Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - full
 

Since my Mara game filled up in just a few hours, I thought I'd host another one. It'll be an EA game.

Players: 6-8
Map: Probably a home-made subsection of Cradle or something, around 120-140 provinces.
Mods: None
Schedule: 24 hour quickhost (game hosts after 24 hours or when all turns are in, whichever's sooner), at least for the first 40 or so turns

House rule: No more than one level 9 bless.

How to upload your pretender:

- Go to Game Tools -> Create a pretender god in Dominions
- Go to the savedgames/newlords folder in the dominions directory, and find your pretender file (e.g. mid_pythium_0.2h)
- E-mail the file to: pretenders[ at ]llamaserver[ dot ]net
- Crucially, you must have the game name, 'Chupacabra', in the subject line of your e-mail. Watch the spelling!

You can see who's joined so far at www.llamaserver.net .

Okay, we have:

Abysia - hako
Marverni - Izzyz
Mictlan - Ubercat
Agartha - LazyPerfectionist
C'tis - sum1won
Caelum - AreWeInsaneYet
Pangaea - Schaedelbaron
T'ien Ch'i - Aethyr

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - signup
 

Wow, Mara did fill up fast. Please sign me up for Tir na n'Og.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - signup
 

Please count me in as Abysia.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - signup
 

I'm interested in Marverni.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - signup
 

Mictlan here please.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

May I take Agartha? And I'm curious, am I unique in my enthusiasm for Agartha?

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

C'tis, please

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Caelum please.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Niefelheim please

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Pangagea , if there is still enough room for me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Okay, looks like we're probably full.

Um, Valerius and GameExtremist - I'm not sure you guys can really count yourselves as newish any more. You're both very competent players. Maybe you could join MysteryMammal, or if you would prefer a smaller game I can start one up (looks like it'll be full in an hour or two!).

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Ok, no problem, I'll wait until the next game. I liked the specs on this game (number of players, provinces, EA) so I joined even though I figured I might not qualify.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Okay thanks Valerius. In that case I'll start another one with similar specs soonish (when I reckon demand may have recovered from this little flurry of new games). I was beginning to think myself that some smaller games might be nice.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

No need to rush in creating a new game on my account. I couldn't resist joining Dolphin, regardless of what map size it turns out to be. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

can i sign up as ulm?

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

davegg - Unfortunately I forgot to list the game as full when it got full. But I will put you as a reserve, which actually means you have a fair chance of being in the game I think, particularly as I've listed Aethyr without him actually saying he'll play!

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Okay guys, you can now start uploading your pretenders. Here's how:

- Go to Game Tools -> Create a pretender god in Dominions
- Go to the savedgames/newlords folder in the dominions directory, and find your pretender file (e.g. mid_pythium_0.2h)
- E-mail the file to: pretenders[ at ]llamaserver[ dot ]net
- Crucially, you must have the game name, 'Chupacabra', in the subject line of your e-mail. Watch the spelling!

Deadline late Monday night (US time)(not that I'm from the US, it's just a convenient way of saying the time I mean).

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Okay leave me off the starting lineup then ; )

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Thanks, sorry about that GE. It's a compliment though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Thanks for your inital response, and for kindly saving me a spot--much appreciated. I'm in, and I'll be playing T'ien Ch'i.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Okay guys, I have been working all morning on a modified version of Parganos. A common complaint with Parganos was that the terrain types were too clustered - one player might have exclusively farmland, another only wastelands. I've changed the terrain types a lot to be much fairer (wasteland and farmland aren't marked anyway so that's easy, and most of the mountains have been changed to border mountains).

Now, there's definitely space for a water player on Parganos. Also I've already spent some time for Mara on choosing start positions for 7 land + 1 water player. Does anyone fancy switching to a water nation? No worries if not.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Oh, and good stuff Aethyr, glad to have you.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

So really noone wants to change to a water nation? Think of the power!

Otherwise I will make the seas less valuable by setting them all to "deep sea" and "small province". Agartha will still have a bit of an edge, but probably not a huge one.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

One day I'll create a practical pretender. A simple awakened Risen Oracle or something like that. Until that day comes, however, I'll be trying out various experimental pretenders on you guys. Here's hoping it works, sort of.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Just waiting on Pangaea (Schaedelbaron) now.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Actually, I'll have to resend my pretender. Quick test game revealed that 3 death = bad, even with luck=0. When the second turn results in a fifth of your population dying in your capital, shooting unrest to 100, its time to adjust the scales. Or turn events to rare.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

I think that the scales, and not the luck level, are what unlock the worst evens. For instance I believe the level of turmoil you have determines if you can get the 120 (it's a lot, I can't remember the exact number) barbarian random attack event.

Jazzepi

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Yeah. I've been referring to this occassionally, even though its for dom2
http://www.freewebs.com/dominions2/events.html

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

New pretender sent. Not quite as fun, I had to make some sacrifices and change his design somewhat. In particular, no getting greedy and going for minor air, fire, and death blesses, on top of E10 earth bless. As you can guess that got expensive, and risky, so I scrapped that.

Edit: I spoke too soon. My email decided to start acting up. Well, its finished anyways. Llamabeast? What'll happen if I send it from another account? Nevermind, I just managed to get it to go through.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Okay, all pretenders are in! I'll start the game later on tonight.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Uhmm... can you replace my pretender for me? The email system wouldn't let me replace it.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Hmm, interesting. I think actually it did the same thing to Snacktime. Seems like a bug. Okay, I'll sort it for you and try to find out why it's playing up. The odd thing is that I tested it yesterday (because it looked like it had behaved oddly for Snacktime) and it worked fine for me. I hate inconsistent errors.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

The error it gave me is that the game filled up. So, I bet it would work if I had sent it in earlier.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Okay, good thought. I will try setting "FeatureTest" (my test game) to max of 3 players (which is how many it has so far) and try my test again.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

And we're off! Enjoy the game!

(Let me know if there's any problems.)

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

I recieved three Emails with the first turn attached, as well as the Email saying there'd been a mistake. I'm assuming that the one with the latest time stamp is the correct firstturn Email to use.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Yes, that's right. Sorry about that. I actually forgot that this game went pear-shaped in the midst of the epic pear-shapedness that was the Mara start. Anyway yes, use the latest one. Happily if you were somehow to use the wrong one it wouldn't accept your turn, so you'll know if it's working correctly.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Did you set ALL the mountain provinces to border mountains? Even the natural chokepoints? ... ... ...

I mean, I've never taken advantage of a cave fortress' blindness thing, but I'm a little disappointed with how far you've went.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Sorry LP. I tried to leave all the natural chokepoints, plus provinces which had a mountain in the middle of them as "mountains". Possibly I failed in some cases - apologies in that case.

Also sometimes the terrain choices are a bit stretched from the visual appearance on the map. For example people were previously a bit annoyed by the vast expanse of swamp, so quite a few of the provinces with a bit of swamp drawings in are now not swamp.

Edit: On closer inspection, that's not actually very true about the chokepoints. I remember now that my thinking was that many of them looked kind of flat and easily-walked-through (e.g. 98, 34). 133 should have been a mountain though I think.

Anyway, there are a fair few mountains scattered around, but I'll take your comments into account and possibly restore a few more the next time I use this map.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Gracias. Though what I really need to do is figure out whether the game is supposed to ignore border mountains for the purpose of cave forts, and whether I can mod just Agartha so they can build them, even on 'mountain-less' 'border-mountain-full' random maps.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

I may stall this turn. You can blame ATT/Bellsouth for this.

Problem bypassed. Turn sent.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

I'm in way to many games... I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. I had an idea planned out before hand, but been pulverized by independents... I'm not yet prepared for EA agartha, to my regret. Should have had more SP time. BTW, those horse tribe cavalry are mean when you have a measly attack skill of eight up against 16. Even trampling isn't so useful.

I suggest everyone put me out of my misery, quick, commit war against me. The only success I've had expanding is against the other humans, cause the indeps own my forces each and every time, it seems. I needed to practice much more.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

How many games are you in LP?

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Five. Jaguar, Chupacabra, SmokyBat, Veturi, Outsiders.

I think I got greedy when I stuck my hand in the cookyjar.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Wow, I just (tentatively) joined my second game. I think I'll take a lesson from your experience and stop there for now.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

I'm in 4, and going strong. But unless I die horribly in at least one, I may be in some trouble when I get to university.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

The really foolish part about me taking five games is me working six days a week.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Maybe you should get a sub for one or two LP. I've made the same mistake in the past. It's a real pity because for me it can change dominions from being super fun to being an annoying job, which is very sad. The trouble is it's an easy mistake to make because at the start the games only take a minute or two per turn each.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Well... I'm switching to AI in a turn or two in Jaguar, unless negotiations manage to pull off a stunning reversal.

I may sub out one or two, but I'm having trouble deciding which to do. Would it be a problem if I switched to AI here? It would be an outright shame, but I wouldn't really want to give this position to another player. I'll play it through if I have to - I have time enough not to stall.

Veturi is a series of very brutal battles - with me having taken Pan's capital and both lakes- I won't drop out of that. Smoky's currently in peace and reasearch. That leaves Outriders, Jaguar, and chupacabra. Outriders is actually a pretty simple, since I'm surrounded on all sides, and barely control a one-province radius from my capital, with R'lyeh and Jomon looking for war.

Re: Chupacabra - EA game for newish players - sign
 

Well, like you say it would be a shame to AI this game. Generally I think it's good if players think before switching to AI since some seem to do it on a whim. But ultimately if you're not enjoying the game by all means go ahead (especially since I know you're the thoughtful type and you've obviously tried not to AI immediately, e.g. in Jaguar). And if you are enjoying it, carry on playing!