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Weird, really weird. You shouldn't have to wait more than five minutes normally, or ten at most. Try again from your webmail perhaps.

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Anyways, it went through this time quicklike.. No worries. It could have well been bellsouth/thunderbird.

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Hi guys,

I'd like to ask for a volunteer to be the 'game admin' for this game. It's not a big job at all - the admin is just the person to ask if you want to postpone a hosting because you're going away for a day, and so on. They can then do it via the website, using the admin password (which I'll give them).

I'm just asking in the interests of 'sustainable development' - so I can go on adding stuff to my server and starting new games without getting bogged down.

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I could do that, at least if no one else wants to...

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Sweet, thanks Szumo! I'll PM you the password.

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Thanks. And with that, i'll propably need to postpone friday morning hosting - i'll be seing Genesis gig on thursday and propably won't make it back in time to make my turn. Should be only a few hours delay though, i hope no one will mind http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Is anyone up for some gossip? I see Shinyuama and Abyssia lead in province count, with me being close 3rd. And Agartha must have some interesting research strategy to start researching madly so early - but still has the biggest army. Anyone fighting already, perhaps?

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The only other player I've seen so far is Atlantis. Since they're in the water and I'm on land there's certainly no squabble over that border.

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I've seen atlantis, shinyuma, and agartha, now.

I'm feeling cramped, especially due to my sleepy start.

On the other hand, I'm also feeling rich.

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GNAR! I lost my whole post.
I like the idea of posting annual or bi-annual AARs. If for no other reason than to have something to check up on when I ask myself, WHAT WAS I THINKING?!

I was originally lusting after those farmlands Pythium inhabits, especially since wastelands were to the south, and mountains don't make much money. But that mountain range is so much more defensible. And my lone scout saw how cramped sum1won is. I have no desire to stir that cauldron. Not and live to see tomorrow, what with painfully slow fortresses, painfully slow troops and mages, and no idea what lies to my direct south. I haven't found a single indep scout. Fortunately, my aggressive research and clear goal means I can spare my capital now, and just coast along on my early research rush, towards two of my keystones. Though to be honest, one is just because I want to, not because I see a clear strategic advantage or have a specific plan. That, and the fact that I may or may not, depending on my site searching, be drowning in earth gems. I know I'll have somewhere over fifty piled up before I have anything to spend them on. You know my huge research advantage? I've achieved that with only four not-so-great, but sacred-cheap researchers who'll die of old age soon. By the end of my first year, I could forge four Dwarven Hammers before running out, if there was an advantage to be gained. That's not where my strat is headed, however. This is the Golem Cult, baby. And Attentive Statues can do wonders for my indie expansion if I can get them out early enough to make up for my one map move, and get them to some fighting. But if I waited till year two, it'd take them half a year to get anywhere useful. Fortunately for you, an early Golem Rush has one major weakness that anyone with basic battle scripting can exploit... Fortunately, that doesn't cover independents.

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Anyone know where I can get a brain? I played turn 7 and apparently never sent it in!

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I believe one of our nations has an Emerald City, so just follow the yellow brick road, you're off to see the wonderful wizard of Oz.

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What, nobody apreciated my Oz joke?

Well gossip time. I got my turn in about thirty minutes till turn-over. Shinuyama might sleep through theirs.

Damn misfortune, damn barbarians. Here's hoping that all those archers I recruited can be put to good use, and I didn't cripple myself by splitting my forces in two. Take a province, lose a province. Eh... The same province they raided produced several water gems the same turn, so my luck's not all bad.

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I have found Abysia so far and I am dead scared of his god...E9F4 and like 29 Prot...not to mention gods know how many HP...I wonder just what kind of scales he needed to take to get all that awake...((besides heat, that's a given...)) His army size kind of sucks, so probably a bit of turmoil and sloth...

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Meh... One of my provinces got hit by TWO Ill Omens this turn. All that bad luck resulted in me quitting without saving when I meant to press end turn and submit my turn. Bah!

Those Barbarian Raiders have suffered my revenge. Hah! Those archers earned their pay, when my LI would have been slaughterized.

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...

Anyone else having some trouble discussing stuff with people? Pms and in game messages have proven to get no responses from some players.

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Well, if you've been sending me in game PMs, I haven't gotten anything.

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I've gotten em. At least two. They've shown up in my list of messages. But I've only chatted yet with one player. I'll shout out to all my underground homies next time I get my turn. I'll have something to brag about, anyways.

I'll have six of those Attentive Statues. Fortunately for you, my leaders are SLOW, and the terrains rough enough it wouldn't matter if I had faster. Want gossip?
My capital is pulling in over 300 resources, and this is with a sloth scale. To quote Jim Cramer of Mad Money, "Booyah!". Incomes a bit lacking, but I save pennies by recruiting heavier troops. I've started site searching now, but before that, I had auto-found 3 mines adjacent (one copper, two iron) to my capital. If only my troops were actually worth it.

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Well, I just found Ryleh, they're in the SW ocean and already out on land. He had the bad luck to go for the same province I went for and his force got annihilated.

The two water nations are in separate bodies of water so they are going to be fighting us, not each other.

Nothing else interesting so far.

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...

Is anyone else near shinyuma? Because, from what I can see of his territory, he hasn't done anything for two turns.

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This is a good turn for me, a very good turn. No ill fortune (despite one very unlucky province), and I've enchanted my first batch of golems.

I won't give up all my secrets, but I'll tell you a few juicy details if you share some more gossip. There may be a small bit of misinformation mixed in, but no lies. Promise. We mean nothing by it, its just that after you're pushing up past 500, you tend to confuse things sometimes. Why, just yesterday I forgot where I left the keys to my cave. Thank goodness those kind young barbarians came by and offered to break down my door.

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I'm going to be busy this weekend, so if we could put the force host-thing on hold, that'd be great, because I can't garuntee that I will be able to make the next two turns.

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Speaking for myself. Acceptable.

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We can do that, when exactly you'll be no longer busy?

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Should be within 54 hours from now.

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Allright, we're still waiting for Shinuyama, but when this turn hosts i'll postpone next one till Monday 19.00 GMT.

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I will probably be busy all day Sunday, as I will be at my graduation party all day. If I'm really lucky, I will be continuing this game on a brand spankin' new laptop. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

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Any luck with your laptop? I've just figured out the right switches to let me play dominion on my new one. (Not cutting edge, but nice to have).

Since we're stuck with Worthy Heroes 1.7, could someone upload their copy of it, since it's no longer attached to the worthy heroes thread (In favor of 1.7b)? I can figure out another way at it, but an upload would save me from jumping through some additional (admittedly minor) hoops, and have a convenient place to get whenever any of us has to switch PCs. Thanks in advance.

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Never mind. Starsine Monarch, if you need to download WH 1.7, here's the link http://www.mediafire.com/?8wyds1tqlgg

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Hey LP, I don't know why you'd need 1.7 (rather than 1.7a). The LlamaServer's running 1.7a on it. In principle everyone should upgrade, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't actually matter (which is why I haven't really said much about it).

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I woulda sworn I'd seen a message last time i set this up on a computer. Version 1.7 needed. I might be wrong. Doesn't really matter, I guess. Forget I brought it up.

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hooray, im back. lemme get me turn in, and we can go and host whenever

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Eh, I can always just copy/paste what I have here onto a flashdrive and just move it. I still haven't gotten it though, probably sometime at the end of the week or early next week. I've got about $600 to spend on it at the moment. Any suggestions before I make up my mind?

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Well... what do you hope to do with it?

I could give a whole arseload of advice, but for this particular thread, I'll try to keep it succinct.

Intel Graphics has gotten better, over the years, but its still not a match for a real graphics card.

Beware integrated graphics that share system memory. Some are decent, some are crap, but include the amount of system memory they use in your calculations of whether you've got ram enough for Vista/XP/Linux + games.

Find out how much bloody heat the laptop will pump out, if you can.

General shoutout: When Shinuyama sends in their turn, could you give us a headsup, Zakna?

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Well I was mainly just gonna use it for college, you know, just install some of the basics: MS Office (or I'll learn to use OpenOffice), Adobe Reader and GIMP (so I can work on my Dom 3 sprites properly), and afterwards, I'll put some of my games on: Dom 3, Civ 3, Heroes of Might and Magic 4, and Starcraft. Hopefully it will do well enough so I can install Heroes 5, Civ 4 and (eventually) Starcraft 2 on it without any hassle.

Here's the one I was looking at. I'm not exactly the most computer-savvy, It was mainly the price that caught my eye. I know that it will come with Vista, so I'm likely going to end up installing XP on it. I'm also going to be taking Business Management courses, so are there any programs that would be helpful with that?

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Then again, I'm likely to lose a laptop, so I'm looking at desktops too.

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You'll want a laptop if your campus is wireless. They aren't THAT easy to lose. And it'll be really convenient

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Business management? Would you have a need for a full-sized keyboard? The one I just bought has a Numpad, but I can't recommend that one for games.

Lets see... 512 MB of RAM is sufficent for Windows XP, not Vista. That parts okay. Integrated graphics uses 128 MB of system memory. I'd recommend a minimum of 256 MB for Windows, despite Microsoft's recommendation of 128. So that would leave 128 MBs free for other programs to use. You could probably manage Heroes IV, Starcraft, Dom3, Civ3, and the Gimp. For sanity's sake, though, I'd recommend settling for no less than a gigabyte RAM. If you let say, compusa handle it, you can get an extra gigabyte of ram for $69. That's not my style, but no need for me to get in a rant about retailers, least not here.

Heroes V will require 512 Megabytes of RAM free. Starcraft 3? I don't know, but I doubt it. Civ 4, to my surprise, asks for 512 MB.

The integrated graphics here will do some work, but I have to say no on that. It's an irrelevant brand(for gamers, at least), with some performance issues. If you were pinching pennies with integrated graphics, I'd look for the name ATI or Nvidia somewhere on the graphics, which are know for designing graphics architectures. A separate graphics card may still be best, but with ATI and Nvidia, you can get good performance and quality for most (read not First Person Shooters or Supreme Commander) games.

The lithium-ion is a good thing to have in a battery. The wireless networking is built in, which is very good, since it's one less thing to break/lose/haul around. Wireless b/g is a pretty common format, so that's good.

I will say this in that systems favor- off the top of my head, looking at the brand names only (VIA), I have to guess that system will have a significantly above average battery life.

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Well, I can definetly get an extra gig of RAM with the $200 left over. I'll shop around a bit to see if I can get a better price on it though. A friend of my mother's is a computer programmer, so I'll probably ask him about it. I suppose I'll hold off on the graphics for a while, though. Honestly, I don't have Heroes 5 or Civ 4 yet, I was just wondering if they would run when I do decide to get them. Thanks a bunch for the tips LP.

Edit: Found a better one in the store that was on clearance, so it was the same price. Pretty much the same with an Intel Celeron processor and 20 more gigs of Hard Drive space. I'm still probably gonna get the 1GB RAM upgrade from CompUSA (found it for $50 instead of $70). If I'm lucky, I'll have enough to buy a Nintendo DS too.

Zanka, when the hell are you gonna get your turn in?

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Zakna has staled the last couple turns anyways, so its a safe bet that he won't. In fact, if I hadn't held everything up, he would have staled for half the game now.

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Nintendo DS is nice. If you're geeky enough, you can install Linux on it. If you're just interested in using it as game platform (as I am), there's a nice selection of games targeting all- scratch that- most audiences. Castlevania is wonderful - esp. since the DS games continue the proven 2D gameplay.

If you find a place that can customize your laptop, that can be really worth it (esp. if you do the research). Nvidia/ATI integrated graphics don't really add much to the cost of a machine - maybe 5 or 10 dollars compared to the practical minimum of $100 for a discrete graphics _card_.

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I think I'll stick with what I've found for now. The only place I know where you can customize your laptop is Dell. I don't think I'll have enough money for that though. Their sales and rebates and all just confuse the hell out of me.

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Staled more than one turn? Perhaps it is time to set him on AI then...

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Via a username search, the last time he's made a post in the forums is the 19th...

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Brain hurts! Peace! War! Which one? All this trouble thinking must be due to the cold scale it seems I took on during winter. Yowch. Brain freeze.

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Well, i don't even see the option to turn someone to AI in admin interface anywhere, so if Zakna is indeed MIA we need to get llamabeast to do that.

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Yeah, you can't do that through the admin interface, because the only way of doing it is to actually open up his turn and hit 'Set to AI' or whatever it is.

I tell you what would be useful though Szumo - would you mind sending him a message through the admin interface? That will send him an e-mail. If he doesn't appear I'll take his turns while we look for a sub (unless his nation's almost dead, in which case I will finish off for him/set him to AI).

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Done - both through the admin interface and private message on the forum.

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Brilliant, thanks.

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His nation is nowhere near dead, believe me. Its still something like second largest.

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Which does seem kind of ridiculous if he has been MIA for half the game...Anyone want to murder him without remorse?