When Pharaex the Geometer, the Astrologer of Doom, Slaver and Master of the Big Monsters, God's of Men Fate, The Rock, Lord of Simetry and Geometry, Prince of the Surface and the Underworld, The Persuasive One, Guardian of Existence, Ruler of the Metal Orders, Guide of Souls, The Dark Smith, He Who Is At The Center, The Unforgiving God, (etc...) became the new Pantokrator, after having enslaved most of his competitors, he banished the few remaining pretender gods and their followers, to the valleys near the Border of the World mountains, keeping the rich Plain of the Middle for his worshipers, and establishing himself At the Center (like His Title said), where lies the Throne of the World, on the Isle of Eternia.
But in his megalomaniac love for Geometry, Pharaex has used far too much of his power reshaping his realm to make all provinces hexagonal, and he is now trapped in his physical form on the isle, under the protection of his two generals... and the other pretenders are rising again.
There are two ways to reach the Isle.
The easiest road goes through the Plains of Eternia. It's a rich area with lots of fat farmlands, and only defended by some garnisons of mortal followers of Pharaex. But the shape of the plains makes very hard to establish a tough realm in this area, all provinces border 6 others, and as 11 other pretender gods have the same hopes as yours, attacks against your positions can come from everywhere.
There is another way, a shorter road, by one of the four gateways of the Underworld, under the Border Mountains. But the underworld is heavily guarded, by the magical armies and the Big Monsters of Pharaex, former pretender gods He succeeded to enslave. This road isn't easy at all, but the rewards may worth the risk. Lots of magical gear can be looted on the keepers, and most province of the underworld also have many sites. The ones with the gateways, especially, are known to make many rituals cheaper.
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This map has been made with the idea of a "King of the Hill" (in this case "the isle") kind of game. Start position are very balanced (same number and kind of neighbors for everyone), and players start at about the same distance of each other and of the objective. There is only one VP, the Isle of Eternia, and a "cumulative VP" victory condition would be the best I think (anyway even with standard victory conditions, Eternia remains an important place, as the Throne of the World in there).
(more infos about everything in the readme)
PS : The graphics are not mine, as I'm lazy and have two left hands I've used parts of other dominions maps (mostly Cradle of Dominion) as patterns in gimp. The result is sometimes strange (ie : mountaintops and trees are cut by province borders) but globally good looking. I hope the authors have nothing against my use of their artworks.
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- Version 0.31 (corrected some terrains and added a lot more special garrisons)
- Version 0.4 (corrected some wrong commands and connections, adjusted the garrisons)
- Version 0.5 (fixed the deep seas caves and some bugs, tried to balance more garrisons, changed special sites distribution, new version of the tga, added worshipers of the enslaved gods)
- V 0.5b (2 missing neighbours added)
- Version 0.5c (fixed a big bug caused by wrong quotation marks, making most deep sea garrisons and sites land units/sites instead)
- Version 0.6 (added #killfeatures for provinces with 3 or more special sites, to be sure they appear)
- Version 0.7 (added supply items for some big garrisons)
- Version 1.0 (I think all bugs/connexions are now fixed so probably definitive)
* all special sites should now appear
* cities made more important
* central encounter made harder (Pharaex has now a ghost king prophet supported by a communion of ghost mages)
* added two little mods you may or not use with this map (one make Pharaex impossible to charm and harder to affect with MR spells, the other triple the fatigue cost of enslave and charm, allowing less attempts to take control of big monsters)
World of Geometry (337 prov)
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