Faerun - Pending Update, Need Opinions

[tinkthank]

Edi said:
People really should pay attention...
Edi

Sorry for not being up to date, I had been away for about 5 months, and did not check up on everythiing, but did want to give you my feedback from what I had known. I can retract my feedback -- and I think it looks like I will be taking another break for a while too once I finish editing Thilock's description files... So long, and good luck with your map.

[Boron]

tinkthank said:
2. I have problems discerning provinces and province neighbors, even with the new and improved black sunbursts

Regarding point 2, I often didnt know what was a province, since there are no distinct province borders, and I am used to these. (I completely overlooked Calimport until I got surprised!)

Don't you see neighboring provinces even with turned on arrows by 8 also ?

Your Faerunmap is the greatest SP map for Dominions EDI . Brilliant work . I have no issues with it at all and played at least 15 SP games with it

[Edi]

Thanks, Boron!

Tinkthank, I didn't mean to be harsh, so I'm sorry if you took it that way. The newer TGAs remove that complaint, which was quite valid and by no means yours alone. I remember Cainehill and others bending my ear about it quite a bit.

Edi

[Boron]

Oh one little complaint i have . Your Maps are still not available at the Illwinter-Homepage for download . So probably a not small amount of Dominions2-Owners doesn't know at all about your fabolous maps

[Edi]

That's because of possible copyright issues. Arryn has been hosting them.

[Arryn]

Edi said:
Arryn has been hosting them.

Speaking of which, I've uploaded to my site the corrected .map files you emailed me an hour ago.

I encourage those of you who want just the revised .maps to download only the archives containing the revised .map files (using the small text links I've provided on the page) rather than to re-download the much larger (13mb+) archives in their entirety. (Personally, it doesn't matter to me as my hosting provider has a very fat pipe, but I mention it just as a friendly suggestion to save you time.)

[Armagein]

Edi -

I dont want to sound like a fanboy, but I have to tell you that the Faerun_large map is beyond excellent. I play SP only and have played the map from several perspectives, including Manchaka, Pangaea, Vanheim, Jut, Tien, Ermor and Arco. I dont have any criticisms quite frankly. Starting placement is excellent for each of the countries and the garrisons are well placed, and, in my opinion, suitably tough, and form good chokepoints and borders.

One of the things I like about Vanheim is the fact that there is no land passage to the main contintent, although it does impact the selection of the starting god, and does tend to strand some of the leaders who cannot sail across the ocean. I get around this by setting up and defending an outpost on the main continent, build a castle, and start expanding.

I really enjoy huge epic sized maps with 400 to 500 provinces and wish there were more of them available. Your map has provided me with countless hours of enjoyment. I will download and play any updates you do to Faerun, but please, please, please, try your hand at another huge map soon! I am anxiously awaiting!!

Thanks for your incredibly hard work and dedication.

[Edi]

Thank you for the praise, Armagein.

However, I must disagree with you about the lack of land bridge being a problem for Vanheim, as it drastically limits their available strategies (because the dwarven smiths cannot cross oceans without the sea provinces around the islands being conquered first and then rings of water breathing. Given the already crappy province sizes in the islands which severely limit gold income (very important for Vanheim due to expensive units), and one huge obstacle province right in the middle of the Moonshaes, it made Vanheim very weak. Not a problemin SP, but it sucks arse in MP, as I had cause to find out in one game. I trailed behind everyone right from the get-go in almost every category, and the first time I got attacked, it was game over for me. Not immediately, I gave back pretty good at first, but I was killed by attrition and lack of money. The map was intended also for MP, and the bad design in that part of the map made Vanheim virtually unplayable. That has now been fixed, along with some other more minor things (such as adding land access to all the islands and hardcoding poptypes for inland seas so that troops from any province can be made useful somewhere on the map).

As for new projects, I do not have any new huge map projects underway. The reason is that there are no suitable ready graphics available to base a map on that I would actually get passionate enough about to do, I have serious time constraints due to my studies and I have several other interests on my free time (several other things that related to Dom2 alone, and then everything else on top of that). But if something comes up that catches my fancy, I might do a new map.

Edi

[NTJedi]

When will the updated Faerun Map be ready??

[Edi]

Umm, did you read the thread, NT? Arryn has already posted the map files on her site. The targas were updated months ago, the map files just today.

Edi