New Mod Nations Game: Mods over Europe (finished)

[lch]

Okay, let's have another game exclusively with mod nations!

Following the example of the first mod nations game (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Number=526583), I will host a game which purely consists of modded nations. Because of limitations from Dominions 3, I think we'll only be able to squeeze 8 nations in total in, although I'll let more people play if we can fit in even more nations than that.

Sombre has announced that he'll prepare the following mod nations for CBM compability in case that they are chosen:

All of his nations that are finished, including Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Number=518590)
Skaven Nation (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Number=525736)
Avernum, The Awakening (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Number=494389)
or others like Urdheim, The Infinite Horde (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Number=530358)
Haida Gwaii, Reunified Tribes (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Number=507116)
Hoburg Alliance, Beer and Apples (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Number=474800)
aswell as those that we already have ready The Hoburg Kingdom, Crossbows and Butter (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=507569&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)
Teutanion, Age of Honor (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=467539&page=1&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)
Kharam Dzu, Hoist the Black Flag (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=472982&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)
Sanguinia, Vampire Counts (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=469859&page=2&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1&vc=1)
Sylvania, The Last New Dawn (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=471329&page=2&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)
Vaettihiem, Exiled Tribes (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=496158&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)
New Ulm, Iron Faith Reborn (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=500522&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)
New Jomon, Broken Swords (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=510450&page=0&view=collap sed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1)
We will again create an "all in one" mod that contains the Conceptual Balance mod and the new nations for the game.

If you want to participate, then please name the nation that you want to play. This will again be a 48h quick hosting network game on a map featuring Europe, including the Mediterranean, with turn notification via email and a web status page. I'll start the game as soon as we're ready, and at the 9th of August at the latest in any case.

Please do playtest your nation on your own to find out its strength and weaknesses before we start the game.

[lch]

Nations taken so far: Sombre wants to play Kharam Dzu
Ferrosol wants to play Skaven
Cor wants to play Hoburg Alliance
Jazzepi wants to play Avernum
Xox wants to play Ulm Reborn
LoloMo wants to play Sanguinia
coobe wants to play Sylvania
DrPraetorius wants to play Haida Gwaii
Pretenders received: 7/8. Waiting for DrPraetorius.

[Sombre]

I'd just like to add that if someone else specifically wants to try Kharam Dzu, they certainly can. I just took them because they didn't get a fair showing in the last mod game (I have tweaked them since then).

Also, feel free to suggest other mods which could be used for the game. If I can do a cbm version of them, I probably will.

[Shovah32]

I'll take avernum please.

[Ferrosol]

ooo can i take the
skaven?

[Cor2]

Hi can i have Hoburg alliance please, I love the little folk.

[Jazzepi]

Urdheim, The Infinite Horde please!

Jazzepi

[Xox]

I would like a spot, have not decided which nation to take yet. I will decide in a day ot two , if not sooner.

[LoloMo]

me me me me! I haven't decided which yet, gimme a bit of time

[Cor2]

Jazzepi said:
Urdheim, The Infinite Horde please!

Jazzepi



Jazzepi, we meet again! You have chosen the foul enemy of the halflings!NOOOO!

But anyway, great choice, I just looked at them and they seem fun. Just beware of the other little people.

[LoloMo]

Skaven sounds cool, I'll try them =)

[Xox]

I am leaning towards new Ulm, and would like to reserve it. But still checking all these wonderful mods out.

Lolomo, I think the Skaven are already chosen by Ferrosol as listed in the second post. But yes, they do sound pretty dang cool.

[LoloMo]

oops skaven is taken, I would like to try Haida Gwaii. Super Javelins for the win! hehe

[lch]

Xox said:
I am leaning towards new Ulm, and would like to reserve it.


If you decide to play Ulm then I'm going to sandwich you between Sanguinia and Kharam Dzu, because those two have a score to settle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Just joking, pick whatever you like. This game filled up a lot faster than the first one! We'll take care to prepare the mod ASAP, so that we can start maybe middle of next week.

[Xox]

when testing this should I be using the "cb mod" and also the "cb nation mod" at the same time? Or just the cb nation mode by itself? Also is cb 1.0 mod the one to use? It is the only one i see, no handy link like i see for all the nation mods at the top of this thread.

[lch]

You can use this mod from the first game to test the races that have been used there: http://www.mediafire.com/?11b0zcymhem

For the others, play them without any other mods. Sombre will take care to get them working with the CB mod later.

[Jazzepi]

I have a request.

The last map we played on was... thematic, but not balanced at all. Jomon has mapmove 3 guys, and I was stuck in a literal forest. I might as well have been playing Ulm.

I'd much rather play a randomly generated map then another one like the one was just played.

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

I think your starting position was better than what some other people ended up with, Jomon. Like Sanguinia and their wasteland, me and my mountain+forest low pop provinces.

But yeah, seems a lot of maps have too few 'plain' provinces.

[Jazzepi]

It was just a bad map in general, I think. Instead of having some even bell curve distribution, it tried to be too much like Europe. People got stuck in huge swaths of particular types of land.

I don't think you understand how frustrating it is to have a mountain in the middle of your territory, and forests EVERYWHERE.

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

I had maybe one province that didn't have a forest or mountain on it. I had units with both forest and mountain survival, so movement wasn't an issue, but having no gold income and only 1 or 2 provinces over 5k pop was something of a drawback.

I agree that it didn't seem a very balanced map for MP and trust me I understand terrain and start position frustrations. But most nations had similar issues on that map.

[Sombre]

lch said:
Nations taken so far: Sombre wants to play Kharam Dzu
Tuidjy wants to play Sanguinia
Shovah32 wants to play Avernum
Ferrosol wants to play Skaven
Cor wants to play Hoburg Alliance
Jazzepi wants to play Urdheim
Xox wants to play ??? (Ulm Reborn?)
LoloMo wants to play Haida Gwaii
That means we're ready to go, people! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Right so basically you gits have picked new nations and given me an assload of CBM balancing to do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

This is how I see it.

CBM Kharam Dzu: Just a tweaked version of the one from the previous game.
CBM Sanguinia: Same as Kharam Dzu. Just tweaks.
CBM Avernum: Shouldn't take long as they have no cav. No astral pearl spawning for you though Shovah.
CBM Skaven: Will be basically unchanged from the vanilla one I'll release today. So no prob there.
CBM Hoburg Alliance: Tricky. Like most first CBM versions I'll just take a stab at balancing it. I will not be following the vanilla hoburg stats though, they are mad.
CBM Haida Gwaii: Haven't played them much, but don't forsee them being that hard to balance.
CBM Urdheim: I haven't played them much and they're huge with tricky to balance units. This will take up the most time.

After I've got these together, then comes the inevitable sorting out of conflicts etc, checking out the map,...

[lch]

Jazzepi said:
The last map we played on was... thematic, but not balanced at all. [...]
I'd much rather play a randomly generated map then another one like the one was just played.


It isn't less balanced than Parganos, for example. But particularly the big uniformly distributed wasteland in the south made me want to use another map, too. I have a map now which features Europe again, but is different in many aspects. In fact, I think there is way too much farmland in there... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif 134 provinces, about 100 land, 34 water. Does that sound okay for 8 people? Otherwise I could raise the province count by artificially adding some more provinces.


Sombre said:
Right so basically you gits have picked new nations and given me an assload of CBM balancing to do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Take the time you need. We don't have to start by the 9th of August but as you know it would be desirable because then I'm leaving. I could start the game while I'm traveling, too, but I couldn't help as much with the mod stuff.


Sombre said:
After I've got these together, then comes the inevitable sorting out of conflicts etc, checking out the map,...


I'll take care about the map and I can do all the stuff regarding conflicts of ID numbers before I'm leaving.

[Shovah32]

CBM Avernum: Shouldn't take long as they have no cav. No astral pearl spawning for you though Shovah



You sure you couldnt just give them a big price-hike instead? Without a way to generate ALOT of pearls S4, immobile, capitol only mages(who are currently one of avernums big strengths) arent much use.
Avernum has only a slightly above average military outside their capitol and lack any great non-capitol(particularly battle) mages - F2E1 being inferior to E2F1 for example.

With no completely dominant units, no national summons and their only high end units being capitol only, removing their pearl spawning - atleast to me as it is what I have used as them and why I picked them - seems to remove their main shot at late game viability.

[lch]

We talked about it in the IRC channel, Sombre wanted to keep the gem thing and make them a national summon instead... We convinced Sombre that the gem generating thing is too heavily unbalanced, but if he'd drop it they'll be fine. S4 still has many uses. Immobility is no problem considering Teleport and Gateway, and after all you can use them to Mind Hunt out of the box. Maybe the price could drop a bit, but gems for free is way too dangerous.

[lch]

Jazzepi said:
Urdheim, The Infinite Horde please!


Could we ask you to pick some other nation? Sombre asked me to have a look at the Kobolds, and they do seem like a "cool" nation, but just too heavily unbalanced for MP. Sombre said that he'd make them balanced, but considering all their units and national spells it's probably going to take a long time.

I might prepare another mod nation game with all those overpowered nations like those Kobolds and Amos' creations, if you would be interested in that... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Sombre said that he has the Hoburg Kingdom balanced out, maybe you're interested in them? They have some similar concepts to the Kobolds, and we have them ready right now...

[Jazzepi]

I'm so sad http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

I picked Urdheim just because they had a neat name. I would like to comment to Sombre that I think the dragon pretender is a little unbalanced. It's flying, immortal, has its own AoE attack through posion, fear, amphibian, and just absolutely ridiculousness written all over it. The first thing I did was try out this guy with dominion 9 + decent scales.

If sombre reads this I would suggest that he find a way to weaken the kobolds, boost their morale much higher so that they don't break when taking huge losses (or give them high levels of beserk), and then cut their food intake below 1 per unit if possible. Like if you could make them eat 1/4 a unit of supply or something so that you could move truly massive hordes across the board that would be very cool.

Otherwise it's impossible to do anything with all those guys considering they don't have any nature mages =\

Jazzepi

[Jazzepi]

I'll look at the available nations listed below to pick one. Are there any others that I'm missing? I don't want to play Jomon again.

* Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze

* The Hoburg Kingdom, Crossbows and Butter
* Teutanion, Age of Honor
* Sylvania, The Last New Dawn
* Vaettihiem, Exiled Tribes

Jazzepi

[lch]

Jazzepi said:
I would like to comment to Sombre that I think the dragon pretender is a little unbalanced. It's flying, immortal, has its own AoE attack through posion, fear, amphibian, and just absolutely ridiculousness written all over it.


Yeah, "a little" is a little understatement. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Even if he'd lose the immortality that thing is out of whack. The Scion of Sirrush would make a nice national summon, or unique hero, but as a recruitable he's too much, too, in my opinion. Have you noticed the friggen auto-summon that the Warchief has? The "Summon Allies" from the summoner alone would be enough to fuel an army if you get some 5-10 of them, but with warchiefs you wouldn't even have to pay gold to enlist recruits, just send them zerging at your enemies. Then I had a look at the spell list... I didn't try them out, but the names and descriptions alone suggested that they'd be no less ridiculously powerful.

As I said, I think that the nation is definitely "cool" and very beautiful, but for Dominions multiplayer it's just way too powerful. Do you think any of the standard nations would stand a chance against them? I'm sorry for suggesting them in the first place, but Sombre said he'd balance them out (and he'll do, but it would take an awful lot of time) and I didn't look at them before. Do you accept my apology? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

[lch]

Jazzepi said:
* Arga Dis, Blood and Bronze

* The Hoburg Kingdom, Crossbows and Butter
* Teutanion, Age of Honor
* Sylvania, The Last New Dawn
* Vaettihiem, Exiled Tribes


yup, those are available and already balanced out aswell.

[Shovah32]

lch said:
after all you can use them to Mind Hunt out of the box.



Sure they can use mind hunt - but without a huge gem income it wont be used alot and the change will atleast put one of avernums staple units back from important to a minor support role.

[Jazzepi]

Go ahead and sign me up for Hoburg, Crossbows and Butter.

If the mod makers are reading this, I really wish they'd use less random picks ;P

Jazzepi

[Cor2]

THanks Sombre for all this work.


Where you suggesting that Hoburg is over powered or under powered above?

[Jazzepi]

Uh. They have awful, awful, awful magic. I suspect they will suck.

Jazzepi

[Shovah32]

Sorry guys but im going to have to drop out now, I just cant grasp how to play avernum in their current gem starved form - atleast not enough to put up any real fight. I would select another nation but the others than interest me are taken.

Apologies but I just dont feel that my prescence as avernum would help the game.

[Cor2]

Jazzepi said:
Uh. They have awful, awful, awful magic. I suspect they will suck.

Jazzepi



Thats why i chose them, the sucking. I like being the underdog, Think of all that extra glory if i can lead the little people to vicory! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Jazzepi]

The kingdom's magic doesn't get any better http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Jazzepi

[Cor2]

Shovah32 said:
Sorry guys but im going to have to drop out now, I just cant grasp how to play avernum in their current gem starved form - atleast not enough to put up any real fight. I would select another nation but the others than interest me are taken.

Apologies but I just dont feel that my prescence as avernum would help the game.



Don't drop out http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif. Avernum is still cool. better than the halflings. those crystals can really do some damage even without the free gems. they might have a price reduction in the CB too.

[Jazzepi]

I'll play Avernum if Shovan still doesn't want to play them.

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

"Gem starved"? Because they don't get astral pearl spawn from a recruitable? That must mean all the vanilla nations are gem starved too.

I think you're overreacting Shovah. I've said that if you have suggestions on more changes to Avernum, to keep them relatively powerful and of course interesting, I'm happy to implement them. But I always suspected I'd have to remove the pearl spawning if I ever made a cbm version because astral pearls for gold like that basically throws the mechanics of MP out of whack.

If you're saying "Now they aren't overpowered and I won't be able to utterly stomp everyone, so I won't play" then yeah, you probably shouldn't be playing, since part of the reason for his game is to improve the balance of the mods and highlight how they can be part of regular MP. But I don't think that's what you're saying - you just want a fun nation that you can play well, fair enough. So tell me some changes other than having the pearlspawning back, that you'd like for Avernum.

One thing I could do which would greatly boost their battlemagic is simply let Vahnatai Mages be built outside the cap. With potential 3F or 3A they're pretty special. I can also reduce the cost of the Crystal Souls, if you think they're too pricey to actually use right now.

As for the rest of Avernum's military - they have resource sink troops, a nice sbow archer, useable sacreds, stealth troops+commander, amphibious infantry and very heavy infantry right out of the box. Varied and certainly above average.

[Sombre]

As for Hoburgs,.... you have to understand that when we looked at Hoburg Kingdom for the last mod game, the thing seemed overpowered as hell in the early game - it could simply crank out a wall of cheap crossbows with excellent stats that would shoot you to pieces, then when you got to meleee you couldn't even hurt the buggers, since they had solid protection plus abnormal defence values. They even had mr 14 on their troops, they had a commander who could summon allies and way too many of them,...

Basically they would be no fun to start next to, even if their late game was highly suspect.

So now I've nerfed them, but if I've done it right, they should still be pretty scary in the early game. If not, well I'll un-nerf them some. I didn't want to give more magic to a nation which we had decided was basically overpowered though.

Hoburg Alliance SE on the other hand, seemed ok/weakish in balance. They actually have pretty decent mages and research prospects, they can still mass crossbows, they still have fun and effective hog cavalry etc. Overall I just tweaked them, now I think they should be fairly balanced. I certainly wouldn't go thinking hoburgs are worse just becuase they're hoburgs - their crossbows are just as good as those of regular troops (even better with their prec) and the price is lower. They also get slightly discounted commanders, priests and mages.


I appreciate it when people make specific balance suggestions, or bring my attention to specific units that might be a problem, so please go ahead.

[Jazzepi]

I looked at Avernum today. I think they're very neat. Both sacred troops are recruitable out of the box, and I love the "full hitpoint" regen that the one guys have. I was thinking of a high earth and water bless, maybe even air. I haven't had time to give them a chance.

They also have a huge variety of magic which excites me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

I don't think the crystal people losing their astral pearl free spawn makes them terrible. I'm not sure exactly what I'd do with them, but making them mind hunting machine seems like a good idea. Maybe if their cost was lowered they could make good research machines with the low upkeep cost from the sacred status.

Jazzpei

[Jazzepi]

I was disappointed by the severe restriction in magic. I don't see how someone is suppose to fight with magic selection that includes E2 and F2 mages max (sure you can random higher, but it's extremely unlikely to get anything over F3 or E3, and even that doesn't happen terribly often).

I think it might help to take a page from Abysia. If you're going to give someone an extremely limit selection of magic, they should at least have access to high levels in those paths. For example, it's nearly impossible to get to a point where you can cast Fire Arrows with the current Horburg setup, but Abysia can do it out of the box.

Jazzepi

[Cor2]

I am not sure i understand the logic behind such high MR for hoburgs. The protection may be a little high as well, but i would not touch the Def at all. Maybe drop attack some, they are short, might be hard to hit above the waste.

The Alliance SE hog knights are not very good IMHO. They have trample, but good luck using it with their size 2, IMHO trample can go and they can get a gore attack if they don't have one already or maybe the hogs can fight on their own when the riders bite it. whatever. i would be perfectly happy with no changes to the alliance.


The kingdom is a little overpowered troop wise and under powered magic wise IMHO. 4 resources for a troop with armor, a sword and a crossbow? wow, seems unlikely. Plus a HOLY giant? eww.

[Sombre]

Abysia doesn't have huge numbers of quality missile troops right out of the gate, however I think you make a fair point. Perhaps in order to fully change them from overpowered early game face hugger to balanced nation they should get some magic boost to help in the later game. I'll take another look at them today. Overall they aren't supposed to have good magic though - they are rather like Ulm in that respect.

[Jazzepi]

I can understand that. Having limited magic selection is fine.

If you can come up with a good battle-mage us for F2 or E2 casters, please let me know. The only thing I can think of is building boots of earth, casting summon earth power, and spamming blade wind. Maybe the Magma spell (whose name I can not remember right now) if they get good randoms.

Or maybe casting phoenix fire and attempting to spam falling fires.

Jazzepi

[Cor2]

Maybe if the random picks where upped to 30-50% they would be better. You could have a 4 fire or 4 earth right out of the box as it is now, if your very lucky.

[Sombre]

Cor2 said:
I am not sure i understand the logic behind such high MR for hoburgs. The protection may be a little high as well, but i would not touch the Def at all. Maybe drop attack some, they are short, might be hard to hit above the waste.

The Alliance SE hog knights are not very good IMHO. They have trample, but good luck using it with their size 2, IMHO trample can go and they can get a gore attack if they don't have one already or maybe the hogs can fight on their own when the riders bite it. whatever. i would be perfectly happy with no changes to the alliance.


The kingdom is a little overpowered troop wise and under powered magic wise IMHO. 4 resources for a troop with armor, a sword and a crossbow? wow, seems unlikely. Plus a HOLY giant? eww.




The MR on the hoburgs is from the vanilla stats. I did take away the high def from the vanilla stats though (ok you can say they're short and hard to hit, but 14 def? That's better than a ninja, I believe. Other small units don't seem to get this bonus and hoburgs are slow little fat guys. Also, why would they get that def bonus when on a hog? You just hit the hog instead).

I think the high mr is just a feature of dominions hoburgs - I toned it down a little, from 14 to 13 in many cases. It seemed less insane than the def.

Seems I forgot to give the Hoburg Alliance hog knight gore attack instead of trample. I'll fix that before the game starts.

Hoburg Kingdom soldiers, before they were nerfed, had better armour, a sword, a crossbow, a shield and better stats. They were just all purpose monsters without a real early game counter. Don't know if the giant is a problem though - he might be, but he didn't look that nuts to me.

Trust me if you think they're overpowered troopwise now you should have seen them before the nerf.

You are using CBM Hoburg Kingdom 2 right?

[Cor2]

Sombre said:

You are using CBM Hoburg Kingdom 2 right?



Nope, I need to give that a look. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Jazzepi]

I don't think the giant is a problem. I don't think he's particularly useful though. He's worse than the EA Neifheilm sacred giant (half the hitpoints), costs too many resources and at the same time to really be useful for a bless strat. To me, they don't fill a niche. They're not good enough to make for a bless start, and I don't think I'd field them otherwise.

Also, why do people care about the MR on non-commander units so much? I can't think of very many AoE spells that check individual units' MR besides Shadow Blast.

Jazzepi

[lch]

Regarding the pearl generating drama, I'd be fine if they'd generate pearls one out of five times, but unfortunately it is not possible to mod that. Your comments make it sound like you'd exploit the gem generation thing to the fullest, and as I said before, I think it's a very unfair advantage. Other nations have their gem income limited by the number of provinces in their control and the magic diversity of their mages, you wouldn't have any limitations. You would probably be able to crank one of those guys out per turn by turn 15 or 20, and then receive a pearl for each one of those... So we are talking some extra dozen gems by turn 30, and some extra two dozen gems by turn 40-45, regardless of provinces in your control. Compare that to the cost of gem generating globals... I don't think that this is justified, sorry.

Sombre asked me if we could have a "no indies" map for this game. This means that provinces would have indy defenders in them and would generate money and resources like usual, and you could recruit units from magic sites and your own nationals from forts, but not any other type of units. I have declined that request since I think that nations should be able to complement what they are missing through indies, missile troops or amphibious units for example, and in my games I rarely use indy units, but make heavy use of indy scouts for example. But I can understand that this might be interesting so that players really play their nations to the fullest. So if there are absolutely no doubts by the other players, I could certainly make the map indy-less. Opinions?

[Jazzepi]

Eeew, no. I have no interest in playing on an indy-free map. Indies allow you to get into the water when you couldn't otherwise. They allow you to get interesting sacreds when you couldn't otherwise. Indies are like a 2nd layer of strategy on the map. Controlling certain provinces becomes even more important when they create indies you need/want.

Jazzepi

[Tuidjy]

Absolutely not. Without indies the game would be crippled.

[lch]

So, we have Jazzepi switched to Avernum and one open spot. I'll update the first two posts.
Xox, could you confirm your nation choice?

[Sombre]

Just want to remind everyone - if you want to playtest your nation, get the version from the links lch provided and then go to the CBM mod nations thread in the mod forum and get the CBM balanced version I've made from there.

You need both in order for the cbm one to work, but you only need to load the cbm one when you playtest.

[coobe]

Im in with sylvania http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Sombre]

Skaven are ready.

There's no need for a cbm version of them, you can use the one from the regular thread.

[Xox]

Yes I confirm my choice of Ulm Reborn, looking forward to the game.

[Jazzepi]

Sombre said:

Cor2 said:
I am not sure i understand the logic behind such high MR for hoburgs. The protection may be a little high as well, but i would not touch the Def at all. Maybe drop attack some, they are short, might be hard to hit above the waste.

The Alliance SE hog knights are not very good IMHO. They have trample, but good luck using it with their size 2, IMHO trample can go and they can get a gore attack if they don't have one already or maybe the hogs can fight on their own when the riders bite it. whatever. i would be perfectly happy with no changes to the alliance.


The kingdom is a little overpowered troop wise and under powered magic wise IMHO. 4 resources for a troop with armor, a sword and a crossbow? wow, seems unlikely. Plus a HOLY giant? eww.




The MR on the hoburgs is from the vanilla stats. I did take away the high def from the vanilla stats though (ok you can say they're short and hard to hit, but 14 def? That's better than a ninja, I believe. Other small units don't seem to get this bonus and hoburgs are slow little fat guys. Also, why would they get that def bonus when on a hog? You just hit the hog instead).

I think the high mr is just a feature of dominions hoburgs - I toned it down a little, from 14 to 13 in many cases. It seemed less insane than the def.

Seems I forgot to give the Hoburg Alliance hog knight gore attack instead of trample. I'll fix that before the game starts.

Hoburg Kingdom soldiers, before they were nerfed, had better armour, a sword, a crossbow, a shield and better stats. They were just all purpose monsters without a real early game counter. Don't know if the giant is a problem though - he might be, but he didn't look that nuts to me.

Trust me if you think they're overpowered troopwise now you should have seen them before the nerf.

You are using CBM Hoburg Kingdom 2 right?



I'm very confused http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif I downloaded the CB mod which came with these mods...

CB Complete 1.0
CB Pretenders 1.1
CB Items 1.1
CB Nations 1.1
CB Scales 1.1
CB Spells 1.1

I also have this...

CBM Avernum

Now according to the post in Avernum it sounds like all I have to do is turn on the CBM avernum mod to get the full CBM changes, but to test I went to the magic scales and they still only give +2 at most with 3 tix towards magic.

Little help? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

You need to have CBM 1.1 complete turned on and CBM Avernum turned on to get a CBM game with Avernum in it and balanced accordingly.

Same with all CBM nations I've made :]

[Jazzepi]

Can you link me to CBM 1.1? I tried looking in the CBM thread and couldn't find a good link z.z

Jazzepi

[lch]

If you can wait some hours then we'll have the complete mod ready.

[Sombre]

Don't know where the original is gone, but attached is a version from me. It should be identical, but with some minor bug or something fixed and lacking a bit of the documentation.

[Jazzepi]

I'll just wait for Ich's version http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

You know, I wish the mods exsisted in single folders. I think it was a big mistake to design the mod system so that you have a folder + a file outside the folder. It's very difficult to keep track of which files outside the folder belong to which mods, making cleaning up old/irrelevant mods difficult.

Jazzepi

[lch]

Status on the combined script:

Directory structure is prepared.
Nation IDs are aligned.
Namespaces are no trouble.

Unfortunately, monster, weapon and site IDs are used twice in quite a lot of cases, and not just for some mods. I tried to use a script by DrP to automate the reassignment of IDs, but it does not work too well (in particular with copystats), so I'll have to do it by hand. I'll catch some sleep before that.

After that, there are two more hurdles: description texts and sprites. I hope that there aren't too many of those... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

[DrPraetorious]

What are the copystats that it doesn't work on?

If copystats isn't one of the fields it recognizes, you just add it to the list of fields for monster IDs and it'll swap out the copystats ID with the indexed ID; if you can bounce me the input I can try it myself and see if something else is wrong.

[lch]

DrPraetorious said:
What are the copystats that it doesn't work on?


There are a lot of copystats for unit id 2170 in Sombre's mods, Avernum for example but others aswell, and after mod mixing that ID is suddenly overwritten by the Enthralled Villagers from Sanguinia. Also, your script does not filter out multiple #modname, #description, #icon, #version, #domversion tags. I stopped checking for more after that.

On second thought, I think the copystats in Avernum may be an error. Sombre only defines the monster ID 2170 in Skaven.dm. I'm not sure if he doesn't copystats from CBcomplete somewhere, though, and it looks like your script does not fix copystats which happen across different mods.

[Sombre]

You're correct, it's an error in the avernum dm. Here is how to fix it.

Change all instances of 2170 in Avernum to 2797.

Then add this code to it.

#newmonster 2797
#copystats 1447
#armor "nothing"
#end

It's designed to give partial darkvision without getting a bunch of unwanted armour.

I'll update the files in the forums and let people know to redownload.

[lch]

ID reassignment is finished.
No sprite errors were encountered.
I had to scrap a lot of descriptions, will upload the combined mod shortly.

[lch]

Okay, here is the combined mod that we're going to use for playing: deleted, use the one from http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showthreaded.php?Number=542057

Download and unpack into your mods folder. You only need to enable the "Mods over Europe" mod and create a new Mid Era game. You'll notice that the nation descriptions and national pretender descriptions are missing aswell as some descriptions of new units in the game. I tried to remove only redundant, useless or rarely encountered stuff, but since Dom3 has a severe limitation of description texts for mods, I had to scrap quite a bit.

If you want to see all the description texts for your nation for playtesting, go into the "ModsOverEurope-testing" folder and move the CBcomplete_1.2.dm file and the file for your nation into the mods folder, then enable them both in the mod preferences instead of using the "Mods over Europe" mod.

If you encounter some grave error, game crashes or similar, then please report them immediately. Your pretender files are in your savedgames/newlords folder. I expect that you create your pretender over the next days now and send it to me by Wednesday at the latest, together with the password you have chosen for it.

P.S.: You don't need to have any mod other than "Mods over Europe" enabled. You only need to enable the CBcomplete mod when you want to use your nation exclusively to see all the descriptions.
P.P.S.: If you want to use one of your national pretenders, then please tell me about it. I will add his description text to the final mod and remove some others instead.

[lch]

The map I will be using has around 100 land and 35 water provinces. That means 12.5 land provinces per player on average. I could maybe divide some of the provinces to increase the number, if somebody thinks that's not enough.

[Tuidjy]

I am sorry guys, but I have to wuss out. I tried playing the vampires, and I am
just not made to play a blood nation. This is not to say that the nation is
weak. It can be a powerhouse. If you want I can find someone to play it, but
he is a brand new player, and has only played 1vs1 with me.

[lch]

You don't have to play them if you don't think you'll manage that. You can still pick another of the nations that are free.

P.S.: You do know that Sanguinia has dying dom and needs to actively preach/sacrifice to stay alive, right? Was that the problem? Otherwise we certainly have other "evil" races left.

[Sombre]

He just finds all the killing and sacrificing and feasting on flesh a bit distasteful I think.

Either pick something else, or swap with another player, or find a replacement, it's all good.

[Jazzepi]

I would like to get ahold of the map early if possible so I can practice on it.

Jazzepi

[lch]

Here's the link to the map: http://www.strife.com/dominions-2/downloads/zeneurope.rar

Delete the .map file and use this one: http://www.strife.com/dominions-2/downloads/zeneuropefinal.rar

The other one has some sea provinces declared as normal terrain.

[DrPraetorious]

If that wussing out leaves a slot open, I'll take it. I'm now curious http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

I'd also like to fix the issues with mod_mixer, although of course it can't deal with crosstalk between the mods.

What mod nations are open?

[lch]

The first post lists the mod nations that are available (minus Urdheim, those would take too long to balance right now), the second post lists what is taken by the players already. On the second page you'll have a link to the combined mod from the first mod nations game, on the previous page the link to the combined mod from the current game (with Sanguinia chosen).

[Jazzepi]

I need the TGA file to play on it.

Jazzepi

[lch]

Oops. Check the post again.

[Jazzepi]

I have to say I prefer regular randomly generated dominions maps over these. Again there are big patches of forest + mountains in the center of the map.

But I'll play whatever. I like these modded nations.

Jazzepi

[lch]

Uh, what's your issue with forests and mountains? They generate more resources, so some nations are highly interested to acquire them and build forts in them. I think the distribution of terrain is quite balanced in this map, though I'd have used less farmland. Highly sought after by all, too.

[Jazzepi]

I'll have to draw you a diagram of what my territory looks like in Neo sometime. It's literally split in half by huge 2-3 mountain/forest wide territories. So I've got my kingdom on one half. I also have a huge army of movement 3 guys, but to get anyone over to the right side of the kingdom it takes 5-6 turns, literally. It's sooo frustrating to have every army you control reduced from map move 3, to map move 1.

Jazzepi

[lch]

You're free to expand southwards where no annoying hills or trees hamper your armies from speeding through the wasteland. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[DrPraetorious]

So, for the game starting at-latest-on-Thursday, Arga Dis is open? And the link to the combined mod is on page 2?

He won't CBM my evil hoburgs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif? Evil is balanced!

[lch]

I think after balancing out two hoburg nations already Sombre had enough of the little folk for a while. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Maybe we'll be able to include them in another game, I don't think that there is enough time to have them in this one. Arga Dis is free for you to take, yes. The link on page 2 only features the nations which we used in our first mod nation game, NeoXekinima.

If you want to playtest Arga Dis, download them and their CBM version if there is one, and use them with the CB enabled.

P.S.: Actually, if Sombre says that your hoburgs are balanced enough already compared to the other nations, then I guess I can include them. But if he needs one or more days to balance them out a little, there won't be enough time.

[Tuidjy]

> You don't have to play them if you don't think you'll manage that. You can still
> pick another of the nations that are free. You do know that Sanguinia has dying
> dom and needs to actively preach/sacrifice to stay alive, right? Was that the
> problem? Otherwise we certainly have other "evil" races left.

The sacrificing is what bothers me. The whole slave hunting... just can't get
into it. Role playing a fanatical, doomsday sect is OK, but vampires is just
a bit too much. And don't get me started on skinning ten girls to make a pair
of boots. I tried, but could not bring myself to enjoy playing Sanguinia...
I would still gladly give a bunch of tips to whoever takes the nation. By the
way, my friend is willing to try it and tomorrow he'll come visit and I will
help him design his pretender, if you are willing to let a MP newbie in the game.

I know it makes no sense, as I have no problem using death magic in my games, or
sending an angel to slaughter an army of hundreds (see Epic Heroes' last turn)
Call me squeamish in an illogical way.

[lch]

Tuidjy said:
By the way, my friend is willing to try it and tomorrow he'll come visit and I will help him design his pretender, if you are willing to let a MP newbie in the game.


Well, you are right that Sanguinia has potential to get powerful, but they are most certainly a very difficult nation to play, too. DrPraetorious is high-spirited to enter the game in case you don't want to play yourself. In case you don't want to, I'd like to have him in, nothing against your friend. I'd suggest that he should get introduced to MP gaming in another game before entering this mod nation game, though.

[DrPraetorious]

Okay, I'm playing Arga Dis then.

I'll download the original Arga Dis and the current version of CBM and load them both at once.

This thread is for two different games? The combined mod isn't yet ready? Color me confussled (and I'd prefer not to read through all the previous pages to figure out what is going on http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif).

[lch]

DrPraetorious said:
I'll download the original Arga Dis and the current version of CBM and load them both at once.


No, you only need the original mod for the sprite graphics. If there is a CBM variant then you only need to enable that one and the CB mod, not both (normal and CBM version) at once.

I strongly suggest that you carefully read through this thread from the start to finish, too... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/firedevil.gif

[Cor2]

Nice map, Its from Total War, No?

[LoloMo]

oh, can I take Sanguinia instead of Haida Gwaii? I played them in Epic Heroes and I sort of really botched up my pretender design then since I had no idea I had to keep sacrificing to keep my dominion. I have a better idea on how to use them now so I'd like a second shot.

Haida Gwaii is pretty cool if Dr P wants to take a look at them.

[Tuidjy]

It's up to you. Nicolai will take the vampires if no one else does.
I relinquish all claim to them, myself. Are there any nations left?
I assumed that BLOOD and bronze is not something I would have liked
to play anyway :-)

In any case, if any non blood race loses a player, I will happily sub.

[LoloMo]

We can switch Tuidjy, I'll take Sanguinia and you can take Haida Gwaii.

[DrPraetorious]

I don't really care which nation I get - I'll take whichever one no-one else wants when the dust settles, although I think it's kinda odd no-one wanted Arga Dis.

[Jazzepi]

I looked at Arga Dis, and didn't find it terribly interesting. The only have access to B/F magic, and their units are standard fair.

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

Standard? Their units are pretty unusual if you ask me. Fear causing cavalry, super elite infantry that hang around after being killed etc

Aga Dis also have death and earth magic by the way.

Now I think I'll vanish for the day :]

[Jazzepi]

I missed the fear causing calvary! And I thought the death and earth magic were very light, maybe 1 or 2 at most.

They do have super elite heavy infantry. And I think the low MR is a neat touch with the armor.

Jazzepi

[lch]

What a mess. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Okay Tuidjy, since you said you don't want to play yourself, I'll give the spot to DrPraetorious. Nothing against your friend, like I said, but DrP jumped at it after you said that you'll "wuss out", and we'd like to receive feedback about the nations from players that already have some experience to MP gaming. I'm happy that you want to sub in case somebody drops out unexpectedly, I'll remember that.

LoloMo, you can switch to Sanguinia if you want to play them again. So, DrP, you can decide between Haida Gwaii and Arga Dis (or another nation). Haida Gwaii is already in the combined mod a couple of pages back, Arga Dis isn't in yet but I have prepared it so that I can add them at any time. Download both mods and play with them to find out which suits you more. Arga Dis is a blood nation, by the way.

To the others, please send me your pretender gods or at least tell me if you want to use the national pretenders.

P.S.: Sombre, please say a word about balance in DrP's hoburg nation?

[Sombre]

I haven't tried his hoburg nation, but from the concepts (0 gold high resource cost units for example) I think it must have been quite hard to balance. I'm willing to take a look at it tonight.

I was taking my time with a new release of Arga Dis because I thought no-one was playing it this time around, but I can get it released and put out a cbm version tonight, possibly. CBM balancing it is slightly harder than with my other nations though. We'll see.

I'm slightly perturbed by the dropping out and switching going on in this game so far, so I want to say this much:

If you don't have time to play in this game, you aren't really that interested, you have no patience for potential problems arising from mods or you're in too many games already, please say so now so we can replace you. We won't be annoyed if you do, we'd be more annoyed if you started then dropped out after a few turns or something.

[Sombre]

Oh one other thing, I'd like to remind Dr P that this game uses the Conceptual Balance Mod and nations which attempt to follow its balance scheme.

I remember you saying you completely disagree with CBM, so I thought I'd check that you still want to play.

lch is currently planning a third mod game which will be 'anything goes' and obviously won't use CBM at all.

[DrPraetorious]

Yeah, I don't care for CBM, but the latest versions aren't as bad.

I can see that my LA Hoburgs would be hard to balance against some fixed standard.

Anyway, I'm curious about how these customized nations play out.

Since the nation is already done, I'll do Haida Gwaii instead of Dis. For one thing, latest version of Dis seemds to be overnerfed somewhat already.

[lch]

Good, good, so we have no changes to the nations and we can use the same mod. Everybody, design your pretenders and send them to me by mail, please.
Don't forget to set a password and include it in the mail.

[Cor2]

pretender sent

[lch]

Please send me your password for your pretender, too.

[DrPraetorious]

I can't decide -
I can do an imprisoned master lich with great scales and diversifying magic.

I can do a dormant great sage with good scales and diversifying magic.

Or I can do an imprisoned (Totem Pole?) with 9A/9W/4N, and kill you all with bears. Electric bears. Raichu, the coalition forces choose you!

Anyone want to help me break my deadlock? Use reverse psychology on my reverse psychology and answer the question truthfully http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[Jazzepi]

I would take -3 in every scale, and get a triple 10 bless.

Jazzepi

[Cor2]

password sent

[Ferrosol]

go with whatever strengthens your tramplers and your mages skavens weak chaff loves tramplers and mages

[lch]

Well, in case DrP *ever* decides on his pretender, we can start the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Cor2]

DrPraetorious said:
I can't decide -
I can do an imprisoned master lich with great scales and diversifying magic.

I can do a dormant great sage with good scales and diversifying magic.

Or I can do an imprisoned (Totem Pole?) with 9A/9W/4N, and kill you all with bears. Electric bears. Raichu, the coalition forces choose you!

Anyone want to help me break my deadlock? Use reverse psychology on my reverse psychology and answer the question truthfully http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.



You should take a dragon with 4 levels in every path and destroy all your scales. Leave your dominion 1.

[Jazzepi]

Dominion 1.

Hawt.

Jazzepi

[DrPraetorious]

I think I sent in my pretender. Did it not arrive?

[lch]

It did. But not before I went to bed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Okay, there have been some more fixes to the mods and I will have to change a few more things. I'll release the new final combined mod that we are using for playing shortly, then I'll create and start the game. Stay tuned.

[lch]

Here is the updated mod which you should all install before playing your first turn: http://www.mediafire.com/?ftx4l9lmcha

You should have received an email from the game server which should tell you everything you need to know to play.

In case you didn't receive it, please check your spam folders.

[lch]

To find out which of the numbers is yours when you connect to the game, check the stats page (http://valhalla.techno-mage.com/stats/stats.php?game=ModsOverEurope). If you're listed as the third nation there, for example, then you're the third number in that list, too.

[Sombre]

We're off!

Hopefully people will continue to post in this thread about the game progress, what they think of the mods etc. I'd ideally like a lot of feedback from all this.

[Cor2]

What was this stuff about visiting omni-forum thing on the first turn. Didn't work for me. Just did my first turn as normal is that okay?

[DrPraetorious]

Are we all in a god-fearing atlantic-coast time zone? Any chance we could get four or five turns in this evening?

[lch]

Cor2 said:
What was this stuff about visiting omni-forum thing on the first turn. Didn't work for me. Just did my first turn as normal is that okay?


Sorry, I forgot to update an outdated address from my old host at one occurrence in the first mail. The right address, which was used in the other occurrences, is valhalla.techno-mage.com

[Ferrosol]

some of us live in a civilised country and the rest of us live in England

[LoloMo]

Sorry, I live in the Philippines, and just woke up! I'm downloading the map right now, I should be able to play for the next few hours before I go to work.

[LoloMo]

Sorry, I live in the Philippines and just woke up! I have done my first two turns, and will be around for a couple more hours to do as many turns as possible.

[Cor2]

I live on a tiny island called Hawaii. I must go now and spear fish.

GMT+10

[Sombre]

China here, GMT +8.

lch could you take me off the email turn notification list?

[Sombre]

Doh. We have a bug with Kharam Dzu, which I guess is due to a weapon id conflict.

Kharam Dzu's bombast unit, armed with "Dwarven Fire" and a dagger, is showing up in the game armed only with the dagger, making them useless. Dwarven Fire is weapon id 815 in the cbm version I made.

So yeah, unless it's fixed the ones I've built will be a bit of a waste of gold.

Looking in the mod file, it's the old conflict with the Sylvanian sacred's weapon, Dawn's Edge. I fixed this for CBM Sylvania 2 by changing the id of dawn's edge to 820, but I guess that didn't make it into the mods over Europe .dm.

I can't remember if I even uploaded it.

[lch]

You're lucky that I am leaving tomorrow... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Really strange that this slipped my mind. I took extra care to sort out all kinds of ID conflicts before preparing the combined mod. And I created a search & replace script to be able to easily apply it to new mod files. But I guess I only checked the "new" nations for compatibility with the ID ranges from the first game and didn't expect that the CBM versions for the "old" ones would conflict with each other.

In any case, I updated the mod on the server now, it is attached to this post. Even if you don't use this updated mod then the server will do the "right" thing, but I suggest that you do update so that it's showing the right thing.

I removed you from the email list, too, Sombre, but I suggest that you then check the web stats page frequently.

[Sombre]

Cheers :]

[DrPraetorious]

Is this something that my mod mixer failed to resolve, or did you not end up using my script at all?

[Sombre]

He used his own script I reckon. Besides he assumed all was good with the old nations, forgetting that we had to fix the 620 id conflict last time too.

[Cor2]

Sombre said:
China here, GMT +8.

lch could you take me off the email turn notification list?



You mean GMT -8 right? or am i doing it wrong?

[Sombre]

We're +8. 8 hours ahead of GMT. We live in the future while you cavemen live in the past.

[Cor2]

poor little Hoburgs. Their home was struck by a hurricane in turn two. They have just now restored order.

They are taking measures to insure in the future that only the poor areas are flooded.

[Jazzepi]

Cor2 said:
poor little Hoburgs. Their home was struck by a hurricane in turn two. They have just now restored order.

They are taking measures to insure in the future that only the poor areas are flooded.



The people of Hoburgs will have to build a shoddy system of levees.

Jazzepi

[Cor2]

Gaaar!!! Now bogus "liberated" a province next to my capital. WTF? I hav had better luck playing misfortune 3.

I was massing troops to try to get into the sea in that province. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Injured.gif

[Sombre]

Hahah. I like the idea of Bogus liberating a land from happily farming hoburgs. Very heroic.

[Jazzepi]

Nice.

3 on 1 again.

I'm pretty much convinced that non-wrap around maps are very unbalanced for people who are not in the corner.

Jazzepi

[Ferrosol]

well expanding at such a fast pace is dangerous

"the tallest reed is the first to be cut down"
"The sweetest well water is the first to be drunk"

ancient chinese proverbs have lasted for a reason

[Sombre]

Yeah if you have runaway income, research and territory then people are probably going to ally against you. But I agree that wraparound maps are inherently more balanced in terms of start positions. I really like them.

[LoloMo]

Also I think you did not want to allow any of your neighbors any space to expand, so no choice but to go to war against you.

[Jazzepi]

LoloMo said:
Also I think you did not want to allow any of your neighbors any space to expand, so no choice but to go to war against you.



Please don't just parrot DrPraetorius because you happen to be in an alliance with him. I'm being attacked by an alliance of two people both of which are in a corner, and some random person. How many neighbors do both of you have? Of course, since you're both in a corner you only have 3. So you ally with one, to attack the third. This only leaves you each of you with one undefended front.

I didn't do anything amazing to expand. I don't have an awake pretender, the only thing interesting I did was buy two mercenaries which I got for very cheap. Most of my provinces are water provinces.

But all of you have information you shouldn't have because the graphs are on. Nobody should ever have access to how high my nation's research is, but the graphs are on, and nobody should know my income. The only things the graphs regurgitate that you should even be able to approximate with spies is territory count and army size.

So basically I got ganged up on because 1. the graph made it easy to pick out the fact that I was doing a ton of researching and had a small army and 2. I'm buttressed up against two corner nations who have the "easy mode diplomacy go-go" handicap on in full force. My nation wasn't even running away with being the largest, or the highest income, before I was attacked, I was just in the running for 1st-3rd.

Jazzepi

[Jazzepi]

The one thing I wish I would have done this game, I was very happy with everything else besides, was to start building my 2nd fortress about 3 turns earlier.

Also, all the above problems that I mentioned with the game setup seem to be exacerbated by the smallness of the map we're playing on. On larger maps, even if you have graphs to make it retard easy to see who is "in the lead" it's far more difficult to pick on that person due to the geographical distance between nations.

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

This is only the second game I've played with you Jazzepi, so I can't make a statement like "you complain too much" but you have groused quite a lot in both of them.

In Neo you are allied with Teutanion against me. You two attacked me simultaneously, attempting to carve me up quickly. It hasn't really worked out yet, but we'll see. I told people at the time I didn't think it was a very sound strategy for Teutanion (perhaps I'm wrong) but I didn't complain about it, it's fair enough. I then allied with Sylvania to fight you - that also seemed fair enough to me. Prior to your campaign against me, I had you pegged as the second most powerful nation in the game.

In this game the graphs told everyone you had a clear lead, which you're right, resulted in people going after you. It also didn't help that you're in the middle of the map. Contrary to what you said, you /were/ running away with provinces before being attacked, considering that you were also putting resources into research. Anyone close to you in provinces had done far less research. I also remember your army graph riding pretty high for a while. I'm not knocking you for doing well in the early game, it's what I'd have done if I were able (I'm a low skill player basically).

The only thing that annoys me is that you're complaining about things you could easily have mentioned before the game started. If you want a game on a bigger map, go for it. If you want the graphs turned off, mention it. If you want to ban diplomacy or make sure you aren't in the middle of the map, you could have suggested that too.

Anyway, don't give up yet, Ulm Reborn hasn't and they're arguably in a worse position.

[Jazzepi]

Neo was more my fault than anything because I was trying something weird with a rainbow mage, and that was before I had my epiphany about site searching which is basically that if you're doing a rainbow mage if you want to find sites of a particular type you only need 3 paths in it to find 95% of those sites.

I would be in an infinitely better position had a built my mage in that game differently and made her dormant instead of imprisoned. But you live and learn, now I only build dormant rainbow mages and never imprisoned. That still doesn't excuse the awful swath of mountains and forests that I was hedged into, just an unfortunate part of the game's random placement.

Also, Jomon's calvary is *awful*. Like appallingly awful. I can't even begin to explain to you how frustrating it is to take Jomon and attempt to fight Sylvania. Jomon's ranks are filled with low morale troops. Not a single person has a shield. So the only thing you can really do is recruit priests, mix in the demons who have high morale with the awful morale calvary, and then spam sermon of courage. I failed to do the third part of that, but I didn't realize how bad the morale problem would be. The fact that Sylvania is an archer nation is bad enough for Jomon, but that they have high protection, high defense, high morale, high magic resistance shock troops with *fear* against morale 9 calvary? It's like a kick in the balls each time that your calvary is literally chewing into the archers, and then routs.

I don't think I complain a lot, I got gang-banged by 4 nations in Perpetuality and tried my best to survive despite it all without complaining almost at all, though I did put up a lot of in character posts. I'm also in about 8 games right now and even though Hako broke an NAP against me twice in Starfall, while at the same time Emor decided to attack, I soldiered it up and just recently broke the back of Abysia's main army.

These two games in particular have been very frustrating (especially since I really like playing with the new races and consider this a unique opportunity), but I haven't given up, I just needed to vent a little. I still think I have game against the attacking nations. I mean, I didn't spend all that research on nothing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

My 1st goal right now is to take Hawii out of the running, and to defend myself 2nd.

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

Well you did build a lot of the Jomonese cav and it did very well against indies. If you think it's not a worthwhile and buildable unit then could you give me some suggestions about what you'd change. Part of the point of the mod games is to work on balance. It isn't getting better morale though, that's a feature of the race.

Sylvania's sacreds may be overpowered, it's something I'll check out. It might be that fear 0 is just too good for a recruitable massable unit.

[Jazzepi]

It may have just been a combination of the fear + the low morale + archers, some sort of perfect storm.

I built a lot of the calvary because it's the only thing that can play the "catching arrows" game against indies early on, and it doesn't do that terribly well, but they survive well enough to put the hurt on.

If you really wanted to keep the lower morale, that's fine. Maybe the priests could be made a little better like MA C'Tis's selection, or you could give them flight and mapmove 3 so that they'd be easier to keep on the front lines. Since I'm pretty much convinced that you must have the priests to spam sermon of courage on your calvary if you intend to use them, giving them flight and mapmove 3 would make them a lot easier to keep on the front lines, instead of constantly dragging your army down to mapmove 2.

Honestly, I felt like the calvary would have been okay if I had handled them better, but in the situation I was in they felt extremely useless. I think calling them awful is a bit of an overstatement.

Another suggestion I would give is simply to have the very low resource samurai's be mindless. As it stands, I don't think I'd ever build them.

Jazzepi

[DrPraetorious]

Well, I don't think you handled the diplomacy deftly.

- If you cut people off, they'll declare war on you. This is a bigger problem in the middle than on the edges, I agree, but there you go. If this had been a wrap around map you'd be in the same situation in that regard, but maybe-so-would-I.

- If you don't want to fight early wars (like, right now), then even if you're in a corner you have to accept being somewhat small, which you didn't do. Even without graphs, people can generally figure out how big you are.

- If, when someone tries to negotiate with you, you threaten to throw the game to the other player, people will tend simply not to negotiate with you at all.

[Morkilus]

How's it going for the rest of you guys? I'm especially curious about Avernum; I had a pretty humiliating loss against the AI with them. I couldn't get their sacreds to do much of anything; they died too quickly. E9 bless maybe? I really like the kitty archers, however, and can imagine a nasty lategame astral powerhouse.

[Sombre]

They don't have armour, so an E9 bless wouldn't work. I think a water astral bless would keep them alive best,... but really the trick is to keep the missile fire off them.

[Jazzepi]

- If you cut people off, they'll declare war on you. This is a bigger problem in the middle than on the edges, I agree, but there you go. If this had been a wrap around map you'd be in the same situation in that regard, but maybe-so-would-I.

The only reason it's so easy for you to declare war on me this game is because you AND your ally are both in corners.

- If you don't want to fight early wars (like, right now), then even if you're in a corner you have to accept being somewhat small, which you didn't do. Even without graphs, people can generally figure out how big you are.

I disagree with this heavily, not only do graphs tell the exact size of your nation, but they basically explain the composition of your army. For instance, I could tell you were massing a large group of low protection units backed up by your sacred tramplers just by looking at the size of your army on the graphs and understanding the units you have available to you.

Also, my insane amount of magic research was put out for display, something people would NEVER normally have access to unless they're in a fight and see a particular spell cast, but even that doesn't tell exactly how much research someone has.

By the combination of having a small army, a large group of provinces, and my huge amount of research all put on display on the graphs it's easy to tell that I would be a vulnerable target. Something that would be much harder to discern, or even impossible, without them.

- If, when someone tries to negotiate with you, you threaten to throw the game to the other player, people will tend simply not to negotiate with you at all. -

I wonder if you're curious why I simply didn't respond to your message over the forums? You constantly threatened immediate war if I didn't give you certain territories (two out of three which I conceded to you), so I find it hypocritical that you think it's bad negotiating to threaten scorched earth tactics.

Do you really think I have anything to lose by promising to attack you solely if you don't leave me alone? If I think I can heavily swing the game in my opponent's opponent's favor, and cripple the original opponent at the same time, obviously I'm going to threaten to do that. It's a big club to beat someone with diplomatically though some people won't respond to it, which is fine.

I didn't threaten to throw the game to the vampires, only to give them an incentive to finish you off and take you out of the running. If them having three capitals means they win the game, that's not my problem.

Jazzepi

[Jazzepi]

Sombre said:
They don't have armour, so an E9 bless wouldn't work. I think a water astral bless would keep them alive best,... but really the trick is to keep the missile fire off them.



I tested this extensively, I found a high Air bless coupled with a water bless for quickness was best, but in the end it didn't feel like it was worth it to go that route when the only H3 (mobile) priest you have is your prophet. They do enough damage as is with the blades. I wanted to play a research heavy nation anyways, so I decided against playing bless rush in this game.

Jazzepi

[Xox]

Can't connect to the server. Anyone else?

************************************************** *


Love the Europe map. Except it is too small for this number of players. Something about playing on Earth's natural geogrpahy is always pleasing. It also make it easier to refer to the map with other players.

It is undeniable that it makes a huge difference starting in the middle or a corner. it would be nice if someone could make a map that works to fix that. THis effect is increased by the small number of provinces per player an dthe grpahs being on also. Wraparound will help but should be on both sideways and vertical.

And I would actually prefer a good non wrapawround map that worked well for th eguys in the middle. choke points or wealth or ?

You can play with these settings, map, and # of players and 9 out of ten times the corner people will dominate and win.

I will be the first out i think. I started in the middle. I got 60 unrest on turn two due to events ( misfortune scale 2 so that happens) and with the graphs on, the scurvy dog pirates saw my weakness and struck quickly before i could recover. That's a great example of why I, personally, do not like the graphs on. I am sure Sombre used that perfectly reliable intelligence to make his decision on attacking me.

So I just want to say Jazzepi has some very good points he is bringing up. and if you are in the corner or benefit this time from graphs. try to have the vision to overcome your natural bias and see what might be best for the balance of good game.

Great mods by the way, Love Ulm reborn who I am playing this game. My apologies for not doing well by them this game.

The Pirates will be quite vulnerable at this point by the way, before they consolidate my little kingdom and the seas.

************************

Server connection?

[Xox]

Can't connect to the server. Anyone else?

************************************************** *


Love the Europe map. Except it is too small for this number of players. Something about playing on Earth's natural geogrpahy is always pleasing. It also make it easier to refer to the map with other players.

It is undeniable that it makes a huge difference starting in the middle or a corner. it would be nice if someone could make a map that works to fix that. THis effect is increased by the small number of provinces per player an dthe grpahs being on also. Wraparound will help but should be on both sideways and vertical.

And I would actually prefer a good non wrapawround map that worked well for th eguys in the middle. choke points or wealth or ?

You can play with these settings, map, and # of players and 9 out of ten times the corner people will dominate and win.

I will be the first out i think. I started in the middle. I got 60 unrest on turn two due to events ( misfortune scale 2 so that happens) and with the graphs on, the scurvy dog pirates saw my weakness and struck quickly before i could recover. That's a great example of why I, personally, do not like the graphs on. I am sure Sombre used that perfectly reliable intelligence to make his decision on attacking me.

So I just want to say Jazzepi has some very good points he is bringing up. and if you are in the corner or benefit this time from graphs. try to have the vision to overcome your natural bias and see what might be best for the balance of good game.

Great mods by the way, Love Ulm reborn who I am playing this game. My apologies for not doing well by them this game.

The Pirates will be quite vulnerable at this point by the way, before they consolidate my little kingdom and the seas.

************************

Server connection?

[Xox]

Sorry about the double post, I have tried deleting it about 5 times, and reposting and it always deletes boht and double posts. I don't know what I am doing wrong.

[DrPraetorious]

I've concluded that the only way to balance a non-wrap-around map is to leave the middle unoccupied.

Unfortunately I lost the script to do this in a HD crash http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif, but if you look at the map I did for Allegiances, you can see most of what I did (I think the map file I posted is missing some large and site-rich provinces that the script added for balance, but gives the general idea.)

Giving the people in the middle wealthier/better sites jsut makes them more attractive targets for being rended limb-from-limb.

Personally, when I'm in the middle I take the Pascal's wager policy:
* If I assume that everyone is going to ally against me, I'm toast.
* If I assume that (pick an opponent at random) may leave me alone long enough to conquer someone else, maybe I'll win.

So if I"m in the middle, I make an alliance with one of my neighbors and attack somebody - just like I'd do if I were in the corner http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif. Preferably, I attack a person who has a corner which I can then claim.

But this has not, historically, been a terribly successful strategy. It's working out for me pretty well in Sophistry - although it turns out the player I'd hoped to ignore was probably planning to attack me, and never got around to it because he was gangbanged by virtue of being in the middle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

So, my advice to Jazzepi - you should have offered to divide my lands with Sanguinia on turn 5, and then come roaring in all death and vengeance, ignoring the possibility that you'd be attacked from behind http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Seldom works, but hey - nothing ventured, nothing gained. Chance favors the bold! Death or glory! And so forth.

[Xox]

Still cannot connect, anyone else?

[LoloMo]

Can not connect also. Ich is the server owner, and I think he is on vacation for 1 more week.

[Sombre]

I hope lch gives us warning on the forums before putting the server back up.

[Sombre]

It appears to be working now.

[Nikolai]

I was playing with Avernum, and human captain has two shields. I think it is a bug. Am I using an old version?

Why no chat? How is game going? I have no friend in this one, and am curious but cannot get any info :-) Is there a third game in the planning?

[DrPraetorious]

It's going okay, Avernum is raiding me, which I find annoying, but is par for the course when you eliminate someone.

[Jazzepi]

Thankfully I have thousands and thousands of gold saved up. I can do this all, day, long. XD

Jazzepi

[Sombre]

We Dwarves have been beset by awful misfortune, but we're putting out fires and soon we'll be lighting them to dispose of the last Ulmish trash.

[Nikolai]

> We Dwarves have been beset by awful misfortune, but we're putting out fires and soon we'll be lighting them to dispose of the last Ulmish trash.

How the wheel spins... In first game, Ulm killed the dwarves. Payback!

[Sombre]

That's what we had in mind. The real tragedy is that the dwarves never got a chance to do their thing in the other game.

[Ferrosol]

we skaven are having numerous problems with the small minded barbarians. despite a great effort to bring order to europe the barbarian under their leader Conin? Colin? something like that? keep attempting to overthrow our rule.(I've had 5 barb attacks in 3 turns with order 3 Mis 2)
Meanwhile in alliance with the stout dwarves and valiant elves the council of thirteen has contained the rogue state of avernum whose rapid growth threatend us all.

[Cor2]

The Holburgs are no more. they have been subsumed into the great Elfish empire, where they continue to farm and smoke pipe weed and no longer have to worry thier little heads over military matters.


translation: I went AI last turn, after my capital was taken by the elves. The Holburgs just could not touch the elves on the battlefield.

[llamabeast]

Guys, write some more stuff! I'm enjoying following these mod games.

[DrPraetorious]

We are menaced on all sides.

While the remaining army of avernum continues to amuse itself playing cat-and-mouse in our countryside, the Dwarves have delivered an unprovoked attack against our western posessions in the sea.

As they are apparently allied with both the elves and the skaven, we find ourselves in somewhat dire straits http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. But we will see what we can do.

[Sombre]

The groghalls of Kharam Dzu are merry tonight. Our holds are stuffed with plunder from the recent conquest of Ulm, revenge for our fallen expedition to another continent (or game, in fact). Our goods can be found across most of Western Europe, bringing profit to us and any who will put their name to our treaty. Finally our comission from the admirality to free the seas for trade looks soon to be complete, as the lily livered warmwater dwelling Gwaiians tremble at the sight of the Skull and Bones.

We proclaim here and now, the seas are ours. Look not to them, but to your own lands - we have no interest in conquest, merely plunder and adventure!

[LoloMo]

The sneaky Skaven ratmen have been beaten back by superior tactics and combined arms of the Sanguinian Vampires. All three provinces that were taken in the initial surprise attack by the stinking pus infected sewer dwellers have been recovered. Count Nadilo, the commander in charge of the mission to retake Greece, had this to say about the ratmen:

"I find the toasted flesh quite refreshing. It has a certain nutty twist in its stinkiness. I guess it's an aquired taste much like pungeant cheese. I hope to sample more of their kind soon. In fact, I'm willing to trade the choicest of my virgins for a sweet roasted haunch of the elusive Grey Seer."

[DrPraetorious]

I finally killed Avernum's raiders.

So, the dwarves have announced their intention to conquer the entire ocean. I'm an ocean player, and once my amphibious army turns around and heads west, I anticipate no problems dealing with a bunch of tritons and other scum (dwarves in bathoscopes? Ooh, I'm scared).

However, as a condition of providing this service I *demand* a 3 turn NAP from Sylvania - and I am not giving him Egypt.

If he refuses my reasonable offer, I will let the dwarves have the oceans, and fling my entire army against Sylvania, ignoring all other concerns. You'll all know who to blame when the dwarves (first in research, provinces and gem income, natch) conquer the world.

I have nothing against crass opportunism but I'm sick of people who lack the good sense to resort to diplomacy when the situation calls for it.

[Sombre]

I don't see how demanding things of a militarily stronger opponent is a reasonable offer. It's the same 'diplomacy' you tried with me when you spotted me coming from the west - offering me one or two provinces I essentially already owned and demanding I go no further east when you had nothing to back it up. If it's going to be so easy beating me in the ocean, then I don't see why you tried that in the first place.

As for knowing who to blame if I do well, I'd guess that would be you, since you're making unreasonable demands of those around you and threatening to try and throw the game.

[Jazzepi]

DrPraetorious said:
I finally killed Avernum's raiders.

So, the dwarves have announced their intention to conquer the entire ocean. I'm an ocean player, and once my amphibious army turns around and heads west, I anticipate no problems dealing with a bunch of tritons and other scum (dwarves in bathoscopes? Ooh, I'm scared).

However, as a condition of providing this service I *demand* a 3 turn NAP from Sylvania - and I am not giving him Egypt.

If he refuses my reasonable offer, I will let the dwarves have the oceans, and fling my entire army against Sylvania, ignoring all other concerns. You'll all know who to blame when the dwarves (first in research, provinces and gem income, natch) conquer the world.

I have nothing against crass opportunism but I'm sick of people who lack the good sense to resort to diplomacy when the situation calls for it.





DrPraetorious said:
Well, I don't think you handled the diplomacy deftly.

- If, when someone tries to negotiate with you, you threaten to throw the game to the other player, people will tend simply not to negotiate with you at all.

[DrPraetorious]

I do not object to Sombre refusing my offer of peace at-existing-borders. Sombre clearly prefers war - that's understandable, especially as he seems to think I'm defenseless.

Sombre offered that he would conquer the entire ocean and I could suck on it. I fail to see how Sombre could object if I accept his generous offer. As I can't defend my land borders and stop him at the same time, I'll not have much choice.

I already saved the lot of you from Avernum at considerable expense. I'm not going to do that again unless I get, if not support, at the least a pledge of non-interference.

Anyway, if the other players don't want Sombre to run away with the game, they'd be wise to unite against him now while it's feasible, or at least guarantee peace with those who are fighting him. If I fought Sombre while trading provinces to Sylvania in exchange for peace, *that* would be throwing the game.

I have no interest in the Atlantic. I'm perfectly happy to put up a fort in the straits of gibraltar and then stop, meaning I'll be no larger than the bulk of the other players. Sombre clearly intends to dominate the entire ocean, at which rate he'll be at least twice the size of any other player.

I should clarify: there is a difference between threatening to throw the game (which I am not doing), and in refusing to capitulate to demands.

[Sombre]

You didn't save anyone from Avernum, you invaded them seeking gains along with two other nations. They hardly stood much of a chance. Claiming you did it for anyone other than yourself would be like me claiming I defeated Ulm to end their threat to neighbouring nations. The fact that they chose to direct their last bit of strength against you I would guess stems from their estimation that you were the most powerful enemy attacking them.

This is the same situation - you're trying to threaten and coerce people into doing what you want while pretending it's their only option. You don't see Kharam Dzu doing that - we've offered fair diplomatic relations to everyone we've met, including you. If you show some power in the sea that makes us think you can back up your earlier offer of 'come no further' then we'll return to the negotiating table. It's rather insulting for you to try and dictate terms to us when as far as we're aware, we hold all the cards. We aren't interested in a long draining war, just in some profit and plunder. I'd also like to point out that we can't even build forts underwater and have very limited aquatic forces, so unlike Haida we have no chance of creating a sea territory that is essentially impossible to ever invade.

We also aren't near 'critical mass' in my estimation, because we still have multiple neighbours who are getting stronger, not weaker, and are poised to take huge swathes of valuable landmass that we can't even get to.

[Xox]

Pirate lies!!

***********************************
Sombre said:
You don't see Kharam Dzu doing that - we've offered fair diplomatic relations to everyone we've met, including you.
****************************************

You did not offer fair diplomatic relations to (me) Ulm. You saw their weakness in the all knowing graphs and refused to negotiate.

[Sombre]

"You lied!"

"Uh, pirate?"


You basically told us to stay out of scandinavia because it belonged to you. As with Haida, you appeared to lack the power to go making a claim like that, so we found it rather insulting. We didn't issue a written response (IIRC) because our actions were pretty clear, blocking your route into Scandinavia before attacking you. There was also the matter of revenge for our cousins in Neo Xenkinima.*

* - In that game Ulm Reborn crushed the dwarves completely in an even quicker and more brutal way than I did to you. I know it's nothing to do with you as a player, but I thought it made an interesting pretext for an attack. You put up a great fight and cost me a lot of time and resources by the way - I hope there's no bad feeling :]

[Xox]

Wow, you should be a politician Sombre, thats some mighty fine spin control there.

You attacked me after I gave into your demands for Scandinavia.

I totally gave into your claims on scandinavia, did not go in myslef, saw you take it and then use it to attack me anyways.

Not to say you broke a treaty or anything, You would not give me a treaty. This is all about your false statement

again, for the record....

***********************************
Sombre said:
You don't see Kharam Dzu doing that - we've offered fair diplomatic relations to everyone we've met, including you.
****************************************

I am just pointing out that this above statement of yours is just not true. "Pirate lies" as I said before

YOu have been caught, 'fess up


********************

Not taking it personal, all in good fun, it seems to have done you well. Frankly I was surprised everyine let you gain that much unoppossed. I even still think Kharam Dzu needs a boost. You did well because other nations were occuppied or asleep, great starting position, being able to see the weakness of another nation in the graphs, and good play on your part.

I am not sure what i could have done different in my situation. I cuold have groveled more I suppose, but I am pretty sure that would just worsen the "pirate pounce on the weak" syndrome that I was already seeing.

[Sombre]

Clearly the saying "Dead men tell no tales" doesn't work as well as we'd hoped, haharr. But dead ye are and bitter too, Ulmish spirits. Begone! We've no time for ye.

---------------------------------

People could have attacked me during my conquest of ulm, but they wouldn't have done so well for themselves as they have. Avernum was a threat, Sylvania was expanding into Spain - everyone had plenty to gain by placing their attention elsewhere. True, they gained less than me, but then they risked less too, attacking indies or gangpiling avernum.

You were just the victim of a powerful early game economy and our sailing ability.

The main thing you could have done, as far as I can see, would be to kick the hell out of my first couple of armies that crossed over. Faced with big casualties for no real gain I'd have given up and gone on to deal with more indies. But you didn't really have the early game strength to do that. In the first few battles I lost more than you, but you lost enough that I knew I'd win given a bit more time.

[lch]

I have removed the nations which were defeated or turned AI from the turn notification script. In case you drop out and don't want to receive the emails any longer, please send me a PM or just reply back to the notification email for that.

[Nikolai]

Just curious. What scales in dominion had Ulm? What God?

[DrPraetorious]

So I'm at war with Sylvania for the forseeable future; if anyone else wishes to attack Kharam Dzu (I recommend doing so soon and with great force), let me know so that I can assist in some kind of counterattack.

[Sombre]

Nikolai: He had a lich, drain 3,... the rest I don't remember.

[Sombre]

This is going to sound a bit strange, but I'd really like to find someone to take over Kharam Dzu as a player. For good. I've been really enjoying this game, but right now I'm fired up for doing mods and the turns for this game are just taking so long for me - I'm not used to managing big territories with the sheer amount of stuff going on that has turned up in this game. When a massive europe wide war kicks off (it's already in the works it seems) the time taken to do the turns will double, maybe even triple for me : /

I would fully brief anyone willing to sub in - the nation is in a strong position and the race for the big guns is just starting to hot up.

If I can't find someone, I will continue to play the game myself, but I might not devote as much time to micro and stuff as a player probably should.

[Cor2]

i would love too take your place, but i better not with school and all. Besides now I have a fear of dwarves.

I wanted to point out that there is a flaw in the map. the two sea provinces diresctlt east and south-east of spain are not connected and they clearly should be.

[Xox]

Nickolai, I had a Master Lich with 2 misfortune. Usually 2 misfortune is great, but you take a greater chance you will be crippled by an early turn setback in your capitol.

Thats what happened to me, Two events that raised unrest to 60+ on the very first turn. So my army and province growth suffered greatly in the opening turns. In a non graph game i might have been hurt but ok, but with graphs visible someone could see I was at the bottom of the charts and take advantage of that weakness.

[llamabeast]

Sombre - try making a new thread for your sub hunt. That normally seems to work quite well.

[Nikolai]

Xox said:
Nickolai, I had a Master Lich with 2 misfortune. [snip] Two events that raised unrest to 60+ on the very first turn. So my army and province growth suffered greatly in the opening turns.



Ouch! Yes, it's terrible. And Master Lich is not much as fighter... But no worries. I think New Ulm is weaker than most in game, anyway. Sylvania, Sanguinia, Avernum, these are powerhouses.

[Xox]

Yeah, true, those you mentioned are perhaps tougher than ulm reborn. But i got beat by the dwarvish pirates, much to my shame. I think they are objectively the most underpowered mod in this mod game.

[Shovah32]

I'm going to be taking over for sombre, where can I get the map?

[Sombre]

I'll upload it here.

[Shovah32]

Its ok, I got it now and a new turn is up http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

[LoloMo]

The connection seems to be broken.

[Ferrosol]

hmm weird my last turn seems to have been completely screwed up for some reason it is showing as a stale turn and for some reason my troops seem to have scattered everywhere

edit seems i somehow managed to stall despite never receiving any email to tell me a new turn was ready could this be because of the server going down?

[lch]

LoloMo said:
The connection seems to be broken.


Hmm, very strange, it seems the server did indeed have a guru meditation. No idea how that happened. The log only says <font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>ModsOverEurope, Connections 1, Time 39h (quick host)
+ - - - +
Network Error
Network Error
</pre><hr />Maybe somebody killed the server somehow. It's back up now, anyway.

Ferrosol said:
hmm weird my last turn seems to have been completely screwed up for some reason it is showing as a stale turn and for some reason my troops seem to have scattered everywhere

edit seems i somehow managed to stall despite never receiving any email to tell me a new turn was ready could this be because of the server going down?


According to my backups, you never uploaded your turn file for last turn.

Turn 38 hosted on 2007-09-10 06:37
Turn 37 hosted on 2007-09-08 06:37
Turn 36 hosted on 2007-09-07 20:31

The timestamp for your turn file when hosting turn 38 was 2007-09-08 05:02, i.e. it was a turn file for turn 37.

You should have received turn notifications for all these turns, I know I have. Notice that turn 37 and turn 38 hosted with very short time in-between, only 10 hours. Maybe that confused you?

[LoloMo]

Ferros, I attacked your province, but I lost the battle, but not before most of both our troops fled the battlefield.

[Shovah32]

Ok I am rather confused as to how I staled again but will attempt to make sure that it does not happen again.

[DrPraetorious]

I am marching against the vile dwarves in my war beneath the waves.

However - it would be great if someone would attack him on land? With his advantages of scale, he can afford wave after wave of crap to retake these underwater provinces.

[Shovah32]

Or somebody could attack DrP on land, taking advantage of the fact that most of his forces are currently occupied.

[DrPraetorious]

WTF?

I didn't think I'd staled! In fact, I could've sworn I uploaded a turn.

Sorry about that - in a close war like this that's probably going to mean my demise http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

[lch]

DrPraetorious said:
I didn't think I'd staled! In fact, I could've sworn I uploaded a turn.


I'm hearing this for the third time now, although from different people every time... That's rather suspicious. Sorry, I don't know what's going on. I think I looked at the status page about 16-20 hours ago and you and coobe were marked as not having played your turns yet, at least for coobe I'm sure about that. Do not trust the stats page too much, though, only trust the game itself. Maybe connect just to make sure that you uploaded your turn - I sometimes forgot to do that when I prepared my turns offline, too.

[DrPraetorious]

Could you send me back the .2h file that you currently have from me so that I can check it?

One thing that's odd - I don't think that the stale message that I got was the usual stale message.

[Shovah32]

Another Stale - I had a busy weekend, sorry guys.

I hope you enjoyed our little tussle in the Eastern Mediterranean - It seems stales don't hurt as much as I feared.

[DrPraetorious]

Not as bad as screwing up! I forgot to re-equip them with Gems - so, naturally, you have shark attack up and I do not http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

Ah well.

[DrPraetorious]

I can't connect - can we have a 24hr extension plz?

EDIT: never mind, I connected.

[LoloMo]

Seems that the first time you connect, it hangs, you have to close it/end program then redo it. It connects on the second try.

[lch]

This is the well-known server hickup that occurs to some games, yes? I heard about this. Don't know what the problem is, only the developers could tell. I'll reset the server when it hosts again, but that is not guaranteed to give any change.

[DrPraetorious]

Oh God damn it I staled again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

Can we lengthen the host-timer by 24 hrs? I know other people want to get the game finished but I'm overextended http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

[Shovah32]

24 hours til host time now? I hope I should be able to make it - but I'm not 100% sure.

PS: Congrats on your victory in that battle.

[lch]

Timer has been reset, you got 48 hours left, about 26 hours more now.

[lch]

Oh, I seem to have overlooked that DrP wants to extend the game timer in general. Is anybody against that decision? 12 hours or 24 hours? I noticed that when games increase their turn timer, they tend to die off after a while...

[lch]

The long awaited patch 3.10, which fixes and adds tons of things (http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom3/dom3progress.html) (everything from 28th april to now), has been released yesterday. I'll update (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/Illwinter/Dom3/6.htm) ASAP. You should continue to play your current turn with the 3.08 client and switch to 3.10 after I'm done. So download the patch files and stay tuned. Only update your client in case it tells you that your game version is too old when you connect to the game!

[lch]

Okay, 3.10 breaks the mod, I can't update this game:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>Nonexisting armor type: Light Weight Scale Mail
N&amp;#65533;got gick fel!
Bad #selectarmor command
N&amp;#65533;got gick fel!
Bad #selectarmor command
Aborted</pre><hr />
I guess we'll have to stick to 3.08 until the CB mod gets updated to be 3.10 compatible.

[lch]

Fixed that thing, got another:
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>name2spell Claws of Cocytus
N&amp;#65533;got gick fel!
name2spell: no such spell!!
N&amp;#65533;got gick fel!
name2spell: no such spell!!</pre><hr />
You'll eventually have an updated mod, or we'll stay at 3.08.
Stay tuned and sorry for the server being down in that time.

[lch]

Here is the updated mod. Install it only AFTER you update to 3.10, which is AFTER the game tells you to when you connect.

[DrPraetorious]

I got a sprnbr-too-high error when I tried to take my turn.

[Sombre]

And yet the number of sprites shouldn't have changed,....

[DrPraetorious]

Might have something to do with the new sprites added by the patch? Maybe that reduces the amount of memory available for sprites (which seems to be what causes the sprnbr error.)

Just a guess.

[lch]

I get the same. It prolly has to do with that the sprite library/cache got bigger with the newly added nations in patch 3.10. In this case there's an easy fix: Remove the units from nations which have already been defeated. Stay tuned...

But even after deleting all sprites from New Ulm: <font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>***** Error sprnbr 574, max 271, file 23</pre><hr />
That's a very grave reduction in sprite numbers... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

[lch]

Further oddities: After removing all of the defeated nations from the mod, Haida Gwaii and Kharam Dzu can play their turns, but Sylvania and Sanguinia still can't, even though they are "sandwiched" between them nation ID wise. However, the "working" nations come first in the mod file before the others.

Furthermore, starting a game with the mod, where all the nations are played by human players, crashes even before all the pretenders are assigned. However, if some of the nations are given to the AI, those crashes can be prevented. It seems like this is a limitation of the game GUI only. Incidentally, the game server didn't have any troubles in hosting the turn with a 3.10 version, too, it can handle the new units without any troubles.

[lch]

Since it seems more or less impossible to play this game with 3.10, I suggest that we revert to 3.08 and stay with it for this game. AFAIK it's enough to only keep and use the old binary, the other files can come from 3.10. I'll test this.

[DrPraetorious]

lch - this is the behavior I've generally seen with this overflow issue.

Keeping the 3.08 binary should work. Do we need to revert to the old version of the mod again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif?

[DrPraetorious]

I'm a bit overextended and evidently I just staled, so I'm going AI.

It was fun, all.

[lch]

No, you didn't, I didn't find time to rehost the turn with the 3.08 version. And yes, we'd have to use the 3.08 binary with the old(!) mod, not the corrected one for 3.10, of course.

I'll rehost turn 54 of this game with a 3.08 version now.

[LoloMo]

Ok, so I copy the whole dom3.10 folder to another one, then transfer which 3.08 binary file? (what the heck is a binary file?).

[Shovah32]

If I stale again guys just set me AI or ask me for my password if somebody wants to take over. I'll explain later if I can.

[DrPraetorious]

The .exe is the binary.

Make a copy of the 3.08 executable, leave it in the same folder, and use that to play 3.08 games.

[LoloMo]

I tried it and it says my dom version is too old. Has the game been rehosted using 3.08?

[DrPraetorious]

The game still seems to be using 3.1.

I'm not sure what is going on but don't have a copy of the old version of the mod anyway.

[lch]

I'm in a fix and didn't rehost yet. Will do so now.

[lch]

Okay. I have reverted the game back to turn 52, since that was the turn before hosting with the 3.10 game version I think. It seems that Shovah didn't play a turn for Kharam Dzu, is this right? I will email your turn files to you, please overwrite what you have with them. For those that did their turns, this includes your move orders, so you can pick up where you left immediately. I'll write some info on setting up the game, too.

Apparently coobe / Sylvania hasn't been issuing any orders in the last 3 weeks / turn 46. Let's see what happens now.

[DrPraetorious]

Okay, that works.

Could you also save the fatherland file for that turn? Because it appears that *leaders* with pills of water breathing die for retreating into enemy territory when underwater.

[LoloMo]

Worked for me too, thanks!

[lch]

DrPraetorious said:
Could you also save the fatherland file for that turn? Because it appears that *leaders* with pills of water breathing die for retreating into enemy territory when underwater.


I think I already read this on the bug thread. I am doing backups of every turn before and after hosting for my games.

[Shovah32]

Where would one such as myself find the old 3.08 patch?

[lch]

Shovah32 said:
Where would one such as myself find the old 3.08 patch?


Go to the Shrapnel download page, copy the URL of the patch download link for 3.10 for your system to the clipboard and change the "10" in there to a "08", then download that file via your browser.

[Shovah32]

Whenever I try to do the update it says it can't because various files are the wrong version. If I remove all the trouble causing files I also have to remove the .exe file so I

I'll keep trying various things to fix it unless I get a reply.

[lch]

It seems like Windows is too smart for its own good. Then you'll have to install the game a second time and update that copy, to get the 3.08 exe file. Or reinstall it and update to 3.08 before updating to 3.10.

[Shovah32]

*Has lost both the manual and the disk*
May as well turn me ai I guess.

[lch]

Okay, I'll upload the 3.08 exe somewhere... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

Here, try this one: http://www.mediafire.com/?ezdq1zxnxjj

[Sombre]

Just testing something with lch, need to upload.

[Sombre]

Trying again,...

[Shovah32]

I think I just got my turn in.

[Sombre]

I'm taking over for Coobe, at least for now.

[LoloMo]

Hi, I'm leaving for a short trip in an hour. Can I request for an extension for this turn? I'll be back in about 60 hours, the game is currently on 48 hours timer. Thanks!

[LoloMo]

I'm back! No need for an extension, I'll be able to submit my turn on time =)

[Shovah32]

Ok you all better go and hide. The game is telling me that along with their sticks, my hoburg commanders also have firebrands(haven't recruited any).
Fear the wrath of the hoburgs!

[lch]

See also the Dom3 changelog, pre-3.10:

27th july
* Horticulturist no longer harvests his crops with firebrand.

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

[Shovah32]

I know, just thought I would warn you all to check under your beds at night for tiny farmers wielding flaming swords of death.

[DrPraetorious]

We are pleased to report that we have finally crushed the peripheral army of Kharam Dzu, and are on-schedule to drive them from the Oceans entire.

We are willing to accept peace on terms that include a refund for all the gems we've wasted fighting them, and the lost gem income from our provinces that they temporarily pillaged. Otherwise, we're heading for the Dwarves' capital. We encourage all right-thinking nations to join us in ending the Dwarven menace.