The things that made Lowlands what it was

This is what all of Lowlands was created around and also what very many other mappers and server-owners failed to understand. Everything in Lowlands was designed around this concept. The economy, the castles, the traderoutes, the warfare system. All based on the fact that i didn't give in to the community who wanted more mines.

Almost every single other map created have numerous mines. But what this does is that it removes the potential of a living economy from the game. It devalues resources, and simply turns them into a grind for gold and nothing more.

However, by restricting the map to one single mine, it opened up a whole world of potential as well as allowing me to dictate and control the whole economy. Resources are now worth more than gold. They are valuable because of the things you can do with them.

Restricting the iron availability created a whole economic system around transporting iron. This is why i was able to create such unique economic situations for all the castles, without unbalancing the game. This is why roleplay was so frequent and popular. This is why good management and roleplay within the faction was as important as good combat prowness. A good king would make his faction rich beyong imagining and a poor king would have empty armories.

This is such a big concept that it's hard to cover without talking about everything else, so i will try to cover the remaining factors of this later.

In Lowlands, there were 5 fighting factions. However, there were only 3 castles. The remaining two faction had to live in poorly-equipped, upgradeable(I really like that part) camps.

What this meant was that Castles were actually something valued. Wars were declared for a reason more than just to fight. Because you wanted access to the protection and equipment they offered. However, for a camp to take on a castle, they would almost have to ally themselves with another faction in order to have a fighting chance.

So by imbalancing the number of factions in comparison to the number of castles, i created a system where the players themselves had to work to even the odds through alliances and roleplay.

Moreso, the economic system of all the castles were unique. There were 3 castles, for those who don't know. Laszloburg, who controlled the mine, Praven, who controlled the town and Vornneston who had the strongest armory.

However, all castles had drawbacks.

Laszloburg was a castle closest to the mine. Therefor i made selling resources there very low-profit. This meant that Laszloburg always had a great overabundance of resources and equipment, however the equipment was only medium-tier. They had none of the heaviest armors or strongest weapons. However it was still important to protect the miners from brigands and hostile factions, or they would lose their only source of income.

Vornneston on the other hand was far, far away from the mine. Resources were rare and the prices were high. However the armory was the best in the whole game. Heavy Chargers, Plate Armor, Greatswords and even Great Lances were available. But to a bad king, the armory would go wasted due to a lack of resources.

A Vornneston king had to play aggressively. He had to take the resources. To create trade-caravans from the mine to Vornneston. Great risks, but great rewards. If a king neglected these duties, he would end up empty handed.

Praven was my favourite. Praven had no natural resources and a Medium-High tier armory. Weak cavalry, but strong infantry. It was on a medium-range distance from the mine, so resource prices where pretty average, but they still had to put an effort to obtaining them.

However, Pravens main source of income was taxation. Everything in the town, from butter knives to armours in the Old Port Market got taxed to Praven Castle. In order to make money, Praven would have to get people to come to the town. To host tournaments in the Arena, or open Taverns. To protect travellers and merchants. I know roleplayers who made hundreds of thousands of gold as Lord of praven, without even lifting a finger and only roleplaying.

Meanwhile, some bad lords would try to tax the entrance to the town. This would scare people off, and starve the faction residing there of resources and gold.

Of course, all castles and locations were well equipped with storage crates to allow them to stock up on resources.

These 3 different castles and their different economies created a living economy with pros and cons. Where clever management was greatly rewarded, and poor management was punished. Warfare was given a proper roleplaying reason, such as valuable territory or resources, and not just war for the sake of it.

And it was all possible because i had limited the availability of Iron to a single mine.

Very many maps in this mod caters heavily to Castle Warfare. While this is important, it's not the only thing in this mod worth focusing on. Roleplay and the possibility to roleplay is vital to create a healthy playerbase. Without roleplay possibilities, players will get bored. When they get bored, trolling and randoming is just around the corner.

Roleplay comes in many forms. Roleplay is more than just being a Tavernkeeper. Roleplay comes from being a villager, a merchant, a travelling doctor or a Brigand. So all these things had to be promoted, protected and valued. Even if the end-result of all these players choices is to make money to buy weapons, the way there is what matters. The fact that the village is full of villagers, or that Trade caravans hire bodyguards.

In Lowlands, i first created well equipped taverns. Taverns is a great way to promote roleplay. It gives players a chance to take a break, chat and relax. However, very many mapmakers completely neglect this. They place down taverns just for the purpose of filling them with beds and the remaining building is completely empty and miss out on so much potential. Add tables, chairs, banners and decorations, item-chests and THEN beds. What you give the players is an unrivaled potential for peaceful and friendly roleplay.

Then i created the Village. In many maps, there are tons of small villages spread out. In Lowlands, i concentrated all villagers into one single village. So instead of having a lone guy standing for 30 minutes growing wheat, we now had a thriving village full of people, fishermen, farmers, herdsmen, lumberjacks and so on. The atmosphere created was amazing.

Also, worth noting is that i made farming and fishing very profitable. This encouraged players to get away from the iron-grinding, and to get into other professions.

Merchants were naturally born from the fact that moving Iron around was a profitable business. Trade caravans was not an uncommon sight.

Then i created the Outfit Market. A location in Praven where you could buy almost all civilian clothing for your roleplay very cheap. It made roleplay much easier accessible and clearly projected to other players that you were a roleplayer.

And then, finally, i created Oasis. A very lush, beautiful, castle/mansion on the outskirts of the map. Oasis was not defenseless, but their equipemtn was very limited. It was a Roleplay area, with a big dining-table and throne room, a Hot-tub, a Kitchen and a Garden.

What this did is that it gave Roleplayers someplace to be, where they wouldn't get disturbed by warfare. Oasis as a location had nothing of value either, so it was rare for faction to waste resources on attacking it. This, aswell as the Taverns, gave the peaceful roleplayers a safe haven. These roleplayers then spread their roleplay out to the rest of the map naturally, and created a much healthier atmosphere.

In Lowlands, moving around was easy. There were few high hills, roads lead everywhere, and all rivers were crossable. Horses were available almost everywhere.

In many other maps, movement is greatly restricted. This makes moving around tedious and annoying. Sure, bridges offer interesting combat scenarios, but i found that they more so contribute to trolling and randoming as players block access points, or ride peasants down with their horses for fun. And if you don't have a horse, getting from A to B is not only dangerous, but also incredibly boring.

Many other maps also rely heavily on Ships for movement. However ships are unreliable, at best. On Lowlands, they are treated as toys. Fun to use and sail around in, but little strategical value (In direct opposition to Sky City). Some might call this a loss, but i personally see this as yet another factor that contributed to a healthy atmosphere. Ships contribute very little to the overall gameplay, other than being fun to use. Lowlands adapted to that exact notion.

Meanwhile, a mistake that i see many other maps make aswell, is that they are spread too thin. The maps are too large, and the area inbetween too empty. Due to FPS restrictions, there is a finite amount of  locations and items that you can put down on the map. And often it's better to make the map smaller, than bigger in this case.

Many maps have huge, empty fields, that's really just there to cross. There is nothing in these fields that make them interesting. They are just big and flat. Lowlands on the other hand had rivers, mottes, statues, flowing hills. Things that brought the map to life. Things that made even travelling enjoyable.

Castles are important. But never forget the area inbetween them.

Those were the core concepts. But there are very many minor things aswell that helped contribute to the immersion:

Very few maps can support having as many interiors as houses (Sky City, woooh). This means that almost all maps are left with empty doorways. However most mappers really just leave them there and let the player figure out which one leads somewhere.

Visually block empty doors. On Lowlands, i took every single door that didn't lead somewhere and "Barred" it up. I put planks infront of it to show clearly that it was a closed door. It was still immersive, and it fit in perfectly. Meanwhile, it cost very little FPS and made the gameplay so much more flowing for new players.

You don't have to have every single faction on your map. Many maps have Rhodoks, Swadia, Nords and Sarranids. But what this does is just produce an ugly coctail, where the terrains change and out-of place structures. Lowlands had only Swadian armories,  and a few very expensive imported wares in the harbour. But due to how i designed the castles to be unique in so many ways, they still had bigger differences than many other maps, without breaking the immersion with sudden terrain shifts.

Don't have a Town Watch. Seriously. They never, ever lead to anything good. I have never seen a town watch that behaved good and didn't just make things 5x worse. Lowlands started off with a Town Watch. I immediately removed it in the patches following. An Admin protected faction that cannot be pursued or punished but still are allowed to attack people never, ever works out.

Don't have Commoner fighting classes. They never contribute, and cause endless amounts of trolling and randoming. Players who get bored are high-risk players to cause trouble. And Commoner Fighters are almost always bored and looking for trouble. Lowlands didn't have CF-classes for this exact reason, and it worked out perfectly.

Have the balls to stand up against your server-owner and the community. This is very important. I had very many, very long discussions with server owners about the lack of CF-classes, and the existance of only one mine etc.. They kept telling me to change it and i refused because i knew that they didn't understand. If i had listened to them, Lowlands would have gone down in history as yet another boring map. Very often the community think they know what they want, but in reality they don't.

After i left the game, one of these owners tried to modify Lowlands himself. The result was a complete disaster that almost killed his server. He tried to change something he didn't understand and ended up ruining it.

Of course you should listen to feedback. The hot-tub in Oasis, the AFK-cages and the protected spawn rooms were great community suggestions. But never go through with an idea that you do not like. It's your map, not theirs.

Avoid big flat areas. Many creators make their towns by slapping down a big flat area and putting buildings on it. Keep some elevation changes. Make small bumps all over the town and even it out with the Smoothing tool. The immersion changes are drastic.

Give the map a lot of carts, wagons, baskets and horse packs to transport goods in. Movement is vital for a living map and economy. Make it easy and practical for people to move goods around. The War Camps in Lowlands didn't even have iron-smelters, because i wanted them to move iron bars around.