Should R'lyeh and Atlantis swim upriver?

[Targa]

For those who haven't been following the map thread:

I'm in the process of making a new map, which has a sea and several lakes. The lakes are all connected to the sea via rivers (all but 1, which will be connected in the wrap-around Version of the map). You can see a preview of the (unfinished) map here:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/webmap.jpg

I am still new to the game, and have yet to play as R'lyeh or Atlantis, so I really don't have a feel for what's going to play best, or be in the best interest of game balance.

The question is:

Should the inhabitants of R'lyeh, Atlantis, or any other nation that acquires aquatic/amphibious abilities be able to "swim upriver" to the inland lakes (or vice versa)? ie: The lake provinces will be #neighbor to the adjoining sea provinces. You can see a quick reference to what I mean here:
http://www.techno-mage.com/~targa/webmap2.jpg

Some have suggested that the two water nations are already powerful nations in their own right, and that allowing them to gain "instant access" to interior landmasses would put other players at a disadvantage. What's your opinion? Take the poll.

[Norfleet]

Connecting the lake DIRECTLY to the sea would be a little much, since it's equivalent to teleportation.

Why not make one or more intervening river provinces? Make them small, set them to have no population or sites, and let them swim through those: If the river provinces are rather long and border many land provinces, this also gives Vanheim, CoTS Marignon, and anyone who forges a Pocket Ship the interesting ability to sail the rivers.

[Argitoth]

if you can only swim down river... how do you go backwards?..

How do you get back to where you want to be?

[undead dolphin hacker]

I voted yes, if only because the ratio of sea :: land is kind of... well, bad, if you couldn't access the inland lakes.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Argitoth:
if you can only swim down river... how do you go backwards?..

How do you get back to where you want to be? <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I don't think you can make one-way neighbors in Dominions II. If you can go from A to B, you can go from B to A.

[Argitoth]

Actually you can!

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Argitoth:
Actually you can! <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Meh? That's not in the mapedit manual. That isn't even part of the editor. How's that work?

[Bad Diagram of Impossibility Removed]

[ February 06, 2004, 07:19: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Norfleet]

Well, according to the mapedit PDF, the #neighbour command says "Makes it possible to move between these two provinces in both directions". I was under the impression, therefore, that the single command set a symmetric link, and you didn't need two commands to set a link between two provinces.

This is further corroborated by looking at a map file, where there's only one #neighbour command linking a pair of provinces, with no second #neighbour command for the reverse link.

So by setting #neighbour A B, you've automatically set the reverse link, and the command #neighbour B A is redundant and does nothing whether it's there, or you remove it....

Am I missing something here?

It might have been discussed and my memory only held apart of it.

Edit: Yep. It was an "As of yet" comment before the actual release http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Here is the link: http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=74;t=000499#000006

So the word is not yet, but maybe in the future.

[ February 06, 2004, 07:19: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Catquiet]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
Connecting the lake DIRECTLY to the sea would be a little much, since it's equivalent to teleportation.

Why not make one or more intervening river provinces? Make them small, set them to have no population or sites, and let them swim through those: If the river provinces are rather long and border many land provinces, this also gives Vanheim, CoTS Marignon, and anyone who forges a Pocket Ship the interesting ability to sail the rivers. <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Or you could have a water-filled cave system, bordering the ocean and the lake but no land provinces.

[Pocus]

Targa, for the artistically challenged, do you plan to write a small (or not so small) tutorial about how you manage to create a so exquisite looking map? The 3D outline of the coasts really puzzle me. I'm awed (well perhaps not awed, but impressed!).

[ February 07, 2004, 14:42: Message edited by: Pocus ]

[Targa]

I have actually started working on a Photoshop tutorial, but have been putting it off to work on the map, and am also unsure of how many people actually use Photoshop, or would be able to translate "photoshop lingo" into their favorite graphics program lingo. Paint Shop Pro is fairly similar, though not quite as powerful. If enough requests come in, I'll finish it. It's a fairly big project, because it requires making web pages and taking lots of screenshots to show what I'm doing.

Edit: As you can all see from the poll results, the first Version of the map will allow water armies to travel up/down rivers. I will most likely include a second .map file with that option disabled for those who dislike the idea. This would require a simple renaming the .map file, but keep in mind that it would be incompatible for multiplayer if your opponent(s) have the first Version.

[ February 08, 2004, 05:03: Message edited by: Targa ]