| “ | A large central lake dominates the landscape, surrounded by stealth forests perfect for ambushes and surprise attacks. Control of the lake and strategic forest clearings are crucial to victory | ” |
Shadow Lake is a naval random map in Age of Empires IV: Knights of Cross and Rose in which stealth forest surrounds a large central lake with a Sacred Site at its center.
Features[]
As a map with a central body of water on a map relatively free of of elevation or other notable features, Shadow Lake is for all intents and purposes a variation of Baltic with stealth forest encircling the sea and an additional Sacred Site at its center. On the micro map size, the lake varies the most in shape, sometimes leaving only narrow land chokepoints between the two players, but as the map size and teams increase, the lake becomes more circular and more similar to Baltic. The maps do vary in start positions, with players arranged in a circle on Shadow Lake, as opposed to on opposite sides of the map based on their teams. The two other Sacred Sites are almost always located on opposite sides of the lake along the center axis dividing the teams, but they can rarely spawn on the same side. Despite the fact that the map has a 'no Trade Posts' tag, each of the two land Sacred Sites spawns together with a Trade Post a short distance away regularly in team games, and occasionally in 1 vs 1 games. Shadow Lake also seems to be one of the least consistent maps regarding Relic spawns, with it seemingly more likely to get a partial Relic spawn than a full one. When they do spawn, they tend to favor the corners and edges of the map.
Resources[]
Along with the plentiful fish in the sea, the map has no shortage of other food, with large Berry Bush patches all within close range of the Capital Town Center, extra Deer packs, and at least one Boar per player. Each player starts out with an extra two nearby Sheep (six total), and the usual spawn distribution is replaced by two groups of two Sheep per player on all map sizes (although the number can seemingly vary by one or two to try and equalize distributions). Large woodlines are plentiful all around the map, containing plenty of wood for naval play. The Large Gold Outcroppings are distributed at relatively even intervals along the edges of the map, while the only Small Gold Mines are the two standard starting ones. Small Stone Outcroppings, on the other hand, spawn in larger number and are more even all over the map, including closer to the central lake. There are no large outcroppings.
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