I've been largely inactive in the Dominions community for a while, but with Dom2 right around the corner I have started to get back into the Dominions mode and play more. I probably won't have much time for playing multiplayer this year (mainly for happy reasons, so don't feel too bad for me!), so I've mainly been thinking about single player and the map options...
Is there a Map Designing pdfs available for Dom2? In Dom1 for SP use, I had a standard set of options to add into maps so I could be assured of fighting competent opponents - let's face it, even the impossible AI would kill itself with max turmoil and max Bogusluck, so I just force every race to get the optimal dominion for it's race. Even for a vet, this with a full host of impossible AIs you can expect a pretty tough game -well, unless you really exploit the known imbalances (lAE swarms, IDs, FIs, etc).
But, there was some problems that prevented further balancing:
a) I could hardcode a province to have a particular castle, but couldn't change a race to use a certain castle. So unless I hardcoded each start position (bad), some races still pick Watch Towers or other bad castles, and are slow starters and never catch up.
b) I could fix populations in certain provinces (change each area to be roughly equal in worth to non-Ermor), but I can't balance resources out around the capitols without changing the tga files.
c) No way to give weaker nations bonus startup troops without hardcoding the startup provinces (which again, is bad since I'd know where the other races start).
Any idea if these issues are resolved in Dom2, and if there are any Illwinter guides for mapmaking yet?
Also, are there any new fun startup options - like developed start (ie all nations start with a certain number of provinces, etc), fast research, exposed magic sites (all sites become revealed when conquering a province), etc?
ps - I seem to recognize a couple of names - hi Gandalf, Pocus, Poger, and other ex-enemies!
Map Making Options and Single Player
Threaded Mode