MP Game: Age of Men - Completed - Arco wins!

[Ironhawk]

This game will be a themed game which will focus on the power of human/mortal armies, rather than the power of battlefield magic and the SC. Details as follows...

House Rules:
1) Only human pretenders.

2) Only recruitable commanders can be used as SCs.

3) Only 1 mage per 25 troops allowed in combat

Game Server:
IP: benatar.snurgle.org
port: 2001


Game Settings:
Indys: 7
Research: Very Hard
Site Freq: 60
HoF: 15
Graphs: On
Victory: Standard
Map: Karan (http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom2/karan.zip)
Timing: Quickhost only (will move to 24hr/48hr if players are slow)

Mods: Age of Men Mods (http://benatar.snurgle.org:8080/~quinn/AgeOfMen.zip)
Zens pretender, spell, and scale mods. Age of Men Mod (big battlefield and strategic artillery spells harder to cast, more supply and gold to support big armies, some items removed)


Banned Nations:
Jotunhiem and all unholy nations (Ermor, Pangea CW, Ulm BF, Ctis DT)

Player List:
Arco - Ironhawk
Machaka - Msew
Marginon - Cohen
Tien'Chi S&A - Quantum
Man - Tomahawk (Sheap has taken over)
Pangea NE - Wazooking
Mictlan - Yellow Cactus

Some particulars about house rules that came up when discussing the game. Summoned commanders cannot use any magic items aside from magic boosters (blood thorn is being removed from the game tho) and ranged weapons. If, during fighting, an army is reduced below the mage:troop ratio, the mages must immediately retreat to the nearest friendly fort. I will mod a High Priest unit into any players (base) nation who has only mage+priest units so that priests can be deployed in combat at will without using a mage "slot".

[Ironhawk]

I'll be playing Pythium.

And on a side note, for the purposes of house rule #3 it was decided that communicants have to count as a "mage". Otherwise the pythium mages would be far too powerful compared to other nations due to the restrictions on number.

[msew]

machaka

[Cohen]

I'd try Marignon


What about modding magic summoned guys to have no slots, but to boost their base magic (ie an Earth King has no slots but start with 6 Earth magic).

About "only recruitable" commanders can be used as SCs, this means I can give to my ie Arch Angel casting fire spells boots of quickness, items for recuperation of fatigue and so on? (cause they're not SCs items). Or you mispelled and intended only recruitable commanders can be equipped?

[Tomahawk]

I'll play as Man.... Lee


PS this is weird, but I used some other guy named Tomahawk's login and password. They sent me his info when i joined as a new user "Tomahawk." I decided not to check his private Messages.

[quantum_mechani]

Cohen said:
I'd try Marignon


What about modding magic summoned guys to have no slots, but to boost their base magic (ie an Earth King has no slots but start with 6 Earth magic).



I think that would be an enormous amount of work.


About "only recruitable" commanders can be used as SCs, this means I can give to my ie Arch Angel casting fire spells boots of quickness, items for recuperation of fatigue and so on? (cause they're not SCs items). Or you mispelled and intended only recruitable commanders can be equipped?


IMO, as long as the items are usefull for spellcasting and
the player is not scripting them as an SC, it is ok.

I'll take T'ien Ch'i.

[Wazooking]

I would like to be playing Pangaea (New Era)
Which Versions of Zens pretender, spell, and scale mods are we using? And will the Age of Men mod conflict with Zens' spell mod?

[Ironhawk]

Yeah, it's too much work to do this Cohen. In my limited modding experience you would need to pull up every summoned unit and manually mod out its slots and improve its stats. There is no way to do it automatically that I am aware of.

About equipping summoned units: I stated further down in the original post that "Summoned commanders cannot use any magic items aside from magic boosters (blood thorn is being removed from the game tho) and ranged weapons". So boots of quickness etc would not be allowed.


Cohen said:
What about modding magic summoned guys to have no slots, but to boost their base magic (ie an Earth King has no slots but start with 6 Earth magic).

About "only recruitable" commanders can be used as SCs, this means I can give to my ie Arch Angel casting fire spells boots of quickness, items for recuperation of fatigue and so on? (cause they're not SCs items). Or you mispelled and intended only recruitable commanders can be equipped?

[Ironhawk]

I see what you are getting at Quantum, but where do you draw the line. Boots of quickness and Cloak of Shadows are great for spellcasters. But put them on the right summoned commander and put him way in front of your troops instead of behind so he draws enemy troops to him and suddenly he is an SC even tho you have only scripted him to cast spells.

I think to just make 100% sure that there is no abuse of this we should just outlaw all items except for boosters and missle weapons on summoned commanders.


quantum_mechani said:
IMO, as long as the items are usefull for spellcasting and
the player is not scripting them as an SC, it is ok.

[quantum_mechani]

Ironhawk said:
I see what you are getting at Quantum, but where do you draw the line. Boots of quickness and Cloak of Shadows are great for spellcasters. But put them on the right summoned commander and put him way in front of your troops instead of behind so he draws enemy troops to him and suddenly he is an SC even tho you have only scripted him to cast spells.

I think to just make 100% sure that there is no abuse of this we should just outlaw all items except for boosters and missle weapons on summoned commanders.


quantum_mechani said:
IMO, as long as the items are usefull for spellcasting and
the player is not scripting them as an SC, it is ok.





I understand if it would make it too complicated. However I see a big dividing live between reienvig. items, and say, cloak of shadows. Some directly help the mage cast spells,
others just make him harder to kill/do more damage in melee.

[Yvelina]

This will be interesting. I am not sure that I will do that well, but I am willing to give it a try. By the way, how do you define 'human' pretender? Everyone who needs only 10 points to start a magic path, even if it is an archmage riding a freakbeast?

In any case, I claim the world for Vanheim!

[YellowCactus]

Atlantis
-Yc

[Zen]

There is a new Version of the spellmod with some changes that conflicted with alot of what was intended. You may want to look at it and see if you wish to play with it instead of Version 1.7

www.techno-mage.com/~zen/ (http://www.techno-mage.com/~zen/)

[Ironhawk]

Hahaha - The Freakbeast!!!

Umm... I can't recall all the pretender choices offhand but the "human" pretenders are usually like the Archmage, Master Druid, Crone, etc. The size 2 ones that are living, mortal, dont have many hp, no interesting combat abilities, and generally look human. But I think the freaklord or whatever pretty much falls into this Category as well in terms of stats and abilities, right? Plus it is really funny http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Yvelina said:
By the way, how do you define 'human' pretender? Everyone who needs only 10 points to start a magic path, even if it is an archmage riding a freakbeast?

[YellowCactus]

Where can I find the age of men mod?
-Yc

Oh, and can we have ghost kings?

[Ironhawk]

I'm still finishing up the age of men mod. Given what zen has said about the latest spell mod, what I will likely have to do is: grab his latest spell mod, then look thru it for conflicts with Age of Men and resolve them. And then post up a Zen/AoM combined mod so that we dont have any problems.

For the record, of the nations people listed to play: are they all base, except for Pangea? Cause I dont want to add in High Priests for nations if they can't even use them.

[quantum_mechani]

YellowCactus said:
Oh, and can we have ghost kings?


No, they are definitely out. I think the must-be-10-points-for -paths rule is a good one.

Oh, and I'm using Spring & Autumn.

[Cohen]

I don't know what kind of Marignon I'll use ^^
sorry.

[Ironhawk]

The Age of Men mod is basically ready to go. There was surprisingly little overlap with Zen's spell mod, but enough that I just tagged my changes onto the end of his file. The only problem remaining is that I want to mod out Gaap the Ice Devil (without throwing out ice devil summoning all together) or at least remove his Hell Sword, but I dont know how to mod that.

Anyone know?

[YellowCactus]

I don't think thats going to be a problem as long as he's scripted for spells AND the owner of gaap givens him an item to hold. Then he can't use his sword..hehe
-Yc

[Ironhawk]

Hahah! Make it a requirement that if you summon Gaap you have to give him Totem shield or something? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Cohen]

You can change the weapon he wields, with a nasty non draining life sword.

[Yvelina]

I'm sorry, guys, but I think I will sit out this one, after all. Someone pointed out a few things to me, and convinced me that this game will be less fun than it sounds. Once again, sorry for dropping out like this.

[YellowCactus]

I'm changing to Mictlan! Blooooooooodddd!

[Ironhawk]

I took Gaap's hellsword away and the mod is now ready. In the end I decided not to mod in High Priests into base nations. It would be unfair to people not playing base. Players will just have to make creative use of Standard items I think http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Anyway, here are the mods for this game:

Age of Men Mods (http://benatar.snurgle.org:8080/~quinn/AgeOfMen.zip)

Go download them and start working on your pretender. I'm planning on a game start of Monday or Tuesday evening which should give people some time to get used to the mods and play a bit. I'll probably open up the server for uploading pretenders sometime on sunday - there will be a post when I do.

Now, as for maps, it looks like we have 8 players. Anyone have a suggestion for what to play on?

[Ironhawk]

So, I looked at a couple of maps just now... Seems like Inland might be a good one for us since no one is aquatic. But its just a little too big. If we had one additional player that would probably be just right.

Other than that, maybe Karan or Parganos? If people dont have an opinion about maps I will just pick one and you can all suffer with my choice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Cohen]

Parganos is known for his little cash income, I'd prefer Karan unless we use a rich setting Parganos.

[Wazooking]

Karan is fine, although I have had a start location that only had two connections, one to a water location.
On another note, could we turn off the score graphs?

[Ironhawk]

Ok, Karan it is. For anyone who does not already have the map, here is the link from the Illwinter website. Just download it and unzip it into your maps directory:

Karan Map (http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom2/karan.zip)

As for graphs: Nope I strongly prefer graphs on. I understand people's arguments against them but IMO, they relieve countless hours of tallying up all kinds of minutae about your opponents.

[Ironhawk]

Ok, the server should now be Online for pretender uploads. Connect at...

IP: benatar.snurgle.org
port: 2001

... game will begin when all pretenders are in!

Oh!! And everyone remember to password protect your pretender so there can't be any mixups.

[Ironhawk]

Oh, don't forget. Human pretenders only

[Ironhawk]

Hrrrrrrm! After thinking about it for a long while I have to bail on Pythium and switch to Arco. Without communicants pythium's mages just wont be able to deal with the number of troops we are going to see. Astral magic is too focused on single unit spells.

[Wazooking]

I think we only have 7 players in the game.
Yvelina bowed out earlier in the thread.

[Ironhawk]

Oh! Yvelina did indeed drop out. I hadn't even noticed, thanks for pointing that out Wazooking. In that case we have only one player left to upload and we can begin. I will send him a PM now. I was terribly afraid of the Vans in this game anyway so that is kind of a relief :}

[msew]

game Version to use is 2.15 correct? (i.e. the latest Version of the game as of today's date)

[msew]

can you site-search with solo mages?

[msew]

What are the rules for moving solo mages:

a) from forts to other forts
b) from forts to adjacent armies
c) from forts to armies in the field
d) from armies in the field to other armies in the field
e) from site searcing (if they can) to armies in the field
f) from an army in the field to solo sight searching (if they can)
g) from armies in the field BACK to a fort

[msew]

are mercs allowed?

[Ironhawk]

Yeah site searching is fine. To put any limitations on that would just make life hard for players.

Do try to be reasonable tho - it is not acceptable for a player to "just happen" to have a 5 air mage ready to cast wrathfull skies or something "searching for sites" along the border of a warzone http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Yes we are playing with v2.15, the latest.

BTW, everyone, msew was the Last player in, the game has now begun!

[Ironhawk]

Good questions msew. And... I had originally written up this long winded answer to each individual question. Which is just lame, no one is going to remember or care what you can or cant do in situation a, b, z, x, etc. So lets just restate the house rule with the following addition:

Mages cannot participate in combat without 25 troops per mage in combat with them.

Mages can move about however they want in any *friendly* province, but must have orders set to Retreat unless they are with an army or in a fort.

Now - before people start complaining about having to change orders all the time!! You dont need to reset the orders of every single one of your mages when they step out of a fort. Just be realistic: is this mage going sitesearching in friendly, safe provinces? Or moving from one fort to another in your empire? Then dont bother changing orders. But if you are sending a mage from a forward fort to an army in a warzone then you should definitely set them to retreat (until they arrive at the army).

I know its trouble to do this guys but I think its the solution that provides the most flexibility. You get the freedom of moving your mages around without worrying overmuch about rules or some huge list of situations you need to check against. And it still makes mages conform with the spirit of the Age of Men house rules.


msew said:
What are the rules for moving solo mages:

a) from forts to other forts
b) from forts to adjacent armies
c) from forts to armies in the field
d) from armies in the field to other armies in the field
e) from site searcing (if they can) to armies in the field
f) from an army in the field to solo sight searching (if they can)
g) from armies in the field BACK to a fort

[Ironhawk]

So, Cohen brings up an excellent point in his in-game message: How do we handle the situation of one player attacking and storming another players research center where they will be practically gauranteed of being over the 1:25 mage ratio. I'm going to think about it some today but does anyone have some suggestions?

[msew]

The purpose of the game is to make mages on "active" / "usable" when there are 25 non mage units.

When mages are out searching by themselves they must have their orders set to: "retreat".

If there are N mages out searching without troop support they must have all their orders set to: "retreat".


When mages are moving from army to army they have their orders set to: "retreat".

When mages are moving they have their orders set to: "retreat".


Okie. Cool. We all agree on that.


So: Now we have mages hanging out in their respective forts. Researching perhaps. Idling about. Just arriving from being out in the field. etc etc.

So by those rules ALL mages must have their default order be retreat. And only when they 25 non-mage units allocated to them may they choose to change it.


So if you have a research province all of the mages that do not have 25 non-mage units must have their orders set to retreat.



Consequences:

a) if all of your mages are concentrated in one area and can only retreat you better make certain they have a place to retreat from or you will lose them.

b) An enemy attacking a concentrated research province could massively disrupt your researching. And maybe kill off some mages in the adjoining provinces with secondary attacks

c) this stops the tactic of: making forts and dumping 10 mages that are "researching" and can defend that fort quite easily from the 50 unit 2 mage assault force

[Cohen]

So on who's got a Watchtower will be able to bring his retreating mages to safety, meanwhile who's picked a castle has his retreating mages trapped inside ... not fair.
I'd suggest you can't script any mages that excedes the limitations. The tactical AI will start to buff them with shields, and all other stuff, then start spamming crap spells.

I'd change too the "retreat" option of the site searching mages. Keep in mind in a such game, Provincial Defence could be worth. Indeed some nations get a mage too in Provincial Defence (for 20 men).
I'd apply for site searching mages, and all mages outside/inside castle without their 25 troops retinue, the rule of not being scripted.

Those cases are purely defensive however, in attack you're forced to the 25:1 ratio.

I'd suggest an exception for Mercenary mages, as they could be considered always active. They're avaiable for all, and this could enhance their value. Don't forget if they retreat you'll lose them. So I'd believe this could be fair.

To substitute the uber-micro needed for the "all retreat", according to my rule, we can add an string to the scripted mages, to check better if someone tries to trick the house rule, like "***" (three asterisks) at the end of the mage name, to identify him as scripted. (We will notice so on an F2-A1 mage scripted doing something like Air, Summon Phoenix Power, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball ... meanwhile an AI lead F2-A1 mage casting Air Shield, Fire Shield, Charged Body, Air, some buffs, then spamming spectral warriors or something like =P )

[quantum_mechani]

I would use msew's rules, with the exception of capitals (i.e., you can stack as many mages there as you want without retreat orders). This would allow everyone a safe research base, while keeping the mages out of battle most of the time. While this would make players hard to kill, this is not neccesarily a bad thing. Also, you could always 'starve' the capital mages out from lack of gold.

[Ironhawk]

It's really ridiculous that we are stalled again here for the 2nd day in a row. These should be 10-15 minute turns. To keep this from happening again I will be moving this game to 24hr quickhost once this current turn generates.

Additionally, if this current turn does not generate by 7pm Eastern US Time, I will force it. So, one way or the other, there will be a turn tonight and we will be on 24hr quickhost from here on out.

I'll send cohen a PM to warn him now as well since he is the only person out....

[YellowCactus]

Slow, deep breaths Ironhawk....
I'm the first to grumble when the turn isn't in, but lets keep in mind that this game isn't on quickhost. And even were we Quick Hosting, some players are going to stale. Complaining about it makes you feel better, but won't stop players from going out of town, or playing DaoC until they're blue in the face. So sharpen your pikes and host without them!
<Unless someone requests more time>
-Yc

[Ironhawk]

I'm not that upset, cactus. But its an adding insult-to-injury situation here, you have to give me that. I mean, not 2 turns ago I specifically sent out an in-game message asking people to respect the informal 24hr.

And of course I have no issues with people needing more time and going out of town, etc. But there was no communication to that effect. Coupled with the simplicity of these early turns some irritation is warranted.

Anyway, the game will be progressing tonight so there is that to look forward to.

[msew]

new turn is up

[Ironhawk]

I've put some thought into the "Researching Mages" house rule problem and I think msew's option is the only way to go. Cohen's suggestion is really nice cause you dont have to go through and set all your mages to Retreat, which is kind of tiresome. But the truth is that you cannot be 100% sure that unscripted mages will not cast important spells.

For example, if someone tried to attack a research center of my Arco Mystics they might be up against 10-15 of them. And I feel very sure that the first spell the AI would pick would be Mind Burn or something like that. 10-15 of those a turn would be a significant force on the battlefield. Not to mention my priestesses all casting Protection on my troops and continual SoCs.

So, unless someone can come up with a third option then we just have to set all mages to retreat. I suggest that you bind Retreat as a scripted order and just assign it to every new mage you recruit as they arrive.

As msew pointed out this decision has serious consequences. Even more than a normal game, you DO NOT want your research centers being stormed. :} Fill them up with skellies or vine men or something. Also, to address the point of fleeing from Forts: I believe that the fort type does not affect whether or not you can flee. So if you have a fort and Retreat from a Storm attempt you can still escape so long as there is a province to flee to.

[Ironhawk]

Hey all, just wanted to let you know that I am going to be gone from Feb. 8th to Feb. 13th. I'll be at the irl wedding of one of our fellow players, Tomahawk. Since I will be staying at his place for that period I should be able to continue to do turns, but perhaps not as quickly as when I was home. Just thought I would let you know in case I start causing slowdowns

[YellowCactus]

Dang Quanum...
You were a victim of co-incidence. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif
-Yc

[msew]

Or machinations!!!

[Ironhawk]

Heh, yeah. What happened Q? You posted your venegance message in the game but then the next turn (?) you were wiped out? I thought it would be a good 3-4 more. What is going on over on that side of the world?

[quantum_mechani]

msew said:
Or machinations!!!


And playing probably the worst nation in the game to be rushed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif. The troops sucked and the mages couldn't do anything...

I doubt even allies would have saved me with how fast Pan and Mictlan rolled over my junk armies.

[Ironhawk]

Let us have a moment of silence for the fall of Tien Chi.

...

Soon we know that thier proud people will be sacrificed in most horrific ways to feed the blood appetite of Mictlan.

[YellowCactus]

Sucks in the center!
<Looks about wearily>
-Yc

[Cohen]

Soon Marignon too will fall from the greek warmonger.

[Ironhawk]

Hahaha, yes perhaps the greeks will overrun you soon. But not if I keep making newbie mistakes like I did with those elephants!!!

Arrrg!! I can't believe it. I lined up ALL the reserve troops in that battle in the elephant-rout line. Such a newbie mistake.

In response to all teh Mystics killed under elephant feet in that battle, a joint Astrologer/Mystic agreement was signed to ban the use of elephants in all further combat.

[YellowCactus]

Thoughts on Age of man.
It's a fun concept. But for future games AoM needs it's own modded nations. For instance...Mictlan needs Non-mages who can lead it's summoned (National Troops FoD and Spine.D's) As is. The Mictlans can only lead 5, 10 or 15 of they're summoned troops, dependant upon the priest's B.magic. Mictlan needs a mod to give the tribal kings more suited leadership.
-Yc

[Wazooking]

Here is a different example of the 1 mage to 25 troop rule.

There is a certain army within my domain that has been whittled down to 2 mages and 20ish troops. The invading army is immediately surrounded by hostile provinces. With a strict interpretation of the rules, the army should try to get back to its own areas with its mages set on retreat. In this case, though, he would basically be throwing his troops and mages away.

Since we all agreed to these rules, it is fair for him to destroy his army. But for a future version of this theme, is that what we really want?

[YellowCactus]

Wazooking,
If you think I'm going to put HOURS into a game just to put my only commanders on retreat....Your off your rocker. I'm bringing up these problems to get some feedback. If the result is. "Oh yea, great point, play by the current rules". I'll go Ai and take my toys elsewhere.
-Yc

[Wazooking]

YC
I agree with you. If I were in the same situation, it would definately suck, that is why I am bringing it up.

[YellowCactus]

Okay, well. We'll figure something out.
-Yc

[Ironhawk]

Yeah the Age of Men concept isnt supposed to be about making life hard for the players. This army situation you two are discussing is clearly an extenuating circumstance. IMO, the army should be allowed to at the least use one mage as a leader to keep all his troops from fleeing without a fight. That said, the surrounded player should make some kind of effort to get the "over-quota" mages out of the fight or move in reinforcements and a regular non-mage leader to get the troop situation under control.

[Ironhawk]

Wow, good point YC. I hadnt even thought about blood nations leadership. Cause there are literally no non-mage leaders without blood magic, is there? Yeah thats a kick in the tail man, sorry. Wait... actually can't Bane Lords command blood units? Or some of the other big undead leaders? Of course that would make it a requirement for blood nations to have some death magic, which is a whole other story in itself.

So yeah, the changes I am thinking after playing so far are:
1) replace blood thorn with a +1 blood non-lifedrainer (its pretty hard to boost blood otherwise)
2) give mictlan some non-mage blood leadership (maybe other nations too? possibly i could add it to a common summoned commander like bane lords or firbolgs?)

[Ironhawk]

How are you all liking the game so far? I'm enjoying it pretty well. There are wars across the entire face of the world, which is great. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif And all the battles seem to be about troops vs troops. Mages are present, but they are only ... like an additional battlefield item, like Artillery, rather than an overwhelming battle-winner. I'm guessing that the human SCs will start popping up eventually, so it will be interesting to see those too.

[Sheap]

I'm Bender, baby, please insert girder!

I'm taking over for Tomahawk and will attempt to ... uh... well there's really not much left. I'll attempt to not hold up the turn. This should not be construed as proof of my existence for any other purpose.

Death and blood magic are interchangeable for purposes of leadership. Demonic units basically count as undead.

[Ironhawk]

Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Sheap. Welcome to the game. Incredible work in that comeback battle vs machaka. I'm curious to see if you can work a miracle twice! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[YellowCactus]

Well Wazooking,
You will beat me in the end, but I'll show you why it doesn't pay to take the map's center in the early game....I hope. Hehe. How long do you think this siege will last? I'm hoping for two seasons. (three more turns). Now if some nice false god would just forge some nifty items for my defenders.....All would be swell!
-Yc

[Wazooking]

Could we change the hosting to just quickhost from friday to tuesday? I probably will only be able to get in one turn during that time as I will be out of town.

[YellowCactus]

Oh well.
Looks like those 240 units finally broke throu this turn.

And no Ironhawk, there's nothing that can save the Mictlaners this game....besides an eternal stle by Pan. And that's worse than death!
-Yc

[Ironhawk]

Ok, wazooking. Do you want me to switch it right now? Or will you be able to turn today (friday)?

[Ironhawk]

The people of Arco are saddened to hear of the loss of our (more or less) peaceful blood-lovers to the east. It seems the forces of the nature-lovers have finally overwhelmed them.

[Wazooking]

Yes, please switch it. Thank you.

[Ironhawk]

I see that you just turned Wazooking. I'll switch it to untimed QH after Cohen turns. Let me know when you get back on tuesday.

[Wazooking]

I am back in town now. Thanks.

[Ironhawk]

Welcome back Wazooking. We are now back on 24 hour QH.

[Ironhawk]

First of all I want to congratulate Cohen on the innovative defense of his capital, Marignon. His use of fire-resistant units reduced my offensive power significantly. Unfortunately, I believe it was an excess of battle mages beyond the house rule limit which really turned this very close battle in his favor. His defending force of ~230 units should have made only 9 mages available for his use to defend the fort. But, none of his 21 mages retreated, instead choosing to cast both Holy Pyres and SoCs in abundance.

This kind of situation is exactly why I made the decision that we needed to enforce the house rules even during sieges. My original example of arco mages defaulting to casting Mind Burn (which i have quoted below) was put to shame when I saw all my troops being immolated by Holy Pyres and Fire Clouds.

So, can everyone please take a moment and check all your mages to make sure they are set to Retreat unless they have enough troops? Particularly you, Cohen: I don't expect to be facing more than a handful of mages when I re-storm.

Additionally, while most of my losses in this battle were exceptionally annoying - but replaceable - the loss of Pathos, my hero was not. It's my feeling that his loss was a direct result of the rules violation and I feel entitled to some kind of compensation.



Ironhawk said:
I've put some thought into the "Researching Mages" house rule problem and I think msew's option is the only way to go. Cohen's suggestion is really nice cause you dont have to go through and set all your mages to Retreat, which is kind of tiresome. But the truth is that you cannot be 100% sure that unscripted mages will not cast important spells.

For example, if someone tried to attack a research center of my Arco Mystics they might be up against 10-15 of them. And I feel very sure that the first spell the AI would pick would be Mind Burn or something like that. 10-15 of those a turn would be a significant force on the battlefield. Not to mention my priestesses all casting Protection on my troops and continual SoCs.

So, unless someone can come up with a third option then we just have to set all mages to retreat. I suggest that you bind Retreat as a scripted order and just assign it to every new mage you recruit as they arrive.

As msew pointed out this decision has serious consequences. Even more than a normal game, you DO NOT want your research centers being stormed. :} Fill them up with skellies or vine men or something. Also, to address the point of fleeing from Forts: I believe that the fort type does not affect whether or not you can flee. So if you have a fort and Retreat from a Storm attempt you can still escape so long as there is a province to flee to.

[Cohen]

Sorry I misunderstood, I read somewhere in capitol province mages can all defend the castle.

[msew]

Well cohen's empire seems to be dead. Or will be dead.

So maybe he gives arco all of his gems and magic items? Well actually, how much stuff do you have left?


I always found it odd that when you kill a nation that you did not get their stores of loot.

[Ironhawk]

Quantum suggested at one point that all mages be allowed to defended the capital. But I decided against that because it gives too much power to the defender.

Great defense again, btw. Tho I am very sad to have lost Pathos when he didnt need to die. Can you at least send back any equipment you captured and perhaps some gems?


Cohen said:
Sorry I misunderstood, I read somewhere in capitol province mages can all defend the castle.

[Ironhawk]

And so we bid a fond farewell to Mictlan, our (mostly) peaceful blood brothers to the east. The nation of Arco mourns your passing. I will sacrifice some virgins in your honor this month...

[YellowCactus]

"I'm not quite dead yet!"
-yc

[msew]

YellowCactus

check

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=335177&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=31&fpart=1#Post335838


you want to play?

[Ironhawk]

And so also passes the nation of Marignon. The people of Arco have a great respect for the tenacious warriors of Marignon. They will be remembered in our dramas and philosophic discussion for many years to come....

[Ironhawk]

Wazooking, it looks like I accidentally voilated the house rules when you remote summoned those wolves on Danklands. There was one mage there who had the requisite 25 men, but there was another mage who was sitesearching and I failed to set him to retreat.

As a penalty, I propose to send you 8 nature gems. This is only half the cost of Call of the Wild, I know, but I feel its valid since I had more than enough troops there to easily defeat the wolves anyway. So the sitesearcher didnt really turn the battle, he just sped things along. Let me know if that is acceptable.

[Wazooking]

Yeah, that sounds fine to me.

[Ironhawk]

Doh!!

I actually played my turn but I wasnt watching the clock and the turn generated without me noticing. Guess you catch a lucky break this turn, Wazooking http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Tho I probably wouldnt have resisted your poison force anyway. Regardless, I will get the gems to you this current turn.

[Ironhawk]

Hey Wazooking, did I ever send you those nature gems? I know I did in the turn where I staled, but of course that turn was rejected by the server. I was playing last night and I couldnt remember if I had sent them on the following turn?

[Ironhawk]

Arrrg!!!

I'm sorry Wazooking. Not once, but TWO TIMES this round I broke the house rules accidentally. First with the mage in transit you caught at Copper Woods. I had just recruited him and he was walking back to my capital. He was also the SOLE CAUSE to my beating you in that battle for which I am extremely sorry. Please name whatever penalty you feel appropriate and I will take it, which can include your taking and holding that province without attack for a limited time period to make up for my fumbling.

The second one was in The Darks. There I seem to have accidentally clicked on a third mage to join that force (only the two strong water mages were assigned to that squad). As your troops immediately routed he had no impact on that battle, but it is still disgraceful that I screwed up two times in a single turn.

[Wazooking]

As it is only a matter of time before I am out of the running, reparations you send to me would be fine.

[Ironhawk]

With my breakout in the mountains and victories in the seas, yeah I tend to agree with you. There isn't much of a way to pull out of this one. I've just built up too many troops and too much magic.

Do you want to call it a game? I know that msew (machaka) considers the game over and only checks his turns to see if there are any battles between us.

[msew]

are we going to actually bother playing anymore?

Arco played by Ironhawk has clearly won

[Wazooking]

Yes, lets stop. Ironhawk will pretty much steam roll all the way through the rest of my meager armies.

Congradulations and good game all.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah the steam roll is in effect. You've got a fair amount of troops left but the ratio b/w our empires just keeps getting wider.

Wooo! Long live the Arco nation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Thanks for the game guys I had a lot of fun. It was cool to see national troops in action for such a long period of time.