Easy Metal

Mod option. Metal spots on the map are analyzed at the start of the game and flagged. Then the game restricts placement of mexes to only those spots, exactly the way geothermal plants are restricted. A widget is included that provides a snap-to when placing a mex. The widget also prevents viewing of the metalmap and instead shows a new view with M's over each flag as well as info about which player has taken the mex, and colorized based on alliance. White M = free spot. Blue = unknown. Yellow = allied spot. Red = enemy spot.

Why?

Advantages:

• Makes the game easier for newbies. It's impossible to make a mistake.
• The "replacement metal map" can be on while playing the game, without interfering the way the regular metal map does by making all the terrain black.
• Snap-to makes mex placement easier, especially when zoomed out.
• No two mexes can be placed on the same spot. This happens often with allies but sometimes even with enemies.

Disadvantages:

• You can't place mexes on those near useless spots.
• This option has strange results with maps that don't have distinct metal spots (very few maps are like this though). It works surprisingly well with SmallDivide? (original), mediocre with Azure Rampart, and not well at all with SpeedMetal? or Duck. Not recommended for these maps. However these maps can be said to be dull in that they don't provide any strategic points since the metal is equally distributed throughout. The most interesting maps are those that assign strategic value to certain areas by making the metal distribution stronger in certain parts like the center.