What do you think of the new Arabia? Which of the Arabia versions do you prefer?
@mikrob9513
3 жыл бұрын
Runestone
@natychnilswykonam963
3 жыл бұрын
I have to say, I like the new Arabia! It just feels more consistent and fair, although your deep dive has put some insight into the code, implying that it actually is not that minimalist and straightforward. So I might reconsider that feeling. I was never fan of cliffs, the oasis were funny, but I can live without then. In the result there are fewer annoyances in the new Arabia, and the middle area is open and sitting there for a big battle. I don’t really know, but I feel like this map just makes the games more interesting and making aggression bouncing back and forth. At least that is my feeling at about 1K Elo.
@ExpiredSquare24
3 жыл бұрын
African. Gaia elephants are terrifying and the tree sprites are sickkk
@traz4038
3 жыл бұрын
Just fill middle with trees and it will be fine imo. Also pls dont give me berries on elevations while enemy dont have
@natychnilswykonam963
3 жыл бұрын
@@traz4038 dude, I don’t want to play oasis 🤭😬
@NLitvin
3 жыл бұрын
1:13 Holy crap, I'm on TV! I wrote that VS Code extension, didn't know anyone uses it! Wrote it years ago, should probably go check if there are any bug reports. How on earth does it have 800+ downloads, it's such a niche thing! I did it just for fun, while learning how language parsers and linters work. Never imagined it would get more than 5 downloads.
@MrAllmightyCornholioz
3 жыл бұрын
GJ dude!
@alexashton6501
3 жыл бұрын
It has downloads because people don't want to use the horrors of NotePad
@Shero1337
3 жыл бұрын
This has to be the most in depth look at AoE2 map generation out there, well done!
@mathdantastav2496
3 жыл бұрын
I love that the only scene from HD shows a game disconnecting 1111 pretty accurate
@carlpult5235
3 жыл бұрын
Lines of the new map script: over 9000 T-West: does not do a meme about it. Lord DAUT seems to have endowed you with great restraint!
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
The script itself is the meme.
@carlpult5235
3 жыл бұрын
@@T-West Thank you for this lesson, sesei.
@volition142
3 жыл бұрын
“30% percent of the map get 50% of hills”
@WhiteSharks-wz6kn
3 жыл бұрын
24:38 is pretty heavily underlined by the fact that they forgot to add wolves (which is a bug according to Trirem), so they basically, as usual, did 0 testing in that regard and probably just generated a few maps - and where like "yep, that's good enough". The current DE script has 0 wolves in every generation I saw this from a reddit post titled "Arabia, for the first time ever, doesn't contain any wolves"
@jefffinkbonner9551
3 жыл бұрын
*sad Magyar howling*
@jefffinkbonner9551
3 жыл бұрын
I do think it’d be cool if they spawned more wolves around the peripheries of player bases so that sheep scouting is more risky. Like, yes, you can use your sheep to scout, but you might be giving wolves a free lunch too.
@mnbvcxzasdfghjkl54
3 жыл бұрын
Personally I find it strange that cliffs and oases have been totally removed - I quite liked them, and thought that they added something to consider when playing the map in terms of walling and positioning. Feels a little samey without them.
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
I do like that the Oases are removed and that the cliffs are reduced, but I think removing the cliffs completely goes a bit too far. Maybe something to try with the Oases would be giving them a large distance for avoiding players so that they don't remove trees from the "closest/starting" woodlines.
@mnbvcxzasdfghjkl54
3 жыл бұрын
@@T-West Yes, that’s a really nice idea for oases. One question I have is that why couldn’t there be a few minor varieties (say, with oases; with cliffs and oases; green Arabia; etc) that have a 5% chance of appearing alongside the normal Arabia? Too much work?
@jefffinkbonner9551
3 жыл бұрын
Oases and cliffs are so cool tho! I always liked walling between cliffs and forests and placing castles and towers above cliffs to secure positions and because it looks cool and fun. Docking a random oases and dropping as many fish traps as can fit or fortifying it with a Malay harbor or even deploying a few Turkish or Spanish cannon galleons in a forward oases and bombarding an enemy base out of no where were just little fringe eccentricities that might pop up that were so fun and wacky! Thanks, DE. I guess we won’t have fun and just meta our way along 😒
@nicholasscarsdale1608
3 жыл бұрын
I love that your recorded screen from HD was the "quit" or "save and exit" screen when somebody dropped... dark memories lmao
@MajorTomFisher
3 жыл бұрын
Personally, as an aspiring programmer, running something multiple times in case it doesn't work the first time seems a little bit like a hack to me. Ideally, the best solution to this problem would be to go back into the AoE2 code and provide ways for map scripts to detect areas of land without fail or if you're going to rerun a script, make sure to do it at the earliest point possible to resolve all issues. (Plus, the method of running something more times than should be necessary is inherently inefficient) I think for the bug showcased in the video where player lands are linked up, there needs to be a check to see if less than eight player lands exist, in which case the player lands need to be generated again from scratch until 8 of them exist, then and _only_ then should the map generate tree lines, resources, etc.
@schmid1.079
3 жыл бұрын
Exactly my thoughts. Especially as this still doesnt guarantee proper map gen.
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
Yup. As the map scripter it's the only thing you can do unfortunately. On the engine side there should be changes made. There have been a couple of nice commands added (such as avoid_forest_zone and avoid_cliff_zone), but then there are still hacky techniques needed for simple tasks such as spawning resources in circles instead of squares.
@sycc66
3 жыл бұрын
As a professional engineer, this is 100% a hacky workaround, you should never ever have something like that in production code. So you're on the right path!
@AlessAbreu
3 жыл бұрын
This is an old game. DE implemented a few things and made it prettier. No big engine changes. My guess is that they don't have experienced people willing to open the can of warms and cause huge bugs, so they've locked a good piece of code and have being trying to workaround them with scripts.
@ethanbrown4167
3 жыл бұрын
love your deep dive videos almost as much as pacifist videos :)
@MorleyGames1
3 жыл бұрын
I feel like new arabia is like mushed up jello..... something that was once relatively solid has been messed about with so much that it has changed to mush
@RobotShield
3 жыл бұрын
Devs just trying to keep people happy I think 🤷♂️ ending up tinkering too much
@SnowyTheGibbon
3 жыл бұрын
Microsoft missing the point of calling it Definitive Edition again
@PLScypion
3 жыл бұрын
By now T-West probably knows more about AoE2 than some of the devs.
@kunsag1187
3 жыл бұрын
Holy! This is a real deep dive into map generation. Awesome job! I once tried to understand the script file when I realized its like learning another programming language. U speak it well I learned in this video. I even think u understand it and anticipate and analyze the behavior of map generations better than the devs behind the new map scripts. I think u should make a definite arabia version for ranked so we can all gg in pieces.
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
If only we could use custom maps in ranked games like we could on HD and Voobly.
@kunsag1187
3 жыл бұрын
Yea that would be awesome! @@T-West
@dallumm
3 жыл бұрын
TWest: I wonder if this elevation change is something people noticed or accounted for in their gameplay Me who didn’t know hill bonuses were a thing 6 months ago: they better have
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
I wonder if people account for Cliff bonuses as well. :)
@dallumm
3 жыл бұрын
@@T-West as a kid, I would choose Britain’s and maps with lots of cliffs. So I was using the cliff bonus at the age of 9 without even realizing it
@chrisf9156
3 жыл бұрын
One of the best deep dives on a map I've ever seen! Have to agree with you on the simplicty aspect. I'd prefer if Forgotten Empires would realize that the community has some pretty good map scripting talents like they did with Capture Age. ;P
@AntonioZL
3 жыл бұрын
I was so excited to this video since you posted the elevation 3d graph. T-west does not disappoint.
@elliejohnson2786
3 жыл бұрын
This video is so cool, I absolutely LOVE this kind of content. Really makes me want to make my own map script now, now that you've explained how it works. Hopefully I can look into other scripts and compare them, and figure out how other maps work!
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
Check out the description for some useful links.
@kalpitpatel1314
3 жыл бұрын
I hope Microsoft/Forgotten Empires recognize a talent like T-West! Really amazing explanation of RMS, best one i have watched and followed till date
@Gnurklesquimp
2 жыл бұрын
I think this game would greatly benefit from having an absolutely absurd amount of maps anyway, so why not both? Arabia, and Arabian Skirmish, or whatever they wanna call it. I mean, it's good that the game keeps evolving even if it changes some of what we like, but with drastic shifts in how maps are generated, we don't really have to throw away the old at all, unlike many other balance changes. Sidenote, many things become more spaced out as you increase size, super noticeable on Mongolia etc., it'd be really cool to have a ''density'' setting alongside our size setting.
@tailsman54
3 жыл бұрын
It really goes to show, if it ain't broke - DON'T FIX IT! AoC already had it perfectly fine, just enough variance for fun and scouting importance, but not random enough to be too unorthodox. There's NO need for the circle generation!
@amirsalehabadi7243
3 жыл бұрын
0:06 put black forest as a permanent ranked map and we will see if Arabia remains the most commonly played map Excellent video thanks for the info
@howard1905
3 жыл бұрын
Hey twest. Love these videos where you marry code/design/gameplay! More of these please!!
@Weldedhodag
3 жыл бұрын
personally I think they should add an OG Arabia map for those who don't like the new turn the map has taken. I don't like how overly open the newer version of the map is, the lack of oasis and cliffs kinda sucks and just makes it feel too samey to play consistently. Once you've played one arabia seed, you've played them all
@williamangga6164
3 жыл бұрын
Arabia in AoE 2 is like de_dust2. Everyone knew and familiar with it. Too many changes make the map feels not like an Arabia people know anymore. Doesn't mean it's bad, but it is unfamiliar feeling that put people off. Maybe time make them warm up with it. I would like to point out that when putting 1v1 on bigger map than small doesn't provide more neutral stone and gold resources than said 1v1. I recall before patch there is more mine-able neutral resources in bigger map. Now it just barren land with couple splotch of woods in-between. I often playing with AI just for the fun and long game so I noticed this, using the whole map is nice. Speaking of AI. They themselves have trouble putting lumbercamp at the start of the game if their scout can't find proper wood line, even if they found one they can't put lumbercamp proper, lead to wood gathering inefficiency. The line "wood-to-far?" By the AI often came up in this new Arabia map compared to other most used map in this game. Mixed feelings about new Arabia overall.
@GummieI
3 жыл бұрын
Your first paragraph hit the nail there, with this amount of changes, what they ended up with should have been its own separate map rather than overwriting the old Arabia
@consistentbug
3 жыл бұрын
You've really done some good work here
@tkzsfen
3 жыл бұрын
I remember the days, when Arabia was practically a rain forest with sand. I am absolutely outraged, how a map named Arabia could be an arid desert with strategic elevations and cliffs, but sparse vegetation and water.
@CatmanFS
3 жыл бұрын
The last comment you made before your outro said it all.
@awordabout...3061
3 жыл бұрын
You're doing yeoman's work, I doubt even Ensemble Studios ever imagined players would be looking at the maps in such detail!
@jeoffvader
3 жыл бұрын
What a total legend, other KZitemrs just real the patch notes but this is just what I needed so sort me out after a bad day : )
@Kakashi_aoe
3 жыл бұрын
omg .. what a research men.. gratz and ty. Im happy with new arabia !
@Wagnersuperior
3 ай бұрын
I think having things be a bit unbalanced sometimes is part of the fun. Especially for your regular ranked games. Maybe not tournament appropriate
@medezy3333
3 жыл бұрын
Returned after learning scripting RM .I see it as tutorial for scripting using new Arabia as an example
@ninahelders4450
3 жыл бұрын
Wow, insane analysis, looking forward to some other videos!
@piatansfair
3 жыл бұрын
How can you extract data from the game like the position of TCs or the position of the elevations? And then, run hundreds of different seeds? Amazing work as usual, the amount of work put here is almost like a thesis or something edit: I was thinking that maybe you just understand so well how the map script works that you can kinda emulate a script and create your own program to get the data without even interacting with the game??
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
I use an autohotkey script to generate 100 maps in the scenario editor and save them as scenarios. Then I can parse the scenario files to extract data about the maps: github.com/ksneijders/aoe2scenarioparser
@shikasta123
3 жыл бұрын
21:30 IS OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!!!!
@genau14zeichen
3 жыл бұрын
Excellent as always :) keep up the good work
@Patchnote2.0
3 жыл бұрын
The elevation graphs were quite entrancing. I wish the whole video could have just been those. :)
@newlifejapan
3 жыл бұрын
Just wanted to say: T-Wes, you are a legend.
@mysteriousshadow395
3 жыл бұрын
Fix a thing that isn't broken and tasks a villager to repair a full hp castle that was funny
@_pk_
3 жыл бұрын
We have a new Spirit of the Law in town!
@talmagejones
3 жыл бұрын
I love this. Thank you!
@chingamfong
3 жыл бұрын
I think after the latest hotfix (Sep.10th) the "new arabia" got changed again. It's not as barren in the middle now, but still more open then DE arabia at launch
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
Hmm I didn't think the hotfix changed the maps (even though it did revert the map pool). I'll have to check.
@chingamfong
3 жыл бұрын
@@T-West yeah could be an isolated incident with the few matches I played
@suddenllybah
3 жыл бұрын
Have you done a video on how objects generation varies with start settings? Like Age Post-Imperial I think eats all your animals on the map, and infinite resources removes all resources on the map besides forests. or at least on amazon tunnel, they still spawn.
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
There are if statements in the DE versions maps that control whether objects spawn based on the game mode and other settings. The main example is Deathmatch, where player stragglers and animals aren't created.
@harogaston
3 жыл бұрын
You are AMAZING!!!!
@adventuresofavalon2477
3 жыл бұрын
Thank you for bestowing this knowledge upon us. You're T-Best ( The Best)☺️
@eksmad
3 жыл бұрын
They NEED you in their team.
@orionl7406
3 жыл бұрын
You've played 2753 hours Would you recommend this game to other players? Yes
@SneedusFeedus
Жыл бұрын
Great video
@NLitvin
3 жыл бұрын
Lmao, I like how they added "enable_balanced_elevation" as if to keep compatibility with the way old maps should behave, but all the other changes in the game are not compatible at all. Probably because it would be silly to add an optional flag for every little change like TCs on a circle for TGs, but the elevation flag is equally silly.
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
imo adding more flags for things like this would be a good thing. A "use_circular_placement" flag would simply the object generation and eliminate the need for all of those blankobjects. DE has a significant increase in the time it takes to generate a map, and from some testing it seems like these actor areas are the primary cause.
@NLitvin
3 жыл бұрын
Yeah good idea! Sorry, I gave an awful example. I meant that stuff like this should be in the engine and could just be the default, without a flag. Less verbosity. E.g who needs unbalanced elevation for their map? Why is it the default and why is it even an option?
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
@@NLitvin There needs to be an option for compatibility with older map scripts. Even swapping the set scale by size and groups is annoying since you can't simply reuse old map scripts without altering them.
@gunar.kroeger
3 жыл бұрын
How does Megarandom work????
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
Lots of randomness. Lots of different versions of megarandom too, and I think the implementations of the scripts have changed considerably over the years.
@gunar.kroeger
3 жыл бұрын
@@T-West I would find a video on it very interesting ^^
@dukedukington5495
3 жыл бұрын
@@gunar.kroeger I believe Zetnus hast a complete in depth look at the different versions.
@Zetnus
3 жыл бұрын
Yep. I have a video with all the variations. It is only a shallow dive and already quite long.
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
@@Zetnus kzitem.info/news/bejne/r46ZyGGXrmJqo6A
@Hamanuna
3 жыл бұрын
I'm still surprised in how different Arabia is from the original
@llKirosll
3 жыл бұрын
new arabia == ghost lake
@adventuresofavalon2477
3 жыл бұрын
Wow such a deep analysis
@nomcognom2332
3 жыл бұрын
The more competitive AoE2DE is becoming, the more fair needs to be the map for the players. In my opinion, developers decision to implement this changes goes into this direction. Now it's less random and more chess-like.
@nothanks7475
3 жыл бұрын
Not enough trees in the middle now. Too open is a thing.
@petraoleum5816
3 жыл бұрын
Clearly should have stuck with Coastal! :D
@piatansfair
3 жыл бұрын
Since you touched this briefly, my intuition is that new villagers do not always spawn on the same place under the TC, whether they're assigned a rally point or not. Another thing is when you ungarrison villagers from the TC, they always seem to appear outside the TC and not under it (I'm imagining ungarrisoning a couple of villagers to shoot a deer that has been pushed under the TC) . Do you know the mechanics of villagers spawning and if there is an optimal place to hunt animals under the TC so that minimizes villager walking time from creation to the animals? Thank you in advance, love your videos
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
I've never looked into it, but anecdotally I'm used to Villagers ungarrisoning at the corners of buildings.
@thorbjrnthaarup6794
3 жыл бұрын
I miss the oasises. They were so pretty and added a nice atmosphere. :-/
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
I like having Wood though lol
@pandaprewmaster325
3 жыл бұрын
What will you study? Twest:
@Felix_EN
3 жыл бұрын
170/170 achievements, well done
@zhongyiqian5176
3 жыл бұрын
It's over 9000!
@WilliamsBQH
3 жыл бұрын
Over 9000!
@mistertallar
3 жыл бұрын
I may be wrong, but it seems like a lot of this would be fixed if they removed the script generating the middle circle.
@owlfrog
3 жыл бұрын
are you a dev for this game yet
@henkstersmacro-world
3 жыл бұрын
👍👍👍
@whuzzzup
3 жыл бұрын
But why does the vil spawn work with those 0hp flagpoles?
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
To get Vils under the TC instead of just next to it.
@NuukMi
3 жыл бұрын
Extra stones are not 3-4 tiles but only 2 tiles right?
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
DE's Arabias have had 2 groups of 2 Stones. AoC had 1 group of 3 or 4.
@namekiannameless2752
3 жыл бұрын
takeaway: when we need a new employee instead of put up an ads online we can just chop down a flag
@sooooooooDark
6 ай бұрын
14:15 why did ppl dislike the ponds? 🤔
@T-West
6 ай бұрын
They spawned on top of woodlines, which blocked player access to wood. In classic Arabia players weren't guaranteed woodlines, so they might spawn with only one nearby forest only to have it covered by a pond.
@wintersummers3085
3 жыл бұрын
Can you do a video on empire wars and talk about which civ bonuses get removed and maybe shit on it a little cause empire wars sucks
@arsenbabaev1022
3 жыл бұрын
9k script for just 1 Arabia map? how can they maintain all of this? (they cant).
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
And a good portion of that isn't for just 1 Arabia map. The "Generating Objects" file is shared among most map scripts, so it's several thousand lines include in many different files. Still doesn't make it easy to maintain though.
@LarryCroft111
3 жыл бұрын
I don't hate new Arabia, although 3rd gold is basically neutral now. That can lead to stressful games when pushed out of main gold.
@fraserlangton8330
3 жыл бұрын
please do Arena!
@kartiksaraf4676
3 жыл бұрын
Idk why people hate the new arabia, from what you told it makes it more aggressive and is still less open than the original arabia. Granted I hate Arabia all together( I like to FC), it does seem to encourage more aggressive games.
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
I think Arabia is played mostly because it's a "standard" map, not because it's especially aggressive or promoting of any particular gameplay style.
@jordivermeulen2519
3 жыл бұрын
Boss: "I need villagers to spawn under the TC." Map scripter: "Ok, I'll need some flags with 0HP, and all the villagers will be male." I also have to ask why your lines of code are numbered in reverse, except for the last one...
@T-West
3 жыл бұрын
I use relative line numbers. The current line show its absolute number, and the other lines have numbers showing their offset from the current line.
@PixXx31
3 жыл бұрын
2750 hours played and no review :O
@16Gym
3 жыл бұрын
Ironically i found it easier to full wall the base becuz the forests are more predictable
@NoraNoita
3 жыл бұрын
It honestly all began when they got this idea into their heads to be deadset on making arabia not MBL friendly and unwallable. I miss wallable arabia.
@schmid1.079
3 жыл бұрын
I dont get why you would make changes in the first place. Sure, fixing a few bugs and making it fairer due to competetive play is good, but changing the playstyle on is just... why?
@MorleyGames1
3 жыл бұрын
Bring back aoc arabia
@llKirosll
3 жыл бұрын
or at the very least, create a new version of it, if they want to mess up so much.
@jefffinkbonner9551
3 жыл бұрын
I mean, cliffs and oases were a pretty violent and brutal bunch. They weren’t wise in the ways of pacifism.
@martijn9568
3 жыл бұрын
Is it me or does Arabia just look like a fake wood land. I mean, everything is so consistently "perfect", that it lacks te randomness of the nature it is trying to immitate. If only the devs would ruin a map to spread the map mainers a bit over the other maps.
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