Posts from Twilight Archipelago

I downloaded the map and took a look. IMHO, at the very least, you should make sure that its name is displayed in the in-game menu. And you should also write some kind of story so that there is at least some kind of plot.

It seems the name is present in version 1.1. I will write the story soon.

When selecting a map in the game menu, it looks like this (see Fig. 1):

Maybe there's something wrong with my game version, but I'm seeing this for the first time. By the way, when selecting a map, it says that the game is "based on a scenario," but there isn't one either (see Fig. 2).

As for the game itself, the first thing that caused disappointment was the absence of wells (at least, I didn't encounter any in three weeks of playing).

Finished the game in less than two months (using a single hero). I think with knowledge of the map, the result could be reduced by a week or two.
Impressions:
1. There is a serious lack of plot.
2. The game is too easy; there are no serious battles (perhaps except for the assault on the outpost between the red and blue factions, which occurred in the beginning of the second week).
3. For such a large map with a sea, there are too few cities – as a result, the last heroes of both the yellow and green factions died not in battle, but because they ran out of "homeless" time (The most frustrating thing is that the yellow faction's hero was the main hero, and the battle could have been very interesting).

I looked at the map and played it. First, the map is displayed in two places in the menu: with a name and a blank line (like Rambo1969, #4). There was a recent discussion on the forum about how to deal with this. Playing in constant darkness is not for everyone. All the time, the map reminded me of black people, black cats, and coal sacks. I agree that it would have been better to assign castle types to the player's color. Being a Dwarf in the desert is not ideal. The General Gameplay didn't work out. The player in the Dungeon was, for some reason, locked in with a tent and just sat there. There is no good path to the Blue (I was playing as him). The garrison between him and the Red is too strong for the AI, and it's too far by sea – no one comes. The neutral cities on the islands are not worth it: it's not easy to get to them, and there is no benefit from acquiring them.

As far as I know, you can exit from it.

The garrison between the blue and red is not that strong.

not a single serious battle except for the assault on the outpost between the red and blue.

the maximum I can do is assign the home castles to specific locations.

what is a useful neutral castle?

Perhaps that's the case. But I didn't find this exit, and my computer didn't lead me to it, and it usually does a good job of finding passages. He had a large army, meaning he was capable of breaking through a strong outpost, and what was likely holding him back was that the potential exit wasn't appealing to him in any way.

This is more of an author's interpretation of the situation. However, by strongly tying the color to the type of Castle, one could achieve a better atmosphere in the landscape.

The usefulness of a Castle is always very situational. In the most general case: there is a good path to it, it can be held, and troops can be gathered. For island maps, neutral Castles standing separately from everything create more problems than the potential benefits they offer. By the time you have an army, you face a choice: capture a neutral Castle or a Castle belonging to an opponent. It's always better to capture an opponent's Castle. By acquiring a neutral Castle in a remote location, you weaken your central Castle because the main hero can be teleported not home, but to this wasteland via the "city portal."