Scenario name...... Good Fences v 1.1
Designer........... Andrew Nellis, bs904@ncf.ca
Name of files(s)... Fences.mp2, Fences.txt, FencesReadMe.txt
Map Size........... Large
Difficulty......... Tough
Players............ 4 H/C, 1 C (Human: Barbarian, Knight, Necromancer,
                    Sorceress; Computer: Wizard)
Win/Lose........... Normal/Normal
Playtesters........ Octavian@labyrinth.net.au, CougarKhan@msn.com

NOTES ON VERSION 1.1:

Changes:
 
 - Several typos fixed in the accompanying story

 - Two events and one rumour which were partly obscured as a result
   of being too long have been fixed.

 - An unreachable gazebo has been moved.

 - Two barbarian towns which should not have been upgradable but
   were, are no longer.

 - The Elemental Colleges could be reached, but were impossible to
   leave without dimension door, town portal, or town gate.  This
   has been fixed.

Many thanks to all the people who sent in the bug reports, and
especially to Chris Tiahrt (Fizbin the Magniloquent) for his long
and detailed list.


Scenario:

Since the time of the Great Sundering by Obsepius the Divider, the
land has been separated into enclaves, linked only by the power of the
Travel Gates.  These Gates are controlled by the Geomancers, the small
but powerful guild of elemental wizards founded by Obsepius himself.  
Among the various enclaves, four Houses have risen above the rest: the 
Houses Major.  The leaders of each of these Houses, along with the 
High Geomancer, rule the Minor Houses of each enclave jointly through 
the oligarchal bodies of the Lesser and Grand Councils.

After a murder during a Grand Council throws the land into chaos, the
leaders of the four Houses Major launch a bitter war to wrest total
control into their own hands, hampered by their inability to control
the Travel Gates of the Geomancers.  The peace of the Great Sundering
has come to an end, and the fighting will not stop until a single
House has shattered the power of the Geomancers and united the entire
land beneath them.


Designer's Notes:

This scenario was designed to be played as a duel between two to four
human players.  While it is possible to play it as a solo map, the
computer AI seems to handle the unique challenges of this map very
badly, particularly at the start.  If you're going to play alone, you
should play on "Impossible" level to give yourself some sort of real
challenge.

In many ways, this is very much a concept map, in that it does not
permit the usual strategies.  Resources are scarce to the point of
being almost non-existent; those few that exist must be rabidly
defended, since even a few turns worth of resources can be critical.
For reasons which will become obvious, leadership and diplomacy will
be very useful skills to learn.

Every single event, both timed and placed, has been used.  I could
have done a lot more if not for the arbitrary limit of 50 each, which
I find quite insufficient.  Rather than scatter the timed events
throughout, the majority of them come quite early in the scenario, to
build the atmosphere.  Coupled with the placed events, there should 
be ample interaction throughout the game.  I have worked very hard to 
make the terrain as attractive as possible; this map represents 
several months of work, on and off, for me.

Before playing the scenario, it is important that you read the other
file that should have accompanied this one, Fences.txt.  While it's
possible to win without reading it, it contains a lot of background
material which will give you clues to the location of the various
ultimate artifacts, and which, more importantly, will add to your
enjoyment of scenario.  There are several ultimate artifacts, and each
and every one has been carefully placed.  None are easy to find, and
not all of them are available to every House, but the majority can be
found by any clever adventurer.

Due to the nature of this map, it should have an high replay value,
even if the location of every ultimate artifact is known.  In fact,
even reading the entire scenario with the editor will give you
precious little advantage.

If you enjoy this scenario, you may also wish to play "The New World",
a medium-sized solo map which I also designed, available on the Astral
Wizard website.

The Astral Wizard can be found at: http://www.AstralWizard.com


Personal Notes:

[Feel free to stop reading here.  The rest is just self-indulgent
noodling on the part of Your Humble Designer.]

First, I would like to thank the Astral Wizard and his associates for
their work in maintaining the Astral Wizard website, the best and most
professional of the Heroes of Might and Magic websites.  The amount of
effort that has gone into it -- for no reward but satisfaction -- is
truly staggering.  I salute you.  

Secondly, my deepest gratitude and regards to Fizbin the Magniloquent
(aka Chris Tiahrt) for his gracious and embarassingly flattering
review of my first released scenario, "The New World", on the Astral
Wizard website.  It is in large part thanks to him that I persevered
through the two months of effort it took to design this scenario.  By
the way, Fizbin, your criticisms were right on the money.
 
Thirdly, I would like to send a note of thanks to all the other
scenario designers whose games I have downloaded and played over the
past six months. It is to be regretted that people like Julia Skipper,
Charles Watkins, Timothy Duncan, Grayson Towler, and the Astral Wizard
(Phil McCrum) have moved on to HoMM 3... but nature abhors a vacuum,
and I'm sure that a whole new generation of scenario designers will
take up the gauntlet and continue to turn out the kind of high quality
HoMM 2 scenarios we have come to expect.

And lastly, I'd like to invite everyone to drop by the MUD I help to
program, Gateway.  It's not flashy, but it's one of the oldest MUDs
still in operation, and I like to think of it as home.  If you drop
by to say hello, you can catch me as Slog da Grate Ogryn Champyun.
Gateway can be found at: telnet://gatewaymud.org:6969 and the home
page is: http://www.gatewaymud.org/

As always, feel free to drop me e-mail with your comments, brickbats,
and criticisms.  I remain,

                                  Yours Truly,
                                       Andrew Nellis
                                       Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
                                       May 1999
