Re: what do you like about PBEM?
 

Okay, my current preference is that we keep going on this game -- Panther and Tauren and Turin having missed one turn -- and I turn off forced-hosting.

And I fix the e-mail notification.

I'll go turn off forced hosting.

Game continues
 

It looks like everything is working out for me with my new system. I did my move, the turn hosted, and I then did my next move.

Re: Game continues
 

E-mail notification is still broken. I'll work on that.

Re: Game continues
 

I think I fixed e-mail notification.

I have now fixed all three of the "problems with TCP/IP games" that we discussed earlier. If anybody has any other suggestions about how to improve the serving of this game I'd like to hear it.

Regards,

Zooko the Hosto

Re: Game continues
 

I see that Panther has been overtaken in the Hall of Fame by that upstart Peneios.

Now if I only knew whether either of them were my enemies then I would know whether to worry about a sudden strike by a super powerful Pretender...

Re: Game continues
 

Wait a minute. I understand the halting now. I understand we're waiting for Panther to get his computer up and running, that's fine.

However, once his computer is working... why no clock?

Re: Game continues
 

It was as per Panther's request.

Now that you've expressed concern -- I was a bit concerned about it too -- I'm going to set it back to 48 quickhost, but if someone notifies me via e-mail or via a post to this list that something has come up and neither they nor their partner can make moves then I'll stop the clock for them.

Re: Game continues
 

I thought of another reason I dislike TCP. It's too easy to accidently upload your turn before you're ready.

Re: Game continues
 

you can still reupload, unless you were last, in which case tough http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Game continues
 

Ioticus: that's a good point.

It's a reasonable Wishlist Item For Dom3 to "uncommit" your move.

war
 

Someone had presumptiously conquered an Independent province that Bwoo the Great of T'ien Ch'i had been intending to Enlighten. That province has now been properly Enlightened.

peace
 

Dear Red Team and Yellow Team:

To each of your peace-loving nations We, Bwoo and Stavros the Great Ones, extend Our heartfelt greetings and well-wishes.

We observe that while the Divine Will of Heaven and Earth have indicated that Purple Team and Blue Team must be utterly destroyed and eradicated from the land, it is likewise necessary for the Great Order Of Things that Red and Yellow survive and prosper in their appointed places.

Therefore, if there is any aid or intelligence that We can offer to you, our beloved brothers (or sisters as the case may be), please do not hesitate to call upon Us.

Affectionately,

Bwoo and Stavros the Great Ones

Re: Game continues
 

Ioticus - The best method for playing TCP/IP is as follows:
1. Connect to the game and select your nation.
2. Immediately exit the network game WITHOUT saving anything. To be safe, I always hit the little box with the 'X' in the upper right corner.
3. Open Dominions from your desktop, load the correct saved game, and play your turn to your heart's content.
4. When you are happy with your turn, go back to the network game and connect again.
5. Your new turn will automatically upload into the server.

This avoids the annoying procedure of accidently ending your network turn without doing anything.

Panther

Re: Game continues
 

That helps. Thanks.

Re: Game continues
 

hmm I seem to be struck by a rather annoying bug. My positive scales order 3 and growth 3 have mysteriously vanished in my capital, despite having lvl 5 dominion there all the time.
I hope they come back sometime, but they have been missing for 3 turns now.

Re: Game continues
 

I could try stopping and re-running the turn, but from what I recall it won't help with that annoying bug. Sorry. :-/

Re: Game continues
 

Anyone else having trouble acessing the server?

Re: Game continues
 

Yes, I suspect there's a networking problem in my area. I'll keep you informed as I learn what's up.

Re: Game continues
 

Wow. Both my games are down at once. How nerve-wracking.

Re: Game continues
 

Server back up. Power outage. Sorry.

I'm unable to connect due to mysterious failure, but my bro is commanding both of our nations in my absence.

Red Team and Yellow Team should feel free to ask us for help and information.

--Bwoo The Fantastic God

Re: Game continues
 

Okay, I have once again gained direct control over my nation and my brother Stavros is no longer acting as my intermediary.

Re: Game continues
 

Sorry about the lack of e-mail notification last turn. I've finally figured out the secret: If you pass "-preexec scriptname" then nothing will happen, but if you pass "-postexec scriptname", then it will work. So e-mail notification will probably work from now on.

I know that at least one person staled last turn. I'm sorry about that.

Re: Game continues
 

Are you going to back up the turn one move?

Re: Game continues
 

Sure. Just a minute.

Re: Game continues
 

Err, actually the e-mail announcements and the "recording backup copies of turns" were both connected to the same hook -- "-preexec" -- and so I don't have a backup copy of turn 19, so the best I could do would be to revert to turn 18, and that's too much.

I'm very sorry, Panther, but I'm going to leave the game going in turn 20.

Re: Game continues
 

By the way, I've reported the behavior of "-preexec" in the bug thread.

Re: Game continues
 

I updated the first post in this thread to show the locations of all teams, since I've now figured them out and I'm hereby telling everyone else.

Re: Game continues
 

My brother Arc is volunteering in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, so the game is going somewhat slowly, as I wait til the last minute before I do his turn for him, since I don't know when he will return home and start playing again.

news of the world
 

Tien Chi is engaged in a titanic struggle against the combined forces of Pangaea and Arcoscephale. Last month they had conquered all but two of our provinces, but this month we defeated two small armies and won back some territory.

Let it be known that all citizens of the nations formerly known as Pangaea and Arcoscephale will be treated fairly and paid a reasonable wage once their nations are properly Enlightened.

Regards,

Bwoo the Enlightener

Re: news of the world
 

Dear Unspecified Enemy:

Heh heh. That death match was a pretty stupid move on my part. I was imagining some big beefy opponent, not a swarm of 30 skeletons. :-/

I think if I had told my 13 Demons of Heavenly Fires to fire at Large Enemy Monsters instead of at Enemy Cavalry, then your Pretender would have died.

But anyway, I have to give you credit for a brilliant tactical reversal by bringing in a bunch of HARPIES of all things! If it hadn't been for those damned harpies then I either would have won and destroyed you, or I would have lost but left you with almost no army remaining...

Re: news of the world
 

dear very specified enemy, I had built the harpies only to patrol my home proovince and defend against the siege mostly, so no tactical brilliance on my part.
I had to break the siege that turn, because my lab got destroyed in my capital, so there wasn´t much left for me to do there.

Re: news of the world
 

Ah. Lucky you then! The harpies slew both of my death mages, rendering my Spirits helpless (they also quickly slew all of my other mages except for Lu. Ouch!). Without Spirit support, the Demons were no match for your fierce Centaurs and Pretender. If the Spirit support had been there, then my noble Demons would have dealt out more damage than they did.

I'm glad to hear of the fire in your lab. I'll reward my saboteurs handsomely in gold and magical trinkets.

Re: news of the world
 

Okay, so the glorious Empire of Tien Chi has shrunk to a single capitol province, and is surrounded by infidel Pegasus Riders and woodland beastmen. However, we implore all citizens currently subjugated by those aggressors to keep hope and keep the white candles of Bwooism burning brightly.

Our remaining Celestial Masters are preparing a new strategy to liberate and Enlighten all of Greater Tien Chi.

Re: news of the world
 

By the way, it seems that the server is down.

Re: news of the world
 

I had a server problem. It is now fixed. Sorry for the interruption of service.

Re: news of the world
 

We're down to 60 minutes until forced hosting, and Man, Ulm, and Marignon have all not-yet taken their turns. Actually I can do Ulm on behalf of my brother, but that would leave Man and Marignon. So, since there was this extended interruption of the server yesterday, I'll reset the clock for 12 more hours. This will also give my brother a chance to do his own turn.

Re: news of the world
 

Abysia and Man both suffered from absent Rulers this month. The Grand Vizier of each nation took over, and instructed all citizens to continue doing whatever the Pretender had told them to do last month.

Re: news of the world
 

Also, the Pretender of Man hasn't been responding to the messengers I've been sending him. Is he permanently absent? Is the nation of Man critically wounded?

Re: news of the world
 

man is pretty much dead. he´s down to his fortress and one province and lost most of his mages in a breakout attempt.

Re: news of the world
 

Ah, so this makes it more likely that Team Tauren+Panther or Team Turin+QM will win.

Go, Ioticus! Surely Machaka is powerful enough to singlehandedly defeat all enemies!

Re: news of the world
 

Machaka is in a tough battle with Arco. Hard to say who has the upper hand, but I think the Man/Machaka team is nearly down for the count.

Tauren (Abysia) will probably be staling for a bit while he is moving over the next few days. I almost did his move for him, but I had no idea if he wanted to storm the Man capitol or not, so I declined to do anything. I do not have the slightest idea what army is inside the Man capitol.

I have my hands full with endless undead with 3 strategic moves. Did I ever mention how much I hate to fight Ermor? I have killed maybe 200 undead riders, and there is at least that many still around, for I have been unable to kill even one single commander other than his immortal pretender (who did not have the decency to stay dead). Most of my troops are starving and diseased from lack of proper supplies. My income has been trashed. I don't think I am in danger of being eliminated soon or anything like that, but both Marignon and Ermor will come out of this war very weak, no matter who gets the upper hand.

I also think that T'ien Ch'i is in very bad shape, from what my spies can see.

The stales have been a problem for sure for our team. Both my son and I are chock full of RL these days, and a 2 day forced schedule is problematic at best. This would have been a lot better game under PBEM, in my opinion.

The only thing to do is keep plugging away until the game is over.

Re: news of the world
 

By the way, I would have to say that the Arco/Pan team has this thing mostly won. With Man nearly dead, Machaka will soon die from a 2 on 1 (it has already begun). And with TC nearly dead, Ulm will also soon follow. This would be the end of the game when those 4 are dead.

Ermor and I are in a huge death battle with neither side dying soon. After Man is gone, Abysia will probably jump on C'tis, but I believe C'tis is currently unscathed and will take an immense amount of effort to kill. The only good thing for Abysia is that all his powerful devils are immmune to the Miasmi.

At this point, I don't see any possible path for the Abysia/Marignon or the C'tis/Ermor team reaching victory by destroying the other team.

Re: news of the world
 

Hm. I may be fooling myself, but I don't perceive the Tien Chi/Ulm team as really down for the count...

hosting issues
 

Panther: what if it were quickhost with no forced-hosting time-limit? I, too, have been disappointed to see lots of stales in this game (including on my team).

Also I think a game like this ought to have score graphs on.

Any other ideas about how to improve my hosting?

Re: hosting issues
 

Another idea: I could set it up so that players could participate *either* via e-mail or via TCP, at their choice. Would that be cool?

Re: hosting issues
 

Actually, Zooko, you have been a good host. The limitations lie in the TCP/IP method. As I see it, there are but 2 options:
1. Forced hosting. No matter the host schedule, there will always be stales. This is true of every single TCP/IP game I have ever played.
2. No QH option. The problem with this method is that the game can easily die when people drop out or leave on vacation or their computer dies or just plain whatever. Eventually, such games must move to QH option if they ever intend to finish.

On the ther hand, PBEM gives the host complete control over the schedule. If somebody is gone for the weekend, the host knows this and can delay a day or so. If somebody is out for a week or more, a sub can be arranged instead of automatically forcing stales. The host always has the option to force stales for non-responsive players, so the game never has to completely die.

If I had unlimited time (retired) and I was waiting every day just to play Dominions, I would prefer TCP/IP. But few people have this kind of time in RL (I don't). It seems that something always is happenning in RL, and often unexpectedly to boot.

I have not staled as yet in any of my PBEM games, even when I went on vacation to France in June and then my computer died in early August. These kind of things will happen.

The Song of the Blade game went into haitus for weeks while Alneyan was fixing his system. We had many a message to determine how the remaining players wanted to handle this before deciding to wait. PBEM allows for this. TCP/IP does also, but the impersonal nature of that hosting method makes it far harder to actually make things like this happen.

As for our 2v2v2v2v2 game, my spy has left the TC homeland and perhaps that nation has since recovered. If TC is not near death, then there is still more game to play. If TC dies, then Ulm will have big trouble (actually I really mean no hope) in the eventual 2 on 1. My comments were based on the assumption that TC cannot recover from the extensive invasion of his homeland.

Re: hosting issues
 

I see. Thanks for the explanation about the hosting issues.

Also, thanks for the compliment about my hosting.

news of the world
 

Ah, well, if Tien Chi can recover from the insult to our sovereignty is still in question. It will help plenty if Machaka will put up a stiff fight against Pangaea. :-)

hosting
 

It's T-6 hours and those busy busy real life Tauren and Panther haven't committed their turns. I'm planning to reset the clock for them if it gets down to 1 hour or so and no signs of life.

news of the world
 

Well, the great Tien Chi resurgence to dislodge the Pangaean oppressor is going well, but our sister Ulm is being invaded by not one but two masses of nasty undead. One army has a Saurolich and about ten Marshmasters summoning hordes of skeletons. The other army has almsot 600 Ermorian undead.

Does anyone have any advice on how to resist such an onslaught?