Golden Axe Warrior world map

[Natty Bumppo]

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I was into making game maps on excel.

I made maps for Warsong, Golden Axe Warrior - and by torturing excel unmercifully I was able to make hex grid maps for Brigandine and Dark Wizard.

A short time ago I found someone that could make gilcee canvas maps - so I had two of the Golden Axe Warrior maps made:



The smaller one is 11" x 17" while the larger is 24" x 36".

The guy that made them for me can now make them as big as 60" x 90" - not sure what I would do with one that large but it sure would be a unique piece.

[Emperor Megas]

That's awesome. I'd love to see the Dark Wizard one.

[Natty Bumppo]

That's awesome. I'd love to see the Dark Wizard one.

Here are two of the Dark Wizard maps:





The red boxes in the left margin are the castle names.
The pink boxes in the right margin are the town names.
The white boxes in the right margin are any special/hidden places on the map.


I tried to do a world map but there were three problems:

Meshing up the adjoining battlefields was a pain since the border hexes overlapped - but they were different in details of the terrain etc.

The thing was really really big.

The battlefields wouldn't line up in total -I could get them right east to west or north to south (in two pieces) ok but it was like there were several provinces (for lack of a better term) that were missing so I couldn't make a congruent map.

I just have those on paper - it would have cost a fortune to make those on the same material that was used on the Golden Axe Warrior one.

[Wraith Storm]

These are really cool!

I'm curious as to the process you used to make these.

It looks like Golden Axe Warrior is fairly straight forward. I am assuming all the cells we resized to be square rather than rectangular and then piece by piece filled with the appropriate color?

How in the world did you manage to get hexagonal cells for Dark Wizard and Brigandine?

Regardless this is awesome stuff, man! I have a notebook full of notes, discoveries, hidden item map locations, character stats and advancements that my friend and I wrote down years ago for Dark Wizard, but I couldn't even begin to imagine the time it would take to rebuild the maps to that game in excel.

Thanks for sharing!

[Natty Bumppo]

@ wraith

The cells aren't really square - I pushed them around a bit to reflect what they show up as on a monitor (as closely as possible anyway) - so they are a little bit wider than they are high (not quite the same ratio as they were originally) . It shows up more clearly on the map when you have it in front of you. Mostly I just used highlighting with a bit of text (dungeon labels).

Unfortunately the current version of excel won't support my hex grid sheets - they won't display the slanted sides at all. So now I just have the paper copies for those. (I suspect the current version wouldn't let me make them - but I haven't played with excel at all since I retired.

Anyway making the hex worksheets was pretty tricky - the resulting hexes weren't quite perfect but they were very good. Been a very long time since I made those - but here is what I remember. First I had to play with the column widths - the ones supporting the diagonal sides were very narrow. And I had a real specific pattern the cell widths had to be. The diagonal sides were made by a special command that you could slant the cell walls with (I think this is where the current excel has issues). Each of the hexes wound up with four cells in each one - I think the bottom half of the hex was one cell and the top was three cells. Once I had the hex structure set up it was pretty easy to replicate them

After that I had to fill in all the cells - not as bad as it sounds since I could copy stuff easily. The roads and bridges were put in with the shape command. Most of the terrain was put in as colors but a few used hatch patterns. For some reason I had a lot of problem with some weird artifactings that took a lot of time to fix - never really did catch it all since it was such a massive project.

One other thing that took a lot time was creating the maps from the tv - I had blank hex sheets (or grids for warsong and gaw) that I highlighted in and drew the roads in. Time consuming and it was all too easy to misplace a mountain or whatever and sometimes I would have to start over if things were too far off. Then I had to transpose everything to a computer - that part was actually pretty easy aside from the artifacting.

I hope that makes some sense - I know I felt really pleased/satisfied when I managed to make my first hex sheets.

P.S. - You are indeed welcome - I am pretty proud of them and am happy to share them with folks.

[Natty Bumppo]

Regardless this is awesome stuff, man! I have a notebook full of notes, discoveries, hidden item map locations, character stats and advancements that my friend and I wrote down years ago for Dark Wizard, but I couldn't even begin to imagine the time it would take to rebuild the maps to that game in excel.

Do you know about being able to equip any of the characters with that awesome ghost scythe?

And getting your healers and magic casters to learn all of the spells for both chaos and lawful (not your neutral healers and magic casters though)?

[Wraith Storm]

Do you know about being able to equip any of the characters with that awesome ghost scythe?

And getting your healers and magic casters to learn all of the spells for both chaos and lawful (not your neutral healers and magic casters though)?

Thanks for the insight on how the maps were done. That's some serious dedication. Years back I graphed out some detailed maps for locations on the TGFX-16 Dungeons and Dragons game but nothing of this caliber.

As for Dark Wizard... I played the game religiously back in the day but its been probably 15 years since I have had a go at it. The Ghost scythe sounds familiar but i'm not certain. Was it a weapon that you could get off a boss? I seem to remember getting a Trident this way, though I don't remember how. Perhaps returning and searching the hex he occupied?

I certainly never knew about being able to learn BOTH chaos and lawful spells! This is exciting to hear. Not to derail the thread, but do you mind sharing the details?

[megasdkirby]

Any chance of seeing the Golden Axe Warrior in detail? Looks fantastic!

[Natty Bumppo]

Any chance of seeing the Golden Axe Warrior in detail? Looks fantastic!

I would put them up if I had a camera of some sort - I am pretty retro in lifestyle too - I don't even have a cell phone of any sort. Let me try a couple of things and I will see what I can come up with.

[Natty Bumppo]

Thanks for the insight on how the maps were done. That's some serious dedication. Years back I graphed out some detailed maps for locations on the TGFX-16 Dungeons and Dragons game but nothing of this caliber.

As for Dark Wizard... I played the game religiously back in the day but its been probably 15 years since I have had a go at it. The Ghost scythe sounds familiar but i'm not certain. Was it a weapon that you could get off a boss? I seem to remember getting a Trident this way, though I don't remember how. Perhaps returning and searching the hex he occupied?

I certainly never knew about being able to learn BOTH chaos and lawful spells! This is exciting to hear. Not to derail the thread, but do you mind sharing the details?

You are indeed welcome!

When you get to the screen where you can summon Tagon (to get to the island of Viosdia) there is a small island to the southwest - if you search it you will find a rusty weapon (with a strength of 5). The blacksmith in Willis will temper it for you and it will become the ghost scythe (also called a giant scythe*). The scythe is a 70 strength weapon (the only other two IIRC are the trident and mad axe) and will also often cause paralysis. Normally only chaos magic casters can equip it (and I think the dragon rider - I could be wrong there). The trick is that anyone can equip the rusty weapon and it will stay equipped as a scythe when tempered in Willis.

I usually enter the battle and rather than summon Tagon I send my two (or three if playing as Krystal) flyers (after stripping their inventories) and search the island to get rusty weapons (you can get as many as you want - kinda like a bottomless cup of coffee). I send them back to the rest of the army and unload and go back and get enough until I have as many as I want. I then retreat and on the inventory screen distribute/equip them for everyone I want. I then send everyone our on search parties and go visit the blacksmith. I usually give everyone one except the archers (would kinda defeat their purpose) - the grif rider usually gets one too since he is more useful with it than as an archer. You can also give the ruler one by retreating until the enemy takes the province with Willis and your ruler can visit the blacksmith in battle. Kind of a long process but one shouldn't be playing Dark Wizard if you aren't patient! ^___^

There is also one scythe hidden on one of the battlefields - I don't remember exactly where - but it is on a bridge IIRC.

*The manual and the game describe it differently - translation problem I imagine. In your inventory it just shows as g. scythe. And as much as I love Dark Wizard it had the world's worst manual - I think the reason that most people who try it that don't like is that you have to play through it at least once to really understand the basic mechanics of the game.


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You can do this at anytime - but I usually do it when the magic user or priest has maxed out their spells.

If you send a chaos character to the church in Cheshire and pray 10 times the alignment will be changed to lawful. And if they are a magic caster/priest they will then learn the lawful spells they don't have. All of the equipped items will be unequipped - they stay in the inventory but can be reequipped (unless they are specific to the chaos alignment).

You can send a lawful character to either the church in Sage or the church in Loa to do the same thing for them.

I usually put the magic casters back as lawful when they have fully learned both sets of spells - that way they can equip the really useful angel robes.

(note - Don't try to change the alignment of the dragon rider - leads to really bad problems - haven't tried the wing rider but it might also be problematic.)

[Wraith Storm]

After what you typed, its safe to say that I didn't know about either of those.

It's no surprise however. Dark Wizard is such a huge game and has so many secrets.

As soon as I finish up Breath of the Wild, I'm gonna have to come back to Dark Wizard. It's been too long. And now, thanks to you, I have a couple of new tricks to try out!

[jb143]

Cool maps. I didn't even know it was possible to get Excel into a hex grid.

This thread does remind me that I've been meaning to play Golden Axe Warrior though. I just wish the actual cart didn't cost so much.

[Natty Bumppo]

Cool maps. I didn't even know it was possible to get Excel into a hex grid.

This thread does remind me that I've been meaning to play Golden Axe Warrior though. I just wish the actual cart didn't cost so much.

If you have a Dreamcast there was a Sega Smash Pack that had Golden Axe Warrior as a hidden game.

[jb143]

If you have a Dreamcast there was a Sega Smash Pack that had Golden Axe Warrior as a hidden game.

Thanks, I'll have to look into that. Would be nice to play it on the SMS but my Dreamcast doesn't get much love these days either.

[RARusk]

If you have a Dreamcast there was a Sega Smash Pack that had Golden Axe Warrior as a hidden game.

How do you get to it? Quick Google-Fu and GFAQs didn't reveal anything.

[Natty Bumppo]

How do you get to it? Quick Google-Fu and GFAQs didn't reveal anything.

IIRC correctly you have to get to a certain point in Golden Axe - maybe just start it. (I have the smash pack but I also have the SMS so I use that. )

[Natty Bumppo]

How do you get to it? Quick Google-Fu and GFAQs didn't reveal anything.

Oops - my mistake - Sonic Ultimate Genesis Collection for the PS3 - you use magic 10 times in GW3 and that is supposed to unlock Golden Axe Warrior.

It is terrible thing to get old..........................

[jb143]

Oops - my mistake - Sonic Ultimate Genesis Collection for the PS3 - you use magic 10 times in GW3 and that is supposed to unlock Golden Axe Warrior.

It is terrible thing to get old..........................

Ah, good to know. According to Wikipedia it's on the XBOX 360 version as well. Unfortunately I don't have either of those systems.

[Natty Bumppo]

Here is a bit closer shot of the GAW map:

[RARusk]

Does anybody know if GAW is an unlockable in the newly released PS4 Genesis collection?