land, setland and poptype...

[Ballbarian]

Was testing my map and ran into a minor problem. Had a few provinces in which I set the poptype, set specific magic sites and then added a few thematic commanders and additional forces to match the set poptype. Realized that I could not have it both ways. I had to either accept that the basic defenders be randomly chosen by the game, or wipe them out and place them all manually.

An example of what I wanted to do:
#setland 59
#population 500
#poptype 25 -- Babarians
#commander 777 -- Tartarian Monstra
#comname "Bludgorge"
#units 20 141 -- barbarian chiefs (beserk ability)

The intention was to allow game settings for independent strength to still influence the strength of the defenders, while insuring a tougher than typical defense of special provinces.

Using the method above however, you might still find militia defending alongside the barbarians, which is fine, but not very thematic...

The only solution that I can find so far is to use #land and place my own choice of defenders which makes the independent strength of the province constant, but at least thematic.

Maybe this should have been in the wishlist. If I am missing something, please let me know.
Thanks in advance!

[Edi]

No, you aren't missing anything. It has always worked that way, which is a pain in the ***. And it sucks worm-infested carrion beast balls to go to huge trouble killing a horde of amazons only to find that the province had a hardcoded poptype of some useless infantry...

Basically, if it's an important province, don't be afraid of ramping up the defenders and using the #land command. Most people play with indies at 7 or greater anyway.

Edi

[Chazar]

Yep, this is a real flaw: #poptype only affects the kind of units that can be recruited at that province and nothing else.

However, since I have come to the conclusion that indipendent strength 7 or higher is a bad choice for multiplayer (see reasons below), a common solution to retain random indies while still boosting some provinces is adding some crossbows or tribal archers. Those go along well with most indipendent types thematically and still make a significant difference in the province's strength, regardless of the indipendent strength setting (hence allowing the game creator to suit himself).

(The reason why I do not like high independent strength is that:

• I got frustrated of Dom2 multiplayer games where I fought a long time against indipendents and only a very short time against human competitors. E.g. I found the SHEPHERD scenario particularly disappointing, since after the independents I just killed the central AI and never had any interaction with my competiting human players. The fight was tough, but I just prefer to battle against humans.
• it delays the game, shifting emphasize away from mundane troops to summons. With easy independents, mundane troops can become really important for a quick expansion - as expansion is not fast enough if you just to send a single elite army being backed up by a strong pretender. So there is more choice in the sense "speed" versus "losses".
• it gives melee-pretenders another edge over other pretender designs. Battle pretenders are already powerful and fast initial expansion should not be exclusive to players prefering battle pretender designs.

But that are just my personal thoughts...sorry for that OT-rant...)

[Ballbarian]

Thank you for the feedback.
I only have a few special provinces in my current map, so I have gone with #land and "hard coding" the defenders. Their are only 7 special provinces, of which 6 can be easily bypassed in the early game, and the 7th is the central chokepoint with very valuable sites and a fortress which means that the defenders can be passed over and left for later if the player so chooses.

This leads me to my next question...
What does the #scenario flag do besides putting a star next to the map name and disabling some game settings options???
It appears that the other map commands (like victory points) are not dependent on the map being a scenario.

[Endoperez]

It shows that the map's creator had a distinct view, and that the map is probably very heavily scripted. Also, it usually means that at least one AI nation is always in, and usually quite powerful, and that players' shouldn't play with that nation.

I don't think it does more than just add the star and disable some options, but it should get people to read the description.

[shovah]

so when can we see this map?

[Ballbarian]

@Endoperez,
Thanks. I decided to leave the scenario flag out to keep the settings available to the player.

@shovah
Running a test game right now to try and catch any bugs that I have missed. Should be ready to post it within the next few days.