New map available:
Drea V4.3, a
49 province wrap-around map, suited for Blitzgames, Duels or a bloody 9 Player Deathmatch.
The map is essentially the
lower half of my previous
Chandrea map (94 provinces), which is now also available in version
4.3!!!
Both maps can be downloaded from Arryn's
www.dominions-2.org. Many thanks to Arryn for her nice website! Others are welcome to make the maps available on their own Dom2-related websites, too. Each map brings its own new tga-file as well as a
mapinfo-generated txt-file containing the map details in a human-readable format. If you play my map, please report whether you like or dislike it here. Thanks!
The following
changes apply to both Drea V4.3 and Chandrea V4.3:
- Shipping lines have been removed! This makes travelling much more interesting and puts strategical flyers back to where they belong. Connection is still ensured, because:
- There are three Pocket Ships items located in each city. Therefore each land nation starts with three PocketShips already when using the special starting locations (i.e. in Cities) and can acquire more pocket ships by conquering further cities, provided you catch the pocket-ship item holders.
- Each city is preoccupied by three sage-priests and some ordinary crossbows. So all nation starts with three sage-priest. The idea is that they help somewhat against an early temple/lab loss (for there is someone there to rebuild) and against late library findings (especially on a small map) by providing a good initial research base.
- Each province now contains three commanders with #randomequip 2 and only 2-5 bodyguards (in addition to whatever idependent strength you choose). All many-site provinces have at least one commander with #randomequip 4. It is still pretty difficult to find items... :/
- Cities are now large mountain provinces plus extra population, which yields an even ratio between forests and mountains on both maps. (Recall: Farmlands have few resources, therefore mountains plus extra population are better here, as cities should be focal points of my map, being both rich in gold and resources.)
- Minor neighborship changes (Mount Nimrod became inland, Giant's Causeway lost a remote neighbour, etc.)
- Minor terrain corrections, especially removal of some freshwater tags and adjustment of small/large as well as more nonstart provinces tags, e.g. "Mount Nimrod" is now a 'large many-site non-start mountain waste' instead of a mere 'many-site mountain'.
- Bug fix: Province Otzburg Pass (40) had erroneously an odd mixture of independent defenders in V3.6.
Apart from two connected main continents, there is a single province island and a 5 province island. It is possible for a player to start on the 5-province island, but it contains 2 cities and a nice many site province (Mount Nimrod) already, so it allows a nice start. Leaving the island can then be done via the Pocket Ships. I think the necessity for sailing adds much more fun to the map! - I even think about removing the province "Stepping Stones" entirely from both maps...