Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI. Game Over. Team ACGHHS wins!

[chrispedersen]

Where is the blood? :D

We're harvesting it, silly.

[chrispedersen]

May we have a 6 hour delay?

[Septimius Severus]

I've asked Gandalf to put an extra 8 hours on the clock since for some reason we've still got a large number of turns outstanding. Let's remember the words of encouragement that were offered by our patron saint, Lingchih, on these occasions "Get those turns in, you worthless slackers!" :D

I've decided to allow Captains to choose a moniker/cognomen/title after their usernames if they wish, just for fun, which will be reflected on the roster in our opening post. Acceptable examples include but are not limited to:

DrPraetorious "The Evil Doctor"
Agema "The Noble"
Chrispedersen "King of Curmudgeons"
Algae Nymph "Baron of the Brave"

Or any of your favorite pretender cognomens.

[Septimius Severus]

I now I perceive it is time to begin publishing my Thread Bumper Interview Series, an exclusive and inside look at the Noobs and Vets world told through the eyes of some of it's leading personalities:

"Recently, I had an opportunity to sit down with the venerable Gandalf Parker, designer of the incredible AI opponents used in the NaV series and the admin of the Dom3Minions server which hosts the series. Gandalf was gracious enough to take few moments out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions.

Q: Gandalf, how do you think the AI is/has fared in this game overall? Has it lived up to your expectations?

A: Keeping in mind that its the first level of a planned three tier game, then yes. The first level of AI was basically built around player level to give some of the newer players a feel for what its like to play against a designed AI.

Q: Do you think AI opponents are tougher to beat than say static level 9 indies? If so, why?

A: Yes, because the AI has more options. Primarily the ability to use multiple provinces to its advantage. That would of course be static AI vs static Indies. The game has the ability to boost the indies as much as it does to boost the AI players. Designed independent provinces can be quite rough.

Q: It has been leaked to the press that the third game in the series will be subtitled 'The Wrath of Gandalf' and will be without a doubt the toughest game in the series. You have been quoted as saying that you plan on 'getting medieval' on the players buttocks in that game. Is this true and can players expect any mercy from the AI in game 3?

A: Not me! The AI.
Im pretty non-competitive. But being asked to program the killer AI allows me to free my dark side. There are many features about the game and the AI which can only be accessed this way. The 3rd game will definitely be an example of as many of those as I can logically fit into it. MUAHahahahaha! * evil laugh *

Thank you for your time, Gandalf, I am sure everyone appreciates your contributions to the Dom3 online community.

Thank you for bringing this to me. Its been awhile since anyone requested anything interesting. I know I could get more traffic if I had a menu but Id rather people considered the full range of the game and got creative. Thanks again for this one."

[rdonj]

tsk, tsk. Yomi, helheim, you're about to stale.

[chrispedersen]

Gandalf, Sept.

I like the update of the status so that it now shows
Copy x of x for early arcocephale. But I'm guessing (hoping) that you indended something more like.. copy 2/2?

I can't think of any time that it won't be the last number of a series being used... So wouldn't simply saying arco version X be slightly better?

[Gandalf Parker]

I didnt do that.

That showed up on the report because someone made a copy of the file on their machine called that then sent it in. Since it wasnt named the same, it didnt overwrite the real 2h file. It would have created another "16 of 16 received" and another rollback situation except that we hit the forced-host timeout first.

It also probably did not process for the game so if that was meant to be the actual actions Im afraid they did not process. The file previously in place called early_arcosphale.2h did

[rdonj]

God chris, your gem income has burst through the roof of your castle and is spilling out onto the hovels of your peasants. You should write a book, "101 Ways to Find Gems and Crush the Peasantry".

[DrPraetorious]

Ugh, the wages of arrogance!

I was afraid Saur was going to try something like that, and I would've won if I'd waited a turn or two. Very foolish on my part to walk into that trap.

Anyway - this gives me credibility! It's team ACHOO that is the great threat. Kill them all!

[chrispedersen]

God chris, your gem income has burst through the roof of your castle and is spilling out onto the hovels of your peasants. You should write a book, "101 Ways to Find Gems and Crush the Peasantry".

Yes, we actually do pave the streets with pure gold here in Mictlanville. I actually just got around do doing some site searching..

Sadly, I'm still behind two of your team mates......
Apparently they use rubies....

[Squirrelloid]

Ugh, the wages of arrogance!

I was afraid Saur was going to try something like that, and I would've won if I'd waited a turn or two. Very foolish on my part to walk into that trap.

Following a grand feast to celebrate the victory, the witch kings have decided Niefl Giant is a delicacy, and prices for fresh Nieflheimr has risen dramatically across Sauromatia.

[chrispedersen]

Ugh, the wages of arrogance!

I was afraid Saur was going to try something like that, and I would've won if I'd waited a turn or two. Very foolish on my part to walk into that trap.

Anyway - this gives me credibility! It's team ACHOO that is the great threat. Kill them all!

The fact that youl would have won if you'd waited a turn or turn does give you credibility. Most nations can not afford even one such mistake. The fact is that it will take 3-4 more to even seriously damage your team is ... what makes hinnom/niefle/caelum/ulm.. scary.. well that and the fact that the current score is... you're up 7 of our provinces, we're up 2 of yours....

[chrispedersen]

Ugh, the wages of arrogance!

I was afraid Saur was going to try something like that, and I would've won if I'd waited a turn or two. Very foolish on my part to walk into that trap.

Following a grand feast to celebrate the victory, the witch kings have decided Niefl Giant is a delicacy, and prices for fresh Nieflheimr has risen dramatically across Sauromatia.


Squirrels never were very good at math.. prices go down when there is a great availability... I mean really.. exactly how much giant can one squirrel eat.

Of course, I expect we're about to find that out....

[Squirrelloid]

The witch kings were hungry after all that hard work. They now need to replenish the supply.

[Septimius Severus]

I've received a delay request from rdonj for 24 hours, absent any objections, it will be granted forthwith.

[chrispedersen]

sheesh sept whats the absent objection bit about - its liberal delays. We don't want to administer a game we want you to =).

[rdonj]

Guys, if you don't have your turns in I wouldn't trust the timer to be correct. I'm not 100% sure that it's updating properly at the moment.

[chrispedersen]

Yeah.. I've commented on this before.

[Gandalf Parker]

Well it started out manual. But now its totally automated.

cd /home/nav/dominions3/savedgames/NaV/

TYMR=`head -1 NaV.cfg`
RMDR=`echo $TYMR-9|bc`

# wipe out previous at commands
atrm `atq |cut -f1`

# set new at commands for forced host and for the reminders
ls -l ftherlnd |while read n n n n n DAYT TYME FYLE
do
FORCE=$TYME" "$DAYT" + "$TYMR" hours "
REMIND=$TYME" "$DAYT" + "$RMDR" hours "
at -f /home/nav/bin/32hours.sh -v $FORCE
at -f /home/nav/bin/reminders.sh -v $REMIND
done

cd -
Seems to be correct. Keep in mind that the hours-till-hosting has been changed frequently.
Even in this turn. Presently its set to 80 hours.

[chrispedersen]

I'd like to ask for a delay of 3 hours. Two of my team mates have work constraints.

[Gandalf Parker]

Johan has decided that the messages thing was a problem but apparently it was easier to raise the limit than to fix the interface to not allow extra sends. That only puts off the problem IMHO but at least its something. The number of messages a player can send will be raised in the next patch.

Gandalf Parker

[chrispedersen]

Any word on the delay request?

[AlgaeNymph]

I'm okay with it.

[rdonj]

Hmm. Sept might not see this delay request in time.

[chrispedersen]

yes, I know... I'm trying to get *any turn in- but I requested the delay with like.. 15 hours??? to go?

[chrispedersen]

Well!

Hinnom continues its unfettered race to the top....

[DrPraetorious]

Hey, it's not my fault you're concentrating so much on me!

I'd like to take this opportunity to congratulate Pyg on his hearty endorsement of the Easy-Slay(TM) brand.

[chrispedersen]

Well, seeing as you are arrained across our lands like a horde of cockroaches (very big cockroaches) it seems only natural to go after you. It seems rather silly to go looking for MORE problems.

Sufficient for each day is its evils...

[Septimius Severus]

Sorry, had been away for part of the weekend. As regards the previous turn, in addition to the 24 hour delay instituted on rdonj's behalf, I had left word with Gandalf to use his discretion regarding if he saw anything else. 80 hours should have been enough though.

On the current turn looks like something a bit odd on the next scheduled hosting time. Have to send an e-mail to Gandalf about that.

[Septimius Severus]

Team Update:

For those inquiring minds who may be wondering, the Mysterios team is seeking a sub for Yomi and will possibly need at least a short term sub for our Captain currently playing Lanka, due to time conflicts. We have many options available to us and are exploring them at this time. Whatever the decision or outcome, I can assure you all, that our team will leave it's mark on this game and possibly change the balance of power. We shall gather our friends to our bosom and our enemies will receive the heel of our boot. :D

Commentary (I do so love this):

In other news, those dastardly devastating Deva's and their slave-o-matic machine seem to have opened up a can of you-know-what upon the haughty/hapless/heroic ACGHHS. Will ACGHHS respond in kind or will they go quietly to the graves assigned to them by the Deva's? Will they laugh and show the enemy their collective arse or will there tongues tire of the endless bootlicking?
:haha:

[rdonj]

Actually ACGHHS is creaming us this turn, or at least making the good dr scramble to defend himself. It is really the blessed ones collective buttocks which we are kicking. They are resisting though, and actually caused at least one casualty this turn. :)

[Septimius Severus]

Actually ACGHHS is creaming us this turn, or at least making the good dr scramble to defend himself. It is really the blessed ones collective buttocks which we are kicking. They are resisting though, and actually caused at least one casualty this turn. :)

Ye gods! Your right. Perhaps it is DrP who should be preparing his concession speech and up to Chris to decide whether he prefers the Devas on their knees or on their faces when delivering it.:bow:

The Blessed Ones are a proud and brave folk.

[Squirrelloid]

Ok, I only got back from being away for the weekend last night, had a small pile of other turns to slog through, and really am not going to have enough time to think about the NaV turn before its due. Can we get a 24h extension so my brain de-fries and I can actually talk productively with my team about what's going on?

[chrispedersen]

Actually ACGHHS is creaming us this turn, or at least making the good dr scramble to defend himself. It is really the blessed ones collective buttocks which we are kicking. They are resisting though, and actually caused at least one casualty this turn. :)

Ye gods! Your right. Perhaps it is DrP who should be preparing his concession speech and up to Chris to decide whether he prefers the Devas on their knees or on their faces when delivering it.:bow:

The Blessed Ones are a proud and brave folk.

Scratches head.. and wonders if y'all are looking at the same turns I am. taking a province or 3 is hardly material...

[rdonj]

Actually ACGHHS is creaming us this turn, or at least making the good dr scramble to defend himself. It is really the blessed ones collective buttocks which we are kicking. They are resisting though, and actually caused at least one casualty this turn. :)

Ye gods! Your right. Perhaps it is DrP who should be preparing his concession speech and up to Chris to decide whether he prefers the Devas on their knees or on their faces when delivering it.:bow:

The Blessed Ones are a proud and brave folk.

Scratches head.. and wonders if y'all are looking at the same turns I am. taking a province or 3 is hardly material...

Lies!

:)

[Squirrelloid]

Sept, hello? Extension?

(~8.5h to go until hosting, asked ~7h ago - surely 15h notice was enough time to at least hear something ahead of time if not get the extension)

[Septimius Severus]

Thanks Squirrel for doing both a forum post and a PM. I am more likely to see the PM since it goes to my e-mail but the forum post is very important as well. Request received and conveyed to Gandalf.

[Illuminated One]

1st round script storm - 2 air gems
2nd round script storm power - 5 fatigue
3rd round script wrathful skies - 2 air gems
4th round script thuderstrike - 30 fatigue
5th round script thuderstrike - 30 fatigue
6th round watch the ai cast ironskin turning a clear victory into a disaster - priceless.

nth round - watch all the enemies artifacts run away - :mad:

[DrPraetorious]

I take it the extension requests did not get through?

Are we going to - shudder - attempt another rollback?

[Squirrelloid]

I think my team all got turns in. Hell if I know what we actually did. My turn made sense in my head at the time...

[rdonj]

Hmm... you know, I think we hosted twice in one go, because I got a stale message and am not seeing some rituals that I cast show up in my messages, but I seem to have all of the items I forged. I also have much more gold than I should have.

[Gandalf Parker]

I did seem to see that. Apparently the rush to send in turns caused it to host again while already hosting.

Time to write in more checks. Not at all what I planned to do today.
At the same time I will try to come up with some sort of remote admining to avoid the problem with adding extensions.

[Stagger Lee]

Hmm... you know, I think we hosted twice in one go, because I got a stale message and am not seeing some rituals that I cast show up in my messages, but I seem to have all of the items I forged. I also have much more gold than I should have.

Staling data says we all played last turn. Last turn was turn 0, right? ;)

[DrPraetorious]

Okay, so it hosted twice.

The second host, it appears that everyone staled.

SO:
roll back *the second host*, but not the first. Even if the extension didn't get through.
Then, *resend* the .trn files! So that no-one is too confused.

[Septimius Severus]

Wow a double host! Well the free spirited casual admin and player in me says lets just roll on. Onward, upward! One can always use more gold, random events and AI actions aside renders a stale for everyone pretty much neutral. But I'm fine with DrP's sage and wisened suggestion as well, that is of a single turn rollback as distasteful as it is to me.

Still, I can't shake this nagging feeling that though that at least some of our other players (not naming anyone) may be angry. Stewing and brewing. :mad: Though the post has not yet come, I can already hear it now. All of their detailed and micromanaged plans and commands not having been executed. Battles lost. Opportunities missed. Oh the heartache. :rolleyes:

But no my friends, I give you my word, the universe shall not end because of a stale or because we lose a battle or a game or were for some reason or other that really uncontrollable due to circumstance of time and space, unable to do everything we wanted in a particular turn. :D

I will hear the counsel of the players in the next few posts in a sort of mini poll, pending no objections I say we just keep going.

Note: We are scheduled to move to a 64 hour host at turn 40 (based on consensus poll). If any player or team feels at this juncture that 56 hours is not sufficient time and would like to move that regularly scheduled vote up, that is fine with me. I'd rather people do this and we get it over with than have people worrying about time or having delay requests every turn. Not that it is a problem mind you. We just need to find a good balance.

[chrispedersen]

Well, with about 45 minutes left we didn't have 3 team members turns in.

So I did three turns in the space of 40 minutes or so. Did they suck, yes probably so. At least I think I avoided us attacking each other.

Were they what we agreed to do.. no.

Gandalf, Sept, what can we do to avoid this again. This is two turns in a row when delay requests were missed, with both requests being made with 15 hours? to go. And yes I would expect further comment / protest.

Any chance we can grab llamas script or modify it or something to let sept/melnorjr directly admin the game.

Hell, even a good rdp to the server would help.

[pyg]

roll back *the second host*, but not the first. Even if the extension didn't get through.
Then, *resend* the .trn files! So that no-one is too confused.

I'm pretty sure it would be easy for Gandalf to have the game correctly hosted and send the correct .trn.

[Gandalf Parker]

How much are we seeking?
The request by Chris would require rolling back 2 turns.
The request by DrP requires rolling back 1 turn.

The second hosting was a host error, but the only ones who benefited were the AIs.
And any rollback at all tends to ripple the waters making another problem (and rollback) a possiblity.

The previous hosting to that one was on forced timer so rolling that one back would be to allow more time for a team captain to do turns for the entire team (which I think recorded a problem anyway due to matching serials)

[Illuminated One]

I suppose everyone has the correct file (i.e. the turn where he didn't stale)? So we could move on without a rollback at all by using the correct files to do the turn.

[Septimius Severus]

Well, with about 45 minutes left we didn't have 3 team members turns in.

So I did three turns in the space of 40 minutes or so. Did they suck, yes probably so. At least I think I avoided us attacking each other.

Were they what we agreed to do.. no.

You will live to fight another day. Trust in your loving admin. Cleave to my breast. I know what is best for you. :D Any other comments/suggestions/objections?

How much are we seeking?
The request by Chris would require rolling back 2 turns.
The request by DrP requires rolling back 1 turn.

The second hosting was a host error, but the only ones who benefited were the AIs.
And any rollback at all tends to ripple the waters making another problem (and rollback) a possiblity.

The previous hosting to that one was on forced timer so rolling that one back would be to allow more time for a team captain to do turns for the entire team (which I think recorded a problem anyway due to matching serials)

Don't sweat such things friend Gandalf. Some players must know that I am only on my computer twice a day (once in the afternoon, once in the late evening). Without an active co-admin to watch out for these things and because of no direct control of the server and the relaying of messages, there is a twighlight zone. But yes, an admin panel via web or an e-mail control of some sort is definately in order and would make things easier in future games. Without it, a good rule of thumb for advance notice will have to be 1/2 of the current hosting interval. :)

[Gandalf Parker]

Don't sweat such things friend Gandalf. Some players must know that I am only on my computer twice a day (once in the afternoon, once in the late evening). Without an active co-admin to watch out for these things and because of no direct control of the server and the relaying of messages, there is a twighlight zone. But yes, an admin panel via web or an e-mail control of some sort is definately in order and would make things easier in future games. Without it, a good rule of thumb for advance notice will have to be 1/2 of the current hosting interval. :)
Yes remote admining is on todays "worklist" along with something to avoid double-hosting :)

[Septimius Severus]

You know, I've always wondered how some players can join and play in 3, 4, 5 or 6 games at once or even more. Frankly for me a personal limit of two is about all I can handle, especially if one of them is a team game, and still have time for real life things. I suppose veterans can execute turns quicker and some people have more free time, and it means faster experience gaining, but I've always wonder it twas such a good thing for the community as a whole.

Sometimes what happens is that inevitably life gets in the way and some of them end of going away, leaving 4 or 5 games requiring subs. Just my opinion, I myself and very detail oriented and micromangement inclined, like some of the other players in this game, so for me two is about all I can do. Just a strange thought that popped into my head from a confirmed noob skilled player.

Umm, Gandalf will be working on getting me some direct control of the server, any other comments, objections to just using the most recent .trn in your inbox and moving on?

Edit:

Very well, no other comments, Onward we go! Onward and forward! Time marches on and no man can change it. It is do or die time.

[chrispedersen]

lol.. um .. sept... Until this very moment I havent even seen my turn...

[Stagger Lee]

OK - What now?

I've just looked at my turn(s)...

Shrug it off and move forward(my choice), or roll back? If we roll back 2 turns, Lanka might be able to get back the 200g he sent me! :confused:

sorry SS, didn't see your edit - for'rd then

[rdonj]

I wouldn't be terribly bothered by a one turn rollback, but like you sept, I don't know that we really need one.

Having played with you in the past, I am well aware of your limited availability ;) I think that to avoid delay issues as much as possible in the future we should probably just send extension requests directly to gandalf. Since we are granting delay requests when asked for anyway, I think we can probably live with skipping the middleman. Unless you have any objection to this.

[chrispedersen]

well I think its a good idea.. but my last delay request I *did* send to gandlaf directly I don't think he got it either...

[DrPraetorious]

It's very nice that delay policy is liberal, but how many consecutive turns have you requested a rollback? Also, there's no way we can accept that people haven't seen their turns who staled.

So we can rollback the turn where *everyone* staled (which isn't really a rollback, to my mind), but past that? C'mon.

[Gandalf Parker]

56 hours extended to 80 with a request to extend it to 92? Yeah I got that. :)
If it was changed to forward it to me with instructions to agree to each one I think it would be easier to turn force hosting off and just process requests to host.

Hmmm... I wonder if anyone has ever created a game on LLama and posted the admin password to the thread? Someone should try that.

[Squirrelloid]

Oh whatever, game on. I'm going to assume there's going to be no rollback. It would have been nice to have the extra 24h. My turn was a mess and caused problems for my team, but we'll live, I think. But its done.

[chrispedersen]

It's very nice that delay policy is liberal, but how many consecutive turns have you requested a rollback? Also, there's no way we can accept that people haven't seen their turns who staled.

So we can rollback the turn where *everyone* staled (which isn't really a rollback, to my mind), but past that? C'mon.

I'm not asking for a rollback more than one turn. I do expect we will roll it back one turn.

[Septimius Severus]

We are moving forward! Onward! Upward! I say. We can and we shall live with the results of the double host. It really is not a big deal. Now lets get our turns in and concentrate on future actions. Current turn = 37. There is blood to be spilled and a victor to be declared. Let us look forward rather than back. :up: And for those of you who don't quite know what to do with your extra gold, you may send it to me, care of Fomoria. I will know how best to use it. :) If anyone needs a replacement turn 37 (the last .trn in your inbox) or is unsure of something, ask Gandalf or myself and it will be sent to you.

With regard to cutting the middleman out (me) well that sort of weakens my over all control of things and can result in a nightmarishly confusing situation where every player in the game sends a delay request to Gandalf, resulting in the need for clarification from Gandalf on the total delay or else in turns running on forever. We need to balance liberality of delays with the need to actually keep the game from getting mired in endless delays and rollbacks. As admin that is generally my job.

Gandalf is working on a system to get me direct control so this may be a moot question. Failing that, yes, we could work out something where the delay request comes directly to Gandalf from say the Captain's only. But as I say, it will probably not be neccessary, I am online enough that if I have direct control of the server I can handle most delays myself without bothering Gandalf.

[rdonj]

I have no problem with just forging on ahead :D

[Gandalf Parker]

No offense people but if I had wanted to run another game I would start a thread and run a game. A long time ago I got out of that. I much prefer to host other peoples games.

At any time I have from 20 to 60 Dom3 games running on my server. Presently 4 of those are larger multiplayer games like this one. Besides that the server also does webhosting, email accounts, personal logins, and two online worlds. All of which I take a personal hand in. And all of that is besides my #1 job which has total unconditional control over my time 24 hours a day.

I am the server running Septimius game the way he wants it.
I am also willing to run your games the way you want.
http://www.dom3minions.com/HostingGames.htm
In fact, I hope some of you decide to run your own game. *evil grin*

[Septimius Severus]

Hurray for Gandalf! I now have direct server control via e-mail and can implement delays and force host myself. So no need to bug him. Let us give him thanks in the above post. He is working on other commands/controls for this and or future games.

And now I perceive that is time for another installment of the Thread Bumper Interview series:

"Recently, I had a chance to sit down with the legendary DrPraetorious, veteran Captain of the mighty Deva's Darlings. The Dr. was kind enough to take some time from his busy killing spree to answer a few questions for us."

"Q: Doctor, the Deva's are clearly a powerful team with strong nations helmed by experienced and skillful players. Perhaps because of this, and for other reasons, there are some including your arch rivals (ACGHHS), who say that the Deva's are evil and must destroyed at all costs lest they corrupt the world entire. What do you have to say about this? Also, can you tell us what this 'slay-o-matic' thing is?

"A: I'm merely notorious, not legendary. Team ACHOO view us as their primary rivals, so their opinions are hardly unbiased. I say that ACHOO is much closer to a tartarian factory than we are, and need to be killed before they can launch it. That said, neither the Mysterious nor Blessed Ones should do anything that isn't to their own advantage. Everyone still has a chance to win. But hitting the most immediate threat (us) so that the long term threat (team ACHOO) can build Tarts without being challenged is exactly the wrong way to do things. Easy-slay(TM) is a whole new way of marketing violence. It cuts down on all the red tape and just butchers people. As a long-time savagery enthusiast myself, I'm very excited about the synergies that the easy-slay(TM) approach brings to the entire enterprise."

"Q: Have you found the position of team Captain difficult or challenging in any way? And if so how?"

"A: It's more work, certainly. The players on my team have really risen to the occasion, they're playing very well with excellent flexibility and teamwork. If we're doing well, the credit goes to them. If you've got a good team, being a captain isn't that hard, really, although you have to play well enough yourself to be taken seriously. I think I'm playing better this game than I usually do, with that extra motivation."

"Q: On a scale of 1-10, (10 being most likely) how likely do you rate your team's chances at winning?"

"A: 10! Seriously? Less than 50%, but more than 25%. 4? It's hard enough to predict the future, harder still when your prediction might change the outcome."

[chrispedersen]

Thanks gandalf =)
When do you put it on the server page = ).

[rdonj]

I am the server running Septimius game the way he wants it.
I am also willing to run your games the way you want.
http://www.dom3minions.com/HostingGames.htm
In fact, I hope some of you decide to run your own game. *evil grin*

I've actually run several of my own games, so I know what kind of headache they can be. :)

[Septimius Severus]

Pyg, now I know what Cacrolinaas is. :) At the time I thought perhaps you had gotten into the moonshine on that small farm of yours.

If anyone needs me to update the opening post to more accurately reflect your team's current roster of active and alternate players just let me know.

Team update:

The Mysterios have decided that we will fight on to the finish, until we are victorious or are the only team still standing, or else we are defeated.

Game update:

3 hours till host, 5 turns still outstanding:

Arcoscephale
Caelum
Helheim
Mictlan
Tienchi

Strangely no requests for delays have been received yet.

[Septimius Severus]

Well, not knowing whether these 5 stales are purposeful or not, to give people some more time, and to test out the new e-mail control (yipee) I am going to extend the current turn by 10 hours just in case.

Edit: Done, hmmm, though should say +12 hours till hosting rather than -10, hmm, somewhat odd results. Maybe I should revoke my thanks from the previous post. :) Anyway, Gandalf has been informed of the delay and the display thing.

[GrudgeBringer]

I just checked the site where all the info is and it says 12 hours. This morning at 7 Am CST USA (five hours and fifteen minutes ago it more than ample time for me too get a turn in....

Then I get a message from Chris that I had 3 hours to get a turn in at approx noon my time.

So I ask...How long do we have from turn to turn in hours and minutes. I don't want an approximate or an about... I want an exact amount of time from the time the turn is sent out to when its supposed to be sent in. All these problems about stales and different amounts of time is making this a royal pain.

I have a business to run and don't sit around a computer all day.

I am also in 3 other games and don't seem to have problems getting those turns in.

If you think I am Bi******, you are absolutely correct.

[Septimius Severus]

Sorry Grudge, me and Chris are on EST, so sometimes I forget that everyone is not in the same time zone. Like in the above post I said 3 hours till host, I should have said 3 hours EST or 6 hours PST. PST is more accurate as it is the actual server time. Same thing applies with Llamaserver (except the server time is GMT not PST). But in any event it was getting rather close so I gave everyone an extra 10 hours just in case, though I'm sure you'll probably not need to use it all.

The current hosting interval is 56 hours/0 minutes.

At turn 41, depending upon your vote, this will either change to 48, 56, or 64 hours.

[chrispedersen]

Er, no.

The number of hours until hosting does not change with time zone.
Only the time of hosting changes...

[GrudgeBringer]

Thank you...that is all I needed.:up:

[Septimius Severus]

Er, no.

The number of hours until hosting does not change with time zone.
Only the time of hosting changes...

Chris is correct in the absolute sense. The hosting interval does not change. Everyone keep in mind that current hosting interval is 56 hours and all hosting intervals are measured from server's time zone. So it may effectively seem as though some people have more time and some have less. That is what I was trying to get at.

Edit:

For example: At the location of the server hosting may occur at 3 PM Monday PST, if you were in EST, the hosting would appear to occur later in the day at 6 PM EST (so it seems as though people in EST have 3 hours longer than those people in PST). It is Monday for everybody across these time zones, but it appears that you have longer to get it done (I.e you've had the whole day and now tis past sunset).

[Stagger Lee]

So it may effectively seem as though some people have more time and some have less.

"If a Rudra wore four wristwatches, would it have too much time on its hands?"

- SlipperyJim (Stacking Luck thread)

[chrispedersen]

the game hosted again????
how is this possible when van, hel, and TC all staled?

[AlgaeNymph]

How is it possible that we staled? I thought I sent my turn in. This server really needs turn reminders.

[Stagger Lee]

I'm pretty sure this morning Vanheim's turn was in. Only Helheim & TC on my team were missing.

[chrispedersen]

Well, here are my guesses:

1. I'm guessing the nations that staled submitted the wrong turn. I've tried to recommend that the turns be verified that they are for the correct turn before they are accepted.

2. I'm guessing either sept advanced the timer the wrong way (doh) or gandalf is still counting turns received, which you cannot do.

GP: whats the matter with doing a simple

Set processTurn = True

if not exist nation1.2h then PT=False else ProcessTurn
if not exist nation2.2h then PT=False else ProcessTurn
If not exist nationn.2h then PT=False else ProcessTurn

If Countdown to host = 0 or ProcessTurn=True then KickOffHost.Script


Also, in terms of the game: I'm glad to hear from algae and some of the blesseds, and to see Lanka got a turn in.

Can we get a list of who isn't getting played?

And before its asked, yes team Ax supports a rollback. Two of our members got incomplete turns in, so we'd like it for everyone - but we can live if its only staling members.

[Gandalf Parker]

Vanheim was showing the whole time as being "wrong turn"
We had 2 matched serials.
And 3 nations did not submit a 2h
../NaV/early_helheim.2h: No such file or directory
../NaV/early_tienchi.2h: No such file or directory
../NaV/early_caelum.2h: No such file or directory

[chrispedersen]

I'm pretty sure that vanheim was not displayed as a wrong turn.
I'm not 100% sure - but I was watching pretty closely as Grudge and I were trying to get a turn in for arco.


But the question is Gandalf - I know that it showed 10 hours or so to host. How did it come to host with three nations unsent in?

[Gandalf Parker]

Vanheim was definitely a wrong turn. I watched it display that over and over. I got sent notices over and over.

I dont know why it processed. But I now have logging to keep track of all changes to the timers so I will have a better idea next time. Possibly an overlap in the file editing trying to add admin functions.

Do the players who did not have a file in want to turn one in?

[rdonj]

Hey sept. What was that fomorian king doing cloud trapezing onto one of your allies provinces...?

[Septimius Severus]

2. I'm guessing either sept advanced the timer the wrong way (doh) or gandalf is still counting turns received, which you cannot do.

Chris, how dumb do you suppose me to be? Come now, lets remain constructive and avoid finger pointing. I put 10 hours on the clock without anyone asking for a delay as a favor to those 5 nations who appeared to not have submitted .2h files as of the 3 hour mark.

I followed Gandalf's instructions to the letter and did comment about the pecularities I saw after this (and no I did not advance the timer the wrong way), which Gandalf appeared to have corrected. Why the turn hosted after that, only Gandalf can tell us for certain. It certainly was not my fault.

[Septimius Severus]

At this point I believe the game to be winding down and a victor will emerge shortly if they've not already. I am inclined to just say lets keep going on and finish this thing (server issues aside). If the players desire another rollback, no problem we can do that as well and it would certainly be warranted if the server malfunctioned again in some way. Have these issues been severe enough to render a victory decision one way or another invalid or to necessitate the declaration of a draw at this stage? I personally don't believe so. I think teams have accomplished what they've accomplished based mostly on their own accomplishments and I think people probably know whether or not that team has a good shot at winning in the long run. But that is only my opinion.

That is where we stand at this juncture. The floor is open for suggestions and opinions to the contrary.

[Gandalf Parker]

It was server error (well admin error). It seems to have hosted on the initial 56 hours even though another timer was set for the extension. Quite possibly trying to add that as an admin option put multiple timers in place but thats fixed now (the extension routine now clears all timers, and logs all timer changes).

Whether it warrants a rollback I dont know. The players who didnt send in turns dont seem likely to send them in if we roll back either. The players affected by wrong turn or serial matches would have a chance to fix those altho if it hadnt hosted at 56 I dont see that would have changed anything for them.

[Septimius Severus]

Ok, I've completed an analysis of the score graphs as follows as of turn 38:

Provinces:
ACGHHS 72, Devas 94*

Forts:
ACGHHS 23*, Devas 17

Gold Income:
ACGHHS 6226, Devas 6459*

Gem Income:
ACGHHS 163, Devas 252*

Research:
ACGHHS 24192*, Devas 18515

Dominion:
ACGHHS 782, Devas 883*

Army Size:
ACGHHS 2515*, Devas 2492

Verdict: Deva's lead in 4 of the 7 categories, have a lot more provinces and the lead in the army size by ACGHHS is really quite small. While ACGHHS has a good research lead, the Devas are closing the gap. Both teams still have an equal shot to win, but I see the Devas in the lead at this point in the game.

Commentary?

[Gandalf Parker]

If ACGHHS doesnt already have a specific goal in the research they might take their their research notes to the Oracles at IRC for enlightenment (along with a sacrificial newbie of course)

[chrispedersen]

Ok, I've completed an analysis of the score graphs as follows as of turn 38:

Provinces:
ACGHHS 72, Devas 94*

Forts:
ACGHHS 23*, Devas 17

Gold Income:
ACGHHS 6226, Devas 6459*

Gem Income:
ACGHHS 163, Devas 252*

Research:
ACGHHS 24192*, Devas 18515

Dominion:
ACGHHS 782, Devas 883*

Army Size:
ACGHHS 2515*, Devas 2492

Verdict: Deva's lead in 4 of the 7 categories, have a lot more provinces and the lead in the army size by ACGHHS is really quite small. While ACGHHS has a good research lead, the Devas are closing the gap. Both teams still have an equal shot to win, but I see the Devas in the lead at this point in the game.

Commentary?

Its the province count thats killing us.
and the gem count is both better and worse probably than your statistics account for. After accounting for globals, its something like 193:275.

And this is of course exacerbated by ulm's forge bonus.

I'm actually very happy with how our team is performing, and in a normal game we'd be either first or a close second. But, this is shaping up pretty much as expected. The only hope to beat hinnom is ganging up on him something like a 2:1.

And, in a team game maybe the best you can do is a 3:2. Im not opposed to hinnom being in games - but the problem that the choice mechanism weighted hinnom the same as any other good nation (formoria, neifle, Sauro etc).

Perhaps in the next installment we can use a point bidding system.

Each team gets 10 points. They can freely bid for nations.
They get however many nations they can afford.

So for example, if three teams bid for Hinnom, and the highest bid is 7 points... that leaves them 3 points whether that gets them one more nation - or 3.

this might have set teams up like:

Hinnom .....Sauro....Vanheim
Ulm.........Pan......Helmheim
............Arco.....Formoria



HOWEVER, that being said- I don't in anyway want to quit on this game. The Devas have a 50% advantage in gems and provinces - and they are pressing it against the Blesseds. Can they do it against the whole world? Will they have to ? = )

[Squirrelloid]

See, I'd rate Niefl as meaner than Hinnom. The only advantage Hinnom has over Niefl is better PD...

[rdonj]

Well, score graphs are a funny thing, in that they tell you an interesting story, but not the whole story. For example, the score graphs tell how the armies of the devas and ACGHHS are very close in size. They say nothing, however, of the fact that the majority of our armies are ulmish women, followed by indies and more or less uninteresting units hired by niefelheim to patrol his cap when it was bombarded with toads. They also say nothing of how ACGHHS has hundreds of jaguar warriors and androphag archers on our borders.

We have the most provinces not because we've been beating team ACGHHS, but because we've been more aggressive in marketing violence to our neighbors, especially the blessed ones. I find the income tally very interesting, personally. Despite having 22 more provinces than team ACGHHS, they have nearly the same income as we do despite the fact that I am currently overtaxing a few provinces, and despite the fact that they have at least one nation on their team that should be fairly into bloodhunting by this point. Clearly they are doing something right here.

I would be similarly cautious before saying too much about our gem income disparity at this point. We JUST put up a global, which is going to skew the numbers about. And as I said already, team ACGHHS has some serious bloodhunting ability on their team. It is not unlikely in the least that they are making 60+ slaves a turn. In fact that would be a ridiculously easy benchmark for them at this stage of the game, and I would suspect a significantly higher slave income. I would also like to point out at this point that we have seen a number of artifacts in their possession and suspect the hammer of the forge lord and the chalice to be among them. While it is true that, as ulm, I am an excellent forging nation, I do quite a bit of forging for my team without using smiths. We've also had a bit of difficulty scraping up earth gems, so we have far fewer dwarven hammers than you would expect us to have by now. The disparity is not as bad as it looks. And need I remind you that sauromatia has had the well of misery up for quite some time....


Now research, that is clearly not in our favor. I am the only member of my team with respectable research at this point. Every single member of team ACGHHS is above every other member of my team in research (though it looks as though caelum may soon overtake pangaea). I would also be willing to wager that team ACGHHS's research has been much more optimal than ours. Between sauromatia and arcosephale, it is obvious that they have at least level 8 in conjuration and construction, and I would be willing to bet mictlan is up there in blood. Can anyone say elemental royalty, artifacts, and unique blood summons? All on the same team? With a very obvious road to late game tartarian dominance? Meanwhile my team chooses to focus on things like evocation ;). Of course I have more than just this, but for the moment I'll leave you to keep guessing.

So, just think about what I've said, and ask yourself. Is the slight edge in raw material wealth that the devas possess, coupled with strong natural raiding potential, decent recruitable SCs and forge bonii sufficient to overcome team ACGHHS' far superior troop line up, artifact possession, significant research advantage, and tartarian spam coupled with access to all of the unique SCs in the game? It is definitely much closer than the score graphs imply.


This has been a public service announcement from the Devas Department of Looking Less Scary and Enabling the Greater Enjoyment of the Easy-Slay brand :D

[Septimius Severus]

Rdonj makes some very strong arguments indeed (thanks for the commentary Rdonj, btw), I just did a quick superficial calculating of scores and presented it, that is all. The two teams are very, very, closely matched. The verdict part of course is just the opinion of an outsider of sorts looking in as to who has the slight edge at this point overall. I suspect (and I hope) that sooner or later one of you, either ACGHHS or The Deva's, will pull out far enough in the score graphs that there will be no question really. We can't all sit around holding hands forever, afterall. No fun in that. :)

[Septimius Severus]

So for example, if three teams bid for Hinnom, and the highest bid is 7 points... that leaves them 3 points whether that gets them one more nation - or 3.

this might have set teams up like:

Hinnom .....Sauro....Vanheim
Ulm.........Pan......Helmheim
............Arco.....Formoria


Chris, the problem I have with a point system is that it is subjective. Who decides how many points a given nation is worth?

I still cling (perhaps niavely) to the assumption that the developers believed that every nation, properly helmed, had an equal chance of winning. They also believed Fever Fetishes, etc, were important to that balance. This is part of the reason we are an island of vanilla in a sea of CBM, also the reason I never outlaw any nation.

The concept of course I understand, to prevent a repeat of the Devas deadly duo. I think though a simple rule like not allowing the ranked lists for any team to contain both Hinnom/Gath and Neifel would be enough. The first choice priviledge of the Captains, is another check on this (when used correctly) and combined with the the focus on team themes (Death, Blood, Astral) should prevent at least some of the other conflicts that can arise in the nation selection process. So I am not worried.

Game Note:

DrPraetorious has requested a 24 hour delay, which I am graciously posting for him to this thread for the benefit of all. :)

[Squirrelloid]

Sept, the developers not only failed to balance the game, they weren't trying to. Anyone who has even looked at MA Man or EA Agartha would be painfully aware of that fact.

[rdonj]

Yeah, nations aren't really balanced. There are just some nations that do better than others, most of the time. Of course, all nations have weaknesses. Some of them just have more weaknesses than others.

Lanka, mictlan, and niefelheim were all very solid and top level nation choices by the various captains. Vanheim isn't really near the same general power level as those three, though it is still a fairly potent nation. Hinnom is certainly a top level ea nation as well, but I wouldn't hesitate to put sauromatia in the same category either. So certainly, I would admit that my team and team ACGHHS are a bit stacked given that we both possess two top tier ea nations.

Anyway, I agree with you, a rule to just prevent two top level picks in any one team should probably be sufficient for further iterations of the series.

[rdonj]

I suspect (and I hope) that sooner or later one of you, either ACGHHS or The Deva's, will pull out far enough in the score graphs that there will be no question really. We can't all sit around holding hands forever, afterall. No fun in that. :)

You're just itching to start the next game. After all, this one has already gone on longer than any of the NvV games ;). The Devas have been warring with ACGHHS and the blessed ones for a number of turns now. So we are not exactly holding hands. However, so far the battle between the Devas and team ACGHHS has not really involved our best armies. When that happens, we will probably start to see a winner emerge.

Oh: I also wanted to say that so far I don't think the hosting time postponement has gone through. It's at 19 hours atm.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think the devs did a fantastic job of balance (but Im probably biased since I was involved in it). Especially since they took the difficult road to it. But the rock-paper-scissors balance for many different types of play is hard to see.

It is however, unarguable that the game is not balanced if you are looking at 1-to-1 balance for MP games on maps of 100-500 provinces which is where most of the comparisons occur (and the reason for a couple of mods)

[rdonj]

Certainly, pretty much every nation is balanced on a big enough map, because gradually all end games begin to look the same. With a long enough time span and sufficient gems available to players, and let's not even talk about clams... a 1500 or so province game would have the last couple of nations alive so closely balanced, I highly doubt anyone would ever win. But yes, in general and for much of the game, it would be very difficult if not impossible to find two evenly matched nations. Any given nation is stronger on some, weaker on others, and those strengths and weaknesses can change (to a point) depending on how a given player plays it. The strong nations are generally strong because they are likely to be able to defeat a larger number of nations than most other nations can. And the opposite of course for nations that are weaker. Of course, some of the "weaker" nations actually become quite strong later on, and their real challenge is surviving a certain stage or two of the game mostly intact. There are only a few nations in the game that are just never really competetive imo. And what do you know, none of them are in this game!



On a more game-related note, I don't know if you're aware of this septimius, but my team is having trouble getting in contact with illuminated one. And the hosting timer STILL does not seem to reflect the amount of time I believe we should have left on the clock at this point given a 24 hour extension. Gandalf, can you please make sure all is well here and take a burden off my worried little mind? I'm a bit worried, I think we may end up having to call in a sub. Keeping my fingers crossed though.

[DrPraetorious]

Illum. is not answering querries. I'm worried that his computer is down, and I haven't heard from either of my subs in some time.

I'm pretty sure I can get Frank Trollman to do a few turns; but I may need yet another 24h to get him up to speed. Hopefully not.

[Gandalf Parker]

No the timer does not reflect a 24 hour extension.
Ive seen the request, and the explanation, but no response.

But it does show that you still have 12 hours before this should be a problem (unless we get 16 files turned in).

[rdonj]

Yeah, the alternate concept is a good idea, but the actual implementation is a bit difficult. The problem is, I think, that if you go too long into a game before needing the alternates, you're going to lose them due to their doing something else/losing interest. Not sure how to maintain interest in people who aren't even playing the game for several months or more. In our case I think both alternates were also pretty new players and I don't recall seeing either of them having posted at all recently.

[rdonj]

No the timer does not reflect a 24 hour extension.
Ive seen the request, and the explanation, but no response.

But it does show that we still have 12 hours before this should be a problem (unless we get 16 files turned in).

Well, thanks for looking into it at least :) 12 hours is going to be cutting it pretty close for me I fear, as I will not have access to my computer again until very late tonight. Hopefully it will be enough.

[Gandalf Parker]

I meant we have 12 hours to allow Septimius or Melnorjr to respond.
It hasnt been turned down either.

[rdonj]

Oh. That's what you meant. I thought there was some sort of server issue preventing it. I also thought that septimius had granted the request? Oh well, I'll leave melnorjr a message and see if I can't coax him into responding.



Edit:

Game Note:

DrPraetorious has requested a 24 hour delay, which I am graciously posting for him to this thread for the benefit of all.

That is the exact quote. I guess it is sort of nebulous though. On one hand, it could mean what I want it to say. On the other hand, it could mean that he is willing to grant the extension so long as no one objects. Or he could just be taunting us :D. It really is hard to pin down an exact meaning on that statement.

[Septimius Severus]

rdonj, have no fear, Septimius is here! Yes, I'm about to add the original 24 hours asked for to the timer. If more time is needed, I'm sure you or DrP will let me know.

Edit: That is, if it is still wanted/needed.

[rdonj]

rdonj, have no fear, Septimius is here! Yes, I'm about to add the original 24 hours asked for to the timer. If more time is needed, I'm sure you or DrP will let me know.

Edit: That is, if it is still wanted/needed.

Thank you!!!!

I'm pretty sure we'll still need the time, because I am pretty sure we're going to need to get a sub for illuminated one.

[Septimius Severus]

Thank you rdonj for your defense and Squirrel for your commentary.

Squirrel, what I meant really meant was that in most strategy games, the developers/designers sort of "balance" the game by giving each faction certain strengths and weaknessess. Counters are provided for this, that and the other thing. Globals can be dispelled, tiny units can swarm and bring down much larger units, etc, etc. I think some things were put into the game for reasons the designers thought best. Of course the players know best, I'm just saying ...

I would like to preserve at least one game with a thread here on Shrapnel that is largely vanilla (with all its glorious imperfections and imbalances), not because I am anti-balance or anti-CBM, but rather because I think that it is important for players, especially noobs to play the game vanilla in order to appreciate the extensive balance modifications that CBM makes. Perhaps I am a bit of a purist, but I believe also that players should have a choice as well. And there were some AI considerations as well.

I remember when I played Space Empires, one could join either a vanilla game or one using Capt'n Kwok's balance mod (I wonder if Kwok and QM are related?), both types were readily available. I'd like that to be the case with Dom3 as well. Aside from Gandalf's server, it seems they are getting harder, and harder to find.

Rdonj, Chris came up with some great ideas for keeping team alternates in the loop and interested, aside from giving them forum access which I thought was a good idea as well, they can be set to work gathering intel (maybe from IRC, isn't that where people gather to chat about the game or something?), researching, creating maps, etc. We need to find more ways to get them involved, perhaps letting your alternates play a turn or two every now and then, to give em a chance to get some action in and keep em loose.

Of course there are some alternates, like Grudgebringer who turned out to be very reliable, and a few others I can't remember now, forgive me.

[rdonj]

Mmm, IRC intel gathering. I do go into IRC sometimes. But I am usually pretty good about not giving out interesting information about my team (squirrelloid is an IRC regular, as is maerlande... so when he was playing, I had to watch myself around him). Instead when asked about the game, I tend to talk about the mistakes I see other players making, or talk about things I know about other teams. Squirrel is pretty good about guarding his relevant information too. If I'm playing by myself though I am much more fast and loose with my tongue.

Some of those certainly seem like good ideas to keep up the interest level with the alternates. A bit too late for us devas, and some of them seem maybe a bit excessive, but especially taking a couple of turns every once in a while could definitely help there.

[Squirrelloid]

I think the devs did a fantastic job of balance (but Im probably biased since I was involved in it). Especially since they took the difficult road to it. But the rock-paper-scissors balance for many different types of play is hard to see.

It is however, unarguable that the game is not balanced if you are looking at 1-to-1 balance for MP games on maps of 100-500 provinces which is where most of the comparisons occur (and the reason for a couple of mods)

I think a standard of balance that requires more than 500 provinces is not a good standard of balance. Games at even 500 provinces just never end. And since the endgame looks the same for everyone... sure, if the map is big enough that you're starting endgame during your first war, then everyone is balanced. But that's both boring and uninteresting. There's no point in the research system if everyone is expected to be in endgame by the time they're fighting - might as well make all spells #researchlevel 0 at that point. Really, 300 provinces is too large, much less 500. And more than 15 provinces/player is definitely too many.

The real problem is that some nations have a really hard time surviving early game given the unit rosters, spells available, and so on. With a reasonable number of provinces/player (so that the game has a high likelihood of actually ending), you're almost guaranteed to have at least one enemy capital ~3 provinces away from your own. Which means you could very well lose a war by the end of year 1, especially against an opponent who spent pretender resources for the early game.

Arguing that very large maps are the way to achieve balance is also clearly not what was intended by the developers. The whole point of sacred bless strategies and awake pretenders is to be strong during the early game - and those strategies lose power the later into the game you go. Clearly maps are supposed to be of a size where taking that kind of strategic option is supposed to have a commensurate benefit. The first problem is that some sacreds can't be defended against effectively by some nations, even if you did take a strong bless or an awake SC. CBM tries to fix this by making many of these 'too good' options more expensive, and thus harder to rush with as early. Spending pretender resources on the early game should give you an advantage, but it should not be an insurmountable advantage that virtually guarantees you a kill against one or more nations.

The second problem is that the additional expansion afforded by an awake SC or strong sacreds often over-compensate for whatever bad scales you chose to take - ie, good scales in many categories are insufficiently good relative to the advantage gained by sacking the scale for a better pretender or bless. CBM tries to fix this by improving scales, but in many cases it hasn't gone far enough or can't go far enough given modding capabilities. (IMO and for example, Lk3 should absolutely prevent bad events from occurring - spending 120 points on Lk3 is often a poor expenditure even given the boost luck has already received in CBM. Of course, such a change is not moddable.) This is a nation problem because nations benefit differentially from sacking scales for strong blesses, based on the strength of their sacreds. Taking negative scales should involve a noticeable trade-off, not be something you do as a matter of course.

Basically, it isn't unreasonable to expect that nations be relatively balanced (that is, have some sort of trick that helps them against any particular style of attack) at every phase of the game. The reason to have spells accessible by research is to cause the game to change dynamically as research is accessed, and the game should be interesting across the entire spectrum from no research to full research. It fails on both ends right now. At low research, some nations just destroy others. At high research everyone summons tarts or loses.

[Septimius Severus]

Wow, Squirrel is in the know. What depth and detail. I knew right away when he joined us in NvV, this was a noob that was extraordinary. Gandalf, what have you, or anyone else to say in defence of vanilla? Is there any reason to play MP without CBM? What about games with a non-competitive bent, learning games, certain team games, etc. There does seem to be a certain amout of hyper-competitiveness going around.

Btw, if we can reach 35,000+ views we shall rank 4th as the most viewed thread on Shrapnel.

Well I put in the 24 hour extension and now it reads -9 hours till hosting. :confused: I've sent an e-mail to Gandalf.

Edit: Bingo on the second try after Gandalf fixed it. 34 hours should be aplenty, now lets have those turns please. :)

[Gandalf Parker]

[quote=Gandalf Parker;727754]
I think a standard of balance that requires more than 500 provinces is not a good standard of balance. Games at even 500 provinces just never end. And since the endgame looks the same for everyone... sure, if the map is big enough that you're starting endgame during your first war, then everyone is balanced. But that's both boring and uninteresting. There's no point in the research system if everyone is expected to be in endgame by the time they're fighting - might as well make all spells #researchlevel 0 at that point. Really, 300 provinces is too large, much less 500. And more than 15 provinces/player is definitely too many.
Arguing that very large maps are the way to achieve balance is also clearly not what was intended by the developers. I agree that the balance by large maps was not what the devs did. But large maps ARE part of the game. That are many variations in Dom3 other than 2 to 4 nations on small maps. I have no problem with blitz-duels but Dom3 wasnt made just for that. In order to tweak balance for a specific type of Dom3 game it was expected to use a mod (which is what we do).

[DrPraetorious]

Gandalf, can we be *absolutely certain* that the game won't host in 2 hrs?

I propose that we do a mid-era version of this game, where everyone gets the MA version of their current team! So my team would be Jotunheim, Gath, Caelum and Ulm. This would be completely fair and none of you would have any cause to complain.

Okay, the best way to resolve this is a blind-bid system in fixed order.

You fill out a list with your maximum bid on each nation (out of 100 boku.) Then, the nations are bid on:
Ashdod, Ermor, Jotunheim, Vanheim, Pythium, Pangaea, Eriu, Caelum, Abysia, Shinuyama, Ulm*, C'tis*, Bandar Log, T'ien Ch'i, Marignon, Arcoscephale, Machaka and finally Man

* these nations are promoted because of their added utility to a team.

Yes, the order is open to discussion, but is in large part based on my assessment of their team utility. For example, Shinuyama has a real killer app (evokers + darkness) that they're almost guaranteed to get if they've got a team backing them up.

If you end up winning more than 4 nations (which is entirely possible!), then you get to choose from among the 4 you won. No trading between teams!

[chrispedersen]

Gandalf, can we be *absolutely certain* that the game won't host in 2 hrs?

I propose that we do a mid-era version of this game, where everyone gets the MA version of their current team! So my team would be Jotunheim, Gath, Caelum and Ulm. This would be completely fair and none of you would have any cause to complain.

Okay, the best way to resolve this is a blind-bid system in fixed order.

You fill out a list with your maximum bid on each nation (out of 100 boku.) Then, the nations are bid on:
Ashdod, Ermor, Jotunheim, Vanheim, Pythium, Pangaea, Eriu, Caelum, Abysia, Shinuyama, Ulm*, C'tis*, Bandar Log, T'ien Ch'i, Marignon, Arcoscephale, Machaka and finally Man

* these nations are promoted because of their added utility to a team.

Yes, the order is open to discussion, but is in large part based on my assessment of their team utility. For example, Shinuyama has a real killer app (evokers + darkness) that they're almost guaranteed to get if they've got a team backing them up.

If you end up winning more than 4 nations (which is entirely possible!), then you get to choose from among the 4 you won. No trading between teams!

I woulnd't object to this method.. but I like bidding. it helps correct bidding anomalies.

Which is better - someone grabbing ashdod for 20 boku.. or a spirited bidding that leads ashdod to go for 72.

[Gandalf Parker]

Gandalf, can we be *absolutely certain* that the game won't host in 2 hrs?
There is nothing I see that should cause it to happen.
These are the only "at" timers that nav has.
154 Sun Jan 24 18:10:00 2010 a nav (force)
155 Sun Jan 24 09:10:00 2010 a nav (reminders)

Or if we get 4 more turn files.

But the only *absolutely certain* would be to turn off the hosting entirely.

[Stagger Lee]

noobish question:

Why do heavy infantry in some of my provinces cost 9000g each?

[rdonj]

That's due to the better independents mod. It makes most indies cost ridiculous amounts of money so that the AI doesn't recruit as much useless stuff. There are some things that aren't so expensive, usually archers iirc.

[DrPraetorious]

I think it punishes a few highly useful units, actually.

Heavy Cavalry/Knights are good if the AI has a production bonus (it doesn't spend that much money on them anyway), and barbarians are good for a number of applications in the early game.

But it prevents the AI from buying huge numbers of wolf tribe warriors and medium infantry and suchnot, definitely an improvement there.

[Stagger Lee]

Thanks. I guess I just never noticed before.

[rdonj]

I think it punishes a few highly useful units, actually.

Heavy Cavalry/Knights are good if the AI has a production bonus (it doesn't spend that much money on them anyway), and barbarians are good for a number of applications in the early game.

But it prevents the AI from buying huge numbers of wolf tribe warriors and medium infantry and suchnot, definitely an improvement there.

Agreed.

[Squirrelloid]

[quote=Gandalf Parker;727754]
I think a standard of balance that requires more than 500 provinces is not a good standard of balance. Games at even 500 provinces just never end. And since the endgame looks the same for everyone... sure, if the map is big enough that you're starting endgame during your first war, then everyone is balanced. But that's both boring and uninteresting. There's no point in the research system if everyone is expected to be in endgame by the time they're fighting - might as well make all spells #researchlevel 0 at that point. Really, 300 provinces is too large, much less 500. And more than 15 provinces/player is definitely too many.
Arguing that very large maps are the way to achieve balance is also clearly not what was intended by the developers. I agree that the balance by large maps was not what the devs did. But large maps ARE part of the game. That are many variations in Dom3 other than 2 to 4 nations on small maps. I have no problem with blitz-duels but Dom3 wasnt made just for that. In order to tweak balance for a specific type of Dom3 game it was expected to use a mod (which is what we do).

I'm not talking just 2 to 4 nation games. 12 people with 180 provinces (15/player) still has serious early game balance issues.

In fact, its even worse than 2-4 player games, because you don't know if your BL is going to end up with Ashdod next door until you run into them. If they're on the other side of the map, you don't have to worry about angry giant sacreds beating down your door. If they're your neighbor, you're probably getting rushed into oblivion, because your early game is crap (especially against Ashdod, against whom elephants are no help). And if they attack you turn ~7, there's no way you're going to rope in any help - your would-be allies are going to sit back and be thankful Ashdod is killing someone who isn't them.

So in a 2-4 player game, where you know Ashdod is going to be proximal, you plan on fighting angry giant sacreds as soon as you start building your pretender. (You still have a damn hard time of it, but you can give yourself every advantage). In the 12 player game you have no idea, and if you plan for killer giants and instead get rushed by jags and eagle warriors from MA Mictlan, you're in trouble because you prepared for the wrong enemy. Or if you don't get rushed you're in trouble because you spent a lot of resources for an eventuality that didn't occur (and thus lost relative advantage).

Ashdod, on the other hand, doesn't have to worry about killer rushes - its the biggest kid on the block and it knows it. It can build its pretender while ignoring everyone else in the game, and optimize itself for long term success. There is no good early counter to Ashdod - and *that* is a problem.

That's a 12 player game, a perfectly reasonable common standard around which one might expect nations would be balanced if anything was balanced. Its reasonably close to the norm of play (my guess is 8-14 players covers 50% of PBEM games).

Ultimately, number of players isn't the relevant number once you get above ~5, its provinces/player and total provinces that are the relevant numbers. Provinces/player determines what early game is going to look like. Total provinces determines what late game is going to look like.

At any sane number of provinces per player (10 <= x <= 20) the game is horribly imbalanced in the early game in favor of a few nations. As total provinces exceeds ~150, endgame becomes painful and approaches unplayability as that number gets large. (Its even worse with gem gens, because then everyone ends up with hundreds of pearl income per turn from clams that leads to stupidity like armageddon spamming. There's a reason why making gem gens unique is considered the single best change CBM has made recently.)

I mean, I could argue plenty of specific balance problems, many of which are resolved by CBM and some of which are not, but it would take an epic amount of text to have a point by point discussion. Multiple full-length posts could be written (by one person) just to cover pretender chassis balance, for example. I'm painting with broad strokes because the problems are so frequent that it would take extraordinary effort to do anything but be superficial.

[chrispedersen]

I'd make it even simpler.

Its almost impossible to have a game scale well for 2 player games as well as 20 player games. On top of that scale between easy research to very difficult research. 0 strength indies - 9 strength indies etc.

Nor do I think anyone should try. Balancing is roughly the job of the participants.. saying in effect.. sure you can have ashdod.

We're going to take pythium, jot, and mictlan.... (or whatever)

[chrispedersen]

I've asked a few times: Can we find out the status of helheim and TC? If they are constantly staling, can we get them set to AI.

Its kind of moot to think they may attack the blesseds - the devas are killing them.

It really distorts the game, to kill nations that are not even turning in turns....

[rdonj]

It would be best to look for subs first but yes, they either need to be controlled or set AI. On the other hand, if TC attacks its allies with its remaining armies it could be pretty painful for the remaining blessed ones. Sure, we are killing them anyway. But they really don't need to help us do it. In this particular case I think going AI might well be less effective than staling.

[chrispedersen]

As I write there are 21 hours remaining. Please do not forward the timer based on only stale nations remaining. I am requesting my players look at a couple of things.

[rdonj]

We're also counting on Caelum having a turn here over in the Devas. We have a sub lined up for this turn who should definitely be able to get one in.

[Squirrelloid]

I'd make it even simpler.

Its almost impossible to have a game scale well for 2 player games as well as 20 player games. On top of that scale between easy research to very difficult research. 0 strength indies - 9 strength indies etc.

Nor do I think anyone should try. Balancing is roughly the job of the participants.. saying in effect.. sure you can have ashdod.

We're going to take pythium, jot, and mictlan.... (or whatever)

You can certainly do better than at present. In particular, current balance fails mostly at two points: (A) Early game where rush strategies can dominate and eliminate weak nations before they get going and (B) late game where some nations need to commit a lot fewer resources to achieve relevant endgame magic, and thus have more power in the endgame or could take better pretender options for other parts of the game (where, given they already possessed strong late game options, a stronger early or mid game translates directly into more late game power).

Solutions:

(1) Every nation should have available counters to every other nation in the early game. This isn't actually as hard as it sounds because most nations rush strategies (if they have one) fall into one of a couple of archetypes. These counters can be in the form of units or level 1-2 research for a national path. Currently only a couple magic paths have effective early rush counters, leaving nations who lack those paths and lack effective early sacreds with nothing to counter rushes with.

Early game really does come down to a 1v1 situation, regardless of how many players are involved. I've killed EA Ulm as early as turn 12 with Lanka, including successfully storming his capital. There is no way any aid was forthcoming before he was dead, and really nothing he could have done about my triple-blessed sacreds.

(2) Every nation should have something(s) effective to do during midgame that is reasonably accomplishable. (Requiring disproportionate expenditures of gems by some nations is not reasonable). This is probably where the game is best balanced at present, although there are certainly problems.

(3) Every nation should have access to magic which is effective and relevant in the endgame. The best way to do this would of course be to make every magic path relevant come endgame. This is a huge problem because so few paths currently have relevant endgame options.

(4) Everything needs a counter. Everything. The counter should become available approximately when the tactic does.

[Septimius Severus]

Addressing a few topics here:

Extensions and time delays can be painful when staling nations are present. Setting nations AI when there is a chance they might attack former teamates can be an issue until they are reduced to the point where they no longer are a threat. Then it is only a time issue really. If I know who is staling regularly (i.e. who has dropped out or is not being played by someone), I can of course force host after all active players are in.

I've been wondering about the effectiveness of the BI mod and have been trying to gauge its worth for the sequels. I'm glad I'm finally getting some more input from the players. Is the benefit to the AI sufficient to warrant the loss of pretty decent units like barbarians and such for the human players? A tradeoff between more competent AI and unit variety is what using the mod means.

I was thinking of adding the Worthy Heroes mod but it seems to have become integral to the balance mod now. The last standalone version is quite old (wonder if it is still useable under the current Dom3 patch(es)). The version that is built into CBM now, well there's no seperate .DM file for it, and I can't determine whether the heroes used now are specific to the balance mod in some way or another. If not, I could just write another .DM file using them. Squirrel, maybe you know more.

Games 2 and 3 are planned for MA, and LA respectively. You know I can't remember now whether the indies get tougher (and thus pose more problems for the AI nations) or weaker as the age progresses. I'm starting to forget more and more things ... :D

I am intending to use the simplist ranked list method with each team getting their highest ordered uncontested picks. I can simply specify that no team has both Gath and Neifel in their list. That will take care of the deadly due issue. I will balance that with swaps using the Agema method. I don't intend on going into ABCDDEFGH, or any of that other nonsense though.

[Gandalf Parker]

[quote=chrispedersen;727856]
You can certainly do better than at present.
You make great points. But it still sounds as if it all should be in the CBM thread.
The faults seem to apply mostly to CBM type games, and are areas which CBM specifically is geared up to fix.

We agree that the problems are not necessarily problems in other styles of the game. So general game fixes of those problems would have an impact on other types of gaming which would just cause those people to complain or fix it with mods.

But your points are valid.

[Squirrelloid]

Gandalf - how does this apply mostly to CBM type games? What settings make these concerns go away, considering there are issues at both ends (early and end game)?

[Gandalf Parker]

Gandalf - how does this apply mostly to CBM type games? What settings make these concerns go away, considering there are issues at both ends (early and end game)?
Some of the concerns are more about the type of game preferred and the type of settings preferred. You said that large maps do address many of the issues. As do solo play and team games. Also some nations pros and cons can be altered by game settings such as research, resources, victory points. So what is a downside in one type of game is a balancing factor or even preferred facet of the game in another.

The competitive dueling MP style of play definitely did need maps and a balance mod to focus on their needs.

There are also maps and mods which target the opposites. Ones which add opponents, more pretenders, more magic sites, more spells, more equipment. Much of which would be quite the reverse of the type of balance that competitive MP requires.

Your points were excellent. Im just saying that they would likely get more discussion in the thread for CBm than for example the thread in one of the game expansion mods.

[Squirrelloid]

Gandalf - how does this apply mostly to CBM type games? What settings make these concerns go away, considering there are issues at both ends (early and end game)?
Some of the concerns are more about the type of game preferred and the type of settings preferred. You said that large maps do address many of the issues. As do solo play and team games. Also some nations pros and cons can be altered by game settings such as research, resources, victory points. So what is a downside in one type of game is a balancing factor or even preferred facet of the game in another.

The competitive dueling MP style of play definitely did need maps and a balance mod to focus on their needs.

There are also maps and mods which target the opposites. Ones which add opponents, more pretenders, more magic sites, more spells, more equipment. Much of which would be quite the reverse of the type of balance that competitive MP requires.

Your points were excellent. Im just saying that they would likely get more discussion in the thread for CBm than for example the thread in one of the game expansion mods.

CBM has addressed many of the problems and continues to address them, but as a matter of philosophy will not make some changes no matter how necessary (no new spells, for example). The real point is that they apply to any MP game. The discussion is in this thread because the belief was expressed vanilla is balanced (its not).

A sufficiently large map addresses early game concerns, but not endgame concerns. If there are, say, 50 provinces/player there is no early game, sure, but nations which don't need their pretender to provide death access (for example) have a substantial advantage because they can tart farm easier and can build their pretender with a better early game in mind - leading to more mid and late game advantage. And since everyone is going to tart farm, the person who can do it best wins. Also, 50 provinces/player is *insane*. How many games like that have you seen start? Actually end? Without rampant quitting and general unhappiness about the game?

I am only convinced team games address issues if the people choosing nations for a team do so wisely. Or if someone takes the time to pre-choose team arrangements for nations so the teams are choosing nations as a block. The Blesseds sort of shot themselves in the foot with their nation choices since they have a bunch of nations that all do the same thing - raid. Obviously what nations are desirable are somewhat different in a team game environment, and depend on what nations are already on your team, but there are still winning and losing combinations, and winner/loser nations. (That Ermor went unchosen in this game is still shocking to me).

SP is only 'balanced' because the AI is bad and anything can beat it, and its metric of when it has the advantage is horribly flawed. It never uses good tactics like SCs or thug raiding. It can be artificially induced not to declare war on you by doing things like buying decent PD along your border. Talking about balance in the SP game is ridiculous because the concept is meaningless. Balance is only a concern for MP games.

Balance should also concern itself with default settings. Unusual settings are obviously going to not necessarily be balanced - and that's more ok. But the defaults should offer something resembling reasonable balance.

[Gandalf Parker]

CBM has addressed many of the problems and continues to address them, but as a matter of philosophy will not make some changes no matter how necessary (no new spells, for example). The real point is that they apply to any MP game. The discussion is in this thread because the belief was expressed vanilla is balanced (its not).

Well I dont agree that CBM applies to any MP game. Some of the changes play up the player-vs-player at the detriment of some of the more fun aspects.

As to the reason for this conversation I believe it was:

I still cling (perhaps niavely) to the assumption that the developers believed that every nation, properly helmed, had an equal chance of winning.
Sept, the developers not only failed to balance the game, they weren't trying to.

But I think its not that they didnt. I know for a fact that they put alot of work into it. But much of it would be in parts of the game that encourage alliances and role playing and variations beyond dueling. The perfect dueling balance is chess (everything matches except color of pieces and even the effects of that are arguable).


A sufficiently large map addresses early game concernsWhich could be said as "small maps create a balance problem".

And since everyone is going to tart farm, the person who can do it best wins. I havent really seen that in my games.

Also, 50 provinces/player is *insane*. How many games like that have you seen start? Actually end? Without rampant quitting and general unhappiness about the game?Many. Obviously small games are more numerous than large ones but thats part of the definition. Small equals fast and large equals long.

I am only convinced team games address issues if the people choosing nations for a team do so wisely. Very good. Teams and alliances are ways for nations to balance their imperfections.

Obviously what nations are desirable are somewhat different in a team game environment, and depend on what nations are already on your team, but there are still winning and losing combinations, and winner/loser nations.Exactly. And if those were fixed, it would tend to impact on the games that others prefer.

Balance should also concern itself with default settings. Unusual settings are obviously going to not necessarily be balanced - and that's more ok. But the defaults should offer something resembling reasonable balance.And we again are in agreement.

So with 60+ nations in the game over 3 eras offering a huge wealth of different strategies it seems that some are weak and some are strong but everything has a response. Doesnt this seem abit different than "the developers not only failed to balance the game, they weren't trying to"? I understand that you are mad that the devs didnt balance your game but they did at least provide the means for that which is more than many developers do.

[Trumanator]

Well I dont agree that CBM applies to any MP game. Some of the changes play up the player-vs-player at the detriment of some of the more fun aspects. Are you being deliberately obtuse? Squirrelloid said that the problems apply to all games, not CBM.

But I think its not that they didnt. I know for a fact that they put alot of work into it. But much of it would be in parts of the game that encourage alliances and role playing and variations beyond dueling. The perfect dueling balance is chess (everything matches except color of pieces and even the effects of that are arguable). KO has explicitly stated that balance was a secondary consideration. Also, you obviously haven't noticed that the majority of the games on these forums are 8-20 players and use CBM. The claim that the people who want balance only play duels and blitzes is utter BS.

And since everyone is going to tart farm, the person who can do it best wins.
I havent really seen that in my games.
How many MP games have you ever played Gandalf? SP has no place in a discussion on balance, since a) it doesn't matter and b) the AI is just too dumb.

Also, 50 provinces/player is *insane*. How many games like that have you seen start? Actually end? Without rampant quitting and general unhappiness about the game?
Many. Obviously small games are more numerous than large ones but thats part of the definition. Small equals fast and large equals long.
Links to threads please? I would love to see who enjoys games with 50 provs per player.

I understand that you are mad that the devs didnt balance your game but they did at least provide the means for that which is more than many developers do.
Wait, didn't you say that the devs DID balance the game? I'm confused now. You are correct though that they did better than most developers in giving us the tool to balance it.

[KissBlade]

Many. Obviously small games are more numerous than large ones but thats part of the definition. Small equals fast and large equals long.
Links to threads please? I would love to see who enjoys games with 50 provs per player.



Gandalf enjoys 50 provs per player. Didn't you know? Dom3 was designed to accommodate him exclusively. As he'll be happy to plug in the fact that he was one of the testers for the beta *eyeroll*. Now you know why we have nations like MA Argatha floating around.

[Squirrelloid]

I was trying to debate the issue, not the person, but lol.

[chrispedersen]

Personal discussion is unwarranted. And while I don't know about 50/person... Didn't legends of Faerun have 1000 provinces.. 4000?

Regardless, can we return the thread to NVV I think discussios of balance can be held else where.

[Gandalf Parker]

You know, Quantum_Mechani (the present maintainer of the CBM mod) is also one of the beta testers.
And Im quite aware of the population of this forum but dont consider that to be the entire game. Many more people bought, play, and download mods/maps than the ones here. Registering and being active on this forum is more for the purpose of competitive MP play.

And I have always said that I prefer solo. But I have also played MP with pretty much any expert player who has been around more than a couple of years including the devs.

But yes, lets not get the thread locked for personal attacks. Oh wait, that doesnt happen anymore.
OK go ahead.

[Squirrelloid]

Legends of Faerun was 400 provinces. And was also a big cluster**** that made all its players unhappy, or at least that's the impression I've gotten.

[Trumanator]

Well, it wasn't so much the size of the map as the plague of dropouts that screwed it over. Had it gone on though it probably would have become an issue.

[chrispedersen]

Hey, regarding NvV - isn't there anyone that can take over Helheim?

It looks like TC got a turn in <yay> which is actually pretty phenomenal. Truman you up to take on a custodial role?

Anyone on the Blesseds want to play hellheim too?

[chrispedersen]

Hrm.

Well, its 45 minutes after hosting, and I still don't have a turn in email.

Also the website said that TC submitted a turn - however the stale page says that TC did not submit a turn (nor hellheim)

help? comments?

[Gandalf Parker]

The files have been sent out.
3 files had matching serials.
1 file was the wrong turn.
1 nation did not turn in a file.

[Septimius Severus]

A fascinating debate on CBM and vanilla. Some of which is related to our game, some may not be. Civil discourse is always nice, though probably won't be resolved here.

You know the first MP game I played (Faltering Steps) we had like 70-80 provinces each. I was able to handle the MM pretty well and rather enjoyed it myself. I didn't quit either, but got my butt kicked by one of the vets, my old friend Lingchih. If people want to play with large numbers of provinces, that is certainly up to them. If the game had a way of directing production via the setting of waypoints and so forth, it would make things a lot easier, seems to me.

But you must all remember I am a rather casual player and certainly unskilled player. The minutae of the balance mechanics between various nations and the micro level details don't concern me that much. For me it is sufficient that the developers took the time to give certain nations certain strengths and certain weaknesses. To provide counters for this, that, and the other thing. If things were completely, utterly, and totally imbalanced between the nations, then even a skilled veteran, playing any of the available nations, who knows that nation and the game well, would not be able to beat a noob or lower level intermediate player in MP. So I am glad things are not that bad. :D

Game note: I am contacting Captain Nymph to find out the status of the players behind Helheim and/or TC and whether or not Algae wants time to look for subs or whether they should be turned AI. And the status of the team for that matter.

[Ballbarian]

But yes, lets not get the thread locked for personal attacks. Oh wait, that doesnt happen anymore.
OK go ahead.

It can still happen.

Kissblade,
Stay on topic and out of the mud please.

[Trumanator]

You know, Quantum_Mechani (the present maintainer of the CBM mod) is also one of the beta testers.
Your point?
And Im quite aware of the population of this forum but dont consider that to be the entire game. Many more people bought, play, and download mods/maps than the ones here. Registering and being active on this forum is more for the purpose of competitive MP play.
Which is the entire purpose of balance. See previous posts about why balancing for SP is pointless.
And I have always said that I prefer solo. But I have also played MP with pretty much any expert player who has been around more than a couple of years including the devs.
Links?


Still waiting on a serious response.

[Gandalf Parker]

Like what? That I dont agree with you? :)

I only mentioned QM because of the comment about me being beta and how that might have affected the outcome. I was a very small voice in a very illustrious group. Im just one of the few recognizable by the name in the credits screen because it matches my login here.

You cant disregard solo play "because the AI sucks" and then say that balance has no place in it. There are mods for balance which apply only to solo games and improving the AI but they tend to run drastically opposite of any balance effort for competition play.

Links? For what? the games Ive played? Most that I openly played under my own name here were in beta group. You tend to burn out on competitive MP after a couple years. For me that was in Dom2. But sometimes an interesting variation can get my attention. Such as the wiki game where everyone was required to write AARs which I joined (and so did Kristoffer). But the latest was YARG1 which I think is still going on. Come up with something interesting and maybe I will join in your game.

[chrispedersen]

Gentlemen:

This thread is for the thread Noobs and Vets, and for the discussing of *this* particular game.

Can we please direct all other conversations to a different thread?

[rdonj]

Like what? That I dont agree with you? :)

I only mentioned QM because of the comment about me being beta and how that might have affected the outcome. I was a very small voice in a very illustrious group. Im just one of the few recognizable by the name in the credits screen because it matches my login here.

You cant disregard solo play "because the AI sucks" and then say that balance has no place in it. There are mods for balance which apply only to solo games and improving the AI but they tend to run drastically opposite of any balance effort for competition play.

Links? For what? the games Ive played? Most that I openly played under my own name here were in beta group. You tend to burn out on competitive MP after a couple years. For me that was in Dom2. But sometimes an interesting variation can get my attention. Such as the wiki game where everyone was required to write AARs which I joined (and so did Kristoffer). But the latest was YARG1 which I think is still going on. Come up with something interesting and maybe I will join in your game.

Actually I almost thought you would like the idea for overlords, since it was so different and kind of RPish. But then, it turned out pretty poorly in the exact opposite direction of what most people expected :D


Edit: Sorry chrisp, so, this game huh? I am thinking setting TC AI now would be fine. They have little opportunity to attack the rest of their team mates, and they have a bunch of mages scripted to retreat that would be best not to do so many more times.

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually Markata Madness sounded interesting. Many of my favorite tactics involve stealth, and underdog nations. But the restrictions went abit too far. Id kindof like to see a game that involved only the monkey nations.

"To believe in evolution without guidance is to believe that the sole purpose of our existence is to become bigger better monkeys. To become better at eating, sleeping, mating, and throwing feces at any effort to improve our existence. Hmmm.... come to think of it...."

[rdonj]

Heh heh. That is actually a bit of a joke game, to go along with the monkey PD thread. I'll run it if it actually gets players though.

An all monkey nation game would be fine actually, without the nonsensical restrictions.

[Gandalf Parker]

The map would have to be larger than usual. Markata isnt ever going to be very useful for small maps and all nations since most of their benefits suck in such a game.

[rdonj]

Yeah, but see, that is the point of the small map. To keep the markata scout SCs to a minimum. Otherwise each player would have dozens of them running around, and that would just be no fun to fight.

[chrispedersen]

please for the love of gawd, please take it to another thread... please!

[pyg]

So now it's Team Easy-Slay(TM) -vs- everyone?!?

[Septimius Severus]

Note for game 2: I had been hoping for an error-free and efficient method of combining both PBEM and Direct Connect modes of play for any sequels. Gandalf tells me, that while possible, the process still needs more work (if completely feasable) and he cannot guarantee against any mishaps. Maybe for game 3.

Therefore, I've decided to go with just Direct Connect w/ e-mail reminders for game 2. I think this will allow the game to run more smoothly, possibly faster (no files to shuffle around), will avoid many of the issues associated with PBEM, and will make the switching in of alternates easy with a password(s) that can be posted on an individual teams' forum if desired.

[DrPraetorious]

Indeed, it appears that the dastardly Mysterios are vile treaty breakers, and have attacked us without notice after we spared them!

For shame.

I'm not particularly surprised, although it was a foolish decision on their part.

[rdonj]

Well, there is one good thing about the situation. The ultimate realization of the Easy-Slay(TM) philosophy: the opportunity to distribute violence to consumers world-wide! :D The question is, have we expanded our business too quickly, trying to service too many customers at once? Our marketing teams will get to work post-haste developing new ways to expand the Easy-Slay(TM) brand and finding new ways to slaughter people.

Mysterios, you may have to wait a few months to begin receiving packages in earnest, but worry not. We will spare no expense to bring the benefits of Easy-Slay(TM) to you!

[Septimius Severus]

Indeed, it appears that the dastardly Mysterios are vile treaty breakers, and have attacked us without notice after we spared them!

For shame.

I'm not particularly surprised, although it was a foolish decision on their part.

I would wager there are probably some on the Mysterios who are not particularly enamored of being used as meat shields by either of the competing kings of the hill but there are also probably some on the Mysterios who remember the 'Days of Infamy', when the Devas launched a savage, cruel, and unprovoked attack against them.

Hosting update:

3 hours till host, I have received a PM request from DrP on behalf of Caelum for 12 hours. I will attempt implementation unless I hear otherwise fairly soon. I am awaiting a response from Algae to a previous PM regarding wishes for TC and Helheim. I may need to force host it it becomes necessary.

[Septimius Severus]

The poll on hosting interval will be closing shortly. If you've not voted and you find yourself or your team needing more time, this is a good way to accomplish it and yet keep things moving without resorting to delay requests every turn.

[Septimius Severus]

Recently, I had a chance to sit down with the famous/infamous Chris Pedersen, veteran Captain of ACGHHS whose maverick machinations have been the subject of some controversy. Chris was kind enough to take some time from his busy schedule to answer a few questions for us.

SS: Chris, some of the other teams have poked fun at your team, particularly your team's name, calling it variously ACHOO, AARGGHHH, ABCDEFGH, and other things. Others have wondered about your perhaps unorthodox style of leadership and strategems. What is your response to such criticisms?

CP: Gesundheit?

Well, I really buy into the whole team concept, and I want to try to encourage forming a team identity.

To this end, all of our teams turns are sent to a common mailbox - as are our proposed turns. Each player can review any others players turns and orders. Each turn we make a manifest of what we hope to accomplish - and all players are invited to make suggestions, critics etc. Additionally, we use the chat room here to conduct team meetings where faster turn around is needed.
Periodically we create a jpg reflecting the current gamestate.

I have to give a lot of credit to our team members. Shard made a fantastic catch just this turn that will have a big impact on the rest of the game; squirrel made two last turn.

Playing with these two guys has been great. But what has really been gratifying has been showing Grudge some of the ropes in the game, and how much he has picked up on it. Thats been really fantastic.

SS: Have you found the position of team Captain difficult or challenging in any way? And if so how?

CP: Well the most difficult part was the turnover we had in the early going. I really hate losing friends and players. I know my style can be difficult, and I really hated losing Hoplosternum. He was a classy gentlemen, and a great player.

Other than that, my style requries a lot of communication and feed back - so we are usually among the last team to get turns in - and we are spread across 19 time zones so it can be challenging - but all of us have been really good about checking our turns and schedules - and squirrel especially has been good about being our enforcer- holding out until our entire team is confirmed ready.

On top of these were technical difficulties, but we worked those out with the help of KO and Gandalf.

SS: On a scale of 1-10, (10 being most likely) how likely do you rate your team's chances at winning?

CP: 2-3: Don't get me wrong - I think we are doing a great job as a team, and outperforming our individual nations. But the combination of Hinnom, Niefle, Caelum, and Ulm in the hands of Dr. P

Hinnom's early game is real strong - but its end game is *terrifying*. And we are getting into the mid game with no signs that the devas really *can't* do whatever they want.

SS: Thanks for your time, you are a wonderful asset to the community and I am sure everyone appreciates your efforts.

[rdonj]

Hmm, interesting, I wonder how long ago that interview was done. With all the nations in the world united to bring down the Devas, and us being the only real rivals to team ACGHHS (I can honestly not imagine any team winning at this point other than one of us two), I would say their chances have definitely got to be better than a 2 or 3 out of 10 :)

Our team has been a lot more laissez faire (hope I'm spelling that right) than ACGHHS, with a lot less team effort going into each player's turns. With all the hype built up against us, I wonder if we'll be able to live up to everyone's expectations. Hopefully so, or else ACGHHS has this one.

[chrispedersen]

Does anyone understand the hosting status page right now?

[Gandalf Parker]

Nope.
But the actual timer says force hosting wont happen until
Jan 27 19:50 PST

[pyg]

Nope.
But the actual timer says force hosting wont happen until
Jan 27 19:50 PST

I think it might be nice to have the status page display the actual timer.

[Gandalf Parker]

Yes it would.
Unfortunately that would require a wrapper since the web page runs as www and the counters belong to nav. I will switch it to one that works until I can iron it out.

[chrispedersen]

Okkk...

Sauromatia did not get a turn. Very strange. Did not get a stale message.. But NOTHING moved, nothing forged, etc.

[Squirrelloid]

I just dled the sent 2h file from my sent folder. It has the proper orders and everything. It was not a problem with the sent file.

Gandalf, can you confirm receipt of a 42kb 2h file from me?

[Septimius Severus]

The staling page indicates only one stale for Helheim.

I show a Sauromatian .2h file at 42,291 in size with a date 1/26 and a time of 10:39 PM. If you didn't get a new .trn for the current turn I can send you one now to the Noobheim box, but if it is something else (like a .trn with an apparent stale which is what you seem to be indicating), Gandalf will have to address it. Let me know.

Looks like C'tis is finally dead.

[Squirrelloid]

Ok, I finally got to look at my new .trn file... I seem to have actually carried out orders, so I don't know what Chris is looking at...

[pyg]

So what's up with The Mysterios Lanka -> Fomoria land swap?

[Gandalf Parker]

Yep.
1 stale, no wrong turns, and 8 serial violations out of 16 files.

[Stagger Lee]

Yep.
1 stale, no wrong turns, and 8 serial violations out of 16 files.

Sorry, but another newb question - What do you mean by serial violation?

[Septimius Severus]

Stagger, I'm tempted to answer the above question but I am sure Gandalf can probably give you a more detailed answer.

Game note:

The poll on the new hosting interval is now closed.

The results were 5 to 2 in favor of remaining at a 56 hour host for the next 10 turns.

Thanks to those who participated.

[DrPraetorious]

To anyone who is interested - Easy-Slay(TM) is so popular that our service is overbooked!

As a despicable treaty-breaker, Septimius has earned preferred customer status; we will be accomodating his slaughter requests first if at all possible. Customers already in line for service will still be butchered, however we have a host of valuable coupons and incentives available to any of our other valuable customers who will accept being moved to a later butchering. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused but would like to remind you that we need to drive our hands in all the way up to the elbow, or the terrorists will have won.

Thank you (yes, all of you) for choosing Easy-Slay(TM)!

[Septimius Severus]

To anyone who is interested - Easy-Slay(TM) is so popular that our service is overbooked!

As a despicable treaty-breaker, Septimius has earned preferred customer status; we will be accomodating his slaughter requests first if at all possible. Customers already in line for service will still be butchered, however we have a host of valuable coupons and incentives available to any of our other valuable customers who will accept being moved to a later butchering. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused but would like to remind you that we need to drive our hands in all the way up to the elbow, or the terrorists will have won.

Thank you (yes, all of you) for choosing Easy-Slay(TM)!

Where is the honor, courage, and valor in attacking teams who have no real chance of fighting back? Where is the sport in that? Sure it is the easier route, but it does not win you points in my book.

Rememberance of the "Days of Infamy" (sounds like a nice name for a game title :D) and the score graphs were probably the reason for the Mysterios actions.

[rdonj]

If the Mysterios truly remembered the days of infamy (known to the Devas as Customer Appreciation Week), I would think they'd let sleeping giants lie :D

Besides, seeing as how we are under attack by every other team, I don't think there is much cause to complain about a counterattack. It is the Mysterio's own unprovoked aggression that will bring about their ultimate doom. Prepare yourselves Mysterios, the Devas are coming. And this time we are serious.

[Gandalf Parker]

I probably should not have said "violation".
We had 8 player files where the serial number matched those of another player file. Meaning that the same copy of Dominions made the file. 8 files had 3 numbers between them.

[pyg]

Where is the honor, courage, and valor in attacking teams who have no real chance of fighting back? Where is the sport in that? Sure it is the easier route, but it does not win you points in my book.

It's 12 -vs- 4. That sounds sporting to me.

[pyg]

Hello, I'd like to introduce the Easy-Slay(TM) product Tele-Melqart, affectionately known as Dial-o-Death. If you need Easy-Slay(TM) services quickly but have been unable to find a suitable solution, we can create a custom package to satisfy the most demanding specification. To acquire our new Tele-Melqart service all you have to do is exist. By simply existing we will tailor a package to satisfy your every Easy-Slay(TM) need and deliver it promptly.

[Stagger Lee]

Hello, I'd like to introduce the Easy-Slay(TM) product Tele-Melqart, affectionately known as Dial-o-Death. If you need Easy-Slay(TM) services quickly but have been unable to find a suitable solution, we can create a custom package to satisfy the most demanding specification. To acquire our new Tele-Melqart service all you have to do is exist. By simply existing we will tailor a package to satisfy your every Easy-Slay(TM) need and deliver it promptly.

Yes, I think I saw those melquarts running away from Pranda (109) last turn. :)

[Septimius Severus]

Game/sever note:

Gandalf tells me he is working on trying to get the accuracy issues worked out as far the displayed time remaining on the .cgi page. Assuming forced hosting is still on, the next turn is scheduled to host on:

Fri Jan 29 23:09:20 PST 2010

As of the posting of this message this means you've less than 24 hours to get your turns in. Please don't delay and I warn you against waiting till the last few seconds to get your turn in until this issue can be resolved.

You can check the old .cgi page here at this link for right now, which seems accurate:

http://www.dom3minions.com/~nav/bin/old_nav_chk.cgi

We could switch to forced host off/quick host only, but that is obviously not a viable long term solution. Anyone who can help Gandalf with his server math issues, contact him. In the meantime, I am asking that he restore the old turns received page or at least display the next hosting date and time if it can be done so accurately.

[Illuminated One]

Test.

edit: What's less than 24h supposed to mean?
Well, I'll need about 6h minimum to do it.
I can't be that I should play this game without having a correct deadline I really don't have the time to check for the game every two hours.

[chrispedersen]

Why can't gandalf just ask llama for the appropriate code?

[pyg]

Hello, I'd like to introduce the Easy-Slay(TM) product Tele-Melqart, affectionately known as Dial-o-Death. If you need Easy-Slay(TM) services quickly but have been unable to find a suitable solution, we can create a custom package to satisfy the most demanding specification. To acquire our new Tele-Melqart service all you have to do is exist. By simply existing we will tailor a package to satisfy your every Easy-Slay(TM) need and deliver it promptly.

Yes, I think I saw those melquarts running away from Pranda (109) last turn. :)

They were just rushing off to service a higher paying customer. ;)

[Septimius Severus]

Around 10 hours left before hosting.

I don't really want to be put in the position where I must speak for someone else, Gandalf can and I hope will speak for himself on the server issues and as to why he is unable to to correct them at present and why he has apparently been unable to get help.

What it boils down to is that everyone in this game has some responsibility:

Players know they have around 56 hours from the time they get that e-mailed file in their box to get their turns in and to notify myself as soon as possible and with sufficient time for me to do something about it if they need a delay.

Gandalf has responsiblity for everything related to the server. I certainly cannot assume responsiblity if the calculations are not correct and for all the automatic scripts that have been put in place, albiet for my and your benefit. At this point it does seem that the displayed timer is correct but Gandalf cannot apparently assure that this will always be the case.

I have responsiblity for keeping things moving, maintaining and monitoring this thread for delays, running the team forums, preventing cheating, and doing what I can to ensure everyone has a good time.

We've only two choices with regard to this somewhat minor but important issue going forward (quick host only is not a viable option neither are constant rollbacks):

1. Keep things the way they are and perhaps Gandalf will put up an approriate disclaimer on the turns received page.

2. Go to full manual hosting. Turns will host when Gandalf gets to it but will in no circumstance host less than the current hosting interval (56 hours). This will be inconsistent but you'd have to live with it without asking for rollbacks.

Those are the options, if necessary I can take a poll on the subject. Gandalf tells me that direct connect games will display an accurate timer so hopefully that won't be an issue next game. I of course will want to ensure that everything runs properly though for next game (I am sure people can understand why).

Once again, I implore all of you to submit your turns promptly and I warn against waiting till the last moment to do anything keeping this in mind. You've voted to remain at 56 hours, that is where we are and will remain for the next 10 turns.

[GrudgeBringer]

Look, 56 hours means 56 hours....No around, about, close to, Maybe.

You are right I do have a responsibility to the game, I also have a responsibility to my Rugby team for practise, my 2 companies for payroll, invoices, etc.

I am old enough (and have 2 secretaries if I need them) to schedule my time IF I know the amount of time I have.

Gandolph does a great job and if we started this with "It will be AROUND 56 hours" I would have no complaint.

I will get my turn in but sometimes I cut it close (and Chris keeps on me hard about it), but life gets in the way sometimes.

This is a game...an important one I agree, but to my employees not quite as important as the paychecks.

If we keep having problems and I am the one hold us back I will find a sub..until then IT'S 56 HOURS!!!

[Gandalf Parker]

Why can't gandalf just ask llama for the appropriate code?
Not sure who you are asking by posting it here. But asking LLama doesnt seem to work very well. Particularly in this case since I think its talking about something LLama doesnt have.

Look, 56 hours means 56 hours....No around, about, close to, Maybe.
Well the webcode has a "host again on" which seems as correct as possible for now. Its a whole 3 minutes off from the actual timer and reads it from the same config file.

Its the countdown timer that was requested which is having a problem. It seems fairly correct.

[chrispedersen]

I am old enough (and have 2 secretaries if I need them) !

Ooh .. can I have one!?

[rdonj]

Please tell me we didn't just host twice....


Edit: Okay, that looks like just a resend. Not sure why, but I can live with that.

[Gandalf Parker]

Sorry.
I got a message from a player that the files didnt get sent out so I did a resend.

[Septimius Severus]

3 minutes is not bad at all in terms of accuracy and as to the countdown timer, well I believe the wording will be changed a bit to reflect that it is approximate. I am glad to see that Gandalf continues to do what he can to try to provide the players with a sense of when the next turn will host and the amount of time remaining till the next host. That is really all we can ask.

Despite some of the server issues we've had in this game, I will always, as long as I am playing, have a certain high level of respect for Gandalf and Llamabeast given what they do for the community and the fact they do this largely voluntarily and without pay.

Looks like the AI Menace, is no more... Ermor having apparently bit the dust...

[DrPraetorious]

22 of his commanders got away. I feel ripped off.

Ordinarily, I'd say something choice about a Niefel Jarl (they come with leather pants!) and a Sauromatian Witch King bent over a log. I hope he likes it cold!

Instead, I'll say: thank you for choosing Easy-Slay(TM).

[Stagger Lee]

I'm feeling a little ripped off myself. All those dead Melquarts, and I only got one item for it! :(

[Squirrelloid]

22 of his commanders got away. I feel ripped off.

Ordinarily, I'd say something choice about a Niefel Jarl (they come with leather pants!) and a Sauromatian Witch King bent over a log. I hope he likes it cold!

Instead, I'll say: thank you for choosing Easy-Slay(TM).

You feel ripped off? I had one Niefl Jarl down to single digit hp repeatedly and could never manage the final blow. That is aggravating.

Solar Brilliance, very nice btw.

[Agema]

Guys -

Apology from me. I had to move house, with the date was arranged quite suddenly. I had asked for a replacement for a while to cover potentially up to the end of January and had planned to sort some stuff out over the weekend of the 15th but my broadband died, which is why I disappeared very suddenly. Then with the hassles of moving and reconnecting, I've only just managed to get back.

Looks like you've had fun without me - I'm sure I'll catch you all round in other games.

[chrispedersen]

I think your team still needs you agema
Lanka is still in position to make significant contributions.

[Agema]

Well, I can see what I can do. Should be able to brew up a bit of damage.

[Septimius Severus]

I've received requests for either a 12 or 24 hour delay so I'm going to put 24 hours on the clock just in case some or all of it may be needed.

[Septimius Severus]

Recently, I had a chance to sit down with the courageous and daring Algae Nymph, Captain of the Blessed Ones team. Algae, was kind enough to take some time from his busy schedule to answer a few questions for us.

SS: Captain Nymph (if you don't mind me calling you that), your team The Blessed Ones have been categorized as something of a dark horse, an odd-man-out sort of team in this game and the oddsmakers had squarely placed them in last place prior to the game. Due you feel this is an accurate/fair depiction of your team?

AN: Yes and no. Yes, we're last place now. However, I expected us to do better considering my simplistic strategy of stealthed bless rushers. A competent AI was a surprise, as was the cramped geography. That my units didn't follow the battle script half of the time didn't help. Tir'Na'Nog seems well enough, most likely due to Immaculate (the previous player) actually purchasing non-commander units.

SS: Also, you have been lauded for your bravery in donning the mantle of leadership when others would not, do you think this courage extends to your team as a whole?

AN: I don't believe you intended that to be a loaded question. You do know how it'll look if I say 'no'? Nonetheless, I wouldn't call my teammates cowardly either.

SS: Have you found the position of team Captain difficult or challenging in any way? And if so how?

AN: Being captain means more communication, which is a bit of a bother. I'm just glad I didn't get involved in that rollback drama, thankfully a non-issue for my team.

SS: On a scale of 1-10, (10 being most likely) how likely do you rate your team's chances at winning?

AN: It'll be a learning experience if we win, so I'll say 2.

SS: Thanks for your time, you are a wonderful asset to the community and I am sure everyone appreciates your efforts.

AN: Or if not that then at least my temperament.

[rdonj]

Indeed Algaenymph, you have a most appreciable temperament. I was really expecting your team to do better as well, as I believe I may have said a time or two in the past. The makeup of your team isn't really inspiring for the late game or path diversity, but what you do, you do very well. I guess hinnom is proving to be a tough nut to crack, as his giants tend to escape even when they lose. Of course there are also turns like that last one :D. You could still maybe make a comeback, though I fear TC may be irretrievably lost at this point.

[Septimius Severus]

I think I might incorporate some of the essential elements of Belac's idea mole/mafia concept into game 2.

As you know, I've been searching for more ways to empower the non-particpant/supporting players in the game and hold their interest. I think creating a seperate exclusive forum where team alternates (8 in number) and team advisors (4 in number) will be able to mix might be an intriguing idea along this vein.

This Black Market forum, could be the place where these 12 can do deals, conduct inter-team diplomacy, exchange intel, gather intel, trade items, spread propaganda, misinformation, etc.

By giving the team alternates and team advisors power over inter-team diplomacy and relations, these often left our players could in fact become more powerful than the 4 participating players on each team. Of course much of this could and probably should be handled via PMs, but advertisements for items for sale, trade offerings and so forth could be posted on such a forum.

So now a team advisor who feels he is being ignored by his team, can have a way to "correct" their behaviour if so inclined. Alternates now become very important as well. Of course people can play it honest and true, but the option of course is always there. Now the only question is will alternates and advisors have the time or inclination to do this.

I might set it up as a standalone forum or locate it within a seperate neutral forum. I want to call it either Belac's Black Market or The Deva's Den.

Comments/suggestions?

[Illuminated One]

Hmm, interesting idea. Going from this you could have some kind of unique secret victory condition for these advisors as well, which is different from their teams goals, so they do not just try to get their team to win. Maybe like letting them try to leave only nonastral nations (from whatever team) on the map when the game ends (fixed date), so they can enslave them easily. Or have nations with powerful women dominating (Sauro and Ulm and I don't know...). Sorry if that was already the idea. :)

[Gandalf Parker]

The original idea was called a Mafia game but its beginning to sound more like it should be called Illuminati.
Lets all sing the Illuminati Polka :)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fs%3Fie%3DUT F8%26x%3D0%26ref_%3Dnb%255Fsb%255Fnoss%26y%3D0%26f ield-keywords%3Dilluminati%2520polka%26url%3Dsearch-alias%253Ddigital-music&tag=anyonecannet-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957

[Septimius Severus]

Thanks for the input, good to hear from players every now and again for things other than problems with the server and delay requests. :D

Of course, I'm not looking to change any victory conditions or differ from the current format really. I was thinking of setting up this extra non-participant team forum for awhile. Our game is open diplomacy anyway, so in theory anyone can betray anyone else, though it is obviously not in the interest of the team especially of the active players. At a minimum, putting the advisors in charge of inter team diplomacy and not the Captains (as it currently is) does give them a more active role and might act as a check to the Captain's executive power. It would turn advisors into real consiglieres, sort of.

[DrPraetorious]

I didn't get my .trn file for this turn yet?

Did anyone else not get theirs?

[Gandalf Parker]

Hopefully people have their turns now.
Im trying to figure out why it didnt happen.
Also I got some strange responses from the Yahoo server. Yahoo users let me know if you didnt get it and you might check your spam folder. Yahoo may have decided not to accept Dom3minions emails

[chrispedersen]

I've gotten 2 versions now... about 8 or 10 hours later.
very weird. It follows true to form that I get my turn much later than the rest of my team, (at the same mailbox).

[Septimius Severus]

I hope everyone has gotten their turns by now. There seemed to have been a delay or something on the processing and sending of the files, which I am sure as Gandalf indicated, he's looking into. There appeared to have been no stales if the staling page can be trusted. Either Mictlan did a turn really quick or else that is a duplicate copy of the old .2h there in the directory. If the latter I am sure Chris will send a fresh one in to overwrite it.

[DrPraetorious]

Unfortunately, the confusion has been somewhat disruptive, can we have a 24h delay in hosting this turn? I'm only going to have time to quickly glance at it tonight, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to do a turn tomorrow or not. Sorry about that :(.

[rdonj]

Yeah, all the devas have our turns now.

[Stretch]

W T F, why did I just get 5 different turns for this game?!

[Stagger Lee]

Aurgghhh!!!Easy-Flee(TM)*$%^#%3hp*>#$!~*pyg$&^*

[rdonj]

Aurgghhh!!!Easy-Flee(TM)*$%^#%3hp*>#$!~*pyg$&^*

Lol :)

Stretch! I didn't realize you were in the game. Who are you playing? I want to know who we have to look out for ;)

[Squirrelloid]

Can we just increase hosting time by 24h? Seriously? It takes me 24h to think about it, 24h to hear back from teammates and discuss proposals, and then 24h to do the turn.

Why did people vote against a hosting time increase anyway? Are you people not playing as a team or something?

[rdonj]

As one of the people who voted against a time increase, I would say that I voted against it because my team generally does not need more than the current 56 hours to complete the turn. We mostly iron out our options in the first 24 hours, make adjustments and finalize orders in the second, and then we have the rest of the time to submit our turns or see if anything else comes up. More than 56 hours is generally overkill for us.

That said, I will probably vote for a timer increase the next time one is proposed. Turns are becoming more critical and delays are asked for almost every turn. If we're always delaying that's pretty much just an informally longer timer anyway.

[pyg]

Aurgghhh!!!Easy-Flee(TM)*$%^#%3hp*>#$!~*pyg$&^*

Sorry about that. I'm really trying to work on the *running away* thing. Next time they will stay for the party.

[Septimius Severus]

Rdonj expressed my feelings pretty well. So did squirrel on the why didn't people vote for the extra 8 hours per turn question. There's still a fair number of people who only have a few provinces to manage, that may have been a factor. I scratch my head as well. I don't think we quite at the juncture yet where everyone needs 80 hours per turn, but I could be wrong. There's another vote coming up at turn 50, but I could move it up to now if everyone likes.

DrP, I've got your request for a 24 hour delay down. Will follow up shortly.

Don't know why Stretch would get any turns, nice to hear from Stretch again though.

[chrispedersen]

Hrm.

1. There is a mictlan turn in, that wasn't sent by me.
2. I second the request for a delay and/or longer turns.

[Stagger Lee]

Aurgghhh!!!Easy-Flee(TM)*$%^#%3hp*>#$!~*pyg$&^*

Sorry about that. I'm really trying to work on the *running away* thing. Next time they will stay for the party.

At 3hp,your Son of Semayaza didn't have much partying left in him. He made the right choice. I just wish I could have stuck my foot out or something. :vroom:

[Septimius Severus]

Game note:

I've created a work in progress preview(s) of the teams and themes for Nav II and NaV III. You'll find them in the attached files. I think it will be fun to pit nature vs death vs astral vs blood and to have teams adhere to a common theme (whether through nation choice or pretender choice) giving them specific strengths and weaknesses. I know I will enjoy watching the action. R'lyeh may be allowed with certain caveats.

To Caelum/Illuminated:

Caelum, this is Severus, your old pal and comrade in arms who loves you. Don't go on fighting against the Mysterios, we are not your enemy. We know that you are not like the rest of those despicable Devas. We know that you are not evil like the maniacal evil Doctor Praetorious but rather you've been corrupted by their sinister influence. Yes, we savagely slaughtered your god (as much as any dead thing can be killed) but it was (how shall I say) unwise of him to rush into battle against 5 SCs.

I admonish you my old friend, turn your back on your so-called companions, they are not your friends. They don't love you like we do. Stop your foolish attacks and join with the rest of the freedom fighters against the Devas. We shall spare most of your lands and your people. Set your mages to attack closest and evacuate your fortresses so that we may conquer the provinces necessary to accomplish this. Cleave to my busom once more. Betake yourself of my companionship like in the days of old.

[rdonj]

Ah, sept. After the many and varied Mysterio SCs that illuminated has taken down, it is no wonder you would prefer that he lay down quietly :). But rest assured, he will be the end of many, many more before the game is through.

[rdonj]

Game note:

I've created a work in progress preview(s) of the teams and themes for Nav II and NaV III. You'll find them in the attached files. I think it will be fun to pit nature vs death vs astral vs blood and to have teams adhere to a common theme (whether through nation choice or pretender choice) giving them specific strengths and weaknesses. I know I will enjoy watching the action. R'lyeh may be allowed with certain caveats.

Btw - I don't really like the idea of path-based teams, but since I'm not playing in the other games it doesn't really affect me that much one way or the other. Having your alternates doing the diplomacy could be an interesting twist, but giving them incentives to betray their team and work against it, again, I don't really like. Team games with moles aren't necessarily a bad thing. In fact I think they could be great fun. But in the context of the Noobs lineage and the information leaks being non-players, I think it's a bad idea.

For example, in a game where you know one of your teammates is a mole, you know to expect this and you have to take steps to guard against this. If you think you know who the mole is, you can try to work around them, or maybe even kill that player, thus minimizing the threat they pose to your team. With the people leaking information and messing with your plans on the outside of the game, you can't do anything to stop them from messing you up, unless you take steps to make sure that they can't see what you're saying (thus defeating the purpose of their existence). Not having a recourse to prevent your position from being compromised is a mistake imo.

Anyway I'm not playing in the next two games, so my opinion is not worth that much on the subject :)

[pyg]

~54 hours on the game clock, 0 out of 14 .2h remaining. Looks like Vanheim and TC are AI now? Where is my .trn?

[Stagger Lee]

I don't have mine yet either. Maybe Stretch knows? ;)

[Gandalf Parker]

Took me abit to get them out. Had to do some steps manually.

Interesting lessons learned (in case anyone is interested):
A) Yahoo apparently treats multiple messages to one mailbox too fast as possible spam. Not something that would have come up except in a team game.
B) ascii files between systems is a real pain. The Email list edited by Septimius was APPARENTLY not being read correctly. I say apparently because editing it and resaving it seems to have sent the files out but I wont know for sure if that was it until next hosting. (no it wasnt the end-of-line thing)

And yes, the files have all been edited to recognize the number of players rather than use the hard count of 16. Hopefully it will automatically recognize nations set to AI

[Stagger Lee]

Got it.

[Gandalf Parker]

Ahhh quirk on receiving updated Email list has been found. It was in the mail delivery. Should be fixed now so Septimius continue admining the email addresses as you have been.

[Illuminated One]

Lol, did I even kill so many SCs? They all run away to come back and siege my forts...
But yeah, my mages will gladly come out for peace talks if you drop that lightning resistance.

[rdonj]

So I see I lost some maidens to arco. Well, okay. I was planning on killing those off on TC's cap, but if you insist. Kind of lame giving aid to another alliance like that though. Nice penetration bonus btw.

Anyone who is not on team ACGHHS - you lot are crazy, supporting the people who have all the good artifacts, numerous tartarians, and now on top of that, teleporting master enslave communions? Next thing you know, ACGHHS is going to be wishing for seraphs every other turn, and you all will STILL side with them. Well, all I can say to that is be prepared to lose :/ Meanwhile, we are still strong enough to kill any SC you throw at us. Feel free to continue doing so and weakening yourselves for the eventual ACGHHS victory.

[Squirrelloid]

Says the team with the massive nieflheim Jarl-Gygja army that is thus far undefeated.

[rdonj]

Says the team with the massive jaguar warrior army that is thus far undefeated... ;)

[Septimius Severus]

Game note:

I've created a work in progress preview(s) of the teams and themes for Nav II and NaV III. You'll find them in the attached files. I think it will be fun to pit nature vs death vs astral vs blood and to have teams adhere to a common theme (whether through nation choice or pretender choice) giving them specific strengths and weaknesses. I know I will enjoy watching the action. R'lyeh may be allowed with certain caveats.

Btw - I don't really like the idea of path-based teams, but since I'm not playing in the other games it doesn't really affect me that much one way or the other. Having your alternates doing the diplomacy could be an interesting twist, but giving them incentives to betray their team and work against it, again, I don't really like. Team games with moles aren't necessarily a bad thing. In fact I think they could be great fun. But in the context of the Noobs lineage and the information leaks being non-players, I think it's a bad idea.


As always thanks for your input. Obviously I disagree about the theme based teams. I think this sort of team role playing can be a great deal of fun. Alot of games feature a common theme, take the many blood only games. You'd have instead of one such choice 4 choices. You can still have some diversity on your team at the same time, as to meet the theme you can do so via nation or pretender choice. I'd obviously prefer players choose both an apporiate nation and an appropriate pretender, though I probably won't make both mandatory. Having different strengths and weakness between teams, reproduces and enlarges what is already built into the game as regards the different nations. In the same way you wouldn't want every nation to be the same and have every path represented, so to with each team. It will hopefully cut down on the duplication in the ranked lists as well, as you can tell from the ordering in the previews.

Not going to give any incentives to betray one's team. I might as you say allow either the advisors or the alternates to handle diplomacy. Advisors should probably do so, but then a need a role for alternates. I suppose both could handle inter-team communications though, working as a diplomatic team with the advisor in overall charge. Again, the question will be, will either group have the time or inclination, since these positions are meant for those who can't/don't necessarily have the time to commit to a full active game.

[Septimius Severus]

Ahhh quirk on receiving updated Email list has been found. It was in the mail delivery. Should be fixed now so Septimius continue admining the email addresses as you have been.

Glad you got it worked out Gandalf.

[rdonj]

Having path-based teams is possible, it just presents certain balance issues. As long as you can get good teams together you'll be fine, but if you get a remarkably unsynergistic team, you will be in for a bit of trouble.

[Stretch]

Heh heh, just kidding about the turns. I saw that this thread had 1000 posts and had to stop by and see what was going on. If I was in another game I'd be dying right now, considering that I'm in 500-600 province map, CBM 1.5 (i.e. gem gens), 3 hours minimum per turn late game MM hell in the one game I'm in.

[Stagger Lee]

Heh heh, just kidding about the turns. I saw that this thread had 1000 posts and had to stop by and see what was going on. If I was in another game I'd be dying right now, considering that I'm in 500-600 province map, CBM 1.5 (i.e. gem gens), 3 hours minimum per turn late game MM hell in the one game I'm in.

Yeah, that must be awful. ;)

[Septimius Severus]

Having path-based teams is possible, it just presents certain balance issues. As long as you can get good teams together you'll be fine, but if you get a remarkably unsynergistic team, you will be in for a bit of trouble.
Well of course my goal is always fun/learning rather than an emphasis on the minutae of balance between every single unit. There's a certain amount of redundancy but of course that is pretty much the idea. Player and team skill, experience and synergy of course plays probably the most important roll in any team game.

If you look at the top 4 nation choices (and I might need to reorder the recommendations a bit, I.e for the Arboreans, they can live without Pangaea, but that nation will be more important for the Sanguinarium) with the exception of Pangaea and Mictlan in two instances, there should be very little duplication between teams.

It will also encourage the use and development of indy mages to bring that extra diversity which could give your team an edge.

Anyone care to wager (player skill and experience aside and assuming all players choose appropriately themed pretenders) on which team might have the edge assuming a matchup along these lines:

Arboreans (nature/earth): Man, Eriu, Mictlan, Machaka.
Sanguinarium (blood): Pangaea, Jotunheim, Abysia, Vanheim.
Supplicants of Set (death): Ermor, Shinuyama, C'tis, Ashdod.
Usurpers (astral): Pythium, Bandar Log, R'lyeh, Arco.

[Gregstrom]

I wouldn't want to be an Arborean.

[Squirrelloid]

Anyone care to wager (player skill and experience aside and assuming all players choose appropriately themed pretenders) on which team might have the edge assuming a matchup along these lines:

Arboreans (nature/earth): Man, Eriu, Mictlan, Machaka.
Sanguinarium (blood): Pangaea, Jotunheim, Abysia, Vanheim.
Supplicants of Set (death): Ermor, Shinuyama, C'tis, Ashdod.
Usurpers (astral): Pythium, Bandar Log, R'lyeh, Arco.

MA Man + Eriu + Machaka on one team? Wow, that group just loses. It was already a truism that being good at nature wasn't worth much, and those are 3 of the worst nations in the game of *any* era.

My money is on Supplicants of Set. Only C'tis is weak, and the other three are really strong. Especially if you plan to run vanilla, Ashdod can probably kill another team by itself...

I'm going to have to go with Usurpers as runner up. BL would be a great backfield nation, and Rlyeh and Pythium are pretty strong. Arco is reasonably forgettable in MA, but they aren't notably bad. Comparing to the blood team, Jotunheim is the only one with anything really awesome going on.

[Gandalf Parker]

Of course truisms are only true depending on circumstances.
The other truism is that certain pretenders piled with earth magic are the obvious best choice.

On the other hand, when you look at the actual game results it seems that often the earth gods dont do very well. And that the biggest problem with nature nations is when they are played like earth nations. But I guess that is usually chalked up to the play rather than any kindof disproof of a truism.

[chrispedersen]

Sorry Sept...

I think those teams are just *awful*. As alluded to by others.
While themes can be fun there has to be some mechanism for balance - or the whole concept is not fun.

Even if you gave the green team three extra forts, I do not believe they could win.

the Sanguinarium I would handicap at LEAST a fort.

Finally, the astral team will have some teamwork difficulties, coordinating between land and sea.

Map design for this would be important...

[rdonj]

Yeah, largely I agree with squirrel. The only "good" nation on the arborean's side is mictlan, and MA mictlan is the only mictlan without recruit-everywhere jaguar warriors... which leads to its being commonly considered the least powerful of the mictlans. They may also be worse at bloodhunting or something, I don't know.

The sanguinarium could actually do okay, and has some decent nations. This is probably a more or less "average" team.

The supplicants of set look seriously powerful. Some of the most powerful nations of any era are on that team. Although I wouldn't necessarily say ma c'tis is weak. They are certainly weaker than the other teammates though.

The Usurpers are definitely a good team, but the supplicants are better. Still they would have a decent chance, and might be able to win if they played a very good game.

[Gregstrom]

...MA mictlan is the only mictlan without recruit-everywhere jaguar warriors... which leads to its being commonly considered the least powerful of the mictlans. They may also be worse at bloodhunting or something, I don't know.


Well, not having any recruitable blood mages (barring the 10% on one commander type) probably makes them worse blood hunters, yes.

[rdonj]

:D Yeah, I imagine it does. I've not played ma mictlan before, so their complete and total lack of blood magic does come as a bit of a surprise. No wonder they're considered the weakest mictlan.

[Stagger Lee]

Arboreans (nature/earth): Man, Eriu, Mictlan, Machaka.
Sanguinarium (blood): Pangaea, Jotunheim, Abysia, Vanheim.
Supplicants of Set (death): Ermor, Shinuyama, C'tis, Ashdod.
Usurpers (astral): Pythium, Bandar Log, R'lyeh, Arco.

My opinion, for what it's worth:

(This is going to be vs. AI team again, I'm assuming)

1)Ashdod, Machaka to the AI
2)Keep water nations out - Astral doesn't need R'lyeh
3)TC & Marignon on astral
4)Bandar Log on nature
5)Agartha on death

The only real problem I see is not being able to juggle blood nations in MA.

[Stagger Lee]

Does MA Mictlan dominion spread normally?

[Gregstrom]

Yup, otherwise they'd be in real trouble. Why drop Machaka to the AI, btw? It's not as if they're a powerhouse.

[Gandalf Parker]

Just a comment here.
Think teams, think allies for the full game, not player-vs-player. Rethink the "everyone knows" facts that are much based on one nation trying to beat all other nations in duels on small maps. Maybe reread Kristoffers description of the nation. Here is a chance to use some of the built-in features of a nation which have been ignored while allowing an ally to bolster the lacks.

[Stagger Lee]

Why drop Machaka to the AI, btw? It's not as if they're a powerhouse.

I wasn't trying to make a powerhouse AI, more like I was thinking of leveling the teams. Ashdod is very powerful on a powerful team, Machaka is very weak on a weak team.

[Gregstrom]

Machaka isn't the weakest part of the team though, and dropping it leaves no meaningful E access to the Arboreans. Or D access.

[Stagger Lee]

I think BL and Man have E, if not strong E. I hadn't thought about the lack of D though. Maybe move Man to AI?

And you're right. I've heard that Machaka Warriors are awe inspiring, and properly kitted out, they are practically invincible. :rolleyes: