How do I load/use a custom map?

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by dandavis:
Could you elaborate a little bit on the "open the map file in the text editor and load it" bit?

When I did this before, I succeeded in getting a "A map with 59 provinces" to show up in the available map list, but never with a specific name or any other information.

Load the map's text ".map" file into a text editor - vi, notepad, wordpad, whatever. To get a decent title in the map list, find the "#dom2title" line in that ".map" file and change it to something more informative. Some map creators (incidentally, it's rather unfortunate that Illwinter chose ".map" as the extension, as it makes it awkward and confusing to discuss the maps with newcomers) haven't always put the best information in there - "A map with 221 provinces" is much less useful than "Cradle of Dominion - 221 provinces".

I've also reduced the number of available starting provinces to 1 on a map before -- but it has still located me anywhere. In your experience (anyone kind enough to reply) have you been able to guarantee yourself a starting location on a given map using the map editor?

If you limit it to 1 starting province, it doesn't have enough for the AI players, therefor, it starts picking them at random.

You could guarantee your starting position by having only 1 province allowable as a start province, and choosing 1 human player, no AIs. This has the added benefit of allowing you to win the game after turn 1.