Map Creation

I'll explain shortly what each option on the map creation does. We will use the Phoenix Random Game option because is the one from the new update and the most complete one, so we'll ignore the rest.

In the first option, BASIC SETTINGS, we have:

WORLD SIZE > Self explanatory

PLAYERS > Self explanatory

WORLD TYPE > Self explanatory, Oceania is more for simulation some kind of pacific theatre with insland hopping, Water World similar but more focused on naval battles.

OPTIONS:

Map Loop > Makes the map wrap from east/west. So you can cross throught the edges and go to the other side. For example, if a map is a world map that starts in the east with the US east coast and ends in the west with Japan, then, the japanese player, can cross the pacific ocean to go to the US east coast. Without this option, the japanese player would have a uncrossable border on his right and he would need to cross all of Eurasia and the atlantic to reach the US.

Mirrorish > Makes the map symetrical, useful for 1vs1 or team matches idk

Shroud > Makes the game to start with the map unexplored, with a black fog sorrounding you like a civilization or RTS game, so you'll have to scout the map to find shit, plays the best with the 1 town start option.

1 Town Start > Makes you start with only one city, this is good for 4x style of games, but the thing is that depending of the scenario, some players will be able to find more cities than others and it will be a little bit unbalanced, for example, if you start alone in a shitty island with only once city, you'll be doomed.

Costly research > Makes research more costly, in my experience, normal research is already very costly..... so wow.

Stone Age > Makes the game start with no researched technologies, so you have to research everything from scratch, this is the normal way to play this game.

Crates Hidden AI > Makes some random crates appear on the map, if you grab one with an unit, several things can happen: You can get a mercenary base, that gives you free mercenaries each turn, they are like infantry (but use the neutral peoples). You can also get a research lab, that get's you free PP each turn, or you can get a free city (yeah, very OP). As a bad thing, you can get a city occupied by a enemy AI of a random african nation (african regimes in this game can only be evil AI), so if you beat the warlord AI you get a free city. I think this option is a little bit bugged, so I don't like it that much, also can be unbalanced, if a player get's a bunch of free cities next to his spawn and you get a bunch of nigger warlords... is over.

No roads > That's it, no roads, pure pain.

Wild Lands > Makes less cities and urban hexes, more empty fields.

Deserted Land > More extreme version of Wild Lands.

Deserted Lands > Idk, is not in the manual, but I guess is more stronger version of Deserted Land idk.

PhoenixGame.at2 > This is the masterkey that generates the map, modders can change it to create their own map generator.

CLIMATE > You can enable or disable the climate mechanics completely. The climate is cool so don't.

In the second option, EXTRA SETTINGS we have:

CONTINENTAL SIZE > Self Explanatory

HUMIDITY > Self explanatory, affects to the type of climate and amount of water you get.

GEOLOGICAL AGE > This affects the topography in the world, a very young world planet will have more mountains and an old one will be more flat. This is because old planets have more volcanic and tectonic activity that creates mountains, valleys and all of that. And a old planet, which long ago stopped having those, the erosion will make all the mountains flat. That's why the Moon is very flat in comparison to the Earth. If you like this kind of things, SE goes VERY autistically in deep on planet creation.

EXTRA OPTIONS:

Limited Initial Roads > Makes less roads, I like this option the best, because normal ones is too much roads, no road is way too few of roads, and here you have enough roads that makes logistic hard but not that much, and having your engineers going around creating your own logistic network is fun

Natural Coastlines > Makes coastlines more beautiful without those ugly hexes and lines.

No farmlands/No suburbs > Self Explanatory

Higher Prod. Cost > Increases the cost of production, like costly research but for production.

Cheap Research > Self Explanatory

In the third option, REGIME SETTINGS, we have:

Here you can select your regime and flag. Info on the picture.

In the last option, CLIMATE SETTINGS, we have:

Here you can select the type of climate that will appear on the map, I like the one that is marked on the pic the most, because the antartic ones make the south have snow, and I don't like having snow in the south...

Then if we click MAKE.... we get to this screen:

Fog of war > Enables fog of war.

PBEM Protection > This is a small anticheat protection, is that great, it only disables the possibility to save in your turn, so you can't savescum to reroll the RNG, and also if you close the game to open it again (for trying to reroll the RNG or modifying something), the other players will have a message that that player did that. Is a very primitive anticheat option.

Passwords > This is essential on multiplayer so no one plays as your faction because you set a password to play your turn.

Hide Realtime AI > On singleplayer, when you end your turn, you see the AI moves, with this you don't and you have to use the history feature to know what they did on the past turn (in multiplayer you also have to use the history feature).

Shroud > Makes the unexplored parts of the map pitch black until you explore it. Is the shroud mentioned before.

Shroud peek > Is a middle term, you can see the map geography, but you won't see the resources, cities or the other players until you scout.

The other four options are explained on the "variants" tab. But delayed war gives you time before anyone can declare war, this is mostly useful against the AI, because no sane player will declare war on turn 2 (or not?).

Regimes

Types of regimes, or "peoples" like how they're called in the game.

German

>Only people that can research V-weapons and build super-heavy tanks when heavy tank research is completed.

The "V-weapons" are basically the V1 and V2 rockets from ww2 developed by Werner von Braun, they are worse than a strategic bomber, but they render useless air defences. And the heavy tonk is maybe useful for late game when you research it. But in words of the dev: "I question the wisdom of building these gigantic monsters"

Anglo-Saxon

>Only people that can build Rangers.

The rangers are like a special forces unit (SOF). They have higher stats than the rifles unit, I think their entrenchment is 60 when normal inf is 40. 

Russian

>Only people that can research Katushya’s.

A MLRS, rocket artillery. This is GOD for doing INSANE offensives. Have longer range and more damage than normal artillery, but they use FUEL. You can also motorize your artillery with trucks as any faction, with similar effects. So is mostly for range and having the truck + heavy artillery in one unit, making production easier I guess. The downside is that they disband after being used.... So is a single use unit (at least the manual says so) Check Strategy manual for info on artilleries.

French

>Only people that can build cheap fortifications and super fortresses.

You can build cheap fortifications to boost your entrenchment on sitational moments or to make defensive lines or something. Very cool.

Arab

>Only people that can build Guerrilla’s.

This one has the most unique unit, because the guerilla can be sent across the enemy lines to cause trouble in their rearguard. Also they carry like 3-4 turns worth of supplies so they can operate behind the enemy lines standalone, they also are very hard to scout but I didn't test how they're seen from the enemy perspective, so I don't know if they're an invisible counter until scouted or they just appear as a blank (unscouted) counter. In my experience, they are not that worth... The first unlock, Guerilla level I is useless, because they don't carry supplies, they start getting good at Guerilla II but even so, they carry very few supplies, so for optimal use you need Guerilla III and that's requires A LOT of initial PP inversion for a unit that is basically rifles with more movement, and you need a open spot in the enemy front so they can cross to their rearguard, maybe you can send them on ships to infiltrate throught their coast or something. In my personal opinion, paratroopers would be better for that kind of operations, but maybe if you have the IQ of Ho Chi Minh or something can find a cool use for this unit.

Chinese

>Only people that can build Militia.

Basically a cheap meatgrinder to cover the front.

Japanese

>The Japanese have 60% basemorale instead of 50%. Its also the only people that can build Kamikaze’s

The morale thing is very cool, and also, the kamikaze is very useful for destroying naval ships, also the kamikazes have longer range than a regular plane (they don't need the fuel to return). Obviously, the kamikaze is single use.

Africans

Unplayable, they can only appear with the crates option as an enemy AI to cause trouble to you. I find it funny that Israel flag is inside the Africans nations.

Neutrals

This is just the people used in the code for the ownership of the uncontrolled cities, resources and all of that. Basically swedish. (Also the mercs use this people, for when you have a merc factory with the crates option)

How to make custom flag

Ok, so you want a custom flag? Is easy.

Just go to the graphics folder where all the graphics are located. Then you create there a new folder and place all your custom flags.

To grab a flag as a template to edit, you can go to graphics/at2 and there you'll find folders named like ArabFlags, EnglishFlags, GermanFlags etc...

Let's say for example we'll use this confederate one as a template. In this case, 3.png is the flag that will appear as your flag, as the background behind the officers and in your HQs and the 3b.png is the symbol that appears in the corner of your counters.

So just open those in any software to edit them. For example, because is a easy edit I use Photopea.

Notice how the left and top sides have a slighty alpha transparency, so if you can, then try to apply a small amount of alpha transparency over there.

Ok, then just edit your flags as you want:

And the small symbol:

Then just place those on a new folder inside /graphics:

Now on the game regime selector:

Put your flag and your symbol:

And now you can go in-game and you should notice that it looks well: