Chandrea V4.3 (94prov) _AND_ Drea V4.3 (49 prov)

[Cainehill]

Cool - thanks Arryn!

[Cainehill]

Hmmm. Having each nation get 12 heavy cav, 30+ heavy infantry, and 12 crossbows seems like it may be a bit unbalancing, since nations that aren't supposed to have solid troops, or aren't supposed to have good missile troops (or any, ie Abysia) are pumped up at the start. Almost any nation likely can, and probably should, attack an independent with an army on turn 2.

The free mages may have something of the same effect, boosting restricted magic nations like stock Ulm or New Era Pangaea quite a bit.

But on the other paw, since I view this as being a perfect map for 5-6 players, it might simply be that the extra starting troops & mages help people get into the thick of things player vs player wise more quickly.

[Chazar]

First of all, deleting those troops from the mapfile is fairly easy, since it is all in one place inside the map file. For convenience, I attached an edited mapfile with starting locations being outside cities, i.e. each player starting without these troops.

That said, in the original mapfile these troops serve as defense for the cities, who should be focal points of the map. There is no other option to strengthen the defenders of a certain province. The population type does only influence the availability of recruitable troops, not the type and numbers of the actual defenders. Therefore I placed them by hand, which then leads to nations start with these troops.

However, I think this is fair as everyone starts with the same troops. Thus one gets a quicker start on even terms, which is something I do like (for having more than one starting province is not advisable on my map, as many cities are adjacent!). Furthermore those troops are easily available to anyone holding a fortified city anyway.

The mages were just added for fun. But now I think that they might balance things as well: I do not like it that finding a single magical site such as a library is such a huge advantage. So everyone gets two those independent wizards for free, boosting research a bit for everyone. (One might consider difficult research as well) Furthermore, their random paths cannot be taken into account at pretender creation, so a player has to adapt to what he gets and has to deal with these options (I really liked the randomly assigend predesigned-pretenders in the Shepherd's Scenario).

Also, I do like the idea that these three commanders are rather unique and thus present a nice prestige goal for assassins... Same holds for the Cavalary, or how do you obtain those again bearing your home province's name? I have fun by using them cautiosly and nuturing them to high XP as my pretender's elite bodyguard...

In the end, it's everybody's own choice whether to play with the troops or not: I like them, as long as nobody convinces me that they shift the balance in favor of the powerhouses Caelum, Vanheim, etc,..

[Chazar]

VERSION 3.4:
Note that the chandrea3.tga remains unchanged, so find attached to this post only the altered .map file and a .txt file generated by CJN's mapinfo script.

• All provinces feature a simple commander with #randomequip 2. Enjoy hunting the trinkets! (Assassins beware, for the commander always has a weak bodyguard.)
• Cities have two sages and 20 X-bows instead of two wizards and cavalry. (Idea: The x-bows still make it a bit more difficult to capture independent cities; the priest-sages should compensate ill-luck with respect to early turn lab/temple loss as well as offsetting early library finds.)
• Some minor corrections that I cannot recall

Have fun!

EDIT: Buggy file. Some commented-out stuff is still read by dom2. Fix in my next post!

[spirokeat]

Nice one Chazar...Nice to see the trinkets getting some playtime. I will enjoy having a go at this map.

Hats off to ya sir.

Spirokeat

[Chazar]

Here is the corrected file. It's called 3.5 now.

PS: The two underwater locations do not have victory points assigned. This might annoy an underwater player, though the map hardly puts any underwater nation at a disadvantage. Nevertheless, it is easy to add the victory points if desired.

[NTJedi]

Looks nice... any chance we'll see a map with over 200 provinces?

[Chazar]

...and again a new version of the map file available for download.

Changes:

• Simply 2 item-wielders per province, because just one per province did not make much of a difference (considering the difficulty of finding the low-level items after a battle).
• Missing victory-points for the two underwater starting locations added.
• The two provinces which are each single-adjacents to possible starting locations received a lowered preset independent force.
• A few more idependents for many-site provinces. Their leaders have #randomeqip 3, so there should be something to loot

Always remember to have fun!

---
@NTJedi: No, for I especially made this map to address the lack of small and wrap-around maps...

[Chazar]

Note that the attachment for V3.6 only includes the .map file! The tga file has not changed since V3.3, so please download V3.3 from e.g. Arryn's nice & useful site: http://www.dominions-2.org

Arryn also provides V3.6 in addition to V3.3, which is good, since it the difference are rather a matter of taste...

The reason for not providing the file here is that the forum does not allow to attach files of that size Sorry for any inconvenience caused.

[Chazar]

New map available: Drea V4.3, a 49 province wrap-around map, suited for Blitzgames, Duels or a bloody 9 Player Deathmatch.

The map is essentially the lower half of my previous Chandrea map (94 provinces), which is now also available in version 4.3!!!

Both maps can be downloaded from Arryn's www.dominions-2.org. Many thanks to Arryn for her nice website! Others are welcome to make the maps available on their own Dom2-related websites, too. Each map brings its own new tga-file as well as a mapinfo-generated txt-file containing the map details in a human-readable format. If you play my map, please report whether you like or dislike it here. Thanks!

The following changes apply to both Drea V4.3 and Chandrea V4.3:

• Shipping lines have been removed! This makes travelling much more interesting and puts strategical flyers back to where they belong. Connection is still ensured, because:
• There are three Pocket Ships items located in each city. Therefore each land nation starts with three PocketShips already when using the special starting locations (i.e. in Cities) and can acquire more pocket ships by conquering further cities, provided you catch the pocket-ship item holders.
• Each city is preoccupied by three sage-priests and some ordinary crossbows. So all nation starts with three sage-priest. The idea is that they help somewhat against an early temple/lab loss (for there is someone there to rebuild) and against late library findings (especially on a small map) by providing a good initial research base.
• Each province now contains three commanders with #randomequip 2 and only 2-5 bodyguards (in addition to whatever idependent strength you choose). All many-site provinces have at least one commander with #randomequip 4. It is still pretty difficult to find items... :/
• Cities are now large mountain provinces plus extra population, which yields an even ratio between forests and mountains on both maps. (Recall: Farmlands have few resources, therefore mountains plus extra population are better here, as cities should be focal points of my map, being both rich in gold and resources.)
• Minor neighborship changes (Mount Nimrod became inland, Giant's Causeway lost a remote neighbour, etc.)
• Minor terrain corrections, especially removal of some freshwater tags and adjustment of small/large as well as more nonstart provinces tags, e.g. "Mount Nimrod" is now a 'large many-site non-start mountain waste' instead of a mere 'many-site mountain'.
• Bug fix: Province Otzburg Pass (40) had erroneously an odd mixture of independent defenders in V3.6.

Apart from two connected main continents, there is a single province island and a 5 province island. It is possible for a player to start on the 5-province island, but it contains 2 cities and a nice many site province (Mount Nimrod) already, so it allows a nice start. Leaving the island can then be done via the Pocket Ships. I think the necessity for sailing adds much more fun to the map! - I even think about removing the province "Stepping Stones" entirely from both maps...