ANDalusian Sun: Lolomo wins after more than 2 years of gruelling competition!
 

Finally. I finally made it.

It had taken me months of dubble shifts at work to save up the money for his trip, the low-cost airliner in which I had booked passage to Spain was hideously overbooked, leading to a frenzied shouting match before boarding, and an air-control strike led to a delay of many hours.

Upon arrival they told me that my luggage had missed the flight and would not arrive for several more hours, the bus from airport into town broke down halfway there resulting in a 5-mile hike and the shower in my motel room seemed incapable of providing water much above freezing tempratures. Flopping down on the bed in utter exhaustion rather than trying to scrounge up an evening meal in the middle of the night only served to acquaint me with the lumpiness of the matress and the dust in the horsehair blanket.

But all of that was in the past now. The early morning sun reflected off an endless expanse of blue water, the temprature already was balmy, and the pristine white beach stretched for miles in each direction. Best of all, it was a remote area, and I wouldn't have to bump into doddering pensioners, abrasive, overweight German couples and their whiny kids or arrogant Dutch adonises every time I turned around. It would be 3 weeks in heaven.

Working my way down from the cliffs I noticed a large vibrantly blue beach-towel and, more importantly, the person lying on top of it. And ooh, boy, what a specimen it was. If the personality was even a quarter as intresting as the package...

Shaking my head to clear it from the daydream that had suddenly found it's way into my mind I changed my course and started moving in that direction.

Finally stepping from the rocky path onto the soft sand of the beach I noticed 21 other persons emerging from differnt entrances to the beach, each of them with their eyes fixed on the same target.

I picked up my pace, for, in the end, there could only be one. the first one to introduce himself.


So, time for me to start up a new game I think. I have allways liked the RAND games for a change of pace, also enjoying not having to spend hours on diplomacy. (Or feeling guilty/worried because I was neglecting to.) However, I still played few enough games that there's several nations I still really, really want to try out, so I'll be dropping the R(andom nation assignment) and keeping the A(nonymous) N(o) D(iplomacy) parts.

For those wondering what the introduction was about: I have absolutely no idea, I was certainly not planning to write that when I clicked the 'New thread' button, but whatd'ya gonna do when something unexpected leaves your keyboard? (Besides, you try to find an (English) word starting with And you can write a dominions-related story about. Androgynous? Andorra? Android?) However, now that it's written I'm rolling with it. Style points for anyone going for a pretender design including Heat1/Sloth1 scales.

Settings:

Era: Late
Players: 13.
Independents: 5
money/Resources/supply: Standard
Reseach: Normal
Special Sites: 45
Hall of Fame: 15
Random events: common
Renaming: On, but only use them for MM purposes. Do not use it to give false informetion. (ie: don't name your W2S3 Starspawn S5 for whatever reason) In addition, make sure to give your pretender the name of your nations, in caps, (ie: ATLANTIS) so they're all the same.
Graphs: On (I generally like graphs off, but for a game where it's far more difficult to coördinate and impossible to share information things are different.)
Victory: Hold 8 VP's. (Half +1 of the total.)

Hosting schedule: Relaxed. (We're on holliday at an Andalusian beach, remember?) Starting at 24h, but becomming longer as needed.

Map: Riverlands (Attached to this post together with final map file for those intrested in it.)

Admin duties will be taken on by Dimaz. (With my heartfelt thanks.) PM him with any admin-relate issues, since letting me know (or asking for delays in the thread) might give away clues about your identity.

A note on dropping out and going AI: Since this is supposed to be a competitive game it should go without saying I expect everyone to fight to the end to the best of his abilities. (But I'm saying it anyway at the urging of people who've had bad experiences with the "should go without saying" theory.) Of course, sometimes real life intervenes and you can't play on. If that's the case, please try to at least notify the game admin (Dimaz) to let him know you're dropping out. Additionally, DO NOT SET YOUR NATION TO AI YOURSELF UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. If you truly think there's absolutely no point in continuing to play, run it by the admin first so he can judge for himself whether to indeed put it on AI, or to (try to) convince you to play on or find a sub.

Banned nation(s): I really hate to ban nations, but LA Ermor really isn't the best candidate to have around in no-diplomacy games, so unless there's an outcry against this decision they will be banned.

Mod Nations: The second reason I don't want nation assignments to be random. I want to include a couple of mod nations in the game, since I think there's quite a few quality ones around and want to give them a chance to shine in a bigger audience. However, randomly handing a mod nation to someone who has never seen it before and might have no intrest in playing a mod nation doesn't feel like the right thing to do. Since this still is an anonymous game I didn't want anyone suggesting their favorite nation, so I made the one-sided decision to make Ulm, Reborn and Jomon, Broken Swords available to play. Both can be found here for those wanting to take a look. Both of these are well made, balanced, and intresting to play in totally different ways, and as such have received the official "Amhazair Seal of Approval" (TM)

Other Mods: Combo mod for this game including CBM 1.84 and Lesser Holy War. As well as Jomon, Broken Swords. In addition it adds a minor gem income to the new sites from the Holy War mod. Attached to this post.

Who can play?: Since an anonymous game takes the equalizing element of diplomacy out of the game, this will not the best game for newer players to participate in. I'm not reserving this for the most hardened veterans only, but would advice against signing up if you don't have at least a few end-games under your belt. (I will ask whether you're certain if I don't know you(well))

Nation choices: Each player picked three nations he'd prefer to play in order of preference. After finishing signups nations were assigned by Sasooli, attempting to give everyone one of their choices. Full list of nations:



:medal: Winner: Lolomo playing Ulm. May eternal sunshine be his reward. :medal:



Still standing, but left behind in the dust:

T'ien Ch'i => Mockingbird
R'lyeh => Wraithlord


Tripped over his/her own feet and fell face-first in the sand:

Abysia => Dr.Praetorius: eliminated on turn 10.
C'tis => Yandav: eliminated on turn 35.
Atlantis => Priestyman subbing for Fantomen: eliminated turn 41.
Marignon => Llamabeast: Gone AI turn 41, eliminated turn 44.
Patala => Aethyr: eliminated turn 45.
Arcoscephale => Baalz: Gone AI turn 50.
Jomon (Broken Swords) => Amhazair: Eliminated turn 68.
Utgard => Don_Pablo: Eliminated turn 70.
Bogarus => Calahan, later Maerlande: Eliminated sometime when the sun was already down.
Mictlan => P3D, rejakor, CUnknown, Stagger Lee (Succeding each other at some time) Crumpled in sight of the target.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I have 3 job openings for ambitious people.

1) Since both mods have been gone over by the mod-compatability project to be compatible with each other and CBM I initially thought no more work would be needed. However I stumbled across this post: so apparently I was wrong.

Good news is it's apparently a very easy job. Anyone taking this up might want to wait until it's clear which (if any) of the mod nations end up being picked. (Also, if you prefer patiently teaching me how to actually do this myself instead of doing it yourself that would also be fine, allthough I'm afraid it will be signifficantly more work for you. ;)

2) Handling nation assignments

3) Adminning the game.

Since I will be playing myself I can't be doing 2 and 3 myself. If no-one volunteers I'll be sure to guilt someone into it though. :D

Remunaration for either of these jobs will be a hearfelt push on the "thanks" button. :)

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I'd be glad to play and I vote for CBM 1.8+.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I'll play.
1.83? Whatever the most recent is.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I would like to play.
I vote for CBM 1.83.

I would also like to request a predictable relaxed hosting schedule, something akin to the scheme I use in my relaxed games. like start with 24h and every 15 turns add 24h until end game settles on 120h. It's reasonable and players in my games enjoy the pace, except for those who like blitz-like games (but then again, relaxed games are not really their cup of tea anyway).

Q: If you ban Ermor then why keep R'lyeh?
Q: Are all other LA games available to choose from?

How much time do we have to prepare and make up our minds re. nation picks?

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

* I intentionally stayed away from fixing the hosting scheduled upfront (like I see you doing) since the people who normally play at a slower pace might be small/at peace/otherwise in a situation where they're fine with the schedule and thus there is no need to slow the game down. As I said though, I do intend this to be a relaxed game, so rest assured the turns will get longer as needed.

* I really see no reason to ban LA R'lyeh after the nerf/fixing of the popkill rate. I will admit not to have played them since, but from theoricrafting I would put them at a mediocre powerlever at best now, and everything I've heard about them from others confirms this. I also see no reason to ban any other nation. (Do you?)

* I have no specific start date in mind, I guess it depends on how fast signups go. I'm guessing that with waiting for signups and allowing a couple of days after nation assignments to practice a bit the very earliest we could get started is the weekend after this one.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Fair enough. I trust you not to make us slaves to dominions with crazy schedule ;)

I can't say for sure as with all the changes I lost track of current LA R'lyeh.

good :D

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I will have to think about whether I want to play. However I can definitely sort the mod for you.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

As promised, a big thanks for the Llama. :)

And, as an incentive to have you join: Look at my revamped OP: Fantomen suggested your version of Burnsabers Holy War mod. You really have to joint the first (possibly) MP game to use it, right? ;)

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

+1 to lesser holy war.

hopefully the Ember lord blinding bug would be fixed by CBM :angel before we start the game.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I sign up to play.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I'll play

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Hi.
Count me in. :)

What about using Asia_twist map?

I'd prefer to play with CBM 1.6 + EMD (latest)

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I'll play--thanks.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I'll join

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I would like to join. I vote for cbm 1.83 and including the lesser holy war mod

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

It so happens that AsiaTwist is one of my favorites so I vote for it too.

Looks like some fine gentleman have signed up so far :cool:

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I can play.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I sign up.
I'd prefer 1.6 with EDM.
Also without holy war, if possible.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I'm OK with either CBM 1.6 + the latest version of EDM, or 1.83. I'd like to give the lesser holy war mod a try.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Wait, take me off the list, I read "Experienced" as "Inexperienced" and I'm a newb.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Update - I can only play if renaming is on, for management purposes only.

I can avoid using my signature mage-naming scheme (which people probably recognize), but other than that, I simply cannot administer even a mid-game empire if I can't rename my units.

If people *want* to reveal their identities, you can't really stop them anyway.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

NooBliss and P3D, what would you mind filling me in on your experience level? I don't intend to offend, but since I don't know you guys (yet) and a game of this type just runs a lot better with players of a roughly similar level I'd rather ask, thatn just assume things.

Wellcome to all signups, and also: Hey, Lolomo, long time no see. I thought you weren't around anymore, but looks like I was wrong.

Dr.P.: I suppose we can turn renaming on as long as everyone uses renaming for management purposes only and is very careful not to do anything fancy with it.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I prefer renaming on as well, for the same reasons.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I'd like to join;)

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Thanks for this. For some reason your name seemed very familiar to me, so I signed you up without question. I don't know if I confused you with someone else, or what went on in my brain, but happy to be corrected.

Ossa, same question for you as for others before: I see you signed up in 2008, so you at least have had the time to accumulate quite a bit of experience, but since I don't think I've come across you before I'll ask you to confirm this.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I think Ossa qualifies (up to him to say of course). But it's kind of funny he keeps getting questioned - check out this conversation from one of Calahan's newbie games.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

About 10 MP games, getting to late-game phase in about half of them.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Alrighty, then I choose Ermor.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I do keep getting questioned quite offen;)

To make an educated guess - I've played about 30 MP games from start to finish so far. I've won only 2 or 3 of them, but I've also done a few random/no diplo games so far.

So yes, I do think I qualify;)

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Unfortunately I can't join this great game due to time concerns but I signed for admining it. So please contact me when my duties as admin will be needed. Preferred method of contacting me is by PM here, usually I'm offline 2:00 - 9:30 Moscow time, and keep refreshing forum page at least every few hours during rest of the day.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Just popped in to let everyone know I'll be gone for most of the weekend, so feel free to subscribe, discuss and fool around at your leisure, and I'll process it all after the weekend.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Yup, still going strong especially with the new cbm changes. Although I've dropped from simultaneously playing 6 games during my newbie year to 3 now, with a soft spot for no trading settings :p

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Maybe we can set out a few standard renaming nomenclature that anybody can adopt:

fe2
fee
FE2
Fe2
fE2
FEE
Fee
f ee
f e2
I guess any of the above would be quite anonymous.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I'd like to play. I have no vote on mods but will withhold my nation prefs until they settle out.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Sasooli has agreed to manage nation assignments, so feel free to PM him your nation choices whenever you feel ready. (No rush, as I imagine exact settings, map and # of players might influence that choice.)

It also looks like the preference is going towards CBM 1.83 and using the Holy War mod. I'll allow the rest of the weekend for further dicussion and cut the knot then.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Of those I'd prefer the first one.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Do we have finalization on settings, and, most important for nation selection, mods?
Are we go or no go for lesser holy wars?- Same for CBM 1.83.

Sasooli handles nations assignments and Dimaz will admin, right?

Edit: Sasooli has PMs turned off.
I vote for fe2 as well

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Perhaps I'm being (over) infuenced by experiences in my last two MP games, but I'd suggest we consider adding the Banned Spells mod.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

What, no BoT and no AC?- I'm sorry Aethyr, but I wouldn't like to see them banned. I don't think they're OP or abuse-able, they're just extremely annoying - yet part of the fun of this game.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

It's just a suggestion, I'm not saying they are OP, just an "annoyance" I can do without. :smirk: I'm cool with whatever either way. :)

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I know you didn't say they're OP, neither did I say that I was thinking that you were thinking that I was saying that you were saying that they were OP :D
Bah, I blame it all on trigger happy Executor ;)

On a more somber tone - I will accept the majority decision here and already stated my preference.

Oh, and I think I managed to PM Sasooli on the other forums.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I vote against banning spells.

This look very interesting: http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/...?showtopic=377
It's an experiment in improving the spellcasting AI, if Llamabeast thinks it's ready for MP testing I'd be willing to give it a whirl.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

You know, obviously it's brand new and kind of experimental, but actually I think it might be good for MP testing (once people have had a quick prod in SP). Because it just has two effects:

- Self-buff and summon spells will only be cast when scripted (with the exception of Raise Skeletons), or when the mage has absolutely nothing else to do
- Self-buff spells can be cast repeatedly (with no additional benefit of course). This is obviously undesirable, but in reality I think it hardly matters - you won't script to cast them repeatedly, so it will only come up when the mage has nothing to do, for example as the enemy are running away.

So I am optimistic that it will give a straightforwardly beneficial effect to casting AI. More Lightning Bolts, less Phantasmal Warriors. All your astral mages shouldn't cast Twist Fate, Resist Magic, Astral Shield, Personal Luck every single battle (unless you want them to). And hopefully, your massed ranks of fire mages won't cast Phoenix Pyre!

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

llamabeast, your mod sounds great and I'd like to try it out in SP but I think it's premature to introduce it to this game. I'm more concerned with what we don't know about it than what you told us, i.e. all those possible undesired side effects or possible bugs that needs to be ironed out.

I think a smaller MP game focused on play-testing this mod would be more appropriate. Perhaps as early as a week or two from now you'd have enough feedback to at least "beta" your mod. If it were "beta" then I'd be in favor of adding it, currently it's probably more "alpha" state.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

WraithLord, I think you're right, this is too big a game to get too experimental on. Just got overexcited. :)

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I think I will have to drop out. My kid is sick again, and I was mostly excited about the holy war mod. Plus I just fell asleep from exhaustion and staled in a different game.

Definitely not time for a new one, sorry for the tease.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I think some sort of executive decision (as democracy sucks) needs to be made regarding just how ""experimental" this game is going to be in regards to mod testing, and decide whether or not a (R)AND game is the best setting for mod testing.

Since not only are (R)AND games meant to be a more 'serious' type of game than regular games, there is also the simple mod-testing problem of it being a lot more difficult to provide feedback on the mods being tested, as you will often have to wait until the end of the game to do so. Since you can't just post in the relevant mod thread saying "I just had a fight and encountered a bug with XYZ", since a sharp eyed player can easily join the dots to the error report and the in-game battle to work out which nation a player is. (and I've seen countless anonymous ID's given away with careless posts in other threads). You could PM the bug to the mod creator of course to safeguard your ID, but players often get both lazy and forgetful, leading again to the careless thread post problem.


As someone who has done a lot of laborious testing with the casting AI, I really would add a note of caution to using any mod that adds spells to the game. Since while the modding code to add new spells isn't that hard if you know the system, and indeed it might look snazzy to add a few minor spells thinking "that won't do any harm", the actual effects it has on the casting AI in-game need to be thoroughly tested IMO before seeing use in proper/serious (call them what you will) games.

Since I'm sure any Machaka player will testify to how annoying just one spell can be in ruining a perfectly good mage. As they line up their item/spell boosted F5E5D1 Black Sorcerers on the battlefield expecting them to decimate armies with a range of Evo's for minimum fatigue, only to see the casting AI regularly decide that no, I don't want to kill the enemy, as I think the best thing is to utilise the D1 path and summon a skeleton for 30 fatigue instead. And if you haven't encountered similar problems with certain spells (Protection!!) for most nations, then you likely just haven't played the game enough.

But the point of the above example is to highlight how just one spell can screw up an entire nation's mage line-up, and this means adding new spells *really* has to tested in relation to how they affect the casting AI of mages, and not just "what the spell does". During my testing I also found that (unsurprisingly) mage-priests got an even more rotten deal with the casting-AI, as they can be easily distracted from using their mage paths if even one banishment target is on the battlefield (and not just in testing, as skelly spam to distract mage-priests is an example of just one tactic I'm sure many players will testify to having seen/used). And if there are H2 mage-priests around, then one sight of a deomn will see them spamming smite demon all day long (regardless of how high it's MR is)

And having looked at the Holy War mod this morning, I think a few spells there could potentially just make a mage-priest pretty much redundant in battle. As spells like True Heal and Divine Protection could easily see mage-priests happy to spam them all day long in every battle. Which may be good for *just* priests, but not so good for mage-priests, who will likely have something better to do with their mage paths than lightly healing/buffing a handful of troops.


Oddly, I'd be more confident personally about using llama's Well Behaved Wizard Mod than Holy Wars, since WBWM appears to be just a light version of a mod I'm currently working on to improve the casting AI, and as such I know that I've done a fair bit of battlefield testing on the effects that the changes have on the casting AI. But this confidence is purely my own, and there's no way I would project it outwards by saying my mod is ready for testing in a real game. And certainly not outside of a game with the stark proclaimer of *This is a very casual game to test an extremely experimental mod, and the consequences it will have on a proper game are totally unknown. As such please don't play if you don't like the thought of your game being potentially ruined due to changes the mod makes to how spell-casting works*


I'm not sure if I will be playing in this game yet, but whether or not I do isn't relevant to what I've said above. I'm all for creating mods and seeing them get some air time for testing, but like I said at the very top, I think some clarification is needed from those in charge on what the guinea pig setting for this game will be (since don't forget, if the game ends up using CBM 1.83, then there are still sections of that which are comparatively un-tested as well)

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

Well, Holy War has already seen a fair bit of MP testing. The new version is just a slightly toned down version of the well tested version. I don't remember having any issues in previous games with the mod, and certainly no-one has reported anything about AI problems.

Re: ANDalusian Sun. Anonymous LA game for (rather) experienced players (Recruiting)
 

I think I will play in this game after all, if there's still space for me.

My votes (predictably) are for CBM1.83 and for Holy War, since I think Burnsaber did a nice job on it and it's interesting.