family vs family, the rematch

[Zooko]

We just finished a two-vs-two game:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Dom2MP&Number=325448&page= 0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=all

It was fun! I think we need a smaller map next time, but the basic concept of two-vs-two is great because:

1. It's a hot war the whole way, not a race. We didn't experience 50 or 100 turns of hoarding, racing for research, and conquering independents, but instead 15 turns of conquering independents followed by 35 turns of brutal combat. Whee!

2. It gave me an opportunity to chat with my partner a lot while planning our strategies, trading gold, gems, items, and intelligence. This made it more of a social occasion instead of a lonely hobby.


So, my partner and I are interested in another two-vs-two game. Please privately find a partner and agree to team up before you post to this thread.

I won't necessarily agree to play against whoever posts first or anything -- maybe I'll change my mind or something.

Does anybody know of a wrap-around map with only about 100 provinces? Or some other kind of map where there is a high chance that all enemies can reach each other?

Regards,

Zooko

[The Panther]

Hey Zooko. I would be interested in playing against you with my son as partner. It could be a family affair: Father and son vs two brothers! I have not talked to him, but I think he would be highly interested. The problem is that we are using the same CD key and would require a third party host (like Alneyan perhaps) to get around this problem. Or I could order another copy of Dom, but I was waiting for Dom 3.

As for the map, there are some smaller maps that are not wraparound. Using a third party as host, this is not a problem as the teams could be pre-placed on the map. This would work well, I believe.

I like the Zen mods too.

[Alneyan]

I could handle the hosting, so long as you do not mind PBEM and do not expect to be able to play several turns a day (I can usually run a turn in late morning or early afternoon GMT, some days in the afternoon, and in the evenings everyday).

Creating a specific map does not really require to have a third party host though: if you want the capitals to be known to all players, it only requires a public .map file made for this game. If you would prefer to keep the location of the capitals a secret, you would need someone to set up the game for you (and you would not get to see the .map file).

[Zooko]

I don't understand the problem about the CD key, or how third-party hosting helps.

I prefer TCP connection and the option of doing several turns a day.

Last time I hosted it on my server, which worked nicely. Even though I guess the CD key on my server is the same as the CD key on my laptop (which I used to play my turns).

It would be nice to have someone place the capitols for us without telling us.

Thanks for the offer of hosting and capitol-placing, Alneyan.

There is a map called Chandrea a.k.a. Dunken Donut that seems okay. It is 102 provinces, wrap-around, 17 water provinces. It seems like water movement is very important strategically, so perhaps we should agree at the start whether water-nations and water-movement themes should be allowed or not.

What do you think of that map?

[Alneyan]

The problem of the key is that Panther and Tauren are currently using the same key, but are no longer playing on the same computer (they used to, but I believe this is no longer the case). Having a PBEM hosting would allow the host to validate one of their turns with my own key; otherwise, one of them will not be able to play.

[Zooko]

Bleah.

What if one of them ran the host on the same computer as they played from? Would that avoid the problem?

But anyway, I'm willing to try PBEM. It would be cool if the server that sent the .trn files out could send my .trn file to both my brother and me and send his .trn file to both him and me.

[The Panther]

One of the early patches prevented two players from using the same CD key on two different computers, which was a HUGE pain to me. Since my son and I do not live together, we cannot make our respective moves from the same computer, no matter who hosts. A third party like Alneyan can use his own CD key to validate one of our moves, thus allowing it to work.

Also, I cannot commit to making more than one turn a day, for I have a job and many other things going on in my life. The advantage of the email system is that the moves host at the same time each day, so you don't have to constantly be checking if a turn is up or not. Also, it is far easier to recover from problems using email and games thus die much less often.

Interesting idea about the turn files. Looking at your partners position would surely make the coordination far mor robust. I can't see any reason why not to do that in a 2v2 game.

I have not looked at the map you suggested. Where can it be downloaded?

[Zooko]

Okay, I'm convinced. If Alneyan will host for us that would be very nice.

The map named Chandrea is available from this site:

http://www.dominions-2.org/index.htm

[Alneyan]

A PBEM game is indeed very unlikely to crash: even a major game bug can be recovered by rolling back one turn (or a few turns if it is really major), and I haven't heard of any such bug. I also have the fatherland files and the turn files backed on one mail, so a computer crash would not be enough to crash one of my PBEM games (and even if I were to disappear, Gandalf Parker could give you access to my mail, allowing the game to still go on).

Turn files can be sent to both players; that was my plan (and what I do in the Entwined Destiny game, where six teams of two players fight it out), and it is actually less work for me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif (Though separate mails only take a few more seconds per turn) You could also not set up any password, making it easier to browse the files of your team.

The map is available on Arryn's site I think: www.dominions-2.org (http://www.dominions-2.org)

I should learn to type faster. Either that, or I should be less verbose. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Alneyan]

What sort of manual placement would you like? The two teams starting near each other, several provinces away from the other side? The four capitals making a sort of square? (X provinces between all four capitals)

I can also keep the .map file a secret, so you wouldn't know where the enemy capitals are located, though you could expect them to be at the other end of the map. But with a warparound map, they could come from any direction, so you would still have to watch out for the other team.

[Zooko]

Hm. A wrap-around map is a torus. I.e., a donut. I'm picturing a donut in my head and trying to think of a fair way to place two teams of two. One way is to put them all in a row, i.e. all four capitols lie in a single line which is either horizontal or vertical. The order wouldn't matter as long as all four were in the same line.

The other would be, as you say, a square with a capitol at each corner. Again, which capitol was at which corner wouldn't make any difference.

Is that right?

[Zooko]

P.S. In both of these cases, the order doesn't matter but the spacing does! The line is fair as long as every capitol is equidistant from its two neighbors. The square is fair as long as the distance from each capitol to each of its two neighbors is equal to half of the length of the world.

Unless I'm confused.

[Alneyan]

Now that I have checked Chandrea, it appears that doing a balanced manual placement would be nigh impossible: there is one main island and a few isles, so everyone would probably have to start on the main island. Do you have any idea about how to put the players with this sort of map?

The square is probably the best (a line could be a problem, as you could only reach two capitals, and not the three of them), though I do not see how to make it work on Chandrea (it works well on a map like Inland though, but Inland has 150 provinces). Perhaps I could remove some of the provinces of Inland... Hmm.

[Zooko]

If it were in a line and partners were not adjacent to one another, then each person would be adjacent to his enemies and not to his partner, which would be fine.

If partners *were* adjacent to each other, then each person would be adjacent to his partner and to one of his enemies. That would be interesting, too.

Maybe some of us will play water nations? :-)

--Z

[The_Tauren13]

Looks like a cool map.

So, I was thinking that for choosing nations, we could have one team randomly get the first pick, and then the next team picks both of theirs, and then finally the first team picks again. I think that would be quite fair no matter who gets the first pick.

[Alneyan]

Hmm, a row might work out on that map, but I think everyone would have to start on the main island for it to work, so you would start very close to the other team. Then again, this is not necessarily a bad thing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

If nation waters are used (one per team I gather?), it may be easier to set up manual placement: the land player on the mainland, the water player in the sea, and half the land/sea away from the other team.

[Zooko]

The_Tauren13 -- your idea for fair nation choosing is to avoid conflicts when both teams want the same nation, right?

[The_Tauren13]

Yeah, thats the idea, as you cant have 2 players playing the same nation in 1 game.

[Zooko]

Okay, I guess that protocol will work for me. The map suggests 40% magic sites, and a house rule banning the building of fortresses on bridges. I don't really like house rules in general, but I don't know if there's some really good reason for that one. What do you think?

So I propose:

Ind Str 9
Magic Sites 40
Hall of Fame size 15

And let's use all the latest Zen Conceptual Balance mods!

[The_Tauren13]

Nah that seems like a cheesy house rule. I guess I can see why, but I dont think it would be a problem. I thought that the whole point bridges were separate provinces was so you could hold the choke points easier.

15 HoF for only 4 players? Seems a bit large. Im not a big fan of SCs and so, as a result, Im not a big fan of the 15 HoF everyone uses. But if you want it that way im ok; its not like it makes that big of a difference. All of Zen's mods? The spells, scales, artifacts, and pretenders? Sounds awesome!

[Zooko]

I wasn't even thinking of SCs! I just like having lots of heroes. :-)

But I'm perfectly happy to have any other setting for HoF. Currently I propose:

* all known Zen's balance mods
* Ind Str 9

everything else default

[The_Tauren13]

Sounds cool, I havent gotten to try out zens spell mod yet, but Ive been wanting to. Indy strength 9 works for me.

[Zooko]

Okay, who goes first on nation choice? I volunteer to go first on nation choice!

[Alneyan]

If you want the order to be random, Panther and Tauren go first (I just did an odd/even cast).

*Editing to get the Typo Fairy out of this post*

[Zooko]

Okay! Go ahead and announce one of your nations, then. :-)

[The_Tauren13]

Jotunheim

[The_Tauren13]

So.. now you pick both of yours

[Zooko]

Which Zen's balance mods are we using, again? I just looked at his site:

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

and it looks like the current ones are:

Pretender Gods 2.0
Spells 1.8
Scales 1.2

[The Panther]

Those are the three mods I downloaded. Too bad he does not have the item mod done, as that one would be really nice to nerf the much-too-cheap artifacts like life drain and clams. Though, on a small map playing a 2v2, I don't think that hoarding clams would be a winning strategy.

[Zooko]

Yes, I think many of the alleged balance problems in Dom2 disappear when you play on a small map with only two teams...

[The_Tauren13]

So, uh, how about those nations? Any time now...

[Zooko]

I'll ping my partner. He's been unresponsive recently.

[Zooko]

He's having trouble downloading and installing the map.

We'll keep you posted.

[arc]

I'm alive. Prefer not more than one turn per day. Like the 48 hours quikhost set-up used with Zook last game.
Sorry about the latency, has to do with distracting real life stuff ;-p.

[arc]

OKay, so Chandrea?
Nations?
Sorry so late!

[Zooko]

Tauren has announced Jotunheim. arc and zooko are supposed to announce their nations now. That requires us to make up our minds...

[Chazar]

Sorry for interrupting your thread, but since you are thinking about using my Chandrea map:

I have a revised version of Chandrea almost ready - if you are interested, you can have the files right away as they are currently! I will be reachable for the next couple of hours. However, the revision requires a revised .tga file as well (a concern if you are using a slow internet connection).

The changes so far are:

- 3 fixed neighborships
- the big water province with the logo has been split into two, limiting water movement a bit
- bridges are kept as small provinces, but their neighborship is limited to land provinces now
- terrain changes: one more swamp and waste each instaid of plains
- defaultmapzoom added
- every city now has a feudal population
- every city now has an Iron Mine, Otzburg has a mine of superior Iron
- starting positions are restricted to the cities for land dwellers


The second and third tries to reduce the importance of water movement a little bit.

The last two address the problem that there are simply not enough resources on all those large farmland cities. (Note that starting locations will ignore the large/farmland flag, but will have the added iron mine.)

So if you want the revised files, use the private messaging of this board to tell me an email address where I should send the files to (5MB) since I cannot put them on a server myself.

----

As for placing: I did not follow your discussion closely but wrap around west-east is far smaller than north-south, so horizontally placing allies might be sensible... Note further that the big island is somewhat divided by the mountains, I am currently thinking of dividng it even more...

---

...please post your feedback about my map in the map thread, linked in my signature below!

[The Panther]

I am certainly interested in using the updated map file. We will not be getting this game started soon anyway. So, it you want to finish it and post the file here in the forum, I will download it and look it over.

Thanks for all your work on the map.

Panther

[Alneyan]

On another note, perhaps you could suggest two starting points Chazar? I have trouble seeing how a wrap-around map plays, so that may be better for the players.

[Zooko]

Yes, arc has finals this week, and I have a product beta this week...

[Chazar]

Sure, no problem. My problem is my PhD Thesis, which needs to be finished real soon, which delays my work on the map. My main problem therefore is the lack of time for testplaying...

However, I am considering the following further things before releasing it:

* Cities are the key of this map, especially if playing with victory points (two per city, one per many site province, 38 total - should help dominion kills, BTW). So in addition to boost defense by feudal poptype, I am thinking about adding one or two mage commanders to each city.

* I am pretty unsure about the sailing routes. The shipping lines are there to connect the islands for nations that cannot cross water easily, but the shipping lines also improve the capabilites of flyers greatly. Not sure if I should add or remove some shipping lines

As for the starting locations: The map was intended for crowded 6-10 player games. Using the cities as starting provinces spreads things out neatly, since capitals are never placed adjacent. I will ask my friends who did a 4 player game about suitable starting locations for a team game...
(maybe I should erase this post so that I do not clutter your game thread and place it into the map thread were it belongs...)

Its nice to know that someone is using the stuff one has done! Have fun with it and tell me were it needs tweaking. PM me when you are going to start in the case that I could not manage to finish it by then...

[Zooko]

Well, I think arc will be ready to play again soon, because I believe he said that he had an exam Friday, and it is now Saturday. We'll see!

[The_Tauren13]

Well??? Are we going to actually play this game or just talk about it?

[Zooko]

I dunno -- I'm waiting on my brother.

I'll give him a call.

[Zooko]

Okay, my brother is finally read to make a strategy with me. We'll get back to you soon.

[arc]

Well, what's the hold up? Are we gonna' play or what? ;-)

[arc]

I grabbed the new version of Chandrea. Which are we playing with? What's the server IP, and port number?

[Zooko]

Okay, arc is playing Caelum and I'm playing C'tis.

:-)

[Zooko]

Where'd you get this new version of the map?

[The Panther]

I will take Vanheim. I will also email our host for the particulars. We do all have to be sure and use the same map version.

Looks like we are using all of the finished three zen mods, which is good. What are the other settings?

I would vote for graphs off. Other than that I don't care much. Maybe hard research and 50% sites and 9 indies too. HoF 10? Whatever, just let us know...

[Zooko]

I haven't found a new version of the map yet. I don't care much about any of the other settings either!

Let's use all of Panther's suggestions unless someone objects:

graphs off
hard research
50% sites
9 indies
Hall of Fame 10

[Zooko]

Okay, I guess the next step is everyone e-mail your god file to Alneyan?

[Zooko]

What's Alneyan's e-mail address? Is the god file the one in the "newlords" directory, named ctis.2h?

[Zooko]

alneyan@fastmail.co.uk

[The_Tauren13]

Those settings work for me, and I'm ready to start! I thought Chazar said his new version wasnt ready yet. Ill PM him...

[Chazar]

Hi again! I did not receive a pm yet, so if you still want the updated version, tell me where to send the files...feel free to reach me via steffen dot jost at web dot de.

[The_Tauren13]

Could you maybe attatch them for download on a post in this thread?

[Chazar]

No, the files are too big. Maybe I will have some time on this weekend, so that I release it anyway...

[The_Tauren13]

Post deleted by The_Tauren13

[The_Tauren13]

Or, you could just post the updated map file here, assuming we can use the same targa file that we have...

[Alneyan]

I got the gods for C'tis and Jotunheim, so I am missing two such files, and I have downloaded the newer version of the game.

Did we reach some sort of agreement on starting positions? A row was mentioned, but I do not believe it was agreed on. Alternatively, I can just let the computer put you randomly, and check for balance afterwards.

If I missed something in the thread, please feel free to point it out again; I haven't exactly been online often this week, so I may have overlooked posts or mails.

[The_Tauren13]

I think randomized should be fine.

[The_Tauren13]

He has 3 new map versions: one with no bridges, one with wizards in the indy cities, and one with nothing special.

I vote for using the one with bridges and without wizards.

[Zooko]

Fine with me!

[The Panther]

Um, another map error - Province 98 shows up as a sea province.

[Zooko]

Alneyan wrote:

> I got the gods for C'tis and Jotunheim, so I am missing two such files, and I have downloaded the newer version of the game.

What newer version of the game? I have Dominions II 2.15 here.

[The_Tauren13]

The newer version of the map (chandrea2).

Alneyan, do you think you could make the changes for province 98?
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
#landname 98 "Tongariro"
#terrain 98 24
</pre><hr />

Do we also have to make those changes to our map files, or just the host?

[Chazar]

AFAIK, just the host. Players only need the .tga file.

[Alneyan]

The change will be made, and the players will indeed not need to do it themselves.

I have received Panther's god, so I am only waiting for one file from the other side (not C'tis played by Zooko, but the other nation).

[The_Tauren13]

Cool. Thanks a bunch for hosting this for us!

[Zooko]

What effect have the victory points? Do they determine who wins? Do they spread dominion? The dominion doc says that victory points spread dominion as if they were a temple and you had starting dominion 4 -- i.e. every turn they have a 40% chance of generating a dominion point.

But does that apply in this game? Or only in games where the victory condition is victory points?

[The Panther]

They spread dominion regardless of the victory settings. I think they count as 5 points of spread no matter what your dominion strength.

[Zooko]

Thanks!

[Zooko]

My e-mail is currently down, and has been for two days. I expect to have it working again sometime today.

[Alneyan]

No update on when your mail will come back online?

[Zooko]

I'm sorry. I can send mail, and by the end of today I'll be able to receive mail.

Meanwhile, the Mac laptop that I used to play dom2 on is broken, so hopefully I can just put the .trn file onto my Linux desktop and then make my move?? I hope that works.

--Z

[Alneyan]

It should work just fine; the hard part was getting Dominions to run on Linux.

[Zooko]

Okay, I'm downloading chandrea2 from the thread on this forum. I hope the version I get is compatible with our game.

[The_Tauren13]

Im going to be honest with you. This game is going nowhere. Panther and I have seriously considered finding some real opponents to play against if you guys dont clean up your act. Forgive my bluntness, but its taken us 2 weeks do play the first 3 turns. At this rate Ill be married with 6 kids before we finish.

[Zooko]

I'm sorry about the various delays. I now have e-mail &amp;cetera working, so I don't anticipate more such delays.

My laptop hard drive crashed, you see.

I had been intending to send a message apologizing for the extended delay.

I think you were unnecessarily rude. You could have asked for us to play more quickly in a polite way, and it would have been at least as effective as asking in a rude way.

If you don't think you're going to enjoy this game, then by all means do something else with your time. If you do think that you are going to enjoy this game, then I'm glad to continue playing, and please be more polite next time.

Regards,

Zooko

[Zooko]

I think Arc is writing and/or defending a thesis. I haven't spoken to him (despite my attempts to do so), but I have a reliable third-hand report that he hardly slept at all last week.

In any case, I made his move for him, so the game can continue!

--Zook

[Zooko]

Oh-ho! A Vanheimish scout thought that he could have a Caeliumish province for free, did he? This calls for a graemlin!

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

--Bwoony the Great and Terrible God and Refreshing Spring Water

[The Panther]

Ah, it was worth a try! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

[PashaDawg]

Watch out for the New Mexican Cat... he's sneaky.

[Zooko]

Who, Vanheim? My scouts have definitely reported to me that Vanheim has no military units whatsoever. No need to worry about him.

[The Panther]

Be afraid, be very afraid...

[Zooko]

Uh-oh! Apparently my scouts failed to notice the EIGHTEEN CAVALRY-SIZED MAGICAL MONSTERS bearing FLAMING SWORDS. Perhaps it was because they were so glamorous and these lizard scouts have no eye for fashion.

[Zooko]

To: Her Highness Ambrosia, Feeder on Impurity, God of Magma, etc. etc.

From: Bwoony, God of Invincible Power, Lord of Dreams, Vengeful God and Refreshing Spring Water

Dear Beloved Sister:

Our trap has sprung perfectly! The foolish Van has delivered many of his glamorous flaming monster horsemen into my territory. However, I seem to have lost some of our notes. What was I supposed to, again, after the enemy conquers all of my provinces and besieges my castle?

I eagerly await your reply,

Your Eternal Brother,

Bwoony

[The Panther]

To Bwoony, Eternal brother of Her Highness Ambrosia and False Pretender of the Lizards.


My dear soon-to-be-departed enemy:

I think the plan was to put a lasting disease on the glamorous flaming monster horsemen to cause their eventual death after you are dead. That way, the Angels of Caelum could invade the monsters of Vanheim and easily kill off those wandering monsters.

At least that part of the plan seems to be working, except for the minor problem of having some random giants in the way.


Your conqueror,
Lord Fawkes, The True Pretender of the Sailors of Vanheim

[Zooko]

hello. I'm having a mail outage. This normally doesn't happen this often, really.

[Alneyan]

I have just sent the following mail:

Greetings,

I have received files for Vanheim and Jotunheim; Caelum and C'tis files appear to be incorrect however (2.5 kb and 5 kb for those files), as Dominions cannot recognise them.

Alneyan

[Zooko]

From: Bwoony the Great, The Vengeful God, He Who Watches, Master of the Four Seasons, The Refreshing
To: All

I'm not dead yet!

[Zooko]

Okay, now I'm dead!

There's one thing that I'm very disappointed about: I was hoping to kill your prophet with my assassins, but I accidentally told one of the three to stay home and defend the castle. Perhaps it was because I touched his magical items after I had told him to assassinate and in doing so I unwittingly reset him to "defend". Not sure. Anyway, good game!

I'm still in the game, because I'm acting as Lord Chamberlain, Secretary, Science Advisor, and Minister of War for Her Majesty Ambrosia, Queen of the World.

[The Panther]

Good game, Zooko. I did get lucky by not losing my prophet OR my Einhere during the seige. And, another thing that is very nice indeed, neither are poisoned!

Of my 22 vans, only 6 have escaped without disease. As for my Huskarls, I have but 8 of them without disease. Fighting against 10 base-dominion Miasmi C'tis is definitely costly, even when you win the war.

Now, on to the other false pretender Ambrosia! She will be next on the chopping block. The invasion has begun...

[Zooko]

Well, remember those 5 Empoisoners who threw themselves beneath your hooves early in the invasion? I am very regretful that I stupidly sent them to that province (even though a scout had just seen your Vans invading the adjacent province). It was a blunder on my part.

My strategy *had* been to hide in my castle until you broke the walls and then assassinate your commanders, but I had too few Empoisoners left at that point.

Anyway, I hope that my nasty attrition strategy has slowed you down enough for Caelum's purposes. :-)

[Zooko]

Ambrosia:

Take heart! The great gale of Caelian magic has risen and now sweeps across the provinces, scattering our foes like leaves before it!

I will send you updated reports as appropriate.

Your devoted servant,

Your Secretary of Military Affairs,

Bwoony the Lizard God In Exile (Permanent)

[The Panther]

My dear Ambrosia,

Your whimsical, lone flights of fancy around the land has come to a screeching halt.

I am still chuckling over the fact that you died to a province revolt after the giants used up all your gems for summoning elementals during the battle!!!


The true pretender,

Fawkes of Vanheim

[Zooko]

Yes, yes. The Hall of Fame tells me that you've bitten the dust more than once yourself. However, as I wasn't there I don't know any details with which to needle you.

[Zooko]

I surrender!

The Great Combined Empire of Starts With C has been defeated, never again to
rule the small toroid planet. At least... Not until the next Age begins.

[Zooko]

Until this turn, I thought there was a chance Caelum could get back on top of both of her assailants.

Until this turn, Caelum had decisively won every encounter in which she deployed Elementals. (Except for those darned independent knights.)

However, in this turn both of her armies of Seraphs were chewed up by flying demons before they could cast, thus ending the game.

Now, I studied Construction up to level 4 so that I could create Staves of Storms, but I didn't have the air gems to construct one since I was pumping air gems into the field.

So one possible thing that Caelum did wrong was not searching for magic sites earlier and more thoroughly?

I ask your advice, oh great conquerors, so that I may use it to destroy you in a future life.

[Zooko]

Ctis had never planned to invade Vanheim. In fact, he didn't even count on surviving until the end of the war. But he *had* planned to survive a lot longer than he did. If I hadn't made several blunders and thrown away valuable assassins and Poison Slingers, then I might have defeated the first wave of Vanheim (since Vanheim didn't choose to allocate powerful troops to bodyguard duty, except for two Fey Boars, both of which were dead by the end).

My questions for Vanheim are: 1. Were you earning substantial income from the formerly-Ctissian provinces before you banished Bwoony, or did the Miasma successfully suppress your income from those provinces? It was Bwoony's strategy to soak up both your time and your money (where diseasing your magical super cavalry counts as soaking up both). 2. Were you earning substantial income from the formerly-Ctissian provinces after banishing Bwoony? I would guess so. 3. Was this added income, in your opinion, necessary for your successful team attack on Caelum?

Any other general pointers?

[Zooko]

Maybe I should have hired flying troops to keep the devils and fiends away from my Seraphs for a few turns, instead of hoping to build Staves of Storms. But by the end-game there, I had little gold income after upkeep. Hm.

Another thing is that perhaps Caelum should have studied Evocation before Conjuration. It was great fun having the Elementals, but the Lightning Bolts could have started flying earlier and helped Caelum expand wider.

In general, both Ctis and Caelum expanded too slowly due to holding back from attacking independents when they should've attacked, and due to attacking independents when they shouldn't have. ;-) (The latter error was more common when I was the military secretary of Caelum.)

Neither of us ever properly scouted Vanheim, so I don't know how many provinces he controlled before invading Ctis.

[Zooko]

Good game, you guys. I really enjoyed playing against you because I felt like I had to do my best if I wanted to have a fighting chance. I enjoyed seeing the two of you cooperate, such as when a Jotun army including his prophet headed for Ctis before turning back when his Vanheimish partner reported that Ctis was already helpless.

Thanks for the game!

I'm sorry for the numerous and extensive delays. If we ever play against one another again, you can be sure that:

1. My primary computer for e-mail, dom2, and most other things won't experience filesystem corruption and go out of service for a month, forcing me to set up a replacement.
2. My server that hosts my e-mail, web site, and mailing lists won't be hacked, forcing me to set up a replacement.
3. My brother won't do all his final exams, write an undergraduate thesis and graduate Magna Cum Laude. Hooray for arc!

So anyway, next time arc and I play dom2, things will probably go a lot smoother.

[Zooko]

The two-vs-two format is excellent! The games are fast as furious. You get to chat with your partner so that you are socializing with your friend or relative instead of playing a computer game all by yourself. If one player is unable to play his turns his partner can do them for him. Strategies can be more varied since one team member can help the other one out on his weak points.

In general, the two-vs-two format is a superb format. The only drawback that I can think of right now is that there aren't very many maps that are the right size and shape for 2-v-2.

[Zooko]

I like the Chandrea2 map. It is okay to look at, although not as pretty as the Cradle of Dominion map. It is also small enough and densely connected enough to be suitable for the 2-v-2 format.

It could stand some improvement, though, on "intuitive province connections".

In particular the various kinds of "lines" -- province boundaries, roads, rivers, shipping lanes prevent me from easily seeing the relations between provinces. And in general it isn't intuitive to me which provinces connect to which other ones, and in fact my biggest blunder of the game was perhaps partially due to my not thinking of the fact that province 81 connected directly to province 71. (Although I was certainly aware of that fact and had in fact moved a scout from 81 to 71 earlier in the same move!)

Another example question is why Altdorf City connects to Wasser Marsh but not to Bruh Rogg or Oxmoor.

For comparison, when I earlier played a game on the Cradle of Dominion map, I played the entire game with the "province connector arrows" turned off, except for the occasional double-check. In Cradle of Dominion, once you have looked at the province connect arrows a couple of times, you can confidently remember most of the connections, because those provinces "look" like they should be connected when looking at the map.

[Zooko]

Did you think that your prophet Voldemort and your other commanders were in danger of assassination? Did you consider allocating more troops to bodyguard duty but then decide not to do it?

I remind you that when Voldemort conquered Ctis's home castle, he had 3 hit points due to the extreme fervour of the local Ctissian worshippers.

It was really my blunder that I didn't assassinate all three of your commanders, thus breaking the siege, by sending seven assassins. Instead I sent only two assassins (having thrown five under the hoofs of your cavalry and having accidentally left one to guard the fort). Those two assassins killed one of your commanders and the remaining Fey Boar bodyguard of Voldemort.

However, I think if you had allocated four or five heavy infantry to each of those commanders then even my seven assassins might have failed to kill all of them.

[The Panther]

Oh vanquished foes Bwoony &amp; Ambrosia:

Let's see, where do we begin?

1. I think your first mistake with the lizards was the choice of castle. Playing Miasmi, you want a fort with huge defense. The 50 admin and 500 supply on the Fortified City was not near as important as the too-low 100 defense. Had you taken the Hill Fortress or Dark Citadel, I might still be seiging it. And for sure, every single troop on the seige would have been poisoned before it was all over. I would have been vectoring in troops non-stop to maintain the seige and it would have been a far, far longer time before I sailed onto Caelum's island.

2. Your next mistake was compounded by the castle choice. Because it was 5 turns and 750 gold, you could not build one for a long, long time. This may have influenced your decision to build 3 uprotected temples. That 600 gold could have been far better used for nearly anything else. I know the dominion spread was your goal, but it is abysmally hard to spread dominion (even at the 10 level), into enemy provinces. You did spread your dominion slightly into my territory, but it was only 1 province deep and I concentrated hard on preaching it away since I had found a Devil's Den there. Thus, your dominion never impacted my territory at all and there was practically no income loss, as the Devil's Den requires a tax rate of 50 anyway to maintain order. As for spreading your dominion into Jontunheim, he was just too far away to have much of an impact there.

3. Losing the 5 empoisoners to the vans was nothing but a big fat blunder. Everybody makes blunders in every game. Some big, some minor, but mistakes will always happen over the course of a long game. That happened to be a big one as you already noted.

4. As for the assination strategy, I am not certain it would have worked. My prophet and Einhere both got skull talismans from the first encounters and thus could spam just as many skeletons as were you. Plus the level 4 prophet banishment was a huge factor in my favor as well as was the summoning of the ghost wolves. Even with only 3 HP, I don't think you could have assinated him with 10 or more empoisoners. The hero Einhere with the skull talisman would have been even harder to kill than the prophet. However, had they become diseased and afflicted from the Miasmi, that would have been a totally different story. Again, this goes back to the initial castle choice.

5. Your Caelum design was well-conceived. You used the improved elementals under Zen's mods to very good effect. When I first saw the Caelum pretender with the four elemental paths, I could not understand what the heck was going on with him. But when I saw him in action spamming elementals, I was very impressed. So was Tauren, since he was on the receiving end big time agian and again.

6. Flying your pretender into enemy territory alone was eventually going to catch up to you. But you were desperate by that time and had to take risks. It is hard to fault that plan, even when it crashed and burned.

7. My pretender never did truly die. When you see a pretender with 3 deaths at the top of the HoF on turn 15, that can only mean immortal. And when you see Vans with Fire 9 + Air 5 bless, that must be a Phoenix. In fact, Fawkes is the name of the phoenix in the Harry Potter books, so I thought it was obvious. I lost my bird twice trying to stubbornly take a vine province. The phoenix simply cannot kill Dark Vines, for they have too many HPs. I lost him the third time because he was feeble-minded and I did not notice when I sent him in. I was more careful after that and Fawkes was taking territory unterrupted at the end, solidly at the top of the HoF.

8. You could have had a better searching strategy, but that is kind of minor on such a fast map. Both Tauren and I had a huge stockpile of gems at the end that we could not spend.

9. Vanheim has a huge advantage on this particular map. The sailing ability is almost unstoppable. I can strike practically anywhere with no risk of retaliation. In fact, I just checked the current turn and I had 31 vans, 8 Huskarls, 4 devils, 8 horned serpents, 5 cave drakes, and 4 wyverns which would be arriving on your island over the next several turns. And many more to come after those. All with no worry about losing provinces on my homeland since fliers cannot go over water. My son and I agonized over taking Jontunheim instead of Vanheim with our first chioce but eventually decided you two were far more likely to grab the giants instead of the sailors. It worked out for us in the end. Plus Tauren discovered the Frost Fiend strategy and was highly enamored with it. In Cold 3, Frost Fiends are even superior to devils!

10. The map Chandra still needs some work. The iron mines in every city is probably a mistake, especially sonce you cannot play Mictlan with that. The C'tis starting spot was horribly inferior to the other three nations. Plus, as you said, there are still province connections that are not intuitive. And four players is probably all the map can handle.


I really like this 2v2 format a lot. It radically changes your thinking knowing that you are totally at war on the very first move. You MUST build armies as soon as you can or you will get overrun. Level 1 and 2 summons are important to supplement your army! Magic is not the dominating force like it is in the big FFAs. And having a partner talk over things makes for a better overall strategy. My son and I discussed this game endlessly over many a lunch in the past few months. It was too bad that your brother was so busy with school that he did not play much. I think that he would have throughly enjoyed this game too had he the time to do so.

And if you guys want a rematch, we are game. Different map, though, for this map is still not quite right.


Finally, I want to really thank Alneyan for hosting this game. As always, he was a superb host. I do hope to meet up with him when I am in France in June so I can buy a lunch for him! In a very interesting coincidence, my daughter happens to be an exchange student at the very same school in France which Alneyan attends!!! Odd, but true.


Fawkes of Vanheim (aka, The Panther)

[Alneyan]

The Panther said:
1. Playing Miasmi, you want a fort with huge defense. The 50 admin and 500 supply on the Fortified City was not near as important as the too-low 100 defense. Had you taken the Hill Fortress or Dark Citadel, I might still be seiging it. And for sure, every single troop on the seige would have been poisoned before it was all over. I would have been vectoring in troops non-stop to maintain the seige and it would have been a far, far longer time before I sailed onto Caelum's island.




*Takes notes* Lovely! I so love being besieged that I should go with Miasma and a big fortress; getting the Iron Walls/Arcane Masonry spells to work would only make it twice as fun. Thanks for the tip Panther; now I merely need to grow fond of everything else in C'tis.

[Zooko]

Thanks a lot for the tips! I hadn't really noticed that the Fortified City had significantly weaker walls than the others.

I would love to play you guys again, and I'll bet arc would too. But what map would we use?

[The_Tauren13]

The fortified city completely fails. The 5 turns and huge cost to build is hardly worth the little extra admin you get. The 500 supply is not really worth much, either. Nobody needs that much supply... I think taking the fortified city was my single biggest blunder in KotH. (Well, maybe not. I had some pretty big blunders. Like not even knowing what a dome was and how important they are.http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif)

I agree with Panther that the temples were a bad idea. With 10 base dominion, as long as you keep your God and prophet alive (and your God was immoble so that wasnt a problem), your dominion will spread well enough. Alternatively, I would have taken a watch tower and built one for every temple. For 2.5 times the cost, you can make your temple *much* harder to destroy, not to mention having another location to build troops and mages, and the extra pretender points so you wouldnt have had to take that drain. Also then, with your nice order and productivity scales, you could have built those troops with the castle defense bonus (whatever theyre called) and stuck about 10 them in every tower. Vans are not very good at seiging, so that would have made your territory take forever to capture, meaning more deseased Vans.

I had some serious expanding issues this game as well. My god died early on to a lucky sleep-casting indy druid, and I had no priests to recall him. I didnt get him back untill like 2 turns before you resigned... Also, I sacked my prophet, a couple niefel giants, and a few HoF herses to about 40 heavy cavalry... certainly was NOT expecting that many... and so between losing my god and losing my army, my expansion came to a complete halt. I had better luck in test games; I was able to take 1 province/turn starting on turn 1 (yes, my god and starting troops could actually win 90% attacking blind against level 9 indys) and continuing indefinitely. No such luck here, though.

I was also doing a poor job of spending gems. I was using all my mage-time to blood hunt and summon frost fiends, so I had no research. IIRC, at the end, I had about 100 death and water gems piled up, and had just sent about 50 nature gems to Panther so he could start making horned serpents.

The elemental strategy was pretty painfull; I found that even my niefel giants had no hope of getting anywhere near the mages. So I just went all-out frost fiends, figuring flight was what I really needed. I really fell in love with frost fiends in my test games. Not only do they look really cool, in cold 3 they become stronger than devils for less the cost. They get +1 protection, strength, attack, and defense for every cold level, and in a Jotunheim vs. Caelum war, there will be cold everywhere. However, If you would have gotten staffs of storms out, I would have had no answer. But I guess its kind of hard to get that research when your mages are all busy fighting...

Looking at how well Panther was doing, I think he may have been able to win all by himself. His gem income was going through the roof from all the dark knowledge and gnome lore, he had huge Gold income after capturing Ctis's capitol (it had like 350 income!), and the sailing was a major advantage on this map. Not to mention Vans cost about half of what theyre worth. I think with a fire 9 bless theyre worth more like 150 gold. Also, Panther had the best starting spot out of all of us by quite a long shot. I dont think that map is too well balanced. I actually liked the older version better, where you started outside of the cities, and they didnt have the mines. But that version had a couple terrain and neighbor problems.

Anyway, Im game for a rematch. Hopefully Arc could actually get a chance to play it.

[The Panther]

One other thing about the assasination strategy. I did make a big mistake by not assigning adequate bodyguards to my 3 HP prophet. The fey boars were on bodyguard duty just to keep them out of harms way and prevent them from dying during a battle. I had them along solely for the 20 supply bonus, as vans do eat a lot at size 3.

While I was seiging your castle, all I had to do was put ALL my vans on bodyguard duty until the walls fell. Then there would have been exactly zero chance of ever losing my prophet to any number of assasinations.

And so, I just learned yet another key bit of information from this very game!

As for the map choice, I think that there are a lot of good maps about 100 size or less that are not wraparound. And I also think wraparound is much less important in a 2v2 than in an FFA, especially if we go with preplaced starting spots.


Panther

[Alneyan]

The Panther said:
While I was seiging your castle, all I had to do was put ALL my vans on bodyguard duty until the walls fell. Then there would have been exactly zero chance of ever losing my prophet to any number of assasinations.



Beware! Armies with only bodyguard units rout as soon as *one* unit/commander is killed. I do not know if you are aware of this fact, but it cannot hurt to point it out. It would hurt a lot to lose half your army because of that, in case the besieged try to attack you with more conventional means.

[The Panther]

Alneyan said:
Beware! Armies with only bodyguard units rout as soon as *one* unit/commander is killed. I do not know if you are aware of this fact, but it cannot hurt to point it out. It would hurt a lot to lose half your army because of that, in case the besieged try to attack you with more conventional means.



Ah, I did not know that. So the best strat would have been to put 5 vans on bodyguard duty and leave the rest on attack closest. With the fire 9 bless, 5 vans could have won dozens of assasination battles anyway.

[Zooko]

Yeah. Those blessed Vans could clean up my assassins even if there were only one Van per leader.

Too bad I fumbled all my assassins and didn't teach you this lesson the HARD way. ;-)

[Zooko]

I'm getting all excited about designing a new nation/pretender strategy... ;-)

[Zooko]

As per the "micromanagent and balance issues are due to Free-For-All" concept, I'm not so hot on Zen's Balance Mods anymore.

For example, his mods eliminate Wish. Is too much Wishing going to be a problem in any 2-vs-2 game? I think not. If anybody takes a strategy where they are able to cast Wish, then more power to them.

The Pretender Balance Mod might be okay, though, as that is intended to balance things right at opening and early game.

[Zooko]

Yes, I really like that strategy of Niefelheim, Green Dragon, 9 Nature. That is, in fact, the strategy I used in the previous game, which was the first 2-v-2 game that arc and I ever played. Our team won that time, in large part to due the early and powerful attack of the berserking regenerating Niefel giants.

I agree that you got unlucky.

I'm surprised that it took you so long to recall your god -- didn't you hire lots of Jotun Jarls and Jotun Godes? I recall seeing a few.

I noticed you didn't have any Niefel Jarls. If I were playing that strategy I might have begged my partner for a loan of gold in order to hire a Niefel Jarl right away. :-)

[The_Tauren13]

To tell the truth, Im not a big fan of the Niefel Jarls. I prefer getting 2 Skratti (meaning a bunch of frost fiends http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) rather than 1 Niefel Jarl...

I didnt stress to much on trying to recall my God. He needed a time out for bad behavior http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Zooko]

:-)

So what is another map that is a reasonable size for a two-vs-two game? I've looked around and haven't seen any.

[The Panther]

Tauren and I discussed this at length yesterday and came up with...

Desert Eye (125/17).

It is smaller than Inland (154/5) and larger than Chandrea (103/18). It also has the HUGE advantage of being wrap-around, which means we can have random starting spots. It also allows a water race if someone was so inclined to select one. There are other options, like Aran (107/11) or Tyrande (103/21) or Northwest Middle Earth (119/6) or even a random map, but we might have to use fixed starting spots because none of those are wrap-around.


You guys get the first and fourth pick this time.

[Zooko]

Shall we use Zen's Pretender Mods and Zen's Scales Mods but not Zen's Spell Mods ?

[The Panther]

I really like Zen's spell mods. It makes the T'ien Ch'i national spells castable, thus giving that nation a fighting chance. It also fixes a lot of the weaker summons, making them definitely worth casting. Additionally, it rightfully nerfs Flames from the Sky and Wrathful Skies (the single most unbalanced spell in the game), plus some other of the excesses.

Of course, the Wish thing is totally unimportant in a 2v2 on a small map, so that is a non-issue. It only matters late game due to clam hoarding.

Did you look at some of those map choices and see a map that you two like?

[Zooko]

I'm happy with Desert Eye. It is bigger, so this game will be different in pace. I think it will not turn into a hot war as early.

I'm happy with all Zen's mods, then.

Speaking of Tien Chi, I want to play Tien Chi.

That's our team's first pick.

(Unless you really really wanted to play Tien Chi, then I can happily find something else...)

[Zooko]

Dear Alneyan:

Thank you so much for hosting! That was really nice.

[Alneyan]

Heh, it was nothing. I used this opportunity to do some spying on the two teams; my own scheme shall soon come to fruition.

[Zooko]

Hm, I've been playing test games on Desert Eye, and I realized that Desert Eye is the map that Arc and I used in our first two-vs-two game:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Number=325448&amp;page=&amp;view=&amp;sb=5&amp;o =&amp;fpart=1&amp;vc=1

We thought after that game that it was unfair to one of our enemies, who was close enough to each of us that we teamed up on him, but his partner was too far away to help. Of course, this was partially because we scouted him out early on, and deliberately conquered independents between him and us so that we could gang up on him.

So, I think we should go ahead and use this map, but be aware that random placement on this map can have important strategic consequences...

[The_Tauren13]

Ah, wheres the fun in life without a little randomness?

[Zooko]

;-)

You guys are deciding on your nation choices, right?

[The_Tauren13]

Mictlan
R'lyeh

[The_Tauren13]

So, are we going to use the same settings?
indy 9
sites 40
HoF 10
research difficult

[Zooko]

Okay! Those are good settings.

How shall we host it?

I can run it on a TCP-reachable server, but I've decided that I really prefer e-mail, especially since we can mail the trn files to both members of the team.

I could probably script up an automatic e-mail bot to do that job for us.

[Zooko]

Oh good! Quantum Mechani has posted a README for the Conceptual Spells mod. Hooray!

[Alneyan]

On another note, please let me know if you would like to get the archive of all the turns in the 2vs2 (it should be rather small, so I should be able to upload it in this thread).

[The Panther]

Zooko said:
I can run it on a TCP-reachable server, but I've decided that I really prefer e-mail, especially since we can mail the trn files to both members of the team.

I could probably script up an automatic e-mail bot to do that job for us.



The problem with you hosting it is that you will have to load either my turn or Tauren's turn into your own game to validate the move with your own CD key. Which means you will have to involuntarily view the turn every time. This is true whether TC/ICP or email.

Probably not a good idea.

I was wondering if we could ask Alneyan yet again to host for us. Of course, he is already doing so much hosting that he may not want to do so.

[The Panther]

Alneyan said:
On another note, please let me know if you would like to get the archive of all the turns in the 2vs2 (it should be rather small, so I should be able to upload it in this thread).



I am not sure how this would work. By having the turn files, can anybody view the whole game from all 4 sides even without the fatherland file? If so, than that would be a great idea.

[Alneyan]

Well, hosting a 2vs2 game doesn't take a lot of time (two minutes per turn, if that much), so I can host the next game.

Yes, everybody can view all the turns without having the fatherland file (and view the orders given as well). The fatherland file only allows to host a turn, recreating the turn files if needed.

[Zooko]

Ugh. I *might* be able to set it up so that my scripted bot automatically validates your trn files with my cd key, or something, but I'm not sure what that would entail.

[Zooko]

Alneyan: Thanks a lot!

Okay, I guess I'm ready to send my Pretender file to Alneyan then. :-)

[The Panther]

Um, I am not ready to upload anything! These squids are a very strange race. I have never really looked at them before yesterday. And how the heck do I kill those nasty tritons? They just instantly fly over (almost before the screen comes up) and WHAM - Fried Squid! And facing 80+ of them nasty tritons is not unusual at all. It seems the only way I can reliably keep my pretender alive is to take an immobile...

Now, why did I pick R'lyeh anyway???

Has Arc decided on a race yet? I suppose if I was serious about this, his choice of race ought to influence my pretender design. Which it will, but only if he chooses Atlantis, I think. Otherwise, I dunno what to do!

Tauren is out of town until late Tuesday night anyway.

[Alneyan]

You will probably want some fodder for those tritons, and hope said fodder lasts long enough for the squids to deal some punishment. The same goes true for Atlantis, so at least you will not be the only one having trouble with the Tritons.

If regular tritons aren't bad enough for you, there are always the Amber Clan Tritons, with a better armour and mage support. They are very uncommon fortunately, but that doesn't help when you do face them.

Otherwise... Well, I am no fond of atlantic nations. Does it show?

[The Panther]

Didn't Bruce Geryk in his Tom vs Bruce Dominions article say that anything with the girlish name of "Amber" must be very easy to kill??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Zooko]

I think maybe that's what the slave races are for -- Triton bait.

Arc has chosen, but we haven't announced his choice, so you can always go back and unchoose R'lyeh if you like. :-)

[Alneyan]

All the 26 turns from the 2vs2 games are attached to this post (along with order files).

That is, if my second upload works.

[Alneyan]

The file works fine now, after an upload that didn't quite make it.

[The Panther]

Zooko said:
Arc has chosen, but we haven't announced his choice, so you can always go back and unchoose R'lyeh if you like. :-)



And, drum roll, the chosen nation is???

[Zooko]

Arc chooses Marignon. He's already uploaded his file to Alneyan.

[Alneyan]

Pretenders for Mictlan, Marignon and T'ien Ch'i have been received. I haven't checked them though, but the files should be working fine (and they indeed work fine).

I gather all three Zen mods will be enabled this time as well? Oh, and will you play under 2.15 or 2.16?

[Zooko]

I guess we should upgrade to 2.16. I'll upgrade my app now.

[Zooko]

Oops -- I made my pretender with conceptp 2.00 instead of 2.01. Will this result in any harm?

[Alneyan]

It shouldn't, as those two mods are very, very close; actually, I think 2.01 is the same as 2.00, but with a readme file and a better organisation of the file.

However, the first game was played with 2.00 and not 2.01, if memory serves, so it was I who made the mistake.

[Zooko]

Whoo-hoo!

Bwon, the Master of Fire and Ice, the God of Earth and Sky, wishes to let it be known that all humans, large and small, near and far, should begin practicing the rituals of meditation, ancestor worship, and Bwon-love. The more you have perfected these arts, the easier you will find life in the new millennium.

Also, worshipping Squall is equally acceptable, although one should still meditate daily.

[The Panther]

Zooko said:
Oops -- I made my pretender with conceptp 2.00 instead of 2.01. Will this result in any harm?



Yeah, I did the same thing. Also, we received the Marignon turn file instead of the Mictlan file.

[Zooko]

Doh! Did you look at it before you realized? Because that would give away the location of Marignon's home province.

[Alneyan]

That was indeed a pretty annoying screw-up (I send the correct file as soon as Panther told me about the problem, but...). More than the starting province, what concerns me is Panther knowing what sort of Pretender Marignon picked (if he looked at the turn that is).

Apologies for that blunder (I did check, but it looks like I confused Marignon and Mictlan).

[The_Tauren13]

Um... now we have the T'ien Ch'i turn file instead of the R'lyeh one... and the problem is I opened it up before I realized that Panther wasn't playing T'ien Ch'i this game...

[Zooko]

Too bad! :-/

Maybe we could proceed by allowing everyone to look at everyone else's turn 1 .trn file.

That, or we all have to go back to the drawing board and invent complete new gods. Which is kind of fun ...

:-)

[Zooko]

Anyway, allowing everyone to see everyone else's first .trn file seems fair to me, unless some of us had a design that relied more upon the element of surprise than other people's designs.

Whatever you guys want is fine with me.

[Alneyan]

I understand, at least. I made the mistake of copying the second zip file instead of creating it anew, so the contents of the zip file were copied as well. I am not sure why, but putting the new files in it doesn't appear to have worked.

Please let me know what you would like to do, and how many times I should be flailed to make up for that blunder.

[The Panther]

I did not open anything as yet (and still have not). So I have no idea of anybody's pretenders. I don't much care what we do, though I think re-randomizing the start locations would be a good idea if anybody saw any starting position.

Heck, I am still trying to figure out how to get the 2.01 instead of the 2.0 pretender model. It was not even on Zen's site...

Edit - I found the proper mod and now installed it. In an interesting twist of events, I now have initial turn files for 3 races, none of which is mine! I did not open anything and am awaiting instructions on what we want to do. I am fixing to meet Tauren for lunch and will ask if he viewed anything for TC when he accidently opened the wrong player.

[The_Tauren13]

Well, I wasn't paying much attention. All I remember was that you had some kind of large humanoid god, like a titan or son of the sun or something, but I didnt actually look at him. I did, however, pay attention to the starting spot. So maybe we could just re-randomize the start locations, and I could tell you my God's chasis, and we can call it good.

[Zooko]

Sounds good to me!

[The_Tauren13]

Ok... I have a Golden Naga. The one that starts with fire.

[Alneyan]

I have restarted the game, and hope everything will be fine this time. Third time is the charm! (Well, if you count my attempt at getting the proper files to Panther and Tauren, we are at the third try)

[The Panther]

I deleted all my old files and started over. The new turns are working just fine, so everything is in order!

Good luck to all.

And Calamari is NOT on the menu.

[The Panther]

Well, I got the bug where I did not get all my positive scales in my capitol...

I sure thought they were supposed to fix this at some point.

I would like for another restart because this will really be hurting my income.

[Alneyan]

Confirmed. I will recreate game files, hoping the scales will work fine this time (I cannot check them for sure though, as I do not know the scales you picked for your Pretenders).

[Zooko]

Oh, is that a bug? I thought that you were *supposed* to start with semirandom scales in your capitol, and then they change over time because of your dominion.

Not complaining though, I'm quite happy that we restarted for, uh, for reasons that I'd rather not say. &gt;:-)

[Alneyan]

Scales are supposed to start at their fixed value; at least, it is the standard behaviour of scales. But once in a while, scales do not start at their "proper" value, for no apparent reason.

It doesn't seem to happen too often, so I guess that's why this particular behaviour is labelled "bug", while scales starting at the selected value is a "feature". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[The_Tauren13]

The reason it annoys people so much, and is consequentially labeled a bug, is that most of the time it is the *good* scales that you dont get, so you end up with a lot less income than you would otherwise.

[Zooko]

So I guess this game is currently stalled on the "disappearing scales bug".

I guess I'll just meditate upon my strategy.

[The Panther]

When I get some free time tomorrow, I will try out some other R'lyeh pretenders and see if I can get one without the scale bug. If not, then I will probably change nations.

[Zooko]

In my test universes R'lyeh often climbs in the "provinces" charts even without hiring mercenaries. It seems to capture its first province by attacking on turn 2 or turn 3 sometimes! So I think there must be some combination of R'lyeh national troops that is effective.

Regards,

Bwon the Goddess of Balance and Perfection

[Zooko]

P.S. I know that the scale bug is a mostly separate issue from the Triton-bait issue. Just chatting.

--Bwon

[Zooko]

Oh, I know! Redesign your nation and take all bad scales, spending the points on other things. Then if you hit the bug which turns off your scales you'll be happy about it!

--B

[The Panther]

Yeah, except the bad scales always seem to work. It is the good ones that are lost.

Anyway, I redesigned my pretender and checked it out. It seemed to be working fine. Alneyan cheched it also and did not see the bug on his computer. It therefore appears to be a bugged Pretender. So - don't use the Void Lurker!

The game has begun once again.

[Zooko]

ARGH. "Stale turn. Your 2h file was from another saved game. You have not given any new orders this turn.".

Can we please restart one last time?

[Alneyan]

Odd. Very odd. Truly odd. Not sure why Dominions didn't use your file. No need to restart though, I will just try to see what went wrong, and/or you will submit another turn file for turn 1.

[The Panther]

ARRGH!!! The new turn 2 is bugged also!!!

I have never seen a game so hard to get going.

[Zooko]

In the beginning, there was chaos.

[Zooko]

So, in the newnewnewnewnewnewnew game that Alneyan sent, it appeared to me that we were using a different map. A wrap-around map with almost no water provinces.

Is it just me?

[The Panther]

A new Turn 1 on Desert Eye has come your way yet again. I have plenty of nice water provinces now!

Who is casting curse on us????

[Alneyan]

Still no news of Marignon (not quite, but no turn file at any rate). Zooko, could you please either play for Marignon as well, or forward instructions to me? Thanks.

[Zooko]

Sorry, I didn't see this request til just now, because I didn't check the BBS. But arc is playing again now. Anyway, if you want me to do this, or anything else urgent, e-mail me instead of posting here.

--Z

[Zooko]

My e-mail is out of commission for unknown reason. Alternately, e-mail zooko@allmydata.com, or send me a priv msg on this BBS.

[Zooko]

Touche'! You gave my Pretender a Chest Wound to match the one I gave your Pretender. &gt;:-}

[Zooko]

Ouch! That is truly horrible that Bogus the Troll Raider appeared and slew your Pretender.

In honor of her unfair demise I will attempt to conquer your entire nation as quickly as possible.

Sincerely,

Bwon the Lucky One

P.S. I had nothing to do with Bogus's appearance. Honest!

[The Panther]

Yowsers! Is seems that it is time for Plan B now, if only I could remember what that was...

[Zooko]

Are you playing to Tauren at the moment?

[The Panther]

No, I am not. But Tauren will be playing for me when I leave for France on June 17. If you guys are not dead when I return home on June 28, then I will start up playing again.

[Zooko]

You know it's a good war when an important battle comes down to a ONE on ONE TOE to TOE battle between a one-eyed Hoburg crossbowman and a Hoburg militia wielding a stick.

Of course, a stray arrow whistling across the battlefield and into my Celestial Master's throat didn't help.

But if it hadn't been for that damned Hoburg militia things would have been different, let me tell you!

By the great nippless breasts of the mother goddess, you killed my one-eyed Hoburg crossbowman! This war will not end until all of your Hoburgs are dead!

[The_Tauren13]

Heh, that was quite amusing. A very well-spent 6 gold...

[Zooko]

Arc is on his way to my house. Panther is in France. We still haven't decided how to do hosting while Alneyan is away.

I guess the default behavior is that I do the hosting. I can do it all via the command-line so that I won't need to actually run the app where I might accidentally see enemy secrets.

[Alneyan]

Didn't I tell you about the hosting? Erh... I guess I didn't. PashaDawg has been enlisted to host the game while I am away.

[Zooko]

Cool! Thanks PashaDawg!

[PashaDawg]

No prob. Just mail me chocolate.

[Zooko]

What's your address?

[Zooko]

So, where are we at with this game? T'ien Ch'i and Marignon moves are in to PashaDawg.

[PashaDawg]

I have the turns, but I need to set things up on my computer. However, I am extremely busy today preparing for a friend's wedding.

I will try to get the next turn files to you all by tonight.

[Zooko]

Thanks for the explanation. Happy wedding!

[Zooko]

Hee hee. This war is FUN. I love the role of heroic defender valiantly and cleverly fighting against invaders.

You guys could always save yourselves a lot of trouble by retreating back to our pre-Year-Two borders and suing for peace.

--Bwon the Lucky