Version 3.17_G14 is now being hosted at the new site, here. Please go there for the newest version, which now includes a custom version with AI pretenders for LA.

The version referenced below is now obsolete.







Glory of the Gods SP Map for Dominions 3
Version v3.17_G13 (Apr. 18, 2010)
Original map by Jason Lutes, revised by Edi and now Globu


UPDATE: APR. 18, 2010

v3.17_G13: Yep. I did indeed screw up the LA Atlantis start location and left an erroneous entry in the LA section for MA Eriu. These errors have been fixed, along with a few other minor corrections. Thanks for pointing those problems out, Rookierookie.


DESCRIPTION

This is a further modification by myself, Globu, of Edi's fixed version of Jason Lutes's excellent Glory map. Like the original, it has 602 provinces: 480 land, and 122 sea.

I have made the following changes to the map:

1. Hand-named all provinces with what I hope are thematic and sensible names, with nothing silly fru-fru, and using regional naming schemes (Northeast Otesia, South Otesia, Otesian Highlands, and so forth).
   
2. Revised the map data very carefully, correcting a couple of missing province connections and revising many territorial designations (to either correct clear errors, or make them more logical or viable).
   
3. Added the ManySites flag to provinces that feature things like ruins, henges, monoliths, and so forth.
   
4. Provided alternate variants of the map (see below).

This archive does *not* include the map image, which you should already have by default; this is only the .map files.


VARIANTS AVAILABLE

The map has four variants available:

• RANDOM STARTS VERSION: Uses the #start command to mark 42 appropriate provinces as possible start locations for random placement.
  
• FIXED STARTS VERSION: A version in which I have hand-placed (what I hope) are sensible and thematic start locations for each nation in all three eras.
  
• CUSTOM VERSIONS: As the Fixed Starts version, above, but the two custom versions also include a full slate of thematic custom pretenders set up for all nations; one is for EA, one is for MA (I have not yet done one for LA).

The custom AI pretenders used are created using the criteria I found in the custom gods given in SemiRandom -- in other words, AI pretenders are all awake but get 150 bonus points as if they were dormant. In most cases, where nations has their own national pretender(s) available, I have used them. I should note that, since flavor was an important element here, the custom pretenders are workable but by no means optimal. However, all are created with a mind to long-run viability, and none are given the horrible scales the AI often chooses.

Be sure and read the instructions in the readme on how to get a game started using the custom maps.


Further information, version history, credits and permissions are in the enclosed readme.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

lol Arco is stuck between Vanheim and Mictlan.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

I've posted a newly-updated version (and reference image), as I realized that Fomoria wasn't following my placement rules because I had placed it inland, and it requires access to a sea province.


It definitely works a bit better this way, technically as well as thematically, as Fomoria is now on an island and, despite the map's small sea provinces, it can still use its oceangoing ability to reach several coastal provinces in Eriu's and Vanheim's regions. Caelum is inland with its other mythological bedfellows, and Arcoscephale is now stuck in the corner with Mictlan and R'lyeh.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Okay, now I've got a map-editing question for anyone who feels like answering.

I'm trying to figure out when I should use the nostart flag with a province.

(1) Is it a good idea to nostart all provinces but those that are in ideal spots? (Probably about 60 or so provinces on the map, out of 605 or so.)

(2) Does SemiRandom ignore nostarted provinces?

(3) What is the best way to go about it for maximum flexibility? (So that the map can be used as is with or without the start provinces I specstarted.)

Any advice on the matter is welcome.

Thanks all.

Globu

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

I'll be posting a new version fairly soon with some corrections and adjustments. For the time being, I'd be interested to know if anyone has tried it and has any feedback. Has anyone found this useful? Any comments/criticisms are welcome (including suggestions on better names).

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

This is the only question I can answer. For me and for most people I think the answer would be yes.

60 locations are more than enough for even those who play with all ages mods on a map of this size. And starting with a sub optimal start is not too much fun. In SP it can be viewed as a challenge but many strats and powers depend on having a decent Capital. Having just a couple of neighbour provinces or being surrounded by wasteland can seriously dent the fun. Plus it may cripple some of the AIs and quite frankly they seldom need that as bad scale choices and bad luck often does for a share of them anyway.

The map is large and lacks wrap around so is not a common pick (in the big SP version) for mp games. But if it was to be used bad start locations are a real drag. There is plenty of bad luck that can afflict you in mp without being crippled by a bad start location. So it would be a big help there too.

So I would definitely add the no starts if you can be bothered. There are quite a lot :p

I like the map and sometimes play sp on it. So I would certainly download your version at some stage. Especially if you no start the bad spots as that is very helpful :)

Fixed starts are not so great though IMHO as although you have put a lot of thought in to them I don't usually want to know where my enemies are or where I am before I start. Knowing I'm close to Neifel etc. would affect my build.

Doing a version with some set sites and fixed guards like the new version of Faerun has a lot more replay value than fixing starts IMHO. You would not want to play the same power on the same map from the same start with the same neighbours (even if the indies and sites get randomised) very often :p

But - at least for me - I could play the same map with some fixed sites over and over if my location and neighbours change. Even if the game is mp the fact that everyone knows where some of the good sites are (and therefore who owns them) helps as diplomacy can even things up. Owning a great construction or summoning site can paint a big target on your head :)

But maybe thats just me :) Thanks for taking the time to modify the map. I haven't downloaded it yet but as its one of my favourites I certainly will. Cheers :)

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Globu, I am using the Glory map for the Bid game - but I have not an ounce of artistic talent.

I had wanted to shade out kingdoms (multi provinces) and dress the map out - you can see functional yet completely non artistic result.

Would you have any interest in helping out on the artistic side of things?

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

That's my favourite SP map. It's rather too big for MP though, even if it was somehow balanced. There is already MP version of the smaller version of Glory.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

too big.. from the author of WotG?

Sheeeesh = )

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

(1) Is it a good idea to nostart all provinces but those that are in ideal spots? (Probably about 60 or so provinces on the map, out of 605 or so.)

I'm a little rusty, but I suggest using #start. Just be sure to place enough #start locations to cover the number of players.

2.5.1 #start <province nbr>
By creating at least one start location for each
player, every player will start at one of these
locations. If #start provinces are set, nations will
start at these locations unless there are more
nations than #start provinces. If there are more
nations than #start provinces, the extra nations
will start in eligible random locations.

(2) Does SemiRandom ignore nostarted provinces?

It will ignore nostart for purposes of placing custom provinces, but it will not ignore them when placing starts (as of version 1.07). It is also worthy of noting that when it places a custom province it will mark that province as no start (unless it's intention was to place an actual start. :) )

(3) What is the best way to go about it for maximum flexibility? (So that the map can be used as is with or without the start provinces I specstarted.)

Include multiple ".map" files. (In my opinion. :) )
MyMap_WithSpecialStarts.map
MyMap_Plain.map
etc...

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

@ Hoplosternum: Awesome -- thanks for the answer and the feedback. Much appreciated.

Yes, I see what you mean about fixed starts being problematic (and tempting for prescient rushes or overland spells aimed directly at distant capitals) -- I love it for thematic value, but it's limited.

And I definitely see what you mean about bad start locations as well. I'm actually ailing in one of my test games about my set start location for Caelum because of its modest resource availability.

I will definitely make at least two versions -- one with the fixed thematic starts, and one without.

@ chrispederson: I would love to help with the map, but afraid I'm of little-to-no skill in the artistic department, myself. I don't know if I'd be any help shading regions, but I'd be happy to help out and contribute where I can.

@ Ballbarian: Thank you as well for the advice. I had been wondering about those things -- that makes things a lot clearer.

So, to be clear, if I set, say, 60 provinces to #start, it will pick randomly among those? Or will it, say, randomly assign players to the first 24 (or whatever number given the age and game layout) of them? If the former is true, that definitely seems superior to simply marking the worst ones #nostart.

And the fact that liberal sprinkling of #nostart provinces interferes with SR's fiddling only makes using #start instead of #nostart that much more preferable. (Plus marking 60 or 70 provinces is much less work than marking 500+ provinces.)



@ all
Thanks again for the feedback. I'll get to work on it shortly.

Again, to make it clear, I welcome opinion feedback on the names and the "flavor" of naming schemes. If you feel something is kinda stupid, please let me know. Naming all of them was mind-numbing, and it's probably certain that I came up with some less-desirable names...

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Having started some games, I have spotted one great imbalance in the startpos, that is Ulm starting all alone in the southeast corner, I was able to have a huge empire with no effort, the AI tien Chi on mighty can't hold the pace (but Ulm is a strong expander). I suggest putting someone north of their startpos. As is, they do a strong AI, but no luck for ulm's fans.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Thanks for the feedback, Humakty. Yeah, I think I definitely gave Ulm too much space, and poor C'tis has a hard time of it with where I put it.

Caelum, for its matter, has some breathing space, but its location ensures it'll never get more than 6 or 7 of its sacreds per turn without high production scales because of poor resource availability. I was thinking of plopping Caelum where I currently have Ulm (keeping them away, from the most part, from the early rush nations).

I was wanting to isolate that awful Hinnom in the corner, but would it be cruel to put it where Marverni is close enough to be eaten in an early rush? Any advice from anyone on a good spot to place Hinnom for a thematic map layout that minimizes rush bait for them?

I'm currently switching things around and setting up a second map for random start locs.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

I don't see how it matters if Caelum can make its sacreds, since I don't think anyone uses them in a competitive setting. And yes, it would be ridiculous to put Marverni anywhere near Hinnom/Niefel/Mictlan/Lanka/anyone. If not played by a god (Micah/Baalz/few others), Marverni is doomed.

Edit: haha, sitting 5 feet away and posting the same thing at the same time :D

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

one question: why does it matter how many sacreds Caelum makes per turn, they're hardly ever built. no flying. their bless only matters for their EK's

Edit: lol ninja'd

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Ooooookay! Nix that bit about Caelum. Bad temple guards. I spit on them. Pteu!

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Alright. I've posted version G5, which now includes a version of the file with no fixed starts. Instead, it has about 35 or so provinces set as #start.

For the fixed-start version, a few nations have been moved around and/or the start locs adjusted; check the image for the changes.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Something I didn't really notice until now, but putting Fomoria on an island might not be a good idea. Sure they can use their sailing to get to a few provinces, but they'll be stuck with the small amount of resources that they start with. I think you'll either have to move them, or jack up the resources on the island a lot, which has its own balance worries.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

And they also have three capital only mages. Only one of which has sailing I believe. Sure you ideally want to just recruit a King a turn in your capital. But the Nemedian Champion especially is a good commander choice if you are saving cash for a fort say (Good command limits, stealthy, sacred).

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Thanks for pointing that out, Trumanator. I've been trying to be careful for resource production balance for those nations that rely on high-resource, cap-only units, but hadn't noticed it in regard to Fomoria. That is a problem.

Moving Fomoria to another location is an unappealing idea because, thematically, its location works well, and I have a nice tight fit there with thematically-related nations (Tir na n'Og, Sauromatia, and to a lesser extent the 'heims). Technically as well, it works there (Fomoria requires a coastal province, and the amphib Fomorian Giants allow a nice edge in quickly getting into the water provinces distant from the water nations, expanding its breathing space before strictly needing to war on a neighbor to expand). To move Fomoria would involve a lot of shifting around and complications. Aside from resource production, it seems to be a good fit ("seems" being the functional word, of course).

That said, it would be preferable if the insufficiency could be fixed with one of two adjustments (or some combination of both):

(1) Changing some or all of the Fomoria provinces to pure Mountain and/or forest where the map graphics allow an arguable interpretation that way.

One thing I had tried to do to keep the island itself from slowing movement for Fomoria (what with its lack of forest/mountain survival on its troops) was to keep the four hill provinces on it set as "border mountain." Pure "mountain" would give more resources, and there's another that could be classified as forest, but that means that Fomoria will have to go through its home territories at 1 province per turn, slowing movement to and from the home provinces considerably.

As it stands, Fomoria is sitting on top of an island it can move at full rate through with the exception of one forest province (North Fomoria, 314). If I change two of its provinces to pure mountain (Fomoria 289 and East Fomoria 273), and switch one (West Fomoria 265) to forest, it improves the resources a bit, but still not enough to produce more than 9 unmarked and an unmarked champion or Fomorian King (about 260-280 resources with neutral production scales).

It's a slightly better trade-off in terms of resource production, but, absent some good luck (iron mine site or something like that), there's still an effective cap of 9.

(2) The sledgehammer-subtlety method: hard-coding into the map an iron mine in Fomoria's home province.

This one is fairly self-explanatory, though you raised the potential problem of this being imbalancing. Could you explain how exactly this would be imbalancing if used to alleviate Fomoria's below-average resource availability?


So, that said, what would you suggest as the best option to make it workable without introducing imbalances? Would making two or three of the provinces into outright mountain (not border-mountain) provinces be sufficient? (Switching two of them brought resources up to 260-280 with all surrounding provinces contributing.) If not, would it be too bad of an idea to program into the map, say, a 60-resource iron mine, in Fomoria's capital, to account for the below-average resource availability of its position? (Or, in the alternative, only switching one or two provinces to mountain and using a 100-resource Great Iron Mine, or even two mines.)

Finally, for comparison and in case anyone sees a potential problem in here for any nation (either the listed nation or its successor nations in MA or LA), here is a sampling from one quick test of what each nation got in its home provinces for resource production with all surrounding provinces taken (with production added from fortuitous production-boosting sites subtracted from each nation's total):

Arcoscephale: 378
Ermor: 271
Ulm: 338
Marverni: 326
Sauromatia: 225
Tien Ch'i: 246
Mictlan: 371
Abysia: 276 (income woefully low -- may want to add gold mine to balance low-pop desert provinces?)
Caelum: 216
C'tis: 314
Pangaea: 212 (problematic in MA?)
Agartha: 194 (this is also problematic, as it caps seal guard production at 5 -- Agartha's pos probably needs some fixing as well)
Tir na n'Og: 353
Fomoria: 276 (with 2 motion-limiting mountain territories instead of border-mountain, and with the southern province set to forest/farm instead of just farm)
Vanheim: 239
Niefelheim: 236
Kailasa: 271
Yomi: 254
Hinnom: 266
Atlantis: 154 (living pillars capped at 2-3, maybe 4 with better rolls, but that's as good as it's going to get
in deep sea as far as I understand)
R'lyeh: 172
Oceania: 234
Lanka: a whopping 434 -- go figure (Pangaea and Lanka could be swapped pretty easily without breaking thematic consistency, if anyone thinks that would be a good idea -- both are in position to be Hinnom's first meal)

(And anyway, Lanka's supremacy can be reasoned as follows: they're too busy climbing them to chop them down, so there are a whole lot of trees. Compare with Ulm: they've got all these forest warriors chopping them down, putting bits of metal on them and throwing them at people.)


Any advice would be appreciated. :)

And thanks again for spotting that, Trumanator.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

I didn't realize that Fomoria's island was actually several provinces, that helps things a lot. 280ish I think would be fine. It is a little silly though to sort of maroon them, and it makes them VERY defensible potentially. I think it would make sense to just give one or two of the island provinces direct connections to the neighboring landmasses.

Edit: Oh, and if you could make sure that there's something to differentiate it in the map selection screen that would be great. ATM I just have two identical glory maps, with no way of telling which is which AFAIK.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Yes, Fomoria's island is pretty defensible, by virtue of being land-approachable only via two bottleneck approaches (see attached image), but it seems good consolation for a six-province home territory in a smaller area. (That was why I originally placed Arco.) The visual part of the map makes it appear to be marooning them, but those two connections are simply bottlenecks no more unbalanced, defensibility-wise, than a corner position with a few mountain barriers. It seems pretty balanced to me (especially with its native ability to seize the surrounding water provinces and sailing), and its neighbors are no shrinking violets.

In regard to the two files, I'm not sure why it's showing up that way on your game. I took pains to ensure they have clearly-differentiated #dom2title tags. When I start a game, I see them appear as:

Glory of the Gods (v3.17_G5 fixed starts)
Glory of the Gods (v3.17_G5 random starts)

I am pretty sure I did that originally as well, but perhaps the first archive I uploaded had a misnamed/erroneous .map file. The current version up should be okay, though I'll shortly be uploading G6 with adjustments to the territories in question to balance the resource availability.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Okay then, forget I said anything :) nice job with the map!

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Just in case, I hope that didn't look like I was dismissing what you said, Trumanator.

I recall that when I first looked at that region of the map, it looked like an inaccessible island. But when I was dealing with it in detail (naming and figuring locations and all that) it began to look more reasonable. And I came to the conclusion that it does offer some distinct advantages and disadvantages that sort of balance out, though they still seem to lean to the disadvantageous side given that it's set between two rush nations and another fairly strong one, and is likely to find its expansion to require conflict fairly sooner than others.

Given that, after I booted Arcoscephale from it for being doomed by its chop-licking neighbors, I wanted to put one of the semi-aquatic nations there, so that their ability to get in the water would mitigate the otherwise less-than-20-province allocation given to whoever gets it (I actually made a photoshop image with a grid of all nations, counting provinces to ensure each had space -- I can post a miniature version of it if anyone is curious).

There is some extent to which I am arguing by consequences here -- to not use that island as a starting point for anyone would require a rather extensive overhaul of many, perhaps most, start positions and many place names, so I would dread it, so if there's a way to make it work without that severe solution, I'm just itching for it. :)

Again, I very much appreciate your scrutiny of it, and if it really does ruin it for any nation that gets placed there no matter what one does, I agree that it just has to be moved.

Updated to v3.17_G7
 

Fixed a gaffe in MA Machaka's placement that meant death for Machaka in turn 2 (it was placed in the same province as another nation -- spiders got squished a bit too fast).

Also found another province, in Mictlan's rainforest, that really shouldn't be full-fledged mountain; switched it to border mountain. (The province is #286: East Chana Rainforest.)

And, as a side note, I'm playing a game with Fomoria on its island right now, and am quite satisfied with it (granted, I got a mine in a neighboring province, but still -- I am happily pumping out a Fomorian King, 10 unmarked and 5 or 6 Nemedian warriors every turn). So, at least in this instance, it seems to work well.

On the other hand, I am not so sure I have fixed the ground for complaint against the excessive breathing space the SE corner nation (currently Caelum, but was Ulm's location before). It's still advantageous for sure, though I'm curious if anyone still finds it imbalanced. (I moved the nation NW of it a province or two closer, but it's still a lot of space.)

Critiques and comments welcome. Also, please let me know if anyone has actually been playing and enjoying it! :)

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Been a long time, but I've revised the map a little bit, though I neglected to post previous revisions. So it's up from v7 to v10.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

The custom pretender map is very interesting to play without setting up a pretender yourself, for extra challenge vs the AI.

As GoG is my favored map (with Faerun), I'll never thank you enougth for all the hard work. So Tanks a Lot. :)

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Excellent!
I would like to see more maps offer variants. After all, the image is the big part of the zip. Multiple .map files can be squeezed in with no problems.

Others might be....
NI (no independents)
BI (better independents)
SR (SemiRandomized)
Chaos (not for beginners)
Scenario (selected AIs allied and preset to powerful positions)

Oh and great map! Very popular.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

BI is a mod.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

I always considered "BI maps" to be maps that didnt remove all indepts but selectively placed some. The BI mod is easier for most people though.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Those sound interesting. Link to one?

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

My pleasure, Humakty. This has definitely been my favorite map as well (and basically now the only one I have been playing on, what with wanting to playtest it).

Yeah, I was sick of computer players taking ridiculously destructive scales and unhelpful paths (at least that's how it seemed to me). None of these are power-gaming-style, but they're all at least semi-competent and thematic.

Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks, Gandalf. On the SR -- actually, though I've tried to keep it SR-compatible (avoiding nostart except for manysites provinces), I was under the impression that's something best done on the fly, randomized each time. I guess it would be easy enough to include one or two, though, if that would be a good idea.

On that note, if anyone thinks it would be a better idea just to remove nostart flags from the manysites provinces (the ones in which Jason Lutes put monoliths and other graphics) as well (thereby making them open-season for SemiRandom to modify as well), that would help tip me over the edge -- I've been on the fence on that one.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs
 

Some people balk at SemiRand. Downloading it, figuring it out, running it. All just to find out if it lives up to its hype. Ballbarian has voiced a desire to have more examples posted so people can first see what it would be like, then decide they want to do it to get a fresh play on old maps.

What I was hoping was something like running it thru SR, playing it, maybe tweaking it to include some of the more reasonable and interesting files in SR while making sure that some of the more extreme ones dont block important provinces. Then just including it as "an example of running this map through SemiRand"

On removing the nostarts for manysites: I would. On a map which gets VERY popular play those would be learned by some. SR tends to be for those who want to put new life into old well-known maps. Removing the nostart allows SR to place interesting surprises there.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

Hmm... Done then. The latest version has all nostarts removed. Also changed a few of the custom gods to make for some more variety (before I had a few MA gods just copied over from the EA version with a few tweaks; now most should have differing gods for each of the two ages).

As for SR -- I'll try to make a couple of SR-modified maps. Haven't messed with it for a long time, though -- any suggested settings to use for a good run that doesn't overdo it? (Percentage rate of fiddling and all that...)

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

Afraid not. Ballbarian might.
About the AI gods, did you say you drew from SR for those? You didnt use the ones from Stavros did you? :) Those are ROUGH

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

Been a while, but I think I know the ones you're talking about -- yeah, pretty fearsome. No, I didn't use them. I'm pretty sure I designed all of them from the ground up (in many cases using suggested designs from nation guides people have put up), but I covered my *** in the credits section in case there is one I forgot about that I kept intact. :)

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

Globu,
Great updates to the map!

I will attach a SR'd quickie to this post along with screens of the settings that I used.

SR starts - 26 open land & 3 open sea:
(screen capture from MapForge)
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=282

Settings:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=283http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=284http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=285http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=286

Note that I had to remove your custom placed starts before I could get a clean run. It is also worth mentioning that I loaded the SR'd map in MapForge to find all of the errors introduced by some of the gan files. I am trying to correct these as I come across them. Most of the errors are misnamed sites and the like.

Hope this is helpful.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

Ooh, that's very helpful. Thanks, Ballbarian. Very handy for getting back up to speed on it. I'll insert those files into the download itself, as it seems it can also serve as a tutorial for SemiRandom.

I might go ahead and start a new SP game (I've got about 12 going between year 5 and 6 -- I get about to that point then want to try out something new...) with one. I'll report any problems I find, in case it helps.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

I may try to play test it also. SemiRandom is, after all, semi random. We want it to showcase the SR program but also show your map work in good light so tweaking it is probably a good idea.

Plus, it might give me some spurred ideas of province designs of my own to add.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

Sounds good. I'll fire up an SR game in the next day or so for myself.

On another note, forehead-slapping time. Forgot to credit Edi for [his?] fixed version of the map, which I started from. Fixed.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

One thing I'm noticing in my current playtest is that, at least for a large SP game, a lot of the custom sites are pretty much virtual landmines for AI players. Like the ones with six mages, including a strong pretender chassis, in a castle with supply bonus items. These seem to basically sink a lot of AI players, and therefore reduce the AI players to incompetence at best and paralysis at worst.

There are a LOT of GAN files submitted by a variety of people, but I wonder if there would be a way to select for categories of "uber" province setups, like those landmine indy armies.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

Yes that is one of the problems with SemiRand. At the moment, the Chaos versions (totally random placement of totally randomly selected units) is more balanced which is what SemiRand was supposed to be fixing. For now, Id highly recommend an edited version with selected, placed, provinces.


WARNING: Re-Occurring Pitch coming::
As much as we have tried to get new players interested in doing at least ONE province, most of what we get are public postings by more experienced players. They seem leary of posting anything mediocre so what we get are great povinces but many tend toward almost a complete scenario description of a player-vs-AI game.

They are useful but someone (yes I know, its on my list) needs to be willing to generate lots and lots of "just interesting" provinces to be scattered into the mix. Like a province for "Lollipop Guild", or a witch with flying monkeys. Nothing too exciting or profitable, just a smile to run across it in a game.

I suppose that could get out of hand also. And a rating system would be good. But like many of the various "rating" projects the problem is having such a wide opinion in this community. You probably couldnt have the author themself do the rating of their own province. Maybe the GANLIST.txt file could accept a second variable on each line for a rating so that people could do their own rating lists and offer them in the forum.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

EDIT: I want to do some more tests before making conclusions. Something doesn't work right.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G11
 

New version up. It has some important fixes to a couple of typos in the custom pretenders, and has easier to read documentation and (hopefully) more helpful descriptive text.


EDIT: Oh, uh, Rookierookie, did you ever get that figured out?

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G12
 

Yup, I made an error in transferring code from one map to another.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G12
 

Ah, okay. :)

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G12
 

OK, I think I've found the bug for real this time.

LA starts are bugged. LA Atlantis needs a land start, and Eriu does not exist in LA.

Re: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G12
 

Fixed. Thanks for reporting those, Rookierookie.

Version 3.17_G13 is up on the OP.