MP Game: Age of Men - Completed - Arco wins!

Cohen · #1 January 15th, 2005, 04:04 AM

Parganos is known for his little cash income, I'd prefer Karan unless we use a rich setting Parganos.

Wazooking · #2 January 16th, 2005, 01:24 PM

Karan is fine, although I have had a start location that only had two connections, one to a water location.
On another note, could we turn off the score graphs?

Ironhawk · #3 January 17th, 2005, 06:52 PM

Ok, Karan it is. For anyone who does not already have the map, here is the link from the Illwinter website. Just download it and unzip it into your maps directory:

Karan Map

As for graphs: Nope I strongly prefer graphs on. I understand people's arguments against them but IMO, they relieve countless hours of tallying up all kinds of minutae about your opponents.

Ironhawk · #4 January 17th, 2005, 07:00 PM

Ok, the server should now be Online for pretender uploads. Connect at...

IP: benatar.snurgle.org
port: 2001

... game will begin when all pretenders are in!

Oh!! And everyone remember to password protect your pretender so there can't be any mixups.

Ironhawk · #5 January 18th, 2005, 07:55 PM

Oh, don't forget. Human pretenders only

Ironhawk · #6 January 19th, 2005, 05:01 AM

Hrrrrrrm! After thinking about it for a long while I have to bail on Pythium and switch to Arco. Without communicants pythium's mages just wont be able to deal with the number of troops we are going to see. Astral magic is too focused on single unit spells.

Wazooking · #7 January 19th, 2005, 09:18 PM

I think we only have 7 players in the game.
Yvelina bowed out earlier in the thread.

Ironhawk · #8 January 24th, 2005, 05:15 PM

So, Cohen brings up an excellent point in his in-game message: How do we handle the situation of one player attacking and storming another players research center where they will be practically gauranteed of being over the 1:25 mage ratio. I'm going to think about it some today but does anyone have some suggestions?

msew · #9 January 25th, 2005, 04:50 PM

The purpose of the game is to make mages on "active" / "usable" when there are 25 non mage units.

When mages are out searching by themselves they must have their orders set to: "retreat".

If there are N mages out searching without troop support they must have all their orders set to: "retreat".

When mages are moving from army to army they have their orders set to: "retreat".

When mages are moving they have their orders set to: "retreat".

Okie. Cool. We all agree on that.

So: Now we have mages hanging out in their respective forts. Researching perhaps. Idling about. Just arriving from being out in the field. etc etc.

So by those rules ALL mages must have their default order be retreat. And only when they 25 non-mage units allocated to them may they choose to change it.

So if you have a research province all of the mages that do not have 25 non-mage units must have their orders set to retreat.

Consequences:

a) if all of your mages are concentrated in one area and can only retreat you better make certain they have a place to retreat from or you will lose them.

b) An enemy attacking a concentrated research province could massively disrupt your researching. And maybe kill off some mages in the adjoining provinces with secondary attacks

c) this stops the tactic of: making forts and dumping 10 mages that are "researching" and can defend that fort quite easily from the 50 unit 2 mage assault force

Cohen · #10 January 26th, 2005, 02:08 PM

So on who's got a Watchtower will be able to bring his retreating mages to safety, meanwhile who's picked a castle has his retreating mages trapped inside ... not fair.
I'd suggest you can't script any mages that excedes the limitations. The tactical AI will start to buff them with shields, and all other stuff, then start spamming crap spells.

I'd change too the "retreat" option of the site searching mages. Keep in mind in a such game, Provincial Defence could be worth. Indeed some nations get a mage too in Provincial Defence (for 20 men).
I'd apply for site searching mages, and all mages outside/inside castle without their 25 troops retinue, the rule of not being scripted.

Those cases are purely defensive however, in attack you're forced to the 25:1 ratio.

I'd suggest an exception for Mercenary mages, as they could be considered always active. They're avaiable for all, and this could enhance their value. Don't forget if they retreat you'll lose them. So I'd believe this could be fair.

To substitute the uber-micro needed for the "all retreat", according to my rule, we can add an string to the scripted mages, to check better if someone tries to trick the house rule, like "***" (three asterisks) at the end of the mage name, to identify him as scripted. (We will notice so on an F2-A1 mage scripted doing something like Air, Summon Phoenix Power, Fireball, Fireball, Fireball ... meanwhile an AI lead F2-A1 mage casting Air Shield, Fire Shield, Charged Body, Air, some buffs, then spamming spectral warriors or something like =P )