Re: Mods
 

Not bad. With seventeen water provinces in the southeast lake, there's room for existence between two nations, both amphibious. And if one of us does die off (me, most likely), it won't be too much water.

It also gives me some possibilities to use sailing, although it won't be of much use in over half the map. Frankly, if you haven't tweaked it at all yet, its much better than I expected. The sea provinces are the right size and shape to be useful, even if the world isn't my own personal water park.

I'd be happy to use this one, though if it's no trouble, I'd like to see another one with two livable-sized separate bodies of water, so that I don't know if R'lyeh's waiting for me. A little more suspense until I get my scouts out and about.

On the issue of this one... If you're thinking its' rather featureless, you could maybe use gimp's clone tool to extend a few mountain ranges or make an area a swath of nostart wastelands with higher odds of having a magic site. You know, just to encourage territorial warfare. The forests do give it some character, though, especially with Pangaea around.

Stuff like that's up to you though. For a random map, this one meets my expectations. Once you tweak the mountains, I'll say thank you, and anything else is just wasabi on the sushi that will be R'lyeh.

Re: Mods
 

Since some non mod nations have opened up, im fine with taking tien chi over sylvania.

Re: Mods
 

Great. That simplifies things. Thanks, Ramz.

Re: Mods
 

I'll generate a few more maps and post the best here in a bit.

Re: Mods
 

I don't suppose Midgard is still open? I'm having second thoughts about the amount of micro-management that a late game Ermor would require. If Midgard is still open, I'd like to switch to them, even if it does mean you will have to re-title the thread.

Re: Mods
 

Midgard is still open. it's no hassle to re-title.

Re: Mods
 

<< *resists the urge to change from Caelum to Ermor...*

Re: Placeholder Play By Email FAQ
 

Here is a better map (IMHO):

http://67.66.187.69/dominions3/bagv2.png

IF that looks good I'll start to clean it up.

Re: Placeholder Play By Email FAQ
 

That one's fine, but I'd like to run one by you, in a moment, for your opinion. It's probably too small though. In the end though, I'll trust your judgment with regards to maps, and let you go ahead and pick one of your choice.

If you have some suggested settings for generating a map, I'd love to hear them. What kind of settings are you using.

Map Width (1600)
Map Height (1200)
No. Prov. (350)
Sea Area (30%)
Mountain (35%)
Ruggedness (30)
River occ. (150)
Impassible mountains

Thumbnail links to half-size, lossy compressed version. In the end, I'll go with the experienced mappers choice, or yours, Velusion. But this is an example of the naval situation I like to see, albeit perhaps 5-10% too much water. Now, when I say like to see, its from my SP experiences, not multi.
http://xs119.xs.to/xs119/07371/my_fi...dom.jpg.xs.jpg

Re: Placeholder Play By Email FAQ
 

If you are going to use that, make sure Ry'leh doesn't start in one of the tiny lakes.

Jazzepi

Re: Placeholder Play By Email FAQ
 

That's no problem, Jazzepi. But It's not certain we're using that map yet.

When it comes to randoms, those first two kind of looked alike to me. What do you look at to tell if a random map is going to be any good? What do you look for when you say "this one's better, IMO"?

I might be phrasing it awkwardly, but basically, I'm not real clever when it comes to choosing maps and wonder what criteria you look for, Velusion.

Re: Placeholder Play By Email FAQ
 

Well the biggest thing for me is water/land ratio. If this is off either the water or the land nations will have an advantage. In the past I think I've been too generous to water nations.

With 20 nations in play and only 1.5 of them being water (LA Atlantis is amphibious) you have 310 land provinces and 40 water. That is 26.7 water provinces per water nations and 16.8 land provinces to land nations. Now it is sort of mitigated somewhat by splitting up the two big seas, but in the long run I think this probably gives too big of an advantage to the water nations.

Also you have a total of 17.5 provinces per nation - that's a bit more than I'm used to (though I don't mind) but some people might want a tighter (aka smaller) map.

What does everyone else think though?

Re: Placeholder Play By Email FAQ
 

17.5 fine is too much. I believe that 15 is too sparse and 10 is too tight. So somewhere in between would be awesome.

Re: Placeholder Play By Email FAQ
 

I won't have time to join this one unfortunately, so Man is free.

Re: Placeholder Play By Email FAQ
 

15 seems pretty good to me. I'd be happy with 14, too.

Re: Placeholder Play By Email FAQ
 

Kay... So, what, maybe 13 provinces per land player. 20 nations total, 18.5 land. So, aiming for 240 land provinces.

What land percentages do you use? I'll experiment with
280 - 15% (40 water, only use if dispersed, otherewise too water friendly). 300 - 20% - 60. Looking at the numbers this way, I see where you're coming from. 30 percent is extremely ridiculous.

If the bodies of water are small enough, then nations like Marignon and Ermor can take advantage, I suppose.

I'll think again about whether to include so much water.

Do you know what ruggedness controls?

Re: Placeholder Play By Email FAQ
 

If Man is free, I would like it. I have been beaten by LA Man so much, I should be real good with :-)

Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

Out with fungalreason, in with Nikolai.

Ermor still open.

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

i'll do it.

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

When the map is finally completely, I would request that you post both the parts needed to play it in solo mode. I love to test out maps ahead of time, and get a feel for their size.

Jazzepi

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

I hear the two of you. I promise to behave myself, cut back on the caffiene, catch up on my sleep, and make time to do map stuff. My work schedule's a little messed up (thanks to Canada and the US Congress), but it doesn't follow me home. If stop abusing the high fructose corn syrup [soda, pepsi, cola], I should be productive again, without having to make any sacrifices other than those insomniac-forgotten wee hours of hte morn. Its only midnight hear, but not having abused the caffiene (in favor of sugary gingerale, I'ms calling a night to catch up).

BigandScary=Ermor
Jzzepi= pre-upload map.

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

I used to drink lots and lots and lots of soda. I do not anymore, and my sleep schedule is much better. I /do/ lose more hours to sleep, but the time when I am awake, I no longer feel like a zombie.

Cutting caffeine completely from my diet is the best thing I've ever done.

Jazzepi

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

Are we still looking at a Friday start date?

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

I can't guarantee it, but I'm looking towards it, seeing if I can pull it off. If not this Friday, then next. The hoped for plan i mentioned earlier, is finalize Thursday. Leave Friday for objections. And start on Saturday, to be precise.

While I am driving at this weekend... I have to be realistic. Next week, most likely. If I do another BAG in the future, it'll also be slow to start (though probably a bit quicker, since I won't be asking everyone's opinion on everything). They won't be as fast to get going as my 8 player llamaserves. I will be taking these at a more leisurely pace because I don't want to be stressed out before I even start.

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

Next week works better for me anyway. Been so busy I haven't had a chance for any trial games with Jomon.

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

i feel stupid asking, but how do upload my pretender?

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

I had to ask this at one time not so long ago.

First question, do you know how to create your pretender without starting a new singleplayer game?

Second question, do you know where to find your pretender file?

Simplest answer is to attach the pretender file to an email addressed to (obscured for spambots) pretenders[at]llamaserver[dot]net with the subject line "BAG". Without quotes, of course.

One of these days soon, I'll update my FAQ post on this.

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

thanks, that was easy.

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

So, setup is all done, and it's time to e-mail Gods? Or did you just explain for later?

Where can I get map and mods, for testing? I wanted try my design before submitting.

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

Maps not yet done. The game cannot start. But gods can be emailed in anyways. You don't need to send in your pretender until we get the map together, but the system will accept them if you want to send them in before you forget, or something like that.

So, setup is not all done, but you can email your gods at any time you'd like, and resubmit if you have a change of heart.

I'll be randomly generating a few maps this evening, tomorrow evening, and Sunday. At that point, I'll upload some of what I think are the most interesting, and then Velusion and I will select one and work through it.

Fortunately, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings can not be hijacked by my job, just a need for sleep. So I can say with confidence that we'll have selected a map by monday or tuesday and started work preparing it. If none of the random generated maps I will create turn out to be suitable, we'll go with the best judgment of Velusion and the map he suggested.

Re: Changing Man, wanting Zombies.
 

Precentage water = precentage area, not precentage provinces. Water provinces are larger, but fewer.

100 rugged, otherwise standard
20% water on a 300 province map yielded about 17, instead of the expected 60. I'll tweak ruggedness in the opposite direction, and then back to normal and then experiment with water levels. But my next two experiments are staying at 20% water, isolating just what Ruggedness does.

Try 2:
Ruggedness 0 gives me a map entirely full of water. Interesting. This may play a larger factor in the proper water distro than I expected.

Try 3: Rugged 5 produces a nice looking map, with two size 10-15 lakes. So, about 10% expected no of sea provinces.
Mark A
Try 4: Rugged 5 produces a ridiculously water heavy map, where the water area is more like 40 or 50% than 20.
Mark B
Try 5: same. This time, one expected size, somewhat large (maybe 30) province lake.
Try 6: Rugged 50. One frikkin huge water area- not as bad as the worst case of the 5 rugged, but a lot further from the 20% surface area than I expected. The number of provinces is fairly close, though.

Other unmentioned ruggedness tests... The higher the ruggedness, the more reliably low the water count is. Maybe this has something to do with how the game draws the terrain, and not the provincial divide? A search turns up the same question, but no answers I can find.

30-40 sea, rugged produces favorite results so far. I'll experiment in different ways tomorrow. Such as 20-20.

Potential Map
 

Here's a map I rather like the layout of. I'd like your opinions on it. But first, a disclaimer. Keep in mind that if I do use this map, I'll reduce the number of sea provinces, though not the total area of water.

P.S. Pooh. Can't upload a .7z seven zip archive.
Uploaded map in .zip, lossy jpeg preview on xs.to.

http://xs119.xs.to/xs119/07376/raw_map.jpg.xs.jpg

Re: Potential Map
 

Looks fine to me. If you're going to reduce the number of water provinces all around. R'yleh shouldn't start anywhere in the left lake.

Jazzepi

Re: Potential Map
 

Also keep in mind that the less "square" a map is the more map edge exists. Long maps like that mean that people will have less neighbors and directions to expand in.

I'm fine with it though if everyone else is.

Re: Potential Map
 

Gah, sorry I'm gonna have to bow out of this one. I'm having trouble doing the turns for the games I'm already in, and a couple look like they're gonna take even more time in the near future. Have fun!

Re: Potential Map
 

Best of fun to you, Baalz. We're open for Ctis, then.

I'm going to attach a mod-pack containing all the mods for the game, but first I'll just list the components and see if there's any objections or suggestions.

Blessing Hotfix (a component of the Black Tome of Alisophocale
The rest can be found in the The Mod List
Worthy Heroes
New Ulm, Iron Faith reborn
Vaettihiem, Exiled Tribes
Streamers and Standards

Re: Potential Map
 

I heard from Sombre that Ulm Reborn mod already fixes the "undead bless" bug (since they have some blessable undead).

Re: Potential Map
 

When are you planning to start this game?

Re: Potential Map
 

@Lazy_Perfectionist

maybe you can change the thread title.

Write something like
"Game ready to start. One nation stil free to take (C'Tis)!"

With your text "Looking to replace Ctis" people could think this is a running game and they have to replace a player. But this isn't the case.

I would like to see this game starting. People will (and have) start to drop out if it takes too long to initialize.

Re: Potential Map
 

In order to start the game, people need to start uploading their pretenders - less than half are uploaded so far.

Re: Potential Map
 

Perhaps some people would rather know at least how many land and water provinces will be there before they design their pretenders...

Re: Potential Map
 

I actually fall into that group.

Re: Potential Map
 

I plan on pushing out a final map by Tuesday-Wednesday. I'll have to fix some other things. I don't know exactly what the water's going to look like. But I will tell you my plans.

Plan A: Left lake 10-12 water provinces. Right lake 10-12.

If I can't comfortably shrink the right lake, then plan B

Plan B: Left lake shrunk to six, unstartable (for either R'lyeh or Atlantis), and right lake mostly as is, with a few small cuts.

I much prefer Plan A. But anyways, there's a few potential problems I need to take care of. The northeastern most portion of land is all no-start, for instance, and not really connected to the mainland. Either a sailing nation (other than Atlantis) needs to be there (Who sails late era?) or I need to create ports/connections, or we've just increased the power of whatever amphibious nation starts there.

So... fixed starting position for Marignon or ports (draw connections) or both? Probably ports alone, so as to make it accessible to invaders or land-bound nation.

For starting points is the rule of thumb four connected provinces, or three?

Re: Potential Map
 

The count is not as important as the ressources you can get, 2 mountains and a farmland are much better than 6 deserts.

Re: Potential Map
 

Lazy, you do know that only R'yleh starts in the water. Even if there are multiple water starting locations, Atlantis always starts on land.

Jazzepi

Re: Potential Map
 

Hi all! I would be happy to join as C'tis. Just tell me if I'm in and when you'd need a pretender.

Re: Potential Map
 

True, but as a general rule four provinces will put everyone on a much more even footing and helps to prevent someone from being stuck with an absolutely horrible starting position.

Re: Potential Map
 

IME Atlantis always starts on the shore, at least I've never seen them landlocked. So, yes, only R'lyeh starts in the water. So if I went with plan b, I'd prevent Atlantis from starting at the small lake so that R'lyeh got a huge uncontested swath of water. If I can manage Plan A though, I won't worry.

Snacktime, glad to have you onboard. We're looking at a Saturday start time (barring objections/problems), so you (and everyone else) should probably send in your pretender by Friday.

First few posts updated.

Re: Potential Map
 

Great! Looking forward to it.

Re: Potential Map
 

Unfortunately, I'm not yet an elegant user of the map editor. It took me a while to figure out why I was loading the wrong map file (apparently, renaming it to .bak can confuse it, best to move it out to a subdirectory), and my GIMP work ruined all the connections. I'm going to have to rebuild them all before its playable.

Still, if you're curious what I've done so far...