ranged glyphs ? Are these also definitely overpowered as well, even if you place it smack dab in the middle of the map so that both teams can easily snatch it? Or maybe Common or Unique Attack instead of the generic catch all Attack +1?

[itsbuzzi]

The glyph pool I found works is this: Intercept Order, Move +2, Defense +1, Wound, Unique Attack +1, D20 +1, and Initiative +8. As for treasure glyphs I use All except Waterwalking, Artifact, Unnatural Revival, and Ancient Artifact. I don't use waterwalking because there typically isn't a lot of water to walk through, you can change this with your maps however, I try to give an advantage to Heroes. The last treasure glyphs though are really strong and I do not use them.

[KingOfKyuss]

Ok, cool. That seems pretty sensible. I don't really have any treasure glyphs (the only one I actually own is Revenant's Tome), so those don't really apply to me.

I see you're in Providence! You're pretty close to me. Any good heroscape gaming groups in that area?

[itsbuzzi]

Originally Posted by KingOfKyuss

Ok, cool. That seems pretty sensible. I don't really have any treasure glyphs (the only one I actually own is Revenant's Tome), so those don't really apply to me.

I see you're in Providence! You're pretty close to me. Any good heroscape gaming groups in that area?

Yeah I find that that glyph was good for very large games. As was mentioned larger games run by their own rules. I personally like treasure glyphs. Lots of people use Squads but with treasure glyphs it balanced it out somewhat.

Oh you are fairly close! Hey lol. I get emails from some gaming groups, many local to me which include: Untapped Games Toy Vault Games and where our recent Heroscape tourney was Mastermind Adventures.

If you wanted to come down to a tourney it's pretty relaxed. You can even borrow some of my stuff I have at least 1 of everything of Classic Scape.

[flameslayer93]

Generally when we play non-competitive games, we’ll use pretty much all of the glyphs except for Defense +2 and Thorian. For treasures, we almost always drop Attack +2 vs Undead. Defense +2 and Thorian are a bit too good, and Holy Symbol is too situational.