This is a recreation of the AoW1 map 'First Conflict' for AoWSM Upatch 1.4
many of you might remember this as the most 'epic' of the maps that came with the demo for aow1. i played it a billion times, and it was the reason i got addicted to the series in the first place. now you can take a trip down memory lane with up to three friends, but with the superior gameplay of SM.
i got the idea from Black Skalrag's download, but that wasn't working, so i used PawelS' map converter (avail. in misc downloads, a great program which you should get if you don't have it already). i then tweaked the map to both preserve the feel of the original, but also to speed things up and adjust it for the very different gameplay of SM.
i am not claiming much in the way of creativity here, since the original designers of the map, as well as the converter program, did 99% of the work. the only things i really added were the following:
i gave each wiz a random hero. wizards in aow1 were more like heroes, but in sm they are slower and more limited, so a hero helps to speed up the initial few turns.
i fiddled with the towns, so as to attempt to preserve the mixture of 'good' and 'bad' cities. some will not get higher than villages, others start bigger and can go up to cities.
since you start in a small town, i have given the biggest human town nearby each wizard a tower and select upgrades. this preserves the objective of the original which is to find the nearest big town and make that your base.
i added more defenders to structures, but kept ones nearby the starting locations empty.
enjoy a classic,
james.
EDIT:
updated map with following changes:
removed the extra wizard towers in the south so as to better balance northern and southern races.
changed monster lair (recruitment site ala campsite) to ruins.
disabled appropriate structures in towns so as to simulate the limits of AoW1's village, town, etc.
disabled all in-town shipyards. added a shipyard in underground to allow use of underground river.