Custom Map: Catch the Thief

[Peter]

Hi folks!

During the lockdowns my brother and me rediscovered Etherlords and got nostalgic, so we decided to make a map of our own.
It started out as a private project, so most conversation in the map is in German, but it's not necessary to understand the story for playing the map.
All important dialogues are either also available in english, or described in the Readme file, in the section

MUST-READ FOR NON-GERMAN SPEAKERS

(please read it, there is an important choice to make about the way you want to receive loot directly in the beginning!).

We felt that the campaign maps ended too early, before you could achieve your full potential.
Thus we wanted to create a map that provides more power to both the players and the monsters, giving almost all artifacts and some spells from other races.
The map is intended to be challenging.

Here are some features of the map, for more details check out the Readme on github (just scroll down on the github page):

• can be played with Kinets, Synthets, Vitals, and Chaots. You will mostly receive spells of your own race, but while visiting foreign territories, you may also be able to find spells from the other races
  
• contains more than a hundred monsters, giving randomized loot (spells). You can reach level 17 before fighting the final boss, without the "Learning" proficiency
  
• starting from around level 11, you will encounter more challenging monsters: e.g., monsters using spells from different races, buffed by shrines, or with a special combat scripting (auto-casted spells, thanks @Bonesnake)

The map is hosted on my GitHub account: https://github.com/aloeser/Etherlords2Map .
For installation instructions please check the Readme section or message me.


We hope you enjoy the map, feedback is always appreciated :)

[Seven]

Hallo Peter,

I am German too, but will write in english.

Thank you VERY much for your time and efforts supplying additional missions for this great game !
Some days ago, I saw a link at etherplanes.net to your map and started it right away.

It is clear to me, that custom maps are usually harder than original maps.
As they are made from pros in this game, who usually know every strategy inside out.

But unfortunately this one was way too much for me.
I could hardly win the first 2-3 fights and had to quit quite early afterwards.
I know, that there are cheats for this game but I do not want to spoil the feeling and experience with it.

Maybe its because you are forced to play your map on hard (i always play the campaigns on easy or seldom on normal difficulty).

But Thank you once again for your contribution, but its too hard for me.

At the moment I play the custom mission: Trials of Damnia v1.0
You surely know it. I play it on easy and its perfectly balanced. Even for me :)
A little bit more difficult than original campaigns, but thats just fine.


I am always searching for more custom maps.
There are only so few available...

Please, let us know if you know of more to enjoy.

Best wishes and stay safe !


Sorry for offtopic:
Here are the ones I could find (for others to enjoy as well):
https://www.reddit.com/comments/58h6om (find the mediafire download link on top of that page)
https://grandbiz.ru/?p=173&lang=en
https://steamcommunity.com/app/270790/discussions/1/2823131412466037762/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/270790/discussions/1/1639794651165170785/

[Peter]

Hey Seven,

thanks a lot for your feedback, glad that someone actually gave the map a try!

I completely understand your point regarding the difficulty; actually I think that the first few monsters are among the hardest because you have only the basic spells.
I'm also curious, which race did you choose? I always felt that certain races had an easier start than other ones.

Unfortunately, it's a quite large map, and I lack the time to properly balance lower dificulties.
However, if you wish, I can make them available anyway: monsters will have the same level, life, spells and abilities as on hard mode, but you should get ethers a lot faster, and also the ether disturbances (that lightning strike) will begin later for you and earlier for your opponent.
Would that help you?

And finally, I recently added a system to the map that counts how often you lost against a certain monster.
If you loose too often (>= 3 times), it should offer you after every defeat to have the monster removed from the game, as an "officially approved" way of removing too difficult monsters.
If you use that option, the monster will be removed. You will not gain XP/spells for it, but you will be able to access the resources/shops the monster was guarding.
Was this feature already included in your version of the map?
(Btw, I appreciate that you did not cheat :))

Have a nice evening!


PS: nice collection of maps, I only knew the Roguelike map from Bonesnake. I'll check the others out for sure!

[Holy Fool Sehrael]

Interesting. I'll give this a try sometime, even though I'm on board with Seven - I too never played above easy or rarely on normal since it's an old game and things can get ugly very fast :D Thank you and your brother for your effort!

[Peter]

Originally posted by Sehrael:

Interesting. I'll give this a try sometime, even though I'm on board with Seven - I too never played above easy or rarely on normal since it's an old game and things can get ugly very fast :D Thank you and your brother for your effort!

Ok, thanks for the feedback! We'll bring an update to include easy and normal difficulty too. Should only be a couple hours of work, and I got a 6h train ride today anyway :D
As I said above, I'm not sure if it will make monsters much easier (life, level, abilities and spells will remain the same, as I lack the time for a complete rebalance), but the additional ethers and delayed ether disturbance should provide at least a little help.

I'll let you know when the update goes live, probably tonight :)

[Seven]

Hallo Peter,

I used your version where you could choose 2 different: "Zauberspruchbelohnung" at the beginning of your map.
That was the version from 09. August 2021

Of course, if you let us play on easy difficulty, it makes things a lot easier.
Even though you did not changed anything else.
The fact that we get more ether earlier is reason alone why people will enjoy your map more and better.

Forcing the player to play on hard skill was not a good decision, but we all learn.
Thank you very much for edit your map to be able to play any difficulty.
That is a huge step forward.


Regarding my other links above:
I saw that you spread the news for your map in all threads now already :)
The first link in my post is the most important for non-russian speakers.
It has the english versions of missions: White Horse v1.0 and Trials of Damnia v1.0.
Both of them and many many more custom missions can be found in my second link (but all are in russian). That is not a big problem, as only the adventure text is in russian while everything else stays in our regular language of the game.
Usually its: Kill everything anyway ;-)



One more thing:
In case you did not know, you can play Etherlords 2 in High Resolution !
Without sacrificing anything. No negative effects (like not scaled UI, like some other High Res solutions for this game has).

You can play Etherlords 2 in your original monitor resolution (multi-monitor solutions might not work though). It gets crystal clear and the font size will NOT get smaller. The UI, the font and everything else scales nicely with the resolution.

I am using the GOG version (because it has more languages. Also German, which I use).
Here is the download. I packed it up and wrote setup instructions.
Hopefully it is useful for others as well.
https://pixeldrain.com/u/caLZAvif




Last but not least an important info (which I also posted in another thread here):
Since we have no Etherlords 3 (and seems to never get), I am always searching for similar games.
After many years, 1 game was released, which clearly is based on the concept of Etherords 2: Cardaclysm: Shards of the Four

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1252710/Cardaclysm

If you are an Etherlords 2 fan, you must try this game.
I enjoy it a lot.

A really great game. Even though it is not as deep as Etherlords (in terms of complexity/features), its the game that comes closest to it in my opinion.

It even uses many of Etherlords monsters (like Fingus, Hornisse and others) :)

Have fun !!

[Peter]

Added support for easy and medium difficulty.
Also @seven thanks for the links, i'll check them out :)

[Seven]

Vielen Dank Peter.

[Lord Farquaad]

Thanks Peter for the map and Seven for the link (looks interesting)

[Lord Farquaad]

This is great for learning German

[Peter]

Hey there, I'm glad you are giving the map a try!
Which race did you choose, and how does it go? :D
I never thought of the map as a tool to learn German but I'm happy if it helps you :)

[Lord Farquaad]

Originally posted by Peter:

Hey there, I'm glad you are giving the map a try!
Which race did you choose, and how does it go? :D
I never thought of the map as a tool to learn German but I'm happy if it helps you :)

, yeah it is a really nice map, as if it could have been part of an official patch or such. I play as Synthet on easy, currently lvl 14. The beginning was actually more difficult but that is also the case for the campaigns.
Eventually I got the Chaot's Ethereal Resonance spell (mirrors damage twice to opponent) and chained that with Suffocation Gasses, Pain Link and Mechos. You can imagine how quickly the battle ends then. ^.^

[Peter]

Originally posted by Lord Farquaad:

Originally posted by Peter:

Hey there, I'm glad you are giving the map a try!
Which race did you choose, and how does it go? :D
I never thought of the map as a tool to learn German but I'm happy if it helps you :)

, yeah it is a really nice map, as if it could have been part of an official patch or such. I play as Synthet on easy, currently lvl 14. The beginning was actually more difficult but that is also the case for the campaigns.
Eventually I got the Chaot's Ethereal Resonance spell (mirrors damage twice to opponent) and chained that with Suffocation Gasses, Pain Link and Mechos. You can imagine how quickly the battle ends then. ^.^

Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying the map :)

Yea, the beginning is definitely quite challenging. Especially for synthets and kinets, because they hardly have spells to kill the enemy's creatures. The final part of the map (the pale area) might be a little more difficult tho :D Feel free to text me when you finish the map or if you are stuck with some monster :)

yea, combining spells from multiple races can be pretty OP :D

[mozzribo]

Hi! :)

I'm the one who made the translations (and plan to translate the rest during my lifetime) on the Reddit link. Here is a link that works, as I deleted the old thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/EtherlordsDuology/comments/h7rpo0/custom_content_for_etherords_2/

Thanks for this map, I will try it out in the future (and hopefully translate it).