World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

When Pharaex the Geometer, the Astrologer of Doom, Slaver and Master of the Big Monsters, God's of Men Fate, The Rock, Lord of Simetry and Geometry, Prince of the Surface and the Underworld, The Persuasive One, Guardian of Existence, Ruler of the Metal Orders, Guide of Souls, The Dark Smith, He Who Is At The Center, The Unforgiving God, (etc...) became the new Pantokrator, after having enslaved most of his competitors, he banished the few remaining pretender gods and their followers, to the valleys near the Border of the World mountains, keeping the rich Plain of the Middle for his worshipers, and establishing himself At the Center (like His Title said), where lies the Throne of the World, on the Isle of Eternia.

But in his megalomaniac love for Geometry, Pharaex has used far too much of his power reshaping his realm to make all provinces hexagonal, and he is now trapped in his physical form on the isle, under the protection of his two generals... and the other pretenders are rising again.

There are two ways to reach the Isle.

The easiest road goes through the Plains of Eternia. It's a rich area with lots of fat farmlands, and only defended by some garnisons of mortal followers of Pharaex. But the shape of the plains makes very hard to establish a tough realm in this area, all provinces border 6 others, and as 11 other pretender gods have the same hopes as yours, attacks against your positions can come from everywhere.

There is another way, a shorter road, by one of the four gateways of the Underworld, under the Border Mountains. But the underworld is heavily guarded, by the magical armies and the Big Monsters of Pharaex, former pretender gods He succeeded to enslave. This road isn't easy at all, but the rewards may worth the risk. Lots of magical gear can be looted on the keepers, and most province of the underworld also have many sites. The ones with the gateways, especially, are known to make many rituals cheaper.

http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/2...etrminivi3.jpg


--

This map has been made with the idea of a "King of the Hill" (in this case "the isle") kind of game. Start position are very balanced (same number and kind of neighbors for everyone), and players start at about the same distance of each other and of the objective. There is only one VP, the Isle of Eternia, and a "cumulative VP" victory condition would be the best I think (anyway even with standard victory conditions, Eternia remains an important place, as the Throne of the World in there).

(more infos about everything in the readme)


PS : The graphics are not mine, as I'm lazy and have two left hands I've used parts of other dominions maps (mostly Cradle of Dominion) as patterns in gimp. The result is sometimes strange (ie : mountaintops and trees are cut by province borders) but globally good looking. I hope the authors have nothing against my use of their artworks.



----------------


- Version 0.31 (corrected some terrains and added a lot more special garrisons)

- Version 0.4 (corrected some wrong commands and connections, adjusted the garrisons)

- Version 0.5 (fixed the deep seas caves and some bugs, tried to balance more garrisons, changed special sites distribution, new version of the tga, added worshipers of the enslaved gods)

- V 0.5b (2 missing neighbours added)

- Version 0.5c (fixed a big bug caused by wrong quotation marks, making most deep sea garrisons and sites land units/sites instead)

- Version 0.6 (added #killfeatures for provinces with 3 or more special sites, to be sure they appear)

- Version 0.7 (added supply items for some big garrisons)

- Version 1.0 (I think all bugs/connexions are now fixed so probably definitive)

* all special sites should now appear
* cities made more important
* central encounter made harder (Pharaex has now a ghost king prophet supported by a communion of ghost mages)
* added two little mods you may or not use with this map (one make Pharaex impossible to charm and harder to affect with MR spells, the other triple the fatigue cost of enslave and charm, allowing less attempts to take control of big monsters)

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Oooooh, pretty! Me likey!

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

PPSS : the map is for 12 nations (10 land, 2 sea), there are no other start positions.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Monstermom!
Nice map, definetly interested in. Trying out now. As a side note, its dizzying when I zoom out all the way like I usually do. It's quite playable at a more normal zoom, however.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Twan, your borders are simple and functional but still appealing, and on the whole it seems pretty balanced. This would probably make a popular multiplayer map. Great work!

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

On a side note, some of the province connections are a bit odd, what with 94, 86, and whatnot. That's certainly intended, but I was wondering from a roleplaying or geographic perspective what they were.

I don't mind from gameplay, but my brain wants to label what its seeing, and has no idea.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

The fronteers have been drawn first (and the connections thought to have each player access to the central plain threatened by his neighbours) far before I add graphisms. I've then fullfilled the provinces with graphical patterns, and so the pictures of mountains don't have necessarily their mountains blocking impassable borders etc... See the pictures of terrain X as the symbol of a terrain type X in the province, nothing else (I'm a little too lazy to adapt all images to my strange connections).

PS : The hall of fame of my test game with 11 AIS... the 11 first places are trusted by Pharaex beasts.

1. White Cow of Pharaex (Great White Bull with heroic quickness... seem to have destroyed several Arco AI army, 200+ victims).
2. Enslaved Gorgon (with unequaled obesity)
3. Enslaved Shedu
4. Red Pet of Pharaex
5. Octopus of Pharaex
5. (etc...)
10. General of the East
11. General of the West

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Wow. Nice map!

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

looks cool. giving it a look-see.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Nice!

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Province 36 is no cave.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Kewl http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Version 0.3 :

- corrected 2 or 3 wrong terrains
- corrected a wrong command used to give bonus picks to the mages of special garrisons ("magic_xxx" doesn't work it's "mag_xxx"), they should now be better
- given the best indie mages a booster instead of one of their levels (more loot http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
- added new special garrisons or bonus garrisons in all the remaining underworld provinces and all provinces of the circle of mountains surrounding the central plain
- added an heretic mage in each province of the central plains

0.31
- corrected the missing neigbour Daynarr has found

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Another note, provinces 45 and 57 should be connected, at least border suggests so

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Thanks, added #neigbour 45 57 .

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

In the next version I'll try to balance more the garrisons with big monsters (boost a little the ones with the weakest creatures - I think the easiest encounters are with Manticores, insufficient prot. for a beast going to fly alone and attack rear ; and Scorpion Kings, insufficient hp even if prot. is good).

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

The four gateway provinces do not have "gateway" "nexus" etc, which makes them kind of useless. Maybe that's because you used #knownsite instead of #knownfeature?

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Argl sorry I've probably not used the good version to make the last one, as I remember to have changed the "knownsite" commands sometimes ago.
So some other fixes have probably disappeared in the last version as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
I'll try to verify all map commands, connections and terrains and post a new one.

(edit : in fact I forget to copy many changes I've made only in my test encounters version - was using a map file with a starting army to test the strength of my garrisons faster, and I've stupidly fixed some errors in it without copying the fixes in the released version http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif )

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Version 0.4

It's probably not the definitive version (changes to the garrisons need testing) but as there were errors in the last, I release my actual one.

Fixes :
- re-verified the map and corrected some neighbour errors (removed 193 198 added 122 137)
- all knownsite -> knownfeature
- all "(monster name)s" --> "(monster name)"
- the "flying cow of pharaex" was a kraken instead of a shedu http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif (and died in turn 1 in its land province)

Other changes :

- bonus for the weakest big monsters and the keepers of the gateways : an heroic ability for many (they get some starting xp but not too much, so players should be able to have heroes by turn 3 or 4), + 2 wyverns bodyguards for manticores, + 2 scorpion men bodyguards and 3 scorpion beast units for scorpion kings

- all big monsters garrisons get a telestic animate with blood 1 but no slaves (the goal is to avoid the auto rout phenomenon - the human mages were sometimes exhausted very fast, the magic beings dissolved and the big monsters even if still alive and not tired were auto routed due to the resulting 75% losses) - telestic animates also keep their holy powers (armies of skeletons were too good against my garrisons with no priest) and the ones of gateways provinces get holy 3 to smite a little

- human and aquatic bonus garrisons recieve some indie priest(s) as well (sea fathers for seas) ; cities get a bonus of 20 heavy infantry + a mage from their sites

- many of the v0.3 bonus garrisons toned down, they were often more efficient than the ones with big monsters (the Black Towers with a demon summoner get 3 demon knight as starting units but no longer are in addition with normal troops ; many other have a little less units)

- the commanders of special garrisons of the same type now get different items, so no garrison is exactly like another ; globally fewer items per garrison but more powerful

- less gems for indie mages globally

- + 1 bonus site per gateway province, all schools now have a bonus somewhere (and conjuration in all gateways)

- a little less population in the starting areas

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

With so many "Black Tower"s it would be quite unfair to blood nations. Now everyone can blood hunt effectively and for cheap.

Also about the mountain circle provinces, why do some get sites while others do not? There are no logical or balance reasons for it.

Some cave provinces are still not balanced. (Starting from some positions, you can get great sites very soon into the caves, others will get no sites in many steps).

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

There are indie mages sites of all paths. Astral and some elemental mages can be found in the cities (metal orders, sorceresses in mirror wall palace, sages, alchemists and navigators) and blood only in the random garrison table (also including an illusionist site, the underworld with gnomes, a pyromancers site, litter skull). All positions had the same probability of getting one close. I've just rolled the black tower more often than some others.

Anyway I think it would be hard for a player to get all paths in magic-users sites (except by finding some naturally). The total of added mage sites is about 25 for 337 provinces. And there are four black towers on all the map (with growing armies of demons due to their circle master with soul contract).


Changing the sites so each nation has one indie mage site close instead of full randomness, isn't a bad idea (but it can't be totally balanced anyway, nations getting a site of their own path nearby won't have the same diversity as others). I'll probably adjust the mage sites distribution in the next version.

(I'm making a new version of the tga with pictures for special sites and see the problem with the black towers : 3 are in the west half of the map, including 2 in the mountains)

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

I have just found that The Depth [279] has a magic site [fire one] without any description. Just a picture.

Serenity [13] has Cathedral of the Spheres, which should enable 2 units, but they are land only so it does not give them...

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

They are not added sites. It's probably a bug due to the deep sea + cave combo if the computer use land sites, I'll make all deep seas caves just deep seas in the next version.

I will also nerf a little Pharaex in next release, a sphynx with earth (prot 38 with his bonus and a spell) + astral magic (b-e & luck) and gems to avoid fatigue can be really unkillable sometimes. I was thinking he would lose the battle after the death of his generals and crushers, but it seems immobiles are unaffected by the auto rout system (or don't know how he not only stayed but continued to cast up to the round 50 against my test army, when I had the "independants are routed" message around round 20). I will probably remove his gems and perhaps reduce his levels.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Version 0.5

New version of worldofgeometry.tga, with many special sites shown (most of the added mages and summoning sites have a little picture on the map). The .tga (with the new .map file) is attached to the first message of the thread.

Only two connections have changed : 94 is now neighbor of both 83 and 89 (to respect the symetry with 266 neighbor of 276/277) and there are now ports connecting caves 19 and 5 (to solve a balance problem : the player starting in 32, only neighbour of the sea nations in the caves, had less possibilities to expand in the underworld)

Except that, the terrains and connections are the same, so you can use the old tga if you don't want to download another big file (only the new version of the .map file is attached to this post).


Fixes :

- all deep sea caves -> deep seas (to avoid land sites or poptypes on them)

- an area of the caves (SW of the map) didn't have the special garrisons/sites other regions had

- #knownsite "Troll Pitt" didn't work as their is a land (272) and a sea site (433) with the same name ; replaced the "" by sites numbers

- some sea random garrisons were bugged and drawned (don't know why... anyway all I've found have been replaced by others)


Other Changes :

- distribution of special sites redone : the circle of mountains provinces get some "enter to summon" sites but no (added) indie mages sites ; there is 1 indie mage site and 1 site to recruit interesting units (usually trolls or troglodytes) in the caverns per land player ; there are 2 mages sites per sea player but as all only have water mages it's not a big advantage for sea nations ;

- note that "many sites" provinces have no added special sites (but more chance to have some to find) and provinces with special sites have some known ones but only normal chances to have more

- new special sites get adapted garrisons

- a new kind of special garrisons : the players are no longer the only exiled out of the circle of mountains : worshipers of all the pretender gods enslaved by Pharaex are there too : 24 new garnisons added, each one using the units of one nation (20 EA nations and 4 LA have been used). These little armies are established at the choke points between players, making a little harder to cut the road of your neighbours to the central plain. All players can conquer a realm of 12 or 13 provinces without having to fight a special garrison, the land players having 13 provinces in this "potential realm" have a little less pop in their starting area.

- some little changes for big monsters garrisons (2 or 3 of the weakest get some magic powers back, some more bodyguards, some bonus units removed for the best, some monsters exchange their place to balance players roads to the gateways)

- many provinces get a non random name to avoid repetitions

EDIT : V0.5b

There were 2 missing neighbours (53 87 and 213 217).

EDIT : attachment removed (next version available in the next page of the thread, or first message)

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Chart of the new map :

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/937/legendeg7.jpg

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Looks great. I'm a fan of large maps with lots of specials in them.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

seems like you're doing a lot of updates to this map, which is nice. havent had time to check it out myself yet, but will do.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Playing a leisurely SP game on it. Rather fun. Not noticing that Bogus and friends had reinforced one of the underground province garrisons made for an interesting surprise.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Really love your key Twan, very exciting. Makes me really want to play on the map.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

there is no connection between #217 and #213, is this intentional?

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

No.

(grmbl, I've verified X times this map and there are still some connections errors)

(and there was another missing neighbour : 59-87 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif ).

Thanks anyway, files reposted (I hope all the map is now correct, but...).

(or just copy-paste
#neighbour 213 217
#neighbour 59 87
in the .map )

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Hey Twan, I just want to tell you, 'Thanks'. I am a huge fan of the idea of 'adventure' maps for SP and I've gotten way too much use out of my 'SemiRandom' Faerun map. I'm building a Chaos race mod essentially to go with Zepath's adventure version of his World of Warhammer. While I'm waiting on it's release however, I'm having to playtest this Chaos mod over and over. Thank god for your new map! Er, no... Thank you!

I am thoroughly enjoying this.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Taqwus:

In my game Bogus has 204 kills and is still alive. I wonder which AI is feeding him...

I ply on the old map but Oceania here expanded extremely fast. And it has huuuuuuge army. And takes up on 6-7 enemies alone with success. I think it can have about 2k troops at turn 30.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

This gives a new meaning to the saying "Don't feed the troll!".

Good one.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

I don't know if it's a problem with my map or only an AI god building problem (or bad religious events), but in each of the 3 last test games I've started with AIs there were always some AIs dominion killed in turn 1 (and not the usual Mictlan, it was Rl'yeh, then Caelum and Abysia). Anyway it never happened to me (and I think normal gods with some dominion strength and making a prophet can't lose this way).

But I wonder if the presence of dozens of heretics mages on the map can have an effect out of the provinces they are in ? (the starting locations are 2 provinces away from the closest heretic mage but a buggy heretic preaching effect may be suspected)

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Twan:

On new map version or old? Because I didn't see anything like that in old one.

Oceania AI is extremely aggressive and I wonder if new map version change anything in that matter. I don't know if the magic sites near the island and garrisons there won't be too easy to get for underwater nations, but well, I think they deserve something so they can have a chance to take the island and keep it.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Strangely happened in 3 of my tests in a row, my last game in v0.4 and two games started in v0.5 to test my pretender. But it's probably just bad luck for the AIs (not happened in the last three games I started today to see if it was a regular outcome).

About Oceania, hum I don't know.

I've done a test game with v0.3 or 0.4, just defending a little realm and sending scouts everywhere to watch 11 AIs fighting. Oceania wasn't there but Atlantis and Rl'yeh. When I was destroyed after 80 or so turn, two land AI were by far the first, each owning 2 or 3 capitols and one half of the plain. Atlantis took the isle just after another AI (Man iirc) destroyed Pharaex. Atlantis had the isle some turns, losing it several times against Man, Eriu or others and re-taking it. Then Rl'yh attacked took the isle and finally destroyed Atlantis. Rl'yeh kept the isle more than 10 turns after, even building a fort, but even with all the bonus its forces were by far too small once big land power emerged (Eriu and Ermor in this game). So my conclusion was sea nation aren't too powerful, even if their access to the isle is far easier than for a land nation.

But of course humans may use far better the riches and gems of the isle and central seas, so I can't say how sea nations will do in a real game, we'll see.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Twan:

What level AIs did you try? My Oceania was mighty. I still need to check how new garrisons influence expansion. Now it is easy to get in plains but keeping them is really a different thing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

All Mighty/Random iirc (wanted them to be able to destroy the garrisons not too slow).

In fact, a big thing may change with human players : the plains may lose a lot of their income : AI don't use 200 tax for provinces they have big chances to lose. If the situation is chaotic enough in the plains with human players, many provinces will often be taxed at 200 and ruined by unrest, reducing the income advantage of central lands over seas.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Twan:

You have 5 players going out on plains + 5 from other side trying to cross the river + 2 water nations getting out. It WILL get bloody and people will pillage and plunder.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

There are high chances of course, but diplomacy may also make the central plain less contested (some players will just want 3-4 provinces in the entrance of the plain, to fund their expansion in the caves, and may find agreements with their neighbours).

Also, preferring to stay out of the central region and control provinces of the circle of mountain and other choke points may pay. Nations advancing far in the plain are very vulnerable as the road between their capitol and their armies may be cut by neighbours.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

I want to finish my game on old version of the map and try the new one. I have change the name of the new map and tga file and added '2' to them, but it doesn't seem to work. I have no new icons on the map. What should I do?

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Ok, I think I have new things but without map images for them. Oh, did you check if every player has the same amount of easy to get provinces? I see some garrisons are 3 provinces from one capitol and 4 from another one.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

To have the new map with a different name, you have to change the line where the tga is called in the beginning of the .map file :

-- Title and image file
#dom2title World of Geometry
#imagefile worldofgeometry.tga <--- here the 2

About starting realms, all players normally should have a net of 12 or 13 provinces (capitol + 11 or 12) without special garrisons (land players with 13 get a little less population in the starting area). But of course in some directions they encounter garrisons fast (capitols are 6 to 7 provinces away from each other, and there is always a garrison of worshipers of enslaved gods between them)

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Thanks, I wasn't sure if I can just edit it in text editor.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Love the map so far;

I think I found a bug in prov 23: blank magic site.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Do yo have the academy underneath site in the province + a blank site or only a blank one ?

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Currently what's showing up is Cold Currents + a Blank site; I'll akashic record it to see if there's an academy underneath site.

Ok, no academy site in province, just a blank one.

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Argh it's a huge bug :

I've tried to give me the provinces with Academy Underneath at start in a test map.

The result is :
- instead of Academy Underneath I get "Temple of the Land" (Mictlan eagle warrior site) with non recruitable units (as they are national and land only)
- all units of the special garrisons in the provinces are legionnaires or "old standard" instead of what they should be (hydromancers, tritons, shark knights) ; here too units are called by names and not IDs so I don't know what may cause the bug

(Note that I had deep seas garrisons disappearing without reason in previous test games -probably because of this bug making them land units-, I've changed and tested many but probably not these ones)

Re: World of Geometry (337 prov)
 

Just found what caused the bug : it's a stupid text editor problem, I've made special seas garrisons in notepad iirc and cut and pasted the texts, and this kind of quotation marks ” was used ; when most of the map made with wordpad use this one ".

(edit : lol the forum itself doesn't seem to make a difference, but the difference appears in the .map text, one kind of quotation mark uses a different symbol for beginning and end of quote, when the other only uses one)

And the soft seems unable to recognize all ” (end of quote) as correct quotation marks. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Affected provinces are probably : 187, 279, 307, 335, 286, 214, 99, 23, 15, 13, 20, 14, 66, 106 (about all deep seas provinces of the underworld except the two in which I have changed the garrisons in previous version because I've found they were bugged and the ones with big monsters made in wordpad)

(seas garrisons out of deep seas and of central deep seas were seen bugged and changed in wordpad and so aren't concerned ; should have made a test with a sea nation conquering the caves/deep seas http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif )

ps : Gunsliger thanks a lot for the report