FIXED MAPS: Cradle & Parganos

[Edi]

In this post are fixed map files for the Cradle of Dominion and Parganos maps by Jason Lutes.

Both map files had some errors, some of them total game breakers. Following is a breakdown of how these map files were modified:

Cradle of Dominion

I am familiar with the design philosophy for the Cradle, which was that no province with less than 4 neighbors was to be a starting province. Sadly, this was not implemented very consistently.

Landlocked provinces with only two or three land neighbors were ineligible. Further, no province with swamp or waste terrain was to be a viable starting province.
Most coastal provinces with two or three land neighbors only were for some reason viable starting locations. That has been corrected. Land starting locations must now have 4 or more land neighbors. Sea starting provinces have 3 or more sea neighbors so that UW expansion for the UW nations is a real option. The map hardly accommodates more than one UW nation anyway.

I checked and double-checked all provinces on the map and now those guidelines are fulfilled. Incidentally, I had noticed a tendency of the NW corner of the map often being congested with several nations in close proximity. Found out the reason why. There were more #nostart flags missing from that area than the rest of the map combined and with all the big swamps and wastes on the eastern edge, there's a lot of #nostart terrain there. The added nostart flags should ensure more even distribution of starting locations throughout the map now.

There were some border issues with some provinces bordering others that they should not border and not being neighborly with some provinces they should have been. Fixed.

EDIT: Some of the formerly mountain terrains have been modified to border mountains so as to make the map a little easier to move around and to get a more accurate accounting of terrain based on what the map looks like. It was originally created for Dom2 which only had mountains, so there were quite a few places where a slight toning down of the movement hindrance helps a bit so that now the map region is only painful to move through instead of completely impenetrable.


Parganos:

I have never played a game on this map. I had actually not even looked at it before now. However, it is another one of Jason Lutes's maps, so I took a leaf out of the Cradle guidelines and applied it, but with greater restraint.

• The island in the western sea was a viable start location. No more.
• There were a few mountain provinces in the NW section with only 1 or 2 land neighbors that were viable starts. No more.
• There were several borders (mainly in the sea, but not only there) missing there that should have been in place. Now they are.

Nothing else was altered. There are still provinces with 3 land neighbors only that are viable starts, but I decided not to interfere with those. I left terrain codes as they were, no changes from mountains to border mountains. I'm not familiar enough with that map to be comfortable with such tampering.

The map files are named parganos_fix.map and cradle_fix.map and have "<mapname> (Edi's Fix)" as the Dom3 title that is visible in the game, so just unzip to the maps folder and you'll still have the buggy originals there.

Enjoy them.

Edi

EDIT: Commentary on map file names added.

[Ballbarian]

Thanks Edi!

[Morkilus]

Thanks alot! Downloading now.

[Meglobob]

Cheers Edi, thanks for your hard work.

[Cor]

Thanks Edi, your great.

[Edi]

Thanks, guys.

Added some new comments on terrain type alterations for Cradle that I forgot to put in earlier.

Edi

[Xietor]

That was my favorite map in dom II. many thanks

[Xietor]

Edi,

i found at least 2 starting spots that did not have 4 adjacent land squares, they had 3 land and 1 water.

Also, if you feel up to it, the bottom right part of the map near the top has a ton of waste squares. when you start in that area income is hard to come by.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think those still apply. To quote above...

Landlocked provinces with only two or three land neighbors were ineligible. Further, no province with swamp or waste terrain was to be a viable starting province.

I did a google just to be sure but apparently landlocked means "surrounded by land" so a spot with 3 land and 1 water is not considered a nostart. Its probably not a GOOD start but on some maps you cant knock out all of the bad starts without making it impossible to play the game with all the nations.

[Edi]

Checked the map.

48 Terek
192 Phelos

That's the two provinces I managed to miss out of a total of 210. Terek couldn't really be changed to a nostart province because there are so few in that area of the map already and it's a fairly large section (SW). There's a couple of others in the westernmeost forest that are iffy, they're labeled as nostarts but one should be a starting eligible one just to get some more breathing space on the map.

Phelos can be changed to nostart, there are enough start locations around it in the NW that it won't interfere.

The Cradle map was never meant o be played with all the nations all at once. The mapmaker, Jason Lutes, specified that it was meant for games with 8 to 10 players, with 10 being the upper limit where the map still works.

So anyone who actually puts his own nation and 16 AIs on Cradle gets exactly what they deserve.

Edi