Preponderance 2 [epic team game returns!]

[Zeldor]

Land RAND is over, other games are ending too, so it's time to start organising promised team game. I know everyone was waiting for that :)

Most people should remember Preponderance setup. Luckily there are no clams now, so we should have nice and pleasant game.


Game settings:
- 12 teams of 2
- every team starts in a valley, one player near plains, one near caves
- game is ANONYMOUS, but teamings are public [so who is with who] and so are team compositions [so which nation with which]
- NO DIPLOMACY allowed between temas (inside teams, pretty much anything goes, except exploits)
- you should keep your identity secret (it's not disallowed to talk to someone outside game about it, but it's strongly discouraged, so we don't eliminate potential subs; you can always chat with game admin)
- player identity is revealed when WHOLE team dies
- RENAMING is ON, but it can be used only to make microing easier, so to rename mages with random paths etc; allowed convention for e.x. fire 4 nature 2 mage could be: FFFFNN or F4N2, you should not use anything that may make someone guess who you are; you can use names that just help in micro, so things like spells he will cast or item he is about to forge are ok too; but you are also not allowed to change names of scouts, etc
- if anyone breaks rules, he may be set to AI or endure few stales, without warning
- if you have any doubts - ask before
- SUBBING: since few patches it's possible to play for more than 1 nation with same cd-key, so in emergency you can let your teammate play for you, but it can be only temporary and game admin should be notified; in other situations, try to arrange subs so that no one knows which nation it's affecting

General settings:
Map: WoG Remake Team Arena v.3
Indies: standard, MA
Gold: 150%
Resources: 150%
Magic sites: 55
Research: Difficult
HoF: 15
Renaming: ON
Mods:
- CBM 1.6 (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43949)
- Endgame Diversity Mod (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=45056)
- =http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39989Streamers & Standards v.2
- Banned Spells [Forge of the Ancients banned too] - see attachment
- Single Age Complete (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6299&d=1212179279)


Victory conditions: 10/26 VPs [24 caps + 2 VP worth central island]


Map files:
Map (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=41261)
TGA - use this one! (http://www.mediafire.com/?7h12ypdmnix)


Nations by points:

8 points:
EA Fomoria
EA Lanka
EA Niefelheim
LA Mictlan

7 points:
EA Mictlan
MA Ermor
MA Jotunheim
LA Midgard


6 points:
EA Sauromatia
EA Caelum
EA Helheim
EA Vanheim
MA Pythium
MA Vanheim
LA Gath
LA Utgard
LA T'ien Ch'i

5 points:
EA Arcoscephale
EA Ulm
EA T'ien Ch'i
EA Abysia
EA Tir na n'Og
EA Yomi
MA Ulm
MA Arcoscephale
MA Bandar Log
MA Shinuyama
MA PAngaea
MA Mictlan
MA Caelum
MA T'ien Ch'i
MA Eriu
LA Arcoscephale
LA Ulm
LA Caelum
LA Abysia
LA Agartha
LA Pythium

4 points:
EA Ermmor
EA Pangaea
EA Kailasa
MA Marignon
MA Machaka
MA Abysia
MA C'tis
LA Man
LA C'tis
LA Marignon
LA Patala
LA Pangaea


3 points:
EA Marverni
EA C'tis
MA Man
LA Jomon
LA Bogarus

2 points:
EA Agartha
MA Agartha
LA Atlantis

banned:
LA Ermor
EA Hinnom
MA Ashdod
water nations :)


Teams so far:
1. Squirrelloid + Raiel
2. FrozenLama + Trumanator
3. Maerlande + Burnsaber
4. Juffos + Hermeister
5. Zeldor + Quitti
6. Baalz + militarist
7. Ferrosol + Kheldron
8. DrPraetorious + Calahan
9. TheDemon + Blazin961
10. Apsophos + earcaraxe
11. Alpine Joe + Ghoul31
12. Agent Smith + Hoplosterum

Thread for this game exists on other forums too and it's suggested to visit there, as big part of players cannot post here.

Nation assignments:
- Ironhawk is main game admin now [there will be a backup one]
- you pick 3 [THREE] team choices, you should not repeat nations much
- your 2 nations must be worth 10 points at most, total
- all ties for a nation are won by a team that has less points total [not in 3 picks, of course]
- ties that cannot be resolved this way are up to game admin, who will try to satisfy most people and try to award highest picks for everyone
- if you lose all 3 picks, you MAY get 11 points to choose from remaining nations


No cheating!![I], this includes:

- Bogus orders
- Sickle farming
- lab filling [well, you cannot send anything this game]
- suiciding mages/priests intentionally to turn them undead
- giving up without fight
- staling
- not talking to your teammate
- revealing your or anyones ID in this game


Patala LA Mari
Lanka EA Agartha
EA Arco EA Ctis
LA Ulm Bandar Log
MA Man EA Mict
MA Arco EA Kailasa
EA Yomi LA Abysia
Sauro MA Machaka
Ma TC Ma Marignon
Shin MA Pyth
MA Aby MA Jot
LA Utgard LA Bogarus

[Zeldor]

You can see points for nations in Prepo 1 here (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=40839)

They'd be of course modified, because of no clams, some new patches in between + late summons mod.

And here are premade teams [they could be tweaked too]: teams (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43169)

[Ferrosol]

Sign me up though I need a teammate. would prefer a points based selection and just normal diplomacy.

[militarist]

I'll play

[namad]

i think i'll play for sure if we do rand(either) and otherwise i'll play for maybes


also if anyone i know wants to be my teammate that might make me more likely to play even if we don't get the ruleset i want... so.. yeah lemme know

[Lingchih]

B, C.

Looking for a partner.

OK, joined with Namad. My votes still stand.

[Fantomen]

I will play with Militarist

I vote teams by points and no diplo

[Lingchih]

No diplo sucks in a team game! C'mon!@ I can deal with Diplo with no trading, but no diplo?

[Grijalva]

I'll play with Ferrosol if its cool with him.

[militarist]

I vote teams by points and no diplo

[Grijalva]

I vote teams by points and no diplo

+ 1

[Zeldor]

I created a thread on both forums, so if you can, try to read on both. You are responsible for getting teammate, preferably someone that you have good contact with [especially if it becomes no-diplo game].

Thread on new forums is here: http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=95&st=0

[Kheldron]

dom3 without diplo is like french fries without salt.

[Ferrosol]

dom3 without diplo is like french fries without salt.

Surprisingly bland?

[namad]

the main drawback of a rand game is that you have no one to talk to .... a team rand game would solve that problem...

one of the main drawbacks of a team game is coordinating with your teammate while also performing diplomacy... a simple nap suddenly requires 4players to agree instead of 2.. ... RAND could solve this...


see? team solves all the problems of rand and rand solves all the problems of team! .... yet no one has ever tried a team rand game before? why not?


oh well I'll play even if what I vote for doesn't win ... just feel it's odd no one is voting with me!

[Kheldron]

dom3 without diplo is like french fries without salt.

Surprisingly bland?

That.

[Calahan]

dom3 without diplo is like french fries without salt.
Salt is bad for you though. Same as spending 2+ hours writing diplo PM's every turn.

[Grijalva]

Speaking of which, I think I'm gonna pass on this game actually, I've got another game that's getting complicated and taking up a lot of my time.

[Zeldor]

Ok, here is draft of point system, pleace comment :)

[ ] marks old points in Prepo 1

Ea Arco: 5 [5]
Ea Ermor: 4 [4]
Ea Ulm: 5 [5]
Ea Marverni: 3 [3]
Ea Sauromatia: 6 [6]
Ea TC: 5 [5]
Ea Mictlan: 7 [7]
Ea Aby: 5 [5]
Ea Caelum: 6 [7]
Ea C'tis: 3 [3]
Ea Pan: 4 [4]
Ea Agartha: 2 [3]
Ea Tir Na Og: 5 [5]
Ea Fomoria: 7 [6]
Ea Vanheim: 6 [7]
Ea Helhiem: 6 [8]
Ea Niefelhiem: banned
Ea Kailasa: 4 [3]
Ea Yomi: 5 [3] ??
Ea Hinnom: banned
Ea Lanka: 8 [8]
Ma Pythium: 6 [6]
Ma Man: 3 [3]
Ma Ulm: 5 [3]
Ma Ermor: 7 [7]
Ma Arco: 5 [6]
Ma Marignon: 4 [4]
Ma Mictlan: 5 [5]
Ma Machaka: 4 [5]
Ma Agartha: 2 [2]
Ma Aby: 4 [4]
Ma Caelum: 5 [5]
Ma C'tis: 4 [4]
Ma Pan: 5 [4]
Ma Van: 6 [6]
Ma Jotun: 8 [6]
Ma Bandar log: 5 [5]
Ma Shinuyama: 5 [4]
Ma Ashdod: banned
Ma Eriu: 5 [5] ??
Ma T'ien Ch'i: 5 [4]
La Arco: 5 [5]
La Man: 4 [4]
La Ulm: 5 [5]
La Mari: 4 [5] -1 point for revealed starting location
La Mictlan: 7 [7]
La TC: 6 [6]
La Jomon: 3 [1]
La Agartha: 5 [5]
La Aby: 5 [3] ??
La Caelum: 5 [5]
La Ctis: 4 [4]
La Pan: 4 [5]
La Midgard: 7 [6]
La Urgard: 6 [6]
La Patala: 3 [3]
La Gath: 6 [8]
La Atlantis: 2 [4] -1 point for revelead location
La Pythium: 5 [5]
La Bogarus: 3 [4]
La Ermor: banned

All thug nations get +1 point at least. All SC +2-3. Forge bonus is worth about 2-3 points. Good sacreds are worth 2 points. Weak very early game is not counted, as you don't need it on that map.

[DrPraetorious]

I vote A,A. I'll see if I can get a team-mate.

LA Utgard is not 2 pts worse than MA Utgard - you can everywhere-recruitable communion slaves, you get the same thugs and better equipment on your giants. Admittedly, you don't get *VETTI HAGS*(which are a fantastic bargain.) Lanka is not better LA Mictlan. LA Atlantis and EA Agartha are not *that* bad. Bogarus has advantages in a team game (insanely fast research, good diversity), make it 4 pts. LA Pan can be a real bruiser - make it a 5. LA Ulm has critical weaknesses, make it a 4.

Also, I think you're overweighting the power-level of Hinnom, Niefelheim and Ashdod - especially as they all get nerfed somewhat in CBM. Here I've arranged the nations into 10-pt teams.

EA Niefelheim: 9
MA Ashdod: 9
w
Ma Agartha: 1

Ea Hinnom: 8
Ma Jotun: 8
w
Ea Agartha: 2
La Atlantis: 2
Ma Man: 2

Ea Lanka: 7
Ea Fomoria: 7
Ea Mictlan: 7
La Mictlan: 7
La Midgard: 7
Ma Ermor: 7
vs
Ea C'tis: 3
Ea Marverni: 3
La Jomon: 3
La Patala: 3

Ea Caelum: 6
Ea Helhiem: 6
Ea Sauromatia: 6
Ea Vanheim: 6
La Gath: 6
La TC: 6
Ma Pythium: 6
Ma Van: 6
w
La Bogarus: 4
Ea Ermor: 4
Ea Kailasa: 4
Ea Pan: 4
La Ctis: 4
La Man: 4
La Mari: 4
La Pan: 4
Ma Aby: 4
Ma C'tis: 4
Ma Machaka: 4
Ma Marignon: 4
La Ulm: 4

Ea Aby: 5
Ea Arco: 5
Ea TC: 5
Ea Tir Na Og: 5
Ea Ulm: 5
Ea Yomi: 5
La Aby: 5
La Agartha: 5
La Arco: 5
La Caelum: 5
La Pythium: 5
Ma Arco: 5
Ma Bandar log: 5
Ma Caelum: 5
Ma Eriu: 5
Ma Mictlan: 5
Ma Pan: 5
Ma Shinuyama: 5
Ma T'ien Ch'i: 5
Ma Ulm: 5

[Zeldor]

LA Ulm has forge bonus and blood, I think they deserve to be at 5.

Lanka is so high because of mobility and Raksharaja thugs mostly. And they have monkey uniques, which are better than what Mictlan gets [and no water for Mictlan to play with really].

LA Atlantis gets no water to play with. And needs map modification and revealed start.

EA AGartha sucks and it's even easier to abuse their weaknesses in team game.

[Zeldor]

So Niefel comes at 8 points, with LA Mictlan at 8 too. How about EA Mictlan? They should stay at 7, I think.

[namad]

drp your number values aren't always the same as zeldor's

does that mean you are suggesting changes in numbers? or does that mean you were reading his old unupdated numbers list?

[Zeldor]

He is making suggestions and I will agree on some probably. Nief will come at 8 points, LA Mict may go 1 point higher etc.

And to reply you on your other forum - no-diplo does not exclude point system. It only excludes randomness [so it's not RAND then, just anonymous and no diplo]. You send nation picks to someone that would be dividing nations and it all goes the same. You were never going to submit nations here anyway. So with no-diplo you know who is teamed with who, but you don't which team is cotnrolled by that pair.

[namad]

TAND Team Anonymous NoDiplomacy


has a nice ring to it! I'm gonna change my vote then from anything rand to anything no diplomacy :) since really that's all i wanted to vote for i just didn't realize I was allowed

[Apsophos]

Oooh, I'd love to play but my teammate in the first Preponderance probably doesn't have the time to get back to Dominions. Anyone willing to blind-team with me?

[DrPraetorious]

Zeldor - could you post the final pts totals at the root of the thread?

[Squirrelloid]

I made comments on points on the other forums.

I'm going to disagree with Dr. P in that I think Niefl should be banned, and think we should consider banning Sauromatia too, or at least fairly representing them point-wise. They're at least an 8.

I'm also not sure forge bonuses make a nation that much better - in a regular MP game you'd just whore out your forge bonus to gain more gems or other favors. MA Ulm, for example, is still worthless outside of its forge bonus, and will need to spend gems empowering to really get a lot out of it. Certainly MA Ulm should be worth less than EA Ulm, MA Caelum and LA Ulm since its strictly worse than all the other nations with a forge bonus.

Suggestion on picks by points: Tie breaking
In the event two teams want the same nation, the following tie breakers shall be applied in order:
1)the team which has used the fewest of its 10 points gets priority.
2) ???

(Teams which don't use all their points are most likely to get the nations they want. Teams which don't use really powerful nations are most likely to get the second nation they want).

[namad]

that tie breaker rule already existed and was already used in prepo1... plenty of people submitted 9point totals


forge bonuses are better in a team game because you don't need to be a good nation in a team to be a good nation.... i mean you can just let your teammate fight all your enemies and bypass you and control 80% of the total territory... the forge bonus is a very fixed bonus in terms of usefulness ... it's more useful in the this game although maybe not useful enough to be worth the certain scores the nations with them have..

[DrPraetorious]

Sauromatia has a high win percentage because it is powerful but not obviously *threatening*. Also, skilled players like it. At an 8, no-one would use it.

Niefelheim isn't that bad when you take the forced 12 turns of non-aggression into account.

Anyway, I'm a team with Calahan. Under rules variance Omega, I'm playing Niefelheim and Calahan is playing Ashdod. The mod which allows us both to take gorgons is attached at the root of the thread.

[Squirrelloid]

Sauromatia has a high win percentage because it is powerful but not obviously *threatening*. Also, skilled players like it. At an 8, no-one would use it.

Oh, and lets see.
-Good death and nature plus enough astral and blood. Ie, great magic.
-Bugged poison archers that are absolutely brutal.
-Witchkings and Warrior Priestesses are sacred thugs
-Ready access to fortune tellers makes misfortune less bad
-Good Cavalry (even ignoring the sacred ones, since those are cap only)


Niefelheim isn't that bad when you take the forced 12 turns of non-aggression into account.

I'm not totally sure I agree.

[Zeldor]

I wouldn't say that Sauro has recruitable thugs. It's really stretching thug status.

Sauro is really good, but on those settings I don't think it's really better than let's say LA TC.

I don;t think any non-thug nation is worth more than 6 in this game.

DrPraetorius:

I don't have final version yet, I should have it probably tomorrow. I will take intou account your and other suggestions and fix my points :)

[Zeldor]

So DrP + Calahan is a team.

We have BlackGuard and Apsophos looking for teammates. And 3 more teams to go.

[Zeldor]

Modified ratings, any comments?

Ea Arco: 5 [5]
Ea Ermor: 4 [4]
Ea Ulm: 5 [5] - maybe 4?
Ea Marverni: 3 [3] - maybe 4?
Ea Sauromatia: 6 [6]
Ea TC: 5 [5]
Ea Mictlan: 7 [7]
Ea Aby: 5 [5]
Ea Caelum: 6 [7]
Ea C'tis: 3 [3]
Ea Pan: 4 [4]
Ea Agartha: 2 [3]
Ea Tir Na Og: 5 [5]
Ea Fomoria: 7 [6]
Ea Vanheim: 6 [7]
Ea Helhiem: 6 [8]
Ea Niefelhiem: 8
Ea Kailasa: 4 [3]
Ea Yomi: 5 [3]
Ea Hinnom: banned
Ea Lanka: 8 [8]
Ma Pythium: 6 [6]
Ma Man: 3 [3]
Ma Ulm: 5 [3] - maybe 4?
Ma Ermor: 7 [7]
Ma Arco: 5 [6]
Ma Marignon: 4 [4]
Ma Mictlan: 5 [5]
Ma Machaka: 4 [5] - 3 or 4?
Ma Agartha: 2 [2]
Ma Aby: 4 [4]
Ma Caelum: 5 [5]
Ma C'tis: 4 [4]
Ma Pan: 5 [4]
Ma Van: 6 [6]
Ma Jotun: 7 [6]
Ma Bandar log: 5 [5]
Ma Shinuyama: 5 [4]
Ma Ashdod: banned
Ma Eriu: 5 [5] 4 or 5? they have thugs, but meh, and you can get Asmegs on the map
Ma T'ien Ch'i: 5 [4] - or 4?
La Arco: 5 [5]
La Man: 4 [4]
La Ulm: 5 [5]
La Mari: 4 [5] -1 point for revealed starting location
La Mictlan: 8 [7]
La TC: 6 [6]
La Jomon: 3 [1]
La Agartha: 5 [5]
La Aby: 5 [3] ??
La Caelum: 5 [5]
La Ctis: 4 [4]
La Pan: 4 [5]
La Midgard: 7 [6]
La Urgard: 6 [6]
La Patala: 4 [3]
La Gath: 6 [8]
La Atlantis: 2 [4] -1 point for revelead location
La Pythium: 5 [5]
La Bogarus: 3 [4]
La Ermor: banned

[namad]

I remember the original list being ordered by point value and not nation name as well... that would be a lot easier to argue about...

i'm not sure if that's how the official list was done but I know that my team(s) used such a copy to debate what it's preferences would be...

[Zeldor]

Sure, I can do so :)

[Lingchih]

I'm dropping out of this game. Sorry Namad.

[namad]

well looks like I'm looking for a new teammate... someone I already know... otherwise I might have to drop out as well..

[Alpine Joe]

I will play in this.

Anyone interested in being my teammate?

[NooBliss]

Hi.

I'd like to play, but I also have no teammate.

[NooBliss]

Tho... No, sorry. Team game is too much, to think of it.

[DrPraetorious]

Can we launch next week w/however many players we actually have?

I'd hate to see this fail to reach a quorum of 24 and then fizzle :(.

[ghoul31]

I will play in this.

Anyone interested in being my teammate?

I'll be your teammate

[Zeldor]

DrPraetorius:

I don't think it will be a problem. We may need just 1 or 2 people now :) And Utopia may end next turn, so maybe Folket or someone else joins.

[Zeldor]

We may have a teammate for namad too. So if I get confirmation from him [and namad] + word from Alpine Joe about teaming with ghoul, we can consider the game closed.

Also, I can make rules official:
- anonymous, no diplomacy
- nations by points
- you need 10/26 VPs to win, as a team
- Ironhawk will be game admin, I will try to get someone to help too

I will tweak the map during weekend, please send any feedback you can, especially on garrisons leading to plains. Calahan found some missing terrain tags, I will fix those too.

You can start picking nations. Remember the rules:
- you pick 3 sets, starting from the one you want most
- try to not repeat nations much in those picks
- if there are ties [even for 1 nation, not whole teams], team with least points total wins
- you can spend 10 points, there is no award for spending less, except winning ties
- same-point ties will be resolved by game admin, with a goal to make everyone as happy as possible [so looking at other choices too]
- you MAY get 11 points to spend on remaining nations if you don't get any of your 3 choices
- remember: Fomoria, LA Marignon, LA Atlantis have revealed starting position, everyone will know where you and your teammate start

Mods - we will use following:
- CBM 1.6
- Endgame Diversity Mod, new version [released yesterday]
- Streamers & Standards
- Single Age Complete
- Banned Spells [small mod banning AN, AC, BoT, Ut] [if you want to have Forge banned too, it's good time to say so now]

[DrPraetorious]

I do not want Forge banned.

BUT I just remembered - we need commander renaming!

Yes, there is some risk that someone will recognize someone-else's commander renaming style. It's also possible that I might name a commander "Priapus of Praetorious" and send him on a pillaging spree.

But it's a small price to pay to avoid the administrative headache of being unable to magic-name your mages.

[Alpine Joe]

I guess I will team up with Ghoul then.

[Zeldor]

You can team with Agent Smith too, your choice. It looks like namad won't be playing. But maybe someone from Utopia will join, as it just ended. Maybe Folket or Gregstrom? :)

[Hoplosternum]

I would like to join if there is a slot on any of the teams.

[Zeldor]

Hoplosterum:

Namad is not playing, so PM Agent Smith or get on IRC :) Irc is best. I don't think he got a teammate yet.

[Ironhawk]

These teams have still not submitted their nation picks. Please get them in now...

4. Juffos + Hermeister
11. Alpine Joe + Ghoul31
12. Agent Smith + Hoplosterum ??

[Ironhawk]

I'm still waiting for the above teams to get their nation picks in. Allow me to help:

Step 1) Get on your computer :computer:

Step 2) Talk to your teammate :shake:

Step 3) Send me your nation picks via PM :typing:


The above is the correct way of doing things. Please do not follow the alternative plan of wasting the game admin's time before the game has already begun. It will not go well for you...

:tough:

[DrPraetorious]

I'll pick teams for them:
1) EA Helheim and MA Machaka
2) MA C'tis and EA Caelum
3) EA Ulm and MA Mictlan

There. Let's start!

[Ironhawk]

No, no. I retain that right as punishment for not getting nation picks in promptly. I will be... creative.

However, you all should ponder the wisdom of allowing players to play in your game who (apparently) cannot even get themselves together enough to submit nation picks.

[Ironhawk]

I have recieved all but one team's nation picks and decided to just go ahead and assign nations. The team that dropped the ball is getting a random pairing.

Picks will be ready tomorrow afternoon.

[Baalz]

I'm stepping in as a sub for militarist's partner. Give us an hour and I'll send you our nation picks.

[Zeldor]

Ironhawk was joking :P BTW, militarist has sent his picks in, with previous teammate, but you'd want to send modified ones in probably.

[Ironhawk]

Nation picks have been finalized and PM'd back to the person who sent me your original picks. If you did not receive your teams nation pairing, please PM me.

In order to place all the nations on the map I will now need to hear from each of you again, telling me which player should be near the caves and which near the plains.

[Corwin]

Hi guys.

I've got an invitation from Militarist and Zeldor to play in this game. (Thank you guys!)It is very tempting - I never played in such unusual format before. However I am already commited to two games - one that just started, and another I am orginizing right now. I have a question - what will be a hosting time for this game?


I am interested in joining you but I don't have a teammate. And since I've been away from Dom3 scene for a year and half, I am not in the loop of things regarding the current list of good Dom3 MP players. Nevertheless I would only play this game if I will have a strong player as a teammate (don't get me wrong, I have nothing against newbie players, it just that since MP is such a huge time commitment when played properly, and since in a team game you strongly depends on your partner, it would feel bad to me to lose the game because of weak partner)

Brief info about myself - I have about 6 years of experience in Dom2 and Dom3 MP games. During the last year or two of me actively playing MP Dom3 I've won somewhere between every 3rd to every 2nd veterans-only MP games I've been playing. However as I've mentioned it's been a year and half ago, so naturally my Dom skills are a little rusty at this moment, and I have never played games with CBM mod.

Bottom line: If there is a strong player without a team somewhere around here, who have enough time for the game and for working closely with his partner, I would be very glad to join your game with him as a partner. (I think that cooperation here is very important, since although I never played an official team game, I know that close cooperation and sharing plans, intelligence info and resources is often critical with allies. But I hope that the game would still take less time overall than a normal game with diplomacy, since you only deal with one player.)

[Zeldor]

Join IRC :)

Anyway, it's Juffos teammate that's pretty much dropping out of the game. I don't know if he is still willing to play, I talked to him briefly on IRC and suggested to contact you. So you should try to talk to him, preferably on IRC, and either team with him, or find a teammate [I can suggest you someone on IRC, if Juffos option fails].

[Corwin]

All right, Juffos and me will be forming a team. We should be able to get in touch with each other today, probably on IRC. We will sort out our nation situation ASAP and contact IronHawk.

[DrPraetorious]

"- suiciding mages/priests intentionally to turn them undead"

That's not cheating! You're the awakening God, and you command your minions to die, promising that they will live again through your splendid intervention. I don't see a problem here...

[Zeldor]

It's a problem when someone makes tens of reanimators for a nation that does not have them. Also upkeep free researchers. Sure, it's tricky, but some people have proven to be able to take it to the extreme.

[DrPraetorious]

It's also an issue with "intentional". If I do that with a reverse communion in an actual battle, is that "intentional"? Certainly, it's an expected outcome of using mages as reverse-communion thugs; and if you're going to do that, it's prudent to have them twiceborn first.

[Zeldor]

Intentional would be things like sending remote attacks on your prov, where you have mages doing suicidal stuff. I am talking about obvious stuff only :)

[Squirrelloid]

Yes, standing your mage/priests next to bog beasts with LAD up when they're not poison immune is pretty obvious - you shouldn't do that.

[Ironhawk]

In case anyone was wondering - I have not posted the nation picks because the newly formed team of Corwin/Juffos hasnt had a chance to make their selection yet. And I cant post a partial list because that would implicitly reveal information about which team was which.

In the meantime, please make sure that you have sent me the position information for your team (cave/plains). That way we can get the game going as fast as possible.

[Corwin]

Ok, Juffos and I have made our nation pick. I will be sending PM to Ironhawk in a minute.

[Ironhawk]

Ok, final nation assignments are as follows:

Patala LA Mari
Lanka EA Agartha
EA Arco EA Ctis
LA Ulm Bandar Log
MA Man EA Mict
MA Arco EA Kailasa
EA Yomi LA Abysia
Sauro MA Machaka
Ma TC Ma Marignon
Shin MA Pyth
MA Aby MA Jot
LA Utgard LA Bogarus

Will try and get to placing the nations tonight (assuming everyone has sent me their position information)...

[DrPraetorious]

HA HA HA HA!

This fits into our plans perfectly. Perfectly!

None will be able to stand against us.

A lot fewer rainbows than I'd expected.

Lessee, we got a lot of love for monkey summons:
LA Patala / LA Marig (8) - weak in death (summons fix that)
LA Ulm / Bandar Log (10) - weak in fire *and* air
However, neither of these teams is going to survive long enough to use them. Just because you *can* make a team to hand blood slaves over for monkey summons, doesn't mean you *should*.

Three very lopsided teams:
Lanka / EA Agartha (10) - weak in ASTRAL! Oh, the hillarity.
MA Man / EA Mict (10) - weak in earth.
Saur / Machaka (10) - weak in air
Their assymetry will be their downfall. Except Lanka / EA Agartha which spent all their points for the privelege of having "victim" stenciled on their head in magic marker, which they can't see because they don't have astral.

Just plain mysterious:
EA Arco / EA C'tis (8) - This is not the 8 bid I would've expected. Must've really wanted this combo.... for SIRRUSH! That's the evil plan. Weak in blood.
MA Arco / Kailasa (9) - I agree that Kailasa is a bargain at 4, but why not make a good team? Will probably put Arco in the middle thinking that elephants will help somehow. Weak in blood, air and death.
MA TC / MA Marig (9) - Weak in death and blood. Plans to somehow conquer the world with crossbowmen.
MA Aby / MA Jot (11) - has 11 points to spend and *still* weak in earth and air. That's an achievement.
Probably one of these randomly generated pairings will luck out and win. Or all four teams will be in smoking ruins by turn 20.

Finally, we come to the actually good teams:
MA Pythium / Shinuyama (11) Now *that* is what you spend 11 points on. Weak only in blood, powerful military for quick early expansion, plenty of research potential.
EA Yomi / LA Abysia (10) Weak in air and water. Strong in crushing you. With a strong researcher like LA Abysia backing them up, double-bless Dai Oni become fearsome indeed.
LA Utgard / LA Bogarus (9) Weak only in earth. How the hell did Bogarus get priced at 3 in a team game? My prediction - will put Bogarus towards the plains, just to totally blow our minds; also, to kill us all with thunderstrike communions while Utgard heads for demon lords or something without interference.

[militarist]

Where did you put yourself, DrPraetorious?
"Just plain mysterious" probably :)?

[Baalz]

I agree with you Dr. P on the ones you listed as obviously good, but I think you missed a couple synergies on the other teams.

I'm a bit surprised MA Ulm didn't get picked at all for a team game. I didn’t pick it because I thought it’d be in high contention…

Patala/LA Mari - I'm not so sure blood slaves are being pushed to the monkey summons here. Patala makes an awesome forge ***** and fallen angels are just as cost efficient as any of the monkey summons – particularly with a nice bless. Could be Patala focuses on const while mari focusses on blood initially, then it may make sense for Patala to pick up the conj summons. Monkey blood summons will come out eventually, but I think fallen angels are the faster payout here which is something to consider with a seemingly weak early game.

Bandar/LA Ulm - This one does seem more likely to focus on the monkey blood summons, but theres also some interesting rushes that could be leveraged with these game settings with the monkey astral summons and Ulm's forge bonus. I don't think I agree this one is weak early, LA Ulm with high resources and hard research should be pretty intimidating early on if played right.

Lanka/EA Agartha - Hmmm, not sure but I'm guessing maybe a darkness theme? Utterdark could be a plan as they can get a good D income without really needing to spend it on anything.

MA Man/EA Mictlan - Hmmmm, maybe Mictlan is geared for mid/late game power while Man carries the early game. With no need to take crappy scales for an insane bless Mictlan can get a blood economy up real fast jumping up to their mid level summons while Man takes care of the expansion. Saving up bloodslave and b-lining for Tlahuelpuchi would allow arguably the fastest blood econ in the game, churning out civateteo thugs and enormous amounts of Onaqui freespawn without really needing a strong bless.

Saur/Mach - pretty strong early game, I'd see Sauro taking a bless the optimized thugging with Mach on the forge early on. Warrior sorceresses pouring out of a bunch of castles without worrying too much about research initially. This transitions into strong blood/death summons with Mach covering heavy evo.

EA Arco/EA C'tis – Arco takes magic-3/sloth-3 and rainbow, tossing in skull mentors to get a really retarded initial research while c’tis takes care of the early heavy lifting. Not sure where that research is headed but there’s probably a plan for something nasty, maybe a global they’ve planned around.

MA Arco/Kalasia - Arco takes a forge lord and great scales, picks up early constr. Kalasia takes a moderate bless and a rainbow to look for gems. Midgame Arco picks up support rituals with the forge lord popping out the big boosters and that fat gem income turns into a steady flow of astral summons supported by communions and alteration.

MA TC/MA Mari – TC has awesome research and site searching with no need for a pretender support. Mari takes a strong bless leveraging knights of the chalice early and climbing straight up to angelic summons which TC supplies gems and gear for.

MA Aby/MA Jotun – Strong early, mid and late games. They probably are hoping to leverage whichever temperature extreme is most damaging to their opponents with Aby clobbering the anti/thug stuff using heavy infantry/evo while Jotun does what it does.

MA Pyth/Shin – Probably the most obviously strong pairing, tons of options and no real weaknesses.

Yomi/LA Aby – Obvious strengths, but Yomi may have an uphill fight on this one. Lots of good archer nations matched with good anti-thug options. Also, overall team seems likely to have a rough time with banish spam/demon counters.

Utgard/Bogarus – Terrifying late game, but a real danger of not living that long. If they’re given enough breathing room this would probably be the strongest pairing but I imagine they’ll have a hard time keeping out of early fighting and depending on who they come up against that may be pretty difficult.

[Ironhawk]

I was trying to finish the prepo placements tonight when I found that two teams still have not submitted their locations.... I mean, c'mon guys the setup has been dragging on for ages how could you not have this stuff ready? Anyway, these are the teams that need to submit locations:

Apsophos + earcaraxe
Baalz + militarist

If I dont hear via PM from you by tomorrow night, I will give your teams random positions. So don't be late!

:tough:

[Calahan]

Dock them all 10k population at their starting capitals for being slackers.

That'll teach them you mean business :)

[Apsophos]

Me, a slacker?
Yeah, right, I had little access to MPs so we're still discussing placement.

Also, I'll be at Hellfest Open Air starting tomorrow until monday. earcaraxe has some experience playing my nation so he can do the first turns for me. I sent him my pretender setup by MP.

[Ironhawk]

Ok, game is up for pretender upload:

http://www.llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=Preponderance_2

Due to a couple of players being away, you will have the weekend to get your pretenders in. The game will commence on: Monday, 21st June.

[earcaraxe]

perhaps i missed this, but do we have to name the pretenders the same as the nation?

[Zeldor]

Random is preferable. Random made by dominions, not by you :)

[DrPraetorious]

Can we mail in pretenders now or should we wait for llamaserver to calm down?

[Zeldor]

Game disappeared from llamaserver, so mail them when it appears again. I don't think it will accept them now.

[DrPraetorious]

Do we need to contact llamabeast? I assume we're ready to start, as soon as the game reappears...

[Zeldor]

I don't think we have all pretenders. Llamabeast said all games will by fixed today, so we wait.

[DrPraetorious]

Ah, no, by "start" I meant send in pretenders :).

[Ironhawk]

I have contacted Llamabeast about the game vanishing. Hopefully he will be able to bring it back somehow. If not tho, we will have to wait until the server chaos is resolved and I will remake it.

[DrPraetorious]

If the game isn't resurrected tonight can we recreate it? I don't want this game to fizzle due to a startup delay :(

[militarist]

We are waiting for 2 events, any way. One is game recovery, anther is endgame diversity mod update which can require re-creation of the game.

[llamabeast]

Man, I'm sorry, I'm totally the bottleneck here.

Could you reupload the map please Zeldor? Unfortunately it got lost. I'm sure it's in this thread somewhere but I'm trying to sort out too many things at once.

[Zeldor]

Only tga is public, .map is secret, only Ironhawk has it. It has all starting positions there, so he must upload it.

[llamabeast]

Ah okay. Waiting on Ironhawk to upload the map then.

[Ironhawk]

Sorry I wasnt around last night - there were layoffs at my work and I opted to go out and get drunk instead of going home.

Anyway - I've sent Llama the map and tga files so hopefully we will be back on track soon.

[Kheldron]

Hi, I'll be out for the weekend but I'll take my usb key with the game loaded so hopefully I should be able to send my orders.
If not, I'll send a message to ask for a delay.
Sorry in advance if I suck :p

[militarist]

Probably ironhawk should recreate the game with new edition of late game summons mod?

[Zeldor]

There is no need to. You can easily change mods without recreating the game.

[militarist]

should I resend pretender, created with new version of mod or just install new version as well?

[Zeldor]

Only CBM matters for pretender design, so there is no need to do anything about your pretender. Jus download new EDM mod, you will need it to open first turn file :)

[Squirrelloid]

oh hey, the game is back up. I suppose i need to find my pretender for it now...

[Ironhawk]

Yeah sorry about the slow updates here guys - massive upheavals at my work. Llamabeast has restored the game and it is now waiting for pretenders. Get your pretenders in asap...

[DrPraetorious]

14/24 Pretenders loaded.

Ironhawk, now that it's down to 10 people can you badger them? Since you're the only one who knows who they are...

[Ironhawk]

Doubt I will have time until like Sunday which would make badgering a moot point. :)

I suggest generalized badgering here on the forums. You can call nations out by name, at least.

[DrPraetorious]

I suggest generalized badgering here on the forums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIyixC9NsLI

16/24!

Still needed!
Patala LA Mari
EA Kailasa
EA Yomi LA Abysia
Sauro
Ma TC
MA Jot

That's four people who can nag their teammates, and two teams that are still out.

[Zeldor]

Well, I PMed people, no idea if they had their pretenders submitted, only IH can know :)

[DrPraetorious]

I suggest generalized badgering here on the forums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIyixC9NsLI

IS THE GAME GOING TO START WITH THE WRONG VERSION OF THE ENDGAME DIVERSITY MOD??!??!! THE PAGE SAYS 1.04 INSTEAD OF 1.1?

20/24!

Still needed!
Patala
EA Kailasa
Sauro
MA Jot

That's four people who can nag their teammates. Nag!

[rdonj]

I think someone mentioned in the endgame diversity mod thread that the latest version was using the wrong version label. I haven't checked to verify if that is true or not.

[Corwin]

I did. It does.

[Ironhawk]

:D To the 21 players who have successfully submitted their pretenders: Bravo!


:mad: To the 3 players still left out: What the hell is taking you so long?? Have you not had at least a full week now to pick out your pretender? How hard is it to just submit? This is extremely disappointing given that EVERY remaining pretender has a teammate who has already submitted. Said teammates - you know who you are - please get on top of your ally and submit!

[Corwin]

23/24, almost there!

Only EA Kailasa is still missing.

[Ironhawk]

I've now sent a SECOND round of PM's to the offending team. Let us hope that they are paying attention?

What is the alternative if they arent? Should I expose their forum id's so you all can hassle them?

[Zeldor]

Tell his teammate to submit pretender and play first few turns, while he is looking for replacament. And well, you can make a post looking for replacement, so team's identity is not revealed.

[Ironhawk]

As I mentioned in IRC - I have PM'd this team twice now with no response for two days. I suggest that they be replaced.

As for the actual replacing, thats more than I'm willing to do. Admining this game is hard enough with the number of players and all the secrecy that needs to be maintained.

I leave it to you, the players, to find replacements for within your team or for entirely new teams as the case is here. When you make a recruiting post, simply have interested players PM me and I will add them first-come, first-serve.

[Lingchih]

Is it time for an "I told you so" yet?

Sorry, I'll butt back out.

[DrPraetorious]

I vote to just set the missing team to AI and get started.

Someone gets a my-neighbor-is-an-CPU random event windfall, and we move on with our game.

[Calahan]

I vote to just set the missing team to AI and get started.

Someone gets a my-neighbor-is-an-CPU random event windfall, and we move on with our game.
If it comes to that, then probably better off just starting now with 23 teams (since I think the game settings only give a maximum number of teams in the game, rather than a minimum. So it can be started with 23 teams without a hiccup. Although I could be wrong on this as I haven't tested doing that with a llamaserver game, and also maybe the fixed starts might cause a bug).

This gives the partnerless player the starting area to themselves, rather than making them actually fight against an AI nation for it.

[DrPraetorious]

I have to assume that the partnerless player would immediately quit :), leaving the area occupied by 1 AI instead of 2.

And if it were occupied by 2 AI players, they could be set as allies in the .map file, which none of us have seen anyway.

So that's my proposal, anyway. Since only Ironhawk has access to the absent team's identity, and he (understandably!) does not want to recruit a replacement, I see no alternative.

I vote to just set the missing team to AI and get started.

Someone gets a my-neighbor-is-an-CPU random event windfall, and we move on with our game.
If it comes to that, then probably better off just starting now with 23 teams (since I think the game settings only give a maximum number of teams in the game, rather than a minimum. So it can be started with 23 teams without a hiccup. Although I could be wrong on this as I haven't tested doing that with a llamaserver game, and also maybe the fixed starts might cause a bug).

This gives the partnerless player the starting area to themselves, rather than making them actually fight against an AI nation for it.

[Corwin]

I have to assume that the partnerless player would immediately quit :), leaving the area occupied by 1 AI instead of 2.

And if it were occupied by 2 AI players, they could be set as allies in the .map file, which none of us have seen anyway.

So that's my proposal, anyway. Since only Ironhawk has access to the absent team's identity, and he (understandably!) does not want to recruit a replacement, I see no alternative.



Personally I am strongly against starting with 2 CPUs. That would throw a big monkey wrench into Zeldor's and Ironhawk's carefully balanced game rules and the map. Considering the cutthroat nature of this game, having CPU as a neighbor (actually 2 CPUs) will give some players huge advantage over the rest.

It doesn't matter that only IH has access to players directory, any of us can recruit players (by posting on the forum threads or directly in IRC), we just need to tell them that if they are interested, they need to contact IH who will have them added to the game - he has agreed to do it, he just doesn't want to deal with recruitment/advertisement process.

[Ironhawk]

I have been contacted by 1 of the 2 derelict players (the one who already submitted). I informed them that they had a couple of hours to motivate their teammate or be replaced. However, given their track record I am just going ahead with the assumption that that will not happen.

Additionally, I dont know if you all advertised or they were reading this thread, BUT I was contacted by two players who want to replace that team. I have responded to them that it would be acceptable and am waiting to hear back.

[earcaraxe]

it would hurt the anonimity principle, i think thats the main reason they havent try to find a replacement.

[Calahan]

it would hurt the anonimity principle, i think thats the main reason they havent try to find a replacement.
Standard procedure for RAND games on the llamaserver is usually for the admin to keep the ID of all substitute players to himself until they are either eliminated, or the game finishes. No other way to do it, as the admin log on the llamaserver gives away too much info in RAND games otherwise.


@ Ironhawk - If you've found a new team willing to play then IMO, and if you haven't done so already, give the old team a few hours (few as in 4 at most) to sort themselves out or be given the boot.

And I trust your judgement entirely with regards whether any new team is allowed new nation picks, and/or how much time you allow them to upload Pretenders.

Plus another thanks for the selfless admin work you are doing for us all. As there's no game without you.

[Ironhawk]

As you may have noticed we are down to 22/24 pretenders because I booted the pretender from the derelict team. The replacement team has been in touch with me and they will be submitting their pretenders as soon as possible with a max of 24hrs.

To be completely safe, make sure that your pretender is still on the list and did not get mistakenly removed.

[Ironhawk]

The replacement team has asked to revision one of their nations: Kailasa -> LA CTis. This would make their team total the same, which is fine. But it also means that it could have effected other teams picks during the original selection process so I cannot just allow it on my own.

As such, I have said it would only be acceptable if no other players object. If you object, say so now.

[ghoul31]

my partner alpine joe has disappeared , so Ironhawk decided to kick me out of the game instead of finding me another partner.
whatever. I'm done with these team games. They are always a disaster.

[DrPraetorious]

my partner alpine joe has disappeared , so Ironhawk decided to kick me out of the game instead of finding me another partner.
whatever. I'm done with these team games. They are always a disaster.

I agree that these anonymous games aren't a good idea, actually. I'll play anyway, of course - this is a real quality crop of opponents, and I like team games - but it's a *huge* amount of overhead for the minimal benefit that people can't even cheat if they want to. And no trashtalk! When my boot is on the neck of the whole world, I like to brag.

Anyway, I have some sympathy, but ghoul31 - if you'd replaced your teammate *yourself*, you'd be fine. I wasn't assigned a teammate, I went and found myself one. And if Calahan had found Jesus or gotten pregnant or become a street-wise trashtalking heroin dealer or whatever it is they do in Great Britain and her overseas dependencies when they self-destruct, I wouldn't have *wanted* to delay the game if there was another team ready to step in and replace me.

For that matter, you could've submitted the second pretender, or in some way taken the initiative in making sure you didn't delay the game! Which you didn't, so, not so much sympathy!

[militarist]

hmmm... kaliasa joined prep2. I though they were going to replace this nation by LA Ctis.
It looks like it's alpine Joe from ex-team, as he sent today a message in lunar sea.

[Corwin]

And if Calahan had found Jesus or gotten pregnant or become a street-wise trashtalking heroin dealer or whatever it is they do in Great Britain and her overseas dependencies when they self-destruct,...

I LOLed. :D

[Ironhawk]

my partner alpine joe has disappeared , so Ironhawk decided to kick me out of the game instead of finding me another partner.
whatever. I'm done with these team games. They are always a disaster.

I quote the above here to show the sense and tone of selfish entitlement that massively pisses me off. If any of the remaining players in the game want to piss me off, they now have a framework for how to do so.

That said, let me reiterate, so that there is no possibility for confusion: You are responsible for you and your teammate's slot in this game. We're all adults and I'm not going to coddle you and hold your hand. If either team position should become vacant it is up to you to fill it - this is standard practice for all MP games.

[Baalz]

Don't let ghoul annoy you, he has a tendency to be abrasively self centered. Thanks for the work you're putting into admining a game you're not playing and shame, shame, shame on the players who are making it more work than it should be. The rest of us really appreciate the effort you're putting in!

[Lingchih]

We're all adults and I'm not going to coddle you and hold your hand. If either team position should become vacant it is up to you to fill it - this is standard practice for all MP games.

Actually, quite a few players are not adults.

OK, I'll butt out again.

[Calahan]

Anyway, I have some sympathy, but ghoul31 - if you'd replaced your teammate *yourself*, you'd be fine. I wasn't assigned a teammate, I went and found myself one. And if Calahan had found Jesus or gotten pregnant or become a street-wise trashtalking heroin dealer or whatever it is they do in Great Britain and her overseas dependencies when they self-destruct, I wouldn't have *wanted* to delay the game if there was another team ready to step in and replace me.

Have you been following me Dr.P? Or hired a Private Detective to learn all about me? Since your knowledge of my real life habits, beliefs, chosen career path, and current status is extremely impressive.

Guess I'd better start taking this game serious now then if that is the case, since I'm guessing I won't want to learn the consequences of what happens if I put in a bad performance. So I'll send Jesus out to score my deals from now on, meaning I can sit at home with my baby-bump growing while getting some quality Dominions time in. Let us all Hail the Lord, and seek his forgiveness :bow:



I was trying to guess who the missing team were. And it came down to a choice between a team with players I didn't really know (limited choice), or someone being a complete arse (one choice). For the latter, I then had to think "who's well known for being a complete and utter arse?".

Praise Jesus, for it was ghoul being the arse yet again.


@ Trumanator - Our challenge is still on you know, as you have yet to provide any negative examples of non-twattyness from ghoul. While yet another positive example of it can be seen here. I have no doubt the scales will soon be breaking.

[ghoul31]

I was just waiting waiting on on Alpine Joe to send his pretender in, then the next thing I know I was kicked out of the game. But if you are all just going to call me me names, you can all kiss my ***. I'm done with this thread.

[ghoul31]

Praise Jesus, for it was ghoul being the arse yet again..




again, it was Alpine Joe who didn't send in his pretender, and yet I wind up the bad guy.


Ironhawk didn't even tell me I had to replace Alpine Joe because he was taking too long. He simply said, " Alpine Joe is taking to long, so I'm kicking you out of the game too."

[Zeldor]

Really, you don't see that your teammate cannot submit pretender for over a week? It looks like you did not even tell Ironhawk you have a problem with contacting him. It looks like you made no effort to get a chance to look for another teammate. Ironhawk is game admin, he is responsible for smooth running of the game. He is not responsible for looking subs, contactinc your teammate instead of you. Game got postponed a lot already, so we are all happy that he is doing everything to start it ASAP. Somehow there was enough time for PMs from Ironhawk about missing pretenders, posts here nagging people, my post about needed replacement for one player or whole team and 2 people forming new team and volunteering to play it.

[Kheldron]

And if Calahan had found Jesus or gotten pregnant or become a street-wise trashtalking heroin dealer or whatever it is they do in Great Britain and her overseas dependencies when they self-destruct

err...if?
You mean he didn't?



Ok I get out :p

[Ironhawk]

Praise Jesus, for it was ghoul being the arse yet again..

again, it was Alpine Joe who didn't send in his pretender, and yet I wind up the bad guy.

This is true, ghoul did in fact get his pretender in with plenty of time. So cheers on that. But people, and myself, only take exception to the fact that you grandly assumed that I should have been doing the work to replace him for you.

That said, none of us should be resorting to name-calling, either. So lets keep things civil if we can from here on.



In other news, I have been in contact with the replacement team - they have one of their pretenders uploaded and assure me that the next one will be uploaded very soon. So hopefully we will get rolling today.

[militarist]

Ghoul...,Joining a game where 23 other people +admin are going to take part is a kind of responsibility. There are different ways to manage this responsibility, to minimize effect from your negative (or lack of positive) behavior on others. As for Alpine Joe - partially it's your bad luck,that you took him as a partner, but it's a team game and a team responsibility. If you felt some moment that you can't be responsible for your partner as he behaves in some crazy way, you should kick him off from the team (with blessing from game admin) and find another partner. Yourself. You say here that "everything was right until IH threw you out unexpectedly "...Do you read game threads at all? DO you visit IRC channel at least sometimes? I would definitely call what IH did as an action, which was highly expected by 22 players. Nothing personal, but you really should manage responsibility you took joining the game. Just next time be more careful about others then about yourself. You will earn some good karma this way and maybe it will give you a better teammate next time.

[Ironhawk]

About the false start -

Sorry bout that guys. I got everything started fine, but then realized I forgot to switch out Kailasa's start for LA CTis. LA CTis actually ended up with no provs or capital of any kind - weird!!

Anyway, I unstarted the game and am now waiting to hear back from llama if everything is ok to restart (there is a bug with restarting multi-era games). So we should hear back from him soon.

Regardless, we are one huge step closer to starting the game :)

[Ironhawk]

Apparently another false turn was generated by my un-start.

The game has not started yet - we must have llama manually unstart the game. This must be the bug he was referring to. I have 2 emails in to him already...

[Ironhawk]

Llama did respond and restarted the game - however it appears that the map I sent him was overridden or ignored somehow. So, we are waiting for him again.

Sorry bout the delay, guys.

[llamabeast]

Oops, and sorry for yet another false start just now. The game is now set back to "Waiting for pretenders", so Ironhawk can change the map manually via the web interface. Generally that seems to be more reliable than me doing things by hand. Can't understand what could have gone wrong with me trying to use the new map yesterday though, that was quite straightforward.

[Lingchih]

Gremlins. It has to be Gremlins inside the Llamaserver.

Oh, sorry, I'll butt out again.

[DrPraetorious]

So the turn that I got in the wee hours of the morn' has I-assume-erroneous cheat-detection warnings going off? This is presumably not cool :(.

[Zeldor]

Or someone did not use CBM to create their pretender. But it'd be 4 people, huh...

[DrPraetorious]

But they used CBM the previous three times the game started :)?

I don't think that's it - something else must be wrong.

[Zeldor]

This is weird indeed and spooky.

[Calahan]

And I have more bad news. I will probably need a 48 hour delay of the first turn as I usually go away for Christmas :D

[Zeldor]

I'd like to point out we have Christmas in December this year.

[Calahan]

I'd like to point out we have Christmas in December this year.
And the real first turn of the game is due........? :)

[Baalz]

The cheating messages are a little bit disturbing in that they claim the pretenders have been reduced in power. Uh, preserving anonymity can anybody confirm that the 4 pretenders are still correct? It also makes me nervous something else is wrong...

[Corwin]

I agree. If these four nations were fine on the previous several false-starts, it is very unlikely that they now have old mods. Something may not right with the game.

Can anybody confirme that on all previous false-starts there were no "cheating/wrong mods" messages? I've only checked the last email I got out for three.

Also something else is wrong - one the list of pretenders (inside the game 0"Pretenders of the world" option) I can only see 21 names, out of 24. The remaining 3 pretenders are listed but with no name. Wierd.

[Ironhawk]

OK - The turn you just recieved is the first turn to officially have ALL CAPITALS in place.

As you have seen above there are some cheating messages - we do not know the source of this, however I am hoping it is just a missing mod at creation (and thus not a major problem). Treat the current turn as the first legit turn of the game.

Players of the following nations:
EA Ctis
EA Agartha
LA Ulm
LA Bogarus

Please report to me via IRC or PM and tell me if everything is ok with your turns...

[DrPraetorious]

If their powers have been reduced by the cheat-detection, this may not be obvious until their pretenders wake up...

[militarist]

One of possible solutions (not ideal though, but the fastest) is just to restart the game with cheat detection switched off.

[Zeldor]

It's not about cheat protection. Those 4 pretenders are totally fine afaik, it's another llamaserver bug.

[militarist]

AFAIK when you switch off cheat detection, game will not try to "fix" pretenders it believes are overpowered. And it's the main risk we see now. But any buggy behaviour of the server, of course worth investigating. It's better to have flawless start for such a huge game.

[Zeldor]

The game did not fix pretenders at all afaik. They seem to be totally gone. If they were fixed, you'd have normal pretender names [hit f4] with just magic reduced.

[Ironhawk]

I have heard back from at least one of the effected players. He reports that he has 0 holy points for recruiting and also no scales in his capital prov. This would seem to indicate that we have run into another server bug, as Zeldor describes.

An email has been submitted to Llamabeast about the issue and we are waiting to hear back now...

[llamabeast]

OKAY. I think I know what happened. I've just restarted the game again. Fingers crossed! I think we may be breaking some records here on the total number of times a game's started.

[Zeldor]

All seems fine this time :)

[DrPraetorious]

Excellent! So, if any of you find yourselves crushed, outmaneuvered, and utterly destroyed, forward your offers of surrender and/or mewling pathetic pleas of mercy to Ironhawk, and he will anonymously forward them to us... er... I mean, to whoever is crushing you.

[Squirrelloid]

So, its 4th of July weekend in the states, which means I'm not near my usual computer and thus will not be able to communicate regularly with my teammate. I don't suppose we can turn the timer off until the 6th? I'll try to do my turns as quickly as possible, but as early as turn 3 communication could become critically important.

[Ironhawk]

Happy to hear that this restart is finally working! :)

At the request of several players, I have postponed the turn host for 48hrs - I know that's inconvenient give that we are finally running, but this is the 4th of July weekend in the US. So it is legit that players will be travelling to see family or just generally be away.

Hopefully this will give everyone a chance to respond to the fact that the game is legitimately running now, too.

[Apsophos]

Uh. Sorry it looks like I missed the game starting. Anyway, I'll be out of town until monday, I think earcaraxe still has control over my nation though and could play until then.

[earcaraxe]

Hi!

I'll be out of town for the weekend and I'm subbing for Apsophos for now too. Our current turns are sent in, and i would like a delay (after the current turn is resolved) until monday 13:00 gmt,

thanks

[Zeldor]

It's anonymous game, you should not be posting anything that can help others guess who you are, so you should PM Ironhawk instead of posting here :) Preferably on new forums, he visits there more often, I think.

[Ironhawk]

I have both forums set up to relay PMs to my email. So, assuming I'm at a computer at all, I will see them.

Speaking of PMs, there was a request for a 24hr postponement while one or more players is away this weekend. Turn hosting postponed accordingly.

[Ironhawk]

Request came in for a 24hr postponement while a team works out some communication problems they are having.

In other news - how is the game going? I realize you cant speak about your nations particulars but im curious if there are clear leaders yet or other developments of note.

[DrPraetorious]

At first, I thought - in an anonymous game, how can I gloat?

Then, I thought: anonymity means consequence free gloating! Best of all possible worlds, I can gloat and no-one can strike against me!

Our victory is assured. We are kicking *** in every way. Everyone else might as well give up. HA HA HA HA HA!

[Zeldor]

Ironhawk:

You can set reminders to 10 or 12h, 6h is dangerous :)

[Ironhawk]

Oh sorry Z, didnt see your post here.

In response to a different player request tho I had already set it to 9h. Hopefully that is acceptable.

Side Note:
I'm going away this weekend and will not be around to postpone hosting. Just so you know ahead of time...

[earcaraxe]

I would like a 24hrs postponing, i hope ironhawk u are still here to read that. thanks

[earcaraxe]

i mean 48hrs (for the weekend). thanks.

[Zeldor]

Do not post here, really. And try to not request extension unless really really needed. Your teammate can always play 2 turns, so ask IH to change it or just forward your new turn to him, if possible.

Ironhawk should not be requesting many extensions. It's holiday, but we have 24 player game, team game, so the goal should be to get turns in as fast as possible, especially now, at early stage.

[earcaraxe]

i think it is useful to request extensions here to infrom everyone of a possible extension, so they know what to expect, how to plan their time.
I think its a minor use, but doesnt cost me anything.

[Corwin]

I also would like to join the request to pause the game over weekend, my team has some serious issues to work out.

[DrPraetorious]

i think it is useful to request extensions here to infrom everyone of a possible extension, so they know what to expect, how to plan their time.
I think its a minor use, but doesnt cost me anything.

1) It doesn't help us plan, b/c unless Ironhawk sees it, nothing will happen.
2) If Ironhawk *does* see your request, he will post to this thread announcing any extension.
3) Depending on circumstances, we're likely able to guess who you are!

Now, personally, I don't really *care* about anonymity in this game. But the rules are that we should attempt to preserve it, so.... do so!

[Zeldor]

Ok, hosting seems to be postponed. It looks like we have time to resolve some severe problems that appeared and continue without more delays.

[Ironhawk]

I'm back now and looking at the queue of requests...

It appears that llamabeast paused the game at someone's request. So that should solve the pause requests.

There has been another request made about a bug which has impacted one player's game. It may require some tricks to resolve it or, as a last resort, a rollback. Tho personally I very much dislike rollbacks and would prefer to just continue. I will let you know how it goes.

[DrPraetorious]

Arghhh! No rollbacks!

Especially in a game of this size, with teams. Whatever it is, it isn't a bug it's a feature.

I'm back now and looking at the queue of requests...

It appears that llamabeast paused the game at someone's request. So that should solve the pause requests.

There has been another request made about a bug which has impacted one player's game. It may require some tricks to resolve it or, as a last resort, a rollback. Tho personally I very much dislike rollbacks and would prefer to just continue. I will let you know how it goes.

[Zeldor]

Yeah, we should try to avoid any rollbacks, everyone knows they are evil.

[DrPraetorious]

Quick! Modify the specification at the root of the thread to specify no-rollbacks.

Yeah, we should try to avoid any rollbacks, everyone knows they are evil.

[earcaraxe]

My partner quit after playing 2 or 3 turns of the possible 12. I'm trying hard, but so far havent found a replacement. If u know anyone who might be interested please inform me or get him to PM me.

I strongly do not intend to play any more turns with my expartner's team.

thanks

[Juffos]

I can't receive my turn files, requesting resend didn't help me. What's going on?

[LDiCesare]

earcaraxe, PM me here or on the other forum. I may help if the pace isn't too fast.

[Ironhawk]

Two out of three of the teams having player problems are more or less fixed. But one is still having trouble. To that end I am forced to postpone for 24hrs while I consult with Llamabeast again.

I apologize for the delay guys - but the truth is that I have NO WAY of knowing which nation is which in the email change list. So if those nations need to be changed I must rely on llama, who has a busy schedule.

[Ironhawk]

All hail Llamabeast, master of the server!

Llama has fixed Prepo so that I can now properly set players emails without playing a guessing game. So we shouldnt need to bother him any more. All remaining player issues have been resolved, for better or worse. Game should be proceeding smoothly now.

That said - I am going away for the weekend again. Hopefully no one has a freak out like last time? Just in case, I have given Sheap the password to the admin page. If its an emergency, you'll need to get in touch with him. But please be responsible - Sheap was very generous to watch the game at all so make every effort to get your turns in on time and handle problems on your own.

[Calahan]

I'm making a request to switch to 48 hour turns now that the game has quite obviously passed the initial expansion stage for many players and teams.

Would anyone else also prefer to switch to 48 hours turns from now on? Particularly those who have a team-mate with a five hour time difference, which can make regular communication during turns a very tricky affair at times :(

Especially as when we do manage to get together on IRC, one of us is usually drunk :cheers:

[Zeldor]

I'd prefer 36h, but I won't object to 48h. It's up to Ironhawk though.

[Corwin]

I'm making a request to switch to 48 hour turns now that the game has quite obviously passed the initial expansion stage for many players and teams.

Would anyone else also prefer to switch to 48 hours turns from now on? Particularly those who have a team-mate with a five hour time difference, which can make regular communication during turns a very tricky affair at times :(

Especially as when we do manage to get together on IRC, one of us is usually drunk :cheers:

I agree with Calahan and support his 48h hosting request.

[Ironhawk]

In response to requests from several teams to slow the game timer, I have now set the host interval to:

36hr hosting, with a 12hr warning email

I know that some people wanted 48hrs, but I feel it is too early in the game to warrant that. Try to play with 36hrs first and ask for delays if you need them.

[Ironhawk]

One team is away this weekend (the 30th) and has asked for a 24hr delay. So 24hrs time has been added.

[Zeldor]

Maerlande voiced his opinions that lifting 'anonymous' tag from this game could be a good idea. With diplo still not allowed.

So voice your opinions here :) Pretty much 1 voice for 'no' makes it fail.

[Calahan]

So voice your opinions here :) Pretty much 1 voice for 'no' makes it fail.
No.

[Zeldor]

So we are done :P

[earcaraxe]

whatever for me. i dont have any intention to cheat, since it would take away the gain from a victory or any kind of succes i might achieve. but i understand there might be people here who would have other preferences.

[Zeldor]

Calahan said no, so there is no point in voting any more. I just felt like raising it. Some stronger teams, like DrP + Calahan want to stay anonymous, for many obvious reasons. I know who they are though :P At least I hope so.

[Corwin]

Calahan said no, so there is no point in voting any more. I just felt like raising it. Some stronger teams, like DrP + Calahan want to stay anonymous, for many obvious reasons. I know who they are though :P At least I hope so.

I suspect who they are. :)

[DrPraetorious]

I've been eliminating possibilities one-by-one. Once I figure out who I am, victory is assured!

Calahan said no, so there is no point in voting any more. I just felt like raising it. Some stronger teams, like DrP + Calahan want to stay anonymous, for many obvious reasons. I know who they are though :P At least I hope so.

I suspect who they are. :)

[Ironhawk]

Just to let you all know, I'm leaving tomorrow (wednesday) for a festival and wont have internet access until I return on Sunday night. Sheap has out of the kindness of his heart, once again, offered to be temp admin for that time.

Please do not hassle him unless you have a very good reason.

[Zeldor]

So Yomi is the first nation to lose their cap, really interesting and a bit unexpected.

Just a reminder - any identity can be revealed only when whole team is dead.

[Executor]

Come on Zeldor, everyone knows you're Yomi, cut it out...

Btw, who won Prepo 1?

[Zeldor]

No one officially, but pretty much QM + Micah [MA + LA Caelum]

[Ironhawk]

Hello all, I'm back. Apparently everyone waited to have troubles till I returned because I received requests to delay from 3 teams. So I am adding 24hrs to the timer while they work their issues out...

[Ironhawk]

Things are calmer but one team asked for a 12hr delay.

In other news, I will be in Montana for 2 days. Should have internet access but thought I'd let you all know, just in case.

[Corwin]

Hmm, any chance we switch to 48hours host? It's turn 25 already and my team is having a serious troubles keeping up. Besides most of the recent turns were being extended anyway, as turns are taking longer to do as we advance in the midgame.

[earcaraxe]

We also prefer a 48hrs hosting.

[Baalz]

I'm out of town this weekend and will probably need a little extension after the next host before I can get my turn in on Monday.

[Hoplosternum]

48 hours would be good

[Zeldor]

Well, I vote against any stales happening :)

[DrPraetorious]

I would also like the host interval extended to 48 hrs. For one thing, it would be nice to have the hosts happen at the same time of day every host.

[Ironhawk]

Game switched to 48hours hosting. I was hoping to make it to turn 30 on 36hr, but this is pretty close.

[Ironhawk]

12hr delay added at a player's request

[Ironhawk]

I'm going away next week for the Burning Man festival. Blackguard has offered to cover me as admin while I am away. I will post when I leave (should be this sunday).

[Corwin]

I'm going away next week for the Burning Man festival. Blackguard has offered to cover me as admin while I am away. I will post when I leave (should be this sunday).

Ooo, me too! :) Which camp are you going to be in?

[Ironhawk]

I am in a sub-camp of Moonrock, which is located at 9 & Baghdad

[Ironhawk]

I was recently asked to clarify my position on the various house rules to be enforced in this game. In the interest of transparency, I decided to just enumerate all the points here for everyone to see:

Bogus orders - "Bogus" is understood to mean the group of indy units which attack your prov in response to the Bogus event. If these units are captured by a player, their special (very dangerous) orders cannot be copied and transferred to any other unit you control
Sickle farming - Most simply, you cannot contrive to use the Sickle only as a gem-generator. Its gems must be generated as a side effect of direct combat in uncontrolled situations against a legitimate, resisting enemy. Usage on indies is acceptable, so long as you make a serious effort to capture the province.
lab filling - You cannot send items to another player with the explicit purpose of filling up their lab which would, in turn, prevent them from forging any items that turn.
undead mages/priests - Life After Death allows the conversion of expensive mages and priests to upkeep-free undead. This spell can thus only be used under the same conditions as you might use the Sickle.
giving up without fight - This rule is generally intended to keep players from handing over their territory to a 3rd party in order to prevent its capture by enemy forces. Since players often have to sacrifice territory to defend other key locations its hard to prove this. So, I will only say that each player must do their best to defend every province they control with the resources they have.
staling - I assume this means intentionally staling to disrupt the game. Again, hard to prove.
not talking to your teammate - self explanatory
revealing IDs - self explanatory


Everyone feel free to comment on what I've written above if you dont like something or want further clarification. These are only my personal ideas - whatever you decide on communally is what I will enforce in the game...

[Zeldor]

staling - it means that even if you are almost dead, you should submit turns, even if they are blank. And well, any staling is bad.

[Ironhawk]

12hr delay at player request

[13lackGu4rd]

it has been brought to my attention that we have a little problem with Utgard, who has staled twice now and 4 in total. unfortunately Ironhawk didn't leave me with a list of who is playing who, so can his partner please PM me so we can find a solution to this problem.

[13lackGu4rd]

ok, Utgard is back in action, so we're all good again. good luck everyone ;)

[13lackGu4rd]

24 hour delay granted at player request.

[13lackGu4rd]

12hr delay at player request

[Ironhawk]

FYI - since I am going on a trip through asia for the next 4 months, I have permanently transferred admin to Blackguard.

Have fun guys!

[Calahan]

Many thanks for all the work you put into admining this game Ironhawk. Very much appreciated by all us players :up: Hope you have a great time in Asia.

And another round of thanks to Blackguard for stepping-in and taking over as admin. This is also much appreciated by all us players, as there wouldn't be a game without a non-playing admin. So a big 'Thank You' to Blackguard is definitely in order.

[Eximius Sus]

Hey, let's post the dead team's players. Inquiring minds want to know.

[13lackGu4rd]

according to the list I received from Nighthawk Yomi+LA Abysia was played by Juffos + Hermeister, however LA Abysia was played by Corwin. in any case, good luck and hope to see you around in other games.

[13lackGu4rd]

18 hour extension granted by player request.

another thing, now that the absent team came back, do you guys want to increase the pace again or keep it like it is right now? I'll go with the majority on this, so please state your preference.

[Zeldor]

Game is going very slow, you can almost forget it exists. But maybe some people prefer it this way? But we shouldn't get slower than 72 and at this speed extensions should be rare.

[DrPraetorious]

72h.

[blazin961]

I would definitely support shorter turn times. I realize that all of us are busy with work and family but the last few turns of 4 day timers have definitely made me feel the game wasn't even going on still. And while giving people enough time to take their turns makes for a better quality game, if half of us stop caring about the game anymore because of how long turns are game quality will drop for sure.

I would prefer a 60 hour timer or shorter with extensions if needed.

[13lackGu4rd]

granted 6 hour extension on player request. still got quite a few people who haven't submitted their new turn in, so hopefully it'll allow said people to refrain from staling.

on other news, by popular demand I've cut hosting intervals back to 72 hours.

[13lackGu4rd]

24 hour extension granted on player request. some people staled last turn, including Bogarus who I know has a fried computer. the rest of the stalers I don't know what was(is) wrong.

[13lackGu4rd]

3 hour extension granted b=on player request.

[13lackGu4rd]

14 hour extension granted by player request.

[13lackGu4rd]

this game has been going way too slowly. ever since I set the timer back to 72 hours I gave extensions to every single turn, even before that I gave plenty of extensions. last turn we had a lot of stales, and it's not the first time for most of them. I think that everyone is relying too much on me extending the game and not putting the minimal effort of getting their turn in on time, not to mention their partner's.

so, I'll start a no extension policy. you guys need to take back responsibility for your own turns. we're at a 72 hour schedule, which is what the majority wanted, and the next few turns will have no extensions at all, no exceptions! lets get this game back on track, as we don't want it to just dissolve into thin air.

[Zeldor]

Set reminder emails to 24h :) And yeah, this game got a bit too slow. People need some motivation.

Two teams have already lot of VPs, so it'd be nice to speed things up and see what comes out of that.

[Squirrelloid]

You know, i was visiting my niece and nephew this past weekend, whose schedule is much more important than dom3 turn schedules. My partner asked for an extension (which was not granted) which would have made things rather more convenient. I'm sorry real life interferes with keeping a game hosting on time, but I'm slightly annoyed by the failure to grant the extension.

[13lackGu4rd]

seems like my experiment on the no extension policy wasn't much of a success, there still were plenty of stales these last few turns :(
right now it seems like both Calahan(lost a close family member) and Raiel(fishing accident) are away, so this is a good time to put this game on hold and let you guys pick yourselves up, restore your energies and get back fresh in a week or so. this is your chance, for all of you complaining about "being burned out", "losing interest", etc. focus on your other games and other things, and when this game will resume I hope all of you will return with fresh energies, and hopefully stop the massive staling.

[Zeldor]

It looks like it's time to reveal identity of Pythium and Shinuyama, they are both dead from what I see.

[PriestyMan]

Well I'm afraid me and Trumanator are the ones with the dubious honor of being the first team out. Awesome nation picks, but not so awesome early game. oh well. it was fun

[Squirrelloid]

Suggest we just conceed to jotun/aby now. Arco/ctis just removed any hope of anyone actually catching them through sheer stupidity on their part. I have no interest in playing another 10-20 turns waiting for jotun/aby to officially claim victory at this point, since i don't see the point in it.

[13lackGu4rd]

well, I've been hearing a lot of talks about ending the game. until now it was mainly calls for a draw, but with this new turn of events I think that the Jotun/Aby team should be declared winners. seems like they've had the upper hand throughout the majority of the game, and now they can ride to victory unopposed.

now, before I end this game and declare them winners, I'll give all of you to post your objections to this move. will give all of you 48 hours from now to post all your objections, and will postpone the game for 48 hours in the meantime.

so, if anybody has any objections post them now, otherwise the game will end in 48 hours, giving the Jotun/Aby team the win.

[Hoplosternum]

Excellent suggestion. And congratulations to them. I assume they have a blood income in the hundreds per turn now. The two Arco/C'Tis teams can't really compete in that direction (or any other now). Not that I can see any sign of either of them attempting to fight Aby/Jot. Not that I blame them for that :p

I am not really sure why this game became such a runaway for them. Apart from the obvious blood synergy it is not obviously the best team. Clever picks though as neither are that strong but they complement each other well.

[13lackGu4rd]

well, seems like the #2 team is not who I thought they were, IH didn't update me on this 90th minute lineup change. they wish to continue so it seems like the only sensible course of action is to keep on going, at least for a few more turns.

hopefully those of you who have given up on this game already will not chain stale but rather play it out, as the game is still not entirely over it seems.

I'll keep the extension though, to not mess the timing up for you guys, and to give everyone enough time to get back into the game and fight it out for at least a few more turns.

[Zeldor]

Well, I know the reasons for everything that's happening, but let's wait with it till the game is over.

Everyone should just try as hard as possible to do their job and we will be fine.

[Squirrelloid]

Could the #2 team declare themselves or something? Because i submit it is pointless to continue, and if the #2 team had any sense they'd realize that.

Possibly more in line with the 'secrecy' requirements, i will declare myself to one of them if they'll declare themself to me (via PM), and we can talk about why this game is now over. Maybe I can convince them to see reason.

I don't see the four hours or so the next turn is going to take me to script as being a worthwhile use of my time when I know its ultimately irrelevant. And since the winner is obvious...

[PriestyMan]

way to blatantly break the rules. stop whining and play until everyone thinks its over dude

[Squirrelloid]

way to blatantly break the rules. stop whining and play until everyone thinks its over dude

Would you prefer 'I can personally guarantee they aren't going to win'?

[TheConway]

Cheese w/your whine sir?

[TheDemon]

I see no point in whining about the length of the game when there are extremely clear win conditions. 10 VP out of 26 is in no way unreasonable to actually achieve. If you want to give up, go AI.

[Calahan]

The game ends when a team wins or the admin declares the game finished by another means (be they by whatever means and methods the admin feels appropriate at the time).

The game does not end just because one player/team wants it to, or one player/team is throwing a hissy fit.


I also would like to remind everyone of a few of the rules of this game, as posted in the OP, and which were clearly visable to all players before they signed up, and with it a commitment from themselves to this game for the length if its duration.

No cheating!![I], this includes:
- giving up without fight
- revealing your or anyones ID in this game

I would like to think all the players currently left in this game are capable and mature enough to continue following these rules until the game comes to an end. We have already had too many instances of the top most rule being broken in this game, and so it does not need any further instances of that rule being broken.

Some players would like to see the game ended here, some would not. For those that do wish the game to end here, please have some respect and consideration for your fellow players who prefer to keep playing. And also enough respect not to break the game rules just to spite them.

If anyone feels their time is now too valuable to be used in playing this game until whatever conclusion it comes to, or suddenly feel the need to break the rules. Then please out yourself now as a complete and utter douche-bag and wanker for all to see, as my black list could do with some updating.

[Zeldor]

Everyone in the game should either play to win or to make sure someone else does not win. It's much better than asking the game to be declared finished. I am quite sure that if some team will see an opportunity to win, they will use it. And if it's quite obvious, there is no need to rush it and spoil the fun of the game actually reaching victory conditions.

[Squirrelloid]

I would like to point out this is a holiday week/weekend in the US, and many of us may not be able to guarantee our proximity to our computers.