Threelake Throwdown (Mod nation game)

[Sombre]

This is a thread for the mod nations game I just organised over irc.

The players are:

Jurri: Gaea, Cradle of Forests
lch: Tomb Kings
Sombre: Polod Rebalanced
Ferrosol: Alugra, City of Wonders
Okin: Skaven
Pashadawg: Arga Dis
llamabeast: Vaetti

The map is Threelake (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=35952) by Pashadawg.

The soundtrack is by the Blue Man Group.

http://www.barngalleryireland.com/images/three-lakes.jpg

[lch]

Everybody, please use the mod from above to create your pretenders and then send them to me to this email address:
http://bannerbreak.com/banners/5/941/122204565067880021.gif

[okiN]

This'll be my first game in quite a while, and with a nation I've barely tried - should be interesting. :D

[PashaDawg]

There is a farm named after you on the map, okiN. :D

[okiN]

Yeah, I remember you telling me about it when you made the map.

If any of you go near that farm, I'll consider it a firm casus belli. :mad:

[llamabeast]

Aah, I'm very sorry I missed out on this game. Perhaps you could note me as a reserve, in case someone drops out or something.

Also, Sombre suggested I should mention some imminent changes to the Tomb Kings. The main ones I'm planning to make are:
- The poison damage on the Asp Archers will be MR-negates
- The Buried sacreds will become available everywhere
- I'm half-considering making the Asp Archers cap-only - thoughts would be welcome
- The national summons will become much cheapers, especially the anubites and the servants of horus. I'd like it if they were both frequently an important component of TK armies. As it is they're not really worth summoning.
- Anubites will probably need earth gems instead of death gems. There's already far too much to spend the death gems on.

I could implement these now, but Sombre felt it was too late for this game. I just thought these things would be worth bearing in mind balance-wise.

To be honest if there were any chance I could make the changes now I think that would be really good. I could make them directly in your multi-mod so you wouldn't need to recompile it. It seems a shame that one of the few times the TK get some MP time (and in the hands of a good player) it'll be with an outdated version.

[lch]

llama, the game hasn't started yet, if you still want in we'll certainly be able to fit you in. Changes to Tomb Kings that you make within this week would be okay, too, as long as they're making them stronger, not "more balanced" aka weaker. ;)

[llamabeast]

Oh really? Awesome, I think I would be keen then. I think probably I'd like to play Vaettiheim, if that's okay.

Also, I've just been working on a script to automatically combine multiple mods. I've nearly finished it. That might save work on incorporating the Vaetti, and an updated Tomb Kings.

[lch]

DrP already did something like which he dubbed the Mod mixer or something like that, it should be in the untilities thread. To be true, I still wouldn't trust a tool like that and I'm not using it but go through these things by hand, but it would be interesting.

[ano]

I just looked at the nation of Alugra. Very nice ideas but still don't you think that in addition to all tremendous "call power" spells having easily castable 7 gems GoR is too much unbalanced?:)
Very nice theme indeed but it seems like it should be a museum exhibit:)

[Ferrosol]

I just looked at the nation of Alugra. Very nice ideas but still don't you think that in addition to all tremendous "call power" spells having easily castable 7 gems GoR is too much unbalanced?:)
Very nice theme indeed but it seems like it should be a museum exhibit:)

To be fair though Alugra does have a couple of flaws.First of all its GORable troops (that are worth using a GOR on anyway) are capital only.Secondly while you are right about the GOR being cheap remember it is done using astral pearls as opposed to nature gems, nature gems to me are fairly cheap and common and not used for much whereas I can't have enough astral pearls for all my wishing,master enslaving,item forging needs.Thirdly and finally a lot of those rather nice mages you can get have weaknesses that a smart player can exploit and there are some smart players playing in this game.

[ano]

I don't want to argue, but all my experience says that there're no gems more valuable than nature gems and if you have access to clams, pearls lose their importance. As for the units being capital-only, you can recruit a lot at a time (as they're not commanders) and you can also GoR anything else in the game for 7 pearls.
I just wanted to say that in hands of a skilled player this nation will not leave a chance to any other. I am absolutely sure of it. Just an opinion)

[Sombre]

There's no way people are going to be able to clam in this game. Anyone who does try is going to find they have people stomping their face into the dirt and wondering why they didn't put up the fight expected.

I don't believe having a cheaper GoR is going to make them overpowered at all. GoR itself isn't that powerful a spell. As for the overall balance of Alugra, it's hard to know without a few games like this one. If it turns out to be crazy overpowered, it will have to be rebalanced before appearing in further games.

[llamabeast]

Is this going to be quite a cramped map then?

[Sombre]

Fairly. It'll be fine though.

I just want to get the damn thing started. So what's next? Have we integrated vaetti yetti?

[llamabeast]

I've finished my super script. Seriously, it's super. It's about 400 lines long (i.e. it understands a lot about how mods work) and I'm pretty sure it can handle anything flawlessly. I checked it against all the mod commands in the modding manual. It automatically makes a complete mod, even including a description saying which mods it's integrated, removes all clashes and puts all mod nations in the same era.

In the morning I'm going to make the TK changes, send in a vaetti pretender, and upload my script. I'll also make it generate a combined mod, which lch can use if it's helpful.

Is this game using CBM? And, which version of the vaetti is the canonical one?

[PashaDawg]

Threelake will be snug, but not too much so. 92 land provinces / 7 = 13 provinces per player. That's plenty me thinks.

[llamabeast]

Updated Tomb Kings mod released.

[Amhazair]

Looks like this will be an intresting game, I'll be keeping an eye on it.

And heavily rooting for Arga Dis of course. Don't let them down Pasha, or I'll be seriously disappointed in you. ;)

[llamabeast]

Mod combiner released. It's in the mod subforum.

I'm a bit stuck now with regard to designing a pretender, because I'm not sure whether we're using CBM and which version of vaetti to use. I hope I'm not holding everyone up.

[Foodstamp]

If you guys are still interested in using Gaea and can wait until tomorrow evening to start, I am releasing an updated version of the mod. The mod moves the unit IDs away from the vanilla ones and makes many other changes to the nation to make it more interesting.

[lch]

Yeah, that would be cool. We're waiting for okiN's and llama's pretender and possibly for llama's utility to combine mods right now, anyway.

[lch]

Is this game using CBM? And, which version of the vaetti is the canonical one?
No, I don't think so, but Sombre is in charge of game balance. He is fiddling with Vaetti right now. You can probably just make a pretender with any Vaetti version though, I don't think it will change much.

[llamabeast]

Okay, as I understand it, the plan is to include CBM after all, along with the new versions of Vaettiheim, Tomb Kings and Gaea. I've fixed up my mod-combining script, so I'll make the new combined mod as soon as Foodstamp's new Gaea comes out.

[Foodstamp]

Here is the latest version of Gaea. It fixes the conflict with the new Vanilla nations in addition to the following changes:

Gave Ent and Ancient poor undead leadership.
Gave tree folk recup
Lowered gold costs on units
Eliminated Druid
Added Vineman pd enchantment as an easy to cast enchantment
Added All Nature version of Carrion Woods
Gave Ancients holy 1
Added Daughter Oak Unique Hero
Added Vine Ogre Hero
Gave Sylvan Beauty map movement (2)
Added Vine Wall summon

I left three items off this version of the mod to get it done in time for the MP game. These items are minor and will be added to the next version when I have time to complete it.

[llamabeast]

Okay! Here is the completed mod. I've had a quick glance at all the nations and they look fine - hopefully they really are. I've packaged up all the individual nations here as well, from the latest download links, for convenience.

Everyone will now need to remake and resend their pretenders.

The mod for this game is called "ThreeLake". You should make sure you have it enabled when making your pretender.

[llamabeast]

Okay, immediately a major flaw is obvious - national summons don't work correctly, cos the mod combiner doesn't know to change the "damage" value for the summoning spells. Well, I'm too knackered to fix that right now, but anyway we can still use this version of the mod to produce pretenders, since neither the unit numbers nor the pretender statistics will change again. I will work on fixing the national summons later on. It should be a doable thing to add to the mod combiner.

There seems to be lots of things to consider with this script!

[llamabeast]

Okay, here is the new multimod. Hopefully I've caught everything now.

Edit: Final mod now in first post.

[lch]

Okay, immediately a major flaw is obvious - national summons don't work correctly, cos the mod combiner doesn't know to change the "damage" value for the summoning spells.
Hah, I wanted to mention the damage effects, but I thought that Sombre's "Summons?" had covered that.

The plan was to use CBM mod nations, yes, so some people may need to redo their pretenders. I'll have a look around who that is going to be. EDIT: I wanted to see if the pretender costs have changed for people in this game. But I'm playing in this myself, so that doesn't seem fair. If somebody notices that his pretender base cost has changed with llama's mod, then please redo and resend your pretenders.

Still waiting on <strike>Godot</strike> okiN! :D

[llamabeast]

I think everyone will have to redo their pretenders unfortunately, because the unit numbers will have changed.

[lch]

Okay. I had coobe look over the pretenders, and according to him the base costs for Gaea and Alugra have definitely changed, the others could just rebuild the same setup that they had before. Please send your redone pretenders ASAP so we may start.

[Sombre]

Shame you put CBM at the bottom of your megamod llama. Means copystat clone pretenders for mod nations won't have CBM values.

Doesn't make much difference in this game, but something to look out for.

[llamabeast]

Aaaah. I had no idea of that. In my head the copystats would refer to the modified pretenders, but in fact it's fairly obvious it doesn't work like that.

I thought it was strange that the pretenders seemed so unchanged.

I can whip up another one in a few seconds. But I fear that will damage the momentum on starting the game. Let me know if you'd like me to though.

[Sombre]

It seems Skaven Censer Bearer weapons don't have their incense cloud secondaryeffectalways in the threelake dm llama.

[llamabeast]

Oh man. The cloud is declared after the weapon that uses it. I didn't think you were allowed to do that.

I think the remaining assumptions in the script are that weapons, armor and sites must all be declared before being used. With weapons obviously it obviously isn't true after all, so I'll fix that tonight. With armor and sites I still think it is true. Now's the time to tell me if I'm wrong though.

Fixing the weapons won't make any difference to the pretenders, so people can carry on using the current mod to make their pretenders and send them in.

I notice the mod's only had four downloads. Do we reckon the other two have actually looked here and knows they need to send a new pretender in?

[lch]

I notice the mod's only had four downloads. Do we reckon the other two have actually looked here and knows they need to send a new pretender in?
I assume the downloads are from Ferrosol, Sombre, okiN and me. Pasha and Jurri haven't redone their pretenders yet. Pasha knows, Jurri seems busy.

[lch]

I have received all the pretenders now. The game is going to start shortly. Unless there's going to be an updated mod you want me to use on the server first?

[Sombre]

We could do with an update from llama making sure the weapons etc are all working.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, sorry about that, I've been a bit dopey. I'm a little tipsy right now, but I'll do it first thing in the morning.

[PashaDawg]

Revised pretender sent. Sorry for the delay.

Pasha

[llamabeast]

Okay! The (hopefully!) final version of the mod is in the first post. Sorry about the delay.

My mod combiner has been updated as we've gone along, so it made the final version unaided. I'm just going to make a couple more tweaks then I'll repost it in the modding forum.

[lch]

Cool. The game will start after I got some sleep, then. <strike>ETA less than 24h.</strike>

EDIT: All promises have to be broken... but only once. Too tied up over other things, not good.

[lch]

The game server is up. I hope I didn't make any glaring error while setting it up...

I repackaged the original mod with llama's updates, containing the mod icon and the nation graphics in one directory. You can redownload it in the top post if you want.

[PashaDawg]

Thanks, lch. (Note the official thank you... I pushed the button.)

Your email said there is a webpage with the turn status. What is the address?

Pasha

[okiN]

Oh ho! The game is afoot!

[Sombre]

Death to OkiN!

[okiN]

No, no! Death to the Evil One! Death to JURRI! :(

[Ferrosol]

I am an equal opportunity killer, Death to everyone!

[Sombre]

Everyone is a lamer, everyone is using provhax!

[llamabeast]

What?

[Sombre]

You know, provhax. Like wallhax. As in Counterstrike. Online cheating.

An appropriate comment given what happened with MX.

[llamabeast]

Aha! I wondered what wallhax were.

I began this game with a magicless crone called "Madam" leading three non-commander Daughters of Avalon and two non-commander Mothers of Avalon. Odd. They're all going to their deaths this turn anyway. Anyone have idea why I started with them? They were in addition to my two starting commanders, so I don't think it was a mod thing.

[lch]

Aha! I wondered what wallhax were.
Something that made you see enemies through the wall or even shoot through the wall AFAIK.

I began this game with a magicless crone called "Madam" leading three non-commander Daughters of Avalon and two non-commander Mothers of Avalon. Odd. They're all going to their deaths this turn anyway. Anyone have idea why I started with them? They were in addition to my two starting commanders, so I don't think it was a mod thing.
It's not a mod thing, it is a map thing. And thus everybody knows where you started, now... :banana: Everybody in this game has his own province named after himself, BTW, except for Ferrosol and you. Pasha even has two.

[PashaDawg]

Aha! I wondered what wallhax were.

I began this game with a magicless crone called "Madam" leading three non-commander Daughters of Avalon and two non-commander Mothers of Avalon. Odd. They're all going to their deaths this turn anyway. Anyone have idea why I started with them? They were in addition to my two starting commanders, so I don't think it was a mod thing.

You must have started in "Hoebush". There are several joke commanders on the map. If you started in Hoebush, then you get the Madam and her underlings as commanders. They are just a joke. For example, there is a mechanical man in Quantum Fields, and there are 'boars' on Farmer okiN's hog farm.

Pasha

[okiN]

"Death to Dawgcatcher"?

You having a problem with some Spartan wannabes, Pasha? :D

[lch]

Dawgcatcher is actually the name of Gaea's prophet... Pasha is the Spartan wanna-be.

[okiN]

As it turns out, I am confused as hell - business as usual in all respects.

Carry on!

[lch]

Gremlins ate some sprites in the repackaged mod, for some reason. In case you downloaded it, redownload again and unpack over the old files.

[llamabeast]

Hey all,

Here's yet another fixed dm file that everyone should download. There were a few errors in the assignment of PD.

(Updated big zip in the first post as well, but you don't need that)

[lch]

DEATH TO LLAMA!

[okiN]

Things are starting to heat up! :)

[Sombre]

All hail the Order of the Eagle! Foremost of the Knightly Orders of Polod, the Eagles have declared no monster shall slither, grow, stomp or prowl in the lands of their people! All loyal godfearing serfs will gladly contribute additional taxes to the Order and celebrate their passing upon pain of execution!

[okiN]

Can we skitter? What's the Order's stance on skittering?

[llamabeast]

I'm just going away for two days, getting back at Saturday lunchtime. Could you add maybe 12 hours on to the turn timer please lch?

[llamabeast]

Heh, Wailing Winds made my reverse communion communion master run away rather than cast Power of the Spheres.

Next time, Tomb Kings, next time...

[Sombre]

The glorious nation of Polod wishes it to be known that they now seek air gems. Any who have distilled the winds of this world into material form should seek audience with the Astronoms of the court.

[lch]

Oh, there was a reverse communion going on? All I see since half a year is Vaetti tail.

[llamabeast]

It's your sodding Wailing Winds, isn't it. I have no idea how to counter that.

I've just realised that being as I'm about to go on a course for four days, I'm not going to be able to take my turn for four days. Very sorry for the holdup. I will be back Saturday lunchtime. If you wouldn't mind holding next turn for me I'd be grateful, though if you'd rather leave the timer unchanged I quite understand.

I'll take the current turn anyway, so hopefully I won't be slowing things down too much.

[llamabeast]

Many apologies for the ridiculously long wait I've caused on this turn. I promise I'll be speedy again now.

[lch]

No worries. I'll take the blame, and okiN is only jumping me for it. :cheers:

[lch]

Ahh, so that's why Pasha, He who dies against Independents, King of Inventions, the Rock managed to get himself killed so easily before. Nehekhara wants to point out that while Pasha's commitment to impale himself on the spears of independent armies is commendable, a brass flag with an eye on it doesn't belong to Independents, it does belong to the Nehekharan empire. Perhaps the shortsighted commanders of Arga Dis were just too woozy to notice this before. The better educated advisors of Arga Dis should probably inform them that their neighbor to the east is the real and only threat to them, as can be easily deduced from Threelake's national reports.

[llamabeast]

I think you mean west.

Hmm, I don't think I have any scouts down there. That's a shame.

[lch]

Err, yes.

[Foodstamp]

Jurri,

Keep me updated on how Gaea performs. The nation was in no way designed for balance or MP so I am curious how it does.

Thanks! :)

[Sombre]

I think the Argans understand the difference between the undead armies of lying immortal skeleton mummy things and a noble order of human warriors. One is a mirror image of Argan pride, the other an ABOMINATION UNTO LADY ELENA.

Hahah, sorry, couldn't resist.

Edit: Foodstamp - Gaea are completely impossible to siege. I mean really, they are far far harder to siege than any vanilla nation. Sieging them does nothing to their meaningful income or troop production and allows their seducers to go nuts on the attacking army.

[Burnsaber]

Foodstamp, could you keep me too updated on Alugra's performance, if that's not too much of a bother. I'll have a long vacation from military in 2 weeks and I'm planning on a update on Alugra, mostly to deal with the "Experiment" spells not working, but I could also squeeze in rebalance changes.

Do other players in this game have made any observation on the nation of Alugra?

[lch]

The mod has to be updated for the 3.21 game version before we can continue the game, I think. A couple of my mages suddenly have the order to cast "Minor Warp Lightning" for their originally scripted national spells.

Server timer is off now because of that. (suck on that, okiN :D)

[lch]

Updated Mod. This should make this playable like before again. Please test.

Edit: Updated to use spell names instead of ID numbers. Fixes Mac crashes.

[lch]

Looks like Vaettiheim has won the battles this month, but is losing the war. Lost almost everything except for maybe half a dozen units to retreating, ouch. The only thing I'm slightly mad about is that lucky shot from the watchtower in my fort storming attempt, despite Vaetti showing tail already. Teaches me to bring at least one other commander next time, I had a spare one that I could easily have brought along, too. :doh:

[lch]

There seems to be trouble with the backbone network again. Some people can reach the server, some can't, I can make connections to most IPs outside, but some fail for no reason. Seems to be kinda isolated to the building the server is in. Should be fixed within a day, so I reset the turn timers now.

[lch]

Since there were a couple of outstanding turns, and because of the US national holiday, the timer was reset on Thanksgiving.

[lch]

Addendum, the power will be cut in the complex that the server is in tomorrow, from about 05:00 to 17:00 GMT. I will shutdown the server remotely in about 5-7 hours and power it on again by hand on Sunday.