Small games available (Blitz or Player vs AI or SemiRand or Chaos or CBM)
 

Latest patch is to Dominions 3.23b
and CBM 1.6

As requested, there is now a one-stop check screen for those who do not need the descriptions of each game type and additional info. It lists the games, ports, which games are open, AND which ones have someone joined that is waiting for more players to begin.

http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/waiting_chk.cgi


New games have been created. Pick one and make it yours.
See this thread.. How to Run a Game

The open blitz games can be found here.
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/blitz_chk.cgi

Games with three allied AI's vs 1 to 4 human players.
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/vsAI_chk.cgi

Games with 3 allied AI's vs 1 to 4 players on 80 province maps that have been run thru the SemiRandomizer program to add interesting provinces to the game.
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/srand_chk.cgi

Games with 3 allied AI's vs 1 to 4 players on 80 province maps that have been run thru the chaotisizer program.
BEWARE! Scout carefully and take nothing for granted.
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/Chaos_chk.cgi

The open CBM modded games can be found here.
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/cbm_chk.cgi

More games to come later.
Feel free to suggest some.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Note that new games have been added to the server.
Players vs AIs. Three AIs are randomly selected and placed into the game allied with each other. They will not attack each other, only the human players. You can play singly against them. Or start a game with other human players and ally against the AIs. The game allows 1 to 4 human players along with the 3 AIs on a randomly generated 80 province map.

This is a good way for newbies to break into multiplaying. You can get used to the way such games run, and the messaging, the dealing, etc without feeling like a lamb in a lions den.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Thanks Gandalf

I tried playing an AI game but I wasn't able to start it. In the "Select Nation" screen it appears as though something continues to cause the screen to update so I'm not able to scroll down to the Start Game button quickly enough to actually click it (on Linux). Haven't seen this before but I assume it's a dom3 issue. I don't know what you could do about this except maybe remove a nation or two so users don't have to scroll down to click Start Game.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Thanks for your work, Gandalf.

Should this tread be pinned? I think it should get more favor and gather other ones' notice.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

I accidentally started a game alone (vsAI_tarot, port 6778)... could the admin (Gandalf?) somehow reset that game? I was really only just testing how the server works. :)

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Actually the vsAI games will allow you to play with one person. But I will kill that one and start a replacement game. Its easier than restarting it.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

I dont like too many pins. Its mentioned in the sticky about MP servers (which needs redone I guess), and then resurrecting this thread once in awhile helps.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

I think the sticky about MP servers could be redone - if I get time I could have a whack at writing something for some more responsible person.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Yes when it was done, each poster could edit their own post for changes. Now only the first post can be edited. So it will need to be a shortlist of the servers, with added notes about each one in posts following that.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Bump. No one has any advice about my problem? I feel like it's something really obvious that I'm missing but I'm not sure what it is.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Doh! Wrong patch version.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

I thought that was supposed to be fixed in the latest patch.
Or maybe its fixed for me because I switched my screen size to a more default setting.

But before then I would play cat and mouse with the start button. Trying to scroll down and click start at the same time. Having a scroll wheel helped but maybe the downarrow and mouse together can do the same thing. It took me a few tries but eventually I did get the game started.

Or you can always join first, then wait for someone else to join and start it.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Update:
The first post has been updated to reflect the Chaos games. The are popular and I will keep them on the lists altho I might do some updates to the program which generates them.

I might drop the CBM games since they dont appear to be very popular

More new games are in the works. Such as:

A program which randomly generates entirely new nations you can play against for each new game.

Musical Chairs Blitzes (the last player to turn in their turn always stales)

Scenario Games for players-vs-alliedAIs (Mother Nature is pissed, Ermor Established, Crunch Time, we forgot to worry about the Independents)

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

If anyone wants to run a mid-sized or large game I am willing to host it with lots of extras.

Also the Dom3Minions site is being changed. Nerfix did a great job creating the old one but this sloppy version of mine is just easier for me to update. It doesnt slow down my projects.
http://www.Dom3Minions.com

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Gandalf,

I really like the chaos games, but something strange happened in one I played today: the god of Special Monsters (one of the two) was vanquished. Not sure what effect that would have had on the game because I only played a dozen turns, but I thought that might be a sort of bug.

Also, I patrolled my capital on turn 1 at 150%, and on turn 2 had ~75 unrest. It seemed very unlikely that this was a random number generation outcome...Do you overlay capitals with hidden magic sites (my guess was that a hidden unrest-causing site contributed to it)?

All in all, I love the chaos games. Facing 5 Lords of Rebirth backed by 15 copies of the same unique hero can be strange sometimes, but definitely a blast.

Cheers,
cleveland

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

The Special Monsters (both of them) are just AIs with the rest.
They get a randomly placed home, a castle, a god, and do the same AI things that the other AI nations do. And they work their way across the board.

What they toss into the game is the ability to blend with the independents. They get the same white banner as indepts so it seems as if the independent province next to you suddenly decides to attack you.

If they die its no big deal. Having the Independent nation in the game as an AI isnt working very well. They basically dissapear on turn one. That leaves behind a castle with large population that is basically free to grab (not as much as it used to be, but still not hard to get). I might take that one out and beef up the special monsters.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

So far it seems as though the CBM games get hardly any activity compared to the other games. Im probably going to take that down to make room for some other variation.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

OK the latest effort has proven that some people do seem to enjoy the CBm games so that group of games has won a reprieve.

The web site has included a consolidated games page off of the main menu. At the Dom3minions.com web site, clicking on "Hosted Games" leads to this page.
(dont laugh too hard. Its only a temp page :) )
http://www.dom3minions.com/HostedGames.htm

Most of the Chaos games were reset today to allow for a new version.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Gandalf,

I tried to sign up for a few of the games. I wasnt' able to at all.. no contact with server.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

By the way, how do you set up the AIs as allies?

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Are you able to connect to any dom3 servers?
I dont seem to have a problem.
Maybe you can send me your IP address. I might have it blocked altho I block very few IPs

There is a map command
#allies {number} {number}
so I generate the random map for the game, and then randomly select AIs for that age. Then I append the map with lines to ally those AIs.
#allies 0 2
will make Arcos and Ulm in an era 1 game set as allies. They will not attack each other. It doesnt seem to do anything more than that but it makes a big difference when they arent throwing armies at each other and both concentrate on you. :)
(no need to do an #allies 2 0 back, it handles both ways)

I also created a scenario of a mod&map which put all 3 Pangaeas and both Oceanias in one game all allied. I called it "Natural Selection" and the description started out "Mother Nature is Pissed!"

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Cool, I didn't know about the #allies command.
Thanks.

As for the other issues, dont' know. Will check into it a bit more later.
Any chance you can change format a bit for 6 man games, as those are the only ones going into hall of fame, yes?

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Im not big on the hall of fame.
Im always willing to host larger games if people want to spark interest in them. But we have a problem now with people joining then not coming back to see when others have joined.

But if someone wants to create a new "standard" game and generate interest in it, it is always a public server and Id be willig to create a new category for it.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

NOW ANNOUNCING:

The SemiRandom program is now running on my server.
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/srand_chk.cgi
In the standard arrangement games have been created for all 3 eras.

The maps are randomly generated with 80 provinces, then run thru the SemiRandom program to add interesting provinces (10%). Also 3 AIs are added which are set not to attack each other. Each game can accept from one to four players. So you can start it at one and play by yourself just to see what the SemiRandom program is about. Or wait for others to join. At 4 players it will auto-start.

If you want to speed up joiners, start a thread about the game to pitch it and discuss.

Please keep in mind that the SemiRandom program NEEDS YOUR HELP to improve. Design provinces, design gods, come up with names for the names lists, etc. Help it grow.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=34826

Note on Gods: hopefully I can add the AI gods into these games later.

Gandalf Parker

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

It should be somthing obvious but i currently dont get it.
I know how to join a game and have a little MP experience.
But how do i communicate with other players and how do i know when the turn will end in these games?

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

The first post say patch version .21 and CBM 1.3. That seems a bit outdated, will there be an update or is the information old?

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Each of the checker pages have a link to a "how to join" page.
http://game.dom3minions.com/how-to.html
if that is unclear in any way please let me know so I can try to improve it.

Communicating with other players can be done in-game. Or if you start a seperate thread here with the game name in the subject then you can chat about the game here. Thats how most people do them.

Or for really fast games where everyone continually turn in their turns and the whole thing is played in one or two days then you can create a chat room either on this site (there is a link at the top of this page that says "chat") or by using some other chat site such as the Dominions chat in IRC. Its even possible to setup a voice chat like game consoles use if you really want to.

When you connect to the game it always tells you when the next turn is due. But on request I can easily have any game copy its
scores.html file to a web-accessable directory for online viewing.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Thank you very much for pointing that out. I have now updated it.

I tend not to notice alot unless someone actually mentions it or I can automate it. Thats why Im not much on being the one to maintain a mod or tool. Id rather someone else took the idea and ran with it.

As for the CBM games Im afraid that they particularly dont get much attention. I know that some people swear by them and feel that all of the Dom games use it but I havent really seen much evidence of that. My morning page in my browser includes a tab with a personal admin cgi
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/admin_chk.cgi
which shows me open games and reminds me to make sure there are always 2 for each era in each game type. The cbm games seem to be the ones I least have to open new games for in the mornings. So I appreciate it when someone reminds me to update or something with them.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

The server that Dom3Minions is on will be making some changes. Part of it involves that the IP numbers are going to be changing. The change SHOULD go smoothly and transparently (and all the server admins lol). All of this should happen sometime within the week.

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

can you update the cbm games to 1.6? we been playing 'em some in the channel as none of us can host. ty
Zlefin :)

Re: Small games available (Blitz, CBM and Allied AI's)
 

Is 1.6 finalized? The thread made it sound like a temporary one. I kept watching the first post to change, or for someone to tell me (Im not real interested in following it)

Altho at this point Im probably going to hold off starting any new games since the switch over will probably mean restarting all of them anyway.

Re: Small games available (Blitz or Player vs AI or SemiRand or Chaos or CBM)
 

Since Dom3 is now downloadable we are getting some new interest from people who are considering it that didnt before. So, to help things along I am re-opening the Dom3 DEMO versions for multiplay.
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/demo_chk.cgi

Re: Small games available (Blitz or Player vs AI or SemiRand or Chaos or CBM)
 

OK Im re-examining the games on the server. I have some Id like to see made available. But apparently Ive hit abit of a ceiling. The server is running well (knock on virtual wood) and seems as though it could handle more with no problem but Dom3 itself seems to dislike having more than 100 to look thru. Thats 100 games, 100 maps, 100 mods, etc. Between the "always open" Ive already listed, and the ever growing number of personal games being setup on the server, I seem to hit 100 active games fairly often.

I could maybe divide up the workload to separate logins, but Im not totally sure that would fix the problem. I could try playing with using the dom3 config variables to refer to different directories for maps and such for each game type but thats probably more test work than Im up for anymore.

So I might cut back on some of the less popular games in order to try out some new ones. The most popular of the "always open" games seems to be Blitz, vsAI, and SemiRand. Ive already cut Demo in half. I guess I might cut CBM and Chaos from 2 games in each era to just 1 in each era.

Id like to try PI maps (Partial Independents) with AI's next. Or possibly a ComboMod version of as many mods that add to the game as I can possibly fit into one mod download. Or maybe a re-occurring Scenario if I can figure out one that could be script-generated newly each time effectively.