Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

i would like Van

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Oh man, the excitement's got too much for me. I think I will join too. Now which nation...

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

I'd like to reserve Jotunheim and Atlantis while I have a little think (I reckon the host has such powers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif).

The remaining nations are Jotunheim, Atlantis, Oceania and Man (if Fal is happy to have an UW nation). Jazzepi, zakna, me, Fal and our mystery 22nd player have yet to choose.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Due to a lack of sufficiently rapid objections (and the fact that it sounds good to me), I hereby declare we'll play on 'Glory of the Gods (multiplayer)'. We'll use Worthy Heroes and the Blessing Hotfix.

People should now start designing and uploading their pretenders. I'd like to get the game started quickly-ish, if possible.

I'll add links to the mods to the first post shortly. Instructions for uploading your pretender are earlier in this thread somewhere.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Because I am slow, I failed to count myself in the number of players. So, we now have the full 22! Wow! That was incredibly fast. Time to get your pretenders up guys.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

All hail the Lawgiver, Lord of Light!

Kneel and recieve His blessing. The Old Ones will bathe in His splendour.

A festering growth is percieved. Riding the memory of ageing men it enters the temples forbidden. By the name of Youth it is venerated and worshiped by the weak, the old and the unwise. It lodges itself in the very souls of mortal men, and tears away all that should be, leaving but vain and wanton destruction.

Kneel Old Ones, and gather your flock. For the blessings of Old Age will come to them!

All hail the Lawgiver, Persecutor and Destroyer of Youth!

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

> I'll add links to the mods to the first post shortly. Instructions for uploading your pretender are earlier in this thread somewhere

Hmm, mods. Does that mean that I have to remake my pretender? I kind of liked Destroyer and Persecutor of Youth!

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

That is, indeed, a fun name http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

You'll want confirmation from the guys in the know, since I'm computerilliterate, but I seem to remember having been told that those specific mods have no influence on pretender creation, so you can keep your decrepit old god. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Amhazair is right, you don't need the mods when making pretenders.

Pretty much the only mod which does affect pretender design is the Conceptual Balance mod.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Okay, I've decided I can form no real preference between Jotunheim and Atlantis. So, we have Man, Jotunheim, Atlantis and Oceania between me, Fal, zakna and Jazzepi. I will take whichever of Jotunheim and Atlantis someone doesn't choose first.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Okay. I'll go ahead and play man http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Let me make up a pretender and mail it in.

Jazzepi

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Just so people know how fast to design their pretenders and so on, I would really like to get this game started by Thursday (or before of course, if everyone ends up being quick).

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Having reconsidered my time constraints, I'm going to have to drop out of this game. Sorry! T'ien Ch'i is now up for grabs.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Okay, no worries Sandman. We now have one free slot then.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Last night I tried out this map with my pretender and all 22 players. I was crowded in a corner and only managed to grab 5 provinces before being boxed in. I suspect that some players will have it as bad as I did, while others will get lucky with significantly better expansion opportunites.

Since Tien Chi bowed out, we might want to consider limiting the game to at most 21 players to slightly limit the crowding.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

I'm easy either way. You're probably right actually, but there is something exciting about getting all 22 nations in. Anyway, if other people think I should close the game at 21 players, I'm happy to do that.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

ok i choose Jotunheim

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Cool, I will be Atlantis then.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Ah, I forgot to say - it would be a little better if everyone's pretenders _didn't_ have passwords on. Unlike a network game, no-one else will have access to your turns anyway (they won't be e-mailed them). If you don't have a password it will make it easier for a sub to take over should you disappear.

It doesn't matter too much though (especially if you don't intend to disappear http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ), so don't worry about re-uploading if you've already sent your pretender in.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

And here I fought hard to remember to put in a password http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Where exactly are we suppose to upload/e-mail our pretenders to?

Jazzepi

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

From third page, could it be added to the first post, please?:

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Thanks Reverend. Okay, the first post has now been updated with some useful info (how to upload pretenders, links to mods etc).

Now the last question: What shall we set for the victory conditions? I've not got a lot of experience with this, but I'd suggest a player wins when they control some proportion of the provinces. This prevents an annoying teleport-onto-victory-points win, while still giving a clearly defined goal. And I think I would set it fairly low - 33% perhaps - so that the game doesn't deteriorate into a grind. By the time one of 21 players controls one third of the map, I think they've probably clearly won anyway.

Thoughts?

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

That sounds like a good idea. 33% is great for a dense setup. No one has mentioned player 22. Are we going to recruit a replacement? or make the cut off at 21 and save a little on crowding? (plus getting the game started a bit faster)

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Wow, seems like people don't have many opinions.

I am happy to leave it at 21 players. So now we're just waiting on six pretenders (including mine).

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

It's possible to grab dozens of provinces on one turn by teleporting mages onto provinces with just PD protecting them. I'm not necessarily saying that's bad, just pointing out that % of provinces victory condition does not eliminate the possibility to win by teleport.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

33% provinces seems fine with me. I have never played with province condition before.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

I can only second what Teraswaerto said. Playing with % provinces victory conditions benefits astral and air nations greatly. Not many people pay a great deal of attention to PD, and sometimes they even have all their units sitting in forts without using them for patrolling and the fort defenders can be defeated easily. That works if you want to protect your troops, but AFAIK provinces where you are just sieging the fort count towards your province count just the same...

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Hmm, okay. Well do people think VPs would work better?

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Perhaps we should consider ourselves warned, then, and pay special attention to point defense given the victory conditions.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

VPs seem even more susceptible to paradrop than percenatage provinces condition.

Victory conditions I like to use in games I host is 51% dominion victory, using the mid dominion value of 15 (it runs on a scale of 11-20 for each of your candles). I set the needed victory score to: 15 X (half of provinces plus 1) (or as close as I can get it with the damn slider!).

This eliminates the concern of paradrop, since victory is based on dominion spread, not province control.

I don't think many people are used to this condition, so I'm not sure it will fly.

But the game IS called Dominions, after all.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Themetically a Dominion victory makes the most sense.

That 31% province victory sounds too low. 2 nations could easily reach that at almost the same time. I would prefer at least 41%

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

274 province map with 21 players is 13+ provinces per player.

33% provinces is 91+ provinces needed to win.

Seems ok to me. The winner will after conquer the equivilent starting land of 6 other players. Anyone who does that and owns over a 1/3 of the map deserves victory.

Anyone who gets 60+ provinces is going to get jumped by a bunch of other players anyway. I reckon the game will last 60 - 100+ turns with those victory conditions.

But at the end of the day I am easy on what victory conditions we use.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

% province is not only susceptible to paradrop from Teleport and Cloud Trapeze, but Flying and Remote attack spells such as Call of the Wilds/Winds, Ghost Riders etc. too so I'd set the victory condition to at least 50-60% if you want to have it by provinces. Otherwise one only needs a couple of scouts to find weak spots.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Opening my MODS folder, I see the following inside:


3 more folders

1) Black Tome (folder)
2) Mods (folder)
3) Maps (folder)


Does that sound right?

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

lch and Tera - I would have thought that by the time you can pull that off, you deserve to win. But if not - what would you suggest instead?

Reverend - sounds interesting, although I might be inclined to set victory a little lower. What do people think of this?

Arghaii - no, sorry. I've now fixed the first post with better instructions - sorry! The contents of the 'mods' and 'maps' folders you have there should really go in the 'dominions3\mods' and 'dominions3\maps' folders themselves, if you see what I mean. i.e. you should only have one layer of directories within your dominions directory. Similarly you should put the contents of the 'Black Tome' folder straight into your 'mods' folder. Ugh, I'm making all this sound much more complicated than it is.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

A minimum of one candle in half plus one of provinces might work? (i.e., a required dominion score of 11 * (half of provinces plus one))

Or stronger dominion over one third of the map? (15 * (33% of provinces))

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Perhaps. My point was that some nations can do mass teleportation much easier than others.

I don't think remote attack spells are really a problem, as they have trouble breaking PD, cost more gems, and the ones like Ghost Riders and the Horror attacks leave the province in independent control.

Similarly, win by dominion favors nations with blood sacrifice.

I personally think it's best when games end naturally, when the remaining players concede that one player, or an alliance, is the winner.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

33% of the provinces sound good, but i would not make it to a fix condition (more like someone gets that percentage, lasting players decide if the one is still contested or not). So that if 2 players share half the map each they can play it to the end. This way paradropping wont count as a victory, as players can fight back afterwards and to win you really have to control the provinces.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

I like Reverend's dominion idea, and will probably use it in a future game. But being as it would probably affect pretender design significantly, I don't think we'll use it this game.

How about: In order to win, you have to take 33% of the provinces, and hold them for 3(5?) turns? Sound good?

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Just waiting on pretenders from:

GrayZ - Eriu
Dedas - Ulm
GameExtremist - Arcoscephale
llamabeast - Atlantis (bad llama!)

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

My point was that you can find out who is putting only < 5 PD via scouts and then use the cheap Call of the * spells or the stronger ones against that province. Caelum could do Call of the Winds coupled by aerial attacks. A Ghost Riders together with "attack current province" from a scout is a winner, too. Since I'm not playing myself I don't want to tell you what to do, I just wanted to warn that 33% could be achieved easier than imagined, so maybe get the percentage higher so that it's really a clearly visible advantage.

P.S.: Oh, when you can make "hold for X turns" as a victory condition, too, then I retract my earlier statements.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

33% seems a small percentage to me if the thought is that whoever gets there first would win anyway, but might make for a fun, short game so long as everyone is aware that it'll probably be won by somebody leaping unexpectedly the last 10% or so in a couple turns.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

I really think it should be something above 50%.

Jazzepi

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Id vote for the 33% or more hold for 5 turn or more http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
But I'm not sure about all the hold province thing. Make more sense to me to be the last pretender standing to claim godhood.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Good point this, hadn't thought of it.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

The problem with that is you'd reach a point where one player was obviously going to win, but he'd still have to hunt down the last survivors.

If I were one of the fugitives I'd want to concede because it would be boring, and I'd want to move on to a new game where I might have a chance.

If I were the winner I'd be just as bored, and hoping that people would concede so I'd have more time to put into a new, freshly challenging game.

If you're concerned that a quicker game like that means that the late game gets abbreviated (meaning the highest level spells never get researched and longterm strategies don't come to full fruition) then a big map with 22 players is more appropriate. I'd wager that with one of the bigger maps, even at 33% province victory, some players would get to see the fruits of their long term planning.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Hands up everyone who has managed to get 91 provinces in MP?

My hands are firmly down, I am in a game thats on turn 94 and I only have 65 provinces.

All the remaining players are determined to fight to the death, more provinces have forts than don't.

The idea of taking provinces with call of winds at this stage is utterly laughable. 3xghost riders usually fails to take a province. It takes 3hrs plus to do your orders correctly and the game looks like going on till turn 150. Its already lasted since Dom3 came out which is 9 months.

Do we want the same?

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

Wow. That sounds like a lot of no fun to me Meglobob. I think we don't want that.

Okay, I hereby assert that the winner will be the first to take 33% of the provinces, and hold them for 5 turns.

I don't think we can automate this victory condition, so the game won't force ue to stop playing when it's reached. But I expect we will find that it's actually too high a requirement, thinking about the logistics of taking and holding that many provinces. If there are two or three superpowers who want to keep playing beyond that, I suppose they can, but personally I doubt it will be much fun.

Right, next question (so many questions!) Does anyone have any suggestions about anything I should do to the map, e.g. place starting provinces? I'm not going to have time to think about placing 21 start provinces manually. If there's an automated way to do it though I'd be interested (what did they do for Perpetuality?). Or if anyone has time to do it manually that would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise I'll just let Dominions place people as it sees fit.

Re: Armadillo - new game (recruiting)
 

I'm fine with being randomly placed. I'm also fine with being nonrandomly and unfairly placed.