Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

how about forcing start? we are setting up this game way to long....

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

That's not really doable. We're still missing some pretenders, and until they're in, there's not much we can do. The odd fact is that it's been what, 3 days now? How long does it take to re-upload a pretender?:o

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

People have to be compromised with the other fellows in this kind of game. If we need two weeks to send the pretenders is that something is going wrong. If I have a problem, I'm out of the city for example, I would try to post here and explain my problem. But two weeks without news about some players, without sending the pretender...bah, that's disrespect to the other players. Get a sub and go ahead.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

I'll contact the teams of people who haven't submitted and ask if there are enough communication issues to warrant bringing in a new player or two...

If you're having an issue like that with people on your team, then please let me know. If the fastest way to get the game going is to consolidate the dedicated people in two teams into one, then we can do that, although the map would get weird.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

It is probably people who don't know enough to check the forum for news. Next time to sign up for this sort of game people should have to pm the the game leader their email address.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Hey guys, I must be holding things up...sorry I lost track of things after the first restart...I'm at work right now but I should be able to submit within a few hours....

thanks,
Grijalva

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Aaaaaand...the game's disappeared.Again.

:tough:

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Oh boy..:doh:

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Somehow I knew this was going to happen.

Is there way for llamabeast to figure out which nation doe not have CBM enabled. And can we get the email addresses that were used to submit the pretenders, so LumenPlacidum can send out game messages to people. It is clear that not enough people read this forum thread.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

How about reducing number of players...? And maybe changing the map a bit?

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

I hereby rename this game as "The game that will never be";)

Seriously though:

And how would you do that, exactly? We don't know who keeps sending the unmodded pretender(s)...perhaps we might at least check who is NOT following this thread?

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

I would be up for redoing the game entirely, with new teams, and players. Having a person on some team that isn't really interested enough in the game to read instructions properly is a disadvantage to that team.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Yeah, or at least have all players post to confirm their pretenders are CBM 1.6 compatible (double check to be sure).

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Suggestion for if we were to restart from scratch, or try this again:

1. Have a pool of team leaders and a pool of team members.
2. Assign members randomly to the leaders.
3. Assign the nations randomly to each team, inform the team leaders by PM.
4. Have the teams work out their picks/strategies amongst themselves.
5. Have the team members send their pretenders to the team leader.
6. Team leader can then test each, if they wish.
7. All team leaders should have access/password to alter the e-mail for each nation
8. The team leader uploads the team pretenders and sets the e-mails appropriatly on llamaserver

This method would require the honor system. We would need to trust the team-leaders to not peek at the other nations e-mails in order to try and decipher who is playing what. I think that level of integrity can be expected of the leaders.

This would also promote communication between team members and their leader. It is easier to keep track of the few teams and leaders than it is to try and keep track of a big pool of anonymous uploaders.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

well I suggest to make a deadline. Once again, EVERYBODY is doing his pretender and uploding until Wensday. Those who are late, are out - doesnt matter if are checking emails/forums or not.. I think if there are teams which have some not too interested players - if those players are out from the very begining, it will dont bother them too much anyway.

It will speed up the game also - if we are starting it for so many days, we will enter turn 10 in 2011... At leats me, who was really excited, is loosing heart for this game.

Makeing new teams will take another 2 weeks...

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Having 2 or 3 teams of 2 and 1 or 2 "teams" of 1 might be a problem for balance, don't you think?

A big game like this is going to take time anyway. I would rather us to take one more week, sort problems and have a nice game than rush and discover later we still have some problems...

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

and after next week we will find out that even then, there will be 3 persons missing...what then?
we can start it asap, merge incomplete teams, or start everything again... but the same problems will occur im afraid

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

At the same time, if a player is finding team members unresponsive, it would have been there responsibility to complain about it by now and get another member reassigned. If there was communications issues they should have been reported.

I say we leave a deadline of two days. Everyone should email their pretenders to LumenPlacidum by the end of that time. He can then check to see if the game works with all the pretenders added. If not he can find which one is causing the problem. That pretender will then be removed from the game. LumenPlacidum can then upload to the llamaserver, and change the email addresses to the appropriate ones afterwards.

Team members should make sure that each others pretenders are submitted by the deadline, and are created using the CBM mods. If the team does not have the comunication facilities set up yet to do this, they won't do well in the game anyway.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

"If the team does not have the comunication facilities set up yet to do this, they won't do well in the game anyway."

Sir_Dr_D - 100% agree

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

To be fair, it may not be non-CBM pretenders that are causing the game to crash. It could be a problem with the map, as an example.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

A few weeks ago, i have send in a pretender without cbm 1.6 in another game. I'm pretty sure the game didn't disapear. Instead of that, there was an ingame-message after i tried to load the game that told me, i had to enable cbm 1.6. After i did that the game worked without problems.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

So, what is our plan of action? Send our pretenders to Lumen? He should PM everyone as a reminder/request, if this is the case.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

It may have to do with what pretender is used. If the base magic paths, or similar, differ between versions it may cause the game to crash.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

I'm just doing a quick test of the map to make sure it's not some failure to modify the .map file correctly.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Well, the test game I put on llamaserver also disappeared. This suggests to me that either MY pretender is bad, the .map file I uploaded is bad, or that llamaserver hates me.

My pretender was made with CBM Complete 1.6.

The .map file is exactly the same as that of Greece Stain, but with all the #start commands changed to #specstart X Y, where X is the nation's number, and Y is the province number. Is it no good to not have #start commands also?
Oddly, looking at a single player test run, two nations (Marignon and Atlantis) are not starting in the provinces that I assign for them, but are placed randomly around the map... Their nation numbers ARE 53 and 66 respectively, right? That's what the mapedit file says, at least.

It is feasible that llamaserver just hates me. It sends me threats on a regular basis and just last week, the server hired a goon to try to rough me up.

Ideas?

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

I suggest that you post this question outside of this thread, and someone more knowledage can help you.

Thanks for looking into this Lumen.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

The #specstarts should be all you need to use in the .map file. I believe that LA Atlantis must start on land. Don't know about Marignon.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Both LA Atlantis and Marignon are forced to have coastal starts, and will not obey commands to give them anything else.

(Coastal means on land next to a sea province. LA Atlantis is most definitely a land start).

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Also, Lumen, if you are changing the original (or suggested) #starting provinces to ones of your own choosing, you'll need to make sure the terrain mask of a planned start is not set to 512 (no start). You can change the terrain mask via the map editor or directly in the text file. If your just using the 18 land starts that are already suggested (usually by the mapmaker) in the .map and clustering nations of the same team around each other, it can save you some time in placement issues and decisions. No one knows the map better than the mapmaker.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

If this is true, then it would definitely explain what I've been seeing.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

It is true. There's a couple of nations that require coastal starts... fomoria is another.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

So...any news?

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Hello? Did we all silently decide to let this game die?

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

I think we are all frustrated. Also, people get busy and don't post over the weekends.

I think it is up to Lumen to decide to let this thread die, and to start a new one. If the problem was indeed the map, that should not be a difficult fix. We just need to get a working map and maybe a different system of uploading pretenders.

I am still interested in a random team game. Maybe start a new one, a smaller one that would easier to manage?

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

I'm redoing the map. It'll be up in a couple hours. I will then do a very quick test with it on the server and, if it works, then I will open the game to pretenders again. If it doesn't work, then I really will have no idea what the problem is.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Ok, I ran my tests. All the games I tried disappeared. Perhaps the Greece Stain base map image file isn't named the same thing as it is in its download. In any case, all starting positions work now. I used 2 pretenders guaranteed to have been made with CBM 1.6. I know none of the starts are labeled nostart, since that would surely show up in my local tests. The only things I can think of are that either I'm using the wrong CBM mod, but I can only find one "CBM 1.6 Complete" mod in the list, or, that my modified .map file is referencing a bad location for the map's image file. I'm currently using to reference it, just like the original .map file.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

I don't think that CBM is a problem. It is likely distinct pretender choices that cause the game to crash, if the CBM modes are incompatible. I think the problem is the map.

Ask the question on the maps forum, and someone can likely help you get it set up. Provide an attachement of the map you are trying to use, and hopefully someone else will try it and tell you what is wrong.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

I see you did ask the question in the main forum. Never mind then.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (map selection and pretender design)
 

Ok, so there's some weird thing with llamaserver's OS that requires map names to have no spaces. In other words, it's entirely my fault. Great. Test game was successful. I'm opening up RAFT3 for pretenders... AGAIN. This time, it should work.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Finally! Uploading pretenders for the last time)
 

Yes, I mentioned that caveat a few pages back. Depending upon how you've named your image files you may never have actually run up against it till it happens, unless you are familiar with the naming, directory conventions, OS, that Llamaserver is using.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Finally! Uploading pretenders for the last time)
 

Heck yeah! Let's get this party started:D

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Finally! Uploading pretenders for the last time)
 

Thanks Lumen for resolving this. I was worried there for a momment that the game woudn't be happening, but I am glad it is.
This team play sounds like fun.

Augusti! Cidi! We have a world ready to conquer. Lets get ready to knock these other teams all the way back to Dominions 1. :p

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Finally! Uploading pretenders for the last time)
 

You should send out PMs to alert everyone. I am sure some people have stopped following this thread.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Finally! Uploading pretenders for the last time)
 

And everyone, make sure you contact your team members and let them know the game is starting up again.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Finally! Uploading pretenders for the last time)
 

I received a number of messages asking if people needed to download the map for the game. Yes. Greece Stain is not included in the initial dominions install, so you need to obtain it. The map is given in this thread, which is also linked on the first post.

All the map confusion came from the .map file that I uploaded to the server, which contains information that only the server needs. You don't have to worry about that; you just need the image file for Greece Stain (GreeceStain.rgb) to be in your maps directory.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Finally! Uploading pretenders for the last time)
 

Just.
One.
More.
Dude.

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Finally! Uploading pretenders for the last time)
 

Who´s that dude! upload already!! Im going to go for him straight off the bat. Does not matter if he is in the corner opposite of the map (not a wraparound is it?)I will kill you all including my team mates to get to him and then kill him slowly!! Duuuude!!! :D

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Finally! Uploading pretenders for the last time)
 

Game on! Good luck, everyone!

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Game Started!)
 

Caelum!!!!

Re: RAFT - Late Age (Game Started!)
 

Please try to nudge your teammates into action to make sure they don't stale.