Utility: Small games available (Blitz or Player vs AI or SemiRand or Chaos or CBM)

[Gandalf Parker]

Are you able to connect to any dom3 servers?
I dont seem to have a problem.
Maybe you can send me your IP address. I might have it blocked altho I block very few IPs

There is a map command
#allies {number} {number}
so I generate the random map for the game, and then randomly select AIs for that age. Then I append the map with lines to ally those AIs.
#allies 0 2
will make Arcos and Ulm in an era 1 game set as allies. They will not attack each other. It doesnt seem to do anything more than that but it makes a big difference when they arent throwing armies at each other and both concentrate on you.
(no need to do an #allies 2 0 back, it handles both ways)

I also created a scenario of a mod&map which put all 3 Pangaeas and both Oceanias in one game all allied. I called it "Natural Selection" and the description started out "Mother Nature is Pissed!"

[chrispedersen]

Cool, I didn't know about the #allies command.
Thanks.

As for the other issues, dont' know. Will check into it a bit more later.
Any chance you can change format a bit for 6 man games, as those are the only ones going into hall of fame, yes?

[Gandalf Parker]

Im not big on the hall of fame.
Im always willing to host larger games if people want to spark interest in them. But we have a problem now with people joining then not coming back to see when others have joined.

But if someone wants to create a new "standard" game and generate interest in it, it is always a public server and Id be willig to create a new category for it.

[Gandalf Parker]

As requested, there is now a one-stop check screen for those who do not need the descriptions of each game type and additional info. It lists the games, ports, which games are open, AND which ones have someone joined that is waiting for more players to begin.

http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/waiting_chk.cgi

[Gandalf Parker]

NOW ANNOUNCING:

The SemiRandom program is now running on my server.
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/srand_chk.cgi
In the standard arrangement games have been created for all 3 eras.

The maps are randomly generated with 80 provinces, then run thru the SemiRandom program to add interesting provinces (10%). Also 3 AIs are added which are set not to attack each other. Each game can accept from one to four players. So you can start it at one and play by yourself just to see what the SemiRandom program is about. Or wait for others to join. At 4 players it will auto-start.

If you want to speed up joiners, start a thread about the game to pitch it and discuss.

Please keep in mind that the SemiRandom program NEEDS YOUR HELP to improve. Design provinces, design gods, come up with names for the names lists, etc. Help it grow.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=34826

Note on Gods: hopefully I can add the AI gods into these games later.

Gandalf Parker

[swapoer]

It should be somthing obvious but i currently dont get it.
I know how to join a game and have a little MP experience.
But how do i communicate with other players and how do i know when the turn will end in these games?

[Fantomen]

The first post say patch version .21 and CBM 1.3. That seems a bit outdated, will there be an update or is the information old?

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by swapoer

It should be somthing obvious but i currently dont get it.
I know how to join a game and have a little MP experience.
But how do i communicate with other players and how do i know when the turn will end in these games?

Each of the checker pages have a link to a "how to join" page.
http://game.dom3minions.com/how-to.html
if that is unclear in any way please let me know so I can try to improve it.

Communicating with other players can be done in-game. Or if you start a seperate thread here with the game name in the subject then you can chat about the game here. Thats how most people do them.

Or for really fast games where everyone continually turn in their turns and the whole thing is played in one or two days then you can create a chat room either on this site (there is a link at the top of this page that says "chat") or by using some other chat site such as the Dominions chat in IRC. Its even possible to setup a voice chat like game consoles use if you really want to.

When you connect to the game it always tells you when the next turn is due. But on request I can easily have any game copy its
scores.html file to a web-accessable directory for online viewing.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

The first post say patch version .21 and CBM 1.3. That seems a bit outdated, will there be an update or is the information old?

Thank you very much for pointing that out. I have now updated it.

I tend not to notice alot unless someone actually mentions it or I can automate it. Thats why Im not much on being the one to maintain a mod or tool. Id rather someone else took the idea and ran with it.

As for the CBM games Im afraid that they particularly dont get much attention. I know that some people swear by them and feel that all of the Dom games use it but I havent really seen much evidence of that. My morning page in my browser includes a tab with a personal admin cgi
http://game.dom3minions.com/bin/admin_chk.cgi
which shows me open games and reminds me to make sure there are always 2 for each era in each game type. The cbm games seem to be the ones I least have to open new games for in the mornings. So I appreciate it when someone reminds me to update or something with them.

[Gandalf Parker]

The server that Dom3Minions is on will be making some changes. Part of it involves that the IP numbers are going to be changing. The change SHOULD go smoothly and transparently (and all the server admins lol). All of this should happen sometime within the week.