Re: Game Started
 

I could not find a cbpgod.tga file - what does that mean?

Re: Game Started
 

Deccan:

I think I did since I downloaded the map from Aku's link on the first page of this thread. Do I have to do something else?

Re: Game Started
 

Oops, we may have had a false start then. It looks like you didn't install the mod when you created your pretender. Hmm, wouldn't the game make the pretender illegal then?

Re: Game Started
 

You needed to go here:

http://www.techno-mage.com/~zen/

Download the conceptual pretender mod Version 1.81, copy the contents into the mod folder, enable it in preferences, then create your pretender.

Re: Game Started
 

I didn't know that I had to have the map before the pretender load or creation. Yes, strange that the game accepted the file . . .

Re: Game Started
 

I'm in!!!!! Thanks Deccan!!!!

Re: Game Started
 

It turns out that if you take a pretender that does not work under the proper mod, the game will keep your scales and dominion and castle, but will replace your pretender with an arch mage containing exactly zero magic! This, of course, is a total disaster and worthy of resigning on turn one. Make sure you don't let this happen.



As for the election, my daughter (yes, that very girl who is majoring in pre-law at Oklahoma) won a national award in a mock congressional trial contest about 4 years ago. She won state and then also won the top national award against all other 49 state winners.

One of her questions was on the electoral college. She testified before a mock panel that it needed to be changed to the Maine/Nebraska method. In case anybody does not know about that, both those states split their electoral votes along congressional district lines. The overall state tally gives the two (senate) electoral votes to the winning candidate in the full state. Then, each congressional district (house) gives its one electorai vote to the winner in that district alone.

What this would do is bring states like California and Texas back into the equation. Neither of those two states ever saw either candidate throughout the entire election, for they were written off by the losing side very early on. Under the Nebraska and Maine method, places like Los Angelos and Houston would have seen all the ads and candidate visits we saw here in the swing state of New Mexico.

It also would not increase the probability of a tie at all, unless there was a strong showing from a third party. After all, every electoral college votes must go to one side or the other when all is said and done.

My daughter convinced me in her mock testimony. This would work much better than our current system of winner takes all in most of our states.

Go Maine! Go Nebraska!

Re: Game Started
 

The problem with tallying the vote across congressional district lines is that those lines change, and frequently do, at the whim of our representatives. State borders are static. In fact, I think, at least here in MO., they are re-examined every 10 years and redrawn. So consequently, an electoral vote could be manipulated by redrawing a district to include a favorable portion of the population. Also known as gerrymandering...

But regardless, it is interesting to see the election results. Besides a few states on the northeast (Maine, Vermont, etc.) that aren't that populated, it seems that the majority of urban areas vote Democrat, while rural areas seems strongly Republican. Even looking at the breakdown of each state (www.yahoo.com has a good breakdown), you can see it. For Missouri, you can see Democrat victories in KC and STL, but the rest of the state is strongly Republican. Surely nothing new, but cool to analyze.

There's a message to be had in the voting patterns, just can't put my finger on it.

Krool

Re: Game Started
 

If anyone's pretender is FUBAR as described above by Panther speak up.

Grim Knight

Re: Game Started
 

If Dragonfire did not install Zen's pretender mod, does that mean that his pretender will be invalid? Do we need to restart the game?

Re: Game Started
 

Only if he chose a pretender that was nerfed (like the Ghost King), and used all his pretender points, and also did not install the mod.

Re: Game Started
 

I think I am OK. Really, it's my fault I did not understand this mod thing or at least did not read the thread closely enough -- sorry I do play this great game in a rushed manner -- but things look pretty good despite my mistakes. My pretender has spell ability and he is not a ghost king, So we should just play and have fun!

Re: Game Started
 

Hm my god has already gotten a chest wound . That wasn't nice , pesky indeps http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif .

Now he has an overwhelming encumberance of 9 . That surely helps me conquering the world http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif .

But the ignorant guy i am i send him out this turn again .

Bets are accepted now if he survives this turn or not http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
I give him a 33% chance .
The nice guy i am i offer an 1:1 quote of every kind of gem expect pearls http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
Maximum amount is 2 gems .
So if you are interested just post your bet here and if you win i send you 1 or 2 gems but if you lose i would like to get your 1 or 2 gems you have bidden http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Game Started
 

I will put up 1 fire gem that your dragon survives, but only if you attack nothing worse than Heavy Infantry and archers.

Anything tougher than that (including the pesky X-bows, which I doubt you would risk), no bet!

Re: Game Started
 

Sorry for the wait. I just got home from work and did my turn. So now turn 4 is up!

Re: Game Started
 

Ha! Boron wins the battle with his dragon and now owes me 1 gem of his choosing!

Re: Game Started
 

Ok sent .
My sucking god has now an additional affliction though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif .

Re: Game Started
 

If we see you do a GoH we know who it is for lol.

Re: Game Started
 

What's a GoH?

Re: Game Started
 

Gift of Health.

Re: Game Started
 

Just Beorne and Boron left for their turns.

Chores for Grandfather.
 

The scene; A boy pesters his Grandfather.
"What happened at the battle? Please tell me."
Sighs."Well boy it wasnt pretty, I wont go into the details because its not for young ears, suffice to say the militia lost all their 'Pincer men' in the first attack and the rest broke like rabbits running from dogs. Hulfgar was one of the first to turn and run but despite being in the rear his ... ahhh ... belly betrayed him and he was felled before going twenty strides."
"What happened to you Grandfather?"
"I cant run so fast boy so I just sat where I was."
"Why didnt they kill you?"
"Well it turns out these giants were looking for one such as I. They have scouts you see but they are very expensive to pay so they have decided to recruit scouts and messengers from their vassal provinces. And for whatever reason they chose me."
"Your going to be a scout??"
"Dont be so surprised boy, scouts dont just have to be sneaky they can be inconspicuous too. Who would suspect an old man of being a scout. An Im good with pigeons too."
"But that means your going to leave us." A tear wells up in the boys eye.
"Aye boy, but thats not so bad, its an adventure for the old man, it will be great. And frankly its already getting too cold for these old bones. No it will be my Last great epic journey."
"I hate the giants!" The boy turns and runs away.
"Not as much as their enemies will boy, not as much as their enemies."

Deathmatch
 

Thanks for the champions trident boys. Feel free not to compete again if deathmarch comes up.

Re: Deathmatch
 

Yeah I found that a bit funny that 11 nations and only one person entered lol. My excuse is that I didn't have anyone available to go to the tourney.

Game Over
 

Sorry Guys, It looks like the RAID array in my server just went kaput.

The game files were on my 4 disk Striped RAID array, and it looks like one of the drives in the array just went kaput.

For those of you who don't know what this means, let me just be clear, if the drive does not revive then the entire array is gone forever, I will have to swap in a new drive and rebuild the array.

I am truly sorry, this was out of the blue with no prior indications, i.e. no funny noises or anything. Just BAM! gone.

The drive in question is not spinning up at all right now, which may indicate a broken connection between the power plug and the rest of the drive, if this is all that it is there is a possibility that with a little solder and a lot of luck I may be able to revive the drive and thus the array.

My prior experience however leads me to think this is just wishful thinking and it is likely that the problem is not so simple and / or the sudden loss of power to one drive in the array while the others kept going may have corrupted all the data and the array may not come back even if I can revive this drive.

Forunetly I did a full backup of the drive 41 days ago, and most of the data has remained static. So even if the game is a total loss the rest of my data is still ok.

Once again I am sorry. I am willing to host again once I get everything squared away if you guys are still interested after this disaster. Unfortunetly this was the only system that had no direct Users, it just sat in the background storing data, it was almost never rebooted and up until now very stable.

I only have 1 other system in the house that is under my direct control, and it is the one I do all my day to day stuff on, and thus it gets rebooted a lot more often than the server.

Anyway I will shut up now and see if I can fix this drive.

Sorry again,

Grim Knight

Re: Game Over
 

As a Postscript to the above if I do host again, I will learn from this and write a simple batch file that I can run every time I take my turn that copies the Folder with the turns in it to another computer on my network. The data thus backed up on two entirely separate computer systems would be pretty safe.

This would allow for a pretty reliable backup that in a worst case scenario would only result in a 1 turn setback instead of total loss. If I had been thinking at all I would have been doing that with this game and we would have been back up and running as soon as the server was back Online.

Anyways just a thought, I will now get back to the problem at hand. This is so frustrating!

Again, I am profusely sorry about this,

Grim Knight

Re: Game Over
 

not that this is any of my concern, but why in heck would you be running a server on a 4 disk striped array? (lol)

you have the disks for a nice raid 1 + 0, or even a jbod would run only a quarter the risk of losing any given data...

Re: Game Over
 

Oh Well... I am willing to restart whenever. Or, perhaps, we could try this game PBEM.

Re: Game Over
 

I'm good for a restart too. I find it quite funny that I wake up on Sunday morning, check out the forums, and immediately see that a bunch of games have problems, not just this one, Inland Melee, Pantheons, etc. Must be a bad luck day for a Dominions 2 MP player. lol

Re: Game Over
 

IT'S DIVINE RETRIBUTION. Admit it. You know it. I have always known that you're a closet religious fundamentalist. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Game Over
 

Yeah, yeah. God is punishing me for playing Dom2 instead of going to church. Sorry I dragged all of you into it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Game Over
 

I remember someone warning me in high school that I would go to HELL if I continued playing D&D, because it involved "worshiping" false gods. Dominions carries the same risk. So, beware. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif
PASHA

Re: Game Over
 

I am ready for a restart whenever.

And speaking of D&D...D&D Online comes out a year from now.

Re: Game Over
 

I'm for a restart too. I't is clear I don't know how to use Mitclan and I was having a real bad start. Hopefully it's gone forever http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Game Over
 

Speaking of D&D... I was wondering if this program (Screen Monkey) is any good, and if it would allow Dominion-Like-Folk to play D&D Online. http://www.nbos.com/products/screenm...reenmonkey.htm

Re: Game Over
 

Im bummed about the loss of the game.
I mean I had just won the champions trident for petes sake!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Game Over
 

Ah, so sad! Someone cast a spell of Dom2 debacle it seems. Perhaps Norfleet . . .

Re: Game Over
 

Archaeolept, as for running a 4 Disk Striped Array I realized the risks, but um didn't think it could happen to me. Besides I needed the space.

At this point the drive in question is officially toast, but I have replaced it, rebuilt the Array, and Reformatted the system. In light of this I have this time setup the array as Striped + Mirrored, and I will use the batch file as I stated.

I still have not restored most of the data, but a lot of that I really don't need rapid access to so I am in no hurry to do that. Besides in the New Configuration I don't have enough space to restore it all anyway.

Anyway I am opening up the server again so Anyone who wants to can reupload pretenders, if anyone wants to change to a different nation now would be the time, I am sticking to Marigon.

Server will be at the same IP etc, and I will use all the same settings as before.

Sorry Again, but thanks for understanding.

Grim Knight

Re: Game Over
 

I say that everyone should stick with their previous nation & pretender, and none of the settings should be changed. That way, we can get started right away without negotiations.

Uploading Pretenders
 

Just uploaded my pretender. I see that some of the others have done the same already.

Re: Uploading Pretenders
 

Hah that's luck . Last turn my pretender died but now voila i don't have to worry about http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
Lets see if my pretender dies that quick this time again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

Re: Uploading Pretenders
 

Let me know, if you need help with killing him off quickly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Uploading Pretenders
 

Already eight have uploaded their pretenders. Only 3 to go.

I vote that Boron must sack his pretender again to be fair. Don't you all agree???

And I had already found Pasha Dawg near me, so my scout was thinking of taking the Pangaea capitol. Too bad he did not get a chance to try that. He could easily have sliced and diced through 25 PD plus the pretender and any troops and mages there, right?

Re: Uploading Pretenders
 

ok, uploading now!

Re: Uploading Pretenders
 

Hmmmm... too bad you did not get to try it. My minions would have liked a little Roasted Abyssa Marshmallow for a snack. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: Uploading Pretenders
 

Hmm so Pasha was near you Panther? Boron was on the eastern side of that continent lol. And across the sea to the north was jotum and marignon lol.

Re: Uploading Pretenders
 

Looks like we're waiting for Dragonfire and CuriousCat. I just sent a reminder email to Dragonfire and a PM to the Cat.

PASHA

Re: Uploading Pretenders
 

Sorry again. Didn't realize we'd get restarted so quickly. Uploaded.

CC

Re: Uploading Pretenders
 

All set here.

Re: Uploading Pretenders
 

Unless I can't count, that means we're all set to go. 11 pretenders have been uploaded, and I believe we only had 11 players.