I made some edits to Xelm Plateau - adding an extra mine, extra hamlet, three gold piles and a razed teleporter to starting areas, and making one of the previously razed mines unrazed in each.

Anyone want to play it? Needs 5 players.

Ready to go.

Ready to roll.

Looks like I might have to make a 3 player version of the map!

In which case, I might change things up a lot from current concept. Would instead have three largely separate levels, with each player having starting forces on each (?)

The surface would have loads of farms and mines - big gold income - but no size 4 Cities, and no nodes/sites
The caves would have fewer cities, but all of the size4 cities would be on this level. It'd have some gold and mana structures.
The abyss level would have loads of nodes and sites, but little of other things.

And just for kicks, I'd make the only way to travel between levels be via 1-way teleporters, that go from surface to abyss to underworld to surface. And going through the teleporter to one level would put you a long way from the next teleporter up.

A neat way to make the AI opponents more challenging is to give their leader "possessed." It causes the leader death check to be skipped and basically makes the AI opponent play as though they had "leaders off." This prevents premature shutdowns via assassination and improves consistent map pressure. Not sure if it would work here in Xelm, but it works wonders in other maps I've been testing.

Pretty cool idea. Well done.

im in. just guide me through the map installation and boom

The save file contains the map data in AoW1, so only the first player needs it. It#s not like some other stategy games where you would need it, like WC3, aoe2, etc. But if you're interested you can download the map here; http://aow.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=1203

That's pretty good then, we have four players and need five.

I'm not sure if asking Daemonvirus to join is the wisest move, but can't hate the guy. And if he stages a disappearing act, I guess we can move to another game anyway.

Incidentally, this map - "Xelm Plateau II: Arcane Gardens" got a 4.4 star review by some fellow I've not seen posting elsehwhere, on aowheaven. So it can't be that bad!

Here's hoping you guys are still ready to play!

So the available races are Elves, Dark Elves, Highmen, Azracs, and Undead.

Which do you each want to play?

elves for me please

Undead please

He, and thanks? Not that I'm complaining, but where did that come from?

Not sure I care.

Which leader uses Air magic? I like Air magic.

I'm going to start the game once I'm sure FRM_Vicious is still available. Failing that, perhaps Nosferon can be recruited.

Still available for every race.