Mod Single Age

Gandalf Parker · #1 April 17th, 2007, 12:37 PM

So far, this is the workaround Im considering for actually trying to run a full MP game with this mod. Ive found that my server will happily run the game once it is created. But the initial signup might be a problem. By the way, if anyone else wants to beat me to the punch and offer this as an MP game that is fine with me.

Im thinking of having 3 signup "games".
Era 1 (early) on port 7111
Era 2 (mid) on port 7222
Era 3 (late) on port 7333
all running with no start-button.

That way people can upload their gods. When Im ready to start then I will take down those three "games" and copy all of the god files into one game directory for MegaGame on port 7321. I will run first hosting as if it was a pbem game. Then turn the game on for normal play after that.

Sombre · #2 April 17th, 2007, 01:04 PM

It won't impact any other nation mods out there (besides those that modify vanilla nations, such as replacement nation mods), because all you're changing is the display name and the era of various nations.

I don't think the modlist has been cluttered up at all so far. Besides, all you need is in the first post so it wouldn't even matter if there were 500 pages of off topic spam after that. Well it would still be spam, but it wouldn't really mess the purpose up.

Anyway, I'll add this to the modlist in the near future, since we have a download link in the thread. Oh and you might want to stick a banner in the mod. Helps people see when they have the mod turned on, helps them togle it etc.

Sombre · #3 April 17th, 2007, 01:13 PM

Oops, just noticed you changed the 'filler' nation slots as well. Yeah that will mess with the names and so on of other mods. So people will have to fiddle a bit if they want to use this with added nations.

Gandalf Parker · #4 April 17th, 2007, 02:34 PM

Well I was in keeping with my own recommendations for stickies.

I was going to try and keep it as simple as possible so someone else can easily modify it. But I guess you have a point. OK there is an icon image for the mod now.

Meglobob · #5 April 17th, 2007, 04:21 PM

Wow! Thanks Gandalf, this looks great. I have not used many mods so far, been more into MP games. But I have just tried this with EA Niefelheim with worthy heros mod and it appeared to work fine. Only played a few turns as the battles phase takes ages to resolve with 76 nations!

Just a couple of points:-

1) I would put a thread in the main board, you will then get more playtesters, feedback and downloads.

2) EA Nielfelheims description did not appear. Got, 'early era nielfelheim description unavailable' repeated twice.

3) Many of the nations have the same flags which could cause confusion, especially in MP.

Excellent mod, thanks again for your time and effort.

Gandalf Parker · #6 April 17th, 2007, 04:50 PM

Actually I mentioned it on the main forum first (in my thread about a monster game). But doing any kinds of improvements on this is way down on my list. Im more aimed toward map and server things than modding. I tend to just suggest things and let others take off with it.

There is a banners mod which might work with this. If not then Im perfectly happy if he wants to do a combined mod. Especially if he comes up with some flags for the empty nations. If he does then Id be willing to come up with some more interesting names for them. Maybe even give them some basic troops.

WraithLord · #7 April 17th, 2007, 05:06 PM

I've been waiting for this mod from day 1. Many thanks Gandalf!

Velusion · #8 April 28th, 2007, 02:59 PM

I'm considering hosting a game with this mod.

Question - did you ever test the below process and verify that people can select their nation and play?

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:
So far, this is the workaround Im considering for actually trying to run a full MP game with this mod. Ive found that my server will happily run the game once it is created. But the initial signup might be a problem. By the way, if anyone else wants to beat me to the punch and offer this as an MP game that is fine with me.

Im thinking of having 3 signup "games".
Era 1 (early) on port 7111
Era 2 (mid) on port 7222
Era 3 (late) on port 7333
all running with no start-button.

That way people can upload their gods. When Im ready to start then I will take down those three "games" and copy all of the god files into one game directory for MegaGame on port 7321. I will run first hosting as if it was a pbem game. Then turn the game on for normal play after that.

Gandalf Parker · #9 April 28th, 2007, 03:47 PM

Yes I got it to work but I couldnt get it to work quite the way I wanted to. (fully automatable for my lazy self)

This is the best Ive gotten so far. After the above arrangement with 3 signup "games", I had to rename all of the received files from the transmitted name such as early_ulm.2h to the pre-transmitted names such as early_ulm_1.2h (the way that dom keeps track of multiple god choices for a nation is to add 0 thru whatever on the name but its stripped when you send it).

Then send all of the sent god files to my desktop WinXP machine and put them all into an empty savedgames/newlords directory (I made a complete copy of the game into a different directory for this so I dont overwrite my own god-builds).

Then I started a game as if it was going to be a hotseat game for myself. I turned on the SingleAge mod, started an early era game, and "joined" as human players for all the nations. (I just realized that I probably could have just set the second player to human and hit "n" until it stopped adding since that would have added all the nations in random order instead of spending so long setting each one manually).

THEN I had to go thru each of the joins and "Load Pretender God" for each one to load in the god they sent me. Then hit start.

Once the ftherland file was generated I could transfer the entire game directory back to my server and run it as a server game.

I have tested it as far as being able to start a game with early, mid, late arcos and have the server run it. I did have a snag when I tried more something about "more than one player cant play the same nation" but it might have been something I did. Im just too easily distracted to to all that crap for 75 nations. PLEASE find an easier way to make it work.

It MIGHT be possible to do the same thing without transfering the files to a windows machine but Im not very fluent in the linux gui environment. For a graphic environment I use windows.

This is going to be a problem for any modded nations. The game is willing to RUN a game with them, but it wont allow signup over the net. So the games will either have to be started the way I just laid out, or as pbem.

Gandalf Parker

Velusion · #10 April 28th, 2007, 03:54 PM

Quote:

Gandalf Parker said:

I have tested it as far as being able to start a game with early, mid, late arcos and have the server run it. I did have a snag when I tried more something about "more than one player cant play the same nation" but it might have been something I did.

Gandalf Parker

Thats what I'm concerned about. Once the server is ready, can all the multi-nations connect and select which version of arco they want to play without error? I would have thought the mechanism for selecting which pre-loaded nation to play would have been tied into the same as the mechanism for selecting which empty nation to play...