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  Dominions 2 Genesis Forge  

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  Written By: The_Paladin   
  Version: 0.7 Beta	   
  Last Modified: Jun. 2005  

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**** NOTE *****

This is a beta release. There are potentially significant bugs present in the utilities though I have done my best to avoid them naturally. More importantly though being a beta release means I need your help! Play, test, play, test, and let me know about problems or give general feedback. It's a hard job to play Dominions 2 but I need you to do it :). 

The_Paladin Needs You!

Table Of Contents
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1 - In The Beginning...
2 - Overview
3 - Installation
4 - Special Thanks
5 - How To Contact Me

1 - In The Beginning...
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In the beginning there was chaos. A world populated by multitudes of beings... divided into factions... and all lead by beings of great power claiming to be gods. These so-called pretenders fought endlessly trying to claim the throne of the heavens by any means leading many to tap into the principle of the Beginning. Bending the strands of creation itself, these pretenders caused cataclysms that rippled across dimensions... and even shook the elemental sphere's themselves. 

Yet one pretender stood out. A great being who sought balance. He divined the impending destruction of all things from a continued misguided access to the strands of creation. Cleverly, he wished for the banishment of the knowledge of creation itself from the minds of world, including himself, so never would any be tempted to employ its uncontained power again. His name was Zen. And creation obeyed, wiping the pretender's minds of all knowledge of Wish. The drained Arcana recovered. Wars were still conducted... but no more could one person focus the heavens themselves against their foes. For a few months the world's multitudes felt a calm compared to the horrors just endured. For a few months...

Two weeks ago, you stumbled upon what can only be described as a place of miracles deep within an abandoned laboratory in the Mountains of Madness. Ancient manuscripts, written in unfamiliar tongues, lined the walls... Yet somehow you could understand them. Spending restless days driven by a strange all-consuming force you read and began to piece together a most precarious chain of events. What Zen didn't know, or anyone else for that matter, was about the Other. The Other had unfathomable power. There were even notes present indicating that the Other disposed of the past One... the supreme being who ended the first ascension wars. Along with power came knowledge. The Other was aware of Zen's plans. In fact the Other supported them for the other explained that by banning access to creation for the pretenders, only the Other would remain privy to its secrets having prepared for this eventuality. 

Wanting to know what happened to the Other, you found one last note this morning that you had mysteriously neglected before. It was written in melted astral pearl and read:

"With this writing you are bound.
With this writing you will be found.
With this note you will be freed and at its end,
You will be ME."

A flash of nausea accompanied fresh memories in your mind. With a wry smile of satisfaction, you now knew why you were drawn here, why you could read this writing, and what happened to the Other... You have been the Other all along. Your mind, full of nothing but creation knowledge, was all but destroyed by Zen's wish but you knew that this would come to pass. You had a plan to be exempt from Zen's wish... and your memories return signifies complete success of that plan. That alone was devastating but that was not all. You desired to change everything by your will alone. You knew only creation could grant this ability. Years of past research yielded the true words to utter to creation. Using your returned memory, a stash of astral pearls, and a ritual sphere, you uttered:

"I wish for the power of the Genesis Forge!" 

2 - Overview
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The Dominions 2 Genesis Forge is implemented in two separate utilities, the Genesis Map Mod and the Genesis Game Mod, and is intended to allow the creation of both a more challenging and, perhaps more importantly, novel / unknown game environment each time you play a game of Dominions 2. Though certainly not the same as when you cracked the game box originally (in Dominions 2 case, the metaphorical game box :)) it is my intention to try to provide you as many options to come as close as possible to that experience. 

The Genesis Map Mod utility focuses on the alteration of Dominions 2 maps. It allows you to customize the starting conditions of any or all nations by modifying a configuration file. After installation, refer to the Genesis Map Mod.Txt file in your Dominions 2\Maps folder for more information. 

The Genesis Game Mod utility focuses on the alteration of the nations, spells, and general parameters of Dominions 2 itself. It allows you to change many of the same aspects that modding would but further allows you to specify those changes in a manor such that Genesis Game Mod Utility can create many unique game environment's from them to be explored. Again after installation, refer to the Genesis Game Mod.Txt file in your Dominions 2\Mods folder for more information.

3 - Installation
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Extract the contents of the zip file to your Dominions 2 (default: Dominions2) directory. This will place the appropriate files for the utilities in the Maps and Mods subdirectories. Now read the text files mentioned in the Overview section for usage instructions.

4 - Special Thanks
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I would like to thank the following:

Shrapnel Games and Illwinter for creating a great game to inspire me to create these utilities in the first place. 

SaberCherry for providing the Recruitable Rebalance Mod. Without a good basis like that for these utilities to work from, it would not be as effective.

Zen for unknowingly providing inspiration for section 1 :) and hopefully when his unit balance mod comes out for providing another good basis for these utilities. 

Edi for an amazing unit database that probably saved me hours... maybe even days... of work! 

5 - How To Contact Me
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If you do have a problem, would like to offer feedback, or even suggest new features, you can contact me either through a private message to The_Paladin at the Shrapnel Games Dominions 2 Forum or post in this thread:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=357480&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1


