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no, races will be assigned on may 7, or when everyone turns their picks in.

It may be a good idea for the 1st 2-3 alternates to send me picks as well. If may 7 comes and picks are not in, then the players will be replaced.

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I'm in

edit: i'm a new player so I really don't mind which race I get http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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I had a look on EA Oceania, it does not look like a pain in the neck. AW or AN mages can help going out of water. Also depends on the pretender, of course. I can maintain my offer if a water nation still lacks & if it helps you starting the game.

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Not sure if the research difficulty discussion was ever settled...

I'll preface it by saying I'm a proponent of Very Hard Research: on a map this large, somebody will undoubtedly take a huge number of forts early on, accumulate a large number of forts, i.e. mage recruitment centers, and finish all research by turn 50.

But, I also appreciate the need for certain nations to access magic to be competitive early on.

Simple solution:
Set research=Very Hard, but move all level-2 spells into level-1.

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I believe we determined it is not possible to make a mod to stagger the research. So hard is our best option.

If anyone knows more about mods than me(and the people i asked), I would use a mod that does the following:

paths 1-3 normal research
paths 4-6 hard research
paths 7-9 very hard research.

I would love a mod that could do that. But if no one makes one(and some say it cannot be done), then we will use hard research.

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What Xietor proposes isn't possible, but what cleveland proposes *is* possible.

Level,Total Easy,Total Normal,Total VD
1,20,40,100
2,60,100,260
3,120,200,520
4,220,360,940
5,380,620,1620
6,640,1040,2720

My suggestion would be:
Very Hard research
All lvl 1,2,3 spells are level 1 (lvl 2 for Con).
All lvl 4 spells are level 3
All lvl 5 spells are level 4 (3 for Con)
All lvl 6 spells are level 5
Lvl 7+ spells stay where they are.

Thus, spells level 1-3 are effectively easy difficulty.
Level 4-6 spells are effectively hard difficulty.
Lvl 7+ spells are very hard difficulty.
Item construction remains very hard difficulty.

I can generate such a mod if you want.

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That would be great Dr. P, But I am not sure any spells should be easier to research than normal. Normal levels are not too bad. And it really makes the bless nations a bit weaker if some spells are set to easy.

My fear is it makes the penalty for drain 2 too small of a price to pay for 80 design points.

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Sounds like a cunning plan Dr. P. I'd suggest level 3 -> level 2 rather than 1 though. That way level 2 and level 3 spells are both at approximately normal difficulty, and also there will be no gap at level 2.

There is also the quirk that no spells will be available at level 6. You might want to take an educated decision and split the level 6 spells into more and less powerful ones, putting the less powerful ones at level 5 and the more powerful at level 6.

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If you make all lvl 3 spells lvl 2 and keep Dr.P. suggestion otherwise unchanged that would make lvl 2 spells (now at lvl 1) effectively normal difficulty, and lvl 3 spells a little bit harder than normal.

It would of course mean there are no lvl 6 spells anywhere.

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Eh, Llama. Stop saying exactly the same thing as me, but explained more clearly. It makes me look an illiterate copycat. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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Okay.

(non-construction)
Lvl 1 stays.
Lvl 2 -> Lvl 1
Lvl 3 -> Lvl 2
Lvl 4 -> Lvl 3
Lvl 5 -> Lvl 4
Lvl 6 -> Lvl 5
Other spells:
Ice Strike, Shimmering Fields, Prison of Sedna, Sea of Ice, Iron Walls, Marble Warriors, Living (whatever), Animal Horde, Dome of Flaming Death, Dome of Corruption, to level 6.

Astral Tempest, Dragon Master, Wild Growth, Unraveling, to level 7.

Flame Storm, Niefel Flames to level 8.

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A radical idea: use normal research.

- It keeps things simple.
- Balance between rushers and turtlers is maintained.
- Boomers already balanced by popularity of rushers.

So someone might finish research before turn 50. What's the big deal? There is no "research victory" to take into account.

My take on map balance: if starting distance between capitals is large, then research should be made more difficult to compensate the rushers.
On this map, distance between capitals will be low considering no. of players divided by total no. of provinces, so research should stay at normal.

See how normal research goes for this game - if need be changes can be made for Megagame 3.

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research was on hard for 1st big game, and i thought it was fine.

with 900 provinces, normal research does not give the benefit to the nations that are strong in research, and aids nations who are weak in research. I definitely am not in favor of very hard research as some nations will be sure to be rushed within 3 or 4 turns.

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I now really hope I get LA Agartha. No one wanted them, I did some tests and started to like them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif So I will kill anyone that tries to grab them from me.

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The map is coming along. The final map image will be made available to everyone, but not the final rgb file as the starting locations for 4 races, LA Atlantis, LA marignon, EA Ryleh, and EA oceania will be set. There is no getting around la atlantis and la marignon-they have to have specific starting spots on the coast.

All border mountains have been turned into mountains, so races that can build peg castle will be able to do so.

Additionally, i have coded provinces with 4 icons on the map to have "many magical sites." if you see the volcano, the splash of water, the stone henge, or the silo icons on a province, it has been coded for "many magical sites."

The following players still have not submitted race selections:

Llamabeast
Drake49
Cor2
Moderation
Janim

At 0000 hours on May 8(new orleans time) players who did not submit race selections will be replaced with alternates and
race assignment will begin.

If you are in the top 3 alternates, it may behoove you to send in potential picks in case you make the cut. Otherwise you will be randomly assigned a race as I have no idea what race you would have liked to play.

I will not randomly assign a water race, or a blood race that requires blood sacrifice to maintain dominion.

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I would really prefer to not have any "special" provinces. There's only four of them, for how many people? It just makes certain starting locations much more valuable than others, and screws the people who aren't nearby them in the beginning.

Jazzepi

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I understood there are 4 types of them and there are really many of them. If there are just 4 provinces like that I am also against it. We have enough of randomness.

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If they were set equally distant to many capitals (for example, rings of capitals around each "many sites" provinces, though I doubt that's what's happening) it would work, since each nation would have a roughly equal chance of getting the province, and they'd be hot spots for warring (IE, whoever controls the province would get ganged up upon). Since I haven't seen the map yet, I can't really cast any judgement on it, but for now I support the concept, at least.

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The last megagame was reasonably balanced with hard research. It is a large game so people can go up the research tree pretty quickly. Normal research is unbalanced for a megagame IMHO.

I survived with Machaka against Helheim because I could get Flaming Arrows before attacking. Without them I would probably have been crushed by the dual blessed Helherdlings. So very hard research is probably also unbalanced.

Hard research by mid game was starting to get unbalanced with several nations shooting up the tree. However many of these nations died out later on and I eventually caught up.

So I support Xietor in using standard hard research.

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the many magic sites icons can be viewed for yourselves. I did not add them to the map, they came with the random map. So there is no moving them or spacing them out.

capitals will be random though, except for 2 water races and 2 la races that require by the game mechanics set starting spots.

llamabeast will generate the 1st turn which will place 56 capitals randomly on the 56 starting spots on the map.
I will have no control over it. So yes a player may get a capital close to one, while another player may be far from them all.

But there will be starting spots that are better than others anyway. A player starting out next to dr. p niefel giants is going to be hard put to survive and he likely will
not even have time to search for magic sites. and you need to have the right level mage/paths to uncover them.

much more determinative to one's survival is a player's proximity to powerful aggressive nations played
by good players.

in any event i spent over 9 hours working on the map today and I am not inclined to undo what i just did-though most of the work was on neighbors/mountains.

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Much thanks for all the work you've put into getting this game together X! For what it's worth I've found my inspiration with Oceana and am really looking forward to seeing how well it works.

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Please change your Icon Xietor.

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Xietor, will the border mountains being converted to mountains still block the path to some neighbours?

These provinces are important to making the game more strategic.

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yes, one thing i tend to like is maps with strategic places to build forts. After the map is created changing the border mountains to mountains does not change neighbors.


Some of the neighbors do allow movement through seemingly impassible mountains-and i am removing those where i spot them.

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I really have to insist that these be taken out. None of this was present in the pretext for the game, and I think they're quire unbalancing. You're basically throwing provinces in at random with no regard to the spacing with capitals, and telling people exactly where large locations of magic sites will be at.

Jazzepi

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I have used these icons to use the many magic sites tag in both of the Epic Heroes games that I hosted. And I am looking at the present game, EH II. I own 1/3 the map, and 6 of 18 capitals on a 300 province map.

There looks to be 7 provinces that got the tags. And I own 1 of them. And the only magic site is has is a farm of plenty. And the one I can recall from EH I i owned has one of those plains on it that increased heat-and nothing else.

On the 900 province map, i think there were about 15 total provinces with the icons. And I do not think the tag makes them a gold mine of magical sites. I think it does increase the chance, similar to a waste province, or mountains etc.

Lolomo owns 4 of the sites on the EH II map, and I will ask him what magic sites his contain. But I do not see it as a major thing. To me it adds a small bit of spice to the province. I own 100 provinces, one of which has the tag. A farm of plenty is hardly unbalancing.

But since there are not many, it would not be hard to remove the tags. But so far we are 1 vote for them, and 1 vote against. And I would wait until we see what Lolomo's 4 sites have before we make it a big deal.

Edit-i actually own 3 of the sites, 1 was partially hidden by a castle, and the other by my army. The second site has 2 magical sites, 1 produces 1 w gem, the other 1 s gem. The 3rd has no magical sites at all.

So I am now not sure the tag does anything, or whether it is bugged or what. Though 3 is too small a sample to be conclusive.

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The "many sites" tag doesn't really do very much - a province with "many sites" has approx. the same number of magic sites as a mountain or forest, but might also have the income of a farmland. Although, in the cases that Xietor has specified, they don't.

The more sites tag really is just another terrain, which has even more sites on it than wasteland, but not by a huge margin. Due to the way magic site placement works, there will probably be a number of plains or even farmland provinces which actually have more gem income / better indies than the few "more sites" provinces.

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Hmm. I thought it would be much more drastic than that. I'd still like to see them removed if possible.

Jazzepi

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I am happy with the many tag sites, they will make little difference to the game, I have played on many maps with them and still have not had one single special site even with a 100+ province empire. Which is rubbish!

The real gem producing sites that will be sought after will be other players capitals.

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Yes. Your capital will do quite nicely Mega http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Jazzepi

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You can be my neighbour anytime Jazzepi.

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Is there still room for another player for the megagame?

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Hi, i don't think it is very hard to make a new research setting in the patch. Since it is about to be released soon I would like to suggest the following:

1: 20
2: 50
3: 100
4: 200
5: 500
6: 1000
7: 2000
8: 5000
9: 10000

First levels almost at easy. Last levels way more expensive.

Is this interesting?

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Kristoffer:

You may get some dangerous levels of love from some people now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Maybe you could add an option to make bigger HoF and customisable amount of globals allowed?

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Less likely, since I like the current settings on those http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Hmm, 5 globals with 60 players. Hmm. Nah, I still like it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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Yes the globals amount is great. New research settings! I love you! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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Your lazy side wrote that post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Fight the urge to procrastinate!

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Hmm, I just realized that it will not be possible to make my suggested change.

However research can go on beyond lvl 9. So it should be possible to mod a bit.

Current cost lvls:

lvl
9: 1100 * researchcost
10: 1780
11: 3000
12: 4000
13: 5000

Thus it is possible to move all lvl 7+ up one or a few lvls (making lvl 7 empty)

Suggested fix: Difficult research
Lvl 2-> lvl 1
Lvl 7-> lvl 8
Lvl 8-> lvl 10
Lvl 9-> lvl 12

This leaves lvl 7, 9 and 11 empty.
7+8 costs (420+680)*researchcost
9+10 costs (1100+1780)*researchcost
11+12 costs (3000+4000)*researchcost

Might even work with standard research.

If these costs are unfit I can change them before the patch, but it will not be possible to make another grading without a more thorough fix.

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KO, I am willing to delay the start of the game as late as June 1 for the patch. Target date for the start has always been May 15(earliest)to June 1.

Please give ma man a KOA commander. see i said the magic word. heh. please.

It always drove me nuts when i used to play man that the koa's had move 3 and forest survival, but no commander that had 3 moves and forest survival! And maybe reduce the Koa's resource cost to 51(still high but bearable). Then I will let you play them and you can see that they still are not overpowered!

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I do not intend to make any changes to nations more than has already been in this patch. Fixing balance stuff for Gath et al, and fixing simple bugs are all that remain on my agenda for the patch.

New stuff for LA Atlantis and other nations will have to wait until after 3.17 is released.

Stuff that might have direct effects on the gameplay in the megagame might recieve attention, but apart from research I think most stuff can be fixed during game, and research will have to be done the way I just said, with a mod, lest all research in all games will be affected.

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Wow. Can I be the first to say thanks to everyone who's contributing to organising this game! I'll be honest and say that I don't understand even half of what you're talking about, but it's apparent that others are putting in a lot of work so that I (and others) can have fun. Thanks!

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I have to ring in with thanks to you for all your work here Xietor and Doctor P as well for helping with this mammoth map.

Also thanks to KO and Ilwinter in general for such excellent and ongoing support and growth of this game.

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49/60 starting locations done. But I keep changing them a bit as i do test games. But every nation will have 4 adjacent provinces(some 5 or 6)of the appropriate type(land/water).

Also, there will be at least 2 provinces between capitals, and in most cases 3 or more. I am having to play with the neighbors a bit to achieve that, but between making mountains impassible, and fine tuning neighbors, it should not feel as crowded.

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Should you not play in this game, Xietor? Since are becoming so familiar with the map? Or perhaps play a lesser nation?

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lol. Velusion did his map and took la ermor. I will have no
more advantage in knowing the map than Dr. p, who had his 1st pick of choice. I am going to pick a nation that no one else selects with their 1st pick. And it will be a "lesser" nation. trust me. there is not a power nation left.

Besides, since I have no idea where I will be starting, that is an extra incentive to make all starts good.

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Xietor, that seems more than fair to me.

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Xietor:

What LA Ermor? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

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Clock is ticking, and will soon be striking midnight on 2 players who have yet to make picks:

drake
moderation

you can just pm me and say "I have no preference" etc. But 58/60 is pretty good. 1st 3 alternates should also send me their picks in case they get in due to the failure of the above to turn in picks in a timely manner. some of them have
already.

I have lost count of the number of people with sauromatia as a 1st pick! j/k. it is many though.

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Enchanted Forest and Carrion Woods will be allowed?

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all spells are allowed but the 4 listed in the first post. You can cast those 4, but you will just lose your gems. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif