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Twin Falls II – Goals and Motivations
1. I saw one of the older versions of Twin Falls being played on SoScared’s stream, and one of the suggestions was “make it bigger.” So I did.

However, my initial concept was too big for a two player map (128 x 128) and I had to reduce it in size to 128 x 96. I wanted to keep the same idea of Twin Falls, but still wanted to make the map larger since the original may have been a bit small.

2. For the most part, the northern island nails down what I wanted from the original Twin Falls. These were…
A – Early skirmishes in the village. The objective here is fighting over Oil Derricks, but it can also be used as a sneaky flanking option later in the game. I personally love the expanded village area, although 3 Oil Derricks per player is probably too much even if we consider naval play.
B – Provide 2 main army paths (the normal by land and the 2 big fords below that lane).
C – Provide a sea route for options and to harass the opponent if they had the land locked down.

However, there were more two more things I wanted to carry over, and figuring out how to properly implement them on a larger map was challenging.

I. – Gems. I wanted a neutral Gem Mine that forces players to escort (or at least pay attention to) their harvesters instead of simply building a refinery next to them and profiting. Thing is, there is a lot of “middle space” now, making it far too easy to put down too many Gems.

Even with the current iteration, v2, I am unsure if I got the placements right. The two Gem Mines are probably too close to each other and may need to be spread further apart.

II. – Ore Island. The purpose of Ore Island is to encourage navy usage and give players something to fight over. Ore Island must be reached by Transport only, I do not want a bridge or a ford connecting Ore Island to the mainland.

I decided to revise Ore Island and instead of making it a singular “gold mine” to lay claim to, it is now a naval expansion for both players. Of course, should one player take full control of it, then that player will have access to lots of resources.