Re: Mod is ready
 

Yeah, I don't care for CBM, but the latest versions aren't as bad.

I can see that my LA Hoburgs would be hard to balance against some fixed standard.

Anyway, I'm curious about how these customized nations play out.

Since the nation is already done, I'll do Haida Gwaii instead of Dis. For one thing, latest version of Dis seemds to be overnerfed somewhat already.

Re: Mod is ready
 

Good, good, so we have no changes to the nations and we can use the same mod. Everybody, design your pretenders and send them to me by mail, please.
Don't forget to set a password and include it in the mail.

Re: Mod is ready
 

pretender sent

Re: Mod is ready
 

Please send me your password for your pretender, too.

Re: Mod is ready
 

I can't decide -
I can do an imprisoned master lich with great scales and diversifying magic.

I can do a dormant great sage with good scales and diversifying magic.

Or I can do an imprisoned (Totem Pole?) with 9A/9W/4N, and kill you all with bears. Electric bears. Raichu, the coalition forces choose you!

Anyone want to help me break my deadlock? Use reverse psychology on my reverse psychology and answer the question truthfully http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Mod is ready
 

I would take -3 in every scale, and get a triple 10 bless.

Jazzepi

Re: Mod is ready
 

password sent

Re: Mod is ready
 

go with whatever strengthens your tramplers and your mages skavens weak chaff loves tramplers and mages

Re: Mod is ready
 

Well, in case DrP *ever* decides on his pretender, we can start the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Mod is ready
 

You should take a dragon with 4 levels in every path and destroy all your scales. Leave your dominion 1.

Re: Mod is ready
 

Dominion 1.

Hawt.

Jazzepi

Re: Mod is ready
 

I think I sent in my pretender. Did it not arrive?

All pretenders received
 

It did. But not before I went to bed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Okay, there have been some more fixes to the mods and I will have to change a few more things. I'll release the new final combined mod that we are using for playing shortly, then I'll create and start the game. Stay tuned.

Updated mod
 

Here is the updated mod which you should all install before playing your first turn: http://www.mediafire.com/?ftx4l9lmcha

You should have received an email from the game server which should tell you everything you need to know to play.

In case you didn't receive it, please check your spam folders.

Re: Updated mod
 

To find out which of the numbers is yours when you connect to the game, check the stats page. If you're listed as the third nation there, for example, then you're the third number in that list, too.

Re: Updated mod
 

We're off!

Hopefully people will continue to post in this thread about the game progress, what they think of the mods etc. I'd ideally like a lot of feedback from all this.

Re: Updated mod
 

What was this stuff about visiting omni-forum thing on the first turn. Didn't work for me. Just did my first turn as normal is that okay?

Re: Updated mod
 

Are we all in a god-fearing atlantic-coast time zone? Any chance we could get four or five turns in this evening?

Re: Updated mod
 

Sorry, I forgot to update an outdated address from my old host at one occurrence in the first mail. The right address, which was used in the other occurrences, is valhalla.techno-mage.com

Re: Updated mod
 

some of us live in a civilised country and the rest of us live in England

Re: Updated mod
 

Sorry, I live in the Philippines, and just woke up! I'm downloading the map right now, I should be able to play for the next few hours before I go to work.

Re: Updated mod
 

Sorry, I live in the Philippines and just woke up! I have done my first two turns, and will be around for a couple more hours to do as many turns as possible.

Re: Updated mod
 

I live on a tiny island called Hawaii. I must go now and spear fish.

GMT+10

Re: Updated mod
 

China here, GMT +8.

lch could you take me off the email turn notification list?

Re: Updated mod
 

Doh. We have a bug with Kharam Dzu, which I guess is due to a weapon id conflict.

Kharam Dzu's bombast unit, armed with "Dwarven Fire" and a dagger, is showing up in the game armed only with the dagger, making them useless. Dwarven Fire is weapon id 815 in the cbm version I made.

So yeah, unless it's fixed the ones I've built will be a bit of a waste of gold.

Looking in the mod file, it's the old conflict with the Sylvanian sacred's weapon, Dawn's Edge. I fixed this for CBM Sylvania 2 by changing the id of dawn's edge to 820, but I guess that didn't make it into the mods over Europe .dm.

I can't remember if I even uploaded it.

Re: Updated mod
 

You're lucky that I am leaving tomorrow... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Really strange that this slipped my mind. I took extra care to sort out all kinds of ID conflicts before preparing the combined mod. And I created a search & replace script to be able to easily apply it to new mod files. But I guess I only checked the "new" nations for compatibility with the ID ranges from the first game and didn't expect that the CBM versions for the "old" ones would conflict with each other.

In any case, I updated the mod on the server now, it is attached to this post. Even if you don't use this updated mod then the server will do the "right" thing, but I suggest that you do update so that it's showing the right thing.

I removed you from the email list, too, Sombre, but I suggest that you then check the web stats page frequently.

Re: Updated mod
 

Cheers :]

Re: Updated mod
 

Is this something that my mod mixer failed to resolve, or did you not end up using my script at all?

Re: Updated mod
 

He used his own script I reckon. Besides he assumed all was good with the old nations, forgetting that we had to fix the 620 id conflict last time too.

Re: Updated mod
 

You mean GMT -8 right? or am i doing it wrong?

Re: Updated mod
 

We're +8. 8 hours ahead of GMT. We live in the future while you cavemen live in the past.

Re: Updated mod
 

poor little Hoburgs. Their home was struck by a hurricane in turn two. They have just now restored order.

They are taking measures to insure in the future that only the poor areas are flooded.

Re: Updated mod
 

The people of Hoburgs will have to build a shoddy system of levees.

Jazzepi

Re: Updated mod
 

Gaaar!!! Now bogus "liberated" a province next to my capital. WTF? I hav had better luck playing misfortune 3.

I was massing troops to try to get into the sea in that province. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/Injured.gif

Re: Updated mod
 

Hahah. I like the idea of Bogus liberating a land from happily farming hoburgs. Very heroic.

Re: Updated mod
 

Nice.

3 on 1 again.

I'm pretty much convinced that non-wrap around maps are very unbalanced for people who are not in the corner.

Jazzepi

Re: Updated mod
 

well expanding at such a fast pace is dangerous

"the tallest reed is the first to be cut down"
"The sweetest well water is the first to be drunk"

ancient chinese proverbs have lasted for a reason

Re: Updated mod
 

Yeah if you have runaway income, research and territory then people are probably going to ally against you. But I agree that wraparound maps are inherently more balanced in terms of start positions. I really like them.

Re: Updated mod
 

Also I think you did not want to allow any of your neighbors any space to expand, so no choice but to go to war against you.

Re: Updated mod
 

Please don't just parrot DrPraetorius because you happen to be in an alliance with him. I'm being attacked by an alliance of two people both of which are in a corner, and some random person. How many neighbors do both of you have? Of course, since you're both in a corner you only have 3. So you ally with one, to attack the third. This only leaves you each of you with one undefended front.

I didn't do anything amazing to expand. I don't have an awake pretender, the only thing interesting I did was buy two mercenaries which I got for very cheap. Most of my provinces are water provinces.

But all of you have information you shouldn't have because the graphs are on. Nobody should ever have access to how high my nation's research is, but the graphs are on, and nobody should know my income. The only things the graphs regurgitate that you should even be able to approximate with spies is territory count and army size.

So basically I got ganged up on because 1. the graph made it easy to pick out the fact that I was doing a ton of researching and had a small army and 2. I'm buttressed up against two corner nations who have the "easy mode diplomacy go-go" handicap on in full force. My nation wasn't even running away with being the largest, or the highest income, before I was attacked, I was just in the running for 1st-3rd.

Jazzepi

Re: Updated mod
 

The one thing I wish I would have done this game, I was very happy with everything else besides, was to start building my 2nd fortress about 3 turns earlier.

Also, all the above problems that I mentioned with the game setup seem to be exacerbated by the smallness of the map we're playing on. On larger maps, even if you have graphs to make it retard easy to see who is "in the lead" it's far more difficult to pick on that person due to the geographical distance between nations.

Jazzepi

Re: Updated mod
 

This is only the second game I've played with you Jazzepi, so I can't make a statement like "you complain too much" but you have groused quite a lot in both of them.

In Neo you are allied with Teutanion against me. You two attacked me simultaneously, attempting to carve me up quickly. It hasn't really worked out yet, but we'll see. I told people at the time I didn't think it was a very sound strategy for Teutanion (perhaps I'm wrong) but I didn't complain about it, it's fair enough. I then allied with Sylvania to fight you - that also seemed fair enough to me. Prior to your campaign against me, I had you pegged as the second most powerful nation in the game.

In this game the graphs told everyone you had a clear lead, which you're right, resulted in people going after you. It also didn't help that you're in the middle of the map. Contrary to what you said, you /were/ running away with provinces before being attacked, considering that you were also putting resources into research. Anyone close to you in provinces had done far less research. I also remember your army graph riding pretty high for a while. I'm not knocking you for doing well in the early game, it's what I'd have done if I were able (I'm a low skill player basically).

The only thing that annoys me is that you're complaining about things you could easily have mentioned before the game started. If you want a game on a bigger map, go for it. If you want the graphs turned off, mention it. If you want to ban diplomacy or make sure you aren't in the middle of the map, you could have suggested that too.

Anyway, don't give up yet, Ulm Reborn hasn't and they're arguably in a worse position.

Re: Updated mod
 

Neo was more my fault than anything because I was trying something weird with a rainbow mage, and that was before I had my epiphany about site searching which is basically that if you're doing a rainbow mage if you want to find sites of a particular type you only need 3 paths in it to find 95% of those sites.

I would be in an infinitely better position had a built my mage in that game differently and made her dormant instead of imprisoned. But you live and learn, now I only build dormant rainbow mages and never imprisoned. That still doesn't excuse the awful swath of mountains and forests that I was hedged into, just an unfortunate part of the game's random placement.

Also, Jomon's calvary is *awful*. Like appallingly awful. I can't even begin to explain to you how frustrating it is to take Jomon and attempt to fight Sylvania. Jomon's ranks are filled with low morale troops. Not a single person has a shield. So the only thing you can really do is recruit priests, mix in the demons who have high morale with the awful morale calvary, and then spam sermon of courage. I failed to do the third part of that, but I didn't realize how bad the morale problem would be. The fact that Sylvania is an archer nation is bad enough for Jomon, but that they have high protection, high defense, high morale, high magic resistance shock troops with *fear* against morale 9 calvary? It's like a kick in the balls each time that your calvary is literally chewing into the archers, and then routs.

I don't think I complain a lot, I got gang-banged by 4 nations in Perpetuality and tried my best to survive despite it all without complaining almost at all, though I did put up a lot of in character posts. I'm also in about 8 games right now and even though Hako broke an NAP against me twice in Starfall, while at the same time Emor decided to attack, I soldiered it up and just recently broke the back of Abysia's main army.

These two games in particular have been very frustrating (especially since I really like playing with the new races and consider this a unique opportunity), but I haven't given up, I just needed to vent a little. I still think I have game against the attacking nations. I mean, I didn't spend all that research on nothing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

My 1st goal right now is to take Hawii out of the running, and to defend myself 2nd.

Jazzepi

Re: Updated mod
 

Well you did build a lot of the Jomonese cav and it did very well against indies. If you think it's not a worthwhile and buildable unit then could you give me some suggestions about what you'd change. Part of the point of the mod games is to work on balance. It isn't getting better morale though, that's a feature of the race.

Sylvania's sacreds may be overpowered, it's something I'll check out. It might be that fear 0 is just too good for a recruitable massable unit.

Re: Updated mod
 

It may have just been a combination of the fear + the low morale + archers, some sort of perfect storm.

I built a lot of the calvary because it's the only thing that can play the "catching arrows" game against indies early on, and it doesn't do that terribly well, but they survive well enough to put the hurt on.

If you really wanted to keep the lower morale, that's fine. Maybe the priests could be made a little better like MA C'Tis's selection, or you could give them flight and mapmove 3 so that they'd be easier to keep on the front lines. Since I'm pretty much convinced that you must have the priests to spam sermon of courage on your calvary if you intend to use them, giving them flight and mapmove 3 would make them a lot easier to keep on the front lines, instead of constantly dragging your army down to mapmove 2.

Honestly, I felt like the calvary would have been okay if I had handled them better, but in the situation I was in they felt extremely useless. I think calling them awful is a bit of an overstatement.

Another suggestion I would give is simply to have the very low resource samurai's be mindless. As it stands, I don't think I'd ever build them.

Jazzepi

Re: Updated mod
 

Well, I don't think you handled the diplomacy deftly.

- If you cut people off, they'll declare war on you. This is a bigger problem in the middle than on the edges, I agree, but there you go. If this had been a wrap around map you'd be in the same situation in that regard, but maybe-so-would-I.

- If you don't want to fight early wars (like, right now), then even if you're in a corner you have to accept being somewhat small, which you didn't do. Even without graphs, people can generally figure out how big you are.

- If, when someone tries to negotiate with you, you threaten to throw the game to the other player, people will tend simply not to negotiate with you at all.

Re: Updated mod
 

How's it going for the rest of you guys? I'm especially curious about Avernum; I had a pretty humiliating loss against the AI with them. I couldn't get their sacreds to do much of anything; they died too quickly. E9 bless maybe? I really like the kitty archers, however, and can imagine a nasty lategame astral powerhouse.

Re: Updated mod
 

They don't have armour, so an E9 bless wouldn't work. I think a water astral bless would keep them alive best,... but really the trick is to keep the missile fire off them.

Re: Updated mod
 

- If you cut people off, they'll declare war on you. This is a bigger problem in the middle than on the edges, I agree, but there you go. If this had been a wrap around map you'd be in the same situation in that regard, but maybe-so-would-I.

The only reason it's so easy for you to declare war on me this game is because you AND your ally are both in corners.

- If you don't want to fight early wars (like, right now), then even if you're in a corner you have to accept being somewhat small, which you didn't do. Even without graphs, people can generally figure out how big you are.

I disagree with this heavily, not only do graphs tell the exact size of your nation, but they basically explain the composition of your army. For instance, I could tell you were massing a large group of low protection units backed up by your sacred tramplers just by looking at the size of your army on the graphs and understanding the units you have available to you.

Also, my insane amount of magic research was put out for display, something people would NEVER normally have access to unless they're in a fight and see a particular spell cast, but even that doesn't tell exactly how much research someone has.

By the combination of having a small army, a large group of provinces, and my huge amount of research all put on display on the graphs it's easy to tell that I would be a vulnerable target. Something that would be much harder to discern, or even impossible, without them.

- If, when someone tries to negotiate with you, you threaten to throw the game to the other player, people will tend simply not to negotiate with you at all. -

I wonder if you're curious why I simply didn't respond to your message over the forums? You constantly threatened immediate war if I didn't give you certain territories (two out of three which I conceded to you), so I find it hypocritical that you think it's bad negotiating to threaten scorched earth tactics.

Do you really think I have anything to lose by promising to attack you solely if you don't leave me alone? If I think I can heavily swing the game in my opponent's opponent's favor, and cripple the original opponent at the same time, obviously I'm going to threaten to do that. It's a big club to beat someone with diplomatically though some people won't respond to it, which is fine.

I didn't threaten to throw the game to the vampires, only to give them an incentive to finish you off and take you out of the running. If them having three capitals means they win the game, that's not my problem.

Jazzepi

Re: Updated mod
 

I tested this extensively, I found a high Air bless coupled with a water bless for quickness was best, but in the end it didn't feel like it was worth it to go that route when the only H3 (mobile) priest you have is your prophet. They do enough damage as is with the blades. I wanted to play a research heavy nation anyways, so I decided against playing bless rush in this game.

Jazzepi