Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Please, Septimus,

Give us an indication about where we stand in terms of timing, like a countdown to the end of this turn or a message every time we officially finish a turn with a clear indication of the delay until next one. Now I'm a bit lost :confused: , and I need to organize my time tightly as I'm starting a long trip inthe real world...

Thanks,
Numahr

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Thanks Gandalf, that is what I thought it showed.

Numahr, the direct connect system has a built in internal countdown timer, that is displayed when you connect to the game and that tells you how long you have left till hosting. We will be at 32 hour turns till we hit turn 10. The turn may host earlier if all turns get in before the 32 hours is up. This is likely to be the case with these first few turns. I currently show us at turn 3 with 29 hours to go till forced/fixed hosting of the next turn. Again, the turn will host sooner if everyone gets their turns in before that.

At this early stage, I recommend, especially, if you feel you are in a situation where you may need the full amount of time (but you don't necessarily need a special delay) that players when they first connect for a new turn (you'll see the message 'receiving turn file') that you do not hit 'End Turn' until you are sure you are finished with the current turn. Instead, you can save your work and come back to it later by hitting 'quit and save' from the options menu. The only thing to remember is when your ready to come back and finish it, select your game from the 'play existing game' menu (don't go to the connect menu first) and then connect only when your actually finished with the turn. You can also hit 'quit without saving' if you only have time to glance at your turn.

Generally it is best to have quickhost/fasthost on in the very early turns, but if people want it shut off (so you get the full 32 or whatever) every time, just let me know and I will ask Gandalf about it.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

A Wight mage right next to my capital - interesting. Though quickly solved with mighty Ulm army, of course. ;)
To Septimius:
Yes, as I said, I think that rainbow nation is a better candidate for merc. And I don't think that adding to them spies & other option via map editing is the best solution. Of course, I see that Atlantis could be a good possible candidate due to their underwater safety. But in LA with R'lyeh present that isn't longer the case anyway.
To Stagger Lee:
Thanks, I may also pay a visit when I have time and inclination. ;)

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Thanks, Wrana for the input. So you'd recommend a rainbow nation with native spies/assassins.

Nice job on that Wight mage and his cronies! :happy:

Got a link for score graphs:

http://navii.dom3minions.com/scores.html

And staling data:

http://navii.dom3minions.com/stats.txt

Will add to post on main page soon.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

How about staling data of previous turns? However that is not especially useful, of course, so never mind.

p.s. This crazy AI makes me nervous :) 3 Storm general prophets are just fun. And one of them is "the most feared killer of men"... What does all this mean?
And also, how could Atlantis capture 4 provinces in 4 turns. Did he have "free" empty provinces? There is not much sense in keeping this information secret now, IMO. Just curious

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

It means Genocide! :D

Just kidding. Glad your having fun.

I've got a rough external timer for those who want to check on the time left while outside of the game. It operates like the in-game timer (doesn't countdown minutes) but should give you an estimate of time left to next host (not to be used as a substitute for the in-game timer) and which nations have submitted turns so far.

Click on link and hit refresh button on your browser:

http://navii.dom3minions.com/bin/chk.cgi

If people really want the older score graphs and staling data, I can post a link for the directory instead of the current turns.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

The stale and score data will be kept in rotating files numbered 1-9

As for the AI, its supposed to make you nervous. Do NOT consider it the same as what you have played in solo games. That is referred to as vanilla AI (level 0)

In game one, the AI was level 3 (on a scale of 1 to 10). It was designed builds of god, magic, scales, along the lines of player files (what human players tend to do, not specialized for AI).

In this game the AI is level 6. Its designed more specifically around what the AI does or does not do well. In game one they were allied. But in this game they are much more fully allied. They can use each others troops, coordinate attacks, and have specific goals. We should not see any of the common complaints about the AI.

ByTheWay....
In game 3, the AI will be designed at a level of 10.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Well, after reading all this AI stuff, I think I need a change of underwear.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Old staling data may be useful, by the way, to see whether the problem is chronic. And that's the main reason to know who stales: to see whether you should look for replacement before it's too late. :(
To Septimius on potential teams:
While it's surely possible for old enemies to ally (just look at European history of last centuries! :) ), it's still rare. And what I consider beautiful in Dominions nations is that there are almost never clearly Good ones (maybe MA Tien Chi. Maybe.), especially if we look up all 3 eras. And nations change in their outlook over time. Hinnom is clearly evil, but Ashdod less so. EA Ermor isn't (so) evil, but LA... ;) C'tis isn't evil per se, but Miasma makes it looking quite like it in MA. Abyssia becomes more evil over time. And so on. And in LA usage of Death and Blood magic doesn't make nation evil in and of itself: almost all practice one or the other... So while I agree with your idea of Heaven/Earth/Underworld teams, I suggest mixing them more by lines of traditional alliances and enmities.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

That is true of course, especially in FFA games. In team games, I'd hope Captains would be in closer communication than that and should generally know if someone is staling on your team. Heh, but I'll post a link for the directory and you can browse all the files.

Thanks for your suggestions Wrana, of course I am just kidding about the evil thing (my choices for teams are larely path based (not based on evil, hot/cold, old enemies, or anything of the sort) each team has real specific magic strengths and weaknesses like in the current game.

In my earlier post (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=745943&) I would give each team a choice of more than 4 nations to choose from, they only need to pick 4. So the Underworld team can choose 4 of the 6 nations listed, they don't necessarily need to take Agartha or Gath, etc.

True Agartha is generally in the same realm as Ulm earth wise, but the magic path nature of nations changes over time and that's what my choices are based primarily on (that and native gem income). In that respect LA Agartha has a slightly greater leaning toward the Underworld realm with a greater regular (non random) magic in both fire and death (2F,5E,6D,H4)= Combined mage and gem income levels, than Ulm.

Ulm changes quite a bit in LA, has much less earth, gets a tiny bit of blood, etc and is more versatile (5S,2D,1N,1B,1E,H4). They've got more Astral than anything else, so kinda difficult to place em. I also looked at common attributes like Dark Vision and Heat Resistance, Seige/Forge bonus, a bit. So feel free to look back at the post and tell me how you'd reallign the choices or if you want to go further give me your ideal 4 nation picks for each realm. That might be better than giving choices, though at least you've got some limited freedom of choice with my method. ;)

I'm posting links for the external timer and score graphs/staling data directories on the opening post of this thread. Having an external timer posted has both benefits and drawbacks in terms of turn submission speed IMO, but it is helpful nonetheless. We are currently still on turn 3 it looks like.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Thanks a lot! I can check where I stand from office or airport with this, even if I can't launch the game. Very useful for me to organize my time :)

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Is there any way to get e-mail notification of turns having been made. It's rather cumbersome to keep logging in to the Dom 3 network or checking the timer link.
I'm not at the computer all day and just check the e-mail status occasionally.
Could the server issue a notice, or even a posting on this thread would be forwarded to my e-mail.
Jorus

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

I am at the computer all day, and I want auto-notification too.

:party:We want convenience!:party:

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Yeah, we'd like that too!

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Lots of different notification options are available
Simply PM me or email gandalf at community.net with an email address. (and please mention that its for the NaVII game)
I can also have the game text message your cell phone.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Cammorak, I'm ashamed of you! :shock: Your Ashdod afterall, and besides, what would our Lord Crom say if you were to soil yourself before battle has even been joined? :D

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

How dare you presume cowardice on the part of the mighty giants? I was referring to my steel boxer-briefs as these leather jockies have neither the coverage nor durability required for intense combat.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

5 hours left till hosting. Maybe someone of you usurpers does turn for Arco so that he doesn't occasionally stale?

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

I did my turn but one of my teammates viewed the turn and did changes. Its uploaded again.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Now I see one of Gandalf's AIs. Gandalf, are you crazy?! :lol:
And I expect they are set to "aggressive", neh? ;)

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

I have done an updated list of prices, you can see it in the team forum.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

I did what was asked. For a long time people have been putting down the AI. I have tried to point out that is the vanilla AI and that many ways existed to boost it. Finally someone actually asked me to get off my soapbox and make one.

As usual for me, this is not even a good example. Just a bare bones proof-of-concept. The NaV II AI doesnt even have half of what I meant to test and include. But I suspect it will be enough to drastically show there is a difference between this and vanilla computer players.

But crazy? You aint seen crazy yet. Thats scheduled to be NaV III.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

They are only level 6, so be happy they are not 10. :) :)
I especially like Eriu.
Alliance against AI, guys?

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

I think that was what Septimius intended. So yes, by all means! ;)
To Gandalf:
Thanks a lot! :)
By the way, how much of it may be implemented by player without knowing it all beforehand? Meaning - set up something dangerous in SP?

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Ok, as Man is our common neighbor and enemy we'll be happy to coordinate actions against him. I think, in a three\four turns turns we might be able to oppose him.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

[quote=Wrana;746220]Unfortunately very little :(
That is covered in the threads about why the Scenario options in Dom3 are broken. Much of it requires manual steps and server mode. So as long as that much work is done, it might as well be an MP game also.

The things I have discovered, I will be discussing with Ballbarian so we can try to incorporate some of them into the SemiRand program. Which (shameless ad) still needs more player-created small design files in order to make it fully usable. When I feel that all of the surprises have been found I plan to donate the works on this game to it.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Thanks Zegc.

Can't blame all of what you might find on the nefarious Gandalf. :D The magic locations and static AI present there were done by yours truly. But Gandalf's AIs are sheer genius! :)

Looks like Ano's crafty crew is already pulling out ahead in the score graphs, at least in terms of expansion. Will the bullseye, so desired by Ano, on the backs of the Supplicants widen? Only time will tell.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

There are some things you can do in SP to give yourself a bit more AI challenge though, set AIs to impossible, aggressive mood, increase the multiples, lower the strength of indies, perhaps make use of the BI mod, handicap yourself, etc.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Let's look
Yes, we're ahead of the whole planet..;)

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Hehe, the AI and perhaps Atlantis will remain the score graph leaders for awhile. That much was expected. ;) The Deva's Den forum can also be used as a place to coordinate attacks on the AI between teams. May be more convenient.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Interesting battle I witnessed. C'tis vs. a number of indy heavy horse. Thought C'tis was going to lose their Prince of Death for a minute there. :shock: Was down to some 30 odd hitpoints before the indies routed, largely due to the fear.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

That was a mistake of mine. I attacked a stack of 20 units, militias, knights and longbowmen. And there appeared to be 36 of them,mainly knights :) Should have thought better before attacking but I was really lucky in the end, that's true

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

About alliance of the the human players against the AI, I am planning on putting up a special offer for AI backstabbing which will basically be something like a very low price but I keep the land I take.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

That's very interesting! We are waiting. ;)

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

uhuh.. so you want us to pay for what exactly?

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Basically you pay for me to attack the AI that fits you best instead of helping another team.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

That is pretty much a given. No team is going to pay for an attack on the AI unless it benefits them (is in province they want to clear out or a province on their border to assist with expansion). Though under the rules, generally that province belongs/is the responsibility of the client to claim. Of course Zegc may be saying that any attack on an AI that is giving you problems is good, and there is some truth in that, though keeping the land is a bit different.

What is happening I suspect is that Atlantis is reaching their maximum expansion level under the rules (perhaps the motivation behind Zegc's offer). This was actually expected and planned. With 270 provinces we've got about 12-13 provinces per player. Zegc (actually doing suprisingly well) will probably top out at around 20 provinces (maybe more if Atlantis is willing to go into non-contigious areas to grab indies). At that point, the rules provide that Atlantis will be able to launch attacks to regain lost provinces thus maintaining a relatively stable number of provinces.

Keep in mind, Atlantis only needs enough provinces to give it a decent amount of gems and income to enable it to do it's job of serving the needs of the human teams. The mercs are not intended to be a major player in the game (in terms of grabbing up a large amount of provinces) and should have no ambitions towards winning. The Merc's don't align themselves with any specific team and have no alliegences except to gold.

The ability of Atlantis to survive in the long run (after the AI has been dealt with) will depend on the merc's ability to make itself useful enough to human players that they won't feel the need to wipe them off the face of the map for the VPs or territory they may control. Thus I don't want them to have a huge amount of territory or otherwise compete in a major way with the human teams.

Atlantis can gain some provinces above this threshold under the rules by retaining unclaimed provinces. I also suggested loansharking (defaulting on a loan in particular) as another possible method, but overall Atlantis is not meant to be an ubernation nor necessarily a permanent fixture of the game.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Hum Septimus... I think of a lot of examples in history of powers that were not meant to be :doh: ... Give them some power, and they will look for ways to get more... that is almost a natural rule of human beings and human organizations.

So let's see what will happen with this one, almost an experiment in political sociology! :cool:

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Could be that. Heh, also likely some teams might need some help vs. the AI and the merc sees the need and responds like any savvy business. The most useful military services will likely be:

Attack any Team for x number of turns options, which has Atlantis attacking any of the available provinces of a client's enemy (AI or human) within reach. If I were the merc I'd lower the prices on these, maybe offer a 1 turn contract option.

The targeted attack services on a specific province are much more risky and difficult for the merc, so I'd probably raise the price on those.

You can already give the merc the province taken in such attacks by simply not claiming it, but if Zegc wants to offer an option that lets him retain the provinces for a greatly reduced cost, temporarily or permanently, that's up to him. Maybe excess Atlantean provinces can be rented out or something for certain amount a year! :D

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Speaking of the AI, I am posting a poll up on our forums on how you rate the difficulty of the AI, here are the choices:

1. Hah! The AI is a joke! :lol
2. The AI is not difficult at all really. :cool:
3. This AI is formidable, but can be beaten. :shock:
4. I need help, the AI is too powerful! :eek:
5. I want my Mommy! :cry:

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

My answer for now is:
What was it?! IT breezed alongside me so fast! :?

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

My current answer is : Pantocrator ! Tens of mamouths and hundreds of good indies : what am I supposed to do !

For the discussion about my initial position giving me to much ambition, I am not hoping to win this game and I will not spoil the balance by making non symetric offer and going to activelly for the win. Yet I will play to maximize the mercs power and if I were able to grow as large as a full team I will do it (but this will not append). About number of provinces you would be afraid of the expansion rate around my capital : look at the score graphs and think that I am in the middle of the 4 AI. I am vey far away from grabing 20 provinces, even if I do manage to attack the AI and keep the provinces.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Zegc, it's cool with me long as you abide by the basic merc rules (no attacking AI or human teams unless under contract or being paid, etc), you have a good amount of latitude in what you can do. I'm sure you have ambition but I am not really worried about your expansion yet. If it becomes an obstacle or issue in the future, the teams can shrink ya down to size if they have to. :D

Glad to see nobody wants their momma vs the AI. ;)

But, next game, really will be:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...corrino_iv.jpg

Genocide!
The deliberate and systematic slaughter of all human players. :eek: No more leniency from Gandalf, I expect. No mercy. No quarter. :D

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

I cannot comment on the AI - I haven't seen a real combat involving it yet. Giving all the AIs mammoths to start with is just silly, however. For shame.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Though there are many things we can do (and are doing in this series) to make the AI more challenging, as far as I know we still cannot really change the predictable and seemingly stupid (to us) behaviour of the AI in terms of the way it actually uses its units, spells, and the specific combat mechanics. A starting army is only a temp advantage, but I believe Gandalf has gone further by giving the AI more staying power this time around and with certain of these foreign national units being recruitable by the AI throughout the game. Rest assured though, if your one of those players who long to be have your butt kicked by the AI, we will do all we can in the future to try to accomodate you. ;)

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

One comment regarding AI.
Really, guys, it's just boring. Having signed up for the multiplayer game, we now have to invent anti-uber-AI tactics. If I wanted to play against AI, I'd play a local single player game which I played maybe 2 times total. Or I could join one of Gandalf's anti-AI games... But this is just not interesting. And also, it teaches your beloved "noobs" nothing because generally in a normal multiplayer game the things are different. While some addition of AI in a game like this could be interesting (that's what I thought of when I was signing up here), an "all-vs-AI" game is not fun at all. That's my opinion. If I knew this before the start, I would leave.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Ano, the core of this game (and the most exciting part IMO) will always remain the human vs human part. Feel free to ignore the AI if you desire or feel you can do so. The goal of the AI is to present a greater challenge than you'd face against simple static level 9 indies and/or your run of the mill AI.

There are actually three stages to the game, expansion vs. indies, expansion vs. AI, human vs human, but the order this happens in doesn't necessarily always follow that course. But the team that does best in the first two stages will have an advantage against the other teams. So it does have a long term strategic purpose.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

I strongly doubt that the core of this game will be human vs human. We shall see who is right, of course. What I see now is endless AI hordes and until you have a decent sc or at least a good thug (or a good bless which nearly noone has here) there's absolutely no chance to do anything with this AI. Also, considering enormous castles, research and gem income the AI is given, at best we may reach human-vs-human phase at about turn 30 (very unlikely, IMO). Ok, that's my forecast.
Frankly speaking, I'm not much interested in such gaming. But ok, what's done is done.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

The core of game 1 (I am not talking time wise) was human versus human, don't see why game 2 should be any different although we have less players (unless Gandalf has created AIs which cannot be overcome at all, which I doubt). Your prediction pretty much meshes with the weak AI in game 1. Still, every player has their own interests and dislikes. The AI will be defeated a lot faster if teams coordinate attacks. In the meantime, though this lets noobs actually do some research and explore the game some, while they build up.

Re: Noobs and Vets II: Days of Infamy. MA, BI. In Progress.
 

Each concept has its pros and cons, of course. I just wanted to say that such game concept is not interesting to me in particular and to the whole team in general. And a side opinion, Gandalf's 10 level mega-AI in game 3 will totally eliminate any interest for the most part of the people who could have joined it.
That's all, I won't raise this point anymore until, maybe, I get totally tired.