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

Correct, I did ask Gandalf to consult the previous work in deciding certain things. If the first game is used as a gauge, the secondary forts should be less powerful.

But this is the kind of input Gandalf needs so that we can correct any issues in game 3. Thanks for that input.

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

Dear friends,

Please take into account that I am going on trek the whole WE. So I would like to request for a delay for next turn. I will be able to play it by Sunday evening / Monday morning by GMT +5. In case that is not possible, Squirreloid is welcome to play my turn.

Thanks for understanding,

Numahr

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

Don't you fret none Ano. Children of Crom will take care of the secondary forts for you so your team can concentrate on other things! :D Just leave it to us.

Thanks Numahr for that notice, we are going to 40 hour turns as of turn 11, if a delay is needed by your team, they'll let me know.

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

This would be the best solution, of course, if possible...

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

For game 3 recommendations:

PD (if used) should be reduced on both caps and secondary forts, secondary forts should have less PD.

Perhaps enable one or two other useful units on the BI mod (always thought Barbarians were useful). I think Horse Tribe Chiefs were disabled because Horse Tribe Cavalry was also disabled (probably need both).

I think I will likely go with 4 human teams of 3 nations each (makes it easier to place on a square random map). AI team might comprise 4 nations. Haven't decided about a merc yet.

Here's a preliminary breakdown including pretenders (all LA pretenders):

Heavenly Realm: Air, Astral, Water

Caelum
Utgard
Plus Choice of Bogarus or Midgard

Standard Pretender choices:

Oracle, Virtue, Destroyer of Worlds, Lady of Fortune, Celestial General, Male Titan, Lord of the Sky, Son of the Heavens, Father of Winters, Daughter of the Dawn, Son of the Sun (Astral), Son of Fenrer, Manticore, Son of Neifel, Allfather, Asynja, Jade Emperor, Phoenix (maybe), Blue Dragon

Earthly Realm: Earth, Nature, Water

Pangaea
Patala
Plus Choice of Agartha or Ulm or Pythium

Standard Pretender Choices: Sphinx (or Monolith), Great Mother, Forge Lord, Wyrm, Ageless Olm, Female Titan, Cyclops, Lord of War, Keeper of the Bridge, Great Black/White Bull, Lady of Springs, Mother of Rivers, Lady of Love, Gorgon, Carrion Dragon, Lord of the Wild, Lord of Fertility, Lord of the Forest, Divine Serpent, Mother of Monsters, Father/Mother of Serpents, Nataraja, Lord of Rebirth, Green Dragon

Underworld Realm: Fire, Death, Blood

Abysia
C'tis
Plus Choice of Gath or Mictlan

Standard Pretender Choices: Fountain of Blood, Moloch, Prince of Death, Lord of the Night, Lord of the Summer Plague, Lord of the Desert Sun, Lord of the Gates, Smoking Mirror, Ghost King, Master Lich, Lich Queen, Lich, Saurolich, Deva, Bog Mummy, Dracolich, Vampire Queen, Solar Disc, Scorpion King, Son of the Sun (Fire), Son of the Fallen, Risen Oracle, Red Dragon

Collegium Arcanum: (Rainbow theme level 6 max in all paths when designing pretenders)

Arco
Jomon
T'ien Chi'

And option to replace Arco, Jomon, or TC with one of the unchosen nations of the three realms.

Standard Pretender Choices: Colossal Head, Baphomet, Divine Glyph, Monolith, Freak Lord, Bi**ch Queen, Great Enchantress, Frost Father, Arch Mage, Arch Druid, Great Sage, Serpent King, Master Druid, Crone, Partholonian Sorceress, Master Alchemist, Great Warlock, Divine Emperor, Arch Seraph, Skratti

Gandalf's GENOCIDE team (4 nations):

Man
Ermor
Marignon
One other nation, possibly R'lyeh.

Standard Pretender Choices: Sacred Statue, anything else not listed.

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

24/25 hours have been added to the current turn due the request by Numahr and Captain Squirreloid having indicated a preference against other arrangements for turn submission .

Unless a captain chooses to make other arrangements (having someone else submit, etc), a delay request by a team member will stand. Quick host is still on, so if someone changes their mind, the turn can get in well before then.

Thanks.

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

What happened? I was playing my turn, and when I finished, I connected, and then I announced me that a new turn was ready! I looked, it did not take into account half of my moves!!!!! :( :(

Not a disaster, but a annoyance...

Anyway I'm back

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

OK I understand what happened. When I "Quit and Save", my half-finished turn is actually sent to me the servor... and if I am the last, the turn is hosted with my half-finished turn!

That is a real problem, it means we cannot play our turn in several installments, or maybe we have to turn off our internet connexion?

Really annoying.

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

You were not the last, I sent a turn for C'tis when Pythium was in. Yes, this is a common problem with direct connect. To avoid it you need to download your turn and immediately disconnect. And not connect until you're finished

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

Not impossible. Its done alot like email.
When you get your turn, disconnect from the server then reopen it as a local game.
When you want your turn sent, connect to the server.

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

PD 120+ ai in a regular fortress is just madness

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

Not really a big problem once you get used to hitting exit after selecting and downloading whatever nation's turn files you want.

I admit though, it happened to me once :o, I was the last to submit my turn, and out of habit not being used to direct connect, I went to the connect menu first instead of the "Play existing games menu" and my previously saved and half finished .2h file was uploaded and the turn hosted. :doh: Now though, I just download all my team's turns and hit exit and I can view/play them all offline. All my team members can do likewise. Just remember to hit 'quit without saving' if your just viewing another players turn.

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

Second for Barbarians. Horse Tribe Cavalry may be somewhat weak. But their chiefs are definitely quite useful. I'm not sure, though, whether AI has tendency to accumulate them - in any case that would be better than accumulation of infantry commanders...

I'd say Bogarus and either Utgard or Midgard in this case.
And would probably remove Big Bad Wolf from Pretenders...

Maybe remove Nataraja to Heavenly team? And maybe add Jomon here - they seem to be mostly themed around Earth/Water in LA...

Maybe Abyssia or Mictlan? I would also move Solar Disk to Heavenly team and maybe remove Risen Oracle altogether (he is very Agarthan, but not particularly thematic for Earth team...).

Collegium Arcanum: (Rainbow theme level 6 max in all paths when designing pretenders)

Arco
Jomon
T'ien Chi'

And option to replace Arco, Jomon, or TC with one of the unchosen nations of the three realms.

Standard Pretender Choices: Colossal Head, Baphomet, Divine Glyph, Monolith, Freak Lord, Bi**ch Queen, Great Enchantress, Frost Father, Arch Mage, Arch Druid, Great Sage, Serpent King, Master Druid, Crone, Partholonian Sorceress, Master Alchemist, Great Warlock, Divine Emperor, Arch Seraph, Skratti[/quote]
Pythium would be quite thematic here.

Not sure about Man here, but...

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

I say the genocide team should all be Gandalfs.

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

With the name of genocide, how can you NOT give them La Ermor and LA Rlyeh?

Now that would be a fun challenge.. allied death dominions ....
having to fight with a declining population....

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

For the AI recommendations, I think I will generally suggest to Gandalf to tone it down in terms of PD, starting force size, and production capacity. I do like the mixed unit recruitment though.

Regarding the three four armed divinities, I confess I did not base the distribution on Hindu mythology from which these are obviously derived. If I do, well the Deva might actually be in the heavenly realm, the Destroyer of Worlds? might be in the underworld ream (though it has air and thunder). The Nataraja apparently means Lord of Dance, with no native paths might could go either way, so stuck it in Earth realm. I can change the native magic on these though. Frankly I just wanted to give each team access to one. Agree about the Son of Fenrer. Risen Oracle is an undead unit, though Agarthan, it seemed appropriate in the Underworld realm, along with the PoD and other such creatures. Will move those immobiles from the rainbow team to Gandalf's team. A couple of others I haven't decided on like the Shedu, etc. If people want to give me their top 10 thematic picks for each of the realms pretenders, I could drop ones which people generally wouldn't take.

Ano and Squirrel, how are your team's fairing against the AI? I may consider suspending the prohibition on merc vs AI attacks temporarily till turn 20.

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

Mmmm... Ermor and R'lyeh... enhanced with recruitable thugs, insane starting armies, and huge gem incomes. That certainly says genocide to me. The game was going to be all vs the AI anyway, so why not? :)

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

By the way, could you include a turn number on your info page? It would be easier to see whether the next turn was already hosted...

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

Eh, the AI doesn't strike me as that hard. It has a lot of material, but that's only to be expected.

The 120 PD is kind of ridiculous. I'm kind of hoping they pull a +PD event and wrap over to 5 =). (125PD is the max - if you get an event that gives you more you wrap around through 0).

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

Im not really writing any info pages. Just showing files from the game.
But the Scores does have a turn number on it.
http://navii.dom3minions.com/

As for the PD, I was led to believe that all PD sucked. :)
Sorry for that.

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

Crap missed my edit window.
Added note: realized I can have the chk.cgi grab the turn lines from the scores.html
Now the chk cgi also shows a turn count. the last turn turned in I believe

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

i thought we where at 40 hours per turn now? I just finished my turn and went to upload and recived a new turn straight away and most of my moves had not been done.

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

Nataraja was meant to be more a generic representative of warlike Hindu deity. I think that Underworld realm should include a rarely-seen Dracolich among its Pretenders... and it looks like I staled with my turn! :doh: :D

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

Willburn
It looks like exactly the same problem Numahr has a few posts ago. You should not upload your semi-done turn to the server until it is finished.
You need to
1) connect and download your turn
2) disconnect
3) go to local games
4) play your turn
5) upload

And do not connect to server until you finished your turn as you don't want your half-done turn uploaded. This is what happened to you now most likely

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

OK. I am sad for my team I first suicide on a 120+ pd wall in a secondary fortress then stale a turn. Appologizing to my team captain. The most sad part is the turn must have gone exactly when i was about to upload because it was at 40hours when i recived it (when i was about to upload the turn 12)

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

Thought I already included the Dracolich/Bog Mummy in the underword realm. Instead of attempting to distribute the unmodified 3 four armed divinities among each realm, I could use modified versions of the rather generic Nataraja instead. Each with appropriate magic. The heavenly one having Awe, Astral, Air, maybe a lightning weapon/mind blast and/or the apotropaic weapons of the Deva, the earthly one having Earth, Nature, and maybe an appropriate earth effect, and the underworld one having fire, death, and fear and maybe a plague weapon or something appropriate.

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

Yes, it may be just the thing. I wouldn't add fancy special abilities, though, as they would be hell to balance against cost. Adding appropriate paths may be enough.

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

... you do realize you're talking about a game that generally uses Vanilla rules. There is no balance to start with...

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

Im also not sure theme-wise.
But as the programmer Im happy to see Man there. Man, and Marignon, both follow the standard AI "thinking process" fairly well and can be expanded well. In this game when I view the turn files of the AI's Im mostly happy with how Man and Eriu are working with the expansions, and less happy with how Caelum and TienChi are seeming to ignore most of it. Oh well, lessons learned. LA Ermor and LA Rlyeh will have to be experimented with abit

--
feci quod potui, faciant meliora potentes

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

The AI is absolutely terrible using LA Ermor. Can you forbid them from spending gold on anything but forts and temples? Because otherwise they're going to do stupid stuff. (Ie, to make the AI any good for LA E, you basically have to use the NI mod).

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

Actually there are ways to do that without a mod. But the drawback is that they impact badly on neighbors even if they are allies

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

No, you can't force the AI to not spend gold on troops unless it is absolutely incapable of recruiting any troops at all. And that is impossible to do via map commands unless you expect the AI to never expand to neighbouring territories, which means you need a mod to remove all independent troops that a LA ermor AI would spend gold on.

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

It is possible. More "suggestion" than "force" but it does have an effect. :)
Altho, it should be said that all methods by map or mod only hold up thru early game and with some hope into mid game. The AI has no late game to even try and boost.

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

The sad part is it wouldn't be that hard to write a decent LA Ermor AI, but the game doesn't allow importation of custom AIs. (Basically, the scope of useful options for LA Ermor is really small, especially early on, so writing a 'script' for their early behavior would actually work rather well).

I suppose if someone was really motivated, they could figure out how to read from the .trn file, run a custom AI decision-making program on that information, and have it output a .2h file for Ermor's turn. But I think the anti-cheating measures probably make this quite difficult since you'd have to fool the server into believing it was a legitimate .2h file made by the game. And while you could enter the turn state into a separate program, and get a list of actions for you to perform, the goal is of course for the AI to actually play the turn, not just tell you how to play the turn. If someone has to manually open the Ermor turn its already defeated the point of an AI.

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

The deities in Hindu religion are apparently many faceted, so this is of course a simplification (neither can be said to be heavenly/ hellish) really just meant to meet the themes of the game. But I could name one Shiva (for the heavenly realm) or reuse Deva, one Nataraja, and one Asura or even Kali. The costing might be a bit more difficult as you indicated if I added effects or weapons. I suppose I could split the difference between the cost of the Deva and the Destroyer of Worlds (125+75) = 200/2 = 100 design points. Though, I personally would like to see Awe on one and fear on the other, and maybe animal awe or some earthly effect on the earthly realm divinity.

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

What I realize isn't what you are going to preach. :p

Anyone who would maintain 50point Gorgons are balanced against other options is crazy. (I could go on, but really, that's sufficient - clearly vanilla pretenders are not balanced or abominations like that wouldn't exist)

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

Septimius:

You like team games, you should get a teammate and join Preponderance 2 :) Well, everyone is welcomed.

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

Yes, I am an avid supporter of team games in general, think they provide a nice change of pace from the regular, everyone for themselves type MP game, and a chance to work cooperatively, plan, strategize, communicate, get along with others, learn, etc, all things which can be beneficial in both our fantasy worlds and the real world. I also like vs. AI games as well, which can facilitate this same sort of cooperation and can be fun in their own right, especially against challenging AIs. Though I think I prefer team sizes larger than two players each. Wouldn't mind joining though, but I can't play personally until I am out of one of the games I am in (my personal limit is 2 games at a time). A good mix for me is 1 FFA and 1 team/vs.AI/RPG type game at a time, but it all depends on what you like and your free time. :) Thanks for posting it though.

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

I witnessed an interesting battle between Atlantis and Man. Atlantis has got some punch! The sky was filled with a storm of arrows from both sides.

The AI has thrown up a global, which anyone may feel free to dispel when they can (can even pool astral if needed between teams). The prohibition on human globals though still remains in effect till turn 50.

I am amending the merc rules slightly. As you all know when the merc makes an attack on behalf of a client that results in the capture of a province, the responsibility for that province then rests on the client (although we did stretch things a bit allowing the merc to keep the province in certain circumstances). My original thinking was that a PD of 1 should be set (which would defeat most enemy scouts) but it would also prevent the clients own scouts from claiming the province, so I think the client should have a choice of a PD of 0 or 1 as a base. If the client desires a higher PD, the merc can charge appropriately.

Speaking of the Merc, is everyone finding Atlantis to be useful/interesting so far?

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

That's clearly excellent way of discussion - naming 1 example which isn't applicable for most cases (i.e., nations) and then making broad conclusions from that. Thanks for making my point for me. :D

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

Sorry, it seems that 48 hours a turn would be needed now for me at least. :(

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

We're now at 40. Does it really make much difference?

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

We are currently at 40 hours, and will be going to 48 hours automatically in 5 more turns. Not a big deal for me, I can wait the 5 turns and am fine as is, but I will understand if a majority of people feel they cannot make the interval as it stands. Wouldn't want anyone staling over 8 hours. So up to you guys really.

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

Having 48 hours may really help me this week-end so I vote yes.

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

The original point was not pretenders, but that vanilla games aren't balanced.

I think Agartha is the best example of that. But there are hundreds more.

Tarts.
Bane Swords
Seduction
Fighting in the arena...

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

CBM games are not balanced as well. Although I really respect CBM and don't have anything against it, saying that CBM is balanced is just funny. Well, it is more balanced than vanilla maybe, also it opens many new strategies (and does this much better than actually balancing) but many nations are still crappy and many are still uber. And the removal of gem generators increased this difference even more for nations like Machaka, MA Oceania or MA Ulm. Well, this game is just unbalanced as it is and to really balance it you need to sacrifice thematic aspects which obviously neither the devs nor QM want to do.

What about Bane swords and fighting at arena, btw? What does CBM change about these?

Regarding the gorgon, my 2 cents. Yes, gorgon for 50 points is really cheap but does it become really easy to win with Pan when you have the, let's say, EXNXA2 Gorgon (one of the most powerful builds)? No, it doesn't. And if the gorgon in vanilla is so uber, why doesn't it let Pangaea win here, there and everywhere? Just because it doesn't. And when we say something is uber and should be nerfed, we should probably look at it in the context of the nation.
But, YES, the Gorgon does make Sauromatia ultimately powerful and, of course, 50-point gorgon even more so. But not Pangaea. And when you nerf Sauro by increasing the cost of the Gorgon, you make the life of Pangaea (which is not too sweet) in all 3 eras even harder. And this doesn't bring more balance in general.

And regarding Agartha, especially MA Agartha. How does CBM help them by increasing the cost of another "uber" thing, the Risen Oracle? Is the Risen Oracle immensely powerful? Yes! Does it make Agartha uber? No.
In my opinion, in CBM MA (and maybe EA) Agartha, Machaka and LA (and maybe the others) Pangaea, MA (and EA) C'tis, MA Ulm and the others are much, much worse than they are in vanilla.

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

I agree with many of your points ano. Thats why in the balance mod(shameless plug) I tried to give benes to the nations most affected if you turned off gem generators.

I dont' think that CBM is particularly nation balanced, but it is somewhat better balanced in a fashion that allows different units, and different strategies to be employed.

As for the gorgon, I agree completely. I increased the cost of the gorgon pretender, but then I added a pangean national version that was cheaper.

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

CBM is good in many aspects, I don't argue with that but it is not balanced. And regarding the gem generators, I understand why people don't like them - they lead to games full of micro that often end in draws because people get tired or in Armageddon+GoH wins. While the first problem doesn't look like a problem to me at all (because I don't play much and devote much time to the game I play) the latter really is a problem. And it could be easily solved by banning Armageddon.

Oh, well... This discussion should probably have appeared in another thread but I do not want to prove anything to anybody. People play the game they like

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

Btw, chris, when will you return to the game? Or are you already in?