Prairie is a custom map in Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings and a random map in Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition.
Age of Empires II[]
Prairie selection
Prairie is an arid map with sparse vegetation, few trees, and little water with minimal fish. There isn't a lot of wood, but plenty of wildlife scattered in wide clumps throughout, both huntables and hostiles alike. The Relics here are standard, but the gold deposits are rather plentiful. The map begins with two scout units.
Viable tactics[]
The Prairie map is similar to Arabia, only with more staggered resources. The greater abundance of food versus wood, stone, and gold is an invitation for hunters to head out far from town and bring home plenty of game. Farm economies will not suffer here, but will be shorter lived, and herding civilizations will not fare much better.
Plenty of fighting will occur, not only at the gold deposits littered throughout the Prairie, but even early in the game at the hunting grounds. Since the resources are stretched out so much, it's even harder for turtling civilizations to defend the big open areas found throughout, and the complete absence of hills and cliffs only makes that so much worse. Many players will be heavily exposed to raids early in the game, which can be devastating.
Civilizations with great advantages are those with strong economies and early-game economic bonuses: Lithuanian, Aztec, Persian starting-resource boosts, Malian wood building discounts, Vietnamese economic technology discounts, Hindustanis Villager food discounts and Shore Fishing bonuses, and so on. Hunting civilizations will also have a faster early-game, such as the Mongols or Goths. Raiding civilizations are especially dangerous on the Prairie, like the Celts, Goths, Aztecs, and Huns.
Civilizations who rely on naval booming or turtling are in trouble on this map because of its sparsity of trees, lack of water and absence of deep water fish, meaning the Italians, Japanese, and Byzantines will have more limited options for the early game economy — though the Malay will surprisingly have no problem. Farm-heavy civilizations like the Teutons or Slavs won't have as much trouble on this map, but their bonuses still won't do them any favors as the wood will run out sooner.
Age of Empires IV[]
| “ | The exposed landscape demands a rapid expansion and leaves everyone vulnerable to raids from any directions. | ” |
Prairie is an open, land random map in Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition. Players start on small hills overlooking a wide-open, sparsely forested map that makes walling difficult and encourages aggressive play.
Features[]
In terms of map features, Prairie differs little from its most logical comparison - Dry Arabia. Both are pure land maps with three Sacred Sites and two Trade Posts. The Sacred Sites similarly tend to be in the center between players in 1 vs 1, but can be more clustered and randomly placed in team games. Players also spawn in the same starting positions, encircling the center evenly spaced. The same number of Relics also spawn evenly distributed. However, one difference is that the Trade Posts on Prairie are always in opposite corners, as opposed to potentially along the map edges, making trade a more reliable strategy on every map generation. which makes walling difficult and incentives an aggressive playstyle,
Resources[]
While Prairie may seem like Dry Arabia with significantly less wood due to the lack of large woodlines, there are actually significant differences when it comes to resource distribution. First of all, rather than using the standard resource distribution function which attempts to place a fixed number of each resource, the map is scripted to introduce an element of randomness in the placement of certain resources. Berry Bush patches, Sheep, Deer packs, Small Gold Mines, and Small Stone Outcroppings are all affected by this. Furthermore, rather than spawn independently of each other, contested Sheep are tied to Small Gold Mine spawns, with four Sheep spawning around every mine. The approximate number of small mines is 7 to 10 on micro maps, 12 to 14 on small maps, 18 to 21 on medium maps, and 24 to 31 on large maps. This can result in over 40 Sheep (double the standard amount) in 1 vs 1 games with the relative amount decreasing slightly as the map gets larger (up to ~1.7x in 4 vs 4). The amount of Small Stone Outcroppings is similar to the amount of small gold, as is the number of Deer packs, which only spawn in the small variety (groups of three). The berries provide another increased source of food, and rather than spawning in their standard amount of three patches tied to the Capital Town Center location, they also spawn randomly distributed along the map. Only medium patches of six bushes spawn, and the total numbers vary around 10 to 12 on micro maps, 15 to 19 on small maps, 23 to 26 on medium maps, and 33 to 38 on large maps. There are also additional Boars, with one spawning relatively close to each player's starting Town Center. Players also start out with one Large Gold Mine and Stone Outcropping within its range, rather than the standard small nodes.
Trivia[]
- In the season three public update preview, Prairie spawned two Boars per player and had more Deer per pack (whether large or medium size is unknown). With its release in update 24916, the numbers were decreased to the current amount.
- Prairie is referred to as 'Dunes' in the game files.
Gallery[]
