Do you care if maps are logical / realistic?

[madrigan]

I like it when an Avernum city or building looks the way such a place might actually look. I like how Formello in A4, for example, has the municipal government offices overlooking a city center (even though the town center has been destroyed). I also like how Cotra in A4 has the bazaar right next to the entrance to the city, with the merchant offices right there. Convenient!

 

I am a fan of the Pit of Abominations and Gladwell's Tower, because they both seem designed to be easy to defend, with plenty of places to trap attackers. Gladwell's Tower also has the master's quarters logically placed next to the library, where he presumably spends much of his time.

 

The Darkside Fortress in A5 is cool, because you can't enter it without exposing yourself to archer fire, and it appears to be self-sufficient, with portals, training area, lab, kitchen, and servant's quarters all on site.

 

What I don't like about the Darkside Fortress, and the Castle in A4, is that there is only one passage in and out. It seems to me that high security installations like these would have several secret escape routes. In the Castle, the king's suite is pretty inaccessible, but if you could get in there, you could trap him. It would be hard to get back out, though.

 

Does anyone else have maps they think are especially realistic, or illogical, etc.? Maybe there is a civil engineer or architect on the forum somewhere.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: madrigan

What I don't like about the Darkside Fortress, and the Castle in A4, is that there is only one passage in and out. It seems to me that high security installations like these would have several secret escape routes.

Maybe they exist but they're so secret that the PCs can't find them.

[madrigan]

Inconceivable!

[Alorael at Large]

Maybe they require some kind of magical access so that the fleeing VIP isn't immediately hunted down by secret passage-savvy adventurers.

 

—Alorael, who also thinks that maybe worries about people coming in the secret passages trump fears of not being able to escape without them.

[madrigan]

Originally Posted By: Introns in my boots

Maybe they require some kind of magical access so that the fleeing VIP isn't immediately hunted down by secret passage-savvy adventurers.

—Alorael, who also thinks that maybe worries about people coming in the secret passages trump fears of not being able to escape without them.

Why not take the Almarian approach, and disguise the secret passage as a sewer?

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: madrigan

Why not take the Almarian approach, and disguise the secret passage as a sewer?

Nah, it's the bean counter mentality to save on cost by finding a dual purpose. After all this is a trading center with it's central location between the Great Cave and the areas to the East along the road to Mertis.

[Student of Trinity]

How many times does the evil overlord get trapped by besiegers who can penetrate his impregnable final stronghold, and how many times does he get assassinated deep inside his impregnable final stronghold by adventurers sneaking in through his secret escape route?

[Men are from Slars]

Cue Count von Count...

[Alorael at Large]

Clearly the villain would be better served by inhabiting a quiet villa somewhere out of the way and leaving his grimly imposing stronghold to guards and deathtraps.

 

In fact, villainy is one field where outsourcing is a really good idea. The usual practicing villains come up with varying degrees of workable strategy, but in daily details and particular tactics they often come up short. That kind of work, as well as a lot of the monologuing, could be farmed out with the added bonus of someone else getting slaughtered in the inevitable jailbreaks.

 

—Alorael, who can barely conceive of the possible horrors of villainy by bureaucratic committees. It's evil done by the most evil leadership possible!

[Randomizer]

Ah, but because they are all evil, they will spend more time plotting and backstabbing each other than in applying it to outsiders. After all they all want to get ahead by making the others' schemes fail to discredit them. Even using a single figurehead evil overlord is fraught with peril in the event he or she decides to get rid of the power behind the throne.

[Men are from Slars]

I dunno -- that would apply to villains motivated by greed, power, or the like. It would not apply so much to villains motivated primarily by a specific cause (for example, destruction of humans, destruction of the world) who happen to agree on that cause. And there are good examples of villains who only care about power where it furthers their cause. Rentar-Ihrno and Dorikas may both fall in this category, though obviously their causes are contrary.

[Xaiya]

Heh, all this talk is giving me ideas.

 

What if the secret exit was an elaborate trap? It leads to someplace...that you wouldn't want to visit (lets just leave it at that).

 

You could make a whole scenario based on that.

[Randomizer]

Sounds like Frostbite in that the end of the journey isn't what you want to reach once you figure it out.

 

Still that means the escape route is merely set up to trick your foe and isn't the real escape route.

[AnarhIztok2511]

Maybe there are no escape routes coz both buildings are surrounded by chasms?

Or, there are escape routes (teleportation etc.), but, especially in the case of evil leaders, the leaders are too arrogant to flee and want to fight?

[Student of Trinity]

Clearly there's an economic niche for evil overlordship services. You sit in the comfort of your own home and, for a small monthly fee, capable professionals implement your twisted schemes with all the expertise that comes with broad experience. They'll build your impregnable stronghold they way it should be built, and they'll build it where costs are lowest. They also maintain several pre-built impregnable strongholds, for customers whose budgets can't stretch to new construction, and time sharing is an option.

 

There's no need for you to buy any equipment, or even install any new software. The evil all runs in the cloud. All you need is a valid e-mail address, and the ability to recognize distorted letters, to get your own gEvil(BETA) account. Sign up today!

[madrigan]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

Clearly there's an economic niche for evil overlordship services. You sit in the comfort of your own home and, for a small monthly fee, capable professionals implement your twisted schemes with all the expertise that comes with broad experience. They'll build your impregnable stronghold they way it should be built, and they'll build it where costs are lowest. They also maintain several pre-built impregnable strongholds, for customers whose budgets can't stretch to new construction, and time sharing is an option.

There's no need for you to buy any equipment, or even install any new software. The evil all runs in the cloud. All you need is a valid e-mail address, and the ability to recognize distorted letters, to get your own gEvil(BETA) account. Sign up today!

I, for one, am tired of seeing our evil overlordship jobs shipped overseas. Sure, they can build satellite-based particle beam cannons more cheaply in China, but what about quality? And what about client relations? When you call the president to demand one billion dollars, or all the gold in Metropolis, and he sees the call is coming from Bangalore, what is he going to think? I think that outsourcing is doing more harm to the evil mastermindery industry than U.N.C.L.E. or Radioactive Man ever could.

[Student of Trinity]

But whatcha gonna do? Setting tariff barriers on death rays and clone armies is just going to ensure that competition-driven innovation happens in other countries instead of yours. So the call demanding cash under threat of quantum implosion field won't come to the president, but to the prime minister of India. And then how will you feel?

[madrigan]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

But whatcha gonna do? Setting tariff barriers on death rays and clone armies is just going to ensure that competition-driven innovation happens in other countries instead of yours. So the call demanding cash under threat of quantum implosion field won't come to the president, but to the prime minister of India. And then how will you feel?

I believe that evil Americans can compete with the evil population of any country -- if we have an even playing field. This is why all agreements on trade in genetically engineered sugarcane-killing fungi, expansionist alternate Earth air force teleportation technology, and the ability to control the Hulk must include strong protections for workers and the environment. Sure, so-called free trade might work fine for the Hank Scorpios and Stefano DiMeras of the world, but it can be very harmful to the average middle class evil masterminds who make this industry work.

[Randomizer]

It's plain imperialist discrimination by the established superpower nations to keep out the low cost producing third world countries from taking their rightful place in the evil overlord business. Just because you already have the infrastructure doesn't give you the right to erect barriers against the other countries that are trying to take over the world. Keeping us from getting the bomb is just part of it.

[Student of Trinity]

But let's face it, average middle-class evil masterminds are on the way out everywhere. It takes scale to compete in today's evil marketplace, no matter where you are. The little local villains are getting bought out or plowed under by the big box overlords. An awful lot of old-fashioned Mom & Pop maniacs are working as henchmen, now, while the few guys at the evil top are losing track of just how many impregnable final strongholds they own.

[Aran]

Originally Posted By: The internet is your playground, complete with bullies.

—Alorael, who can barely conceive of the possible horrors of villainy by bureaucratic committees. It's evil done by the most evil leadership possible!

That's already the status quo the world over, isn't it?

[madrigan]

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

But let's face it, average middle-class evil masterminds are on the way out everywhere. It takes scale to compete in today's evil marketplace, no matter where you are. The little local villains are getting bought out or plowed under by the big box overlords. An awful lot of old-fashioned Mom & Pop maniacs are working as henchmen, now, while the few guys at the evil top are losing track of just how many impregnable final strongholds they own.

Tell me about it. When I visit my home town now, I barely recognize the place. Dr. Gigawatt's storefront hideout was on High St. for fifty years. Now it's a Starbucks. Megalomania Village, where I had my first apartment, was knocked down to make room for the Regal and a PetSmart. It's just not the same.

[Alorael at Large]

Still, while the big overlords are dominant, they're trying to make up for moribund deathray development and lack of ingenious new schemes by putting more henchmen on the job and just churning out brighter colors and more ominous pre-zap humming. There's still plenty of room for true innovators on a shoestring budget.

 

—Alorael, who just the other day noticed that his neighborhood was conquered by a fiend whose parasympathetic nervous system control device was able to render helpless all opposition. Everyone knows that an aluminum foil deflector beanie will repulse mind control, but no one so nervous system control coming. It's the little guy who's most likely to see the applications of new advances in neuroscience, psychology, and evilology.

[Student of Trinity]

That sounds encouraging. Let's hear it for the evil underlords!