Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Nation Selection Underway.
 

If alts are still wanted I'd like to throw my hat in. I've played tons of SP but only a couple MP.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Nation Selection Underway.
 

Captains, pick either method 1 or method 2 first. Once that is decided you can post your swap requests. Let's keep this orderly.

Drp, method 1 or method 2? I know it doesn't make much difference in terms of your assignments but there is a difference in the unassigned pool.

Chris says method 2, do you agree?

Algae method 1 or 2?

Agema method 1 or 2?

Seems the Deva's will be a giant powerhouse. I frankly don't know why other team captains didn't grab Hinnom using their first choice priviledge. I guess Hinnom and Niefel aren't so hot.

Ok, you guys know what you need to do, lets get going.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Nation Selection Underway.
 

Welcome aboard, I'm assigning you to Noobheim, unless you've a preference otherwise. The Mysterios team is full.

2 alternate slots still available!

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Happy to have him...

SS - I took DrP's comment as method 2 was fine, and then he'd like to switch to Pangeaa.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Great. I just signed up for the Noobs & Vets Team HQ board as well whenever i get mod approval. Out of curiosity what kind of ai mods are being used?

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Gandalf is going to design the AI pretenders and I think going to give them some starting stuff via map commands (not sure of this though). We are also using the Better Independents - gold mod. This makes some of the less useful (but loved by the AI) independent troops very expensive. This stops the AI (and humans!) building lots of militia etc. So they build their own better national troops instead and this makes them tougher opponents.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

I'd prefer the more equitable distribution of the 2nd method, as CP's team is very badly favoured compared to others by the 1st method.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

2nd method.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

SS - Can we have the starting locations determined? I had previously preferred blue, but we need to know starting placements to optimize pretender designs.

Also, if someone could approve Animate, we'd like to start including him in our discussions.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Animate is approved. Just got the e-mail that he'd registered when I woke up(yeah, I sleep in, Saturdays). (lucky! that could technically be considered work(since it's productive), and normally I don't do work on saturdays.)

and the reason that hinnon wasn't higher on everyone's list was that basically everyone predicted they would be picked before they got a chance, so didn't bother.(I'm following the team forums)

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Hi folks,

I built a version of the map for this game with custom AI gods from SemiRandom, fixed starts based on the teams using method 2 above, and the extra starts for the AI's in the corners. I built it to test pretender designs and strategies. I discovered a problem.

Formoria won't start in the fixed location. Every time I started a game Formoria's start changed at random.

I reviewed the map commands with folks on IRC and it was suggested that Formoria requires a coast for it's start. Therefore, I edited one province beside Formoria's designated start as sea. That fixed the problem. So it looks like Sept or Gandalf will have to keep in mind that Formoria needs one sea. By the way, freshwater (lake) didn't work.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

3 of our 4 votes for method 2 is a majority. We are going with method 2 on the team nation assignments.

Captains may now OFFICIALLY put in their swap requests, first come, first served.

Chris, actual human team placement is planned to be done by a third party (most likely Gandalf if I can get him to do it, if not then by someone else not actively involved in the game).

This is done on purpose so that so no team will know which of the starting zones they are in (blue, white, red, etc). You will know the starts (they are listed on the doc file) but you will not know which team occupies them.

However, team captains will have the right to decide which of their nations will be placed in the two forward/center positions and which two will be placed in the rear/flank. This is all spelled out in the opening post btw. The default is the top 2 players on each team's player list (vet captain, and intermediate) in the forward positions, if you or anyone else prefers another arrangement, PM me.

Melnorjr, your right, they probably thought everyone else was going to grab hinnom, but why did'nt the other team captains do as DrP did and grab Neifel or Hinnom? Hmmm.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

This seems very odd. Did you use the option 1 or option 2 starting locations? I am going to contact Gandalf on this, maybe he knows more and see what can be done. Hopefully, this was just some quirk. Does anyone else know about Formoria requiring a coastal start?

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Yes, i know for a fact that they require a coast start. just like LA Mari

it has to do with the whole sailing thematicness of the nation

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Hmm, this could be an issue, if it can not be fixed by using a different terrain mask for either their start or a neighboring province (Maerlande have you tried applying a fresh water or swamp terrain mask to their start or a neighboring province?) or some other .map file adjustment, the mysterios will probably need to swap for Pangaea, Abysia or some other nation. If vanheim starts no problem, wonder why fomoria won't.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Yes Sept,

I tried freshwater and it failed. Sea worked. I didn't try deep sea. I simply changed the mask. I did not make any changes to the map picture, just the mask.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Well then, unless Gandalf, Ballbarian, or another expert knows of another way to adjust this via .map file wherever Formoria may start (maybe their is a terrain mask for coastal that is not listed in the mapedit documentation). We've got two options:

1. We can change the terrain mask of a neighboring province wherever Formoria starts to sea, it wouldn't look correct, but it is only a single province out of 240.

2. The Mysterios will need to swap for another nation. In which case they would receive priority for swaps since this issue was unknown to us.

At this stage I don't have time to generate another map with water and redefine starting locations.

So hold off on the swaps, till we decide this. I am fine either way, but Agema's choice will carry alot of weight here. As will the input of any experts.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention Maerlande.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

It would be a simple task to change the .tga to make a single province look sea like. I volunteer.

Fomoria's unique starting requirements are going to make it more findable even if the .tga is unchanged. We all know where the starts are anyway so I don't see this as a big deal.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Yes, that could be done, if someone wanted to bother who's not participating in the game. It's only a cosmetic issue (though it may have some economic effects if Formoria's cap fort will not be able to draw income or their income would be reduced from a neighboring sea province, in which case we'd need to add an additional neighbor to compensate).

But Agema may decide he would simply rather swap.

I'm curious, what unique starting requirements will make them more findable other than altering the .rgb file to include something that would certainly point out their location? We will know that by default the #1 and #2 players will be placed forward, and we will know the starts, but we will not know which team is placed north, south, east, or west of the AI center. That is the way I'd like to keep it. :)

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

You can see the terrain of all the provinces. Just look around the starting locations for a sea.

Really, by turn 5 I expect my team to know who and where all our opponents are (and probably who is playing who). Knowing where Fomoria is before the first turn isn't going to change things all that much.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

By making a map with pre-set start locations, any player whose start location is specifically set is easily able to be found simply by reding the .map file, or by loading up a game with all players set as human. There's no way you can avoid that afaik.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Reading the map file? Remember, only the server will have the copy with the specstarts not the players. So they won't have advance knowledge of which individual nation is in each start except via the default placement mentioned.

Pyg, your right, a player could right-click around all the other starting locations till he sees a land province with a sea terrain icon, but it'd be less conspicuous than a single sea looking province in the midst of a completely land map.

If one of us can't do it or wants to do it, I've got you down as volunteering. I want to thank you anyway. It would mean everyone re-downloading the map however. Now lets hear from Agema, regarding whether he's keeping Fomoria or we remove it from the running. He can certainly keep it, since it's not a game breaker, just a minor nuisance. But I don't know enough about any possible economic side effects of a neigboring sea province to tell him to do one thing or the other.

I just did some of my own quick tests and yep, Formoria won't hold a specstart, but they will start fine randomly on land provinces without any sea neighbors. Weird.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

the "economic" downside to having one sea neighbor is pretty negligible. i say lets just get on with the game please.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Amen brother! And you and Maerlande are on my team, so I guess if Maerlande feels the same, 3 votes outweighs waiting for our captain's decision.

We keep Formoria.

Let the swaps begin OFFICIALLY then huh?.:up::D

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

can i officially ask to swap Yomi for Caelum? Agema isn't on enough to be reliable.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Why yes, you may.:D I won't make players wait for the captains, though it is recommended that players at least get the consensus of their team mates.

Wait, though, we are using method 2. So caelum is not up for grabs unless the Deva's officially drop it (now that I've announced that swaps may begin and we have *settled* the issue with Formoria).

Currently available:

Abysia
Pangaea
Marverni
Agartha
C'tis

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

ok, pangea then. btw, i'm assuming that you will be playing Formoria sept?

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Pangaea you may have. Yomi is now up for grabs.

I shall take whatever my great captain gives me (and whatever others on our team don't want). He is still our captain (forgive me players). Maybe you need to speak with Agema about your taking over the captaincy. It's almost mutiny.:shock:

Currently available:

Abysia
Marverni
Agartha
C'tis
Yomi

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, Design, AI Creation.
 

Okay - actually, we already asked to trade Caelum for Pangaea?!?!?!

As I said repeatedly? I appreciate that it's first-come-first-served, but we made this request twice already while we were heeing and hawing over a tie-breaking procedure that had no effect on this.... pyg21 has already been testing Pangaea builds...

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, Design, AI Creation.
 

No wait, misunderstanding Dr.P. We would PREFER Caelum. I'm sure FL agrees. So you picking Pangaea is good by us.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

One reason only: At the time I stated prefernce, Executor was in the game, whom I consider to be the finest Mictlan player around.

As for the pic choices - I knew you had me picking last in at least one of the methods - so there was zero chance it would be available. Better to get one good nation, than an almost impossible chance on a great one.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, Design, AI Creation.
 

Ah, okay, then everything is cool, we get Pangaea and whoever wants Caelum can have Caelum?

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Nation Selection Underway.
 

It's moot now but I'm okay with either method.

(I forget to click on one auto-message link and I miss 5 pages? :shock:)

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, Design, AI Creation.
 

There was a misunderstanding on Drp and Pyg's part, I wanted the method picked first before any swaps started. They jumped right in before the majority had voted for method 2. Was trying to keep a semblance of order. Perhaps I should have been clearer. No problem though.

Ok, a swap between teams, Deva's get Pangaea, and The Mysterios get Caelum, that leaves the following nations still available from the unassigned pool if anyone else wishes to swap:

Abysia
Marverni
Agartha
C'tis
Yomi

Here's the team nation assignments so far:

The Mysterios

Lanka
Fomoria
Kailasa
Caelum

Deva's Darlings

Neifelheim
Hinnom
Ulm
Pangaea

The Blessed Ones

Vanheim
Helheim
Tir na nog
T'ien Chi'

Noobheim

Mictlan
Sauromatia
Arco
Ermor

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Heh, well, you could have changed your preference once Executor left and before the rest of the nations were selected. :)

OK, everyone, let me know if there are any more swap requests, if not then we will move on to:

1. Team Captains assign nations to their members
2. Post who is playing what nation (so I can update the opening post and the .map file)
3. Design your pretenders
4. Gandalf's wizardry

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

pyg is playing Pangaea
ghoul21 is playing Hinnom
rdonj is playing Ulm
I am playing Niefelheim

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Grudge is playing Arco
Hop is playing Sauro
Hunt is playing ermor
chris is playing mictlan

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

I did not know that.

Hey guys, Grudge is unable to post in the forums. Could you check that all his settings are right?

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

I will check on it.

Now just my team and Algae need to report who's playing who. Any more swap requests?

Before you design your pretenders take note:

Given we are using option 1 starts and given the relative short distances involved I think it best to implement a 5 turn hands off capitals rule, like we did in NvV3. I want to give the AI at least a little breathing room.

The Neutral Ground forums can be used for coordinating attacks on the AI. A good idea may be to create threads for each AI nation, once we know which 4 Gandalf will use.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Agema, Lanka
Frozen Lama, Caelum
Septimius Severus, Fomoria
Maerlande, Kailasa

* * *

My access is generally once per day, and it looks like you need to get stuff organised faster than I'm always going to be able to respond to. Consequently, we've had a chat at Mysterio HQ and Frozen Lama will be a better choice for running our team's day-to-day decision making. I'll act as the team's vet for strategy & advice, but not carry executive power.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

AlgaeNymph: Vanheim
vicco: Helheim
Immaculate: Tir'na'Nog
RabbitDynamite: T'ien C'hi

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

I would like to ask that we do not implement this rule, as this decision was not announced prior to nation selection and is hugely material to team Noobheim.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

By the way, could we please have the first post updated to show the nations each player is using? It's getting a bit of a hassle checking the 20th page every time I want to see what nations the other teams have :).

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

I am of course concerned about human players taking flying SC pretenders and heading straight for the comps capitals, I do want to give them at least a fighting chance, 5 turns is nothing and you've plenty of time to design your gods while we wait for Gandalf. But I'll hear other opinions from other players, especially team captains on this matter. The distance is rather short between team caps as well, a flying SC pretender could make it in short order.

Chris, I've checked Grudge's account, see nothing out of the ordinary, and show him with 1 post already. I'll contact Grudge and see if we can work out exactly what the problem is.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Agema, I think we are over the early hump as far as decision making goes, so you can probably remain as captain at least for now. It is your choice though.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Done.

Swaps are complete.

Design your pretenders, discuss your strategies while I contact Gandalf with instructions.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

With four players on each team, and each team equal numbers, I don't think capital-kamikaze is broken. If people want to try it, go ahead - I don't think it's a cost-effective strategy, but I think it should be allowed.

Now, if we want a hands-off vs. the CPU opponents in the middle, that's different. I'd support a no-attacking-the-AI-until-turn-6 rule.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

One of the only slight disadvantages giants (Formoria, Hinnom, Niefleheim) have is high cost units. The only hope of lesser races to compensate is to grab territory very quickly.

So again I'd like to say again, since it wasan't said before the nation picks, please don't impose a true period afterwards.

Also, on the matters of swaps, I still haven't heard from one player, so much as I know we want to move this along, I'd like to discuss with all my players the swap options.

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

If there are any slots still open (even alternate ones) i would like to candidate myself as noob....

Re: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI, Assignment, God Design, AI Creation.
 

Swaps are done? Hell, I haven't even heard from half my team!

Also, can I ask you to *please* not keep changing the rules of the game? I can't hear from my team enough for rules changes or first come first serve things.

For example the first time swapping was mentioned was 10-1. Which was after national selections were already in. And after we had agreed on a way of picking nations.

Suppose by a fluke, no one had chosen Hinnom. Would it then be a good idea to let first come first serve pick Hinnom? Originally we had a *lot* of discussion about letting the AI's get *good* nations.

So I don't really agree with swaps - but ok. Lets try to deal with it - And then swaps are done before I've even heard from half my team! Truces imposed! ARG.

I'd really like to ask that we stick to the original agreement. No swapping, no truces.