Suggestions for SP play?

[lch]

"She"? Oh, Alneyan. I always thought that was a guy. :P

No girls on the intarwebs!

[JimMorrison]

Oh dear.

Gandalf, how dare you stereotype Alneyan for having a female looking avatar!

And conversely, ICH, how dare you stereotype Alneyan for being on the internet!


And thus, the world crumbles in on itself, under the sheer weight of anonymity.....

[lch]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

And conversely, ICH, how dare you stereotype Alneyan for being on the internet!

Experience.

If that doesn't convince you, I'll raise the "meme" card.

[JimMorrison]

< shrug >

I have met plenty of real women on the internet (proven by telephone and/or webcam). Granted, they are vastly and wildly outnumbered by men, but the ratio is gradually shrinking over time - something that pleases me even if the greater part of the change is occurring in the younger generations, who just like to tease me with their "being-vastly-younger-than-me-ness".

That's a generic "me", of course, not specifically directed at all. >.>

[Alneyan]

Your pack was indeed what I had in mind Gandalf. I'll be having a look at RanDom now, and see what I can contribute once I've figured out what it does exactly, but I like what I'm seeing so far! I enjoyed your random medley-style map, but it just felt a little bit too random for me, and the AI was even better than me at destroying itself against nasty provinces...

The last few posts in this thread remind me of that old Lord of the Rings saying somehow "Wizards, never meddle in the affairs of mortals, for they are subtle and quick to confuse you." (Is now a good time to mention I've taken up to liking metal, and I do mean real metal?)

I didn't know my avatar looked feminine, though... I thought it was pretty much androgynous, but then again, I also thought there was a second creature in the background (most people seem to think it's just a hood, but trust me, there's a menace lurking behind me...) Oh well, there's always the Dominions ads I guess!

[Ironhawk]

Alneyan, I was working on a mod some time ago that provided pre-made thugs to the AI via a suite of low level spells. I found that it added a very interesting level of spice to the rare SP game that I played. The AI doesnt use them like thugs should be used but they often make for unpleasant surprises in battles with the AI.

I could dig it up if you were interested.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Oh dear.

Gandalf, how dare you stereotype Alneyan for having a female looking avatar!

Im old OLD Internet. I consider it to be good manners to treat the person as whatever they care to portray on the net. The name could go either way, and the avatar looks female, which says to me that the person wishes to be referred to as she.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Alneyan

Your pack was indeed what I had in mind Gandalf. I'll be having a look at RanDom now, and see what I can contribute once I've figured out what it does exactly, but I like what I'm seeing so far! I enjoyed your random medley-style map, but it just felt a little bit too random for me, and the AI was even better than me at destroying itself against nasty provinces...

Yes I now generate chaos mapped games on the server.
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/Chaos_chk.cgi
Its been improved (the AI is an active player, the indepts can attack you, the indepts have PD and can spot scouts, and the castles have patrols). But the total randominity does tend to spark people to want to create more logical provinces so I steer them to the RanDom program.

[NTJedi]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Im old OLD Internet. I consider it to be good manners to treat the person as whatever they care to portray on the net. The avatar looks female, {edited at request}. Both say to me that the person wishes to be referred to as she.

I completely agree.

[HoneyBadger]

lch--we don't actually *exclude* females from the intra-webs. That's a bad lch!

It's just that most of them get sacrificed to our demonic masters, in order that we may drink their blood, imbibing their vital essences. For example, Annette and Mindi are both female, as far as we know, and they both run faster and fight harder than our blood hunters do. Especially since the satanic gym had all those budget cuts from higher management (Who's great idea was it to put the demon of sloth in charge?).

Being vastly younger than JimMorrison (but not anyone else, except maybe Gandalf), I find it simplifies my life to assume that everyone I meet on the internet is A: a dude, B: a flabby, hairy, sweaty, uncomfortably affectionate dude (in real life), lacking a firm grip on basic hygenic theory, C: who was castrated in an unfortunate bizarre threshing accident, just to be on the safe side.
Ouch. I feel for you all!

Now, to add to the discussion in productive ways: Alneyan: One thing I do to improve my SP experience is to run each and every Nation myself, from the beginning, as a human player. It not only suffices to improve Pretender and Scales choices, it also allows me the educational opportunity to obtain a firmer handle on how each Nation works. I usually will run them-non-aggressively-for up to 3 years. Considering that I play on extremely large maps (a "quick" game for me is SP 'Glory of the Gods'), those three years, aside from allowing me to make smart decisions for each Nation, don't grossly affect the map, itself, or the balance of the game. Typically, I confine myself to just capturing the provinces surrounding each capital, building a decent army and stable of commanders, doing a little forging/summoning, and directing research into the most important areas. It also allows me to-if I so choose-select imprisoned Pretenders, and play the Nations out until the last Pretender awakens. I then switch them to Impossible AI.

On a 1500 province map, this method, while time-consuming, is invaluable towards making the SP game more challenging, and the map, frankly, is too vast to be very helpful in determining where a specific Nation happens to be.

I hope that helps!