I have an idea regarding the passability/impassability of terrain that has been discussed in this thread.
There has been mentioned two example scenarios that Dom2 can't handle, that
1. Rivers. It should be possible to have rivers that can't be crossed by units on foot.
2. Mountains and mountain ranges. It should be possible to cross these with flying units.
But how to implement these features with a minimum of work, and complete backwards compatibility? I have a suggestion.
The neighbours part of the .map file looks something like this:
code:
#neighbour 141 152
#neighbour 141 165
#neighbour 142 167
#neighbour 142 154
If we could append a tag to a connection, banning a certain mode of travel, we could have the above mentioned scenarios.
Suppose we wanted the second connection to be across a wide river, which would make an ulmish army stop in it's tracks. But the hordes of Ermor would march across the bottom of the river, and Caelum would just fly over it. The third connection could be across a mountain range, meaning that only flying units could cross it, and walking and swimming units would be stopped.
In my hypothetical solution it would look like this:
code:
#neighbour 141 152
#neighbour 141 165 nowalk
#neighbour 142 167 nowalk noswim
#neighbour 142 154
The concept is that you can append "nowalk", "noswim" or "nofly" to any connection to prevent specific modes of travel.
I'm not sure what the point of "nofly" would be, but it should be there for the sake of completeness. "noswim" would include both amphibious and swimming units.
Of course, I don't know how difficult this would be to implement, but at least it would be backwards compatible.
This could of could of course be expanded to include such tags as "noundead", "nosacred", "nomages" and so forth. They could also be inclusive, like "onlypretenders" or "onlymbeings, you get the idea.
But I'm rambling, what do you think?