New Map: Loemendor

[Kaljamaha]

Thanks for the compliments. I'm really glad you like it.

As Edi said, I made it with GIMP, and also as he said, the final picture had a bazillion layers, 56 to be exact. Five of those are not seen, being used for sketching stuff and storing icons and whatnot. Now, I went wild with the layers, having one for basically each forest, mountain, swamp, desert, ect., which made the picture a huge memory hog. I recommend using restraint with adding new layers.

There is one thing I'm a bit iffy about. All of the possible starting provinces have four land neighbors (two for seas), which means there are only a couple in the north-western corner. In the tests I ran, 5-8 players could start a comfortable distance from each other, but occasionally the above mentioned corner would be empty. So... I don't know how this affects the balance of the map. If it is deemed necessary, I can change some of the three-neighbor provinces in the north-western corner to be allowed as starting provinces.

K.

[Kaljamaha]

Hello everyone. I've made a few corrections and I'm posting new map files for the Loemendor map.

First, I ran a couple of more tests and decided to add a few more startable provinces in the northwestern part of the map. Most of the time even with eight players the starting positions would be okay, but once in a while (like about 1/7 games) the whole map west of the Landbridge (#127) and north of Sirenir Mouth (#66) would be without starting positions. Now both Moorway (#79) and Silent Hills (#107) are startable provinces. Both have only three land neighbors, but if you start there, chances are good that you'll have plenty of time a space to expand.

But, that wasn't really why I decided to do the update. The real problem I noticed was the Doom Horror guardian of Heavenfire Crater. Now, a single Doom Horror would have been fine and thematic, that's why I put it there to start with. The problem was that after a while the province guardians would number in the hundreds, with barbarians, militias, knights and scorpion beast commanders (what event is that?) all happily fighting along the supposedly lone Doom Horror. So, I changed the special guardians.


K.

[Arralen]

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[Wish]

yeah, and to be honest, after akashic recording the crater (took quite a fight to take that army down) there really wasn't anything there but stuff to incease unrest. I'd expect to find something really neat under there. very dissapointing

[Endoperez]

If a Crater needs something neat, it should have the crater-site from which one can recruit illithids. But that would unbalance it, unless the defenders were *very* tough.

[Edi]

The Crater province is going to get a slight rework in the future. That's because the Doom Horror causes one bad event per turn to happen, and any barbarian etc invasions simply get added to the garrison. After a while it gets quite big. That's why it's broken now.

The province does have very thematic scripted sites, and those are not going to be changed, but it is also a "Many Sites" province and a waste to boot, so...

Don't know when Kaljamaha will fix it, though.

Edi

[Kaljamaha]

Well, as Edi mentioned, I never intended for the crater province to be defended by a horde. It was supposed to have single horror, be the center of desolation so to speak. However, the idiotic Doom Horror caused a multitude of bad events which added to the garrison. For some reason, if barbarians show up in one of your provinces, they attack it, but if they show up in a neutral one, they join the party? Go figure. This is fixed in the new map files I posted in this thread, just above the post containing the picture.

Second, the crater is a waste province, and also tagged as many sites, which should give it +50% site frequency, or at least +30%, in case the multiple terrain types don't stack (haven't tested this). Even if you're playing with 20% sites and non-stacking, you should find on an average two sites there, and with 40% sites and stacking probabilities the average rises to 3.6 sites. So if you only found one site there, you got extremely unlucky.

Lastly, Heavenfire Crater is a cursed place. It is not supposed to be a nice, or even average place. It is place of despair, of horror and madness. That said, I'm not dead set against adding something worthwhile there, just try out the fixed map file first.


K.

[Arralen]

Kaljamaha said:
Second, the crater is a waste province, and also tagged as many sites, which should give it +50% site frequency, or at least +30%, in case the multiple terrain types don't stack (haven't tested this).

MAGIC SITE FREQUENCY
Kristoffer O posted 03 April, 2004 10:46
Not sure of the exact numbers.
(I'm not sure of the specifics. Waste might be 30, swamp and mountain 20. 'just a guess.)
I guess it works like this:
Magic: (site freq) + 30
Waste: (site freq) + 20
Swamp: (site freq) + 20
Mountain: (site freq) + 10
Forest: (site freq) + 10
Farm: (site freq) - 20
Only the most beneficial counts.
If site: Check what site. Random.
If site not possible: Reroll.
If site unique and already in the game: Reroll.
If site possible and rare: Reroll once.
Many nature sites are common but restricted to forests etc.
Unique sites are also rare or common. Inkpot end is unique and common. Crown of Darkness is rare.
No blood under water IIRC. Not sure about unholy.

As you can see, a "many sites" province is only marginally better than waste, if at all.
If you want to make it a really special prov, add a pre-placed site.
With random sites, you could -and would most likely- something totally unfitting anyway.