[jutetrea]

Any thoughts on a limited random approach? Key out thematic areas of the map (forest critters for forests, ice critters for icelands, etc) - and then use random pick lists for actually pulling the units and commanders. For instance, you might get some centaur hierophants in a forest one game, but will get woodsmen or dryads the next. Instead of facing the same old indy's you'll be hitting summons', national troops, etc along with the indy's.

Keeps the map fresh

One other small thing (and kind of a lame request)- any chance of upping the item quality on the specials? If playing indy 7+ the specials (very cool btw) usually sit till late in the game. I usually do a find/replace and add in some rings of wizardry, sorcery and robes of wiz/sorc so if I or the AI actually takes the effort to kill them there is a worthwhile reward - and not even guarenteed. I think I place about 30 in the specials and might get 1 or maybe 2 if I'm lucky in a SP game. Buggers usually rout before I get em.

Not a big fan of spec start locations in general, and to your actual question - Toril please. With sugar.

I pretty much play SP soley on Faerun - love it. Randomize the heck out of it and play with mighty AI. For SP i'd actually rather see more specials than less, for MP not sure.