CarCrash - EA Game - CBM - (Running)

[Calahan]

@ All

Despite several attempts, I have had no luck in contacting Atlantis / Silence0. So I am currently looking for someone to assess the Atlantis position before deciding on the next course of action.

Apologies for not getting on the staling Atlantis case earlier, as they have staled far more times than I would normally let a nation stale as admin. Haven't had a chance to play catch-up on things until now due to a hectic work week that saw me lose my forum lurking ability :(

I hope to get an assessment soon, and will keep you all informed on Atlantis developments.

[Calahan]

Atlantis Update -

WingedDog very kindly took a look at the Atlantis position for me earlier, and has said that a sub should be found for them if at all possible, as they are in no way a nation that should be turned AI. And neither are they putting up a last ditch defence, so a 'proper' sub if you were, should be found for them. So I've just posted for a sub, and will let you all know how that gets on.

Unfortunately, this does mean a delay is likely to be needed. And apologies again for not addressing this issue as soon as I usual would have. Since 48 hours have been wasted by me not having sorted this out at the start of the turn. Damn RL. I'll be adding 12 hours to the deadline shortly though, as I doubt there is any chance that a sub can be found, and an Atlantis turn submitted, before the deadline hits in ~8 hours.

Although it only took me 30 minutes to find the last sub I looked for though, so who knows :)

[tgbob]

I just had a major brain fart. I saw the delay thing and went "Oh huh, wonder what the due date is now," and then I saw it was Wednesday! Wednesday, that's like four days from now!

And then I remembered today is Tuesday and not Saturday...

[Calahan]

Well, ask and thou shall receive I think is in order here. I have managed to find a sub for Atlantis in the capable form of 'Phonics'.

So on behalf of everyone here, "Welcome to the world of CarCrash Phonics". Many thanks from us all for saving Atlantis from the dreaded AI.

Can everyone please let Phonics know about any NAP's etc you currently have with Atlantis.

I have also added 24 hours to the deadline to allow Phonics time to settle in and get those diplo PM's sorted out where necessary.

And.....


bloody hell, just 21 minutes to find a sub! ~30 minutes to find one last time, 21 minutes this time. Am I going through a sub finding purple patch or something??!


@ WraithLord (if he ever reads this) - I thought you were the King of sub-finding after your remarkable efforts in getting all those subs that allowed Artifacts to actually finish. But think I might have to take that crown off you given my current sub-finding form :)

[Phonics]

Thanks for having me. :up:

Time to figure out whats what and whos who, I'll submit my turn within the next 24h.

[Calahan]

Sorry for needing the 8 hour delay everyone. I got in last night very late and worse for wear after a works leaving do. So I added a few hours in case this morning turned into a hangover recovery session instead of it's previously intended Dominions session. Which is probably what will happen now given how much my head is hurting :sick:

I should be able to finish and submit my turn before the end of the day though, a clear head at some point this afternoon being willing. And with the recent ending of my LA Ermor time vacuum in the 'Red Ruby' game, I should have a much better chance of keeping ahead of my turns from here on in.

[PsiSoldier]

I guess it's a good thing your the admin. If you weren't I think any other admin might get tired of all the delay's you would have apparently be asking for.

Hopefully your right about having more time now. I know MA Ermor can be a pretty big time Vacuum as it was in Faltering steps that I guess Ive won now and I'm sure LA Ermor is no exception. It takes a while to manage all those undead and summon bane's to command and all that good stuff.

[Calahan]

Yes, I'm not really happy about the delays myself in all honesty. So I certainly apologise for them. A combination of lack of time and a busy work schedule druing August has seen most of my recent turns in this game being just basic maintenance.

But I did devote a lot of extra time to the 'Red Ruby' game over the past few weeks to get the game finished. Since I invested that extra time in order to avoid making any mistakes that could have given everyone a reason to continue it, which would have prolonged the game even further as a result. Definitely worked out to be a good time investment in the end though. I'm freeeee!!!

So the extra 2 hours per day on average (which is what Red Ruby was costing me) should enable me to stay with the pace on this one from now on.

Apologies again from the time deficient admin :(

[tgbob]

Anyone want my Black Laurel? You can have it for frees!

Oh yeah, I'm going to be gone Saturday and Sunday, probably Calahan's Friday and Saturday due to timezone craziness. And my laptop is like way too heavy to be lugging around airports and hotels. Maybe I should look for a sub?

P.S. I don't mind the delays Calahan.

[Calahan]

Are you going away just for the weekend tgbob? or is it more of a permanent upheaval? Since if it is just for the weekend, then that's exactly what delays are meant for :) If you think/want to get a sub for a turn instead, then that's fine. But if you want a delay for the weekend while you are away, then that's fine by me as well.

[tgbob]

It's a weekend thing.

[Calahan]

@ tgbob - Let me know if and when you need any delay for your weekend trip.

@ Phonics / All - Atlantis staled last turn, which is not good considering a sub has only recently been found to stop such a thing happening. I PM-ed Phonics 36 hours ago to see what the situation is, but I've had no reply as of yet. But I notice Phonics is submitting turns for another game, so maybe it was a missing .trn file issue that caused the stale here (that's just an educated guess though). Hoping it was just a one-off stale :)

[PsiSoldier]

Atlantis is dead. When Neifle Cast the Astral Corruption Caleum asked for a cease fire and I accepted. And after Neifle gave in to my demands Atlantis was just the next logical target. There is nothing Phonics or anyone else could do. It doesn't matter much since Atlantis will only be around for a few more turns. The seas belong to Agartha now. I'll take his capital in just 2 more turns and by then there wont be much of anything else left belonging to Atlantis either.

[Calahan]

Yes, Atlantis appear to be in trouble, but I still wouldn't mind knowing what happened to Phonics. Since he's listed as playing Atlantis in the 'Aquamarine' game which has just started, and Atlantis hasn't staled any turns there so far.

So it appears he's still submitting turns in another game, but just not in this game for some reason?!?!

[Calahan]

@ Phonics - Good to see you back :) Hope you can put up a good last stand against Agartha :up:

@ All - tgbob has requested a delay as he is away over the weekend. He hasn't told me how long a delay he will need though, so I will add 24 hours for now, and may add further time if tgbob gets back to me asking for more, or if the deadline gets close without me having heard from tgbob (and his turn still outstanding)

[Calahan]

@ All

I'm looking doubtful of getting home from work in time to finish up my turn tonight (think I need at least another hour or two on it at a guess). I'm going to add 4 hours to give myself some chance of getting it done though. But I may have to extend it until tomorrow if tiredness gets the better of me, since I don't see much point in struggling to stay awake until very late just to get a turn done.

Apologies for the short delay all the same though.

[Calahan]

@ All

Just had a message from the llamaserver (which I assume you all got) that the attempted hosting of turn 84 failed due to a "Nagot gick fel" error.

Never encountered this problem before personally, but heard about it from various game threads. I guess our only options are the two suggested in the message. I certainly wouldn't want to see an entire turn staled by everyone at this stage, as there are wars going on, and a skipped turn could have serious repercussions. Especially as it effectively acts as a 'free' round of sieging, meaning fort walls could fall sooner than they should have.

So my suggestion is to rollback and attempt an immediate re-host. Since despite the llamaserver message saying this will only repeat the error, I did notice a game a few weeks back that did this exact thing without getting the error again. And I mainly noticed it as I remember thinking "I'm sure that won't work", but it did. So think it's worth trying as it will only take a few minutes to do, and if it fails then we've lost nothing (as we'll just be back to where we are now). But if it succeeds then it'll save us having to re-do all our turns.

If it doesn't work, then the only option is for all of us to genuinely re-do our turns as suggested in the llamaserver message.

I will wait for some feedback before doing anything though.

[AlgaeNymph]

Give re-hosting a go, we lose nothing either way.

[PsiSoldier]

I dont see any harm in rehosting. It looks like the game still used all my gems for spells I cast but I didnt get what I should have gotten for it, so I more or less paid for nothing as it stands now.

[Valerius]

I agree; rehosting is worth a try.

[Calahan]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I will roll the game back and attempt a re-host in the next few minutes then.

Get those fingers crossed :)

Edit 1: Ok, it's rolled back ok. Force hosting now.....
Edit 2: No new turn file yet, but just had an email telling me about an error again. So looks like it was a fail.....
Edut 3. No good, the error repeated itself with another mass round of stales. So guess the only real option now is to roll back to turn 84, and then for everyone to completely do their turn 84's again :( re-doing a MM intensive late-game turn is surely the stuff of Dominions nightmares.


Will roll back again to turn 84 in a few minutes, and send out instructions to everyone in case anyone is unsure what is happening.

[rdonj]

Pretty sure when you do a rollback to fix a hosting error, everyone is supposed to redo their turn to make sure that whatever error it was that popped up doesn't again.

[Calahan]

Ok everyone, the game has now been rolled back to turn 84. So what is needed now, sadly, is for everyone to re-do their turns :(

Now I think it's very important for everyone to treat this rolled-back turn as a completely new turn. As in use the .trn file that came with the roll back email, create a brand new folder, and above all else, delete everything you have relating to the old turn 84 that you submitted or used. As otherwise there is a danger that the game could again report a hosting error if any files from the original turn 84 are re-used.

And please, I know it's tempting to just use the old .trn file, and even more tempting to just send in your old .2h file, but both of them could result in a repeat of the error. So can I kindly ask that everyone goes through the, admittedly unpleasant prospect, of re-doing their turns again. It's a major hassle I know, but the only way to get past this type of error.

If anyone is unsure of what to do, what is happening, or which turn file to use, then please either post or PM me.


@ rdonj - :) There was a game a few weeks back where this type of error was resolved by simply re-hosting, so was hoping the llamaserver would be resonable and process the turn without needing a new set of .2h files. Sadly not though :(

[Calahan]

There may be a solution. Just been on the IRC, and apparently you can also try re-using the old .2h file if you just make a slight change to it.

So what I am going to do is this......

I will upload my .2h file now with a few alterations, and then attempt another hosting. If the error occurs again, then I will ask everyone to re-submit their old .2h files, making sure they make some changes (nothing major, just move some scouts around for example). If that again fails to solve the problem, then I guess we will have to re-do all the turns. Again this might not work, but we may as well try it since the worst case scenario is that we are back to where we are now.

Ok, sending my turn in again to attempt another re-host.......

Edit 1: Altered turn sent, waiting for llamaserver to update.......
Edit 2: Turn accepted, force hosting now........
Edit 3: No luck again :( Another error.


The car has crashed, please bare with me during the technical difficulties. I am now going to trying sending in a blank .2h file for Yomi (blank as in doing nothing). As if the game hosts successfully doing that, then the error has at least been isolated to my turn file.........

Edit 4: Blank turn sent, going for another rehost to isolate/eliminate the source of the error.
Edit 5: turn received, attempting force host

[Calahan]

Ok, so I sent in my blank turn, and the game still produced an error. So I'm understanding from this that my original .2h file was ok, and that the error lies in the turn file of one of the other nations.

Hhhhmmmm, suggestions? I could....

1. Go around each nation individually testing each one to see who it is that is producing the error,

2. Just go with my other plan of asking everyone to move some scouts around in their original turn file, and re-send that in.

3. Ask everyone to re-do their turns from scratch to be on the safe side.

My thoughts on these....

1. Has the benefit of probably managing to actually find the problem, and won't need anyone to do much until it is their turn to test their file (and maybe nothing at all if the error is found before it is their turn)

2. Is probably the quickest solution, but might not solve anything if simply moving scouts around isn't enough to solve the problem.

3. Is most likely to solve the problem, but is also the biggest hassle to everyone.

My suggestion is to try 2. then 1. then 3.

[Valerius]

I agree, try 2 first. Not sure between choices 1 and 3. 1 seems like it could potentially take a lot of time for everyone to test their turns. But 3 is probably a hassle for most of you. Not for Van though, since my turn just consists of forging a new soul contract. :)

[Calahan]

We'll run with 2. first then and hope we get lucky :) and if that fails, have a bit of a think I guess.

So, can everyone load-up their original turn 84's and make some changes here and there. If you haven't got these files any more, then the .trn file for turn 84 can be found in one of the many roll back emails that have been sent out. And the .2h file you should be able to get from your sent emails folder. Assuming your email program/provider etc. automatically saves a copy of sent emails. Almost all of them do I think.


So the game is currently waiting for everyone's altered turn 84 .2h files. It hopefully shouldn't take too long for everyone to get their changed turns in, and then we prey that the Dominions Gods are smiling on us :)

[PsiSoldier]

Ok Ive moved all or at least most of my scouts around and resent my turn.

[Calahan]

Thanks for the quick re-sending of turns everyone. We are just waiting on Phonics/Atlantis now for the game to host.

Had a think about the whole hosting error, and because this type of error is AFAIK, almost exclusively linked to stealth units (hence the advice I was given suggesting to move scouts around to fix it), I have this funny feeling that the problem could be at Niefelheim's end and due to their Skratti unit.

Since depending on the orders and scripts, it is possible for a Skratti to be in a non-stealthed form when you press 'End Turn', yet still be hidden in enemy lands. I know this from previous testing, and from closer inspection of one of the turn 85's that came through to me when trying to locate the source of the error last night. As my patrols found a Skratti Werewolf hiding in one of my provinces, but the Skratti Werewolf isn't a stealth unit, so it shouldn't have been able to hide at all (at least not in that form). And I'm guessing there is a good chance the game engine doesn't like this sort of conflict, and is crashing during hosting as a result.

But guess we'll see what happens with the next attempted hosting, and take things from there if it fails again. I'm going away for a few days due to work commitments at the start of next week, so really hope this can be solved before then, and without the game having to take a mass stale (although if that becomes the only way to get past this error, then I guess it will have to be accepted :()

[PsiSoldier]

Did Phonics even submit his turn the first time? It might have been a stale for him as it was.

[PsiSoldier]

I think we might have ****ed up Llamaserver...

It should have hosted about 10 mins ago and it looks like its stuck. It could just be taking an extremely long time but its not looking good.

I'm kinda tempted to just vote that we take the screwed up turn with a stale for everyone and just get on with it..

[PsiSoldier]

eh... just noticed that it's not set to host until Friday????

WTF Why are we waiting for one nation that is essentially out of the game anyways. I dont think Atlantis even submitted his turn in the first place when this all started. Atlantis should be set to AI at this point and lets get on with it.

[Calahan]

@ PsiSoldier/All

Phonics/Atlantis didn't stale the original turn 84, although I confess to being surprised it's taking so long to submit an altered turn.


The hosting is set to Friday because the game automatically uses the current schedule for working out when the deadline should be during a rollback. Since we are currently on a 72 hour schedule, it correctly (from a working llamaserver PoV) set the deadline to Friday as the rollback occurred on Tuesday.

I could have entered a negative number into the postponement function to bring the hosting deadline forward. But my number one rule of admining is never ever reduce the hosting deadline for any reason what-so-ever. It only causes problems. Also, when the hosting deadline was reduced recently in the 'Forge of Godhood' game, the game decided to host straight away for some reason (the altered deadline was still several hours away at the time). Only bad things happen when deadlines are reduced, while only patience is required on the flip-side of it.


While it would be nice and convenient to just say "Sod it, we'll take the mass stale and move on", I only want to do this as a last resort. Since it could have serious ramifications for the game, and I for one have not spent 6 months and 200+ hours on this game to see it either ruined, or turned into a joke at this late stage. Since there's no telling if this error will even go away if we take the mass stale.

We have only attempted one or two minor things to achieve an error free hosting so far (re-hosting and myself submitting a blank turn), so I would like to at least try a few more things to get the turn to host properly before turning to the last resort. We are making another attempt now, and if that fails, then I will probably be contacting Pelthin/Niefelheim, to see about submitting some 'test' turns where there are no Skratti's with potentially dubious stealth/shape changing orders, to see if the error can be isolated and solved (as per my suspicions stated previously regarding the cause of the hosting error).

This error was completely out of my hands, but I guess I can apologies for it on behalf of the game/llamaserver. But I do want to try and get an error free hosting, and I would very much appreciate a little patience on behalf of the players while attempting to solve it :) We all want the same thing after all, which is for the game to get going again, but I'm not yet willing to possibly sacrifice the credibility of the game to do so. Especially not without trying a few reasonable steps to solve it first.

My main problem at the moment is a lack of time to devote to getting this problem solved. As RL work is going to be causing me a lot of very busy days from now until the end of the month, culminating in a four day trip. But I will try my best to find some time this evening to address this issue, and if Phonics hasn't submitted his turn by then, then I'll just force hosting and hope for the best.


But if anyone is frustrated by this error, then just think of the extra RL time it's causing as a chance to enjoy the last few days of summer :) (depending where you are in the world). And be thankful you are not the admin trying to solve it by messing around with the llamaserver, seeking help from those in the know, and having to send out/post messages and instructions for everyone during each rollback and error solving attempt.

Patience and understanding is the key to getting this error solved I feel :)

[Calahan]

Ok, still no sign of a turn from Phonics/Atlantis, so I am going to force hosting now and see what happens....

Edit1: Wow, this is taking ages to host. I don't know if that's a good sign or bad.
Edit2: Got a feeling that despite the admin log entry, the force hosting request didn't get accepted. Will have to wait now to try again, as don't want to risk force hosting again until I'm sure it didn't get accepted (as otherwise I might accidentally force host turn 85)

[Calahan]

Ok, trying again to force host........

Edit: I think we have success :) I didn't get any error messages from the llamaserver, the hosting appears to have taken place without a problem, and everything seems to be as ordered with regards my turn.

Can everyone please report if you have any problems at all though. Sometimes during rollbacks you can get some weird stuff happening (random commanders appearing etc). So I'd like to try and locate any problems like that now, and not have to come back to them at a future point when someone says "hey, I've just noticed a load of weird things".

But hopefully the game is now back on track. So I'd like to thank you all for you time, patience, and cooperation in getting the error resolved :)

[Valerius]

Thanks, Calahan. All twelve of Van's provinces appear to be in order. I was kind of hoping for a random seraph to appear, but no luck. :)

[Calahan]

@ All

I am going away for a few days with my work, as such I need a short delay for this game. There is little point getting a sub, as I'll only need roughly a 24 hour delay, and the game is at such a late stage as well that it would take me just as long to explain to a sub what was happening as it would to actually do my turn. Plus I wouldn't inflict a sub to such an MM intensive position as this one

But I have had to do the following.....

1. Temporarily turn quickhost off, as if it is on the current turn could host well before expected, meaning I might not be around to even notice it has hosted (so wouldn't be able to prevent the resultant stale it would cause me for turn 86).

2. Extend the current turn by 24 hours, so that the deadline for turn 86 is then set to late (llamaserver time) on Thursday 1st October. I am due back the afternoon of that day.

Hope there are no problems with the current turn while I am away. I might have access to the internet during my trip. If so I'll do my best to check in for any reports on this game (since there may still be unreported errors regarding the rollback that need resolving).

[Calahan]

Ok everyone, I got back from my works trips a few hours ago, and back in my Dominions seat as of roughly 30 minutes ago :) I've had to add 4 hours to the current turn though as...

A) I want to find someone to set Atlantis AI (I've had enough of Phonics's intermittent turn submissions), plus they are all but dead as far as I can tell. And...

B) I didn't have any real time while I was away to work on my turn, so have no chance of doing it in 20 minutes. But I hope to be able bash it out tonight without needing it to spill over to tomorrow.

I'll also turn quickhost back on now that I'm back.

[PsiSoldier]

Atlantis will be completely eliminated in just a few turns, but it would be nice to not have to wait on them or rather to not have to wait on the full time to expire every turn just for another stale.

Not to mention the fact that the only province Atlantis had left that had more than 2 commanders left is now under siege. And the other will be momentarily as well.

[Calahan]

Thanks for the info on Atlantis PsiSoldier. My scouts spotted the Atlantis controlled provinces rapidly disappearing, but good to know that they are basically dead, as I won't feel as bad about turning them over to the AI that way.

[PsiSoldier]

Atlantis only has 2 turns left. Their last 2 provinces under siege, One being stormed this turn and the last one will be stormed next turn assuming my army can break through the walls on the first turn they arrive in the province which I believe they will..

[Calahan]

@ All

By my count, I am able to claim the win in this game on this turn, as I have now held the required 7 capitals for 3 consecutive turns.

I will try to find an independent person with a well known good rep to confirm this for me asap. And many apologies for not doing this when the new turn came out, but it's been hectic since coming back from my trip, and didn't have chance to check everything over until this morning (when I actually found out I could have claimed the win last turn :doh:)

Will get back to you all asap with the verdict.

Edit: In case the game does continue, Atlantis have been set to AI as of ths turn (kindly done by vfb. For which he gets my thanks)

[tgbob]

Oh we had win conditions? Here's me paying attention for the last 87 turns.

[Calahan]

Ok everyone, I've had my win claim assessed by an independent 3rd party, in this case lch, and he has confirmed that I have met the victory conditions of holding 7 capitals for 3 consecutive turns.

The capitals I hold are...(in the order they were obtained)

1. Yomi
2. C'tis
3. Suaromatia
4. Pangaea
5. Mictlan
6. Fomoria
7. Niefelheim

With the Niefelheim capital being the last one I captured on turn 84.

I will write up an AAR when I get chance, and post up a load of turn files for those interested.

I've also extended the current turn by 72 hours in case there's a need to keep the game going for whatever reason.

[lch]

As Calahan writes, I can confirm that he was in control of the forts of 7 capitals for turns 84 to 87.

[tgbob]

I demand a clam count!

[rdonj]

Hey, go yomi! :D

[Valerius]

Congratulations, Calahan. Like tgbob, I was unaware there were win conditions. I guess coming in as a sub I didn't pay as much attention to the rules as I otherwise would have so this was quite a surprise ending.

[Calahan]

The win conditions were in the Original Post* under "Victory Conditions", since always find it's better to have a goal in a game rather than leave it to concession (as that could result in games going on forever). But maybe there was a bit too much info in the OP for the win conditions to be seen clearly. Although it was near the top so.......?!?

This was the first game I arranged as well, so got plenty of thoughts on how to lay things out better during sign ups for future ones.

This was also my first full game with graphs off, and must say it plays very differently to games with graphs on. Which probably explains why the end feels so sudden to the rest of you. Can't say the win feels sudden to me, as I'd only been one capital away from winning for about 15-20 turns, so knew the end was close unless everyone jumped me.

Although if the graphs had been on and capital VP's active, it would have been obvious to all how close I was to the win. So think I definitely benefited from them being off this time around. I had hardly any scouts all game though, so while I'd happily play graphs off games again, I'm not sure I'd go for it in an EA game.


* My thanks to Archaeolept for using this term today on the IRC. I'd previously used 'first post' and 'game status' page to describe the first post of a game thread, but didn't really like either. But like the term 'Original Post' :)

[PsiSoldier]

WTF bull****. I didnt realize this was vp victory.. I had this game won. I could have taken out every one left in the game at once with no problem...

Grrrrr

[PsiSoldier]

I had a gem income of over 1000 per turn with 3 wishers, had just cast Gift of Natures bounty and could have slaughtered Yomi at any time had I realized it was a VP control victory.

I cannot even begin to say how extremely pissed I am right now.

Calahan had completely neglected PD and I had over 12 Lich's that could have cast Ghost riders 12 times per turn not counting the 7 or 8 empowered wraith lords I had.

Hmmmm If the game is not actually over I might could actually take several of Calahan's VP's this turn if its not too late that is..

[PsiSoldier]

Well, its probably too late but Ive sent teams to take 3 of Yomi's capitals this turn... If it is over before the battle takes place then I'm screwed. Or if it doesnt count that I have him sieged I'm screwed as well.

This is retarded though. To have Victory point game with No graphs is insane. About the only person who would remember it was a vp game is the admin that created the game I'd think..

Hopefully it gives me the chance to take these provinces from yomi though.. Unfortunatly though I only caught on to the fact that it is a vP game in the last few minutes and seeing as how only calahan's turn remains outstanding I had to rush to change my turn without being able to put much thought into it Of course it may not matter regardless..

[PsiSoldier]

Of course if Calahan wanted to have a real show of it without acheiving some sneaky underhanded victory we could always roll back a turn and I could demonstrate my real power...

[PsiSoldier]

Bahh i just read back over the posts... guess it doesnt matter what I do taking calahans vp's this turn anyways.. This is just gay.

I just think a requirement of the win should have been to announce your intentions to declare victory on the first turn that you believe you hold 50% of the province's and give everyone 3 turns to take them from you. ESPECIALLY with graph's off.

Because it is most certainly NOT the case that he could have held said province's if I had known the situation.

Of course the case could be made that it is everyones responsibility to know the victory conditions but like I say the graphs were off so they could not serve as a reminder and most games are NOT vp games and this late in the game so long from when we started it is just not something easily remembered. And of course in the begining I was too distracted by the fact that it was a randomly assigned nation game with no graphs to even have ever noticed the victory condition in the first place. It was just a screwy game altogether. I honestly dont think I ever even realized at any point even at the begining that it was VP control.

[PsiSoldier]

I demand a clam count!

About 250 and currently forging 17 per turn and summoning more Naiads to forge another 5 thanks to the new wisher I had just added. So it would have been 22 clams per turn within about 3 more turns.

Nearly as many blood stones as well. As you found out from the 20+ Earth attacks I could cast per turn.

And of course with Gift of Natures bounty up my Income would have been a little over 40,000 per turn.

I suppose in the end it will have to be enough for me to know personally that Calahan could not have actually beat me in a war and rather I could have taken him out in very short order about as quickly as I killed Atlantis. It was definitely a hollow victory for Calahan.

[Micah]

Sportsmanship fail.

[archaeolept]

It is there in the OP, and 7 of 14 capitals for 3 turns is hardly a lightweight victory condition. With graphs off and this sort of condition, having some sort of announcement would be a preferable method, but what the heck have you been doing with all your vast might, Psi?

[tgbob]

Make more vast might apparently.

[PsiSoldier]

It is there in the OP, and 7 of 14 capitals for 3 turns is hardly a lightweight victory condition. With graphs off and this sort of condition, having some sort of announcement would be a preferable method, but what the heck have you been doing with all your vast might, Psi?

I probably actually have more provinces than yomi does Ive got around 75 or so more than that I think. For a large portion of the game I had about 4 or so nations ganged up against me and I fought them all off and made great progress as well. I currently had just eliminated Atlantis and was about to start kicking Yomi's *** but like I say didnt remember or perhaps never even realized the victory condition was to hold 50% of the caps for 3 turns. As it was I didnt even care that Yomi held those caps. I am stronger than he is and it really didnt matter to me. I could have taken them from him whenever I wanted.

[Calahan]

Oh, where to start.

WTF bull****. I didn't realize this was vp victory.. I had this game won. I could have taken out every one left in the game at once with no problem...

Grrrrr
For someone who had this game won, you were certainly a very long way from victory at the end, having just 2 out of 7 capitals.

The victory conditions were clearly stated in the OP since the moment this game was created. Please do not make excuses or blame others for you own ignorance of the rules and conditions of this game.
I had a gem income of over 1000 per turn with 3 wishers, had just cast Gift of Natures bounty and could have slaughtered Yomi at any time had I realized it was a VP control victory.

I cannot even begin to say how extremely pissed I am right now.

Calahan had completely neglected PD and I had over 12 Lich's that could have cast Ghost riders 12 times per turn not counting the 7 or 8 empowered wraith lords I had.

Hmmmm If the game is not actually over I might could actually take several of Calahan's VP's this turn if its not too late that is..
Well if you had such a large gem income, then you made very poor use out of it. As it wasn't until around turn 70 that you made any progress in any war. And then that was only against Atlantis, the staling back-marker.

And why would I want to waste money on PD in late game exactly? And if you had all my provinces so well scouted to know my PD levels, then surely you also knew how many capitals I had.

You had lots of GR casters. Very nice. So did I, and it is a very common thing for strong nations to have access to in the late game.
Well, its probably too late but I've sent teams to take 3 of Yomi's capitals this turn... If it is over before the battle takes place then I'm screwed. Or if it doesn't count that I have him sieged I'm screwed as well...
Control of a capital is control of the Fort, not the province (or the province if no Fort is present). Exactly the same way that VP's work. So you would have to conquer the province (easy) and then the fort (difficult) to gain control of a capital.
This is retarded though. To have Victory point game with No graphs is insane. About the only person who would remember it was a vp game is the admin that created the game I'd think..
This was not a Victory Point condition game.

Having a game with graphs off and capital victories is not retarded at all. What is retarded is having played a game for 6 months without being aware of what the victory conditions were.

And what a stupid thing to say that only the admin would remember what the victory conditions of a game is. I can't even bring myself to reply to such a comment.
Hopefully it gives me the chance to take these provinces from yomi though.. Unfortunately though I only caught on to the fact that it is a vP game in the last few minutes and seeing as how only Calahan's turn remains outstanding I had to rush to change my turn without being able to put much thought into it Of course it may not matter regardless..
This game was not a Victory Point game, it was a Capitals game. There is a big difference. And even if the graphs had been on, it would not have shown directly how many capitals I had. This would require capitals to be marked with VP's, which is something I would never do in a game I arrange as I have posted several times on the issue that I don't believe rush nations should be aided by knowing exactly where their closest neighbour is.

So graphs on in this game still wouldn't have changed much, as you still would have had to monitor in-game the status of all the capitals. Which you either failed to do, or failed to respond to. So it is your own fault (for not reading the rules) that you only recently became aware of the victory conditions, and your own lack of intel that didn't allow you to know how close to victory I was.

Can I ask what you thought the victory conditions were? Victory by concession is always asking for games to go on indefinitely, so there has to be some "achievement" necessary to win. In almost every game that "achievement" is to gain control of capitals. Why did you think this game was not that type of game?

And you seem to be a very competitive person, which is absolutely fine, but given this, it does make it very hard to believe that you can play any game, not just dominions, without knowing exactly what is required to win that game. So surely at some point over the past 6 months and 87 turns you must have thought "hhhhmm, I wonder what I need to do to win this game?". I can not believe this thought didn't cross your mind.

May I recommend fully reading the rules and conditions for any game you sign-up for, and re-checking during the game if you have any doubts about anything. Or even just simply asking what the victory conditions are if you are unable to find the information yourself.
Of course if Calahan wanted to have a real show of it without achieving some sneaky underhanded victory we could always roll back a turn and I could demonstrate my real power...
I take extreme offence at any claim of a 'sneaky underhanded' victory being made against me. I was not handed this win, I had no long-term allies helping me, and every capital I captured had to be fought for and won. I won this game by a slow and steady accumulation of the 7 capitals I needed to gain victory. In fact it was too slow and steady, and probably allowed myself to be stopped had things gone differently.

And why the hell would I want to make a show of it? I was in the lead in this game from about turn 40 onwards, and it was only recently that you caught up on the power curve IMO. But I had nothing to prove against Agartha, and Agartha had nothing I wanted, as you only owned a paltry 1 capital until very near the end when that figure went up to 2. So why exactly would I want to attack you and "make a show of it"? It was up to you to stop me not the other way around. And you failed to stop me.

You had the perfect chance to stop me though, as you could have attacked me after arranging your Caelum cease-fire. But you decided to go after extremely small prey in the shape of Atlantis instead, allowing me the time I needed to wrap up the victory. So it is you that avoided the Agartha-Yomi showdown, not me, as it was up to you to prove you could stop me getting the 7 capitals I needed. If you think otherwise, and that it was up to me to attack you, then maybe your skills in reading a game need to be improved.

So please do not throw accusations at me, or try devaluing my win, just because of your poor game reading and management skills. It was a capitals victory, I got the capitals, you didn't stop me, meaning that I won. If you are looking to lay blame then blame yourself for not attacking me when you had the perfect chance, and for not knowing what the victory conditions are for a game you are investing so much time and effort into.
Bahh I just read back over the posts... guess it doesn't matter what I do taking Calahan's vp's this turn anyways.. This is just gay.

I just think a requirement of the win should have been to announce your intentions to declare victory on the first turn that you believe you hold 50% of the province's and give everyone 3 turns to take them from you. ESPECIALLY with graph's off.
I do not understand at all why this should be a condition for a graphs off game. It is up to each individual player to gather intel on the state of the capitals in a capitals victory game, and use that intel to judge how close someone is to claiming victory. (as you say)

It is a very illogical requirement to have in any game that when someone is close to victory they have to openly announce it, and in doing so instantly invite everyone to attack them. It is NEVER up to the winning nation to stop themselves, as that is always the job of those wishing to stop them. Games could go on forever if any player trying to win had to instantly ask for a dog-pile to stop them.
Because it is most certainly NOT the case that he could have held said province's if I had known the situation.
So maybe at fault was your poor intel in that you didn't know how many capitals I controlled. But I don't see why the blame for this is being placed at the door of the victory conditions, or for the game having graphs off. Or why it is making you try to devalue my win. I was at more-or-less constant war in this game from around turn 6 onwards, so if 80+ turns of fighting doesn't gain a merited win then I can't see how anything ever will.
Of course the case could be made that it is everyone's responsibility to know the victory conditions but like I say the graphs were off so they could not serve as a reminder and most games are NOT vp games .
Once again, this game was not a VP game either, so I don't understand your point here at all.

And yes it was everyone's responsibly to know what the victory condition were, as that is a blindly obvious requirement of every game ever played. I do not believe for one moment that players need to be reminded on a regular basis what the victory conditions for a game are, as I don't see how you can plan anything in a game like dominions without knowing what your overall aim is. ie. What the victory conditions are.
and this late in the game so long from when we started it is just not something easily remembered. And of course in the beginning I was too distracted by the fact that it was a randomly assigned nation game with no graphs to even have ever noticed the victory condition in the first place. It was just a screwy game altogether. I honestly don't think I ever even realized at any point even at the beginning that it was VP control.
One word springs to mind.............Excuses.
I demand a clam count!

About 250 and currently forging 17 per turn and summoning more Naiads to forge another 5 thanks to the new wisher I had just added. So it would have been 22 clams per turn within about 3 more turns.

Nearly as many blood stones as well. As you found out from the 20+ Earth attacks I could cast per turn.

And of course with Gift of Natures bounty up my Income would have been a little over 40,000 per turn.
Very impressive, but the victory conditions were not based on who had the most clams. Maybe some of your Astral income should have been spent on casting Astral Window so that you could have gathered the intel required to see how close I was to victory.
I suppose in the end it will have to be enough for me to know personally that Calahan could not have actually beat me in a war and rather I could have taken him out in very short order about as quickly as I killed Atlantis. It was definitely a hollow victory for Calahan.
Yes of course. Taking down the long-term leader would have been just as easy as taking out the nation that had been in last place for most of the game, and during your war was staling 50% of the time while under the control of a completely green noob. Easy to see why those two wars would be directly comparable.


....With graphs off and this sort of condition, having some sort of announcement would be a preferable method.........
I had been wondering for a while how I should announce or claim any victory should I get the 7 capitals, and it came down to two choices.

A) Wait until I had held the 7 capitals for 3 turns, and then claim the win (as I did)
B) Upon capturing the 7th capital, make an announcement "Hey everyone, I'm just about to win the game, but if you all attack me now you can probably stop me"

I rejected B) because I saw absolutely no reason why I should do the intel work for the other players, as that is an important extra requirement of any game with graphs off. If players don't like the added burden of needing to do increased intel gathering with graphs off, then they shouldn't play in games with graphs off (and graphs being off was clearly stated in the OP when this game was created)

The OP has also always clearly stated since its creation that this game is a capital victory, so everyone who wanted a shot at winning should have known every single turn who held what capitals. I have known exactly who held which capital since around turn 40, so any excuses being made by others not to also know this info is exactly that in my books, an excuse.


For a long time I have believed that players blindly sign-up for new games without bothering to first read the rules and conditions of that game. And now this recent experience has only served to confirm my opinion.

All the essential info for this game has always been clearly on display and easily obtainable in the OP since this game was created. So making excuses now about the differences the graphs being off makes, or not having friendly reminders every few turns as to what the victory condtions were, or convenient game-wide air-raid like warnings when someone is about to win, all smacks of very poor sportmanship to me.


EDIT: What I do find funny though is that when Executor was in this game, he knew exactly what the victory conditions were, and very quickly identified me as the biggest threat from the moment he worked out I had the Chalice. So there was no big mystery or conspiracy here, just very bad game reading by several nations. But again the OP clearly stated experience was to be preferred at sign-ups, so maybe lack of experience can be an excuse, but this game was never intended to be one aimed at players with little experience. Especially in the game reading department (as graphs were off)

I'm certain I could ask any vet at any time what the victory conditions are of every game they are playing in, and I'd get an instantly correct answer. I'd also bet they could tell me how close every nation was to victory in those games as well.

[PsiSoldier]

I'm not really saying you did anything wrong Calahan. If the roles were reversed I might have done the same as you. But that doesnt change the fact that it was a hollow victory for you given the fact that like it or not you were the only one that knew what the victory conditions were. You can make the case all you want that that the victory conditions were stated and that everyone should know what they are and that is also true. But yet in the end it would seem that You were the only one in the game that still recalled what the victory conditions were. The rest of us were playing as if it was a normal victory by concession game.

The only way it would have been a meaningful victory for you is if the rest of us had known what the victory conditions were. You could have alleviated that by stating in the thread here on the first turn that you believed you qualified for the 50% capital control to give the rest of us time to say "huh? Oh ****! This isnt a concession game?" But you chose not to do that which again who knows Maybe I'd have done the exact same as you. But I have to think that you would have realized "hey I dont think PsiSoldier or the others remember this is a victory point game I'll just keep this under wraps and then surprise them and say Hey I win!!"

Yeah maybe you thought we just didnt have scouts and didnt know but I do and I did, I just didnt care because for the 100th time I didnt realize it wasnt a standard victory by concession game.
So yeah, I'm mad and I cant even say that you did anything wrong because you didnt really. It was a little underhanded for you to have not announced that you intended to claim victory in 3 turns but officially that wasn't a requirement.


All that said I have an offer for you. I am more than willing to put my money where my mouth is. If you want to roll back to the first turn you controlled 7 capitals so that we now all know the conditions and you STILL win Ive got 50 dollars for you via paypal. Or if you want to just continue as with the current turn switch to concession victory and you somehow manage to win Ive got 100 dollars for you. If you loose, you pay nothing. If you win you get a few bucks.

I'm not entirely 100% sure that I can take one of the capitals from you in that short time but I think that 30 Iron Dragons and a few siege golems and several extremely potent SC's might be able to storm one of your forts in short order.


*And for the record.. I am dealing with problems with Tech support with stupid Nero's Liquid TV that isnt working and the bastards are NOT helping me and its not a toll free number and the ****ers keep saying they will call back because they only have one person that knows the Liquid TV and they dont call back and when I finaly got someone who didnt give me that same line they just say "Oh well your Firewall is blocking it" And I UNINSTALLED my fire wall and disabled the firewall in the router. Which I told the idiot that and he's like "Well I dont know what to say, its your firewall" Bahhh!!! So I formated my computer and reinstalled windows to try Liquid TV with a fresh install just on the off chance that something else on my computer was messing with it and it still didnt work and and now for some reason my stupid Ethernet quits working every 4 minutes and I have to reboot to do anything on the internet because I cannot disable and re-enable the connection and so it looks like I'm going to have to format my computer and start over yet again. And to top it all off last night I bought an MP3 player from Newegg and the bastards somehow double charged me causing my account to be overdrawn and I'm facing like 3 30 dollar overdraft charges because of it when I should have money to spare And then had a flat tire on the way to work this morning which I cannot get fixed because I dont have cash until Newegg re-imburses me the money the stole from me which hopefully happens before the bank takes the overdraft charges from my account...

So Yeah... If I sound a little extra pissed in my comments in the thread here I just wanted you to know that its not exactly your fault I'm probably just letting a little bit of that anger from all that **** show up in what I write here. And for that I am very sorry.

[archaeolept]

oh no, you shouldn't have announced, and 7/14 caps for 3 turns is more than a sufficient and reasonable victory condition whatever the other factors. Just, in general, these sorts of conditions are better w/ an announcement required by the OP in order to avoid drama of the sort we have seen here.

[Squirrelloid]

I don't know archaeo, an announcement doesn't seem fair to the person intending to claim victory. Nor does it seem in the spirit of a 'graphs off' game. Your own damn fault for not remembering the victory conditions and/or not having the scouting to know someone was going to claim the win. The whole point of graphs off is you have to do scouting.

[PsiSoldier]

I don't know archaeo, an announcement doesn't seem fair to the person intending to claim victory. Nor does it seem in the spirit of a 'graphs off' game. Your own damn fault for not remembering the victory conditions and/or not having the scouting to know someone was going to claim the win. The whole point of graphs off is you have to do scouting.

As Ive already said, I HAD scouts and knew darn well how many province's he had but was laboring under the false assumtion that it was a concession game.

Here is my turn file to prove it, the Only 2 capitals that can not be seen on that turn are Yomi's and Neifles and I had previously had scouts at Neifle's cap before we had to move scouts around thanks to some bug that messed up our game, and obviously he had his own capital.

And Of course I know its my own damn fault for not knowing the conditions. What do you think I am an idiot? Irregardless as I say it doesnt change the fact that it was a hollow victory for Calahan because that is the only reason he won was because I had been thinking it was a concession game and not a VP game. If I had known it I'd have have easily stopped him from winning long ago. Him holding a few capitals didnt mean jack diddly squat as far as I was concerned, sure maybe they gave him a few extra gems but I didnt consider it important.

[Micah]

Well, looking at that turn I'm guessing Calahan can earn himself some quick cash, I don't see anything particularly good on your side of the board.

[Executor]

I'm surprised the game went on this long, and with this many players alive when the game ended, slow game.

So I guess it was a surprise victory a?
I was well aware that it was a capital victory myself, after Beer game I pay the utmost attention to even remotely possible win contenders.

But I do find it strange when someone wins without a big final ars kicking of your archenemy as a final and undisputed test of might.:p

P.S. I demand a dagger/nation kill count victory!
It's strange that Pangaea was to be the biggest murderer of them all with all those nations...

And it was damn strange that Calahan and I never went to war given our starting locations, but than again we both had other things to worry about.
Well it was interesting while I was in it...

[PsiSoldier]

I guess this was my version of your Beer game then.. You can bet that it has certainly taught me to always keep the victory conditions at the forefront of my thoughts.

This will never happen to me again. So I did certainly get something out of this game.. Just not what I wanted haha.

Unfortunately my own stupidity or forgetfulness rendered Calahans victory in this game kind of meaningless. So it was more or less a waste of several months Other than teaching me that one very important lesson.

[Quitti]

Unfortunately my own stupidity or forgetfulness rendered Calahans victory in this game kind of meaningless.

Wait, what?

I've been following this thread with mild intrest, I even looked at your turn, and I must say I'm not impressed. Not at all. You waste huge amount of resources to very very stupid things. If Yomi has done anything, and by ANYTHING AT ALL, more optimized than you, he'll have beat you by a clear margin. You even have Blizzard Valley without a lab, not to mention a fort. Your "armies" seem to be composed of magma children, which can be killed in hundreds with a single indep scout. You have a few wraith lords, empowered in multiple paths. Instead of them, you could've chosen from around 5-10 better sc chassises. Only thing impressive in your game is the amount of clams you have, which would be rendered useless with marginal effort keeping in mind your usage of those pearls. Actually they were somewhat useless to you. You also claim this:

I'm not really saying you did anything wrong Calahan. If the roles were reversed I might have done the same as you.

Roles reversed? That you would have won the game? I think not. You did not even know the victory conditions for this game, hence you couldn't have won it.

Just my 2p, or should I say, my 2 astral pearls.

[PsiSoldier]

Roles reversed? That you would have won the game? I think not. You did not even know the victory conditions for this game, hence you couldn't have won it.

Just my 2p, or should I say, my 2 astral pearls.

No you goof.. I mean if the roles were reversed and I had been in Calahans position and he in mine. What the hell do you think that means???

Actually I was thinking about going for a Dominion victory if it had been a concession game.

Calahan had hardly any temples and with my number of clams I would have started summoning about 20+ Juggernaughts per turn. (But of course if it HAD been a concession game I'm sure Calahan WOULD have built temples, but seeing as how it was VP game there was really no need for him to have built any so thats not really a true weakness on Calahans part, just one that I falsely perceived him to have)

Ive never actually seen a Dominion victory in a map that size But regardless It would have allowed me to push out with the large number of Immortals I had instead of simply using them for defense. And if anyone doubts the power of those Empowered Wraith Lords I could probably look back and find a turn or two with them singlehandedly wiping out large enemy armies. (Something which I note would be stupid to do without securing a proper retreat path because you never know for sure if you can kill an entire army within the 50 round limit of a battle, and Immortals dont seem to be Immortal if they die in retreat even with friendly dominion from my past experiences with that) Lingchih could probably attest to the annoyance factor of empowered wraith lords and he went nearly insane in Faltering Steps trying to hunt down just ONE empowered Wraith Lord. So I'd like to hear someone here tell Lingchih that an empowered wraith lord isn't that good...

Yeah, I think my hatred of that wraithlord has made me a bit irrational towards him. That was a waste of a good S mage.


I have no idea how effective the "Hidden in Dust" spell would have really been but I was toying around with that which I could have cast about 4 or 5 times per turn. I had just started doing that a few turns before the end and wish I had gotten to see those undead in a few battles. But I thought it'd be more fun than casting Earth attack 30 times a turn or summoning a bunch more Iron dragons. And given that Calahan seemed to like summoning a lot of undead in his forts I thought it would be fun to fight his undead with better undead.

Of course what no one can see from looking at the turn file is the fact that the other 3 nations had joined my side So Calahan would indeed have been swarmed by all of us as he had feared.

Anyways Congrats on the win Calahan. Sorry I kinda screwed up the end of the game as I did. I'm sure it would have been a lot more interesting otherwise.