New map by Jason Lutes
 

Jason Lutes has made a new and very beautiful map.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Very beautiful indeed. I like the added touches described in the comments section of the .map file. I've yet to get a chance to play it, but after looking at the .tga and the document, it's awfully nice. I'll be giving it a try this week for certain!

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

looks very cool. definitely want to MP it.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Really nice. Thanks a lot.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Very nice!!

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Great-looking map! The bridges, cities, and cornfields are all nice touches. Just from the description it seems considerable thought was put into starting provinces. Its different in style from anything else, and very easy on the eye.

I look forward to playing on it!

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Excellent addition to the maps available. Offers alot of fresh ideas for other map makers to consider and it looks very playable.

But when Kristoffer uses real names it always confuses me. Where did this guy come from? Did he do this all on his own? From another board? Is he a lurker here? Or a handle I dont connect to the name? Thinking of everyone by their handles is a fault. I know tha. But maybe we could mention both the name and the handle if known. Hey Jason!
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_6_2v.gif

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

To my knowledge he has no presence on these Boards. He was semi-active on usenet during the dom1 times and made a map called 'Realm War' with a nice colour palette.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Hi guys...

Kristoffer's right about my not having posted here, and Gandalf's right about me being a lurker. It's been very helpful to read these Boards -- Gandalf's randomly generated maps have provided great "canvases" for me to work with. Thanks, Gandalf!

Much obliged for the kind words about the map. If anyone has any comments after giving it a run-through, please post them here. I did find a few neighbor errors in testing, and have sent Kristoffer an updated .map file to correct them. If anyone wants me to send them the new file directly, let me know.

Also, though I currently have to take a break from my obsessive mapmaking, I am interested in doing more in the future, so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!

Jason

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Jason,
Nice, very nice map, noted one minor thing ... not sure if it's intended or not. Area 90 has a name listed as Randomized. Since you named everything else, either you missed this one or it's "delibrate imperfection". Either is just fine, only thought I'd note it in case it was unintended.

Thanks for the excellent map.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Interesting, I haven't played any beutifull maps since Karan.

How big is this map? (surface/underwater)

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thanks, Tenryu, and thanks for the heads-up on that name. I did notice it and and it's fixed in the updated .map file I sent Kristoffer. If you're playing on that Version, you should be warned that there are 3-4 provinces in the northwest continent that have some faulty neighbor connections. Just a few, but they kind of kill the immersion factor.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Wow! Awesome map! There's some other great looking ones out, but with many of them the prettyness detracts from playability (Britain for instance - the real map background tends to conceal the in-game information). With this one, much of it instead conveys information, with the cities, ports, bridges, magic-intense areas....

I also love the way the map file is tweaked to ensure that the starting provinces all have, mmm, 4 or more neighbors? That'd be a boon to many of the standard maps such as Aran - a MP starting position with only 2 neighbors (either total, or "viable" (ie, land)) tends to be a major handicap, especially with indie strength set high.

And the aesthetics of the map background itself are great, possibly even "perfect" in terms of background maps for computer programs.

I think it's going to be one of my favorite maps.
Many thanks to the author who put all the work into it.

Also thanks to all the others who labor on new and improved maps such as Zen's Europe.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Oh! One question for Jason - do the Stonehenge icons on the map have any significance, or are they purely flavor?

Thanks!

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Jason,
Thanks again.

It is so easy to nick-pick and so very much more difficult to create.

Your map is extremely cool. No criticim intended.

[ April 01, 2004, 02:54: Message edited by: Tenryu ]

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Every province with a magic site starburst icon has some little graphic to set it apart in addition to the icon. For instance, in Ghost Hollow to the southwest it's a cave, and in Owleye's Retreat in the north it's a tower. That's all the henges are, just extra indicators of a special magic site province. I started out with just those graphic elements, but added the starbursts for sake of clarity.

Thanks for the comments, Cainehill -- Glad to hear the map is going over well!

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Yes ... it is really a great map! I like very much the idea of the port .. it could be a perfect map for a boardgame ... have you never try to work in bordgames graphics ?

And about new maps idea ... there are two settings I really like and would like to see in a so nice Version (i have found some maps on the net of these setting but are really poor):

The world of Warhammer Fantasy
The worl of a Game of Thornes

good play and thks again!
Liga

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Very very nice job.

Tiny question, if you may:
The rivers themselves are not navigatable, correct? That is, I cannot travel between bodies of water connected by a river if I am a water nation / water traveller?
I ask because this is the way that water neighbors work on the "Karan" map, which I have come to love, and which seems to make sense to me.
(Just wondering if I understand correctly.)
Thank you very much!

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

PS. Please let me know if this was intentional, but I think there are a few tiny neighboring errors:

- 151 and 128 are neighbors
- 101 and 117 are neighbors

hope that is maybe helpful?

EDIT: I'm a computer moron, never tried this before, but I opened up the "map" file with word pad (hope that is right?!). Anyhow, I took out those two "neighbors" commands by just deleting the text, and I tested it and I dont think I broke anything. I suppose that was easy enough to do that I shouldn't bother sending the file to someone??
Thanks once again for your excellent job, will try it out now with a water nation!

[ April 01, 2004, 14:31: Message edited by: tinkthank ]

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

The worl of a Game of Thornes

Wow. A map of Martin's Westeros would touch me in my happy spot. That would be unbelievably cool.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's correct, they are non-navigable. I know it's a little weird -- especially since on this map water nations can't cross rivers just like land-based nations -- but I was more comfortable with it that way. I love Targa's maps and the way he uses rivers, but my bias is against the water nations -- they're too scary to have popping up unexpectedly in one's back yard!

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thanks for the error-check, thinktank. I caught those mistakes and they are corrected in the updated .map file, which I think Kristoffer has uploaded to the Illwinter site at this point. What you did with notepad should work fine, but you might want to download the new .map file just in case (especially if you plan to play any pbem games on it).

And please keep me informed of any other problems you come across!

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

At the risk of making a complete fool of me: where can I download it? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

get it here:
http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/maps.html

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Hey great map so far!
Had to restart the game a few times, however, because of these errors:

120 is labeled plains
167 is labeled plains
121 is labeled sea

I have never done this before, but what I did was open up the map file and look where things looked ok to me and just copied that in. So I erased the "0" at 120 and replaced that with a "4" -- seems to work so far. I hope this is correct?? Can it have repercussions on other things? Well I hope I didnt break it.
thanks much once again
best to you

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Awesome map! I'm looking forward to playing many games on it.

I, too was curious about province 120. Is it supposed to be underwater or more like a floodplains?

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Crud! I guess I was not as thorough as I should have been in my testing! Thanks a lot, tinkthank. I will edit the file and send Kristoffer yet another update. In the future I will try to get the maps more thorughly playtested before putting them Online.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">120 is supposed to be a water province.

What's weird is that in the file I have, 120 and 167 were wrong as tinkthank has noted, but 121 is marked correctly. I can't figure it out.

I'll hold off on sending Kristoffer another update for another day, in case any more errors are detected. Please let me know!

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I know I'm not the only one who's glad for the way you did rivers. On that one map (Karan), several of us have discussed the way the rivers give aquatic nations easy access to almost any area of the land masses. I won't go so far as to say that it's unbalancing, but it certainly is disturbing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Just scan in the (very good) boardgame's map. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Just a bit low on provinces, though, especially for five players.


Excellent map, by the way. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif If you are looking for ideas, I'd like to see a two-player waternation against waternation game, with lots of seas (preferably with two levels) and a few isles scattered across the surface.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Mmm - wouldn't it be better if the #dom2title line went back to saying something like "Cradle of Dominion", as I believe was originally the case? Same thing for the Parganos map, actually.

I mean, it's nice to be able to know the size of the map - but given that the #dom2title line is what's displayed while selecting maps, the more descriptive one naming the map seems better to me.

"A map with 135 provinces"
"A map with 339 provinces"

These just don't mean much to me, y'know? Best of all might be,

"Cradle of Dominion - a map with 221 provinces"
"World - a map with 339 provinces"

I'll be doing this on my own Version of the .map files, but it seems like it was worth pointing out.

Not to be in any way shape or form to be interpreted as criticism - I love a number of the new community created background maps. Just that the #dom2title line is better in a more descriptive form, imo.

Pax vobiscum.
RIP

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Just scan in the (very good) boardgame's map. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Just a bit low on provinces, though, especially for five players.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">There's a boardgame now? Blood and bone, I'm getting old! Time was, I'd know every fantasy-based RPG or strategy board game out there. And Martin's Westeros ("Game of Thrones", etc) series is such an awesome milieu and writing, head and shoulders above most of the competition (Guy Gavriel Kay excepted).

Cainehill
(Wow! I'm a Corporal now! *Huzzah!*)

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes .. there is a boardgame (from Fantasy Flight) and is also a good one ... strategy, diplomacy ... I'll try to make a picture of the map and convert it in a TGA file to use with dom2... but I don't know if it is legal.

good play
Liga

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

It's a great boardgame, even if I think fleets are overpowered.

Fantasy Flight's GoT Page
Boardgamegeek's GoT listing

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thank you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Rather darned beautiful map. Thank you Jason! *bows*

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Regarding the Parganos map, the one-province island in the SW corner deserves to be flagged #nostart or however it's spelled, or alternately connected to the nearby continent.

[ April 02, 2004, 22:11: Message edited by: Taqwus ]

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

I have found one ... peculiarity with the design of this map that I find to be at least a flaw of logic (in the sense that the effect isn't logical).

Specifically, the way most rivers are made into unpassable barriers between provinces seems to break the flying races and Vanheim.

I know it's a side effect of how 'barrier' borders are implemented, but it just doesn't make sense that flying armies couldn't fly over the rivers.

Similarly, the Vanir can sail their armies across vast oceans - but not across a river? This is a cognitive dissonance, imo. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I don't know that it needs to be fixed, or for that matter that it can be fixed (short of Illwinter implementing three grades of unpassable borders: impassable to land / land + sailing / all movement ). But it is something to keep in mind when choosing Pretenders and nations for the map, as Caelum and Vanheim lose some of their normal benefits.

Still, a great map.

Oh, side note: 129, Blackwater Ruins is a "magic rich" province, but with magic sites set to 60, heavy searching (903131140) has revealed nothing. Looking at the map file, I'm guessing that the #terrain determines likelihood of magic sites? Is #terrain type 1568 actually something magic rich, and simply bad luck in this game?

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's possible it's just bad luck. Try casting acashic record to make sure there is nothing there.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Great map btw. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Unfortunately, it seems that link to fixed .map file on http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/maps.html is currently not working. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

I suppose we'll have to do something about that.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

The major problem I have with this map is that it's mostly forest and mountain provinces. There are very, very few good farm land and plains provinces to give you any kind of gold income, and strategic movement is not particulary useful when your troops all have to move through mountains anyways. I also don't really like how rivers carve up the land so badly.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The gold income does seem to be an issue - then again, it forces a different style of play. Likewise the rivers - on the usual maps, there's very few real chokepoints or places that it really is important to place a fortress.

This feels to me more like a medeival / historical map, given that rivers did present huge barriers to armies - likewise mountain ranges. Places where the rivers were fordable, places where bridges had been built, passes through the mountains, those were where fortresses were built.

Whereas most of the Dom2 maps, you tend to have to put a solid blanket of fortresses, because there are precious few natural barriers.

A nice change of pace to the style of play required by other maps.

The only thing I see really flawed about the rivers is, as I've mentioned in this thread, that river's really really shouldn't pose a barrier to flying armies, and possibly not to aquatic races and sea-farers like Vanheim and the one Marignon theme.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Are 99 and 109 supposed to be connected? Don't seem to be now.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

I dont mind the lack of farms. Feels good, feels different.

But Cainehill makes a good point. The rivers kind of get me too.

It would be nice if in the future there could be a chance in the way that borders work; there could be a "barrier", over which flying or sailing units can pass (for rivers) or just flying units could pass (for mountain ranges).

EDIT: Actually, can you say what additional magic bonuses one could expect in those special magic starburst areas? I havent found much magic in those places --- is that just random luck?
Thank you!

[ April 04, 2004, 13:45: Message edited by: tinkthank ]

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Near as I can tell, the "Extra Magic" flag simply means there's 30% more likelihood that magit sites are in the province. Unfortunately, that overrides the bonus from mountains (10%), forests and wastes (20%?), and whatnot.

So it then becomes random luck, and somewhat frustrating when you take the province and there's _nothing_ there, or one extremely minor site.

But I guess there isn't any MAP command that puts a random site in a province, and the general consensus seems to be that putting specific sites is unbalancing, as people rush locations they know will be containing a great site.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, they're supposed to be connected. Thanks for that, it'll be fixed in the next Version.

I agree about the lack of realism regarding the river borders, but ultimately I like the limitations it puts on the map. The whole reason I designed "Cradle" that way was because I generally find Dom2 maps to be too open, with fewer strategically important provinces than I would like. The cities, farmland, ports, magic sites, and bottlenecks are all in there to provide focal points for strategic decisionmaking.

The main problem may simply be that I used river graphics, which breaks the suspension of disbelief. In terms of basic design, they might as well be mountains or magical barriers. I agree that the ideal solution would be to allow for the setting of borders as "water," "mountain," or "impassable" in the map editor. Maybe in Dominions 3...?

But I am definitely taking all of these opinions into account as I think about my next map. I really appreciate everyone's comments!

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

I don't think rivers should be crossable. The high number of chokepoints already puts fliers at a large advantage over land armies since they can easily fly over chokepoints. If you let them fly over rivers too, there's almost no point at all in building a land army.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

Hmm - I thought the map was set up to only allow provinces with 4 or more connecting neighbors as starting provinces?

I just started a new game with my capitol as province #111, only 3 neighbors and one is a water province.

Side question: Is there a way to tell the game to display the province numbers? I know the general logic to how provinces numbers work, but still took about 4 minutes of clicking to find one of the ones people had mentioned as being incorrect.

Re: New map by Jason Lutes
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Thanks, Cainehill -- I've removed #111 as a possible starting place.

As far as I can tell, there's currently no way to get a display of province numbers.