Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

I like the tactic with hellpower and spawning horrors while blood mages are immortal http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Other Ulm themes are pretty weak but BF is one of my favourites too and it turned out not that weak once in a MP game its the most versatile ulm theme too.

well, i go for LA Ulm, MA Ryleh and EA Mitclan. But Ashen Empire will always be my favourite for nostalgic reasions.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Mivayan, well i have not tested it but according to the manual page 72, ordinary combat take place at turn resolution sequence 14, while "All dominion spread (for whatever reason) are conducted now." is turn resolution sequence 24. Unless the manual has another flaw i take that to mean that preaching which does change dominion should take place after combat.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

I just have to say that this notion that diplomacy and/or randomness somehow reduce strategy is really quite simplistic. In both cases there are many, many hard core, intense strategy games replete in both. For example, in the case of diplomacy there is the archtype Avalon Hill boardgame called "Diplomacy" where the whole point of the game is, as its name says, to make (and break) deals. This is a game that has been analyzed and studied extensively. I imagine it is quite amenable to being studied in the light of the mathematics of game theory, and I'd be willing to bet that that has been done.

Equally so with randomness, randomness in no way decreases the amount of strategy/analysis to be applied. Just ask any bridge player. Yes it is true that many classic strategy games are deterministic, but requiring a player to make his/her analyses probabilistic instead can end up with a game just as deep and just as challenging (or more so).

Edit: Hope the above doesn't come off as hostile or insulting, but I have noticed that there is a school of thought on these boards that diplomacy somehow reduces the intellectual quality or depth of the game. Seeing this, I just wanted to raise the counterargument.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Sauromatia.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

I'd love to play this if it comes together, and i think i'd like mid Abyssia, but there are lots of cool choices.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Joining a game like this and getting knocked out early would be very depressing.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Deleted.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Experience in large games have shone me that,that simply isn't true. Once you have approached late game, a majority of your power comes from summoned units. Also I'm not sure how you can say that MA Pan has any sort of strong late game magic ... pans are just not that formidable.

Most huge games all generally meld around the same way of players building up clam pools and hoping out nuke the other player's clam pools out of existence.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

(a) By turn 517 in 2009, it might be depressing not to have been knocked out early.

(b) I get knocked out early in most of the games I play anyway. It's still fun.

I'd do it just to do it. It'd be a historic event in the online Dominions community. I'd play any one of a bunch of nations, Ermor, Marignon, C'tis being particular favorites of mine.


Question for veterans of very long games: do games ever get so long that blood becomes less effective due to lack of population? Or, referencing KissBlade's comment immediately above, does it just become irrelevant before ineffective?

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Good point, having a 50+ province empire can be painful, timewise and logistically. Ideally, it would be good to get defeated between turns 51-100. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Especially painful with Ashen Empire.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

One nation i can see doing well here is ctis(probably LA) due to their powerful sauromancers. They have strong access to death aswell as good astral/nature(national summons ftw http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) and fire in LA. With a pretender to cover the paths they dont have and maybe forge boosters i can see them being a very powerful force(i wonder what happens if all squares on the battlefield are full and you try to cast raise skeletons... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif)

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Im hoping that the grizzled old veterans will leave the proving of their pet peeves to the younger set. Aftr all, if its a major abuse then anyone should be able to do it.

For them, Im offering abit of a challenge. I will include the empty and unfinished nations.
They can take:
13) Tir na n'Og - Land of the Tuatha
14) Fomoria -
20) early Gath - Time of Nefilim
45) mid Gath - Anakim
65) late Gath - xxx
69) Filler 69 - Veteran or Freebie
70) Filler 70 - Veteran or Freebie
71) Filler 71 - Veteran or Freebie
72) Filler 72 - Veteran or Freebie
73) Filler 73 - Veteran or Freebie
74) Filler 74 - Veteran or Freebie
75) Filler 75 - Veteran or Freebie
76) Filler 76 - Veteran or Freebie
77) Filler 77 - Veteran or Freebie
78) Filler 78 - Veteran or Freebie
79) Filler 79 - Veteran or Freebie

Since these are holding slots they would be very difficult to play. A bare list of gods, a generic starting army, no national sites, no national units.

Im still considering two things about the game. Whether to turn AI on for all unchosen nations. And whether to allow veterans to send a name and epithet change for their choices.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Deleted.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

I think a veteran might make a good match of it starting out as limited as a filler slot.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Just put the Ai on mighty for all the races not being played by humans. That would allow someone that gets killed off to take over a computer race.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Okay I'll bite, how do you turn an AI position back to human control? I thought this was impossible.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

I have no idea, i thought gandalf could do anything!

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

heehee. Well thats one I havent managed yet (at least not in a legal manner) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

I thought people might be interested in this from my latest test. I created an all_nations game and then let it run mindlessly with continual forced hosting.
Its down to 8 nations

http://www.Dom3minions.com/~~mmdom3/mindless/

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Broken link.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Take out the extra tilde~.

http://www.dom3minions.com/~mmdom3/mindless/

-Max

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Heh. LA Ermor's army size is 32000. Guess it maxed out a counter somewhere.

-Max

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

So has anyone created this mod yet? Is this going to be an option in the next patch?

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

heehee. no I suspect that this makes Johan cringe. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I wouldnt expect to see it in a patch.

But if you really want to play that way on your own machine then I will provide my copy of the mod. Altho it will probably have to be fixed with the next patch or whenver those new nations come out.
http://www.Dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/SingleAge.zip

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Just to let everyone know who does not visit the mods subforum, Gandalf has finished the mod and its now available.

With Gandalfs mod you can play upto 77 nations, from every era or EA Ulm vs MA Ulm vs LA Ulm for example! How would EA Atlantis fare against LA R'yleh?

Its called, 'single age mod', available in the Dom 3 Scenarios, Maps and Mods subforum.

Lets all say thankyou Gandalf! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Thanks gandalf!

ps:looks like LA ermors cleaning house in the mindless game

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Heehee. Well if its extreme and chaotic then you can count on me to back the idea. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Hammer.gif[/img]

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

I'd absolutely play EA Niefelheim.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Actually, I'll play whatever's left of the EA nations-this sounds really fun!

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Along with the 50 nations, what about Tir'na'nOG and Fomoria? For that matter, what about a selection of "officially" accepted mod-nations like Haida G'waii?

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Random nations would be fun, then gang up on face huggers or those showing undue advancement

oh yeah, color me in for EA T'ien Chi if avail

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Id probably want LA agartha, bandar log, one of the ctisian nations or possibly one of the new nations.

Random nations would probably be best.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

I'd be happy playing EA R'lyeh or EA Agartha too.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Those two are actually already in the game. Nations 13 and 14 have those names already assigned but in 3.06 they dont have much they can do. So Im guessing that when they show up in the next patch I wont have to do anything. The Eriu I dont know where they are showing up so I might have to edit the mod for them.

As for other modded nations, Im not sure what is needed. Feel free to try it and find out. I probably wont be offering them in my game unless a single mod comes out that fills the empty slots and gives them flags. Anything else is more work than I plan on doing.

I might toss the empty slots into the game as AI's. Or some veteran might try them. They start with an army but most of them have nothing to recruit so they are basically freebies for whoever lands near them.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

It was just a thought. I'd rather play a game that you yourself were hosting, Gandalf, than a random one. That would be more appealing to me.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

In what way is Haida an 'officially' accepted nation?

I'm just curious.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Dunno, since it's, y'know, an egregious case of what I'm discussing in another thread ATM, Sombre.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

For this type of mod, I feel only the official nations would be appropriate.

Sombre, I think Honeybadger was saying it should be considered for some sort of list, not that it is on such list.

I didn't create Haida Gwaii with the intentions of it being forced on people or added to a list of accepted mods as is suggested.

I feel all player mods should always be a voluntary relationship, download it if you want, play with it if you like it.

And I think the criticism of such mods should always spring forth as constructive, not out of jealousy or a dislike of an individual.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Oh, I didn't know you made it, Foodstamp. If you like, I can explain my exact issues with the mod privately. With, of course, checking to make sure I have a current copy of the mod, so that I'm not going over stuff that is no longer an issue. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

That is fine. Just keep in mind that I want the feedback to be constructive, and I would appreciate that you take the entire mod into consideration when determining if something is overpowered or underpowered.

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Ok, I perhaps made a poor choice of words in using the term "officially" accepted.

What I was aiming for was "complete, vanilla-balanced, and well-liked by the community/accepted as a standard of high quality". I honestly didn't think anyone would take issue with the term, but if so, I appologise and I'll try to be more sensitive (well, atleast I'll have that good intention until such time as I forget about it).

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

OK people.
I have some news. Good and Bad.

(1) On the one hand my tests have not gone well. It is possible to run this game by direct connect but getting that first game-creation hosting involves alot of manual work.

(2) On the other hand, we have a volunteer to tackle that. Velusian is starting a game now in the MP forum.
Mega Game thread
So if you thought this game as an interesting idea then go jump on his since it might be a long time before I decide to do one.

(3) My fingers are lazy but my mind is on continual outflow. A comment in the games thread about bidding on nations sparked me off, "You can get 80 players". My mod took for granted that it would be all nations of all 3 ages, and maybe the empty slots. But "80 players" got me to thinking. As far as I can tell from messing with the SingleAge mod the game might allow multiple renamings of the same nations. So it might be possible to create a mod at the start of the game to include any nations files that you received. Naming ea_Ulm files as ea_Ulm_# where # is a number. 6 Ulms, 8 Arcos, 12 Vanheims, etc etc all in one game. No bidding at all because it doesnt matter who wants what. Let them all in the game (up to the 80 slot limit of course). Oh well, add that to my already huge project list.

Gandalf Parker

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

whoah..my brain hurts. That might be really really cool! 5 Marveni's ganging up on a nearby Helheim (might take that many).

30 Helheims duking it out

EA T'ien chi vs. MA T'ien chi "Grandpa?"

Takes the pantheon idea to new heights

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Well thats been me thru all 3 dominions. If its randoms or chaos then Im all for supporting it to the extremes.

Hmmmm random AND chaos. I just had another thought. Im sure I can write a basic program that will write a mod so that you have no idea who you are playing against.

for 1 to 80 times...
select random nation
select randomly generated name
write the nation to slot 1
name it with the made-up name
next slot

Start a game with the mod and add as many of them into the game as you want. You might play against 4 late age Ulms but the nations might be named Fee Fhi Fho and Fhum. You wouldnt know for sure until you actually ran into them.

Hmmmmmm... it would have to have a way to tell it which nation to NOT include so I can play the nation I want. Or not. It just means that I would end up with a random nation also.

Gandalf Parker

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

Would add to diplomacy as well as you may not want other players finding out what you are. Banners might be difficult, maybe find a way to randomize the extra banner mod as well. Then they wouldn't know till they actually saw the troop types http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

How to get around the fact that some folks just HATE playing some nations? Allow 1 rejoin and somehow enforce it?

Also, how long did it take you to set up your chaos game with some random provinces? Not necessarily the whole % random or full random, just some extra spice to a 1000+ map?

Re: playing ANYONE against everyone
 

You mean like my Mega Map?
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/MegaMap.jpg
http://www.dom3minions.com/RandomMaps/MegaMap.zip
Or something abit more logical like the RanMap can generate?

It depends on how its created. My version takes a LONG time to generate the fatherland file but I guess that wont matter in a multiplayer game.