Unexpected neutral defenders
 

I'd played a couple single player games on the Aran map, and we fairly familiar with the general amount of expected resistance against level 5 neutrals. Then a friend of mine and I started a multi-player game on that map (direct IP connection to a linux server), and I was very surprised to be finding many unique defenders, named commanders, commanders with items and gems, etc as the neutral defenders. In addition, I noticed that the crowns (indicating the victory point provinces) were being displayed despite the fact I'd made sure victory points were turned off. The game was setup using the non-graphical interface.

I'm wondering if all those features are just a normal side effect of a multiplayer game, or if there's something else going on. Anyone?

Re: Unexpected neutral defenders
 

Victory points can exist even if they cannot win the game: They're set into the map file and occur even when victory by holding of victory points doesn't exist. The provinces will retain their special sites, although no victory is attained by holding any or all.

As for independent resistance, are you certain the game was started on indy-5, and not a higher setting? If you were not the one who started the game, it's also possible that your friend has Poked his map file in a manner similar to Gandalf's Poke in the Eye map: The map file and settings of the host is used when the game is generated, not yours.