Pyrothere - LA slowpace - Game on!
 

Hey there!

As another in my (very) occasional line of slowpace cames, I present Pyrothere.

Turns will be 96 hours (although I hope players will be rather faster than that for the first 10 turns).

Map: Spring Rains, with custom start points.

Other settings: Vanilla, renaming on.

Hosting: Llamaserver.

Mods: None.

Players:
Gregstrom - Mictlan
Greenaris - Ulm
Agema - Utgard
AlpineJoe - Marignon
Unoptimized - Ermor
Fate - Jomon
P3D - Gath
Caerun - Atlantis
cupido2 - R'lyeh
Gokufan1988 - Pythium
Anticipatient - Agartha
AreaOfEffect - Bogarus
Aethyr - Midgard
hEad - Pangaea
Illuminated One - T'ien Ch'i
Licker - Caelum
LdiCesare - Man

Re: Pyrothere! LA slowpace game - Signup phase
 

I'll take Marignon

Re: Pyrothere! LA slowpace game - Signup phase
 

Oh! Sounds like fun. Any room for an LA Ermor?

Re: Pyrothere! LA slowpace game - Signup phase
 

I don't have a problem with Ermor appearing, so... cool.

Re: Pyrothere! LA slowpace game - Signup phase
 

I would like to join as Jomon.

Re: Pyrothere! LA slowpace game - Signup phase
 

I'd try Gath.

Re: Pyrothere! LA slowpace game - Signup phase
 

Cool - you're both in.

Re: Pyrothere! LA slowpace game - Signup phase
 

In an act of shameless advertising: Bump!!

Also: If we don't get many more players, we'll need a smaller map.

Re: Pyrothere! LA slowpace game - Signup phase
 

Atlantis for me, please.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 8 signed up so far
 

Duly noted, and added to the top post.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 8 signed up so far
 

May I join as R'lyeh? Never played them, not even in SP...

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 8 signed up so far
 

Well, we already have Ermor so why not?

One caveat: If we don't get enough players for Asia Twist, the map we end up with may not be suitable for a LA game with R'lyeh as the only water nation. If so, I might have to ask you to change your selection.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Yeah, that's alright.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Okay. I'm still happy to have new players, but the pace of recruitment is slowing. I'll give it 48 hours, then if nothing has changed I'll close recruitment.

We'll need a smaller map than Asia Twist, and if nothing better suggests itself perhaps a slightly modified Urraparrand from this thread would work.

Mods: I'm fine with vanilla, but we could perhaps use the gods and heroes from CBM 1.41. I'll leave that one to public debate.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

I'm fine with vanilla too and don't care what map. If I think about it, I'm fine with everything and don't have an opinion about anything.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Can I get in as Man?

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Actually I changed my mind, I'd rather be Pythium instead. Sorry!

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

I'll take Agartha, please =]

Oh and Gods and Heros is fine by me. The whole CBM is okay with me, even, but just Gods and Heros is okay too = ]

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Urraparand should be fine for 8 land and one sea players.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Shame we're now on 10 land and 1 sea player :)

Urraparrand would give LA R'lyeh about twice the provinces of any land nation, although that would have depended somewhat on Atlantis.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Oh, that's fine for me. :) I could content myself with Man instead of R'lyeh though.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Okay, after a scan of the maps already on llamaserver, Shahrivar and Cradle of Dominions both look good.

Cradle is slightly better for R'lyeh, but Shahrivar would be acceptable (I think - cupido2, have a look and see what you think) and is the prettier of the two.

@anticipatient: I would have suggested all of CBM 1.41, but Dedas has voiced what appear to be good and valid concerns over the changes to pikes made in this version.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

C'tis please.
As there're 12 of us now, maybe use Cradle with fixed starts that is at llamaserver? It has 12 starts: 11 land and 1 sea.
Also, I'd suggest increasing magic site rate at least to at least 40-45%.

Won't play with CBM, sorry. I'm learning it step by step but it is a quite new game for me I don't feel quite ready to play.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 9 signed up so far, and room for more
 

12 players and one of the two fixed start Cradle maps sounds good to me, assuming that one of the two options on llamaserver has a coastal start point set. If anyone else joins up inside the next 24 hours we'll have to look for a different map.

I'm going to keep the basic game settings as per the top post, though.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 12 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Bother this time limit on edits.

I was going to say: While site frequency won't be changing from default, I could add in Endoperez' site mod v0.80 to give more interesting sites.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 12 signed up so far, and room for more
 

I think, if you don't want to change the site rate, let everything be default as it is because modded sites are harder to guess.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 12 signed up so far, and room for more
 

You say that like it's a bad thing... :)

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 12 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Of course, it is bad at some degree. If I, for example, see unexpected chaos scale in the province, I may be sure that there's a nature or (more probably) fire site in the province. Also, I know that it is generally not worth site searching with more than level 3 in some schools because chance of finding anything valuably is pretty low. With new modded sites it becomes unpredictable which I generally don't like. I have nothing against this mod as well as any other (CBM, for example) but to play with it effectively it needs to be learned and I don't want it at the moment:)
I prefer playing with site rate of about 50% in any era but if you don't want it, so be it.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 12 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Extreme randomness has always seemed very much in the spirit of Dominions to me.

Other than that everything sounds good.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 12 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Is there room for Bogarus?

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 12 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Sure is.

Any ideas on the maps front?

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Anything balanced with predefined locations.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Midgard please

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

The water is far less unbalanced than you might think. At face value, Rlyeh is technically the only sea nation in LA at all. However...

Although LA Atlantis (which I'm playing elsewhere in MP) starts on land it is every bit as good underwater as EA and MA Atlantis. (And although slightly limited without missile troops or cavalry, very handy on land too.) Not only that, but it needs to get underwater to access half its magical firepower.

Secondly, LA Mictlan is present, which has a dose of Atlantean influence. Although Mictlan can't build castles or build national units underwater, it can recruit underwater PD. Furthermore it has the nature mages to search for magic site kelp fortresses, and can supply adequate amphibious mages and sacred troops from its capital. It's weaker underwater than Rlyeh or Atlantis, but not so badly it would be a walkover.

Finally, Ermor is also present. Although strictly not a water power in any way, all its units are undead therefore (poor) amphibious, and it can grab water provinces right from the start if it wishes.

Consequently I'd argue we've effectively got 2 water nations, one halfway water nation, and one ready-access if slightly incompetent water nation.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

I'll take Pangaea!

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Hm. If we got some more people we might use Alexander map with predefined starting locations or maybe even AsiaTwist. However, it seemed to me that AsiaTwist contains too much water for Late Era when I looked at it.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Asia Twist has 37 water provinces, which does seem like a bit much when only one nation starts out in the water. Atlantis, Mictlan and Ermor notwithstanding. Not to mention a lot of them border a huge number of land provinces.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Hooray! More people! I'm actually really glad this is taking a while. I'm trying my best to plan a LA Ermor strat which is not the patented "dude flood" approach. If this goes well, I may even make a guide!

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

As I said, I'll switch to Man. No problem. Otherwise I take what I get with R'lyeh, even if it's only a pool of muddy water in the capitol of Ermor. I don't care about winning.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

If map with much water is chosen and you switch to Man that means that someone among land nations with access to water (Mictlan, Atlantis, Ermor) will grab nearly all water and have a huge advantage.
So map with a lot of water is not very good at all. Alexander is better than Asia Twist, however, in the aspect that its water is very distributed.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

I'd like to be in as Tien Chi please.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

If there's still room, I'm in. Of the remaining nations, I think T'ien Ch'i would be my choice.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Yeah, why not make it a family game ;)

I'll play as Caelum if you need/want more.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

LDiCesare, I'm afraid you've missed out on TC by 32 minutes. Do you have another choice? Illuminated One, Licker; welcome!

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

17 players...

How many more for full LA representation?

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Four: Man, Patala, Abysia and Arcoscephale.

Map-wise, it's likely to be Orania, Alexander or Asia Twist due to the size of the game. Alternatively, I could make up a random map.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

hmmm . . . I haven't had much online experience, but I don't agree with having newb servers. I would rather show flattery of the highest form: imitation. Learn from failure, because nothing meaningful comes from victory. Is this okay with everybody?

If that answer is yes, then I would probably choose patala. Haven't played as them yet . . . will probably do some AI games.

It'll be a learning experience . . .

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

Aargh, too bad. Man instead then.
I had been checking the remaining nations before I hit the Submit button, and then checking what to do with LA TC as I only know EA TC well.
Well archers and crossbows then.

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

19 players... That is a lot indeed.
For Alexander it is, probably, already a bit much. Also, I'd like to point out that with this many players predefined locations are nearly a "must-be" because chance of overcrowding and even capitals in neighboring provinces becomes very high.
So, I'd say we need a big balanced map. I heard about World of Geometry and similar maps. Maybe try something like that?

Re: Pyrothere - LA slowpace game: 13 signed up so far, and room for more
 

I get the feeling that late age is a lot about cannon fodder and a definite inflation of the value of a life (think of life as a dollar. I realize the wording is easily misread). Is that in the ball park . . .?