To Kill a Mockingbird v1.0

A Terra Incognita Map
by King Friday

Classic Myth II netmap making at it's best! Destined to become a classic, To Kill a Mockingbird is a huge map set in a lush, agrarian river valley, dotted with groves of pine trees and broad chestnuts. A breathtakingly beautiful color map encompasses a variety of terrain styles, from forest groves to huge, open green fields, to tight and dangerous rocky passes, cut through by a looping oxbow river bend. An abandoned castle complete with ramparts dominates the northern half of the map, while in the south a sedate, walled village becomes a mazy deathtrap as sheep graze peacefully in nearby meadows. Strategic and tactical possibilities abound and gameplay takes on an epic quality as massive armies battle from one terrain type to another across this enormous map. 

Five meshes encompass two- and six-start Light and Dark variations, with an added special developer's mesh designed to give a glimpse into the creative process of map making.

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The Meshes
Five meshes are included, encompassing a huge variety of game play styles and variations. All the meshes support all game types except Hunting and Scavenger Hunt. "Tequila Mockingbird (Developer's Mesh)" is a special mesh featuring a custom color map designed to give a glimpse into the creative process of map-making. I scanned my original graph-paper sketch of the map and placed that as the color map. All the rest of the usual scenery items are in place, and for comparison the overhead map is the finished color map. Cartographers are encouraged to deconstruct the plugin and extract the color map to see how the map developed from conception to completion.

To Kill a Mockingbird
Two-start, Light units. Two huge armies made up of Warriors, Thrall, Archers, Dwarves, Ghols, Wights and Journeymen. Stampede units are Bungie's own Swineherd units, and the assassin unit is the Baron.

Cardinal Sins
Two-start, Dark units. Two huge armies made up of Trow, Berserkers, Soulless, Mortar Dwarves, Bonemen, Ghols, Warlocks and Wights. Stampede units are Bungie's own Swineherd units, and the assassin unit is the Baron.

As the Crow Flies
Six-start, Light units. Six large armies made up of Journeymen, Warriors, Thrall, Archers, Dwarves, Wights, and Ghols. Stampede units are Bungie's own Swineherd units, and the assassin unit is the Baron.

The Cuckoo's Nest
Six-start, Dark units. Six large armies made up of Bonemen, Warlocks, Mauls, Mortar Dwarves, Soulless, Spiders and Wights. Stampede units are Ghasts, and the assassin unit is the Baron.

Tequila Mockingbird (Developer's Mesh)
Slugfest. Six big armies in the classic slugfest mix: Thrall, Dwarves, and Journeymen. Unit trading is enabled, so turn it off if you want "classic" slugfest.

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Difficulty Levels
During playtesting we found that in two-start games like Capture the Flag and Steal the Bacon the attacking force would have too much difficulty getting into the castle. The castle's ramparts give the defenders a wicked height advantage and a skilled team can hold the castle with only a handful of archers and a couple of dwarfs versus the usual offensive force that can be spared in a normal game. However, at the same time we found that it was a heck of a lot of fun to storm the castle, so I didn't want to tear the ramparts off in case we wanted a good, challenging siege game (see "Siege!" below).

The solution was to use different difficulty levels to make the ramparts accessible or inaccessible. On Legendary difficulty level the ramparts are blocked by a line of barrels, so no units can climb them. This is how you would play most games, since with the barrels in place, the castle is balanced to the village and neither team has a significant defense advantage. On Heroic or lower difficulty levels the barrels are removed, allowing full access to the ramparts, but unbalancing game play in favor of the castle on Capture the Flag and similar games.

Six-start games work the same way, but because no team starts in the village or the castle, it has less of an impact on game play. In fact, we usually play with barrels turned off in six-start games to make the fight for the castle more interesting.

Siege!
Because the two "forts" (the castle and the village) are so much fun to attack and defend, we came up with a game variant we call "Siege!" that we think is a ton of fun. Here's how it works: Begin with a two-start Capture the Flag game. Before the game begins, the players decide which will be the defending position, either the village or the castle (with or without barrels in place, see "Difficulty Levels" above). Start the game. The team in the non-defending starting position becomes the attackers, and their flag is ignored. The attackers commit all their forces to sieging the defending position and capturing that flag. Myth scores the game as normal, either the flag is successfully defended or it is captured. Unfortunately, because of Myth's random starts, you can't control where a particular team or player will start, so you'll just have to roll with that ;)

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Credits
Design and execution: King Friday/Terra Incognita (www.mythnews.com/terra)

Sheep Units: Fisj/Vista Map Cartel (vista.theresistance.net)

Chimera Units (Bonemen, pine trees): Badlands (www.daboyz.org/core/badlands)

Playtesters (many, many thanks to these guys!): Sneaky Guy, Buddy Lee, Sledge, Popeye, Taffy Lewis, Orange King, Axel Fishbone, Datax, Johnny Cash

Copyright 2000 in whole or in part Bungie Software Products Corporation. Created with Bungie's Fear and Loathing by: Matt Sturm, www.mythnews.com/terra

All other contents copyright 2000 Matt Sturm