New map by Jason Lutes

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by tinkthank:
Actually, can you say what additional magic bonuses one could expect in those special magic starburst areas? I havent found much magic in those places --- is that just random luck?

Near as I can tell, the "Extra Magic" flag simply means there's 30% more likelihood that magit sites are in the province. Unfortunately, that overrides the bonus from mountains (10%), forests and wastes (20%?), and whatnot.

So it then becomes random luck, and somewhat frustrating when you take the province and there's _nothing_ there, or one extremely minor site.

But I guess there isn't any MAP command that puts a random site in a province, and the general consensus seems to be that putting specific sites is unbalancing, as people rush locations they know will be containing a great site.

[J. Lutes]

Originally posted by Yossar:
Are 99 and 109 supposed to be connected? Don't seem to be now.

Yes, they're supposed to be connected. Thanks for that, it'll be fixed in the next Version.

I agree about the lack of realism regarding the river borders, but ultimately I like the limitations it puts on the map. The whole reason I designed "Cradle" that way was because I generally find Dom2 maps to be too open, with fewer strategically important provinces than I would like. The cities, farmland, ports, magic sites, and bottlenecks are all in there to provide focal points for strategic decisionmaking.

The main problem may simply be that I used river graphics, which breaks the suspension of disbelief. In terms of basic design, they might as well be mountains or magical barriers. I agree that the ideal solution would be to allow for the setting of borders as "water," "mountain," or "impassable" in the map editor. Maybe in Dominions 3...?

But I am definitely taking all of these opinions into account as I think about my next map. I really appreciate everyone's comments!

[Yossar]

I don't think rivers should be crossable. The high number of chokepoints already puts fliers at a large advantage over land armies since they can easily fly over chokepoints. If you let them fly over rivers too, there's almost no point at all in building a land army.

[Cainehill]

Hmm - I thought the map was set up to only allow provinces with 4 or more connecting neighbors as starting provinces?

I just started a new game with my capitol as province #111, only 3 neighbors and one is a water province.

Side question: Is there a way to tell the game to display the province numbers? I know the general logic to how provinces numbers work, but still took about 4 minutes of clicking to find one of the ones people had mentioned as being incorrect.

[J. Lutes]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Hmm - I thought the map was set up to only allow provinces with 4 or more connecting neighbors as starting provinces?

I just started a new game with my capitol as province #111, only 3 neighbors and one is a water province.

Side question: Is there a way to tell the game to display the province numbers? I know the general logic to how provinces numbers work, but still took about 4 minutes of clicking to find one of the ones people had mentioned as being incorrect.

Thanks, Cainehill -- I've removed #111 as a possible starting place.

As far as I can tell, there's currently no way to get a display of province numbers.

[Jasper]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Near as I can tell, the "Extra Magic" flag simply means there's 30% more likelihood that magit sites are in the province. Unfortunately, that overrides the bonus from mountains (10%), forests and wastes (20%?), and whatnot.

+30% is pretty good though, as doesn't this add to the chance for each site? E.g. w/ the default 40% site frequency you have a 70% chance to get a site, and if you do then a 70% chance to get another, and so on up to 4 sites. Or do I misunderstand the site distribution mechanics?

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Jasper:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cainehill:
Near as I can tell, the "Extra Magic" flag simply means there's 30% more likelihood that magit sites are in the province. Unfortunately, that overrides the bonus from mountains (10%), forests and wastes (20%?), and whatnot.

+30% is pretty good though, as doesn't this add to the chance for each site? E.g. w/ the default 40% site frequency you have a 70% chance to get a site, and if you do then a 70% chance to get another, and so on up to 4 sites. Or do I misunderstand the site distribution mechanics?

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Yes you do. It's 70% for each of the 4 possible magic sites in your example.