Edi,
I'm new to dominions (but seen many a turn based strategy, esp in the fantasy genre), so take this for what it's worth. I've just downloaded and started a game on Faerun, and it is indeed a beautiful map. While it sounds like a good idea to make a second, smaller and more MP oriented Faerun, I would not disparage your work the first time around. Often MP and SP are at odds, and some of the complaints you mention in your first crack at Faerun seem to me to be endemic in a the best possible SP map (namely unbalanced starting locations and special indie forts).
While Dominions 2 looks to be an awesome game (that I've already spent far too much time on
), it's obvious strength is MP. From what I've seen so far, your Faerun map is the closest thing to "content" available for Dominions 2. In doing your Dragonlance maps, I for one would encourage you to go a similar route that you did for Faerun. IMO, focusing on a rich map that recalls existing fantasy content, with lots of special locations (perhaps letting game balance/play take second place), will go further to fill gaps in whats available in the Dom2 universe. If you were to again take a second cut to make a MP oriented Version, so much the better for us lucky beneficiaries.
On a side note, I found the Faerun.tga to be very "pastel" on my monitor (NEC Diamondtron-MultiSync FP2141SB). It looks good, but it's hard to play on (too bright), so I toned the brightness down in Photoshop, and it now looks wonderful. I know that monitors vary a lot, so it becomes impossible to produce colors that work universally, but I thought I'd mention this as perhaps others have experienced this problem.
- Thufir
[ July 24, 2004, 18:19: Message edited by: Thufir ]