Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Squirrelloid wins!
 

With the disappearance of the pantokrator a great war was fought. Pretenders led their followers in a cataclysmic struggle against their rivals. However in the end, none proved strong enough and this struggle shattered the nations of old. Now a new group of pretenders has risen to power, each gathering disparate remnants of the old powers and forging them into new nations. And each determined that they will ascend to the throne of the pantokrator.


Summary

This game will use Elmokki's Randomocalypse mod to generate a random nation for each player. I will be the admin and will generate five nations for each player to choose from. The goal here is to not have players generating nations non-stop until they get an optimal one but also to provide some choice so people aren't forced to play a nation they really dislike.

After nations have been chosen I will put them together in one mod and the nation rosters will be posted (which you can of course also check just by firing up a test game with the combined mod). So, you will know your opposition when designing your pretender.

Other than using Randomocalypse I've gone with standard settings. But if there's a consensus to use a different map, have no a indies game (something I think could be interesting in combination with this mod), etc., I'm flexible.


Settings

Players: 5
Map: Fivelands
Era: MA (custom nations of course but this affects indies and site frequency)
Mods: Randomocalypse and CBM 1.92
Hosting: llamaserver
Hosting interval: 24 hours up to turn 20, 48 hours up to turn 40, 72 hours from then on
HoF: 15
All other settings default


Roster

Redka, The Floating Circle, led by P3D
Redka was a feudal society ruled by a king living at The Floating Circle and his vassals. With the awakening of the pretender god, the Kings of Rain emerged from the sea and became the rulers of Redka. The coming of the Kings of Rain was followed by an age of human sacrifices. Drawing power from The Floating Circle, the Kings of Rain strive to conquer the world for their god!

Mages: King of Rain, Moon Priest, Mictlan Priest
Troops: Burning One, Crossbowman, Bandar Archer, Wingless, Footman, War Shambler, Mountain Warrior


Yelloea, The Godly Harbour led by Squirrelloid
Yelloea was a pious nation ruled by priest-kings centering their worship at The Godly Harbour. With the awakening of the pretender god, the Arch Bishops of the Sacred Shroud descended from their temples and became the rulers of Yelloea. The Arch Bishops of the Sacred Shroud started an age of virtuousness. Drawing power from The Godly Harbour, the Arch Bishops of the Sacred Shroud seek to enslave the unbelievers!

Mages: Starets, Moon Priest, Augur
Troops: Warrior of the Five Elements, Archer, Jotun Hurler, Abysian Light Infantry, Sauromatian Raider, Pikeneer, Falchioneer


Grerus, The Blossoming Caldera, led by Lung Drago
Tyrants ruled Grerus with an iron fist from The Blossoming Caldera. With the awakening of the pretender god, the Pans infiltrated Grerus and became the rulers of Grerus. With the Pans came an age of wild growth. Uncovering the secrets of The Blossoming Caldera, the Pans strive to bring the true faith to everybody!

Mages: Pan, Master Shugenja, Caretaker
Troops: Black Templar, Agarthan Light Crossbowman, Light Bandar Archer, Warrior, Wolf Rider, Fomorian Spearman, Equite


Moria, The Pond of the Slain, led by Jiggymike
Inhabitants of Moria used to live in a fear of a horrible blood cult sacrificing virgins at The Pond of the Slain With the awakening of the pretender god, the Witch Kings conquered Moria with a horde of undead and became the rulers of Moria. The Witch Kings started an age of darkness. Following the lore of The Pond of the Slain, Moria will enslave the unbelievers!

Mages: Witch King, Shaman, Keeper of the Tombs
Troops: Black Centaur, Jotun Hurler, Sapper, Velite, Sauromatian Raider, Peshtsi Spearman, Entrance Guard


Reheim, The Weeping Valley, led by Korwin
Reheim was a pious nation ruled by priest-kings centering their worship at The Weeping Valley. With the awakening of the pretender god, the Ryujins rose from the waters and became the rulers of Reheim. The Ryujins brought an age of gentle waves. Uncovering the secrets of The Weeping Valley, the Ryujins strive to annihilate the false gods!

Mages: Ryujin, Nagaraja, Ice Crafter
Troops: Serpent Cataphract, Blizzard Warrior, Samurai Archer, Velite, Lancer, Abysian Infantry, Peshtsi Axeman

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

I really like to try this random mod.
So sign me up. *goesdownloadingcbm*

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

Welcome! Based on a comment from elmokki I'm making one change and increasing the number of nations each player can choose from to 5. That should be enough to result in something playable.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

Oh what the heck, i love random games.

Show me the choices bridgekeeper, i am not afraid!

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

Yes, this sounds interesting. It's good we can choose from 5 nations since from what little generating I did I got for example a nation with too much assasins (making most of them pretty much useless).
So, I'd like to join in as...uh. I'd like to join in.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

3 is maximum I believe, but should be really rare. You could get a weak assassin as your stealthy, some other assassin as your special and Baobhan Siddhe as your tertiary mage.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

Welcome, Squirrelloid and Lung Drago!

I don't have time to start generating nations now but if everyone could PM me an email address to send their choices to I'll do so as soon as I get a chance.

Although, elmokki is releasing updates very quickly so maybe it would be better to generate all the nations at once using the most current release of the program at that point?

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

Yeah all Nations should be generated the same version.

E-Mail PN'ed.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

Thanks all for the email addresses.

Yes, I think we'll definitely want all nations generated with the same version of the program. The last release, for instance, made some significant changes to the troop calculations.

Anyone reading the thread and thinking about joining just look at the type of nation you could get. Giants and more giants!

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

Add me, sounds interesting.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

Welcome! Only one more player needed.

Once we've got everyone signed up I'll check with elmokki. If he thinks it's worth waiting a bit for the next release I'll do that.

When I generate the nations I will quickly look them over. If I notice anything that seems strange I'll PM elmokki and the player asking if he thinks it's a bug. Of course if I miss it and you notice something wrong please do the same.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting!
 

I've been helping Elmokki with some of the balance formulae, so I can tell you that its kind of rough and unit synergies won't necessarily get factored in very well. So there is probably significant slop. Choosing 1 of 5 nations should let people account for this i would hope.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting! 1 spot left
 

Do you think I should up it to something like 7? After elmokki's comment I increased it to 5 choices from 3 but now I'm thinking maybe it should be even higher. I'd like everyone to have a nation they are happy with.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting! 1 spot left
 

Too many choices will make it insufficiently random. 5 may be too many =P

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting! 1 spot left
 

That's true, too many choices will remove the element of chance.

Ok, I think what I'll do is let each player choose their risk tolerance. By default everyone will get 5 nations to choose from. I ran a few tests and I usually found that about 2 out of 5 random nations were to my liking so I think we'll be ok with 5 as a ceiling.

However, if you are daring let me know and I'll send you fewer nations. And if anyone is bold enough to do so I'll just generate one nation for them and they'll have to play that. :p

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting! 1 spot left
 

I've been driving myself nuts trying to get this mod to work...I'd like to join this game if there's still room! I'm down to one MP game and things aren't going too well in that so I'm probably going to have extra time on my hands.

I've only generated one nation so far and it was pretty crap. I definitely think between 3-5 options is fair and I'd err on the smaller side. You could also check the nations before sending them to make sure they aren't 3 crap nations and are generally somewhat balanced.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting! 1 spot left
 

Take me. Let's fight.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Recruiting! 1 spot left
 

Jiggymike, welcome to the game! Please PM me your email address.

Bgifu, sorry but I'm afraid Jiggymike beat you to the last spot by a few minutes.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

Ok, nation choices have been mailed out. Remember to enable CBM 1.92 and then the Randomocalypse mod. Then you can just start an MA game with 5 human players and choose the five random nations in order to look them over.

Once you've made a decision just PM or email me your choice. Also, if you'd like to change the name of your nation let me know that as well.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

well, i didn't even see this in time, obviously, but i didn't look any farther than my third nation and i have 2 interesting choices.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

Of my choices, Redka.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

...What should I choose...

Harder than I thought...

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

I'd like Yellowea of mine.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

All of my choices are definitely difficult in some way. It either has crappy mages, or crappy priests, or giant infantry, or it's troops apparently don't know what is a sword. I shall have a challenge in this game, that's for sure :) But I suppose I cannot expect it to hand me a perfect, unconquerable nation on a plate :)
Teh random nation generator still has a lot of space to improve, since some combinations I have just witnessed are a waste of unit's abbilities or outright illogical for a serious game (having move 3 units is not so great when you have no move 3 commanders, isn't it? Or what real use is having a selection of 2 archer cavalry, when one is clearly superior to the other with only a slight difference in resources cost?). But then again if this worked flawlessly it would be The Single Marvel of Designing :shock: Let us make a good use of this situation and if you lose this game, remember it can be blamed on the generator! :D
Also, I expect every nation will need to have different flag color. If a conflict with another player's national flag should arise with mine, I voluntarily hand over the green slimy flag in favor of a shiny yellow, for example :D

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

Yeah, I realized you hadn't had time to respond but didn't want to leave anyone out when I sent the nations and I figured you could do exactly what you did in order to limit your choices. Though I have to admit if I took that approach I would be very tempted to check the other nations after I chose, just to see what I might have missed out on... :)


One area of synergies that comes to mind is hot/cold nations. You are unlikely to get an entire troop/commander lineup that is immune to an element. OTOH I find you frequently get better magic diversity than most of the base game nations since you don't have the common pattern of a nation's weaker mages having a subset of the stronger mage's paths. Now some of those magic paths will be low level but it's enough to site search and forge some basic items.


I think this is a good sign. When I quickly looked over the nations before sending them out I didn't have any WTF reactions like when I first saw Hinnom. I'm not at all claiming there's perfect balance but I don't think any of these nations will warrant a dogpile just based on their lineup.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

I don't think you would have wanted that perfect nation anyway: since diplomacy is allowed your perfect nation might have been facing a 3 or 4 vs 1. So it would have had to have been *really* good to face those odds. :D

I see what you're saying but some of this doesn't bother me, like having map move 3 units without map move 3 commanders. I kind of like that you've got these pieces and you have to figure out ways to get the best use out of them. For instance, I play MA Van a lot and there you have flying valkyries without any flying commanders. And your stealthy commanders don't have a foot slot so even with a forge bonus forging a magic carpet for each valk-leading commander isn't cheap. You've also got skinshifters with forest survival but none of your commanders have that ability so depending on the map I look for indie mages to help out in leading them over forest terrain.

Yes, I figured I'd have to do some switching of colors. If anyone has a preferred color let me know and I'll use that. I don't remember if the flag colors always get used in the same order (in which case you will all have the same 5 colors in your nation choices) but there are a total of 14 different colors included in the mod. In any case, I'll definitely avoid you having to use green. ;)

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

Hey I'm definitely going to be at least a few hours before I check my nations, sorry. I suspect I'm in a different time zone than everyone else and I don't have my computer with me today at school. However, I'll have it selected by tonight for sure so you can all start coming up with pretenders to destroy me with!

No worries, take the time you need.

I also wanted to remind everyone to check their capitol magic sites to see which of their units are cap only - these do not necessarily match vanilla or cbm. For instance, I ran a set of test nations and a mage that is normally cap only was cap only in one of the random nations but recruit everywhere in another.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

I really like two of my choices but I thiiiink I'm going to go with Blue. Do me a little favor and give them a better name than Bluthan, thanks. Hope I'm not making a mistake by turning down those hydras!

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

Then again some vanilla nations do have similiar "problems" more or less. I wouldn't be too worried if a nation gets couple of units (out of 6) that they will never recruit. An another issue is if the nation gets a powerful (powerful from the program's viewpoint) troop lineup and all the heavy infantry is utter crap or something.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

I'll choose Reheim.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

I hear you there. I never found a use for the bakemono shaman of MA Shinuyama for example :)

What type of diplomacy are we talking here, anyway? All treaties are binding?

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

What?

Boring.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Design pretenders
 

I imagine everyone's curious to check out their opposition and I've updated the first post with nation summaries. I'm having problems uploading attachments at the moment but once I've got the combined mod uploaded I'll let you know.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Nations being generated
 

Since Yelloea had already claimed yellow I switched you from green to purple. Korwin, I switched you to white since P3D already had red. Colors ok with both of you?

How about something from Tolkein? I think "Moria, The Pond of the Slain" sounds suitably ominous for the Witch Kings.

Other than stating whether a game has diplomacy or not, I never make any rules regarding this. My experience has been that agreements are honored the vast majority of the time but if the game is on the line people may feel the stakes are high enough to violate a NAP. Aside from consequences in the current game, the main drawback to violating agreements is that the player may be viewed as an unreliable person to do business with in future games. Really depends on the person and the situation how they react. So, it's completely up to you how you want to approach diplo.

Ok, the mod is now attached to the first post. You'll probably want to start a test game to see the other nations' full lineups, but in any case please try a test game with your own nation. This was just a copy/paste job and everything looked ok to me but it never hurts to have someone double check things.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Design pretenders
 

Another reminder: when designing your pretenders you'll want both CBM 1.92 and the game mod active.

I'm going to wait a bit to see if there are any errors in the game mod before uploading it to the server and creating the game.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Design pretenders
 

make sure you load CBM first, as your pretender options will be vanilla versions otherwise.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

It appears everyone has downloaded the game mod and since I haven't heard of any problems with it I went ahead and setup the game on the llamaserver.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

I am soooo excited how my pretender design will work out ^^:re:

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

I could not do a trial run on Fivelands.
The map file is restricted to land nations only. An undersired consequence is that any new mod nations have to be explicitly allowed in the map file.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

Are there water provinces? Since some of our nations have aquatic troops and/or comanders.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

Valerius, can you please send me a PM letting me know if I completely screwed up by not taking my Yellow nation? K thx. I'm having second thoughts, though I am sticking with my choice of Blue because I have a better plan for them laid out.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

Good catch but it looks like someone ran into this problem before as the version on the server says it is mod nation friendly.


Yes, there are five water provinces. This is a balanced map so all five territories are identical and each includes a water province. I'd say water breathing or sailing abilities are useful but not that big an advantage on this map.


Sure, PMing you now.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

The #allowedplayer command goes to 79 in the original file. So mod nations with respective IDs can be played, but not the ones with IDs in the 90s.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

So I guess the question is whether that is the version on the server or if it's a different one that isn't limited to 79. There's no link to the .map file that was used so I'm not sure.

I could just upload another file or I guess we could start the game and if it fails then I'll upload a revised .map file.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

Something strange happened in my test game.
My half-quasi-dragon mages can fly underwater???

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

It looks like they can fly in underwater combat but this appears to be a feature of the unit. I tested this in a vanilla game and they had the same ability.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

Looks like some pretenders are in already. I just have to do a little testing and I should be good to go later today, been a busy week/weekend.

Re: Randomocalypse - 5 players, randomly generated nations - Send pretenders
 

Game is on, FYI. After seeing the size of the map I am not feeling good about my strat.