Rebalance Mod game now running on a 24h timer.

[Saber Cherry]

...the game is now running - good luck, everyone!






Ironhawk has been kind enough to offer hosting services for a multiplayer game based on my new Recruitable Rebalance Mod. This game is intended to be somewhat low-magic, to better emphasize (and test) the balance between the recruitable units of various nations and independants, and see if they fit into their traditional roles... and provide a little relief from games with constant bombardment by artillery spells, Tartarian hordes, and so forth.

Currently in-game:

Ulm: Ironhawk
Vanheim: msew
Pangea: quantum_machani
Mictlan: The_Tauren13
Marignon: Patrick
T'ien Ch'i: Arralen
Man: Ighalli
Machaka: Tomahawk
Abysia: Grame Dice
Jotunheim: Cherry

(10 people)


Current game settings:

SET IN STONE

Mods:
Recruitable Rebalance Mod v7.1
Zen's God Mod v2.01
Level 4 Limit Mod v7.1 (Data ripped from Daesthai's Tome)

Map:
Arralyn's remade Parganos

Game Details:
Research: Very difficult
12-15 prov/player
Indy Strength 9
Hall of Fame 15
Richness: Rich
Graphs on - it's a test game, after all
Renaming Allowed
1 Starting Province
150% food (in rebalance mod)
Magic sites: 45

Affected magic items:
Clams and Fever Fetishes: Nerfed! (Clam WWWN, Fetish FFN)
Staff of Storms: Nerfed! (20 gems went to 40 gems)


Please download the attached modpack and read the spells readme. In general, levels 1-4 are unchanged, level 5 gets double cost, level 6 gets quadruple cost, and level 7-9 get 8x normal spell cost. But THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS, particularly strong level 5 spells and weak level 2 summons.

The only items affected are the Clam, Fever Fetish, and Staff of Storms. I really hope nobody is annoyed by these changes (please consult the readme before deciding to be annoyed... they shouldn't really annoy anyone, I think...)


Edit. The attachment to this post has been removed. All needed game files are zipped together here.
This includes all mods and the map. After downloading these files, please put them in the maps and mods directories (happens automatically if you unzip them in the Dominions II directory). It may be necessary to add underscores to two filenames, since they were changed on the server-side:

Level 4 Limit.dm > Level_4_Limit.dm
Recruitable Rebalance.dm > Recruitable_Rebalance.dm

And then, please enable all three mods before desiging your pretender... and please password protect your god!

The commandline to auto-connect to the server is:

"C:\Games\Dominions 2\dom2.exe" --ipadr benatar.snurgle.org --port 2001

...depending, of course, on where Dominions II is installed.

[quantum_mechani]

I would like Pangaea.

What would everyone think of a blitz start for the first 10-15 turns? This would mean everyone being online at a certain time and quickly working though the early turns where there is not much to do.

EDIT: Are we using Zen's mods as well?

[Tuidjy]

I think that there is not much point to this unless we really make it a NO magic
game. I.e. lets disable all research over level 2 (except maybe for
construction) and non-human pretenders. If you really feel that clams and
wraith/hell swords need to go as well, more power to you.

But any house rules you can actually write out in a reasonable space will not be
enough to make the game low magic enough to bother with troops. In any case,
I would like Pythium... I have always claimed they not only have the best mages,
but also very nice troops - time to prove it. Of course, if we do not really
limit magic, Pythium is still a great choice, isn't it? :-)

[Ironhawk]

I've never played Ulm before - this seems like a good a chance as I will ever get!! Tho an improved TC is kind of tempting too... but not. Ulm! Ulm for me.

Oh and by the way: If you are looking for house rules which limit magic use and result in a more unit-centric game, check out those from my Age of Men Game

AoM House Rules:
1) Only human pretenders.
2) Only recruitable commanders can be used as SCs.
3) Only 1 mage per 25 troops allowed in combat

NOW - before you all get on my case - I am NOT proposing these as rules for this game. I just wanted to point them out and see if it could serve as a starting point for some discussions...

[msew]

I will play.


*throws pokeball* I choose VANHEIM!

[msew]

only rule I can think of is:

for all nations that exist in the game, each turn the will send 15 gp to the nation I end up playing

[Saber Cherry]

quantum_mechani said:
What would everyone think of a blitz start for the first 10-15 turns? This would mean everyone being online at a certain time and quickly working though the early turns where there is not much to do.

First 10 turns, anyway. Fine with me, but only if everyone is able to do so.



[/quote]EDIT: Are we using Zen's mods as well?

[/quote]

Scales and pretenders, sure - if people want to. Magic will be superceded by the one I'm making (it is based on Zen's magic mod).

Tuidjy said:I think that there is not much point to this unless we really make it a NO magic
game. I.e. lets disable all research over level 2 (except maybe for
construction) and non-human pretenders.

Sounds a little harsh to me. If I had to set a hard research limit, it would be closer to level 3 or 4. But think that the game could be fine low-magic wise with Very Difficult research, some key items disabled, some key spells made much more expensive, and some easy-to-follow rules, like Thou Shalt Not Equip (certain classes of units, like summonables, and size 4+ gods) with Magical Items. If Horde from Hell costs 150 slaves and requires 4x the normal research, it will not dominate gameplay (that's just a hypothetical example).

AoM House Rules:
1) Only human pretenders.
2) Only recruitable commanders can be used as SCs.
3) Only 1 mage per 25 troops allowed in combat

As for rule 3... nice in theory... but I don't want people to be able to violate rules accidentally, which can lead to problems and hurt feelings. I like rule 2 (but would rephrase it as, "Only recruitable commanders and human gods may recieve combat equipment," or something like that.)

Rule 1... I think non-human pretenders would be fine if natural supercombattants (dragons, bulls, Earth Mothers, things with massive fear auras, vampire queens, etc) were totally banned and other non-human gods were banned from having magic items. In other words, I don't see a problem with using a Titan or Son of Neifel as long as you give it no items. But that's just my opinion, and I'm just one of 17 players

[Ighalli]

I'll go with man!

I'm in favor of using Zens scales mod, but I think we should restrict pretender choices to the point where his pretender mod might not be useful. Perhaps we could either pick a pretender with no magic or a human only. Thoughts on that? I'd also rather have a limit like level 4 research instead of just tweaking existing spell prices. That having been said, I'd be interested in a lower magic mod either way you decide to do it.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah good point ighalli. It would be way less work to just wipe out all spells over level 4, right? Then set research to Very Hard and we would still have a lot of diversity.

I think we need to allow magic on the pretender tho. First, it restricts pretender choices too severely. Second, many nations rely on thier pretender to get non-national magic paths. Someone in the unit-rebalance thread mentioned the idea of capping pretender magic at 9 levels total, which I thought was an interesting suggestion.

[Tomahawk]

hey Saber Cherry, I'm a friend of Ironhawk's. You can put me in for whatever nation, I dont' have time to look now (gotta go back to work) but please count me in.