Map of World of Enroth (or C.O.L.O.N.Y.)

[XEL II]

Yeah, I somehow missed that part, thanks for pointing it out. Anyway, I think Enroth is still larger than Antagarich, but not much.

[Avonu]

Look at the size of Enroth in MM6 intro and outro and tell me how much of planet surface it could take?
Now compare this with what we know about Antagarich (that it lies on southern hemisphere) and you can tell how much bigger is Enroth.
I think that 1/3-1/2 size of Enroth is closer to truth then 3/4 of it.

[GreatEmerald]

Well, MM6 intro and outro planet was created with a large helping of Random() functions, so It's not very reliable information.

[Slayer of Cliffracers]

It was few weeks max between these events, so there was no time for any major climate changes. Glaciers don't melt in one day.

BTW - about Antagarich size:

Erathia
"Erathia is the second major continent to be settled in the world. It is a lot wilder and more unsafe than Enroth, and all the little kingdoms there are always bickering and fighting."

Good answer on the Vori question.

[ywhtptgtfo]

That 21 day travel time is very likely due to factors other than distance (i.e. safety issues from Sea Monsters). A somewhat more reliable indicator is land travel time. However, even that should be taken with a grain of salt.

MM7's world is smaller largely because of practical issues (i.e. the world has to be small and the number of cities limited so that the game can be released with the given time and budget). If we look at the context of Heroes 3, having the Erathian capital being 5 days away from the Tatalian capital is just absurd when it'd take around 5 days for a hero with expert pathfinding and expert logistic just to cross the Tatalian-Erathian border.

[Avonu]

Since when Tidewater is Tatalia capital or even Tatalian city?
It's Erathian city which is placed on Erathian part of Tatalia. You rememebr this tiny land between Tatalia and Krewlod which was captured by them during RoE and recaptured by Catherine later?
And yes - land travel time is not very good facor to measure continent size (especially in MM6) but I think that sea travel is more reliable. After all, we know how far is Antagarich from Enroth thanks to sea travel times.

[Dave_Jame]

Since when Tidewater is Tatalia capital or even Tatalian city?
It's Erathian city which is placed on Erathian part of Tatalia. You rememebr this tiny land between Tatalia and Krewlod which was captured by them during RoE and recaptured by Catherine later?
And yes - land travel time is not very good facor to measure continent size (especially in MM6) but I think that sea travel is more reliable. After all, we know how far is Antagarich from Enroth thanks to sea travel times.

If you use in game information like "How far is Regna from Enroth" or "How long does it take to reach Erathia" then yes. If you use in game mechanics like " it takes 1 days to sail from Silver cove to Castle Alamos" then no. that would not be relevant imho.

[Ribannah]

The name C.O.L.O.N.Y. (Composite Orbital Learning Opportunity Network Yielder) was approved of by Tim Lang. It is in line with names like X.E.E.N. and V.A.R.M.

It is the Ancients' name for the planet. They installed a Colonial Governor. There still was one at the time of the Silence:

MM7

Governor's Armor (Chain Mail)
Type: Artifact

Armor: +36

(Half damage from missile attacks, +10 to all statistics)

Owned by Colonial Governor Padish at the Time of the Silence, This fantastic armor has resurfaced in many of the great treasure hoardes throughout history. Like most creations turned out by the Heavenly Forge, it is nearly indestructible, and its like can no longer be made by any forge in the land.

Value: 20000

The inhabitants had no need to name their planet.

But Morglin Ironfist had, since he arrived from another world. After establishing his rule over Enroth, he named the planet thus.

In MMTribute, Morglin Ironfist is still a young lad.

[Avonu]

Nice to see you again after long absent.


And now to business to explain few things about names:

It is the Ancients' name for the planet. They installed a Colonial Governor. There still was one at the time of the Silence:

MM7

Governor's Armor (Chain Mail)
Type: Artifact

Armor: +36

(Half damage from missile attacks, +10 to all statistics)

Owned by Colonial Governor Padish at the Time of the Silence, This fantastic armor has resurfaced in many of the great treasure hoardes throughout history. Like most creations turned out by the Heavenly Forge, it is nearly indestructible, and its like can no longer be made by any forge in the land.

Value: 20000

The inhabitants had no need to name their planet.

But Morglin Ironfist had, since he arrived from another world. After establishing his rule over Enroth, he named the planet thus.

Enroth is just one of "myriad" (according to Escaton's words) colonies of the Ancients and that is why it had a colonial governor.




Moreover, Melian called itself as Guardian of Enroth, so this name as planet name was introduced in MM6 and is hinted by him that it is Ancients' name, not Morglin's. And in MM8 confirmed this:

The world of Enroth has fallen out of balance with the rest of the cosmos. As a result, the gateways to the elemental planes have been opened on your world, freeing the forces of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water to wreak havoc throughout the land.
You must form a party of up to five heroes to unite the human and monster races of the world in time to launch a joint campaign to close the gateways and save Enroth from planetary extinction.

Also name Enroth as a planet was used on Jadame too, where Ironfists have no influences, so it's unlikely that Enroth was Morglin's own idea.


Of course, if you only pointed this as a backstory for MMT, then it's MMT team choise to do that and it's OK.

But your words suggest that "colony" is planet name according to MM6-8 games facts, when it isn't. There is no hint or clue anywhere in games or outside them, that word "colony" may be something more then just description of colonized planet. Colonial Governor seems to be a title which you can have on any planet colonized by Ancients or related to them, not something exclusive for this particular planet.
Enroth was just a colony of the Ancients, same as in case of Corak, where there were more then just one. Moreover, other facts from games confirmed its name was indeed Enroth, at least by times of MM8.

[Ribannah]

I am only suggesting that there is no inconsistency.

Similar planets in other systems would have the same name, just like there are more VARNs.

Melian is addressing inhabitants and is therefore using the name that they know.

[tolich]

BTW, Emma Wilson is a daughter of William Millar Wilson, he's a printer not engineer though.

[Ribannah]

With regard to the map of the world, some clues have so far been ignored.

One is the fact that the world is round and that therefore Antagarich can be reached from Enroth sailing either east or west.

In view of the size of Enroth in relation to the size of the globe, and the fact that going east one first sails past Regna / Ravenshore, it is even likely that the east of Antagarich is closer to the west of Enroth than the east of Enroth is to the west of Antagarich.

This explains the difference in mentioned travel times. For instance,

- from the east coast of Enroth to the west coast of Antagarich is 6 weeks of sailing (shortest route) or 8 weeks (avoiding Regna);
- from the west coast of Enroth to the east coast of Antagarich is 3 weeks of sailing.

Asomath indicates this on one of his maps, but the globe shows no land to the southwest within 3 weeks sailing from Enroth. It does show land due west though, on the northern hemisphere.

[Avonu]

One is the fact that the world is round and that therefore Antagarich can be reached from Enroth sailing either east or west.

There are plenty of sea monsters on South and West of Enroth, so sailing there is very dangerous. Also, we don't know if there is other continent on the West of Enroth. We know, that there is an huge island but what is futher on the West?
In first drafts Ardon (world of Crusaders, Warriors and Shifters) was suppose to be fourth continent of this planet but it was later scrapped - so there is space for at least one more landmass.

- from the west coast of Enroth to the east coast of Antagarich is 3 weeks of sailing.

It's unlikely because we should see Antagarich in MM6 intro and we don't - Queen Catherine yacht sails from Castle Ironfist to Hermit's Island within 3 weeks.
Also, assuming that Enroth is like our Earth (and judging by how log a day and a year is, it is possible), then 6 weeks travel from Enroth to Antagarich is somehow as distance between Europe and Americas (more or less). Now, do you imagine sailing from Europe to Americas through Indian Ocean and Pacific in shorter time then through Atlantic?

[Ribannah]

But you do see land on the globe. On the northern hemisphere! There are the two islands and west of them is more land.

The northern one of the two islands to the west, I figure, is Dragon Isle. The southern one resembles Nighon, or Nighon may be right beyond. You can see a bit more of the globe if you stop the intro a second before Asomath's screenshot.

COLONY is quite a bit smaller than Earth. The length of a planet's year depends on the distance to its sun.

[Asomath]

I believe that after looking at the cinematic, I had decided that the most distant "landmasses" to the south west of of Hermit Isle were actually just clouds for quite some distance. However, at the very southwestern edge, the lighting on the supposed landmass looks like it just might be some sort of island, either Nighon or some tropical island.

~Asomath

[MMXAlamar]

Sorry, I have to chime in on this one...Awhile ago was talking to Tim Lang about the intro cinematic from MM6 and he said that the video was made before JVC drew the map of Enroth for MM6. Tim also said there was never a "huge world map" with everything on it for the entire planet.

That is the brilliance behind this whole discussion - there is no one true design of Enroth!

[Ribannah]

Asomath: I'm afraid that's wishful thinking. Emerald Isle would be missing, for one (while it could easily hide in the blur northwest).

Another clue that we have is that there are supposed to be many lands (islands and SUBcontinents!) between Enroth and Antagarich. There aren't if Antagarich is on the southern hemisphere. Just Regna if we sail southeastward from Enroth (Karigor is called a small island and wouldn't count, I'll get to that later), and none at all to the southwest.

But if Antagarich is on the northern hemisphere, there's all of Jadame one way and the large islands the other.

And then there is the Eastern Sea which is supposed to be between Antagarich and Enroth. From Antagarich, Enroth is said to be across that sea. To the east, one assumes. And a sea, not an ocean. In the manual of Heroes 3, Wilbur Humphrey is also talking about a sea.

AFAIK, the only thing suggesting that Antagarich is located on the southern half of the planet is a short tale by Christian (that is Christian Vanover I guess, one of the HoMM3/4 level designers - Alamar, did you ever manage to contact him?) on the old 3do message board. But he had no world map. All in-game info seems to speak against it.

[Tress]

The inhabitants had no need to name their planet.

IMO calling planet "colonly" is sort of apsurd. First of all, planet for mm6-mm8 is just one of the planets, thus singling it out by calling it colony is bit absurd. I would more believe if ancients would have called it PS-2342342. Second of all, America(as in colonial america) probably too had colonial government, but they called it New Englad not colony, and not just because to not confuse with India and couple other countries they used to occupy, but because it was name. As for VARN/XEEN/CRON, those three are bit more technical entities than colonized planet with Enroth.

COLONY is quite a bit smaller than Earth. The length of a planet's year depends on the distance to its sun

Sort of, but there is various other factors like mass/speed, form of orbit(for realistic arguments), not to mention fact that physics of of that world might as well simply differ(or just be disregarded in first place).

The northern one of the two islands to the west, I figure, is Dragon Isle. The southern one resembles Nighon, or Nighon may be right beyond. You can see a bit more of the globe if you stop the intro a second before Asomath's screenshot.

While that cinematic definitely contains Enroth, Considering scale, there is no way that planet could contain much more than Enroth, and even if we somehow fit Antagarich and Jadame, that certainly is not whole planet(there still is land from crusaders, and any single player maps). Trying to see on such early draft of a world something more than mm6 contains is just trying to see something that there isn't. Of course it is hard to say that scale in game is absolute truth(as in using hermit isle>> iron fist travel time), as with appropriate npc you can cross continent in 5 days, but logically it is just game mechanics, after all none of us want to just walk miles of empty space for sake of realism(well they tried that in crusaders....). Imo only terms that actually may place scale of world is lore texts, like Catherine commenting on her voyage between enroth>erathia.

[Ribannah]

We know that Enroth was settled first, so it can't be a colony of another realm on the planet.

The mass of a planet has very little influence on its period.

Enroth, Antagarich, Vori and Karigor (north of Jadame) can nonetheless all fit on the northern hemisphere and still leave room for those large islands and more.

Crusaders, however, takes place on Ardon.

[Ribannah]

Now, about Karigor.

How can it be that 'a small island' (think Emerald Isle) can contain:

- a capital (implying the existence of other communities, too), with streets of jade no less;
- TWO great churches, which are somehow able to wage centuries of war and not run out of bodies;
- a great library;
- cotton fields;
- a lasting supply of Mogred hides.

That sounds a bit overcrowded, doesn't it?