Scenario: Orania Nasty Edition

[Peter Ebbesen]

Officially, I never finish tweaking any of my projects, Stormbinder

That said, I surely hope that I receive feedback from those of you who play the map, in order that I can improve it. I strive for some sort of balance in the starting positions, as I will want to play it in MP one of these days, but it is obviously impossible to test the relative strengths of the VERY different setups fully with just one player.

As such, is any nation too weak? Any nation too strong? Is there some site that one of the nations just needs to have to give it that little extra tweak, for fun or for profit? Does some sites need to be removed?


As for you, Stormbinder, I suggest you play around with it a bit [as non-Ermor] with 16 impossible AIs and then, after a game or two, you tell me whether you want a Version where the advantages are removed for the country you play.

[Slogan]

Peter
I also like the Orania map, but had similar issues with out stripping the AI gem count quickly. Your map will not completely resovle the problem but it surely is a step in the right direction. Ermor starting with an income of 23 death gems is rather daunting! Overall this will make the map much more challenging. For SP there may be some balancing issues in that a player may be able to overpower the AI, but I don't think this will be an issue in MP.

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Slogan:
Peter
I also like the Orania map, but had similar issues with out stripping the AI gem count quickly. Your map will not completely resovle the problem but it surely is a step in the right direction. Ermor starting with an income of 23 death gems is rather daunting! Overall this will make the map much more challenging. For SP there may be some balancing issues in that a player may be able to overpower the AI, but I don't think this will be an issue in MP.

For MP, I am a bit more concerned with the special spell bonuses from sites. I have tried to balance strength in spell sites with less gems, fewer (or weaker) summoning sites, and fewer special troop recruitment possibilities but nations such as Vanheim (starting with a 50% Conjuration site) may potentially become exceedingly scary in a short time if they rely on summoning.

I cannot rule out that I may have gone too far.

Heck, even AI AE/SH Ermor can occasionally be scary against a human in this setup once they get rolling despite the ease of massing priests, as the AI likes to mass Dusk Elders and have them Shadow BLast the opposition (At 23 Death Gems initial income, it generally recruits a Spectator or Dusk Elder per round from turn 1....) - I wonder how dangerous Ermor would be in human hands in this scenario.

[ March 30, 2004, 21:08: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

[Slogan]

It's not possible to forecast the outcome of the buffing in this scenario. It will need to be played again and again by several people until it can be stated with confidence whether a nation has become over powered. I know that I will enjoy doing this research. Once again this looks to be a great scenario!

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Peter Ebbesen:
Officially, I never finish tweaking any of my projects, Stormbinder

That said, I surely hope that I receive feedback from those of you who play the map, in order that I can improve it

Sure, I'll definetly send you my feedback once I'll start playing it.

As for you, Stormbinder, I suggest you play around with it a bit [as non-Ermor] with 16 impossible AIs and then, after a game or two, you tell me whether you want a Version where the advantages are removed for the country you play.

Heh, that's certanly sounds promising. I'll give it a try. But I think I'll have to play with 14 Impossible AIs for now - I don't want to fight Ermor all over the globe after he will conquer other AI (unless you somehow managed to fix it with your map) and Jotunheim is broken. Perhaps I should exclude Miclan as well for the reason of it beign too weak when played by AIs? But than maybe you gave it such a boost with your map modifications that it is cometitive vs other AIs now?

[Peter Ebbesen]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
Heh, that's certanly sounds promising. I'll give it a try. But I think I'll have to play with 14 Impossible AIs for now - I don't want to fight Ermor all over the globe after he will conquer other AI (unless you somehow managed to fix it with your map) and Jotunheim is broken.

Leave Ermor in. They usually run into some problems with Marignon, C'tis, and Pangaea. Often enough that they are not an automatic candidate for exclusion, anyway.

Jotunheim is only broken if the AI chooses the Utgard theme, the odds of that are low. If you want to absolutely make sure it does not, you can add a #compspecdom 12 "Niefelheim" command to the map file.

Perhaps I should exclude Miclan as well for the reason of it beign too weak when played by AIs? But than maybe you gave it such a boost with your map modifications that it is cometitive vs other AIs now?

You should most definitely NOT leave Mictlan out. That leaves their area of the board ripe for conquest by Arcoscephale, Abysia, and Vanheim and you really don't want that.

The scenario works best if all nations are played. If you feel that one nation is too strong, set it to a lower difficulty level rather than leaving it out. Leaving out a nation assures that its neighbours can very easily acquire another ~20+ gem income and several good sites within the first 10-15 rounds, which can have unfortunate results.

[ March 31, 2004, 19:30: Message edited by: Peter Ebbesen ]

[Slogan]

Some comments on the map: Abysia provence Zemike (195), Pythium provence Pastenna (202), Man provence Bewitched Forest (91), Machaka provence Vitpre all allow mages to be built but they have no labs. Jotenhiem provence Midwinter Woods (17) can recruit a druid but it has neither a lab nor a temple. R'lyeh provence Ardun has a void but no summoner in the provence. I don't know if these were intentional or oversights. Also, there was a comment about Mictlan being too weak, now it has three pretenders!

[Peter Ebbesen]

Indeed, Slogan, Mictlan should not be underestimated on this map. Their three important provinces are all rather well guarded.

As for your points, I have not completely scripted all starting provinces. With a few exceptions, it is possible for the three non-fortress starting provinces to have extra sites and in some cases to have one of the lesser features overwritten. Thus the starting situation is not exactly the same in each game, there is some latitude for surprise - and it is possible to get mage recruitment in provinces I have not explicitly planned for.

Abysia 195 is one of these, so you just got lucky with an additional feature

Pythium does not own 202, Atlantis does, and it has a lab.

Man's province 91 has a scripted lab! If none exists in your game, could you please give list the terrain features present so I can see if something has gone wrong? (it should start with lab, Forest of Avalon, Jungle Temple, and White Man Hill - if it does not, I wonder whether the lab has been overwritten by something else)

Machaka should start with labs in 124, 137, 152, and 166 - all the places they are scripted to recruit mages. Only 154 is not scripted to have a lab. (Oh, and please name provinces by numbers, as most of the names are not fixed but randomly chosen each game by the game)

Jotunheim 17 has neither temple nor lab. That is because I am evil. I have only handed bonus temples out to a few select religious nations and Jotunheim does not qualify. As the ice druid cannot be recruited without a temple, I didn't think they deserved a lab either. (I still wonder whether I went too far when setting up Jotunheim's province 16, "Triple Peaks". That is one nasty conflux of magical energies)

R'lyeh 64 with the bonus void summoning site could, indeed, use a default summoner for jokes and giggles. Perhaps a cursed recouperating astral idiot that any sensible player would exchange with a Star Spawn... Hmmm. The opportunities are endless. Good idea!

[Sammual]

I have been playing this map non-stop I love it.

Abysia has a bit of a problem.

You give a magic item to a commander that doesn't have a spot for it. I would suggest giving it to an assassin. Also the bodyguards for that same commander kill him (They have the heat special effect and the commander is not immune to heat).

Also the site you added for the commander to enter causes the province unrest to go thru the roof. As this is one of the two recruiting sites to start with this is BAD. I would suggest changing this to another 'enter to summon' site (Factory) or move this commander and site to a different province.

Sammual

[Inigo Montoya]

This map is a ton of fun.

1) How can I mod it so that renaming is allowed? I have grown accustomed to naming particular commanders certain names to help me remember them and their roles.

2) In MP games is renaming typically not allowed?

3) I've been tinkering with Vanheim. Why did you give them a Harab Seraph? It seems redundant with their valkyries.

4) This map has inspired me to get into modding, but I'm just flummoxed about what sort of program I'd need to open the map file for editing. What program did you use?

Thanks for your great work, Peter!