[Psitticine]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:
I think it would really help new players and not hurt things at all if the demo (and probably the game) included default gods and a started game.

I think people want to dive into the game and look at it first, then twist their minds around what kind of settings would work well in a pretender.

Zipped-up game directories with starter games would be a nice thing. People could come up with what they feel are good easy-to-understand starting positions for their favorite nations and upload them to the mod forum here.

We could eventually build a rather nice library of them, and anytime a newcomer (or even just somebody who's never tried a specific nation before) wants to sample, say, a nice straight-forward set-up for Marignon, complete with a good map and suitable Pretender God, then they could just download the file, unzip it back into its directory off the Dominions installation, and just start playing via Play An Existing Game.

Don't see a downside myself, and it could be interesting to see everybody's ideas on what makes a good not-too-complicated-for-starters set-up for the various nations. That'd be another good use for them, in fact: they'd act as a sort-of "tips and tricks for set-up" brainstorming project.

Excellent idea!