Map: Glory v3.17 SP map, hand-named with start locs, v3.17_G13 (quick fix)

[Trumanator]

I didn't realize that Fomoria's island was actually several provinces, that helps things a lot. 280ish I think would be fine. It is a little silly though to sort of maroon them, and it makes them VERY defensible potentially. I think it would make sense to just give one or two of the island provinces direct connections to the neighboring landmasses.

Edit: Oh, and if you could make sure that there's something to differentiate it in the map selection screen that would be great. ATM I just have two identical glory maps, with no way of telling which is which AFAIK.

[Globu]

Originally Posted by Trumanator

I didn't realize that Fomoria's island was actually several provinces, that helps things a lot. 280ish I think would be fine. It is a little silly though to sort of maroon them, and it makes them VERY defensible potentially. I think it would make sense to just give one or two of the island provinces direct connections to the neighboring landmasses.

Edit: Oh, and if you could make sure that there's something to differentiate it in the map selection screen that would be great. ATM I just have two identical glory maps, with no way of telling which is which AFAIK.

Yes, Fomoria's island is pretty defensible, by virtue of being land-approachable only via two bottleneck approaches (see attached image), but it seems good consolation for a six-province home territory in a smaller area. (That was why I originally placed Arco.) The visual part of the map makes it appear to be marooning them, but those two connections are simply bottlenecks no more unbalanced, defensibility-wise, than a corner position with a few mountain barriers. It seems pretty balanced to me (especially with its native ability to seize the surrounding water provinces and sailing), and its neighbors are no shrinking violets.

In regard to the two files, I'm not sure why it's showing up that way on your game. I took pains to ensure they have clearly-differentiated #dom2title tags. When I start a game, I see them appear as:

Glory of the Gods (v3.17_G5 fixed starts)
Glory of the Gods (v3.17_G5 random starts)

I am pretty sure I did that originally as well, but perhaps the first archive I uploaded had a misnamed/erroneous .map file. The current version up should be okay, though I'll shortly be uploading G6 with adjustments to the territories in question to balance the resource availability.

[Trumanator]

Okay then, forget I said anything nice job with the map!

[Globu]

Just in case, I hope that didn't look like I was dismissing what you said, Trumanator.

I recall that when I first looked at that region of the map, it looked like an inaccessible island. But when I was dealing with it in detail (naming and figuring locations and all that) it began to look more reasonable. And I came to the conclusion that it does offer some distinct advantages and disadvantages that sort of balance out, though they still seem to lean to the disadvantageous side given that it's set between two rush nations and another fairly strong one, and is likely to find its expansion to require conflict fairly sooner than others.

Given that, after I booted Arcoscephale from it for being doomed by its chop-licking neighbors, I wanted to put one of the semi-aquatic nations there, so that their ability to get in the water would mitigate the otherwise less-than-20-province allocation given to whoever gets it (I actually made a photoshop image with a grid of all nations, counting provinces to ensure each had space -- I can post a miniature version of it if anyone is curious).

There is some extent to which I am arguing by consequences here -- to not use that island as a starting point for anyone would require a rather extensive overhaul of many, perhaps most, start positions and many place names, so I would dread it, so if there's a way to make it work without that severe solution, I'm just itching for it.

Again, I very much appreciate your scrutiny of it, and if it really does ruin it for any nation that gets placed there no matter what one does, I agree that it just has to be moved.

[Globu]

Fixed a gaffe in MA Machaka's placement that meant death for Machaka in turn 2 (it was placed in the same province as another nation -- spiders got squished a bit too fast).

Also found another province, in Mictlan's rainforest, that really shouldn't be full-fledged mountain; switched it to border mountain. (The province is #286: East Chana Rainforest.)

And, as a side note, I'm playing a game with Fomoria on its island right now, and am quite satisfied with it (granted, I got a mine in a neighboring province, but still -- I am happily pumping out a Fomorian King, 10 unmarked and 5 or 6 Nemedian warriors every turn). So, at least in this instance, it seems to work well.

On the other hand, I am not so sure I have fixed the ground for complaint against the excessive breathing space the SE corner nation (currently Caelum, but was Ulm's location before). It's still advantageous for sure, though I'm curious if anyone still finds it imbalanced. (I moved the nation NW of it a province or two closer, but it's still a lot of space.)

Critiques and comments welcome. Also, please let me know if anyone has actually been playing and enjoying it!

[Globu]

Been a long time, but I've revised the map a little bit, though I neglected to post previous revisions. So it's up from v7 to v10.

[Humakty]

The custom pretender map is very interesting to play without setting up a pretender yourself, for extra challenge vs the AI.

As GoG is my favored map (with Faerun), I'll never thank you enougth for all the hard work. So Tanks a Lot.

[Gandalf Parker]

Excellent!
I would like to see more maps offer variants. After all, the image is the big part of the zip. Multiple .map files can be squeezed in with no problems.

Others might be....
NI (no independents)
BI (better independents)
SR (SemiRandomized)
Chaos (not for beginners)
Scenario (selected AIs allied and preset to powerful positions)

Oh and great map! Very popular.

[Sombre]

BI is a mod.

[Gandalf Parker]

I always considered "BI maps" to be maps that didnt remove all indepts but selectively placed some. The BI mod is easier for most people though.