Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

No problem; the hosting time has been set to 4:46 GMT Tuesday.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I've been postponing hosting so that C'tis doesn't stale. Pjoo hasn't logged in since Dec. 13 but he also hasn't been staling so he may be away for the holidays.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Ok. Thanks for giving me the Christmas break.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Zwago shivered in the frozen darkness. How long had it been? Months? Years? It was impossible to know; time had no meaning in this wretched place. No sun or moon ever ascended over the bleak horizon.

What he did know was that he was alone. He knew no word that described the feeling, but the half-numb ache in the lumps of scar tissue by his left and right shoulders were a constant reminder that it was there. It was worse than the hunger; the hard, rancid flesh of the occasional unwary Frost Fiend was barely able to sustain him. Worse, even, than the cold, so very far from the balmy jungles and volcanic isles of their youth. His youth.


The crunch of the snow under his talons echoed across the tundra as the trail of footprints behind him stretched closer and closer towards infinity...


At last he could take no more. He collapsed with a dull thud into a snowbank, unable or unwilling to take even one more step. The beating of his heart grew slower and slower as he welcomed death with silent revelry.

Suddenly, he saw something shimmer in the corner of his eye. No, not a light, but a sort of ripple in the air, almost imperceptible against the monotonous expanse of the lifeless realm. He recognized it instinctively: it was a planar rift. It could take him home! Filled with a sudden burst of energy, he jumped up and leapt through the veil before the opportunity was lost. Almost immediately he felt the heavy warmth flow over him. Home...


"? Zwago the Zmey drowned in Utterdeep."

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Thanks for the update on Zwago. :) Doesn't seem right that he survived all that only to return to a water province and drown.

Also, we had an unfortunate stale last turn as I didn't see Soyweiser's postponement request until too late. Sorry about that; I know you two have a tough fight going on.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I'm having PC trouble again. Something is making a burning smell which I think is my PSU. I've ordered a new one which I hope will arrive on Tuesday. I've done this turn but if I don't get my part I might have trouble getting next turn done. I'll be able to get on the forums elsewhere if that happens.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Ok, I'll keep an eye on things to make sure your turn is in. The current turn hasn't hosted yet since when it was having problems the llamaserver set the next hosting time for 4:55 GMT Thursday and we still have a couple of turns outstanding.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

My new PSU didn't come but I have managed to grab my installer off my HDD and get the game running on a older machine. So I shouldn't have any trouble there.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Do we know that Soyweiser is okay for this turn? He hasn't posted in the thread since his stale last turn. I'd hate to see him miss two in a row.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Yeah, I was getting kind of concerned that your turns weren't in so I just postponed hosting by 24 hours. It looks like the llamaserver is having problems and so it had already added another 24 hours to hosting as well.

But I notice Soyweiser hasn't logged in since the 7th. Hopefully that stale wasn't too disheartening - I know you two have a fierce fight going.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Yeah, it was a pretty bad time for it. He lost a whole tribe of Unfrozen in a fight that I'm 90% sure he would have won if the other half of his army was there. I did lose almost all of my knights, though.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I'm alive, busy as hell. And kinda confused with the whole patch situation atm.

Got some wierd warnings from the bootcamp page on the server info page.

But the new patches are not out jet right?

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Good to have you back!

Yeah, you can ignore the messages about a patch being released. Llamabeast accidentally sent a turn to the server when testing the new patch and it caused the server to think the patch had been released.

Should I postpone hosting? It will probably add a lot of time as I noticed the server added an extra 48 hours when I tried postponing hosting by 24 hours in another game.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I send in a turn. Not the best ever. But we need to get this game back in gear.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Can I have a 24 hour extension? It's been a busy weekend for me, and I didn't realize we were so close to hosting

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Sure, hosting postponed 24 hours.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

First off, thanks for that extension, Valerius.

I just went to take my latest turn. Downloaded the .trn file as usual, and got a message that I didn't have the correct version of Dominions? Anyone have an idea what that's about?

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

A new patch is out - go download it.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Is that the case? Because I haven't had to get the new patch for any of the other games I'm in. If I download the patch, will this make it difficult for me to process turns in my other games?

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

If all of your MP games are on the llamaserver then definitely go ahead and download the patch. I think Gandalf has also updated his server. If you are involved in MP games on other servers you'd have to check with the host to see if they've updated.

If you want to play it safe, you can duplicate your Dominions directory before applying the patch to the original Dominions directory. That way if you still need access to the previous version you can just launch Dominions from your duplicate directory.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I encountered the same problems with one of my other games just now, so I downloaded the patch. No issues thus far.

Thanks for the advice!

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

fyi, ctis staled.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Y'know, I had that scout probe the fortress in Ene Umrul to make sure exactly that wasn't going to happen. Ironically, if I'd just blindly stormed the place I might have taken it. Oh well. I'll get that chokepoint someday! Just you wait and see!

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Yeah, I noticed his turn was missing several hours past the deadline. The llamaserver was having problems and the site hadn't been updated so I tried postponing hosting but once the server was running properly it hosted before processing the postponement command.

But C'tis' current turn still isn't in with just a couple of hours to go until hosting. I'll try to postpone hosting but notice the server is having issues again. Also, Pjoo hasn't logged in in over a month but aside from a couple of stales is still completing his turns. I'll try to contact him through the llamaserver.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Yeah, I assumed you would have just stormed it. (And losing a rare w3 + 2 w boosters was kinda sucky. The first arrow volley hit hard).

I stormed out because I don't know what happens to troops who retreat while inside a castle, and I thought they would just die, just as in a assassination attempt. Also, I don't know what happens when you break siege and attack with another army from a different province at the same time. (1 combat? 2?).

Lets see if you can finally get the castle this turn. :)

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Units inside a castle can retreat normally, oddly enough. Furthermore, if I storm a castle and you order both a break siege and move forces in from another province, the result would always be your combined forces attacking the besieging army outside the castle. Storming happens after other combat. So if I had tried to storm again this turn, I'd have been smashed by your forces to the north before I got through the walls and probably would have lost.

Which is all the more reason why I should have just rushed in. Even if the stuff inside wasn't bad enough to kill me by itself, I'd have still had to waste two turns trying to move north to intercept the reinforcements and then going back and storming the fortress afterwards (assuming there were even enough survivors for that), and even then I could have gotten bad luck and faced a combined army anyway depending on which province that battle was randomly fought in. It was a really bad call on my part. But then again, most of the ground forces you saw were moving in from other provinces and couldn't have taken part in a siege, so the Niefel Flames might have taken out enough to trigger an auto-rout without them.

But on yet ANOTHER hand, I didn't expect those vampires to show up. Since fliers get a siege bonus, they could have taken down the walls a lot faster than the expected 30 Dark Vines alone would have, so I might have had to give up the fortress anyway (or risk getting trapped in it without being able to repair the walls fast enough).

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

One thing I always wondered about, Dragonrider, did I ever succeed in shutting down your cap castles with the remote unrest spells?

(Putting up the domes worked btw, lost a summoned mage due to that trick).

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Only one city ever got to over unrest (and even then only for a turn or two), and it wasn't the capital. I mostly just lost a bunch of gold due to tax cuts. It was more annoying than crippling. The disease demons hurt me more per slave spent, at least until I figured out that one knight on Guard Commander was plenty to shut them down.

I actually assumed that the fire domes would be pointless since it had absolutely no chance of killing a Skratti or Gygja, but it wasn't like I was short on fire gems, so I figured I might as well. What mage was it, out of curiosity? The only one I can think of with the paths for Rain of Toads is a Lamia Queen, but the second shape would have saved her.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

It wasn't rain of toads, was another unrest causing spell, by a Naiad. So that was a 30 gem ****up :). Also having even a few rain of toads bouncing off a dome was just to costly in slaves. (And one of the gygja's lost an arm).

Those knights great! 19 def right? Very nice. But of course, if you put a knight on every mage and commander, it just adds 3 upkeep to all your commanders.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

19 defense would be a lot more impressive if A) you had ever given me anything to fight except 20-something attack, quickened, three-weapon Skrattis and B) weren't casting Darkness in every fight against anything else. Having Jotunheim as an opponent really isn't playing into any of Marignon's apparent strengths. And the only other opponent I ever had was all fire immune, which was sad. My original strategy was going to be all Flaming Arrow'd crossbowmen and fire evocations, and I only ever got off like one Flaming Arrow volley in the entire game. Under darkness, with half of the archers being eaten by vampires. It's a miracle I've made it so far. Or rather it's mostly because of my unfairly excellent starting position that I've made it so far (seriously, it was ridiculous).

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

What the hell?

"The Judge has cast Mind Hunt. A hostile mage discovered The Judge's astral cord and severed it. The Judge became feeble minded and will probably never recover."

He, in fact, recovered instantaneously, but how did that happen? There are no astral mages in that army! Doesn't that only happen if there's an astral mage in the target province? Did you have a stealthed Vaetti Hag there? Why would you even bother to do that?

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Vaetti_Hag
S random, Stealth.

There are some sneaking around.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

So in 64 turns I never once cast Mind Hunt, or even seriously consider casting Mind Hunt, but you still just so happen to have scattered Vaetti Hags around at random on the off-chance that I get bored and try casting it one time on a whim? It used to be my crazy schemes would at least appear to work for a few turns before they backfired.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I expected mind hunts ages ago. Also, allow me to point at Bandar. He could also mind hunt. (The hags also carry spare equipment). They only cost 55 gp, I have magic 3. So I have a lot of hags.

I also seriously hate my old prophet right now. 111 slaves + equipment, all down the drain... Bye bye SC...

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Oh, it's not like you don't have at least a dozen statistically identical Skratti flying around. I was honestly pretty surprised you were even bothering with Heliophagi when you can recruit similarly-sized thugs for 250 gold a pop and slap Winged Shoes on them with all the air gems I know you have. And they can cast Quickness. It seems like there'd be something more interesting you could be spending those slaves on.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Skrattir don't have high death, fire, or blood 5. Also, Heliophagi fly, so I don't need to spend A gems on them. While I do have a few gems, I did throw away way to many gems by foolishly using skrattir. (And getting them killed for almost no gain...). The demons are actually better in stats than Skrattir in wolf form. And no upkeep! Skrattir are 15+ gold upkeep each turn. And the last bonus, a demon unique could defeat a Kindly One in single combat.

It is also a denial strategy. So other nations cannot get the unique blood summons to use against me.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

FUUUUCCKKKKKKK....

Thanks dragonrider... This is one turn full of hurt... Four hammers destroyed, a lot of my magical diversity ruined. Nice one...

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

And who has the chalice? I know it is forged, but I wonder who got it. It isn't me.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Yup, after years of stalemates, our war has finally reached the only possible conclusion: full scale nuclear and biological warfare. Soon the entire eastern continent will be an uninhabitable, smoking, disease-ridden crater and we'll both lose all our troops to upkeep.

The fact that you, as a blood nation, are far better-prepared to weather such a post-apocalyptic scenario than I has not escaped my notice, but I'm running out of ideas over here. (I was a little disappointed that you had a dome up...I was curious about whether two spells would have obliterated approximately 75% or 100% of your mages, based on the description.)

I always assumed you had the Chalice. When I finally poked my nose into Construction 8 (very late; I was waylaid by a lot of other necessities), basically everything was predictably gone and I assumed that you probably had all of it, since at the time you'd shown absolutely no evidence of having done any evocation, conjuration, or blood research but a great deal of evidence of using magically-equipped thugs. Bandar Log can forge it natively and spent most of the game not at war with anybody, so they seem like the most likely culprits.

Also, I think it's totally awesome how entering the arena death match resulted in my awesome and moderately expensive Serpent Kris/Lucky Coin combo being lost to the void forever and replaced with a piece of junk two-handed trident with no special attributes apart from being unremovable. I thought CBM replaced that thing with a helmet or something. EDIT: Actually the equipment just got moved to my lab. But that Ember Lord is still pretty much ruined.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I always assumed shin had it. He was the first to reach con 8. If I'm right. (I saw the winter bringer on one of his commanders).

I was actually rather late at con 8, wanted blood 9 first. (Claws and Blood vengeance, I actually reached that con level just as you were invading me :)).

And if the lands are dead and devoid of life even a blood nation is dead :). Unrest also kinda sucks.

What makes the suffering even worse. I had loads of fire resist stuff just laying around in the lab. And you hit the prov which had the weakest mages... And no troops to soak up the random attacks.

Ah well :). Enough items laying around. But it still hurt a lot. :)

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Really? Damn, maybe I should have gone for construction earlier after all. At the time I assumed there was basically no chance you hadn't rushed straight down the construction line, so I didn't bother and went for moderately useful utility spells first. It didn't occur to me that you would go for blood first...I assumed one would typically do blood research later on after you've already built up a ton of slaves researching other stuff. I guess I can't say that it didn't pay off, though.

And I know from experience that blood hunting in lowish-population isn't that bad. I'm playing Helheim in my other game and pairs of sucky B1 Vanjarls with rods still seem to get an average of maybe ten slaves per turn in 2000-3500 population provinces. I've never played a real blood nation though, so maybe that isn't very impressive.

I had been waiting for a good opportunity to nuke that province for a long time. I almost went for a regular Fires from Afar hit a long time ago, but since the base damage was only 10 I was worried that the element of randomness would make it not get enough kills, and I knew it was probably going to be a one-shot deal (obviously you're going to fill the place with wolves or someting now), so I decided to wait for Flames from the Sky. Then again, I could have afforded a lot more Fires from Afar casts in one turn, so maybe it still would have been a better bet. Hard to say, since I've never actually seen either cast before.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I don't have any chalice.

Sorry for being so late with last turn.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Glares at Shin.

No worries. Happy that you are still with us. :)

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Yes? May I help you? :)

And yes, I do have the chalice. I was quite surprised that no one had taken it by the time I got up to con 8.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

So my earlier guess was correct. And as you already had the Tree up for a gazzilion turns I assume you have a lot of tarts right now.

I was surprised that there was still something left too! I think I was second. All the nice high death items where already gone. (Except 2 :) ). And I also forged the gift of kurgi. Lost it the turn after I used it to a horror attack. Bye bye bloodslaves...

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Speaking of Tartarians, I've had Gift of Health up for most of the game, but if I still had every death gem I'd ever collected, I'm STILL not sure it would be enough to summon and equip a single mage with high enough paths to cast Tartarian Gate. My death gem income was zero for about thirty turns, and then like 2-3 for dozens of turns thereafter. It's been a little bit frustrating.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

durecellrabbit, could you tell me what happenend? I lost 3 commanders according to the report, but my battle replay shows I lost nobody. I'm esp interested in what my units attacked first. And what killed my thugs.

DragonRider: I get it, you can create volcanoes. You can stop now, okey? :).

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I have the same report/replay. You can just check your guys to see which one is right :p.

I don't think you attacked me with thugs.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

The battle outside the castle, that one. They report say I lost 3 of my skrattir thugs, the replay says I lost none. So I was wondering what happend, as my replay is wrong. (Happens a lot vs you durecellrabbit ;)).

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I only fought some werewolves and got killed 3 in a report and none in the replay.