Rebalance Mod game now running on a 24h timer.
 

...the game is now running - good luck, everyone!






Ironhawk has been kind enough to offer hosting services for a multiplayer game based on my new Recruitable Rebalance Mod. This game is intended to be somewhat low-magic, to better emphasize (and test) the balance between the recruitable units of various nations and independants, and see if they fit into their traditional roles... and provide a little relief from games with constant bombardment by artillery spells, Tartarian hordes, and so forth.

Currently in-game:

Ulm: Ironhawk
Vanheim: msew
Pangea: quantum_machani
Mictlan: The_Tauren13
Marignon: Patrick
T'ien Ch'i: Arralen
Man: Ighalli
Machaka: Tomahawk
Abysia: Grame Dice
Jotunheim: Cherry

(10 people)


Current game settings:

SET IN STONE

Mods:
Recruitable Rebalance Mod v7.1
Zen's God Mod v2.01
Level 4 Limit Mod v7.1 (Data ripped from Daesthai's Tome)

Map:
Arralyn's remade Parganos

Game Details:
Research: Very difficult
12-15 prov/player
Indy Strength 9
Hall of Fame 15
Richness: Rich
Graphs on - it's a test game, after all
Renaming Allowed
1 Starting Province
150% food (in rebalance mod)
Magic sites: 45

Affected magic items:
Clams and Fever Fetishes: Nerfed! (Clam WWWN, Fetish FFN)
Staff of Storms: Nerfed! (20 gems went to 40 gems)


Please download the attached modpack and read the spells readme. In general, levels 1-4 are unchanged, level 5 gets double cost, level 6 gets quadruple cost, and level 7-9 get 8x normal spell cost. But THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS, particularly strong level 5 spells and weak level 2 summons.

The only items affected are the Clam, Fever Fetish, and Staff of Storms. I really hope nobody is annoyed by these changes (please consult the readme before deciding to be annoyed... they shouldn't really annoy anyone, I think...)


Edit. The attachment to this post has been removed. All needed game files are zipped together here.
This includes all mods and the map. After downloading these files, please put them in the maps and mods directories (happens automatically if you unzip them in the Dominions II directory). It may be necessary to add underscores to two filenames, since they were changed on the server-side:

Level 4 Limit.dm > Level_4_Limit.dm
Recruitable Rebalance.dm > Recruitable_Rebalance.dm

And then, please enable all three mods before desiging your pretender... and please password protect your god!

The commandline to auto-connect to the server is:

"C:\Games\Dominions 2\dom2.exe" --ipadr benatar.snurgle.org --port 2001

...depending, of course, on where Dominions II is installed.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I would like Pangaea.

What would everyone think of a blitz start for the first 10-15 turns? This would mean everyone being online at a certain time and quickly working though the early turns where there is not much to do.

EDIT: Are we using Zen's mods as well?

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I think that there is not much point to this unless we really make it a NO magic
game. I.e. lets disable all research over level 2 (except maybe for
construction) and non-human pretenders. If you really feel that clams and
wraith/hell swords need to go as well, more power to you.

But any house rules you can actually write out in a reasonable space will not be
enough to make the game low magic enough to bother with troops. In any case,
I would like Pythium... I have always claimed they not only have the best mages,
but also very nice troops - time to prove it. Of course, if we do not really
limit magic, Pythium is still a great choice, isn't it? :-)

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I've never played Ulm before - this seems like a good a chance as I will ever get!! Tho an improved TC is kind of tempting too... but not. Ulm! Ulm for me.

Oh and by the way: If you are looking for house rules which limit magic use and result in a more unit-centric game, check out those from my Age of Men Game

AoM House Rules:
1) Only human pretenders.
2) Only recruitable commanders can be used as SCs.
3) Only 1 mage per 25 troops allowed in combat

NOW - before you all get on my case - I am NOT proposing these as rules for this game. I just wanted to point them out and see if it could serve as a starting point for some discussions...

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I will play.


*throws pokeball* I choose VANHEIM!

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

only rule I can think of is:

for all nations that exist in the game, each turn the will send 15 gp to the nation I end up playing

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

First 10 turns, anyway. Fine with me, but only if everyone is able to do so.



[/quote]EDIT: Are we using Zen's mods as well?

[/quote]

Scales and pretenders, sure - if people want to. Magic will be superceded by the one I'm making (it is based on Zen's magic mod).

Sounds a little harsh to me. If I had to set a hard research limit, it would be closer to level 3 or 4. But think that the game could be fine low-magic wise with Very Difficult research, some key items disabled, some key spells made much more expensive, and some easy-to-follow rules, like Thou Shalt Not Equip (certain classes of units, like summonables, and size 4+ gods) with Magical Items. If Horde from Hell costs 150 slaves and requires 4x the normal research, it will not dominate gameplay (that's just a hypothetical example).

As for rule 3... nice in theory... but I don't want people to be able to violate rules accidentally, which can lead to problems and hurt feelings. I like rule 2 (but would rephrase it as, "Only recruitable commanders and human gods may recieve combat equipment," or something like that.)

Rule 1... I think non-human pretenders would be fine if natural supercombattants (dragons, bulls, Earth Mothers, things with massive fear auras, vampire queens, etc) were totally banned and other non-human gods were banned from having magic items. In other words, I don't see a problem with using a Titan or Son of Neifel as long as you give it no items. But that's just my opinion, and I'm just one of 17 players http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I'll go with man!

I'm in favor of using Zens scales mod, but I think we should restrict pretender choices to the point where his pretender mod might not be useful. Perhaps we could either pick a pretender with no magic or a human only. Thoughts on that? I'd also rather have a limit like level 4 research instead of just tweaking existing spell prices. That having been said, I'd be interested in a lower magic mod either way you decide to do it.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Yeah good point ighalli. It would be way less work to just wipe out all spells over level 4, right? Then set research to Very Hard and we would still have a lot of diversity.

I think we need to allow magic on the pretender tho. First, it restricts pretender choices too severely. Second, many nations rely on thier pretender to get non-national magic paths. Someone in the unit-rebalance thread mentioned the idea of capping pretender magic at 9 levels total, which I thought was an interesting suggestion.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

hey Saber Cherry, I'm a friend of Ironhawk's. You can put me in for whatever nation, I dont' have time to look now (gotta go back to work) but please count me in.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I thought this game was meant to A)let us all have fun and B) let us test the recruitable units mod, if it alters the DOM2 gameplay in a way that those recruitable units are worth at least something in a otherwise normal game.

I don't see much problem with the fun, but if we go and artificitally limit gameplay (mostly) to recruitable units, and ban combat pretenders and SC and high-level spell(casters), we will actually only test the mod for scripting errors, not for playbility changes: Everything the mod should achieve would be imposed on the player anyway.


Very difficult research is fine for me, I play with that setting most times anyway.

Nerfing the gem-producing items is ok, too, but shouldn't be overdone. They should pay after about 20-25 turns IMHO.

Nerfing of some (namely arty) spells is ok for me too, but again - making them absolutly useless will not help to make the test more "convincing". They should be altered as if nothing else is changed, as if to balance out the standard game.


That said, let me propose the game settings:

12-15 prov/player
indies 9
research very difficult
HoF 15
Graphs on - it's a test game, after all
renaming allowed


My nation of choice:
Tien Chi


EDIT: .. forgot about sites <= 45 ...

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I would like Marignon. I do like magic < 4 OR standard game with Zen's mod, but I do not like 'Only 1 mage per 25 troops allowed in combat'. Actually I do not like any rules that you have to be careful about. Everything should be enforced at onset.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Please note: The rule you mentioned was covered by this caveat...

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Mictlan

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

While I love the mod I just don't have time for a game at this exact moment but thanks for the invite I'll be watching!

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Ok=)

BTW: Patrick, are you st.patrick or someone else?

Arralen: The main point of this game is to test the mod; sorry if it seems like I'm forcing "low magic" down your throat, I had thought there was a consensus. Anything is fine with me, and I'll go with whatever people want, though my vote is for lower than normal magic (nerfing certain (IMO abused) spells).

Everyone: My HDD is dying and I cannot use my personal computer until sometime in the next 1-3 days, so my internet access will be sporadic until then.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I'd like to vote for indy strength 8, maybe 7. Having indies at 9 is nice cause it will slow down first contact a little. But it will also give a disproportionately large bonus to whoever wins the first mercenaries.

I vote yes on option #2 and favor the suggested max level of 4. I think that would make for a really interesting game.

As for #4 I'm betting that most of us can agree on Zen's Pretender and Scale mods.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

preferences
Sites <= 45

house rules
1) Human pretenders only?
No, please.

2) Magic research limit? (e.g., disable spells above level X)
No, please. We have very difficult research to keep magics at bay for some time

3) Specific spells to eliminate / nerf?
Wish (already mentioned), some arty spells, nothing I could think off the top of my head.
But some more items may need nerfing: leeching weapons for example should be way more expensive..., contracts or similar that gives summoned units for free, etc.

4) Other mods to use? (e.g. Zen's mods)
Indifferent.
Think most will interfere with the units mod, though.

5) Use of a mod (for example, the one I'm working on) that weakens high level magic?
We have very difficult research, we have nerfed spells/items already. Weakening magic even more seems superfluous to me.


suggestions:
- No bidding on mercs, unless 2+ are available the first time.

- no pink dragons !

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I vote for no funny rules such as limiting research or magic limit on gods. I like the idea of just making a simple mod that makes all the overused stuff 2 or 3 times as expensive (ghost riders, life drain, flames from the sky, etc), and most summons (vine ogres, devils, living statues, etc) so we will use lots of troops. If we remove spells altogether, though, we wont even be playing dominions...

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I kind of like the level 4 research limit idea...

Maybe if we have enough players (and Ironhawk's server is able) we should make two seperate games.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Sheap's server can handle up to 6 games simultaneously and is not running any now that AoM is complete. So we can put up as many there as we are likely to need.

As for splitting off into two games: We could, but lets see what the consensus is or if there is a compromise that would cover any division.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I'd like to play, and I'd like the level 4 research limit as well, as long as the map is crowded enough.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I usually do not see eye to eye with Patrick, but I will agree to one thing:
I would like to have rules that do not need enforcing during the game. Every
single time I have played games with such rules, people have been violating
them, deliberately or not. I would like something nice and simple.

The reason I would like to cap spells is that we want to use troops. I am sorry
to say, I usually do not build any melee troops past turn 10. Lately, my
girlfriend stopped buying troops - any troops, anytime. If you allow spells
like relief, drain life, wrathful skies, flame storm, false horror, troops
become useless. As for hard research, it does delay the time when troops become
useless, but not by that much. I assure you, on very hard research, I play
Pythium almost exactly as I play it on normal - I just start my expansion a few
turns later.

A few things:

If we will have blood nations and no caps on spell levels, magical resources
better be the standard multiplayer value of 50.

If we have a spell level cap, nation spells that are clearly above the cap, like
for example 'Blood Heritage', 'Wind guide', 'Fiend of darkness" should be modded
out.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

i'd like to play as Machaka. gracias amigos

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I dont mean to make trouble, especially since I'm not playing, but anyone who use a cyclops as an SC is crazy.

I think his eye has (at least) a double chance of being put out, and his precision (despite the fact that cyclopes throw rocks with astonishing accuracy in mythology) is atrocious.

He's an earth blessing platform.

Or with Zen's mod, (LOVE Zen's Mod, should be the Standard for Dom3) a leg up on a hammer.

SC? Really Bad idea.


Rabe (the Guy who thinks a wider variety of earth pretenders ought to be available...)


P.S. I might play what's left over in the game, if there's room.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

So, are we actually playing this as a blitz or no?

Cause the weekend is fast approaching...

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I'd be up for a blitz, depending on when we want to do it. I definately can't Friday. SC might not be ready with her new mod by then, so we might have to wait regardless.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Patrick is not st.patrik http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

as for nations - all the ones I was interested in are taken already http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

if we split into 2 games I'll join as Man, Pangaea, Vanheim, or best of all, Tien Chi

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Does that mean you arent going to play in this game st.patrik?

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Saturday sounds fine to me for starting, if everyone else is OK with that.

St.Patrick: Sorry to hear that! Sure you don't want Golden Era Arco, with brand-new full bronze armor and weapons? Or Niefel Jotunheim, with new armor and weapons for the Niefels and better-morale militia? Abysia, with a unit finally able to blood-hunt effectively, fire mages with higher precision, better salamanders and holy units that don't fall asleep after 4 turns? Ermor, with improved soulless and Shadow Vestals?

Well, it's up to you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Feel free to start another game if you really want one of those 4 nations.

Rabelais: There's still plenty of room in this game, just check the first post and grab a nation! And as for cyclopses... they make great tramplers with luck, mistform, mirror image, ethereality, regen, and a horror helmet. Even when they're blind http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I can do saturday so long as it's a bit later on in the day (pacific time). My good friend's birthday is that friday and I am likely to be severely hung over the next morning.

Sunday works too.

What time actually works for everyone? I am in the Pacific timezone.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

If no one else wants to, I could take Ryleh (but only if non-human pretenders are allowed ;-) heheh), and would also suggest my Spell Nerf Mod (posted on the main boards, updated by me) too. Otherwise I could take Jotun. Or Man. (Oops gone.)
I will not be able to devout a lot of time, however, and cant promise a blitz start, and if our baby comes early (due date 2 weeks) I'm out .... so feel free to choose a more reliable candidate.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I'd like to play rich resources if no one minds terribly... More money = bigger armies! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I'd vote for rich resources as well. I am going to need all the help I can get! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

If you want big armies, you don't need "rich" setting, but decent castles, good scales and:

More supplies.

Supplies where nerfed compared to DOM1 by
- province size being only 1/4 in DOM2
- changed generation by castles (admin instead of supply value)

I test "300% supplies" and found it work rather well even for the AI ...

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Spellmod for the game will be finished in a couple hours. It essentially does 1x cost for levels 1-4, 2x for level 5, 4x for level 6, 8x for levels 7-9. There are a few exceptions. Pretty simple...

As for richness: rich is fine with me.

3x normal food sounds like a lot, though. Is 150% OK? That's a good change... but not a huge change. I want this to evaluate the mod in normal play, to some extent, even though that's sort of already been violated by the magic nerf http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

The final version of the Rebalance mod (7) is posted, and the game-specific level-4-limit mod will be posted before midnight (US Mountain time) tonight. Loks like everyone who want to play is signed up, so I'll take Jotunheim. We just need to choose a map now.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I suggest Urgaia or The Sundering.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I'd like to play Abysia if nobody has taken it, with C'Tis as a second choice.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Ok, you have Abysia.

Maps: How about Middle Earth (119 / 6 water), Parganos (135 / 19 water), or Sea and Sky (169 / 23 water)? Those give about 9, 10, and 12 provinces per nation, respectively. Sea and Sky is especially beautiful, as well.

The finished mods for the game are at the top; please examine them and say something if you have any complaints!

Ironhawk: Can a server be set up Saturday?

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

There seems to be a bug (wrong spell name?!) in "Level 4 Limit" .. . Couldn't find it at a glance, tough. (Eyes are still hurting as I spend too much time in front of the computer this week...)

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Argh, I'll check it.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Ok, I fixed it. There were several mispellings in spell names, which are all now corrected. This is (AFAIK) the first complete list of spells in mod format, so feel free to use it however you want... could come in quite handy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Thanks for noticing the error, Arralen!

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

I thought we were going to use Zens scales mod too. Is this not the case, or was it overlooked in the first post?

Did you intentionally get rid of the national spells? I believe you need to change the pathlevel from 0 to -2 to keep them as nation specific. I know that in my test as man I can't use any spell songs.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

!!! Sorry... I'll just remove national spells from the list to avoid any possible problems.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Unless anyone has another preference (and no, Urgaia and the Sundering are way too small http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif ), I suggest we use Arralen's revised Paraganos. I've attached the .rared .map and .tga. If you can't open .rar, please say so and I'll use a different format...

And also, because I'm incompetant, I had to revise the spell mod again to fix national spells, so please redownload that as well.

To clarify: the attachment to the first post contains mods, and the attachment to this post contains the map (since some people already have it and it's sort of big).

As for the scale mod: let's pass on that, to avoid any more confusion than there already is.

Edit: Sorry again... attachment pulled, use the file attached to Arralen's post.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

are we starting this game tomorrow sunday 2005-03-20?

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Starting as soon as Ironhawk puts up a server.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

You attached the wrong tga file, which causes the game to crash. Just edit the .map file to use the correct tga before trying to create a game and everything should be fine.

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Sorry, must be quick: you'll have to count me out, soryy

Re: Rebalance Mod game starting, everyone welcome!
 

Sorry to keep pestering you, but the cost of panic is jacked up to 2000 (should be 20) by your mod, because of a mistake in the Tome (listed as 20 gems, not fatigue).