PBEM game: Song of the Blade (Running)

[Alneyan]

The final roster is as follow:
- Blofeld: Vanheim - Standard theme
- Oversway: Man - Last of the Tuatha
- Panther: Ermor - Broken Empire
- PDF: Mictlan - N/A
- Gryffin: Jotunheim - Iron Woods
- Steerpike: Abysia - Standard theme
- The_Tauren: Ulm - Black Forest
- Turms: Machaka - N/A
- Alneyan: Arcoscephale - Standard theme

The settings of the game:
- Map: Inland
- Independents: 6
- Research: very hard
- Renaming is on, HoF has 15 entries.
- Victory condition: controlling half the capitals, though the game may go on if the player in control of the capitals wishes it.
- Nations will be assigned randomly, and themes must be announced publicly.
- All the other settings as default

Mods: a mod making hoarding items much less appealing 4 Water/1 Astral for the Clams, 3 Nature/3 Fire for the Fetishes, 4 Blood and 2 Earth for the Bloodstones. Zen Pretenders 2.0 will be used as well: it can be downloaded from here, and the change list is available here.

My mail addresses : alneyan[AT]fastmail[DOT]co.uk and alneyan[AT]dom2minions[DOT].com (replacing [AT] and [DOT] by @ and .)


And my common hosting policies:
- The host (myself) will probably be playing in the game. I will choose my nation when most spots have already been filled, or last if we go with the random order.
- The deadlines will be at a fixed hour, so any turn running earlier than expected will result in a longer deadline for next turn. In other words, if a game is scheduled to turn at 2000 GMT, and I received all the files at 1400, the game will run at 1400 and the next deadline will be on tomorrow at 2000. The game will only go ahead of the schedule if we gain a full day; for example, if I receive all the files by Sunday 1800 instead of Monday 1800, the next deadline will be on Tuesday 1800 and not Wednesday 1800 (as it would have been otherwise).
- Whenever possible, I will send a status mail about the turns I have received. If we are under a 24 hours schedule, the status mail will be sent as soon as I can, though it may be as late as three/four hours before the deadline. If we are playing with a 48 hours turnaround or more, the status mail will be sent 24 hours before the deadline.
- Two mails will be used for this game. If one of the mails has bounced, feel free to resend it on both addresses, even if I have likely already received it on my other mail. If you want to make sure your turn did reach me, I also have a third mail set to send a "message received" mail (dominions2[AT]yahoo[DOT]fr).
- Mails will be sent to each nation individually, so you do not really need to set a password as you will only get the files for your nations. The fatherland file will not be sent to the players.
- All turn files will be backed up on one of my two mails.

[Steerpike]

Yeah, I really like the random nation Idea, why not go further and randomise what nation you actually get.
People who have their Pet nations will be put out of their comfort zones.
Im in regardless.

[Alneyan]

I have nothing against random nations, though it may be a bit drastic. Then again, the best way to discover other nations is to play them.

[TheBirthdayParty]

I'm in. Palesunn@worldnet.att.net

[The_Tauren13]

Panther and I are in. As for the CD key problem, I don't have any problem with you seeing my capitol every turn. Also... I think going totally random on the nations would be really cool.

And by the way everyone, Alneyan is a great host

[Alneyan]

So, the roster would be:
- Panther
- Steerpike
- TheBirthdayParty
- The_Tauren
- Alneyan

Random nations it shall be then! I will put myself somewhere in the order, according to the Rule of the Die.

Should I remove the water nations from the list of nations? Inland has only a few water provinces, but it may make for an interesting position. Or perhaps not.

[Blofeld]

I'm in. Random nations could be fun - I have to start playing something else than Ctis or Marignon at last.

[Oversway]

I'd like to join. I think Zen's balance mods would improve the game, especially the pretender one.

[Alneyan]

Blofeld said:
I'm in. Random nations could be fun - I have to start playing something else than Ctis or Marignon at last.

Blofeld! Please sign that non-aggression pact, for a duration of 200 turns! No strings attached, no fine print (none that the naked eye can see at least), a once-in-a-lifetime offer! I'm cutting me own throat!

Welcome aboard Oversway and Blofeld. It makes seven of us, so I guess there is still room for a couple more players. The current settings go as follow; feel free to protest if something does not quite strike your fancy.

- Map: Inland
- Independents: 6
- Research: very hard
- Renaming is on, HoF has 15 entries.
- Victory condition: controlling half the capitals, though the game may go on if the player in control of the capitals wishes it.
- Nations will be assigned randomly
- All the other settings as default
- Mods: a mod making hoarding items much less appealing (I think I will go with Panther's values: 5 Water for the Clams, 3 Nature/3 Fire for the Fetishes, 4 Blood and 2 Earth for the Bloodstones). Zen Pretenders will be enabled as well.

And the remaining queries about the settings:
- Should water nations be kept out of the game?
- For the victory condition, should it be "full control" of half the capitals, or would "being besieged" be enough?

[The_Tauren13]

Alneyan said:
- Mods: a mod making hoarding items much less appealing (I think I will go with Panther's values: 5 Water for the Clams, 3 Nature/3 Fire for the Fetishes, 4 Blood and 2 Earth for the Bloodstones).

Erm, I couldn't agree more that clams are way underpriced, but 5W??? Couldn't we stop at 4W? I think 4W 1S would be cool. And what about soul contracts? Am I the only one who thinks those are just as badly underpriced?