Can't play this anymore, crashes the game. Seems changing the name in the workshop/content folder from "Olanoor - Copy" to just Olanoor fixes it..

Having Ur potentially spawn in two places seems to cause crashes. I don't know if there's a workaround but whenever I try to include Ur it always crashes.

@Ulthar Yes.

@RodentDung Mountains are were Caelum start. Flying armies can pretty easily deal with the mountains. And the water is dominated by nations with sailing capabilities. Give it a go and then tell me what you think. This maps is designed specifically for the nations listed, not general play.

question from a noob, does the game make deserts actually deserts and increase heat, and so on?

Map looks nice but the mountains are way too restrictive for me. I like maps where I can expand and fight other clans. It gets too boring being hemmed in by water and mountains.

Fantastic map. Love the art style as well as the balance. Thanks a lot OP, please continue your great work!

Who's this SR idiot in the chat complaining about map balance but who hasn't completed a game on the map? Everyone publicly shame them please.

nice map

@The Art of Losing The map isn't really designed to host all those nations at once. Adding them to the start list will randomize most starts. I'm not certain how the game determines what nation gets which spot.

@SR Well, you are wrong. The map was designed with one water nation in mind. In my playtesting, the water nation always gets attacked before they could get ALL the water provinces. But I'm done arguing the theoretical issues you imagine exist on a map you haven't played. Play on the map and then let's talk!

... yes but normally a water nation gets much less than that. Every nation gets invaders, that's normal. Plus, to be fully honest, if you're throwing your poor amphibian skellies to for a solitary war with a water nation you're throwing them away as well as your other war on land.
Such an argument is inconsistent.

What I guess is that you were not even considering the water nation as a player when you made the map. You just threw it in to stop the sea from beeing neutral and you were done with it. You did not consider that it was facing basically zero opposition, and now you're all torn up about your baby map. That's my opinion. And if I happend to be right on the matter, there is no argument, no matter how smart, that can convince you to reconsider your position regarding balance here.

What will happen if Abyssia, Hinnom and Ubar are all in the game? Who will get spot 1? What will happen to the rest?

Cont.

By the end of expansion:

player 4 is threatened by starts 3, 5, 6, 9 and 11 (5 and 6 have sailing9 has close access to the island crossing and Atlantis's capital is on their coast).

7 is vulnerable to 8, 11, 6 and 5. (Caelum, Atlantis, Vanheim and Fomoria (flying, water and sailing nations).

This is intended to be played with at least one nation (ideally 2) which have sailing capabilities (Vanheimn and Fomoria) who start in the central islands. This circumvents a lot of the choke point issues.

Choke points change based on both province natural heat/cold as well as Pretender temp scales. Rivers, mountain passes and island chains were created specifically as elements of the map to be considered in your build. Province spells allow you to control passes/river and islands crossings but will almost always open up a different vulnerability.

The water nation gets into conflict long before they have any chance to grab all 28 sea provinces.. Many nations have easy access to undead and/or amphibious or water breathing units.
Start 11 is three or four provinces away from four other nations' starts. Start 10 comes into conflict with starts 11, 6, 8 and 9 by then end of initial expansion (usually), if not earlier.
Just clearing up any speculative misinformation about this map.

Water nation has 28 regions to expand to before it finds an opponent, at which point it's free to choose from every player in the game. It's that's not advantage, I don't know what advantage is.
Sure, it also susceptible to be attacked from everything, but let's be real, beeing attacked by 2 nations here is pulling it.

I doon't know what mechanism you have to cross isles, but even supposing there are normal connections like invisible bridges, player 4 is less threatened than the rest due to choke points. Same goes for 7. I don't really see these 3 sides you're talking about for them.

Player 10 might not have chokepoints but all his troops are going in a single general direction.

@SR Which nation is in a corner on this map? There is no nation that isn't threatened on three or more sides after expansion, except Abyssia. I only made them less threatened because their expansion is generally more tricky. Also, there are two nations with sailing capabilities making all coastal areas easier targets. there is no nation that does not expand without opening up invasions from below or across the sea.

I guess what I am saying is that I tried to take that into account and am wondering where specifically in the map you have encountered this issue. I appreciate you taking the time to tell me what you 'think' might be wrong with the map, but I'd appreciate it if you told me where specifically on this map you have found these issues so that I can correct them.

See the map Floating Archipelago for a non-perfected example of what's meant to be done.

I have never finished a map but what the community agrees on is that beeing on the corner of a map is a strong advantage as you have your back covered.
Because of this, wraparounds in both axis are usually a must unless you have a really trough teleportation network that makes no nation sit in a "cul de sac" but at the same time makes each nation face roughly the same amount of threat.

The latter detail is the hardest to pull out.

@SR By balanced, I mean that most nations have reasonable access to initial expansion, if they take their starting location and its environment into consideration when building a pretender. Only start I'm really concerned with would be Tir na n'Og's. But I've started several games with them and always managed to expand reasonably well.

I am currently adding multiple nations for each start location so that one could choose to start with Sauromatia instead of C'tis (for example), if preferred.

If you have any specific balance notes I'd love to have them. This is my first map for Dominions map so I'm sure there is as much to learn about designing maps for the game as there is playing it. I'd love to see some of the maps you have created and take notes on your design concepts.

@SimonTheSorcerer Thanks! This is my first map for Dominions and I am excited to make some more. Next map will be about the same size but with cave provinces. I'm taking the things I am learning and will eventually build an all nations map for each Age.

BEST MAP ON THE WORKSHOP FOR A LONG TIME! WOW, THANKS!

No Sauromatia with all that swamp? Ok.
Map surely looks good, but probably not even close to be balanced.

Most recently, I've switched the start locations for Fomoria and Tir na n'Og. All starts have been play tested and I think are distinctive yet balanced. Any feedback is welcome.