Awestruck. New Late Age game. (Game over, Atlantis wins)

[Amhazair]

Are you tired of your Demon Lords being trampled underfoot?

Have you been hurt by the mocking laughter of your opponents when they see your puny Elemental Royalty on the field?

Have you always felt ancient beings like the Tarrasque should be worthy of respect?

Do you believe any Giant Kraken worth its salt can wield a multitude of weapons with its tentacles and turn them into a vortex of destruction?

Have you always dreamed of incarnating a lobster pretender wearing a human for a hat?


If you can answer yes to these questions, then this is the game for you. We’ll be trying out the AwesomeGods and AwesomeEndgame mods, and leave your opponents Awestruck at the sight of the Awesome powers at your command, unable to sleep for fear of their nightmares. Prepare yourself, for the Dominion Wars will never be the same again…



Settings: All standard except for site frequency of 45

Mods: Fixed version of the OPM mob, comining CBM, AE, and AG. (Attached to this post, see below for description.)

Map: Fixed Riverlands Map. (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=45414&highlight=Riverlands)

Start: Next weekend if all goes well.

Important Houserule: Gift of reason should not be used on any of the freespawn from a pretender god. (Since with the Awesomegods mod some of them are mages of some power.)

Hosting: Relaxed pace. 24h quickhost to start with, but moving to longer times as needed.

Anything I have forgotten? Feel free to point out. :)

Winner: Amhazair (Atlantis)

Other players:

Executor (C'tis)
Skymoon (Marignon)
Tigerblood (Pangaea)
Admiral Aorta (Ermor)
Dojango (Pythium)
Kakarotto (T'ien Ch'i) - KeithZ taking over for the time being.
Himselfbh (Jomon)
Jotwebe (Abysia)
Ossa (Utgard)
Drillbit (Agartha)
StMika (Bogarus)
Tratorix (Midgard)
Soyweiser (Gath)



For those unfamiliar with them who want to know what the mod we're using is about, the basic idea for these mods is really to add various kinds of umph to the titanic figures of the Dominion Wars, the pretender gods and supercombatants.

For the pretenders this can mean giving them various kinds of summons or domsummons, magicboosts to various paths and/or various other tweaks, from the minor to the huge. Take a good look around when designing your pretender, as there’s likely to be at least a couple of changes that might give you a different idea about how to go about the game with the nation you chose. (And even if you go a familiar path there might be a tweak or two to found to improve it.)

For the Endgame mod the most eye-catching change might be the boosting of the elemental royalty to (almost?) ridiculous levels of power, (as well as similar-though-slightly-less spectacular changes to the tree lords, demon lords and spenta’s) but since they’re all unique I figure that should be okay, just giving a bit more spice and possibly a similar feel as the race for artifacts we’re all familiar with. In the end the easy availability of magic diversity summons in the form of tweaks to the wraith lord, the ancient kraken and even (gasp) the tarrasque might be more game changing though. Other changes include various tweaks to the EDG summons and (daring decision) making the chalice extremely expensive but non-unique so everyone has equal chances of growing a tartarian farm. (Of course, as George Orwell knows, some nations are more equal than others.)


This does make things different to what we're used to, and there's a couple of things of the AwesomeEndgame mod I'm unsure about, but I figure there's no harm in trying something different once in a while, right? (I'm unreservedly enthousiastic about the AwesomeGods mod though, just so you know.)

A fixed version of the mod is attached to this post, while an extensive readme of the AE and AG mods is copy/pasted a few posts down.

[SirMu]

The mod combination with AG, AE, and CBM already exists, it is called Other People's Mods, and it can be found here: http://proactiveapathy.com/dom3/mods/mods.html

[Amhazair]

The mod combination with AG, AE, and CBM already exists, it is called Other People's Mods, and it can be found here: http://proactiveapathy.com/dom3/mods/mods.htmlWow, thanks a lot for that. I was under the imression that the Forbidden Friendship mod was (at least originally) intended to be the combination of the three, but it diverged (a bit?) from CBM, so I thought I'd have to put it together myself. Big relief this will spare me the work...

[skymoon]

Signed. New for the MP and play for fun. :)
I choose LA Marignon.

[TigerBlood]

Pangaea please.

[Memento]

Am i getting it right that this will be a game with gemgens????

[Amhazair]

Am i getting it right that this will be a game with gemgens????No, as said in the OP it includes the newest CBM version as well as the two Awesomemods, so no gemgens.

[Amhazair]

Signed. New for the MP and play for fun. :)
I choose LA Marignon.Damn, not only your first game, but your very first post too. :)

Welcome to Dominions (or at least to the forum) and all that stuff. I really like Marignon, some fun stuff to be done with them. Hope you have fun.

[Immaculate]

is there a thread that describes what these mods are and what specific changes have been made?

[skymoon]

Signed. New for the MP and play for fun. :)
I choose LA Marignon.Damn, not only your first game, but your very first post too. :)

Welcome to Dominions (or at least to the forum) and all that stuff. I really like Marignon, some fun stuff to be done with them. Hope you have fun.

Thanks Amhazair. I'm really new for this old game. :D
I have read some articles at the forum and try to learn some EXP in the MP.:happy:

[Amhazair]

is there a thread that describes what these mods are and what specific changes have been made?Not so much. They were made over on the SA (Something Aweful) forums. I don't know if you know that site, but they have one giant thread for each specific game, so everything dominions related, whether it's game talk, strategy talk, mod talk and anything else is in the same huge thread. It terrifies me to be honest. :) So the discussion about these mods is undoubtedly in there somewhere, but good luck finding it.

But as I said, the mods have extensive readme's.I suppose I can copy/paste them here. Best read from the bottom up, the most recent changes are on top. (Though apparently the AwesomeGods mods start from version 1.3, so you can't read the earliest changes. In any case, the pretender changes can all be seen and tested during pretender design, so that's not too big of a problem I think.)

--

NEW
- 1.4
- Reinvig bug in Belphegor, Lord of Hell, fixed.
- Typo fixed that was keeping Nephele, Queen of Clouds from being awesomed.
- Wraith Lords busted down to 3D + 3AEFWS, magicboost eliminated.
- Wraith Lords now back to 40 gems, still research 9.
- Zmeys reduced to 30/30/60 HP on heads.
- Chalice reduced to 5N/4N to make tarts better.
- Ember Lords changed from 4F 1E 1D to 4F + 2ED.
- Krakens now 30 gems and 3/2/1 for paths, which can still overlap fully.

- 1.3
- Wraith Lords now 50 gems, level 9 research.
- Elemental Royalty and Demon Lord age bug fixed.
- Wendigo now require W3 N3 instead of W3D3, and lowered to Thaum 5.
- Wendigo now has Reinvig 4 in all forms.
- Treant now Ambidextrous 2.
- Kraken now comes with paths of 3/3/3, 6/3, or 9, chosen from all 8 magics.
- Roc now 3 base Air, 10% chance of 1 extra air.
- Treant fire vuln increased to 150%
- Zmey now 50% vuln to cold.
- Ember Lord now 150% vuln to cold.
- Asynja now 150% vuln to poison.
- Angelic Ascension added, will revive a non-giant, non-small-flier hall of fame hero as a Virtue.
- Demonic Ascension added, will revive a non-giant, non-small-flier hall of fame hero as a Moloch.
- Necromantic Apotheosis added, will revive a non-giant, non-small-flier hall of fame hero a a Dracolich.
- Grendelkin, Treant, Ember Lord, Asynja, Ettin, Mechanical Giant, Cyclops, Tarrasque, Wraith Lord, all lose about 20% max HP.

- 1.2
- Treant reinvig increase for being rooted removed due to ability to root in combat.
- King of Banefires now Fire 6, Death 6, Reinvigoration 10, gets 1 fire and 1 death gem per turn.
- King of Flames now Heat 40, Fireshield 30, Fire 10. Gets 3 fire gems per turn.
- King of Magma now Fire 7, Earth 5. Gets 1 fire and 1 earth gem per turn.
- King of Deeper Earth now Earth 10. Gets 3 earth gems per turn.
- King of Mountains now Earth 8, Air 5. Gets 1 earth and 1 air gem per turn.
- Father Illearth now Earth 7, Blood 7, gets 1 earth gem and 1 blood slave per turn.
- Queen of Clouds now Air 8, Water 5, Reinvig 4, gets 1 air and 1 water gem per month.
- Queen of Storms now Air 10, Reinvig 8, gets 3 air gems per month.
- Queen of Thunder now 90 HP, Air 10, gets 3 air gems per month, and recuperates from injuries.
- Queen of the Deeps now Water 10, gets 3 water gems per month.
- Queen of the Lake now Water 8, Earth 5, gets 1 water and 1 earth gem per month.
- Queen of the Sea now Water 8, Nature 5, gets 1 water and 1 nature gem per month.
- Belial, Lord of Corruption, now gets +3 to all paths (even empowered ones), 1 fire, 1 nature, and 1 blood income per month.
- Belphegor, Lord of Hell, now Blood 10, gets 10 blood slaves per turn, and has Reinvigoration 20.
- Buer, the Goat Sun, now gets +3 to all paths (even empowered oens), 2 fire, 1 death income per month.
- Pazuzu, the Plague Wind, now ethereal and Reinvigoration 20, 2 air, 1 death income per month.
- Treelord(Barkheart) now has Nature 9 and Blood 6.
- Treelord(Rootheart) now has Nature 9 and Earth 6.
- Dying Treelord now has Nature 10 and Death 5.
- Spenta of Sky and Metals now gets 2 Air 1 Earth gem per turn.
- Spenta of Animals now N6, gets 3 Nature gems per turn.
- Spenta of Fire now gets 3 Fire gems, Fire Shield 10, Heat 10
- Spenta of Plants now E3 N4, gets 2 Nature and 1 Earth gem per turn, and entangles attackers.
- Spenta of Waters now W6, gets 3 Water gems per turn, recuperates from afflictions, and regenerates 50% of HP per turn.
- Spenta of the Earth now E6H5 with no nature, gets 3 Earth gems per turn, and has 4 base Reinvigoration.
- Daughter of Typhon now has bonuses for when you gift of reason her. Nature 9 + Spawn 1 sacred Hydra and 5 sacred Hydra Hatchlings per turn.
- Summon Tlaloque now costs 30 gems instead of 60.
- Tartarian Shattered Soul reduced to 10 from 25.
- Tartarians can now be commanderized using the Death spell "Possess Undead", which sacrifices the caster. Better use an immortal.
- The Chalice now level 6 (nonunique), Nature 5 Nature 5 item.
- Tartarian Gate now costs 30 Death gems. (+80N for Chalice) (+5D for Possess Undead if necessary)


- 1.1
- Tarrasque now has 4 Misc slots, is summoned as a commander, and starts with 4N and 4(AEFW)
- Grendelkin down to 190 HP and Amphibian, may now be cast underwater.
- Wraith Lord now starts with D3 and either 3 in 2 paths or 4 in 1 path, chosen from AEFWS
- Iron Dragon now has Storm Power 5, is Const 7, and comes as a commander.
- Harvester of Sorrows now has mapmove 10.
- 1.0
- Costs Adjusted
- Treants now get 4 Arm and 4 Misc slots.
- Treants now get 4/8/10/20 reinvigoration (normal, in a forest, rooted, rooted in forest)
- Treants now start with N2 and get 3x 50% chances at W, E, and N.
- Great Kraken now starts with either 3 ranks in 3 paths, or 3 ranks in one path and 4 ranks in one, or 5 ranks in a single path.
- Wild Ettin now has 25 Magic Resistance.
- Mechanical Giant now has 90 HP, so it can actually weather a couple attacks from another SC.
- Granite Cyclops now receives Summon Earthpower (+1 Earth and +4 Reinvig) for free in battle.



- 1.9
- Mother of Lions busted down to 1+Domsummon20 kithaironic lions per turn.
- Manticore Bite attack replaced with Swallow.
- Red/Blue/Green dragon AoEs swapped on melee (now 1/1/3) and ranged (now 3/3/5) breath.
- Wyrm's Foul Vapors removed.
- Crone now has Research +5.
- Frost Father now Summon Allies 5 Unfrozen Warriors instead of 5 Winter Wolves.
- ***** Queen now gets free Dire Wolves in both forms, since there's no drawback to being in wolf form.
- Bakemono Kunshu now gets 2 in all starting paths in addition to research bonus 20.
- Jade Emperor now 0 points.
- Son of the Heavens now 25 points instead of 100.
- Daughter of the Dawn now starts with 4 Air, 4 Astral, all of it real, with pathcost 80.
- Son of the Sun(Astral) loses Awe 2, gains Fire 2, Astral 4, Pathcost 80, and costs 50 points.
- Son of the Sun(Fire) now costs 50 points, starts with base 5 Fire, all real, and pathcost 80, in addition to 2 fire gems per turn.
- Lord of the Waves now costs 50 points, starts with Water 4, Earth 4, all real. Pathcost 80.
- Divine Serpent now start with N6 instead of 4.
- Son of Niefel reduced to 25 points from 75.
- Keeper of the Bridge up to 75 cost from 0, now comes with A5 E3, all real, pathcost 80.
- Shedu raised to 2E 2S base.
- Son of Fenrir up to W3N3 from W1N1, now 50 points.
- Cyclops down to 50 points from 75.
- Great Enchantress can now spend her turn to make 1 Watcher in her current province.

- 1.8
- Wyrm's bites changed to Poison Fangs, which use the same "poison" as the Father of Serpents, and is unresistable.
- Wyrm now autocasts Foul Vapors, poisoning the whole battlefield.
- Lord of War now comes with Bow of War and gets 1 Sapper per turn instead of 1 Heavy Cav.
- Great Mother description fixed to reflect her magicboost.
- Divine Throne reduced to 220 points.
- Colossal Head now domsummon2 Jaguar Toad, domsummon20 Monster Toad.
- Celestial General now comes with Lightning Bow, AOE 1 lightning attack, and autocasts Mass Protection at start of battle.
- Old Man of the Sea now has +2 to all paths, and costs 50 points, and has pathcost 80.
- Ancient Kraken now has 4 arms, 4 misc slots, and Ambidextrous 8, and Poison Resist 100%
- Freak Lord now has a secondshape into a freak, which is the real freak lord, having used his magic to twist himeself. He just uses the dude as a decoy and item caddy.
- Amphibious Archmage description updated, he is now a lobster mage who wears a dude as a hat for the item slots.
- Nerid now autocasts Shark Attack in battle.
- Sphinx now 25 points and domsummon2 dust warriors instead of domsummon1.
- Vampire Queen now 50 points instead of 25.
- Mother of Tuatha desc fixed.
- Titan(male) desc fixed.
- Cyclops now 75 points instead of 125.
- Father of Winters now 25 points instead of 50.
- Lady of Springs back to W2N1 base.
- Son of Fenrir now gets 5+Domsummon dire wolves per turn.
- Carrion Dragon dragon form now casts Carrion Growth on battle start.
- Manticore now has 1 head slot, 1 feet slot, 4 misc slots.
- Lady of Love reduced to 25 points from 50.
- Bakemono Kunshu reduced to 0 points from 50.
- Mother of Lions gets 5 Kithaironic Lions per turn instead of 1.
- Titan(Female) reduced to 0 points.
- Mother of Monsters now gets 1 grotesque per turn, flat, and cockatrice increased to domsummon from domsummon2.
- Lord of the Desert Sun now has Heat 20.
- Saurolich reduced to 75 points from 100.
- Son of the Fallen reduced to 0 points.
- Son of Niefel pathcost increased to 80, now Air, Water, Death 2 starting.


- 1.7
- Male Titan now straight up Air 7 instead of air 2 + air boost 5.
- Cyclops bug fixed.

-1.6
- Lawgiver description now reflects his spawning of free Eagle Warriors.
- Great Warlock now has Douse 10 and Incunrest -25
- Arch Druid now Entangles attackers, starts with dominion 2, and autocasts Relief in battle.
- Colossal Fetish now has only prot 13, is vulnerable to fire, and only reinvig 10.
- Titan(Male) now costs 75 points, on par with the Son of the Sea.
- Prince of Death now costs 75 points, on par with Moloch.
- Deva now has Blood Vengeance, +5 Blood casting.
- Shedu now casts Will of the Fates in battle.
- Lord of the Desert Sun now has a decent spear.
- Ghost King now costs 25 points.
- Green Dragon now has ranged breath AOE 3, melee breath AOE 5, Dom 2.
- Red Dragon now has ranged breath AOE 1, melee breath AOE 3. Dom 2.
- Blue Dragon now has ranged breath AOE 1, melee breath AOE 3. Dom 2.
- Drakaina no longer summons kokythiads in battle.
- Drakaina now costs 50, starts with 1 each in Water, Earth, Death, with path boost of 3 in those paths only.
- Bakemono Kunshu now gets +25 research.
- Female Titan now costs 25 points.
- Fomorian Sorcerer now has Healer 50.
- Lord of the Night now auto-casts Battle Darkness, costs 0 points
- Lord of the Forest now costs 25 points.
- Destroyer of Worlds costs 75 points, auto-casts Earthquake at start of battle, and has Death 7.
- Void Lurker changed back to 15 pathcost, 3 starting astral, 2 starting dominion.
- Bog Mummy down to 75 points.
- Solar Disc now Heat 20, Fire Shield 30, Ethereal, Fire 3, and costs 25 points.
- Father of Winters now costs 50 points, generates 1 air and 1 water gem per turn.
- Fountai of Blood increased to Douse 10 and 6 free slaves per turn.
- Nataraja now starts with 4 Astral, but costs 25 points, and pathcost of 150.
- Lord of the Forest gets 2 nature gems per turn in addition to his animal buddies.
- Colossal Head now gets 4 Misc slots and generates 2 nature gems and 2 blood slaves per turn.

-1.5
- Dragons now have 3 base path, 3 base dom.
- Soldier of East/West gcost divided by 5.
- Virtue is now A1S1 and Magicboost 2.
- Colossal Head is now N4B4 in addition to getting 5 extra temple checks per turn.
- Partholonian Sorceress now domsummons instead of getting a steady 5 per turn.
- Arch Seraph now 0 points.
- Mother of Tuatha now domsummon2 Tuatha.
- Forge Lord gets crappy Attack/Defense/Precision, 75% forge bonus, +3 Magicboost, starts with F1E1, pathcost 60, and is chained to his forge.
- Fomorian Sorceror is 0 cost, 80 pathcost, 1 skill each in Air, Water, Death, and Nature.
- Arch Druid now starts with 1 each Air, Earth, Nature, 30 HP, 100% regen, Stealth 20, Entangle Attacker, Dom 2 base, and autocasts Relief at start of battle. Costs 50 points.
- Father of Serpents now starts with 2 Nature,2 Death, has constrictor snakes that defend him loyally (like a Vine Shield), and his bite and staff both proc The Deadliest Poison, which is so virulent it will kill practically anything, even things normally immune to poison, instantly.

-1.4
- Drakaina is now Water/Earth/Death, and summons Kokythiads in battle.
- Great White Bull now costs 150 points (up from 75)
- Titan(male) now costs 150 points. (down from 200)
- Great Mother now starts with W1E1N1 and magicboost 2. Battle cast away, and take an awesome bless if you want.
-1.3
- White Bull now costs 75 points.
- Wyrm now costs 0 points, and has 2 Head and 4 Misc slots.
- Archmage is now Amphibious instead of Aquatic.
- Vampire Queen now has starting dominion of 3, and 18 defense.
- Scorpion King now gets occasional free Scorpion Men, starts with Dom 3, slots of Hand, Hand, Head, Body, 3x Misc
- Ageless Olm now 75 points, starts with W4 E4
- Mother of Serpents now costs 0 points.

[Amhazair]

It's starting to look like all the stodgy conservatives around these parts are hesitant to try something new/think those mods are Aweful instead of Awesome, one or the other. (There was a time when I wouldn't have joined games with "all kinds of crazy mods" either, but those days are behind me for some unknown reason.) Either that or there's simply not enough players left to start any kind of game, but I prefer the first explanation. I'm going to leave it open a bit longer, see if intrest turns up after all.

Would people prefer a game with only AwesomeGods and no AwesomeEndgame since that's easier to digest, only affecting the pretender? Or doesn't it make a difference?

[Legendary League]

Holy mother of g-

I'd love to play, I'm just not certain I'm at an adequate skill level to not get instantly murderized. :p

[Executor]

Amhazair, perhaps you should open a separate thread over on the other forum for recruitment. A lot of players stick to either one or the other forum.

[Valerius]

Well, I'm not in the target audience because it's LA (They've got no elves! What kind of an era is that?) and a fairly large game (all endgames are Awful for me ;)) but I skimmed over the change log you posted.

The overall impression I get is that these mods ramp up the power level, particularly on the SC side of things. My preference is to tone things down and SCs are my least favorite part of the game so it's not really my cup of tea but I think this could be a fun game for people who do like SCs (which is likely a majority).

Maybe part of the reason people hesitate is uncertainty about all the changes these mods make (I'm still discovering new things about the latest CBM changes, never mind all that's involved here). So I think you may be right that using only AwesomeGods would be easier since you'd only have to examine a couple dozen pretenders at the beginning of the game but then it would play out as normal.

Edit: Also, I know you like larger games but it's a bit easier to try something different in a smaller game than in one that may go on a long time and you could be stuck with mods/settings you don't like.

[himselfbh]

Hi, I wanna take part in.
This may be my first MP experience and I will choose LA Jomon.

Since I'm really new, could any one some suggestion about the pretender design and scale setting? All the guide articles I found were for MA.

Thanks~:)

[Admiral_Aorta]

I'd like to play Ermor if that's allowed, otherwide I'll try Bogarus.

[dojango]

I'll try Pythium

[Immaculate]

LA jomon: i tried an awake green dragon with dominion 9, luck and production scales and it was fun. You try to alchemize water gems as soon as you can then when you can, build a ring of water breathing and you send the dragon underwater.

[dojango]

Hi, I wanna take part in.
This may be my first MP experience and I will choose LA Jomon.

Since I'm really new, could any one some suggestion about the pretender design and scale setting? All the guide articles I found were for MA.

Thanks~:)

celestial general., get air and earth and he can be a pretty boss SC. in awesome gods he autocasts mass protection, making him a good backup for armies of samurai.

The Celestial General:
Point Cost: 50
Base Dominion: 3
Magic Paths: Air 1, Earth 1, new paths cost 50
Special Abilities: Standard, Buffs Ally Armor in combat, Generates soldiers on the map screen
Item Slots: Two Hands, Head, Body, Feet, Two Miscellaneous
Feinne’s Notes: This is a pretty cool guy here, he has alright magic paths and he generates cavalry and tower shield troops every turn. He also casts Mass Protection in battle at the start, which can be really nice. Like a lot of titan-type chassis, he’s probably not able to expand solo without gear. Expect to see him awake to leverage his freespawn.

[Legendary League]

Where do you get these notes, by the way?

[himselfbh]

Hi, I wanna take part in.
This may be my first MP experience and I will choose LA Jomon.

Since I'm really new, could any one some suggestion about the pretender design and scale setting? All the guide articles I found were for MA.

Thanks~:)

celestial general., get air and earth and he can be a pretty boss SC. in awesome gods he autocasts mass protection, making him a good backup for armies of samurai.

The Celestial General:
Point Cost: 50
Base Dominion: 3
Magic Paths: Air 1, Earth 1, new paths cost 50
Special Abilities: Standard, Buffs Ally Armor in combat, Generates soldiers on the map screen
Item Slots: Two Hands, Head, Body, Feet, Two Miscellaneous
Feinne’s Notes: This is a pretty cool guy here, he has alright magic paths and he generates cavalry and tower shield troops every turn. He also casts Mass Protection in battle at the start, which can be really nice. Like a lot of titan-type chassis, he’s probably not able to expand solo without gear. Expect to see him awake to leverage his freespawn.

OK,thank you. I will try The Celestial General~

[Amhazair]

Holy mother of g-

I'd love to play, I'm just not certain I'm at an adequate skill level to not get instantly murderized. :pIf you're in doubt yourself I would advice you to bow out, even though there's several newer people showing intrest. Out of principle I've never wanted to stop newer players to jump straight in and learn the hard way, but you will get "instantly murderized", as you put it, and there's only so many people who can translate that into a fun learning experience.

Hi, I wanna take part in.
This may be my first MP experience and I will choose LA Jomon.

Since I'm really new, could any one some suggestion about the pretender design and scale setting? All the guide articles I found were for MA.

Thanks~:)Same suggestion here. I won't turn away new people just because they are new, but if you start out without even an idea about pretender design, I don't think you should be looking to start in a game involving veteran players and weird mods. Better experiment in a newbie game, and start in a regular game only if you're relatively confident you know what you're doing. (Even if only from reading stuff/playing SP - as I said I don't mind new players jumping into the deep end, but they better know how to stay afloat, even if they won't win the 100m freestyle, if you get my drift.) On top of that Jomon really is a tricky nation, requires some finesse to do well with. To the extent that I myself have looked at them a couple of times because they're kinda cool, but so far haven't come up with a pretender design I'm happy enough with to bring 'em into MP. Just saying...(Useful but not especially powerful troops, but mainly due to having diverse but low-power mages. They do require some understanding of and plan for how to "climb" to higher paths levels through forging and summoning to do well with.)

For both of you and any other new people who are intrested: I'd be more than happy to help you setup a newbie game, with or without these mods if you like. (I would advice to get to know the 'regular' game first, either vanilla, or with only the CBM mod most games on this forum use, but if you really want to try these ones out that's fine by me.) Feel free to PM me about it.


I'd like to play Ermor if that's allowed, otherwide I'll try Bogarus.Sure, Ermor's fine with me. I don't like them in no-diplomacy games, but in regular game's they're welcome as far as I'm concerned. You sure you can stand the Micro though? :)

[Admiral_Aorta]

I played them once before in a ForbiddenFriendship game and enjoyed it, though I got double teamed by Marignon and Mictlan. I think I'll go for a different pretender this time, though I did like the lord of the gates.

[Amhazair]

Amhazair, perhaps you should open a separate thread over on the other forum for recruitment. A lot of players stick to either one or the other forum.I suppose I'll go do just that. Mumble, grumble. Stupid double forums, making people work and sweat and all instead of comming over and reading my post over here, don't they know I only write important stuff and they all should daily come check my profile to see if I started a new tread or something?

Edit: Also, I know you like larger games but it's a bit easier to try something different in a smaller game than in one that may go on a long time and you could be stuck with mods/settings you don't like.That's not a bad point, but as you so kindly pointed out, I prefer larger games. (Allthough I deliberatly set this one at less than full size, but still not what you can call a small game.) And I can remember that for the longest time I'd never have considered jumping into a game (of any size) with "some crazy mods I don't know anything about", so I sympathize with anyone else who thinks that. I'm really not sure when that changed, currently whenever someone suggests a mod my first thought is "sure, throw it in, we'll see how it works out and I'll figure out what works and what doesn't while playing."

[Amhazair]

I played them once before in a ForbiddenFriendship game and enjoyed it, though I got double teamed by Marignon and Mictlan. I think I'll go for a different pretender this time, though I did like the lord of the gates.Yeah, chances of being double-teamed increase drastically when playing Ermor, so that might happen this time around too. :D

Was that on the SA forums then, or have there been games with this line of mods organised here too?

[Admiral_Aorta]

We had one game on Dom3Mods, though it didn't finish because of several players going AWOL. Despite me getting mostly killed I managed to escape to an island and set up a secret lair.

[jotwebe]

LA Abysia, awesomest Abysia. I would like to preside over the burning ones final defeat :D

[skymoon]

So....how many members now?
Can't help waiting for the MP. HiaHia:D

[himselfbh]

Hi Amhazair, count me in. LA Jomon.

[Valerius]

That's not a bad point, but as you so kindly pointed out, I prefer larger games. (Allthough I deliberatly set this one at less than full size, but still not what you can call a small game.)

Yes, well, right after I posted that three people signed up so never mind my comments. :) Have a fun game - I'll be interested to read people's feedback about the mods.

[Ossa]

I'd like to join with Utgard.

[Amhazair]

Hi Amhazair, count me in. LA Jomon.Well, if you're certain, you're certain,

LA Abysia, awesomest Abysia. I would like to preside over the burning ones final defeat :DWelcome to one

I'd like to join with Utgard.And all.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Hi Amhazair, count me in. LA Jomon.

Actualy there was someone who claimed Jomon over on dom3mods, I think they beat you to it.

[Amhazair]

Hi Amhazair, count me in. LA Jomon.

Actualy there was someone who claimed Jomon over on dom3mods, I think they beat you to it.Nah, Himselfbh had allready asked for Jomon before, (Post 16 in the thread) I just hadn't put him down for it yet, asking him if he was certain he wanted in first.

Unfortunately for Kakarotto that means he's the one who will have to choose another nation, I allready PM'd him about it.

[TheDemon]

Hi there. I maintain OPM. One note, OPM fixes mod compatibility bugs but it does NOT fix mod compatibility balance (that's what FF is for). Currently the go-to mod compatibility exploit is to use CBM's cheap GoR and Possession on certain freespawn from AE's pretenders, notably Mother of Tuatha's Tuatha freespawn. I highly, highly recommend you ban this in a house rule.


edit: Oh, and on the mods. There are actually a LOT of stuff in them that should feel familiar to anyone who plays CBM.

AG was originally based on CBM pretenders, but makes pretty much everything MORE powerful. It makes god pick just as central to strategy as nation pick, in my opinion.
Still, there are some pretenders that are purely CBM.

AE is originally based on EDM, so there are all the classic EDM summons. Some of them are juiced up slightly (and the Zmey is nerfed into the ground. kind of a metagame nerf, but we overused it horribly on Something Awful). The key difference in AE however, are the abundance of good-path mage summons. The Wraith Lord, Tarrasque, and Kraken are diversity machines. All the Royalty have super high paths. This means wide path access is much easier in the lategame compared to EDM/CBM.

edit2: The OPM site is actually here https://sites.google.com/site/dominionsenhancedmod/home but it doesn't matter because the proactiveapathy mirror (http://proactiveapathy.com/dom3/mods/mods.html) is basically always up-to-date and you can find the mods individually there and the individual mods have patch notes in the .dm

[don_Pablo]

Midgard for me, please

[Amhazair]

Hi there. I maintain OPM. One note, OPM fixes mod compatibility bugs but it does NOT fix mod compatibility balance (that's what FF is for). Currently the go-to mod compatibility exploit is to use CBM's cheap GoR and Possession on certain freespawn from AE's pretenders, notably Mother of Tuatha's Tuatha freespawn. I highly, highly recommend you ban this in a house rule.Thanks for the heads up on this, and I propose we do exactly that. I've added this to the OP. (Another option would be to mod back Gift of Reason to the vanilla cost, but I really like it to be cheaper, opens up some nice options, so adopting this as a house rule sounds better to me.)

[Amhazair]

So there's 14 of us now, so I guess we're set to start. To give everyone plenty of time to figure out the new mods and finalise settings & map I propose we set the start for next weekend for now. (And if someone else signs up in the meantime we can still accomodate them.)

As for the exact settings, since no one commented on them yet I guess we take everything standard as proposed in the OP. With this combination of newer players and veterans I say we keep graphs on too, even though my personal preference is to play without graphs. Last question for me remains: Do we use the standard LA site frequency (35) or do we want a bit more to try out the fun AE changes? Most votes have it, if no one reacs I'll leave it at 35.

Anyone Have a good map in mind? I'd say anywhere between 180 and 220 provinces, with not too much water since R'lyeh doesn't play. Cradle of Dominion is an option, long time since I used that one, but I'm open to other suggestions. Riverlands possibly, allthough that one's is slightly larger.

[Soyweiser]

Is this still open? I would like to play with Gath if it is.

(Odd, the otherpeoples mod does some very strange things to certain stuff, some of the gath boosts are missing, why not use forbidden friendship. Wow, gath really sucks with this mod (as it doesn't get any of the forbidden friendship boosts (cheaper temples, and a bonus blood on the kohen) Without ff I think I will have to pass on this one).

[krpeters]

The overall impression I get is that these mods ramp up the power level, particularly on the SC side of things. My preference is to tone things down and SCs are my least favorite part of the game so it's not really my cup of tea but I think this could be a fun game for people who do like SCs (which is likely a majority).

I just wanted to second this thought. I would prefer to see a mod which made thugs and midgame magic more powerful and SCs less terrifying.

[Amhazair]

Is this still open? I would like to play with Gath if it is.

(Odd, the otherpeoples mod does some very strange things to certain stuff, some of the gath boosts are missing, why not use forbidden friendship. Wow, gath really sucks with this mod (as it doesn't get any of the forbidden friendship boosts (cheaper temples, and a bonus blood on the kohen) Without ff I think I will have to pass on this one).Odd things? OPM is just CBM + AG + AE, nothing more, nothing less. A quick check reveals no differences with CBM to me. (Though feel free to point it out if I missed something)

I deliberatly stayed away from Forbidden Friendship, specifically since it does make a lot of balance changes I didn't want to trawl through to see if I agreed with them or not, as well as not wanting everyone else unfamiliar with the mod to assimilate them.

You are of course very welcome if you still want to join, with Gath or another nation, but I have no intention of introducing the FF mod into the game at this point.


Edit: Also, StMika over on the Dom3mods forum prefers a more common site frequency settings (he proposed 55) as well as the riverlands map. Just adding this to get opinions rolling.

[Executor]

I'm always up for a bit more gems with experimental mods, so my vote's for 45.

[jotwebe]

Whoa, 55? I'd be ok with 45, or anything less.

[Soyweiser]

Damn, without FF my game tactic kinda fails.

A what the hell, sign me up. Lets fail spectacular then :D

But please, pick a map with at least a few wastelands, else one of my national blood spells won't work. :D

[Amhazair]

Allrighty, glad you're in. I've seen you post all over the place obviously, but I don't think we've ever been in the same game together, have we?

The Riverlands map that has been propsed does have some wastaland provinces, but feel free to suggest alternatives. (The last game I played was on the riverlands map, so while it would probably fit us perfectly, I most definitely won't mind playing on any other map. ;) )

[Executor]

Why do I feel like I slightly inspired you to take Gath? ;)

[Soyweiser]

Why do I feel like I slightly inspired you to take Gath? ;)

No comment :D

@Amhazair,

I think we have been in a game once, in my noob, bad player, wanker days. I think I disappeared in that game :( sorry about that. Will not happen here.

[Amhazair]

Allright, taking all the received opinions and shaking them through my Advanced Equanimity Algorithm for Superior Game Admins (TM) I've come to the conclusion this game will be played on the Riverlands map with all settings standard (including graphs on) except with a site frequency of 45. (And HoF 15 obviously) Any last minute objections should be forwarded to me in tripple copies by registred letter. (Or posted in this thread.) Barring unforseen delays I will then put up the game tomorrow so everyone can submit pretenders at their leisure.

One insignificantly tiny minor detail though... When people talk about 'the' Riverlands map, which map do they mean? (I only played on a version with fixed start positions for one specific game before.) This one? (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=45414&highlight=Riverlands) (And if so why are the map file and image called Crown5 and is there no map on the Llamaserver with that name yet?)

[Amhazair]

Allrighty, the game is up on the Llamaserver. Feel free to upload your pretenders when ready. (No rush though, as I've said and repeated several times, make sure you're comfortable with your pretender design including these mods before starting.) I myself am still dithering between builds too. (Big bless, small bless, no bless? Full rainbow for diversity, just a couple of extra paths to help out key areas? good scales, mediocre scales, poor scales? All viable options for the cutest frog-eskimo's in the history of gaming and also in the history of everything ever.)

[P3D]

I am withdrawing from the game, it became a bit bigger than I'd prefer.

[Amhazair]

I am withdrawing from the game, it became a bit bigger than I'd prefer.All righty, fair enough. Next time then. (Though I will note that I specified 12 to 16 players from the start, and that we are, in fact, 12 to 16 players strong right now. :p)

[don_Pablo]

I have to withdraw the game too due to RL reasons.
Sorry.

[tratorix]

Since there have been a few dropouts, would it be alright if I slotted in as Patala?

[Amhazair]

I have to withdraw the game too due to RL reasons.
Sorry.Pity. Hopt it's nothing too serious?

Since there have been a few dropouts, would it be alright if I slotted in as Patala?Yeah, I suppose that would be fine. Welcome to the ride.

This means we're just waiting for you and C'tis now. Executor, you're still in right?

[Executor]

Just about to send my pretender actually!

[Amhazair]

Damn, you're fast. Do you live on the forums? ;)

[Executor]

Yes, I'm lonely and nobody likes me... :(

[Amhazair]

Yes, well, I can't refute that statement, obviously...

[tratorix]

Yeah, I suppose that would be fine. Welcome to the ride.

This means we're just waiting for you and C'tis now. Executor, you're still in right?

Thanks. My pretender should be in sometime tonight.

[Amhazair]

Great. No(t too much of a) rush though. Make sure you're certain about it with all the mod changes and the like. Wouldn't be nice to find out you missed something after the start and live out the rest of your life... well, of the game at least, with regrets. :)

[tratorix]

Great. No(t too much of a) rush though. Make sure you're certain about it with all the mod changes and the like. Wouldn't be nice to find out you missed something after the start and live out the rest of your life... well, of the game at least, with regrets. :)

I've been messing around with these mods for a bit, so it wasn't really a problem. :) I sent in a Midgard pretender, because I remembered I can't stand Patala. The first turns out now.

[Ossa]

I cant get the map to run - can someone post me a link to the correct .tga file?

[Admiral_Aorta]

The one in the OP is correct, you just have to rename it to what the game tells you it can't find.

[himselfbh]

just rename the map file to RiverLandsNoStart ~

[TheDemon]

Oh, one more thing I should mention, The Chalice is 5N 4N, which means it costs 40N + 25N. The issue is the game checks those values separately, so if you have 40N gems the game checks and sees you have 40, then checks and sees you have 25 and sees you have 25, and so allows you to forge the item. HOWEVER it isn't that big a deal because it then subtracts all of the 65 gems, leaving you at -25N.

Unfortunately there isn't a way around this and the 65N cost is intentional, so I recommend the admin issue a rule/clarification on whether people should be allowed to go into negative gems.

[Amhazair]

Thanks (again) for the heads up, hadn't noticed that yet. In fairness, as you pointed out, I don't see any big issue here. I like to keep big admin pronouncements for things that actually matter, so have at it and forge your chalices whenever you like I'd say.

In other news, Kakarotto let me know he was out of town for an unspecified length of time, and KeithZ will take over for T'ien Ch'i for as long as is needed.

[Executor]

Sorry for the hold up. Some madman tore up some cables in the building so I had no internet until now.
Lucky me the first turn is on 48 hours. :)

[Amhazair]

Damn! In my entire Dominions career I haven't renamed a commander once, but if I had noticed the name of my starting somethingorother before profetizing him I seriously would have.

I might be mistaken, but I'm afraid a prophet with a name like Nini will not add anything positive to the image projected by the one true Siluyatok, the Persuasive One, Lord of the Hierarchs, Guardian of the Law, Prince of Writing and Speach...

[jotwebe]

It is quite fitting for a scout, even if he does own a tent. I'm amazed your people even know writing, let alone have a patron god for it.

[Amhazair]

I'm amazed your people even know writing, let alone have a patron god for it.Hey! Our civilisation is easily as old and as advanced as yours, you know. And given that we can grow almost 20 times as old as your younglings, I would hazard the guess that we remember a lot more of that fabled (if also somewhat faded) ancient civilisation than you do.

[jotwebe]

And given that we can grow almost 20 times as old as your younglings, ...

Ah, you see: that's where the writing comes in. ;)

On clay tablets of course, not this newfangled "paper" stuff. That catches fire if you so much as look at it in the wrong way.

[Amhazair]

Yeah, and it's not the most resistant to prolonged submersion either.

[Soyweiser]

I'm amazed your people even know writing, let alone have a patron god for it.Hey! Our civilisation is easily as old and as advanced as yours, you know. And given that we can grow almost 20 times as old as your younglings, I would hazard the guess that we remember a lot more of that fabled (if also somewhat faded) ancient civilisation than you do.

Your civilization old? We can still remember our grandfathers talking about your civilization, as the new kids hanging around the neighborhood.

In fact we distinctly remember you had something to do with the fall of Ermor.

Get of our lawn all of you!

[Admiral_Aorta]

While we did acquire some small knowledge from the disgusting lizard creatures, the ritual that liberated us from life was entirely our work.

[Executor]

The wise Sauromancer have shown you the path to eternal life and this is how you repay us?
Through us you pass into the city of woe,
Through us you pass into eternal pain.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Hate. Let me tell you how much I’ve come to hate you since i began to live. There are 387.44 thousand miles of decaying bones in wafer thin layers that fill my city. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate i feel for the living at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. HATE.

[Executor]

In time we hate that which we often fear.

[Soyweiser]

Hate. Let me tell you how much I’ve come to hate you since i began to live. There are 387.44 thousand miles of decaying bones in wafer thin layers that fill my city. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate i feel for the living at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. HATE.

I have a mouth, and I do not have to scream ;).

[Soyweiser]

Also remember me bashing misf and barbarian attacks. People telling me it isn't that much of a big deal.

Look who got capital barb attacked this turn.

Misf 2 never again!

[dojango]

Also remember me bashing misf and barbarian attacks. People telling me it isn't that much of a big deal.

Look who got capital barb attacked this turn.

Misf 2 never again!

didn't you spend most of dreadful fates 2 fighting bogus and barbarians? until your bigger neighbors decided to knock you down and take away all your nature gems?

[Calahan]

Also remember me bashing misf and barbarian attacks. People telling me it isn't that much of a big deal.

Look who got capital barb attacked this turn.

Misf 2 never again!
Shouldn't you be patrolling and overtaxing your capital by the time Barbs get to show up (turn 5 or 6 IIRC).

Misf 2 FTW every time! (and death to the scales lovers )

[Soyweiser]

Calahan, yeah, of course I beat the barbs, I don't care about those at my cap. It is the 10% poploss that sucks.

[Ossa]

My dracolich is immortal (but lifeless) - can I expect it to heal its afflictions soon? It didnt happen yet:/

[Amhazair]

Yeah, it should heal them just fine. I haven't used too many immortals in my Dominions career yet though, so I don't really know if the mechanic is the same as with recupartion, or if the chances are smaller or something.

Edit: Did you happen to go to war with Ermor last turn? That's an imprssive number of kills your prophet racked up suddenly. :)

[Ossa]

Yep. Someone had to start to stop the undead menace;) Feel free to join in!

[Admiral_Aorta]

A dracolich is a pretty unusual choice.

[Calahan]

My dracolich is immortal (but lifeless) - can I expect it to heal its afflictions soon? It didnt happen yet:/
Yes, immortality cures any unit of any affliction AFAIK (unlike Recuperation which has limitations. eg Old age. Tests with old age immortal units show they still cure themselves). But curing the afflictions is still subject to the usual healing mechanics (ie. some are harder to cure than others), so some will take time to cure depending on what they are. (my personal record was a feebleminded MLich that took 13 turns to get his head cleared up, and that was 13 turns sitting with the Chalice as well. So that gives you some idea of how long some can take to cure if the RNG hates you).


Calahan, yeah, of course I beat the barbs, I don't care about those at my cap. It is the 10% poploss that sucks.
The way I see it is that yes, losing 10% pop can suck, but if your entire master plan is ruined by your cap losing 10% pop, even in the early turns, then perhaps your master plan wasn't so masterly. As I've had early plague events on my cap in MP games, which hurt like hell, but it was never enough to ruin my game as I made sure my overall plan could cope with such a turn of events during Pretender design (in design playtesting I either run some games with my cap at 50%, or rehost until I get early bad events to see if my build would cope with it). Plus if you use the points from Mis2 in return for even just Growth1, then any income you lose from a Barb cap attack is easily regained (in cap and elsewhere) over the course of the game, so that you fairly quickly come out on top by a long way.

There are certainly arguments against taking Mis2, but losing 10% pop from a barb attack is certainly not one of them IMO. As something that trivial isn't even worthy of consideration in my books, since over the course of the game that probably isn't much different from the gold lost by starting with 29500 compared to what you'd get starting with 30500. (Not run to numbers to back that up, but seems about right to me. More so with good scales.)


Edit - Apols for thread jacking Amhazair. I'll go punish myself this instant.

[Amhazair]

A dracolich is a pretty unusual choice.Bonus points for cool though. ;)

Also, all Dragons(And I'm pretty sure that includes the Dracolich) were changed (improved) by the AG mod, most notably the breath weapons. Didn't check to see how well the Dracolich works though, you'll have to ask Ossa.

Edit - Apols for thread jacking Amhazair. I'll go punish myself this instant. No worries. A game thread is allways more fun if there's some talkage going on. Feel free to sperg. :)

[Amhazair]

Extended the turn with 6 hours since it looks like Gath would stale for the second time running. (He's around though, he posted in the thread on the other forums after last turn.

Lucky for him thursday is my free day/half day at work so I actually have internet access and can keep an eye on stuff.

[Ossa]

If anyone is interested - either the poison breath is bugged or it is intended to do nothing at all. It doenst do anything, honestly.

[Amhazair]

Still no Gath turn to be seen. Doubly weird since judging from his profile he did log in (but didn't post) to the dom3mods forum today. He's kina a regular otherwise, anyone heard from him?

Also, I will be gone for the weekend myself. Depending on when/if the turn hosts I might be able to still play my next turn before leaving around noon tomorrow.

Edit: nevermind, Gath's turn is in. All's well and dandy. If the next turn (16) comes out before I leave (unlikely) I can turn it in and there will be no delays, otherwise I'll have to extend hosting time to get me to sunday.

[Amhazair]

I changed hosting interval to 36h so the next turn (16) won't host before I get back home on sunday. Will turn it back to 24h afterwards. (At least, I think we're still in 24h territory, right? I think so myself and so far no one has hinted otherwise.)

[Soyweiser]

Sorry about the stale and houdini act people. Real life was busy. Im back on track now.

[Balaskar]

Let it be known to all that Gath (Soyweiser) agreed to a NAP-3 with me and then attacked me without any forewarning.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Uh what nation are you playing because you're not on the list of players in the OP and I can't see any other posts by you in this thread.

[Balaskar]

i am going to be very busy today and will not be able to get my turn in until tomorrow morning. Can I get a 12 hour extension? Thanks

[Admiral_Aorta]

Who are you and why are you in this thread?

[Balaskar]

Sorry, Drillbit in the other forum. Forgot, which username I used to sign up for the game

[Admiral_Aorta]

Oh okay, I was wondering what was going on there for a while. :)

[Soyweiser]

Let it be known to all that Gath (Soyweiser) agreed to a NAP-3 with me and then attacked me without any forewarning.

Well well, three minor points. First you violated the terms of our non aggression pact first by using aggressive language, and clearly deploying an army not intend to take the single province, but just to attack me.

Second, I was under the impression the NAP3 only took effect after you took the agreed upon province. (Which invalidates my earlier point of course).

Third, you didn't seem to be using the provinces. Provinces with PD are free for anybody to grab.

Friends?

[Executor]

Let it be known to all that Gath (Soyweiser) agreed to a NAP-3 with me and then attacked me without any forewarning.

Well well, three minor points. First you violated the terms of our non aggression pact first by using aggressive language, and clearly deploying an army not intend to take the single province, but just to attack me.

Friends?

Oh come on, if you're gonna make this into a public debate you need to elaborate on these points. What does that exactly mean? :)

[Soyweiser]

He made elaborate descriptions of how he would stop any of my invasions, and how he would invade me in turn. And look and behold, the treacherous Agartha then started to actually invade me with an army exactly as described.

[Executor]

Amhazir, I've sent you an email also. Need an extension on the turn, 24 hours at least if possible.

[Amhazair]

Added.

[Balaskar]

Sure we are friends... just friends who want to kill each other.

1st. I did not use agressive language, but simply sent you a stern warning as YOU were the one massing armies on my borders. I had no armies close to your border except for the one that was waiting for you to remove your troops from the province you had promised me. My worries proved to be warranted as you attacked me 4 turns later.

2nd. This is simply a lie. When I sent you a stern warning about the armies close to my borders and also mentioned that you had failed to remove your troops from the province promised me you told me that you STILL considered (present tense) our NAP-3 to still be in effect.

3rd. Touché. I'm a newb and it was a good lesson. Can't blame Pythium for taking advantage... but it is still underhanded for someone who just a few turns before had confirmed a NAP-3 with me to turn around and stab me in the back.

Conclusion: 1.Untrustworthy 2.Untrustworthy 3.Untrustworthy. I will be wary of any future dealings with you.

PS MOST FUN I've had in a MP game in months, even though I am sure I am going to get my arse handed to me. Great example of how LOSING is FUN!

Let it be known to all that Gath (Soyweiser) agreed to a NAP-3 with me and then attacked me without any forewarning.

Well well, three minor points. First you violated the terms of our non aggression pact first by using aggressive language, and clearly deploying an army not intend to take the single province, but just to attack me.

Second, I was under the impression the NAP3 only took effect after you took the agreed upon province. (Which invalidates my earlier point of course).

Third, you didn't seem to be using the provinces. Provinces with PD are free for anybody to grab.

Friends?

[Balaskar]

When did I invade you?

He made elaborate descriptions of how he would stop any of my invasions, and how he would invade me in turn. And look and behold, the treacherous Agartha then started to actually invade me with an army exactly as described.

[Amhazair]

PS MOST FUN I've had in a MP game in months, even though I am sure I am going to get my arse handed to me. Great example of how LOSING is FUN!Heh, I do like your attitude I have to say.

Without going into the details of an agreement I know nothing about and am no party of, for the longest time NAP's were considered sacrosanct in these parts, and breaking one, even when it made absolute strategice sense, absolutely not done. While most people still take it quite seriously those feelings appear to be relaxing a little bit, which I don't actually find to be a bad thing, as that attitude might be conductive to careless play.

Still, as you said, there can be quite some fun to be had in trying to frustrate your opponent(s) as much as possible, either by causing damage or just by costing them time, and, who knows, all may not be lost. Do not neglect your diplomacy, if you can convince the neighbour of an enemy that you're able tie up his forces for a long time, watch him trip over his own feet in his haste to take advantage of the situation. Hope you didn't neglect your scouts and knows who borders who. (And if you don't, people might be willing to trade that information too. Not that I'm volunteering of course. :p)

[Executor]

Marginon AI???

[Calahan]

Marginon AI???
You guys should have organised this game on the other forum, as there are rules against this sort of thing there now.

[Soyweiser]

Marginon AI???

WTF. Really, one of the top nations goes AI. What a dick move. Good job Skymoon. AI at turn 18 without telling anybody.

Also, Like I said Pythium. Agartha is the vengeful type. How is invading who now?

[Admiral_Aorta]

Nice to know that Skymoon is a wanker who goes AI for no reason. Another for the list.

[Calahan]

Nice to know that Skymoon is a wanker who goes AI for no reason. Another for the list.
I'm pretty quick at attaching labels to people, but I'm personally holding off here as it might be a case of a new player having a RL emergency and, because he's new to Dominions MP, didn't realise that nation abandonment in such situations (when you can't contact admin, or just didn't realise you had to) is usually strongly prefered to nation AI-ing.

As I do know of what appear to be genuine cases where new players are simply not told beforehand that they should never turn AI without permission if they need to suddenly leave the game, as they may have experience from other online MP games where turning AI is usually the appropriate action when needing to suddenly leave. So I think some leeway should probably be given, in the form on not instantly labelling, in cases where it was not stressed in the OP beforehand (or by general forum rules) that players should not turn AI without permission. Regular players take this for granted these days (or at least I hope that's the growing trend), but new players are likely to be unaware of it for obvious reasons.

(and I don't see anything in the OP regarding such things for the new players in this game to know any different, unless they already know the etiquette expected of players from browsing otehr games threads. But that can't be taken as default or as a given IMO. Apols in advance though if it is mentioned somewhere, and my eyes are being temporarily blinded by kindness)

[Admiral_Aorta]

Actually yeah he does appear to be new so I apologise.

[Soyweiser]

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=804045&postcount=104
The jury is in!

Calahan, well he is clearly in a superb position in this game. So there wasn't a reason for the player to go AI. Apart from, the game bores me kthxb.

[Calahan]

Not sure that proves anything other than he quit two games at the same time. Which seems consistent with having to suddenly stop playing completely, and not being aware of having to notify (if possible) the admin(s) before doing so. (ie. a new player with a RL emergency).

(can't believe I'm taking the side of a bailzer?!?!? Is it April 1st or something?)

[Amhazair]

Marginon AI???Eh, bollocks. I'll see about dealing with it later, got to run now.

[dojango]

unless you can unset someone from AI, we just gotta roll with it, I reckon.

[Calahan]

You can't undo naitons set to AI. What you can do if you can find a sub is rollback the turn, install the sub, allow only the sub to submit their turn, and then force host, which returns the game to where it is now. But that of course is entirely the admin's decision as it involves a rollback, and so has a major warning attached to it. Otherwise the only real option is to continue as is.

[Amhazair]

Yep, this, exactly. With Marignon being one of the bigger players a rollback would be the lesser of two evils. (If anyone agrees or disagrees feel free to pipe in, if there's an outcry against it I won't do it, but I really feel it's the best option. I certainly know who I'll be attacking if Marignon stays AI...)

The plan, in the case of rollback would be the following:
1) Find a sub for Marignon.
2) Roll back the turn.
3) Have the new Marignon player - and only Marignon - submit a new turn right then.
4) Force hosting immediately. That way all of our previous turns will get used, no one benefits from hindsight, and we continue on as we are now with the only change being Marignon not being AI.

I'll go whip up a "looking for sub" post right now and add 24h to the timer for now to give us some time to get things in order. As said, if you think this is a bad idea, feel free to speak up. Up until the time the rollback actually occurs we can still refrain from it and go on as we are instead.

[Valerius]

It's tedious, but it may be worth having all the players confirm they have deleted all the old files in their save game folder before downloading the re-hosted turn as I think the main reason rollbacks have such a bad reputation is failure to do this. And of course the more players you've got the more chances for someone to not pay attention and use old files.

Oh, and hope the Marignon player didn't password protect their pretender. ;)

[Stagger Lee]

It's tedious, but it may be worth having all the players confirm they have deleted all the old files in their save game folder before downloading the re-hosted turn as I think the main reason rollbacks have such a bad reputation is failure to do this. And of course the more players you've got the more chances for someone to not pay attention and use old files.

This is a very good idea.

[Calahan]

@ Amhazair - It's probably a good idea to make heavy use of the llamaserver "send message to players" option right now, as I've found that an excellent admin tool for both notifying all players that something inportant is happening, and also if the time comes, essential for conveying accurate instructions during the rollback phase. (as rollback disasters are always the fault of players, since they only occur when one or more players uses the wrong version of a .trn file)

[Balaskar]

Not vengeful, just being proactive. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...

Marginon AI???

WTF. Really, one of the top nations goes AI. What a dick move. Good job Skymoon. AI at turn 18 without telling anybody.

Also, Like I said Pythium. Agartha is the vengeful type. How is invading who now?

[Soyweiser]

Not vengeful, just being proactive. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...


You must not like your cap than very much ;).

[Balaskar]

I don't see how sitting there waiting for you and Pythium to march on my lands is going to help me keep my cap.

Not vengeful, just being proactive. Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...


You must not like your cap than very much ;).

[Soyweiser]

I possibly away till monday. Sorry to hold up the game until then. I might be able to do turns tonight or tomorrow.

[Amhazair]

Stagger Lee will be taking over LA Marignon. I will be coordinating with him to time the Rollback so even players who would sneakily try to submit a new turn 17 with the knowledge they now have will have no chance to do so. :)

[Amhazair]

Copy/pasting from my mail using the Llamaserver so all instructions can be easily followed by whatever means everyone prefers.




Hello all,

As you will have noticed, we’ve been experiencing a bit of a delay due to the Marignon player setting his nation to AI and disappearing. Luckily I have now found a sub, and will roll back the turn so he can submit a new turn 17 and we can then continue on as we were.

Rollbacks though are delicate matters, and require some care to execute properly without ruining the entire game. As such I’m sending you all this e-mail with the necessary explanations and instructions.
Before anything else everyone HAS TO delete their current 2h and trn files for turn 18. THIS IS VITALLY IMPORTANT. If any single player fails to do this it will most likely cause catastrophic crashes and ensure the game cannot be continued. I will say again: DELETE YOUR CURRENT TURN FILES NOW. You will get a new turn file for turn 18 when I re-host the game. Simply overwriting your current turn files with the new one you receive (like you do for all other turns) is NOT good enough, and will cause the crashes mentioned before, so please be good boys (or girls) and trust me on this, okay?

What will then happen is the following:
1) I will rollback the turn to turn 17.
2) Stagger Lee (the new Marignon player) will submit a new turn. No one else should do so! I’m serious here, anyone submitting a new turn 17 anyway will incur my eternal wrath and such more.
3) I will immediately force hosting. That way, the llamaserver will just use your previously submitted turns again and no one can gain any benefit from the knowledge they gained from seeing the turn play out
4) You will all receive a new turn 18, from which you can then play and submit a new turn as normal. I will say here again: make sure you deleted your previous turn files before saving the newly received turn into your games folder, and do NOT just overwrite it.

Sorry for repeating the same thing over and over again, but better safe than sorry. I would not like to have to abandon the game because someone thought I was just joking around.
As a final point, Stagger Lee has mentioned he’ll be busy over the weekend, and will probably only be able to play his turn afterwards, so the rollback will only happen at that time. Until then I hope you have fun doing other stuff.

What I forgot to add (But isn't terribly important) is that I will coordindate the rollback with Stagger Lee so he can play his turn immediately, to give any would-be cheaters as little opportunity as possible to quickly submit a new turn 17 anyway. Since no one would stoop so low though, it doesn't really matter, right? :)

[Admiral_Aorta]

So I assume we ignore this turn 19 that's just turned up then?

[Amhazair]

Bollocks, Bollocks, Bollocks. How stupid can I be. Finally have everything in hand, ready to move on, and I go to bed forgetting about hosting deadline. Lucky most people didn't trust me and did submit a turn 18 before. ;)

With two rollbacks doubling the chances of things exploding in our faces though, as well as massively increasing the opportunities for everyone who wants to send in a substitute turn 17 or 18 (due to the time Marignon would need to turn in two turns at once) and, as others have said before, several newer players perhaps not quite getting what's going on (despite my - I believe - very clear explanation of what to do and what not to do) I'm going to have to take the executive decision to just move on now, so ignore everything I wrote in my previous post mail and just play on as we are now. We're still early enough in the game that a good dose of diplomacy and dogpiling should (hopefully) take care of anyone gaining too much of an advantage by swallowing Marignon.

With very big apologies to Bogarus and Midgard who trusted me enough not to send in a turn and thus staled, (at least I staled out too, so no one can accuse me of abusing my position to favor myself. ;) ) and also to Stagger Lee who was looking forward for taking over, as well as to everyone else for me generally screwing up.

Bollokcs.

[Stagger Lee]

I just PM'd you about this, Ahazair. Whatever you folks think is best is ok by me. If you choose not to go back two turns, then good luck with the rest of the game.

[Amhazair]

I just PM'd you about this, Ahazair. Whatever you folks think is best is ok by me. If you choose not to go back two turns, then good luck with the rest of the game.Yeah, I'm afraid rolling back twice with all the issues surrounding it is just too much of a risk this early in the game. Thanks a lot for offering to help out though, it's greatly appreciated.

Also, this is unrelated to anything else (and thus was definitely not worth a place in the serious thread above when I wondered about it) but I noticed I find myself saying (or, well, writing at least, since I hardly ever come in a situation where I actually have to speak English) 'bollocks' a whole lot lately. Anyone knows of a movie or a series where the/one protagonist use(s) that word a lot? I'm mildly curious why it's often the first swearword comming to mind these days.

[Soyweiser]

A rollback one turn is the same as a rollback 2 turns imho. Sucks to have spend a little time on turn 18. But not really a big problem. (Enterprising site searching players could have some bonus from the two rollbacks, but not that super much).

[Amhazair]

While technically that's true, it does double the chances of someone screwing up, and the fact that two turns were submitted without questions asked shortly after the game hosted again sorta shows not everyone is following allong with what's happening. I just don't see things ending well with a double rollback now.

[Soyweiser]

Yeah, just send a message to everybody with that information. Sucks. But nothing much we can do about it anymore.

[Amhazair]

I've added a couple of hours so I can check before going to work tomorrow to make sure nobody stales with this restart.

[Executor]

Enterprising site searching players could have some bonus from the two rollbacks, but not that super much.

I wouldn't mind rolling back to get some help with site searching actually! Heck, I've site searched a dozen provinces for high level F/D and low level E/S and I only got (and quite a few) non gem sites! :mad:
I demand a rollback so I can site search properly!

I've added a couple of hours so I can check before going to work tomorrow to make sure nobody stales with this restart.

What restart? You mean this continuation?

One more thing, I don't tend to make public threats but if any of the leading nations tries to gobble up Marginon I god damn will find a way to attack you! I'm looking at you, Pythium, Atlantis, Midgard... :)

[dojango]

Ermor is the one to worry about since Marignon is one of the best Ermor-counters... of course, we're all at war with him anyway, so that's not much of a threat.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Hey, we're very friendly and were attacked first, don't be HATIN

[Admiral_Aorta]

Feel free to kill off those cultists that have popped up in your territory Atlantis, I can't control where they appear.

[Executor]

Hhahahahahha... I can't help but laugh, or cry maybe.
After site searching all my provinces I found exactly 0 death sites and 2 fire sites.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Sorry, we have a monopoly on death at the moment.

[Executor]

Hey, you could give me your gems? Everyone hates and want to kill you anyway. They're of not much use for you.

[Admiral_Aorta]

While that is a totally rad offer we're using them right now. Maybe later if we die horribly(oh wait we're already dead)

[Executor]

If you give me your gems I promise to backstab one of your enemies, of your own choosing too if you give me steady stream of them.

[Soyweiser]

Jomon is AI. Suddenly.

[Amhazair]

Good thing I have someone checking that for me. I still might not have noticed Marignon going AI otherwise. ;)

Next time I take up adminining I'll have to go through the Calahan-like dance of writing a hundredthousend words to spell out what is and what isn't considered cool. :re: I'd much rather use the time I'm writing down words to write something fun, but it looks like that's the way it must be these days. At least in the Faerun game I admined people "only" disappeared, and I was allready somewhat bumed out by that, but at least they didn't go AI without warning.

In this case, with Jomon not being a major power I think it best not to go through the rollback-and-find-a-sub-dance, but just continue on as we are. At least the people profiting from Jomon going AI should be different from those carving up marignon. (I believe? Not got a perfect idea about who Jomon's neighbours are)

And I suppose I'll put on my sternest boots (I hate putting on my stern boots. What do these people have me doing!!?? :cry:) and go admonish everyone to not go AI without letting me know first.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Why on earth is one of the demon lords hanging out in an independent province?

[Calahan]

Jomon is AI. Suddenly.
What's that old Hollywood saying? Never work with Children or Animals or Newbs.

And you are welcome to try and copy my dance moves Amhazair, but I have to warn you that I'm capable of throwing down some pretty mean shapes :cool:

Why on earth is one of the demon lords hanging out in an independent province?
Hhhhmmm, can't recall any special Indy's that have a Demon Lord along for the ride. (I think that info is on the Wiki, but that's down so...). I've seen artefacts on special Indy's on very rare occasions, but never seen (summonable) uniques acting as Indy's. Are you sure it's one of the four Demon Lords? Does it actually name him, as in "the army is commanded by [name] he radiates power"? (or words to that effect). Attack/Probe the province when you can and that note of his unit id with Shift-I.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Hhhhmmm, can't recall any special Indy's that have a Demon Lord along for the ride. (I think that info is on the Wiki, but that's down so...). I've seen artefacts on special Indy's on very rare occasions, but never seen (summonable) uniques acting as Indy's. Are you sure it's one of the four Demon Lords? Does it actually name him, as in "the army is commanded by [name] he radiates power"? (or words to that effect). Attack/Probe the province when you can and that note of his unit id with Shift-I.
It's Pazuzu, the lord of the plague wind, he's fairly distinctive.

[Calahan]

Hhhhmmm, can't recall any special Indy's that have a Demon Lord along for the ride. (I think that info is on the Wiki, but that's down so...). I've seen artefacts on special Indy's on very rare occasions, but never seen (summonable) uniques acting as Indy's. Are you sure it's one of the four Demon Lords? Does it actually name him, as in "the army is commanded by [name] he radiates power"? (or words to that effect). Attack/Probe the province when you can and that note of his unit id with Shift-I.
It's Pazuzu, the lord of the plague wind, he's fairly distinctive.
That's some serious awesomeness. Just sent you a PM to kindly request your turn file, as I really have to see that (not to believe it, just to see it :eek:)

[Admiral_Aorta]

Okay I sent you a turn file to have a look at. I wonder if maybe some kind of unit ID conflict with the mod might have put him there? There's definitely no special units defined in the map file. Edit: I can't see anything obvious in the mod file, wierd. Also the demon lords all got buffs in this game, so that province might stay independent for a while.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Photographic evidence!
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/p480x480/150707_434296163265524_100000554314219_1440997_449 268868_n.jpg
Edit: Have other players seen this? I wonder if could be some wierd issue with just my turns or something.

[Stagger Lee]

You guys secretly rolled back, didn't you! :popcorn:

[dojango]

I've seen indy provinces with pretender-class units in them (Inanna and Dumuzi). Bit of a surprise if you weren't expecting it. But that's a fairly specific legend, I've not seen a demon lord hanging around before.

[TigerBlood]

There are a whole heap of special potypes. Some of them are tied to unique sites or artifacts (Bolivar, Solaris, Kekon, etc.)

I've seen them more often in early and middle era games. That might be a function of the poptype, or just chance.

I need an 8 hour extension. Away from home computer.

[Amhazair]

Cool. :) For those nations close to the weird demonic activity: Any idea whether Pazuzu was in the province from the start, or if he came along with an independent attack?

I took a quick look in the mod we're using to see if unit ID '446' (Thanks Edi's DB) showed up anywhere, but the only things I found were the changes to the unit, and no reference to that unit ID elsewhere, so I doubt (But definitely won't rule out) it's something to do with the mod.

8 hours added.

[tratorix]

He's been there since at least turn 5, and had a bunch of longdead and death mages with him. Pretty sure it was like that from the start of the game. Stupid jerk killed like 30 of my skinshifters. :mad:

[Stagger Lee]

Photographic evidence!
http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/p480x480/150707_434296163265524_100000554314219_1440997_449 268868_n.jpg
Edit: Have other players seen this? I wonder if could be some wierd issue with just my turns or something.

Edi's database lists "The Doom Cloud" as an air site which increases misf. and gives 2A2D. vfb put together a list of special poptypes (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=44410&highlight=special+poptypes) which Identifies Pazuzu as it's guardian. This list should have made it into the strategy index somewhere, but I didn't see it and had to use my memory as a guide. Now my head hurts.

[Calahan]

I forgot vfb had did that thread. Thanks for the memory refreshment Stagger. (and to think all this time I've been playing and I haven't come across even a fraction of those on that list.)

[Amhazair]

2A2D? Useful. And if my eyes don't deceive me that province is right next to a lake. I might be dropping in sometime soon. (Or I might not, obviously.)

[Admiral_Aorta]

Woah that's really cool, I do wonder if those should be coded to appear more often though.

[Amhazair]

Is everyone still comfortable with the pace of the game? No one has asked for longer turns so far, so that's fine with me, but if you feel rushed don't hesitate to let me know.

[Executor]

Damn interesting game so far I must say, can't wait to see what awaits me next. :p

Started in a logistically terrible place for expansion. Met 4 neighbors by turn 6. Hit expansion limit by turn 10 at a remarkable 10 provinces. Have had complete lack of any sort of gems after quite extensive site searching. My best expansion option was war with a cold 3 nation (that one is particularly fun with C'tis). And all the damn AIs are nowhere near me...:( Damn you to hell Soy!

I think I should have taken Atlantis. ;)

Anyway, just a heads up. I'm moving this Thursday and may need a bit of a delay trough Thursday-Friday. Probably won't but it would be much appreciated if you kept an eye on the clock for me Amhazir.

[Amhazair]

All right, will do. Am away myself for most of wednesday, so depending on how late I get home I will have to extend the turn for myself too then.

Have fun moving. :cool:

[Soyweiser]

Executor? What did I do?

I also like the game. Thinks keep not going as planned. And lets not complain about not finding any sites okey? Look at how many I have found so far. (At least I got some lucky events recently).

[Executor]

Oh heck no, don't get me wrong I'm not complaining. In a way all these stuff have made this game quite hard and more competitive (interesting) for me.
It's certainly more fun than my last game where I had a stellar start and everyone just sat there happily, waiting to get killed...:re:

But anyway,
Damn you! Like I said.

Start next to a no PD guy, or gal?:)
Than your first neighbor Marg turns AI, than Jomon turns AI! And we decent folk have to fight for a living!:)

But seriously, I've forgotten how frustrating it is to have people go AI with no reason or explanation of any kind.
RL problems or not (like many I've had my fair share of dropping out or just vanishing with no explanation though I feel going AI is even worse than just staling away cause than you can at least try to find a sub.), I still thinks it's easier to just post if you're drooping out than to just turn AI.
And I can't even justify turning AI for first-timers either as anyone with half a brain should know not to do that in any MP game, ever.
Especially, like now (though frankly I think it's just as damaging at any point), when it's early game, the nation itself perfectly fine and not even in any wars.

And now we have two out of three top nations gobbling up the AIs to get even bigger, as if some of them, I won't name anyone *cough* Atlantis *cough*, didn't have enough luck. ;)
Not that I blame them of course, it's no fault of theirs, I'd do the same. Why not play a good card you've been dealt.

But it really does upset game balance. Things might not (yet;)) be critical in *this* game, though they're far from perfect, but I've seen games where victory was practically handed down due to such actions, which were as always vigorously defended like any other selfish actions by the culprit as their divine right to screw up the game and so forth.

Well, rant over.

Oh, right, the thing I came here to do.
Amhazir, it appears I'll be moving this Sunday, not tomorrow. And I will indeed need a bit of time, probably 24 hours of extension Sunday afternoon, Lama time.

[Soyweiser]

I'm going to be away from this friday till tuesday. I hope it is possible to get the game delayed till then.

[Admiral_Aorta]

That suits me as well, since I'm going away tomorrow and won't be back till late afternoon the next day.

[Amhazair]

Allrighty, will add 48 or 72h depending on whether Soy can still submit today before leaving or not. That way the next hosting will be 17h Llamaserver time on tuesday. That good for you Soyweiser, or do you prefer it a bit later?

[Amhazair]

In other news:

* Things I need: An air booster, nature gems, astral gems.

* Things I can part with: All other gem types except earth, (Or perhaps up to 4E in exchange for N if nothing else is possible.) forgings up to lvl 4.

Anything thinking he can match my possessions with their needs and the other way around can feel free to contact me.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Turns out I don't need a pause on the timer becasuse my flight was cancelled.

[Amhazair]

I hope the consequences of the disappearing flight aren't any more serious than: "Damn now I'm home and I can still not get my Dominions fix 'cause the games is paused anyway for Soyweiser's abscence." :)

Added 72h as promised. Enjoy the long weekend everyone.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Well it meant that I missed a friend's 21st but nothing else.

[Amhazair]

This is in absolutely no way related to this game, but since I'm the one who organised the ANDalusian sun game too I thought I'd make a bit of noise about the sub position for LA Mictlan that opened up in that game. Sub thread here: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=48852

Some details: Game is an anonymous and no diplo vet game deep into late game. (Turn 105!) 2 big players and the slightly smaller Mictlan left, but judging from the graph Mictlan should certainly be considered a dangerous outsider for the win. Since it's an anonymous game any takers should PM Dimaz.

[Admiral_Aorta]

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ask for a pause on the timer since I've got hardware problems. If it doesn't fixed in a reasonable amount of time I'll look for a sub.

[Amhazair]

I'm sorry, I only got home today just after the game hosted. (And I even rushed because I remembered I had to make a change to my turn, but didn't make it.)

I will add 24h immediately to be safe and give you time to resolve the issue. I'll keep an eye on the llamaserver now so it doesn't host again without your turn in. If you need more time but have a reasonable expectation of when things will be in order feel free to let me know.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Ok my computer is working again so my turn has been submitted.

[Amhazair]

Damn, misscripted and attacked a Jomon province I was not otherwise intrested in instead of storming a castle as planned. Now do I try to fight off a host of ghosts to defend its decent gem income, (now I know what the province is worth) or do I move back to start breaking down the castle walls again?

As a bonus the Tungalik I had sent in to build a temple in the to-be-captured castle fought off the (admitedly puny) enemy counterattack all by himself. Not bad for such a youngling. Need to keep an eye on him. :)

[Executor]

Damn, misscripted and attacked a Jomon province I was not otherwise intrested in instead of storming a castle as planned. Now do I try to fight off a host of ghosts to defend its decent gem income, (now I know what the province is worth) or do I move back to start breaking down the castle walls again?


Oh yes, quite a predicament it seems. ;)

Please add 6-ish hours to the clock. Add 7 hours rather.

[Amhazair]

Damn, misscripted and attacked a Jomon province I was not otherwise intrested in instead of storming a castle as planned. Now do I try to fight off a host of ghosts to defend its decent gem income, (now I know what the province is worth) or do I move back to start breaking down the castle walls again?


Oh yes, quite a predicament it seems. ;)

Please add 6-ish hours to the clock. Add 7 hours rather.

You have no Idea. :D

And also done.

[Executor]

Amhazir, please add 24 hours to this turn.

[Executor]

Never mind, I can make the turn with the current hosting schedule.

[Amhazair]

Eh, well. Had allready added the 24h anyway. :)

[dojango]

Midgard's about to stale; that would be two in a row. We should probably pause the game. Anyone heard from tratorix lately?

[Amhazair]

Thanks for the heads up. (Noticed too late of course...) I was about to keep an eye out after the first stale, but somehow totally forgot that the new turn was still due to host tonight, somehow convinced myself it had only just hosted today and the next turn was tomorrow. (Or something to that effect, I'm not very coherent anymore.)

Added 24h now to give me some wiggle room and will try to contact him.

[Amhazair]

I haven't heard anything from Tratorix yet, despite him being online after the last stale, according to his profile. I'll give him till tonight, and if I don't hear anything by then I'll start looking for a sub.

[Executor]

Ctis looking to buy death gems. Will pay in;
Fire gems at a 1.5 fire gems for 1 death gem ratio
Nature gems at 1.3 for 1 death gem ratio
Gold at 45 gold for 1 death gem

Please contact if interested.

[Amhazair]

Well, still haven't heard anything from Tratorix, but the Midgard turn is in, so hurray I suppose.

[tratorix]

Sorry about the stales, just got a new job and have been working some weird hours. Shouldn't be a problem from now on.

[Amhazair]

Tratorix asked for a delay, I myself am away on wednesday, and we're past turn 40 allready, so I simply changed hosting to 48h.

Amazingly, no one has specifically asked for it, but I guess turn 40 is not too soon at all. Congratualtions to all for keeping up a nice pace. :)

[dojango]

I need 12 hour extension; travelling most of today and won't get a chance to send in a turn.

[Amhazair]

Added.

[Amhazair]

Extended the timer a bit since it turns out I'm not home tonight. Will do my turn sometime tomorrow. (Probably a fair bit before the new deadline, but better safe than sorry.)

[Amhazair]

Bogarus asked for (If I understood correctly) a delay until monday, so 48h added.

[Executor]

Pffft, earthquake... I was too lazy to even put all the gems back.
I'm supposed to be the one attacking Abysia!

[jotwebe]

Well, you can't expect the Raging God to meekly wait for the reaper. No sir, you can't spell "Abysia" without "Scorched Earth", and we will preemptively defend our freed- err, way of life, to the last drop of virgin blood.

Cordially, BURN LIZARDS BURN, King of Flames

[Amhazair]

Added an extra 24h at the request of Midgard. (The first 24h was because Ermor's been without computer acces for a few days, asked on the other forum.)

[Amhazair]

Today is the start of the "Gentse Feesten" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentse_Feesten) which, living in Gent, allways dominates my life during the weak they happen. On any given day, I might or might not get home after work at an hour and in a state in which I'm still willing and capable to do anything besides going to bed. (Or at all.)

This means two things:

1) I will remorsesly abuse my moderating powers to extend the turn timer whenever I feel like it. Mostly if I don't play and submit my turn 24h before deadline I'll add another 24h to it. (So I allways have a day's buffer in case I disappear into the nightlife.)

2) On any given day I might or might not log in to check my PM's for extension requests and the like, so if you're not completely sure of being able to make the deadline, ask for extensions with plenty of time. And feel free to do so liberaly. Don't play russian roulete with the deadline.

3) Okay, I know I said two things. But writing this I realise it might be best to extend the timer to 72h for the next week, just to be on the safe side for everyone.

[Soyweiser]

I'm not sure I can make the timer tomorrow could I get a 24h extension?

[Amhazair]

Another 24? We're already at 96h instead of the usual 48. But sure, another 24h added. (More Gentse Feesten for me this weekend. Hurray! Although so far they've been quite tame really. And the weather is absolute ****e)

[Amhazair]

Aahahah! Atlantis's regular troops are absolutely awesome. Great stats and magic weapons. 20 dudes + minor pd (25 guys on the field total) just drove off an air queen*. (And 10pd already dealt with a Shishi before.) Is there any other nation that can boast a basic troop lineup of that quality? The nation as a whole has it's weaknesses obviously, but I'm completely in love with my little toads.


*Granted, she had a mix of caster and SC equipment so not as strong as she could have been, was not cold immune and the one Tungalic casting frozen heart probably did half of the damage, but I'm sticking with the "Eskimo Toads are Awesome" story

[Soyweiser]

I'm gonna have to ask for an extension. I'm away till 12 august at the shortest. Sorry about that, a wild vacation opportunity appeared.

(And yes, La Atlantis is awesome).

[Amhazair]

12 days? That's really a long time. I'd really like you to find a sub for your trip, pausing the game that long really is the perfect way to have everyone loose intrest. (Or, if you don't have the time to find a temporary sub before you leave, I can look around for someone who'll take good care of your nation, but that would mean you can't instruct them about what to do.)

Other than that I wish you the wildest vacation imaginable. ;)


In a related subject, I myself will be gone from around the 10th till the 18th. Calahan has already agreed to take over my playing duties for a couple of turns, but I'm looking for a volunteer to take care of the admin duties in case something comes up during my absence.

[Amhazair]

Tratorix seems to have disapeared too. I've added 24h, if I don't hear from him by then I'll look for a sub to play out his end. (Midgard doesn't have much left, but enough that turning them AI would make things significantly easier, including several powerful SC's.)

How about Bogarus? Is it worth finding a sub for him, (if he doesn't show up) or is he set-to-AI material?

[Admiral_Aorta]

Bogarus has one fort, which is currently under siege by C'tis, so he's not in the best position.

[Amhazair]

He's still got three forts, actually. But more important is what is in them. If it's an indy commander and 3 Voi Archers setting them AI won't make much difference. If it's a dozen strong mages and a SC blocker though...

Regardless, I'm tempted to just put them to AI, haven't seen anything from them that warrants otherwise really. If anyone thinks otherwise now is the time to make me change my mind.


I'll start asking around for a Midgard sub now. It's a not-much-work position, so shouldn't be too hard to find one.

[dojango]

Say, did anyone receive a lump-sum payment of gold a few turns ago? The intended recipient hasn't received it, yet a review of the .trn file shows that the payment was sent out... to someone.

[Amhazair]

Valerius will be subbing for Midgard. (Thanks for that.) Since I haven't heard any objection I'll see to turning Bogarus AI.

[Valerius]

Sorry for the delay. Of course there's no call for Midgard to be holding things up and I won't after this turn but I just need to decide what to do. Sure, I know it's hopeless but I've got to at least try to be a small thorn in Atlantis' side. :p

Sadly, Midgard has fallen so I won't be vortexing my forces in order to consolidate them. Although, given my history (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=785914&postcount=11) with vortex of returning maybe that's a good thing.

[Valerius]

$#&%! Completely forgot about that lone cyclops behind enemy lines. :mad:

So, how have SCs worked out in this game? I said early in the thread that my impression was that these mods ramped up the power level. From what I can tell they do generally do that but then there's some nerfs as well, such as to some SC HPs. Have there been any trends with particular units doing well?

[Executor]

I'm quite puzzled with this mod. It's not to my liking at all. Very weird.
It's okay to have a F10, Heat 50, Fire Aura 30 Fire King, but somehow Zmeys are where they draw the line and nerf?

[jotwebe]

Yeah, I've found Zmeys to be a waste of fire gems in this mod. he nerf bat got swung a bit to hard; they'd be ok at 60 hp per head in my opinion.

The royalty is kick-***, but I don't think necessarily OP. Since my precious fire king was mentioned: the big difference to vanilla in practical terms has been that I could kit him for a fight AND have him cast Fire Storm, while in vanilla I'd have to chose. Don't think the massive fire shield has come into play yet.

Interestingly a lot of people took freespawn chassis. Admiral_Aorta certainly made good use of his sphinx-made dust walkers. My scorpion men have been less effective then I hoped for.

[Admiral_Aorta]

I've actually found the dustwalkers to be a bit superfluous, they are good but I don't get many of them and they don't synergize well with my other undead.

[Amhazair]

/nod. The elemental royalty is without doubt very good in this mod, but I wouldn't call them overpowered, by virtue of being unique. Sure, getting one is great, but you do have to get there first. The dynamic is very much like the race for artifacts, and honestly if I'd have to choose (in a void & without considering other implications) between several elmentaly royals or some key artifacts (Boots of the Planes!) Id probably still choose the latter.

Zmey... probably overnerfed, yes, though I still would't call them a waste of gems. Just have to be careful about when and how to use them. (And when to better use something else.) They have a massive hard-on for Zmey over on the SA forums though.

I really like the various summoning or domsummoning chasis. And of course since that's one of the more uncommon mechanics in Vanilla/CBM I get that many people wanted to try that out. I've been using a Frost Father myself, which doesn't give any freespawn, but does give me the option of summoning 5 Unfrozen warriors a turn. So I have all the utility of a rainbow, and when I have nothing more valuable for him to do, I get myself some tough troops that synergize well with my CR. I like it.

[Amhazair]

I haven't heard back from Soyweiser about finding a sub during his abscence. (PM'd him on both forums, but neither PM has been read, so he very well might be on a trip without internet access.)

Obviously I'll give it time at least till hosting time, but if I don't hear back by then we'll have to decide how to proceed.

My personal opinion still is that it's quite disrespectfull to the rest of the players to just expect us to pause the game for his entire 10-day abscence. (I know it never would cross my mind to ask for such. With the possible exception of the christmas-newyears week where most everyone has commitments.) So the three options are:

* Pause the game regardless.
* Let him stale. (Would probably be 2 or 3 stales. Not being involved in a major war this probably wouldn't hurt him terribly badly, but would still prevent him from developping further of course.)
* Find a (temporary) sub without his permission.

My choise would be the final option, but I'm willing to go with one of the others if a majority of the remaining players prefers it.

[jotwebe]

Personally I wouldn't mind Option A (10-day-pause).

[Amhazair]

Thanks for pitching in, (wish more people would say what they feel about things, makes my job easier) but I'd only consider pausing a game so long if a majority of the players were fine with it, so - since no one else voiced an opinion - I'll be going with my first idea.

Wraithlord agreed to keep things running during Soy's absence, (despite being of the opinion that I should just have let him stale as "it's not an admins job to babysit the players" - but I'd rather not have anyone stale myself, especially since he did give warning, unless I have no alternative.) so I sent him the turn and added 24h to give him time to check out what's what. Anyone who has diplomatic agreements in place with Gath should probably contact WL in that regard.

[Executor]

How about we end this charade already? I think there's really no point in continuing. Obviously Pythium can't touch Atlantis, not to mention myself. Ermor is a wreck of a nation (no offense Aorta) and Aby and Gath are not fighting Atlantis.
I don't really like fighting pointless half assed wars and I doubt things can be turned now.

Atlantis for winner.

[Admiral_Aorta]

Aww, I haven't used my surprise yet...

[jotwebe]

How about we end this charade already? I think there's really no point in continuing. Obviously Pythium can't touch Atlantis, not to mention myself. Ermor is a wreck of a nation (no offense Aorta) and Aby and Gath are not fighting Atlantis.

Would be ok by me. The only way to fight Atlantis for me would be to go into the water, and without water magic that's somewhat difficult.

[Amhazair]

I really think this is premature, and there's no way this game is in the bag yet. I'm obviously in a strong position, mind you, and I might just be falling into the trap of seeing all of my potential weaknesses y'all know nothing about while imagining all the possible strong points of my enemies without knowing their weaknesses but I still don't think this is over yet. (And I would like to see what surprise Admiral Aorta has in mind. ;) )

So, while I won't drag on the game if everyone else is loosing intrest and is ready to concede I do think you might want to reconsider.

In either case, I won't be around to see the decision, since I'm leaving on a trip early tomorrow morning. I have arranged for Calahan to take over my turns and Dojango to admin things while I'm away, so feel free to discuss to your heart's content, and if I do come back to find the game's wrapped up that would be fair enough.

[Executor]

I really think this is premature, and there's no way this game is in the bag yet.

How about now? If you guys are up for playing this out to the bitter end it's okay by me, but Atlantis has got more provinces and gems than the rest of us combined.
Aby can't attack Atlantis, not to mention he's in war with me as well. Pyth can't touch Atlantis, neither can Ermor. Gath has been chillin' the last 50 turns or so.
It's pretty much Pyth and me vs Atlantis and everyone can see how that's going.

Isn't it about time we call it?

[WraithLord]

Soyweiser. Are you back from vacation?- Want your kingdom back?

[Soyweiser]

Yeah, I'm back, I was procrastinating my dom3 responsibilities a bit. (Had a lot of time to thing, and reassess my priorities, somehow dom3 got downgraded).

Let me look at the turn, and then I'll decide if it is worth to continue or not.

Also, thanks for taking over WraithLord, I didn't have time to check the replies on my post. I'm happy somebody subbed for me. Thanks! Also Amhazair, enjoy your trip!

[WraithLord]

NP Soyweiser. I took care to be conservative as not to upset any plans you may have had. That said, IMHO the current situation screams "Attack Atlantis now!" but even that may be too little too late.

Shall I email it to you?

[Admiral_Aorta]

all aboard the atlantis murder ship!!!

[dojango]

Yeah, things are getting bleaker and bleaker for the Non-Atlantis faction. If anyone or everyone wants to gang up on him immediately, we can keep going, see how things shake up, but otherwise he's gonna win. Sure, he might have some secret weakness, but even if we figure it out, fly through the trench and bomb the reactor core, his massive gem income will let him whip out new superweapons that much faster.

[Soyweiser]

So, do I need to provide my email adres somewhere or something?

[WraithLord]

You can PM it to me.

[Soyweiser]

Done, but I think I still cannot send turns, the admin needs to change the ownership of the nation back to me.

[WraithLord]

You can send me the .2h and I'll fwd 2 the server. Awkward but necessary until the admin. is back.

[dojango]

Soy, PM me yor email address and I can change it.

[dojango]

Added 24 hours by Atlantis's request.

[Amhazair]

1) I'm back. (Haven't looked at my turns yet, Calahan still submitted this one.) Any diplomacy, as well as admin stuff can be directed to me again.

2) Both Abysia and C'tis looked like double-staling (And this while both players have most certainly been around.) so added 4h for now.

3) I really think this is premature, and there's no way this game is in the bag yet.

How about now? As said, I haven't looked at the turns yet, so don't know what's changed. (apart from some reports I got from Calahan) As I (think I) said before, I will accept surrender if there is consensus that playing on is pointless, (and boring) but so far I have seen only Executor really speaking out for it, and some humming and hawing from anyone else. (And, again without looking at the last 3 turns, I'm still convinced that proper play can take me down.) So if you feel this game is over, please say so clearly, and if you'd like to play on too. In the meantime I'd appreciate it if everyone played on properly rather than turning in passive turns and/or staling, (hopefully not deliberately in an attempt to have the game end faster) and thus ruining the game for those who haven't given up on it yet.

[Executor]

In that case I could use a 24 hour delay.

[Amhazair]

Added.

[Admiral_Aorta]

I'd certainly like to keep playing, it's not like I have anything to lose.

[Executor]

An extra 2 hours would be nice.

[dojango]

I think I'm ready to concede to Atlantis. It was a good game, but I was unable to leverage the new endgame units effectively against Atlantis's hordes.

[Amhazair]

After the last few turns I'm inclined to agree that I've won the game, even with sudden full cooperation of everyone else (which doesn't look like happening?) and solid play. That said, if others don't agree and feel like putting that theory to the test, I'm happy to play on as long as necessary. I've added 24h for now to give everyone a chance to chime in. (I'm not home tomorrow and might lack the internet access to check what's been said.)

[Valerius]

After the last few turns I'm inclined to agree that I've won the game, even with sudden full cooperation of everyone else (which doesn't look like happening?) and solid play.

I doubt anyone will disagree with you. ;) Midgard's opinion doesn't count for much but I think you've earned the win and there's no need to waste (especially your) time by playing on.

[Executor]

This is the turn you realize you've won?:p It was evident 15 turns ago (at least).
In any case, congrats on your win Amhazair. Luck played a huge part in it here, but doesn't it always? ;)

[jotwebe]

Right then. One game down!

[Amhazair]

This is the turn you realize you've won?:p It was evident 15 turns ago (at least). I don't agree. 15 turns ago a solid and commited dogpile would (or at least should) have taken me down. No such thing materialized though, even though it should have been clear to everyone that was the way to go.

[Executor]

No. Not even a coordinated attack could have done much. Trust me, I've seen and fought through a lot of these situations and I've seen far worse nations than yours come out winner in all of them.

Let me explain and sum everything up;

Unlike any other player in the game you had a huge advatage by not having any wars at all until you attacked Midgard (due to all the AI nations (and at which point it was too late)).
You were the only water power on a map with no Rlyeh and a large amount of water provinces. Let's not mention the extra mobility this gained you on a rather choke point-y map.
You were also the far strongest player even without any wars and than especially due to that same reason (no needles expenses in gems and troops like the rest of us), being the leader in almost all categories from the start I believe.
I'm not trying to undermine your skills or effort, but there's something horribly wrong when a player reaches 50 provinces without fighting anyone, however skilled or talanted, on a map with some 16ish provinces per player.

Now, keep in mind the logistical problems the rest of us faced even if all united. Each of us could only attack a hand full of your provinces, at best, and even than there were a lot of choke point and dead ends, while you had the advantage of striking nearly any of us at any place with great mobility.

Also keep in mind that uniting every single nation is impossible under any scenario as you must well know, since at least some nation have bad blood between them. Even in the best of scenarios there is always at last someone will not only avoid the big war, but rather join the winning nation for some ludicrous reason (like ending second, or misguided belief they can stop you alone if they grab a chuck of your, now mutual, enemies, or they feel the game is lost, or revenge, etc).

Turn when you attacked Midgrad was the turn crucial turn. If Midgard, Pyth and myself had coordinated (without having to deal with internal problems) you could have been stopped, with a special emphasis on could.

[Amhazair]

Looks like I let the turn host. Should have submited my (partially completed) turn, that way I would have know if I could have taken Midgards main castle I finally decided to storm last turn. (And at what cost.)

Executor, I simply do not agree with you at all about the power of dogpiles in general. I do agree that they're often hard to pull off for the reasons you stated, especially people holding to their grudges ahead of their own self-intrest. [and I also felt pretty confident no massive dogpile was developping in this game, though it's hard to know for sure what others are talking about of course] But when a dogpile does come together, with its members actually coordonating their efforts and commited to the objective it's a truly awesome thing to behold. And that's the reason I rejected earlier claims that I had the game in the bag, not because I wasn't confident I couldn't stand against, say, any 2 nations, but that if all/most other players put aside their diferences and combined forces against the obvious, runaway leader I couldn't have stood up against all of you.

I'm glad I managed to pull off the trick of convincing you I could react to everything with "unparalelled mobility" but actually a big part of that unceratainty actually was actually lack off mobility. I had just enough mobile assets to quite quickly take the fight to anything you, Pythium and Ermor did against me, but another front, or even just more agressive play from Pythium would have meant I would have been forced to leave attacks unanswered. Or, as Calahan put it in a message to me:

Although I do have to laugh at his "striking nearly any of us at any place with great mobility" comment. Guess that's a sure sign he never seen your turn file then, as there was me constantly cursing your lack of mobility during every minute I subbed for you. I think your true achievement this game might have been to seemingly convince everyone you were uber powerful without actually fielding much in the uber powerful department.

Edit: All of the above with the caveat that just as it's possible for you to overestimate my capabilities (as I'm sure you have) I might have done the same with others of course.

[Executor]

Edit: All of the above with the caveat that just as it's possible for you to overestimate my capabilities (as I'm sure you have) I might have done the same with others of course.

Very true this last part. Actually, I'm quite certain you did overestimate the rest of us. I was the, what; third, forth nation by power? I had absolutely nothing going on the entire game. A complete fail on my part. I imagine the rest had even less. You on the other hand, had a quite substantial amount of gems (something I'm astounded by since I site searched 5-6 paths in my lands and came out almost empty handed (all my D income for example was capital only)), which is how I measure power.

I've fought in many dogpilles, like I said, and know that losing ground, and even losing ground fast doesn't necessarily mean anything.
Even if we had managed to pull our **** together and outmaneuver you, reducing your empire size, you could have easily compensated for it with a massive AN, GoNB, or something else he had no chance of dispelling or overcasting.

Take a look at my position in MoL. I seem to be slowly losing ground but I'm also getting much more stronger. In fact, C'tis seems almost on level with me now that he's done with you though it's likely I'm as powerful as the four remaining nations together.

As for the mobility part. I find it quite laughable too, Calahan. Surely you must be joking?
If you think Atlantis had problems with mobility you should put yourself in some other nations perspective. I, for one, could attack one to two provinces a turn (not counting water provinces where you're clearly at a huge advantage, and obviously not counting provinces I lost within my lands due to raiding or whatever). Clearly, that's a serious problem since you don't have to guess much where the next attack is likely to be. (keep in mind that the raiding capabilities of the rest of us were almost non existing as well to pose any real threat on your inner provinces)
I'm sure other weren't in a better position either.

Atlantis on the other hand had the seas, all interconnected.
Even with mm1 in the water I can see Atlantis easily transporting troops trough them to find big juicy chinks of unprotected land. (I actually find it quite retarded that you have to activate "8" on your keyboard to see what's connected btw.)
Let's not mention that sea actually give you a better coverage against any counter measures we might come up with as well.
And one last thing; attacking from sea is such a marvelous advantage since you always have at least a few to up to several provinces you can attack.

You can come out and tell me what you find so silly in my opinion of this game and situation Calahan. ;)

As for really reacting to something with great mobility, I think you misunderstood. You had nothing to react too. I think Pyth and I proved that, and we were the threat:)

Wow, that'a big post...

EDIT: The real problem with dogpiles is that they're usually, if ever, formed too late to matter in the end game decisive wars.

[Valerius]

I thought your raiding parties were very effective. A handful of tough troops with very high prot backed by a frozen heart casting tungalik or two made for a very cost effective force. And if they die you're just out a little gold. Definitely good value for your money.

In terms of mobility, one thing Exec may be referring to is that with water provs spread throughout the map and you controlling all of them (well, as far as I'm aware) it gave you lots of angles of attack for those raiders and more substantial forces when called for. I would imagine you also were able to make good use of the Angakok's sailing ability and ride the currents/traverse the sea.

Edit: ninja'd