Antilarium 3 Metamap

[Psientist]

Announcing my most ambitious project, the Antilarium 4 Metamap (the latest version). I call it a "metamap" because it also includes a special mod to take advantage of all the modding capabilities that Dominions 3 has to offer, that provides hints of a storyline, as well as custom magic sites, AI heroes, pretenders, magic items, and AI units.

The mod is designed to be fully compatible and complimentary with my Mytheology Pretenders 3 mod. If you want to try it with any other mods, you might want to check against the numbers spreadsheet I've listed to identify potential conflicts.

Enjoy!

Map description:
217 provinces, including 32 water. Starting locations are established for 12 nations, 3 of which are underwater. Nearly all water provinces are contiguous, and can reach all parts of the map. Landmasses are separated, mountainous, with many interconnections. Game victory is achieved by controlling 6 of the 16 special victory sites. Two of the 16 sites are underwater, and count double toward victory.

Sixteen provinces contain the fabled Wells of Power. Guarded by heroes and armies of legendary might, it is said that the first Pretender which can control 6 of these Wells can recreate the world unto their own desires. While these Wells all are surrounded by an unusually powerful magic sites, their defenders will not be defeated without tremendous force of arms and magic. Each Well contains unique recruitable units that will change the balance of power with new strategic and tactical ramifications.

You can download version 4.01 here: antilarium4.zip (http://files.me.com/hagenguy/uf6tcr)

Here are some of the fun sprites I've built for this map's challenges. They really don't show up well against this background, but I'm very happy with how they look in the game where the bitmasking works right.

[Mordici]

I love Antilarium!!!

It reminds me alot of the Faerun map of Dominions 2 fame. I haven't played this new version yet, but I'am going to setup a game in it today, and I'll post my thoughts ASAP.

[Endoperez]

I'll download this right away. It sounds awesome, and should be quite a timewaster.

[Psientist]

thanks mordici! I await everyone's feedback with nervous anticipation, literally. (one hopes for accolades, but fears the bug reports)

[HoneyBadger]

The titanic crab itself is worth the price of admission for me :)

[Mordici]

Before I say anything else I just gotta say WOW! I was expecting maybe a few commanders and a couple pretenders unique to the map. Instead I got more commanders then I could have imagined. Pretenders that are part of the storyline,not just new pretenders, magic items unique to the mod, and some random attacks by unique commanders not related to the wells.

Thank you Psientist!!! This map is a pleasure to play, and will be my favorite for quite some time :up:


PS I'am reluctant to put the three items that are a part of you-know-who together on the same commander :D

[Lingchih]

Unfortunately, I am playing an MP game (artifacts) which uses the older Antilarium map, so I am hesitant to install this one. I can't wait to eventually try it out though.

[Lingchih]

Hmm. When I try to play with the Antilarium mod enabled, I get a Nagot gick fell crash, with the message "No holiness"

[Aezeal]

hmm usually that means a person has priestly magic but isn't sacred I think.. maybe check that?

[Ballbarian]

This looks like a lot of fun. I really like the idea behind your project and the units look good. The big fella with the purple cape has especially peeked my curiosity. :)

[Psientist]

he da bad guy

[Aezeal]

seriously? and he looks so nice and peacefull.. I'd have tought he was the candyman.

[Psientist]

I believe I have been brutally sarcasmed.

[Aezeal]

I would not dare.. it's completely against my nature too..
sarcasm, humor it's all far beyond me.. anytime I try it my posts get deleted and pplz get angry.. since that hasn't happend yet it can't have been sarcasm.

why does the candyman carry a tree around btw or is it a broom?

[JimMorrison]

I would not dare.. it's completely against my nature too..
sarcasm, humor it's all far beyond me.. anytime I try it my posts get deleted and pplz get angry.. since that hasn't happend yet it can't have been sarcasm.

why does the candyman carry a tree around btw or is it a broom?


Quite obviously it's a skeletal dragon paw. How horrifying is that? *swat* :doh:

[thepodger]

This map looks extraordinary! Well done and congratulations.

One small problem: It doesn't work! Every time I start the map, I receive the "No Holiness" error. Any idea what may be wrong?

[Edratman]

I haven't down loaded the map but I do know what the "No holiness" error is.

You get the "No Holiness" error message when a commander is given a priest path ,ie "magicskill 8 1", but is not given the "#holy" command to make him sacred. The game is very consisntent about this, all priests must be sacred.

Simple to find and fix in the dm file.

[otthegreat]

I've searched through the dm file to fix the "no holiness" issue but can't seem to find the unsacred priest. If anyone knows exactly which unit is causing the error, I would really appreciate it if they could let me know. Thanks in advance.

[Edratman]

I didn't see one either. Try moving the "#holy" on monster #2808 so that it is before the custom magic listing in the file.

I don't have the time to try it myself. If that doesn't work, I'll look at it tonight.

[Edratman]

I have tried the map with the mod enabled and I haven't gotten the "no holiness" error.

If you try my prior suggestion about shifting the "#holy" so it is positioned before the magic assignment and do not have success, I suggest deleting the the download and then downloading again.

Sorry I could not be of more help.:confused:

[Psientist]

The weapon of Dergoth, (aka, "Candyman"), has been known to smack the holy right out of a victim.

Wow, thanks for the feedback, I'm glad the work will be enjoyed. Thanks much also for the bug reports. I scanned for that before I posted originally, but since this project has both map and mod, it's possible I assigned some holy skills in the map file that were not properly reflected in the mod. I've gone back in and hopefully addressed that everywhere possible, and uploaded the changes. For those of you having difficulty, you can redownload from the link below or from the first post.

Antilarium3.zip (http://www.4shared.com/file/59820996/2d613d3c/Antilarium3.html
)

And sadly, as much as it builds drama, nothing happens when you put those artifacts together. I scratched my head, but simply couldn't figure a way to mod a surprise for that occurrence under the current mod system... so it's sort of a placeholder for the future!

[HoneyBadger]

Are you doing the artwork on these from scratch? They're quite good!

[Edratman]

AH. I see it now. You gave #2806 holy 1 in the map file. I didn't think to check the map file for commander changes.

The file I downloaded at home must have been corrected before I got it

[Psientist]

Some of the artwork in my mytheology mod is derivative - based on some artist's work, but modified/ shrunk / etc (e.g., KONG was based on movie posters). Not that you'd probably ever be able to tell, since they had to be modified so very much to fit in 128x128 px or less, that they mostly just served as templates. Some day I may go back and fix the mod to all original art for consistency.

However, all the sprites (and the map) in the Antilarium metamap is from scratch. I sort of developed a process that looks best for larger sprites, but works fastest for smaller sprites (mansized or so, which unfortunately support very little detail). Thanks!

[otthegreat]

It works! Thank you for all the work Psientist, it looks great. And thanks Edratman for the help.

[Gregstrom]

I may have worked out one instance of the 'Nagot gick fel' error. I kept getting the problem until I disabled the Worthy Heroes mod. Perhaps a clash over unit numbering?

[Psientist]

Gregstrom - that's entirely possible, as one mod can overwrite the base stats of a unit in another mod. There is a spreadsheet with all the unit, armor, weapon numbers included with the Antilarium download, and somewhere on this forum is a tool for auto-renumbering mods so there are no conflicts (PC only I'm sure).

[Gregstrom]

Maybe I should have a look at that tool.

tbh, I don't go around expecting mods to be inter-compatible out of the box - I'd just forgotten I had WH turned on. It's pretty much a default setting for the games I've been playing.

Having taken the time to enjoy the map in SP, I have to say that I love it. It's great fun going round the VPs in the endgame with Master Enslave scripted to a caster or two.

[Tharmo]

Ehm, is it me or does the link no longer work? Sorry for the necromancy, I would love to play the metamap..

[llamabeast]

It does not work :(

Psientist, could you reupload it? I could host it if necessary.

[Psientist]

Sorry for the long silence, major, major update to the Antilarium metamap coming soon.

[Psientist]

I'm excited to announce a major update - almost overhaul - of my Antilarium metamod. Version 4 of the map and mod are available for download at the first post in this thread.

I'm also using a different file provider; unfortunately the filesharing service I used for the last updates "turned off" after 90 days, gee, thanks.

What's new?
- a lot of new graphics/sprites.
- EACH well now has custom recruits that are designed to be tactically or STRATEGICALLY signficant. I will leave it to the player how to discover how to best take advantage of them, but some notes below.
- new Gift of Reason spells in every path to compensate for the version 3.22 patch #com bug, which is necessary because the Well commander recruits need to be commanders for full impact.
- a few fixed bugs that probably nobody noticed.



The Well recruits:
- Well of Craft: Dwarven Master Smith (50% forge bonus)
- Well of Clouds: Kick *** (lit.) monk recruits. High defense, mult. attacks.
- Well of Exile: recruit Banes, and Bane Executioner super assassins.
- Well of Hunger: recruit Orks - cheap, mass-production heavy infantry
- Well of Tides: recruit sea rangers, captains (all sailing ability, important in this map!)
- Well of Fickle Fortune: recruit blood witch and Fortune Priestess (onebattlespell grant luck to all friendlies)
- Well of Fay: (changed) recruit Faerie (monthly summon more faerie) and dragonflies - super cheap flying units!
- Well of Warriors: recruit Weavework Warriors (sort of like cloud monks - fast, multi attacks)
- Well of Oldest Magic: (renamed) recruit High Mages... REAL rainbow mages with rainbow gem production (drooling yet?) but low province resources...
- Well of Ice: recruit Thermovores (ethereal, cold-emitting flyers) and Winterfoxes (glamoured scounts, magic commanders, with Grip of Winter ability)
- Well of the Protector: (renamed) recruit Sea Drakes and Tower Masters. Amphibious, tough mini-dragon armies and dragon-mounted mage commanders!
- Well of the Hunter: recruit Shiro and Shiro Nobles - large-frame, high-defense stealth raider armies
- Well of the Usurper: recruit Trollfiends (essentially large magic trolls)
- Well of Crushing Depths: recruit Kraken (souped-up, also assassins!)
- Well of Currents: recruit small water elementals (amphib, regen underwater)
- Well of Agony: recruit Agony Disciples, which each cause fear and are sacred

Interested yet? Here's some of the new sprites!

[iceboy]

Sounds great! Could you possibly post a screenshot of the map somewhere?

[Endoperez]

- new Gift of Reason spells in every path to compensate for the version 3.22 patch #com bug, which is necessary because the Well commander recruits need to be commanders for full impact.


I'm sorry to tell you that 3.23 was just released, and it fixes the #com bug. :rolleyes: Perfect timing, eh?

[Psientist]

LOL that is definitely how the universe works.

[Psientist]

Minor fix / update uploaded:
- removed custom gift of reason spells, no longer necessary for the 3.23 patch
- tweaked a pretender

[Gandalf Parker]

This is a wonderful map/mod combo. Thank you very much.

Its a great example of why I added a request to have the enablemod command-line switch also added as #enablemod map command to the Mapping Wishlist

Id love to see that and some other highly needed scenario command fixes before Illwinter drops dominions completely.


Gandalf Parker
--
My favorite mods to play with are:
Streamers and Standards, Worthy Heroes, Mytheology, Magic Site Mod, SingleAge
and of course SemiRandom or the Antilarium Map&Mod combo
any other suggestions?

[Burnsaber]

Thanks for you Psientist for making this mod. I love it. Just couple things.

The defenders of the "Warfields" province are a bit problematic. The Banes usually start close to the commanders, who have no frost resistance. Thus the commanders ramp up a quite crippling amount of fatigue damage from the Bane's chill aura (especially if the player casts "Quickmire"). Perhaps you should replace the banes with some other undead or give frost resistance items to the commanders.

Also, the defenders fall pretty easily to "storm" casting because it cripples their fliers and archery. Many of the well provinces are also vulnerable to simple Elemental spam, especially in EA where some nations can easily spam "living X" spells. Some Ether Warriors (high size + ethereal = hard to trample + moon blades) here and there would work wonders.

[Redeyes]

The download link seems to be broken, does anyone still have the map so it can be reuploaded here?

[Gregstrom]

I haven't seen evidence of Psientist's presence for a long while, so... I'll attach ver 4.01 to this post.

[Aethyr]

This is interesting! Anyone tried this MP yet?

[Gregstrom]

Yup - check the Unsanity thread in the MP forums. :D

[Aethyr]

Thanks! I tried to download the 4.01 version from your post, but it does not appear in the Dom map list; the attachment appears to be an .xls file. :confused:

[Gregstrom]

2.74 meg of xls? There's a spreadsheet in there, sure, but there should be a .map and .dm etc. as well.

Try downloading again, perhaps?

[Gandalf Parker]

Its a problem. Like any effort at a scenario in Dom3.

It unpacks an xls, a READ_ME.txt file, and two subfolders..
The read me includes this info

################################################## #############################
INSTRUCTIONS
################################################## #############################
There are two parts to play this map/mod combo correctly. Follow the instructions for each of the included folders, one for the map components and one for the mod components.

Before creating a game, be sure to activate the "Antilarium" mod.

The two folders (subdirectories) it gives you are named:
put contents in maps folder
put contends in mods folder

[Gregstrom]

Thanks, Gandalf. My zip extractor shows everything in preview first, so I didn't notice any potential problem.

[Aethyr]

That worked! Thanks guys.

[Wrana]

By the way, file seems absent now.

[Gandalf Parker]

Oh that sucks.
I hope he doesnt mind if I host it.
http://www.dom3minions.com/files/Antilarium4.zip

If anyone is hosting anything related to Dom3 which they feel they might lose access to, I am willing to host. Even with a separate webpage or even a separate address.

[Mojo the Avenger]

So whenever I try to play this my max dominion is 1. Everything else seems to work fine. Did I install something incorrectly?