MP: Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI. Game Over. Team ACGHHS wins!

[Squirrelloid]

Ok, if there is only going to be 1 UW province, Rlyeh is useless.

(1) it needs UW provinces to make its expansion not suck, and its expansion is still pretty subpar without an awake SC pretender (with the usual choice being a kraken - a nonstarter here).

(2) it needs UW provinces to build forts in so it can actually recruit national troops. What's the point of being Rlyeh if you can't recruit starspawn except at your capital?

(3) it needs *at least* coastal forts so it can recruit *anything at all* other than independents.

Rlyeh already has a problem resupplying armies far from the water. You've just made that area the entire map. Only a moron would agree to play Rlyeh in this game. Seriously, what do those people supporting gimping Rlyeh like this think they're going to do? Why should Rlyeh be forced to play a 1 fort game while everyone else gets to play normally?

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Ok, if there is only going to be 1 UW province, Rlyeh is useless.

(1) it needs UW provinces to make its expansion not suck, and its expansion is still pretty subpar without an awake SC pretender (with the usual choice being a kraken - a nonstarter here).

(2) it needs UW provinces to build forts in so it can actually recruit national troops. What's the point of being Rlyeh if you can't recruit starspawn except at your capital?

(3) it needs *at least* coastal forts so it can recruit *anything at all* other than independents.

Rlyeh already has a problem resupplying armies far from the water. You've just made that area the entire map. Only a moron would agree to play Rlyeh in this game. Seriously, what do those people supporting gimping Rlyeh like this think they're going to do? Why should Rlyeh be forced to play a 1 fort game while everyone else gets to play normally?

Good points squirrel though I did observe the following:

1. With the level of independents we will be playing with, R'lyeh was able to expand very well initially using only its starting amphibious force and a nice void lord or even a Wyrm.

2. R'lyeh could build costal forts in all of the cap neighboring provinces (and I can increase the number of cap neighbors up to a logical limit) and thus r'lyeh can have a pretty good starting supply of Hyrbrid units (Hybrid soldier, Hybrid troop, star children assassins (I love those guys).

3. We can further compensate R'lyeh with a pop/gold boost in the capital or another suitable map edit.

4. It would force R'lyeh have to be careful about where it puts its inland forts, something people are supposed to do anyway, choosing only provinces with strong indies and useful mages (amazons/gryphons/garnet , crystal mages, etc.)

Considering the above, the gimping might not be that bad and R'lyeh is just fun to play, hell, I'd even be the moron to play it, even though I vowed not to play in the next game (in the starting lineup).

The other option of course for the competitive\balanced minded players is my original lineup for Haleheim and the other nations, which you liked but DrP and Chris seem to have problems with, even with Ashdod relegated to the rear/noob postion. That is unless you guys want me to go back to the Arboreans.

So you've got a choice, my original lineup Squirreloid approved or Chris' alternate version. If only the fresh water terrain mask worked for coastal purposes.I suppose I could spread out a few other "underwater lake" sea provinces but whatever I do, I know I don't wish to do any work on the map graphics or the starting locations. Changing terrain masks is easy it just needs to make sense.

[Squirrelloid]

star children suck compared to starspawn. And even if we assume 5 total useful forts (or whatever) is fair, they're all clustered together, forcing Rlyeh, unlike everyone else, to be unable to make national units away from its capital. But I don't think Rlyeh can compete if it can't scale up its starspawn production. I know I wouldn't play Rlyeh with less than 10 UW provinces on the map.

[Septimius Severus]

Great points again. If R'lyeh is in the rear/noob slot, forts away from the cap may not be that much of an issue.

So lets let the legendary Dr. P, the wise Gandalf, or other interested knowledgable competition/balance minded third parties break the stalemate:

(option 1) We have my lineup and with Squirrel's stamp of approval attached:

Haleheim: Ulm, Agartha, Ashdod (in rear/noob slot), Marginon

Sanguinarium: Abysia, Jotunheim, Pangaea, Vanheim

Supplicants of Set: Ermor, Shinuyama, C'tis, Machaka

Usurpers: Pythium, Bandar Log, Mictlan, Arco

(option 2) And we have Chris Pedersen's wonderful alternative:

Haleheim: Ulm, Agartha, Abysia, Marginon

Sanguinarium: Mictlan, Jotunheim, Pangaea, Vanheim

Supplicants of Set: Ermor, Shinuyama, C'tis, Machaka.

Usurpers: Pythium, Bandar Log, Arco, R'lyeh (in rear/noob slot)

Once, I get this settled I can finalize my list of thematic pretenders from which players may choose and post a new preview.

[Gandalf Parker]

And Septimius, you get the great grand fun of a games admin career.
Coordinating a patch upgrade (not yet but probably before end game)
Yes? No? Its all together or none at all.
Wait until others test it and see if a b version comes out?

http://ulm.illwinter.com/dom3/dom3progress.html
19th february 2010
* Version 3.24

[chrispedersen]

Personally, I'm more worried about the ulm team than the Rlyeh team.

Rlyeh .. just add water. The amount of water you can debate.
But even with just one.... the ulm team is weaker.

[Septimius Severus]

Squirrel, I'm willing to add a few more underground lakes to the map. The good thing for the Usurpers, about the underground lake idea is that not only do they exist in real life but there's nothing that says they cannot be connected to each other via a series of "underground" streams, tunnels, crevices, etc.

And this could make the Usurpers, very powerful indeed because I could link these lakes via undeground connections that don't have any logical surface counterpart. 4 or 5 more in every corner of the globe and you've got a nation which will have the exclusive ability, early on anyway, to move from one side of the map to the other, and pop up and attack anywhere. And build 20 or whatever coastal forts around these 4 or 5 lakes. The flipside is that once Agartha and the human players can get into the water and get to one of them, they could attack R'lyeh cap directly. A fix is to have only one of these connect directly to the cap, with the others connected to each other.

The problem is the map is jam packed as it is, where to put these extra lakes, so they don't obstruct the land routes between AI, magic sites and opposing teams. This map is actually bigger than the current one. Remember, magic sites are purple X's. I could make the central magic site (the most powerful one) an underwater magic site, but don't know where to put the rest. Squirrel?

[Squirrelloid]

Honestly, they don't have to connect to each other (although its cool if they do). I'd stick them under mountain graphics, since those are graphical areas of the map that don't have provinces, and thus they won't interfere with the routing of the map (other than possibly providing new ways around the mountains for amphibious or *sailing* forces (lol)).

[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by Squirrelloid

Honestly, they don't have to connect to each other (although its cool if they do). I'd stick them under mountain graphics, since those are graphical areas of the map that don't have provinces, and thus they won't interfere with the routing of the map (other than possibly providing new ways around the mountains for amphibious or *sailing* forces (lol)).

Can't stick em under mountain graphics, not on this map anyway or on maps with border mountain provinces. I might be able add the sea terrain mask to some border mountain provinces (wonder if/how that combo would work) but that probably wouldn't cover them up completely. In the best case they might appear to ring the lake.

If they are to be connected, which would solve your issue of distance, they'd need to be far enough away from magic sites and the AI so the other teams don't complain about R'lyeh's easy access to both. The magic sites are a prize of sorts to the first team to reach em and hold them.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

Can't stick em under mountain graphics, not on this map anyway or on maps with border mountain provinces. I might be able add the sea terrain mask to some border mountain provinces (wonder if/how that combo would work) but that probably wouldn't cover them up completely. In the best case they might appear to ring the lake.

If they are to be connected, which would solve your issue of distance, they'd need to be far enough away from magic sites and the AI so the other teams don't complain about R'lyeh's easy access to both. The magic sites are a prize of sorts to the first team to reach em and hold them.

I was suggesting just adding new provinces. Shouldn't even be that hard to do (add white dot in the center of the mountains so the game knows its a province, error check neighbor definitions and province definitions in the .map file, and add new ones for the new provinces).