Invisible Swarm (finished)
 

Hi guys! I just got Dominions III ... must play ... must play...

I'd like to host a game.. um.. Middle Ages.. I want ULM!!

I'd like:

Small, random map (7 players)
Standard Research
Gold, Supplies, and Resources at 100%
Magic Sites at 50
Indies at 4
Victory Locations, there are 16 total on the map, you need 10 to win.
No mods.
24-hour hosting, at least for the first 20 turns or so.
Score graphs off.
HoF at 15.

Who is down??

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I would recommend leaving everything at defaults instead of tweaking them. The vanilla game, IMHO, is fairly balanced and they just nefered glamor.

I would probably be interested in playing.

Jazzepi

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I'm in as Caelum

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I think the game creator already claimed Ulm.

Jazzepi

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

If you leave settings on standard(particularly victory conditions. i hate VPs) id be interested in playing bandar log.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Hahaha, yeah. Wow I suck, alright I'll be Caelum.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I'm definitely down for this! As for mods, Worthy Heroes is a nice mod, although I think it has some problems with the latest patch so it's maybe better to leave it out. The Conceptual Balance mod (by quantum_mechani, not Zen, nowadays) is a good mod, sure. But it also changes a large number of things: don't you want to experience the baseline vanilla game first?

I'll pick a nation once the settings are confirmed... The default settings are pretty functional, although magic sites can use the bump to 50. Lowering the gold makes castles and temples and labs even harder to build, and they are hard to build en masse already on default settings. Standard research is indeed the old difficult, but it's factually harder than that in the early game, since castles and labs are more expensive, and easier than that in the later stages, since there's more gold. I'm kind of partial for easy research, but I'm sure standard will be fun too.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Yay! Jurri's playing!

Okay, we won't do any mods and leave most settings at standard for now. I would like to keep Victory Locations, though. Just so the game ends at a reasonable time. I'll make it so you have to have most of the Victory sites in order to win--in my opinion, if someone has 75% of the map, they should win.

I'll edit the first post with the new settings.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Your hosted games are great fun, so of course I'll jump at the chance http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif (And I'd wholeheartedly recommend this one to anyone considering joining.)

Victory points are definitely a good idea; I would think something like 40% or at most 50% of the victory points is enough of a requirement, though, but that might depend somewhat on what the ratio is between capital- and non-capital VPs. Ah, I'll just leave it to you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Depending on the number of players it would be fun to have a larger Hall of Fame, and renaming is good to have on, too, to complete the survey of settings.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Could I join and give C'tis a go ?

I happy with a game of any flavour.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Sure, Digress!

So, currently we have:

1) Me, as Ulm
2) Digress as C'tis
3) Jurri as Agartha
4) Remmy as Caelum
5) Jazzepi as Atlantis
6) Catquiet as Pythium
7) Evilhomer as Eriu
8) Shovah32 (?) as Bandar Log

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Jurri! I think, though, that you find the games I host fun because you win them all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

I know Boron is still around.. maybe he'll play. How about Jeffr, are his centaurs still kicking around this site

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I would like to play MA atlantis.

Jazzepi

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I'll give Pythium a try

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

So we need one more or whats going on?

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Hehe, could be, I do like to win! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But I would think my impression is due more to you running a stable server and hosting flexibly.

I think I'll take Agartha for this game.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Server is up!

97 <dot> 81 <dot> 77 <dot> 128
port 2000

If anyone has MSN messenger and wants to chat about how dominate the world of Dominions (or for any other reason), my e-mail is dowdcc <at> yahoo <dot> com.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I can whip up a god for Eriu if you need another player.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Cool, Evilhomer.

We will have 8 players if Shovah32 is playing, otherwise we'll have 7. Either way, we are now full.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Don't forget the IRC Dominions room! All your friends are there. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Well I count 7 uploaded pretenders now (mine added last). Are we waiting for someone else or are we ready to kick off ?

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

lets kick it off and play a couple turns, hopefully

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Hi Pasha!!

Edit: Okay, here goes!

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Okay, the game is started.

There is 1 VP per capital = 7.
There are 7 VP provinces worth 1 each = 7.
There is 1 VP province worth -2- Victory Points.

That's 16 total victory points, and you need 10 to win. You've got one starting off, so that's 9 more you need. If you take all the non-capital victory provinces, you can win without taking a single capital (besides your own).

Good luck!

I did the small random map for the map.

Oh, and by the way, I won't let anyone stale the first turn. Take as much time as you want. *cough, cough* I mean hurry up, I wanna play!!! *cough, cough*

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Turn 2, gentlemen!

That 2 pointer is in the water, how droll. And I'm seriously getting paranoid with no graphs; can't remember when I last was in a blind game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I forgot how awful random maps are to water nations. My starting position only gives me two territories to expand into before I hit land.

I'm never playing a water race in a random map again http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Jazzepi

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Are you serious, Jazzepi? Oh.. crap, I'm sorry. That sucks. Does Atlantis have any amphibious units, or are you just screwed? I almost want to say we should start over, that's just not fair.

Edit: Yeah, you should be paranoid Jurri, I've got 4 castles already and working on a 5th. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

only 5 ? I passed that in the first turn http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I don't want other people to start over for me. I just built this nation with the expectation that I would have something like 5-6 territories to expand into. I have a sleeping rainbow mage that's basically useless now.

I guess he's going to be doing a lot of researching when he wakes up.

Jazzepi

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Getting 3 water provinces as a water nation does suck, i can second that.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Jazzepi, you have our sympathies and respect for wanting to continue play. (pssst, everybody gang up on Atlantis, he's weak!!!)

You have bigger balls than many. Maybe a deal can be worked out in game to help your situation a bit.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I have a strategy. I'm definitely going to be patrolling the hell out of my capital though.

Jazzepi

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Hah, this map is seriously out of whack: there are 2 players on the Eastern half with half the VPs (or, 6 out of the 9 free range points), all the while there are 5 poor schmoes in the Western half packed like sardines in a can http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Nations of the West, unite! Otherwise the 2 from the East will have their way while we destroy each other.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Are you north of Eriu, Jurri? I can't believe there's another faction there, I thought for sure there were 3 factions in the east. I am south of Eriu, seriously getting in Atlantis' way.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I can second jurris statement: ulm, me, jurri, ctis and atlantis are packed in the west (the region that has maybe 1/3 of the land provinces). Jurri and ctis might be able to expand east, but for the rest of us the term "pitfight" comes to mind http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Pitfight!! Pitfight!!

No, seriously... uhh.. do we want an alliance of the West? The problem is, if we do that, the east will form an alliance of the East. And they still have more provinces than us.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Bump

So, how's it going to be, guys? Without hearing one way or the other, the Ulmish legions must prepare for battle.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Ah, I would be more than happy to coexist peacefully with everyone. But, it seems to me that you and Atlantis are pretty much forced to find a way to vent aggression, unless you wanna stay at around half a dozen provinces... or do you have a plan around that? Anyway, since I'm not forced by cruel fate to participate in the pitfight, it's not appropriate for me to stick my nose in that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Us lizards hope peaceful contemplation can continue for a little while. The weather is distinctly chilly outside our borders at present.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Well, I see that hostilities have started! Atlantis attacking Eriu.. interesting, very interesting.. This changes the landscape a little bit, I think.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

atlantis annoys eriu is more correct. He withdraws when i attack back.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

You provinces are full of delicious gold. Especially when I set the taxes to 200%.

Jazzepi

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Eriu, I declare war upon your unholy nation!

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Let the mighty alliance of Atlantis and Ulm wash through the borders of Eriu's green bannered lands.

Our sleeper god has awakened, and doubled our research. Joy.

Jazzepi

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Damn!!!

I haven't checked the board in a while so I missed this one. The Invisible Swarm games from Dom2 were a blast, even though I got beat in all of them, usually by CUnknown or Jurri.

CUnknown, if you choose to host another Invisible Swarm, I'm definitely up for it.

**** VP rant ****
I don't know if I like VPs. I played in one VP game, was having a good time fighting some basic wars, and then all of a sudden one player, who wasn't in any wars I don't think, teleported onto enough VP sites to win the game in one turn. Sort of made everyone feel, "why did we play this?". Sure, the sites should have been better defended, but it still seemed cheesy.

Without VPs, games usually end by mutual consent when everyone knows that one player is far ahead.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

I dislike VP win condition games myself. What I do like is VP provinces that allow you to basically pickup free dominion spreading "temples".

Jazzepi

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Sorry to barge in here while lurking, but: recent experiments show that these crowns even spread domain for EA Mictlan. Surprise surprise!

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

It'd be a little unfair if they didn't. I doubt that the VP provinces give the option to preform a blood sacrifice at them.

Jazzepi

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Hey Jeffr!! I miss your killer centaurs in this game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

What I like about victory locations is that they: 1) end the game faster. I don't like people just turtling and building up and stretching the game on and on. 2) They put something on the map that is worth fighting over. Something about that is just fun, to me. If I had the experience you did, Jeffr, I might feel differently, I guess.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

There are 2 hours left on the timer for this turn. However, I'm taking my computer over to a friend's place to go some gaming. So.. I guess I'll set up the timer again when I get back... But... Caelum has left to take his turn. So, Caelum, why don't you post here before I get back telling me that you tried to take your turn? Because I might be tempted just to host and let you stale when I get back...

Or, maybe I'll leave it on all night and host in the morning if you haven't taken your turn yet.

Anyway, the game is going down until about midnight or so EDT.

Re: Invisible Swarm
 

Good to be back! I'll monitor this thread to see how this game is going and then jump into the next one, if I may.