This is my first EVER uploaded map, so I don't think it's too great, if you've got some advice for me, please post a comment.
:D:D:D
[I have updated the map, and now you have the necessary goods for a good start]
One day, in the monastery in the Valley of the Cross came a strange man with a black cloak. He said he was a traveler, and asked for housing over night. The priest agreed to let him stay over night, and offered to take his cloak, but the stranger said it wasn't necessary, and remained hidden in the cloak. To this day, nobody found out who was the stranger, but he would be remembered forever, because in that night, he set the monastery on fire, and ran away. The priest started praying, and it started raining, and the rain didn't stop for 5 years, forming a lake that would be called from then on "The Lake of Faith", because of the strong faith of the priest that still haunts the ruins of the monastery, trying to find the strange man.
Ok this map took me a couple tries to get started. I think the main drawback is that the resources are spread way far apart from where you would like to normally place the castle ie by the trees and wild game.
I dont know if it was just oversight being first map and all but cashflow is the main culprit to this scenerio. you are attacked by wolves etc and to make a good defense you need to early on build some kind of fighting units. the problem with cashflow (and this may be the oversight) is that you have nothing available to buy or sell in your marketplace to generate cash or goods. this makes the game agonizingly slow. one way to help this along would be to give more cash at the start, or more wood for building, or to allow a few items to be sold and bought through the marketplace.
The map itself wasnt too bad for a first try I especially liked the ruins of the monestary good job here using the stairs for the side wall to give the illusion of the missing roof.
Another nice touch was the wolves not too many but just the right balance for the pace of this map.
The overall play of this map as is is very challenging but with a little patience you can get a good group of farms going to keep everyone fed, but as stated earlier no real income to build and the rock pile is so far way that it takes forever to get goods to build from stone.
a really nice first effort with a map that is playable but goes so slow it gets tiresome fast.
my suggestion would be to move the stone pile or at least a small group of them closer to the other side of the water where the best position to build is and to allow some items to be at least sold in the marketplace for cashflow.