MP: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI. Game Over. Team ACGHHS wins!

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by Makinus

If there are any slots still open (even alternate ones) i would like to candidate myself as noob....

Welcome Makinus, yes we've two alternate slots still available. I'm putting you on The Blessed One's team unless you have a preference otherwise. Be sure to check out and register on our team forums so you can stay up to date with what your team is up to. The forums are here: http://noobsvets.silverforum.net

[Septimius Severus]

Chris, I agree with Drp, I think we should at least play nice and not try to stomp the AI caps or starts for 5 turns. No biggie really. I agree it wasn't mentioned in my opening post but I think it makes good sense. But lets hear from Algae and Agema on the subject. The omission didn't mean it was debarred or that is was allowed. For instance, I didn't mention diplomacy between teams, should this be taken that is not allowed? No.

Also Chris, I have recieved your PM's and I have stated previously that members of the Deva's did jump the gun on the swap requests, before we had officially completed the votes on the method. I never said that swaps would not be allowed, but that they would need to take place via the available unassigned pool. I allowed an interteam swap due to someone on my team wanting Caelum and Drp wanting Pangaea and in this I broke my own rule. If the other team captains and the consensus of players agree with you then I can force both my team and the Deva's back to preswap method 2 status and officially announce swaps again.

I am not going to go into anything more complicated other than first come, first serve for swaps, I've no more time available.

Failing this, I've no problem with re-opening swaps, inter-team or from the unassigned pool, I just assumed that since people had posted who was playing who, that you guys were finished with swapping nations.

Yes, I am aware the Deva's will be a powerhouse of muscle with Neifel, Hinnom, and Pangaea, with experience and talent to boot, though they may be weak magically, but every team captain had first choice priviledges could have taken Hinnom and could have ranked Hinnom higher as well. The fact they didn't is not anyone's fault. In the future, I implore every captain to use their first choice priviledge wisely. Alternates who will have second choice will also figure prominently. My goal is to make as many players as happy as possible, but we can't do everything.

Edit: Be aware that if the unassigned pool changes significantly, I will have to tell Gandalf to wait, and since I've already sent word, lets not make this necessary if we can.

[AlgaeNymph]

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

Design your pretenders, discuss your strategies while I contact Gandalf with instructions.

To the forums, Blessed Ones.

[Maerlande]

Our captain hasn't chimed in, but I'd like to voice an opinion. I think Gandalf will make the AI garrisons tough enough to be a challenge and the 5 turn wait isn't needed. Seems to me, noobish though I am, that taking a risky jump to an AI fort might pay off and might not. You could be expanding instead. I'm all for letting those who want to try it do it.

[Hoplosternum]

I don't like the 5 turn rule. It made sense in Noobs v Vets III as it stopped the obvious tactic of the noobs creating 12 flying pretenders and having 2 shots per vet at knocking out each one in the first couple of turns. The noobs only needed to close down two or three capitals and even if they lost most of their pretenders the vets would have been finished before summer of the first year arrived.

That can't happen here. Nor does knocking down one opponent at great cost and risk to yourself win you the game as the other two teams can make expand properly while that is going on. Consider that the flying pretender can't breach the walls he just closes down the capital at high risk to himself. Likewise a very early rush by elites/sacreds. In this game you have team mates to rescue you. And everyone has the option of an awake pretender to counter, it's just some nations will choose not to take it.

The rule would only help the nations that have relatively slow starts but still want a nice bless (or scales) so no awake SC. Like Fomoria Niefel and Hinnom. Why on earth are we protecting these nations which are widely considered the best in the age? They are not going to give the rest of us a nice 5 turn break once they have tooled up SCs charging around the map are they?

[chrispedersen]

Hey Sept

As a separate question, you said you were going to determine the pick order randomly (for the nation assignments)

I've been trying to make heads or tails of it. Can you say what the randomly determined pick orders were? Ie., who picked first, second, third, fourth?

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Hey Sept

As a separate question, you said you were going to determine the pick order randomly (for the nation assignments)

I've been trying to make heads or tails of it. Can you say what the randomly determined pick orders were? Ie., who picked first, second, third, fourth?

The second of the two methods I employed used a random pick order: I rolled the 'die' as it were to determine who would be team A, B, team C, team D. The Mysterios ended up as team D, the Deva's team C, the Blessed Ones team A, and Noobheim team B. I then applied both ordering methods suggested by yourself and grudge (ABCDDC) etc. using those team assignments. I posted this back in page 20 but here is the link again:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...&postcount=197

This thread is getting so huge, we need to use pointers to everything.

I've got 3 votes against any 5 turn rule, and 2 votes for it. Absent any further opinions the 5 turn rule will be dropped.

Chris, if you'd like Pangaea or Caelum for your team, there are two ways to get them now, convince the Deva's or the Mysterios to give them up via swap or we revert back to my orginal method 2 assignments and I restart swaps OFFICIALLY like my original intent. But so far everyone else is amazingly quiet on this issue.

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

The second of the two methods I employed used a random pick order: I rolled the 'die' as it were to determine who would be team A, B, team C, team D. The Mysterios ended up as team D, the Deva's team C, the Blessed Ones team A, and Noobheim team B. I then applied both ordering methods suggested by yourself and grudge (ABCDDC) etc. using those team assignments. I posted this back in page 20 but here is the link again:

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...&postcount=197

This thread is getting so huge, we need to use pointers to everything.

I've got 3 votes against any 5 turn rule, and 2 votes for it. Absent any further opinions the 5 turn rule will be dropped.

Chris, if you'd like Pangaea or Caelum for your team, there are two ways to get them now, convince the Deva's or the Mysterios to give them up via swap or we revert back to my orginal method 2 assignments and I restart swaps OFFICIALLY like my original intent. But so far everyone else is amazingly quiet on this issue.

Thanks for the posting the method Sept. Sorry if I missed it before!

Regarding Pangaea/Caelum etc: I would feel somewhat bad about making this fuss to choose pangaea for my team (not enought not to do it, tho.)

My preferences (in order) would be:
1. stick to the original rules (19 pages of discussion thereof) which made no mention of swapping nations. Yet did make much mention of AI nations getting strong races.

2. Stick to your original intent of allowing captains to voice.

Look no offense to Dr.P and his team. I don't fault them a bit for jumping at the chance to get Pangaea. However, I do question how good those rules are for the game.

In regular games, it is common for people to gang up on Hinnom - and fail. In this team game - having 4 teammates - that tactic will be nigh impossible.

Adding pangaea's gorgon pretender to the mix is just adding insult to injury.

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

Thanks for the posting the method Sept. Sorry if I missed it before!

Regarding Pangaea/Caelum etc: I would feel somewhat bad about making this fuss to choose pangaea for my team (not enought not to do it, tho.)

My preferences (in order) would be:
1. stick to the original rules (19 pages of discussion thereof) which made no mention of swapping nations. Yet did make much mention of AI nations getting strong races.

2. Stick to your original intent of allowing captains to voice.

Look no offense to Dr.P and his team. I don't fault them a bit for jumping at the chance to get Pangaea. However, I do question how good those rules are for the game.

In regular games, it is common for people to gang up on Hinnom - and fail. In this team game - having 4 teammates - that tactic will be nigh impossible.

Adding pangaea's gorgon pretender to the mix is just adding insult to injury.

My dear Chris, because there is no mention of swaps after nation selection on the OP should not be construed as it not being allowed. I did mention it in a subsequent post on this thread. I cannot update everything on the main post all at once. You will also find on the OP that I did say that these rules "WERE NOT SET IN STONE" and were and are subject to change. Since you were not in my previous NvV games, you probably were not aware of my custom to allow swaps after the nation selection process. This is an attempt to satisfy everyone as best as possible. So I don't fault you.

Your right, I broke my rule about keeping order and only letting captains make decisions here (largely due to the fact that one team captain was unable to post for several days). But I will stick to this in the future.

If you want another nation either make your plea now or I restart the swaps. If not, let me not keep Gandalf waiting, he's got a lot of work to do.

[Agema]

My expectation is the AI should be sufficiently tough to make swamping their forts very early with an SC unfeasible. If that's the case, I see no reason to apply a 5-turn rule.