Why hello there. Let's start with a bit of story:And so on that faithful day, the day that later shall be labeled as 1/1/1, our beloved and mighty king Suryavarman II stepped out onto the wide balcony to the south side of his palace, overlooking the intricate pathways through the palace's courtyards and gardens just as the sun started to rise in the distant east. It was at this moment, as king Suryavarman, still in his simple, gold-coated dressing gown, turned to one of his guards and inquired of him as is told:
"Dude, what's with all the dunes and hills and all those over there? I can't even see the sun back there properly, man."
While suprised by the unusual request, the guard reacted quickly by asking where the king would want them to be moved to, seeing as they can't just be cast out of existence.
King Suryavarman in reply declared in his typically eloquent manner: "Woah, I don't know, dude, just get them away. Have them build a temple from them or something."
And that is how the construction of the greatest and most radiant temple known to mankind has been comissioned.
It is now more than a year and ten month later, and the final stone of the inner sanctum has been set in place. (For the second time, actually; shortly after the first completition, the king accidentially knocked a pebble out of an intricate bas-relief, thereby ripping half of an adjacent colonnade apart.)
Over a dozen of loyal workers have given their very lives for the construction, and their bones now rest in the walls of this magnificent sight (that is, mostly the floors, due to the block-placement-crushing-everything-bug).
The temple's foundation is made of sand (which causes it's unbelievable solidity according to our architects), while the temple itself is made of highest-quality limestone blocks. Overall, the tireless worker peons have moved more than 13.000 blocks of sand, and moved and subsequently chipped at about 10.000 blocks of stone to build this marvelous construction. At its highest point, they stacked these blocks 23 units high, as our greatest designers found a way to raise the maximum height from previously mere 12 units.
Without further ado, we now proudly present you the image of what great tribute to the gods the grand king has constructed:
Link to the full in-game resolution image. Warning! 8700x4500px, 14.7mb imageSome more technical details:The screenshot is brightened up a bit to remove the height-shadowing, as it otherwise looks quite depressing. The edges fade into generic desert; otherwise the image is unaltered. You can even still see the original building camp, where the poor peons can rest their heads.
I indeed built the whole thing in a nearly unmodified towns game; starting from the usual desert map, I increased the number of above-surface layers (and I now know why it is just 12 usually), moved the river out of the way and removed the snake crabs. All other game aspects are plain vanilla.
Further:
After watching the other entries, I guess that I got a quite different idea of the whole build large concept; seeing as my design lacks any and all kinds of decoration. Still, I think it nailed the MEGA quite nicely. The building itself just a replica of an actually existing building, so I didn't come up with anything of the actual design. I tried to be as true to the original as I could, which turned out harder than I thought; so the first one to guess the original site gets a virtual hug from me! (or virtual high-five, your choice) It covers now about 120 by 110 tiles, thus taking up more than a quarter of real estate of the whole map: the screenshot's borders on the sides are the actual map borders.
It was very much fun to build the whole thing, and I learned quite a bit about building things. I deleted at least several thousand units of scaffolding (indeed, there are still hundreds in the map, supporting the elevated parts of the sand floor), and I would build some parts quite differently if I would do it again. Nevertheless, I am very pleased with the end result, and I hope you like it as well. Many many thanks of course go to the Towns-Team Xavi and Ben, for building the fantastic game that made this possible; as well as all the others involved in the contest, for encouraging me to do this. Thank you!
The Contest:So many great designers, architects and builders (not to forget a couple of crazies) have put their most splendid works to display; and splendid they are! I have taken a hike (or a stroll, where appropriate) through all of them, have marveled at all their wonders and intricacies and gazed at all their incomparable magnificence.
Now, though, you demand of me a judgment on who is the most equal among their peers, and I have rested long and heavy on this though, being the impossible decision that it is. Still, I finally made up my mind and have come to an end, and have found the truest of beauty. Praise for this and all times shall be to the marvellous, glorious and splenderous work of
Buster10!
Finally, thank you for your time to read all this,
fbu
Thank you, and best of luck to you all!
