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Merry-Go-Rounds

Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new world where good and bad players can have fun together on AoE II.

Let me introduce you: "MERRY-GO-ROUNDS"

MGoR is an improved King of the hill (KOTH) map, made to be beginner-friendly and highly modular. Its primary goal is to offer a challenging and non-frustrating experience whatever the number of players and their skill difference.

--- TABLE OF CONTENT ---
- Map explanation (Important to read for any players)
- Host explanation (Important to read if you want to host the map)
- General details
- Highly modular map
- The game designer approach and goals

--- MAP EXPLANATION ---
Let’s start by a good old “scenario introduction” picture:


The scouts drew a pretty nice description of the surroundings, wanna give it a look:

Eco areas are safe zones, where you’ll never be raided!
Preparation areas are the places where your army need to stand before the start of the round.
Battlefield area is where you’ll actually fight for the monument during the round.
Option island allows the host to define settings for the game, while players wait by playing a mini-game.
Score island shows mainly the number of rounds won by each team.

For more details about those, take a look at the “General details” section.

Still didn’t get how the preparation area works, here’s an animated picture for you:

It is like an “airlock” in a spaceship, therefore the battlefield area will never be connected to the eco area, therefore preventing any raids!

--- HOST EXPLANATION ---

(Better picture version on slideshow above)
- Teams should be kept on " - ", the teams are made with colors:
Blue, Red, Green, Yellow will be team 1 (1,2,3,4), while
Teal, Purple, Gray, Orange will be team 2 (5,6,7,8),
The host has to stay Blue(1), others can change colors.
- No Empty or Closed spots. If you don't have 8 players, fill it with AIs.
(You'll be able to kick them with Option Island).
- Map should be on Explored or All visible (I recommend the latest,
especially if you want to enable the "No-skip" option).
- Everything else on Standard.
- At the start of the game, you have 1 minute to setup the options by destroying palissades
on Option Island (See the specific picture or read palissades' names).

- Default is Best-of 5 - Go for it with new players.

Don’t hesitate to show players the “map explanation” section, or pause the game to let them read the ingame instructions.

The Option Island mentioned above:

(Better picture version on slideshow above)

You have “per player options”:
Kick, Give advantages or disadvantage, Give extra villagers.
And Global Options:
Number of rounds to win, variants way to play the map.

As a host, try to make the two teams as balanced as possible thanks to those options. I’d even say try to balance inside the same team, for everyone to feel significant.
To balance, use the extra villagers only (keep the “special advantages” for people discovering the game only):
1 extra villager in a “no-boom” game means approximatively +75 HD ELO overall.
-3 min in a “no-boom” game means approximatively -350 HD ELO overall.

--- GENERAL DETAILS ---

If you wonder how the monument attribution works: (It’s the same as KOTH standard one):


Pretty close to a standard RM experience, it is simple to understand and good to teach/practice the actual game:


Here’s how to read the Score Island:


In general you’ll fight the rounds with the following age:
1) Dark Age (scout + potential militias)
2) Feudal Age (or very early castle)
3) Castle Age
4) Early Imperial Age
5) Post-Imperial Age

Remember that you can still research upgrades while the round is already started.

--- HIGHLY MODULAR MAP ---

Here we go for what this map really has to offer! Plenty of settings to balance the game, renew the experience or use as a “multiplayer tutorial” for new players.

Balance the game by giving extra villagers to any player:


Renew the experience
Vary the number of rounds necessary to win: Best-of 3,5,7,9 or infinite.

Avoid skip: Enable this option to avoid useless round when nothing is happening (Recommended!):


Allow only 1 TC / 1 Market to be built with the “No-boom” option (Recommended!).
Activate 500 pop to discourage the supremacy of very pop effective units in late game.
Activate Death match resources for a “fast and unpredictable” game!


More ideas to renew the experience? Go for buildable spots near Monument:


Or remove those pesky obstacles:


You can also use this scenario as a “Multiplayer tutorial” for new players, after they finish the William Wallace campaign, introduce them to multiplayer with Merry-Go-Rounds with advantages.

Give them all advantages, when they’ll understand how it works, remove one of the advantages and so on, until all are removed.
I suggest the following order:

Remove first “Standard Military Advantage”:


Then remove “Weird tech Advantage”:



Finally remove “Eco Advantage”:


Don’t hesitate to let the extra villagers though.

--- THE GAME DESIGNER APPROACH AND GOALS ---
(The workshop description doesn't allow enough characters, you can read this section there if you want: https://www.voobly.com/gamemods/mod/1052/Merry-Go-Rounds)

--- SPECIAL THANKS ---
Special thanks to AoE_Kingdom and LynxStratStreaming twitch channels for their early testings and promotions.
But also: NRQ, Zeroempires, MajorQueros, StellarMeesh, TheViper, MBL, MarcoMeh for playing it on stream.

Thanks also to Chrazini, GluttonyWrath, Cryster, Tof0986, emilieCharlotte, Heisenberg, Aneantissement, Danex, Dubastot and plenty of others for their feedbacks and insightful discussions to improve this scenario.

Above all, thanks to Jesus my Lord and Saviour, it is through him that I can try to make the world a better place (by creating awesome scenarios for example ;) ). Give him a chance to make your life meaningful, it is worth it!