Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

actually that's a good idea. sure, i can be an alt

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Frozen, your in as an alternate for Noobheim.

Hoplo, your modding skills may be needed, I had either you or Gandalf in mind to setup the AI team and do the actual nation and team placements which is a non-playing position. Haven't heard back from Gandalf. Unless we can get someone else or someone has a better suggestion for who'd do the best job of it, I'll hold off on assigning you to a team. Which would you prefer more? to play or do design the AI and perhaps co-admin?

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

So we need one more vet captain, a neutral volunteer to design the AI builds and place teams and nations, more alternates are always a good idea especially for teams with players who may be absent from time to time, a few more noobs, a co-admin to help busy Severus would be nice too. ;)

I'm turning my attention for the moment to the question of victory and handling team concessions.

The victory condition is quite simple but may need some refinement. It is essentially defeat all other teams which is another way of saying last team standing. We may need to define/refine what a "team" means for this purpose.

If one player is left on the team that wins, does that still constitute a team?

Should there be a requirement that at least 3 nations be alive on the winning team or the game be called a draw by default?

I do have a slight fear that the game might devolve into a FFA between the vet team captains with everyone else having been killed and want to ensure that captains will not forsake the noobs on their teams.

Regarding concessions. At first I was going to say no team can concede but that would be difficult to enforce and likely impractical. Obviously this won't be an issue with the comp team, since it will not concede. But the human teams are different.

For instance, a team reduced to a single nation and a few provinces may very well want to throw in the towel and may hardly be expected to continue playing till they are completely wiped out or may otherwise lose interest and stale anyway.

We could handle team concessions by turning the team's remaining nations AI. However this would turn AI against AI if the AI team is still alive or in the area.

Or we could let the conceeding team just stale.

Or possibly distribute the remaining nation or nations to other human teams.

Show their be an automatic concession/defeat rule? Say if you lose 1/2 of your team's nations?

Comments/suggestions?

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

You could say that a vets team loses when 2 of the 3 non vet players are eliminated.

The team continues to play to try to defeat the others - they just cannot win.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My concern about the victory conditions however has to do with the *all* nature.

Usually a victory is decided *way* before the final citadels or players fall. Unless people are really looking for a fight to the last drop scenario?

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

The last team standing must have 3 out of their 4 nations still alive for a team to be declared the winner. That's kind what I was leaning toward. Failing that condition, it would effectively be a draw or stalemate in terms of real team victory.

But if we opt to just say that a team can win with only a single nation intact, well that would work also and may be the inevitable outcome, but it wouldn't encourage cooperation, teamwork and the "we win as a team or we don't win at all attitude" that I'd like us to strive for.

*All* in the stated victory condition just means that all opposing teams must eliminated or forced to concede but not necessarily completely wiped out to the last province. The exception of course is the AI menace team and/or AI controlled nations which will not concede and must be completely wiped out.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

A slight tweak was needed to the revised option 1 starting locations. The .map file included in the archive has also been updated to fix a few issues with start provinces neighbors in the revised maps.

Now all starting locations have at least 4 neighbors and the secondary/optional AI starts have at least 3.

I've also posted a list of the province #'s corresponding to the starts in both map placement options. This will be used by our AI moder to place the AI and human teams.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

I don't really like the idea of needing so many team members alive to win. It's in the team's best interest to keep each player alive anyway due to forging paths and capabilities, making a requirement of having most of your team alive to win is unnecessary. Besides, if you can't win, what's the point in playing on? Sure you could frustrate the other teams, but overall it would just be depressing. And what if a team that's unable to win takes over the entire map? Or what if all teams lose enough players that no one can win?

Likewise, forcing a team to give up their nations if they lose a certain number of players seems wrong also. If you really want the teams to do that though, I suggest that a team goes AI if their vet leader is killed off. That would be slightly more palatable.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Rdonj seems to be in the camp that believes that a team can achieve an official team victory regardless of the number of nations they have left? Any other opinions?

No human team composed of more than 1 nation could really be set to AI if they concede as their individual nations would attack each other. Only the original AI team will be modded to ally with each other.

But we could have our AI modder add #allies commands to the map file for each human team just in case we need to set players to AI. This may result in more than one AI team present and competing with each other but that is fine I guess.

Edit: we could even have the AI modder go further and add the allies command for the AI Menace team, as well. This would take care of the issue of what to do with conceding teams as every nation that went AI would effectively become part of the AI menace team. Though that is alot of extra commands.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Personally I think that if all the players teams have conceded or lost there is no reason to have to defeat the ai.

I like the idea of requiring the newbies to live. A vet can win only if his newbs win - talk about encouraging cooperation...

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

With the set up we have I would have victory conditions as follows:

There are 20 Capitals in the game. You should need 10 to win (and hold them for 3 turns). But you need at least one Capital from two different (none AI) teams. And your own Capitals only count if they are held by their original power (AI or not). So if you lose a team Capital you can take it back / gift it back to the original player and it still counts. But if that player has been eliminated or for what ever reason does not hold his Capital, even if his team does, that one does not count and they need an extra capital from somewhere else.

That should ensure that the teams try to keep everyone in, but doesn't cripple them if one or more are lost.

As I am not one of those players who likes to play on and on and on and on just for the sake of it. I would also allow concessions if there is a an obvious winner. Let say that if all the other Team captains (the Vets) agree then a winning team can be declared before this.

Re whether I play or mod the map. I would prefer to play as I like team games :) But if you can't find anyone else I will step down and mod the map.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Hoplo, I'm putting you on Chris' team unless you prefer to go elsewhere, since he asked for you. Gandalf has agreed to setup the AIs for us. Hopefully he'll also agree to place the teams and nations into their starting locations as well.

Yes, I didn't realize the complication that multiple teams brings (versus just 2 teams) to a game. Of course this is all hypothetical and we may never have a problem but it is good to be prepared.

You do propose an interesting solution albeit one that strikes me straight off as a bit difficult for me to follow and I'm not quite sure how that would ensure team captains have an incentive to keep most of their members alive. But I'm probably a bit tired right now.

That is one issue, the other one I was worrying about is handling individual team concessions not in terms of victory but rather game-wise. In other words what to do with them after they concede and other teams are still viable. However, it seems that this can be handled via numerous #allies command in the .map file so that if any nation or team should need to be set AI (should they resign) they'll ally themselves against other human teams/nation.

Yeah, sure, a team or teams should be able to concede whenever they feel they've reached the point of no return as it were. I am sure we will all do our best to honor the good player pledge though and fight till the last minute.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

We could just say this, instead of the 3 out of 4 idea or the single nation idea:

In order for a human team to win at least one noob must survive on the winning team. This would provide that incentive for team captains not to ignore their lovely noobs (not that they would) and put an effort into leading them and helping them stay alive and also make it possible for a team to win with 1 or two players left alive.

In the event all 8 noobs are completely wiped out or concede, which is what the above rule attempts to avoid, the winning team (aka last team standing) would need to have at least 1 intermediate player left alive for a team victory.

This works for me, of course I'll go with whatever the concensus is though. :)

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Cheers :)

Well you can double up the penalty for not holding one of your original capitals with the original power if you like. So each lost capital requires you go and get two others to compensate.

But I don't think Vets abandoning noobs or taking them over will be a problem. Why would the Vet want all the extra admin when he can simply ask for most of the gold and gems instead :p Plus this is EA so capital only SCs/mages are even more common and important than usual. Your teammates capitals are usually better off in their hands.

I believe setting each team up as allies will work. But you can't link them to the original AI team as then the AI team won't attack them (I think). I know that you can attack an allied AI, but I am not sure they ever attack you (or at least attack you first).

But teams quitting will be a potential issue. How do you keep people playing when they have lost interest or see no hope? Teams help. It is harder to quit when you are letting allies down. Plus if the victory conditions are not that hard then a team in a hopeless position does not have that long to hold out before someone wins or knocks them out.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Interesting as it sounds, I will bail out of this game.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Hoplo's suggestion seemed like a good one to me.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Frankly, I haven't the slightest idea what Hoplo is talking about really and keeping track of who holds what for how many turns and which capitals are held by the original owners, and what else? Makes this sound far to complicated to me :confused:. But I do thank him and anyone else who has had something to say on the matter. :clap:

Basically, those two rules I elucidated boil down to not allowing the vet captain to claim a victory if he is the only nation left on his team. It was intended to address my concern that the game might naturally devolve into a FFA between the 4 vet captains who are likely to outlive the less experienced members of their teams and also to act as a way to reinforce the responsibilities and leadership role of the captaincy.

I agree, most of this is academic talk and probably will not become an issue. I am sure the vet captains will do everything they can to keep their less experienced team members alive and will show excellent leadership and cooperative skills.

While Chris and myself seem to be in one camp and rdonj and hoplo in the other, if there are no other opinions I won't let this be a deal breaker or stumbling block. :up: We will drop the issue entirely and just let a team claim victory regardless of who or how many nations are left on their team.

Yeah, hoplo, as a precaution, to handle the issue of if/when a team concedes, what to do with them, we will likely add ally commands for each human played nation on each team, so that if a team concedes, and the nations are turned AI, the individual nations on that team would not attack each other.

Now do we want these newly AI'ed nations to also ally with the orginal AI team (if by some chance they are still present) which can be done easily as well, against any remaining human teams/players? Or do we want them to fight against the AI menace as if they were a human team (AIs fighting AIs). I am in favor of the former option, as it would fit the theme of the game.

Be aware though, that just as in NvV, we cannot set individual nations to AI within a team if there are any other human nations still playing and keeping up the fight on that team since the AI WOULD attack other members of the team. All the more reason to make sure we've got alternates ready to go or someone else on the same team who can take two nations on.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Just need three more noobs and a vet to captain The Blessed Ones team and we are ready to being nation selection. A few alternates wouldn't hurt either.

Is the preference for ordered list or first come, first serve method?

Thanks.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

The minimum required number of players for a team to achieve victory should be a single player of course.
No 'single' player will get credit for winning this game so I doubt any vet will sacrifice his own team member.
We're only playing for the fun of it, well that's just how I see it. After all this is not a game for victory driven players.

I seriously recommend CBM pretenders and scales mod this time. I'm fine either way, but it opens for much more.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Sounds interesting, I would like to join. My game experience is 7 games but out of those 7 I have only survived 3 times into late.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

I would like to suggest each vet orders the remaining nations into groups of three, by his teams preference. Each nation to be chosen once.

If there are no conflicts on a teams choice, the team gets its choice. If a nation is desired by more than one team, neither team gets it.

This would encourage choosing lesser used nations.

So, for example


Mysterious.....Darlings.....Blessed.....Noobheim
Ermor..........Ermor........Tir.........Arco
Sauro..........Rlyeh........Pan.........Ulm
Hinnom.........Ulm..........Ctis........Aby
*************************************************
Cael...........Agartha......Ulm.........Pan
Yom............Hinnom.......Hinnom......Van
Rlye...........Fomoria......Tien........Hel


... etc.


In the first round the blessed's get their pick - no one else picked em. Everyone else had at least one one conflict, so they graduate to their second picks.

There are no conflicts in their second pics (Blesseds don't count as they got their first picks).

I would then say assign the AI's from the available first picks= )

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

I've played with hunt before happy to have him.

In the other games they had set up whiteboards and forums - how was that done, may I ask?

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Yep, we all recognize the contributions of nations to their team, even if the majority of the team is killed. We certainly won't rob a team of victory if there only happens to be a single player left on that team (no matter how likely). It's a team effort and will be a team win. Yes, this is not a victory driven game or game for ego centrists. [/quote]
I'm fine with vanilla for simplicity's sake and because to tell the truth, as a noob, I haven't played enough games with CBM and without to be able to note any game shattering differences or major drawbacks or benefits. In fact, I haven't played any with stock so I guess I sorta want to give it a try. But that is my opinion only. :)

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

even though i'm just an alt, i'd have to recommend CBM for sure. just the pretender part makes the choices and strats so much more interesting.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

That method would work fine (assuming I understand you correctly) grouping and choosing 3 uncontested picks at a time in a series of rounds, though there are likely to be quite a few conflicts so it will probably require a few rounds. So we would probably need a larger list of nations from each team, as opposed to if we were to just give each team their uncontested first, second, third, and so forth picks.

So we have 17 available nations (excluding the vet picks and water nations). Grouped into 3's and ranked from least to most desireable. That's 5 groups of 3's, I guess the sixth round/group would only contain 2 then?

Regarding the AI choices. If your intention above is to reserve some "decent" nations for the AI by assigning them out of the first round picks, that might work, though I'm sure Gandalf will be able to work with whatever is left.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Welcome Hunt, is that fine with you? No objections from the other captains?

If your team would like to use a forum, you can set up a free one at forumotion. Check with rdonj, if you need any advice. There may also be other free forums you can use.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

I value everyone's opinion. But if I don't hear some more of them from our starting team members I'm going with stock. So speak up people! :D

As the saying goes, if you say nothing, you have no say.

Research Standard
Hosting via Llamaserver
Mod: BI
Indy strength:4

Etc.

I'm fine with standard. I think with a large number of noob players, it is probably a good idea.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

CBM would be my choice too. Especially the Pretenders but I would just play CBM full given a choice.

It helps Noobs and AIs more than Vets as it in general makes weak things better. This means that poorer choices in Pretender design or army builds are not punished so much as they are more viable (but still not equal to the better choices) as they would be in stock. Plus it adds to the variety as more summons, pretender choices, spells, magic items and troop types become viable. It's also becoming the default mod for games. A year or two ago the only commonly seen mod was Worthy Heroes and most games had that. Now it's CBM - so even for learning purposes playing with CBM is better. Many/most of the modern guides are CBM or at least have CBM bits to them too.

I don't mind playing with stock but it is in all ways worse than CBM.

I also like graphs on, 15 Hall of Fame, Standard or Difficult research and Renaming On. After all humerous renaming of Thugs and Mages is part of the fun :)

EDIT: My Captain and I don't seem to agree on anything so far :p

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

I haven't played a game vanilla in over a year. Without CBM I almost don't know how to play anymore. Like several others, having at least CBM pretenders would be nice, since it makes a lot more pretenders usable. But I don't feel too strongly either way, I can cope if we end up playing w/out cbm.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

I'm good with having Chripederson as my captain.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

I'll sign up as a noob, only two games experience.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

I would just go with five groups of three, leaving two nations unbid for (increases the chances of no conflict).

Order the groups from most favorite to least favorite. Absent conflict, you get your entire group of nations.

Each team are going to put together concepts - so this lets a team get its entire concept - rather than a hodge podge.

If the entire 5 rounds go through with one or more teams with no choices, remaining teams repeat the process.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Ok hunt, your on Chris's team.

Hoplo, it is alright if you don't see totally eye to eye with your captain on certain things. I think a good captain should guide their charges and should allow a certain amount of room for individual choice.

Chris, I am aware the human teams may decide to go for a bless strategy, or some other theme or concept so I am sure a team would rank appropriate nations higher anyway. I'll let Gandalf work with the whatever is left for the AI team though. Much easier that way, unless he informs me otherwise.

If everyone is OK with Chris' idea, each team will need to come up with 15 nation picks, grouped into 3's, and arranged from most wanted to least desirable.

Welcome Rabbit, two slots left, you may join the Mysterios or The Blessed Ones.

Let's try to line up some reliable alternates too, saves time and trouble. And as usual, I will guarantee our alternates spots in future games and may give a first or second choice priviledge to them for helping out.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

I am assuming everyone is good with the revised option 1 starting locations.

With regard to CBM, I generally like the pretender enhancements and the worthy hero stuff, but some of the more recent changes give me pause. I am also concerned about possible conflicts with the BI mod. I am going to investigate a bit further and possibly contact QM or Edi regarding this. The BI mod removes most of the useless chaff units from the AIs choices anyway, so I don't know if it will help or hinder the AI.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

If more voices/votes make a difference, I would prefer CBM.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Well, it seems I will be co-adminning this game(unfortunately not playing it though).

I'm mostly going to be on the forums(and this thread) from about 17:00 GMT(5 pm) to about 1:00 GMT (1 am). (or about noon-8PM central standard time, for those in my part of the world.)

The best way to reach me for something urgent though is to PM me - I might go a few hours without reading the thread, but I'll usually get a PM within a few minutes.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Well, I do *not* want CBM because I'm in two CBM games already and CBM seriously generfs Niefelheim now :(.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

There is a lot of water under the bridge on this.

Dr.P was given Niefle, based on a nonCBM game. I've gamed more than 5 games preparing for the BI mod; the changes in 1.6 - no gem generators, item pricing changes is a *vast* difference from the starting conditions announced at the beginning.

I of course will *cheerfully* play anythign that is decided - I just think its late in the process to change the game conditions.

Edit: Ninja'd a bit by Dr.P. As I said the changes to Niefleheim are substantial enough to really make it unfair.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

In my opinion, it would be somewhat unfair to use CBM at this point, since DrP is playing a nation that he chose contingent on the non-use of CBM.

edit - Err, yeah. this was already said. :p

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Well I suggested CB Pretenders that have no impact on any nation playability(if that's even a word :p), not necessarily the whole CB mod to be used in the game.
Like I said, I'm merely suggesting this, as I feel CB Pretenders opens a whole other set of strategies for any nation.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Welcome Melnorjr, it is good to have a co-admin and one of our NvV alumni to help me out and act as an extra set of eyes. I think it will benefit everyone.

Since Gandalf will be doing the AI nations, I've asked for his recommendation as well. Gandalf is more familiar with stock and would prefer non-CBM in terms of his ability to work with and produce good AI builds and pretenders.

Though, I like Executors idea of using the CBgods in the split CBM only, I am concerned about the above and want to keep things simple and avoid any more delays if possible.

I am also concerned that with the complete CBM 1.6 that some may be advocating, the changes to gem gens, clams, fever fetishes, etc. may adversly affect some nations.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

I'll go with the blessed ones unless Septimus has a preference. Otherwise I won't be able to shake the feeling I'm on a genocidal crusade to promote the worship of a Mexican wrestler.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Hah, yes, the Mysterios. The team's name is deeply ingrained in the lore of NvV. :) Wonder if Executor will change it.

Ok, Rabbit, your on the Blessed Ones, hope you guys can find a captain soon. I am doing what I can to help.

Settings note: I'm changing the starting hosting interval to 32 hours to match what we had in NvVIII and allow more time for intra-team communcation.

Team Captains: If your starting team is complete you can begin the process of drawing up your ranked list of 15 nations. If you have a theme or concept in mind, might be a good time to discuss it with your group. After that or in lieu of it, one way to do it quickly is to have each member of your team send you their top 3-5 nation choices and build your list from those.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Ooooooookay, I don't get the whole Mysterious thing but no matter.
I have no problem with the team name, but we could always go for Dominions United. :)

Shouldn't we wait just a bit more with nation picks until we have all the teams filled?

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Actually, those teams who have their 4 starting members already (excepting our team and The Blessed Ones) can go ahead and draw up their list if they want. I forgot in my above post that we still need 1 more captain and his nation pick to exclude from our lists, but if The Deva's and Noobheim wish, they can just turn in the 15 + 1, and we will just cross off whatever the final captain picks from their lists when they submit them to me via PM.

It is optional, but I figured we might as well get something done while we are waiting for the last 2 starting slots to be filled.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

While I'd love to play in future team games along these lines (without AIs, I'd say), I think I'm passing on this one. If you need help designing pretenders for the AIs or such, though, I'd be happy to help Septimius.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Recruiting.
 

Thanks for your offer Iainuki, I'll keep you in mind. You were quite reliable and effective as an alternate in the last game, and I do wish you'd help us by filling an alternate slot on the team of your choice. This game has an interesting dynamic: multiple teams, mixed experience levels, an AI element, and since it is the first in this planned series, how it will play out, is anyone's guess and should be quite interesting to watch and/or be a part of.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Almost Full.
 

Hi folks,

I'd like to try this game as my first multiplayer. I read the categories and I guess I'm not a true noob because I've played a hundred or so SP games although they are mostly experimental. However, if you'd consider me a noob I'd like to take the spot on the mysterios.

Oh and my favourite nation is monkeys any age. Kailasa I mean. I've never tried Lanka.

Regards,
Maerlande

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Almost Full.
 

Welcome Maerlande. While you might not qualify as truly noobish, the majority of this game (around 80 percent) is purely MP, and since this is your first MP game, I'd say you qualify. Welcome to The Mysterios.

Now we just need a team captain for The Blessed Ones and we can get going.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Almost Full.
 

Suggest if a noob comes along that you let Rdonj captain.
He is certainly good enough.