Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Your nation's income is the highest, so you must be doing something right to bring in the gold.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Wait, it is? Damn, this is a poor world. I am perpetually broke.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Ya, I thought I had pretty low income, then I look at the graphs and I was up there. I have not been looking at the graphs until now.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Fe Fi Fo Fum I Smell Marignon Scum!!!

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Just a correction, Machaka, not Marignon, bought the Armored Fist of God.

I started to ask myself, I hired someone? And I haven't used them yet? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Moi? Is my stench that bad? My inquisitors are making the filthy masses bathe, so I can't think it's that bad.

Are you sure you aren't confusing me with that nasty little god who likes spiders? hehehehe

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Oops, you're right. Damn those similarly colored standards!

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Hmm. I could be doing that.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Turn 16

The province tally is: Machaka 16, Ermor 15, Marignon 11, Pythium 9, Arcosephale 9, Jotunheim 8, Man 8, and Pangaea 7. Man found gems. Ermor had a substantial loss in army size. Ermor rehired Dagan the Sage.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Turn 16

Not much too report.

Starting to get scared for my survival a bit.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Some unsolicited advice: most nations stand to gain quite a lot by building forts here and there. A fort serves several purposes:

- If a province is protected by a fort, it cannot be taken in a single turn: at the very least, the attackers will need to spend two turns to take a fortified city, possibly more if the fort has a higher defence. A single turn may be all you need to bring in reinforcements: the Faery Trod spell (Nature) and Gateway (Astral) allow a commander to travel with all the units under his/her command. Faery Trod only works to reach forests, and Gateway requires a lab in the targetted province (Astral Travel lifts this requirement).

- Similarly, a province protects your buildings, especially the temples (automatically destroyed if you lose the province). Ideally, every temple will be protected by a temple, as otherwise some cheap raiders could make you lose those 200 gold coins, along with the usual expenses of defeat.

- A fort protects the units and commanders it contains. This can be a problem sometimes, as you cannot both research/forge/blood hunt and fight an attacking party. Still, your mages should be protected whenever possible, and you probably do not want your sages/blood hunters to be left in the open. Magical attacks can still reach commanders hiding in the fort however: those include Earth Attack, Mind Hunt and Flames from Afar/the Skies.

- A fort protects the sites contained in the province. If a province produces several gems a turn, you will likely want to keep it well under control, especially if you make heavy use of those gems. Sites giving large bonuses (a discount on all spells of a certain school) or giving nice independent mages should be protected with special care too.

- A fort allows you to recruit all your national units and commanders. Most nations can recruit good national mages outside their capital, freeing the main fortress to recruit your most powerful mage every turn. If nothing else, a fort could allow you to recruit that Assassin you so badly want, without having to sacrifice one turn of mage recruitment in the capital. Some nations will gain a lot from being able to recruit several mages every turn, while others will have so-so mages outside the capital (Man only has the Bard for example, while Caelum can recruit all its mages everywhere).

- A fort should increase income by a percentage equal to %admin, and will double resource production in the province; it also drains resources from neighbouring provinces. Lastly, if you are besieged, you will still get *some* income from the province (not much, but some), and you will keep all the victory points of the province.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Turn 17

The province tally is: Machaka 17, Ermor 17, Marignon 12, Pythium 9, Arcosephale 9, Jotunheim 9, Man 8, and Pangaea 7. Man has a new fort. Pythium, Man, Ermor, Jotunheim, and Machaka found gems. Pangaea had a substantial increase in army size. Burelk's City Guard is available for hire. Contracts for Obscuro and the Armored Fist of God are up for renewal.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Turn 17

Everything going its merry way.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Woot. I found some very useful for me sites.
And...
Jotuy
I
Realy
Dislike
Those
Giants
On
My
Border!

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Then move your borders elsewhere =P
I really dislike those longbowmen on my border!
And such a nice watch tower you have there http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

My longbowmen move around, you giants have sat there for several turns.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

All new players should read this thread that QM just authored in the main forum. It contains one of the most valuable guides to exploiting the power of your pretender or other powerful SC.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Ya, I just read it, it was a good read

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

One more thing from the graphs .... Machaka appears not to have done any research in the last turn. Eating its seed corn? Machaka has no competition for last place in research.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...rch_Turn17.jpg

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Maybe machaka did a mass summoning, or attacked with all its

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Well, at least Machaka is in last place with something.

I'm middle to bottom of the road on most graphs, coming in last on dominion. Grrr!! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image.../firedevil.gif

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Yeah, they have really good chairs in that province, must have a "Chair Artisan Guild" site http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Or they have a pub. Really good ale...

>hic!<

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

C'mon, they are giants. They probably just got confused walking around and don't know what to do now, because they forgot already. So they're just standing around waiting for instructions. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Okay this is really odd. I shot a turn back (inside of 15 minutes) after I got the latest turn yesterday. I've been waiting for the next turn to happen and then it turns out folks are waiting on me. Sorry to everyone if this is my fault but maybe I'm not getting all the emails?

Alneyan, can you do a read confirmation receipt on 1 or 2 emails to me to make sure they are getting to me?

Thanks.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

Aha! You're the culprit! hehehe Just kidding. I was on a mini vacation the last week, so I was slow submitting a turn or two. But I'm hoping we can get in a few turns this weekend. Things are just now getting interesting.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Running)
 

I am not sure how mail receipts work, but I will try it out. You are not the only one who failed to get turns lately; I believe Yahoo's SMTP has been having a lot of trouble recently. I will probably try to send my mails from Gawab's SMTP from now on, though I am not sure if there will be much of an improvement.

It is very odd that I failed to get your mail however. You should use both mails (a standard reply should result in that) to reduce problems on this end: if there is a problem on my side, having two mails should solve it. Of course, if you have a problem sending mails too, it will not help much. Sadly, I believe most problems are likely to be on the side of the sender, rather than on the receiver.

New turn is being sent.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

I was wondering, other than death sites, what kind of sites can cause an increase in unrest?
Also, it seems that my cold scales are none-existant (that is, not a single one of my provinces is cold, including the capital!), is there any explanation other than I somehow forgot to take my cold scale? :\

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Blood sites cause unrest.

If none of your provinces are cold then you forgot to take your cold scale.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

You should expect your temperature scale to be different by 1 from the picked value, most of the time, due to the climate. If you have seen no Cold provinces in 18 turns, then you did forget to take the scale (and with Cold 2, you should have at least Cold 1 even in summer, and Cold 2/3 in the other seasons).

If a province gets 15 unrest per turn, you should search for Blood sites: only one site gives that much unrest (if memory serves), and it will allow you to summon one devil per turn. 5 unrest per turn is usually a Brigand's Lair, but not always.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Okay, thanks for the advice.
I think I remember a while ago there was a reported bug where scales wouldn't show up, even after many turns (I think it was someone who took the Order scales and never got it, even after 30 turns, in his capital. Or was that bug squashed in a recent patch?

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

It could be the same problem indeed. The 2.16 patch does nothing to solve the problem: in the 2vs2, Panther playing as R'lyeh had several scales missing on turn 2. I don't know if heat/cold scales can disappear that way, but why not?

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Turn 18

The province tally is: Machaka 18, Ermor 18, Marignon 12, Arcosephale 10, Pythium 9, Jotunheim 9, Man 9, and Pangaea 8. Machaka has a new fort and is now the category leader with a total of three forts. Man is now clearly in second place for income, though it is well behind first place Machaka. Ermor and Jotunheim found gems, and Machaka has lost some gem income. Ermor is now tied with Pangaea for third place in research. Marignon had a substantial increase in dominion and moved from last place to fifth. Man rehired Obscuro. The Armored Fist of God is still unemployed. Victor's Villains and Dagan the Sage will also be open for bidding. In the Hall of Fame, Marignon is doing well with three living celebrities. Arco has two living celebrities.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

I have 2nd highest income, arg, I feel so poor.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

I got jotuys 2h file and mans(me) trn file for turn 17 and not turn 18.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Turn 18

My scouts finally find Man. I'm looking at your homeprovince now, Man.

My sitesearching spells consistently fail to find sites http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

I'd suggest you evacuate that scout right now, if he means anything to you.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

I can't play cause the turn file i got was for turn 17 and I also got jotuys 2h file argle nargle!!!

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

I have resent the correct turn file several hours ago (about 15 minutes after I got your mail, perhaps slightly less).

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Ya, I just chcked now.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Great, so I get your email, got here to respond and now gmail has a server error!. Arg

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Okay, it seems I am caught up turn-wise. You should have also received my latest turn.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Did you recieve statusmail?

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Okay, gmail started working again. I sent my turn.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

In case the gmail users are still having problems, here is Alneyan's latest status mail:

I am not sure what Alneyan has in mind when asking people to upload turn files to Shrapnel. As far as I know, you can't send attachments by PM.

I suppose that someone could use encryption to post a file publicly, and only the intended recipient (Alneyan) would have the decryption key. However, using encryption would be extra work and a possible source of kinks.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

It just means that Man should upload their turn file publicly here (or on another FTP). The .2h file might be used to get information on them, but that would require quite a knowledge of how the game works (I guess you could figure out the master password on your own if you have such knowledge).

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Ill email it again but how do I attach a file?

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

When posting a message, tick "I want to preview my post and/or attach a file". Then you will have the option to attach a file. It won't be needed this time around though, as the turn has run fine.

I did get the turns for Arcoscephale and Man; those were on the Gawab mail I had to use to send some turns (Yahoo's SMTP is becoming awful). I don't know why the reply-to fields didn't work as expected though (no mail should go to my Gawab address). I also got a delivery failure there, which explains why Arcoscephale didn't get turn 18 the first time around. As the Mailer Deamon puts it, "CNAME lookup failed temporarily. (#4.4.3) I'm not going to try again; this message has been in the queue too long". Now perhaps he could warn me earlier when there is a problem? The message stayed in the queue for roughly... four days before I got that mail.

In other words, those mail problems should be solved, more or less. I hope so.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Turn 19

Everything going its merry way.

My sitesearching still isn't finding any sites.

Re: PBEM game: The first step (Open)
 

Turn 19

The province tally is: Machaka 19, Ermor 19, Marignon 13, Arcosephale 10, Pythium 10, Jotunheim 10, Man 10, and Pangaea 8. Pythium, Arco, Ermor, and Marignon found gems. Ermor passed Pangaea in research to hold third place solo. Ermor rehired Dagan, and Marignon now employs Victor's Villains. Marignon now has four living celebrities in the Hall of Fame.