scenario writing -- a few tips and balance advice for smaller maps?
 

I realize that scenario writing is at best an imprecise science but I wanted to give it a whirl as it seems the most efficient way for me to customize my games at this point as I'm hoping the next patch expands the modding tools and possibly even offers a UI for it -- I know that's asking a lot but I'll keep my fingers crossed until then. As for mapbuilding, GIMP intimidates me, so I'm waiting until school's out to give it a try.

All that said, as mentioned before, I've become fond of Zen's Europe map and was thinking about putting together a scenario for that. Now, to me that seems a bit tricky as there are only 133 provinces which, for 17 nations, might be a bit small. I'm thinking of starting each nation out with 3 provinces as that'll leave the majority of the map open to exploration -- whereas 5 leaves 48 and if you aren't playing water or assigning water spaces to land races, that means instant war.

What sort of balancing advice can anyone experienced in scenario editing offer in regards to working with smaller maps?

As a side question, if you edit a land to start with certain features under someone else's ownership, do those features just not disappear if said individual isn't a game participant? I'm not so much asking about capital structures but other provinces that are sometimes given magic sites and assigned as subsidiaries to a starting kingdom.

Also, can anyone point to any tips for making indeps stronger (aside from basic rating) opponents initially? Is there any way to assign them/make them populate forts in certain squares?

[ March 26, 2004, 14:05: Message edited by: Miguel Duran ]

Re: scenario writing -- a few tips and balance advice for smaller maps?
 

That's funny, I'm just launching a 12 players pbem on a scenario I've designed on the same map ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
Only land players are allowed, I've given each player 2 starting provinces only. All 15 nations will play, with 3 nations given to the AI.
To spice up the game I've scripted a quite strong Soul Gate Ermor, with 4 provinces+fort+temples+troops+items http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif !
So the players will have to first avoid being crushed before thinking to crush each other ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

As for indies province you can populate them with anything you want. In fact the game gives whatever is scripted to "owner", and if there's no owner it's indie !

AFAIK it's the same for sites. The only thing I'm not sure of is if scripted are always considered "searched" at start or not. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: scenario writing -- a few tips and balance advice for smaller maps?
 

You mean MAP vs MOD? My favorite area.

A good starting point is to create a .map file that uses a .tga everyone already has. You can change the name and description of the game, and a ton of settings. For my first ones I used the aran.tga and the eye.tga because they come with the demo and the game so everyone had them. Later I did a couple with Orania. Now that the DomMap program is updated to work with Dom2 I use those. I run batchs of them if you want to snag one. Mostly either tiny or huge right now but I can take requests.
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...humbnails.html
http://www.techno-mage.com/~dominion...andomMaps/tiny

Assigning sites to a province is not affected by ownership. You can assign them as already seen, or hidden, you can assign them by wiping the sites that are already there first to make sure yours go in, or assign them as "additional" which means a high number on site frequency for the game might fill that province too much for your sites to end up there. Oh you can also change the "site frequency" for a province giving it a boost in the random roll for sites being there.

For a province you can decide alot of things. What native population it has (amazons, ichthyids, barbarians), what population number, what sites, what name, and you can add to the defenders there by assigning specific commanders with magic items, bodyguards, and units. With all of that you can design some pretty unique provinces like one designed around dragons, or trolls, or a citadel.

Assigning castles to indeps has a problem. Any indeps that are there are on defense, not patrol. And you cant assign "defence" points to a province owned by indeps. So the problem is that any castles scattered on the map can be seiged by just a scout. Finding and seiging those quickly becomes a special tactic. Fun, but not what you had in mind I think.

As far as a scenario, other things to consider. You can assign AI's and their settings to the map and force them to NOT be human selectable. You can design the god that the AI (or human players for that matter) will use and it will only be for that map. You can assign AI's to be allies (they wont attack each other). You can give the AI's certain spells already researched and certain equip at the start along with special units (even pretenders as commanders, and units as commanders that would normally have to have "Gift of Reasoning" cast on them to be commanders.