Dominions 3 Middle Age "GROGHAMMER" game [running]

Started by JasonPratt, April 03, 2013, 10:16:14 AM

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Philippe

Quote from: JasonPratt on April 19, 2013, 03:04:42 PM
Philippe, don't worry in the least about Llamaserver complaining about the graphics mods. It isn't going to happen, because a graphic mod (per se) doesn't change anything "objective" about the units (how the units behave in-game), only the "subjective" graphics.

So experiment as you like. I have all the graphics mods listed in the very first post installed and enabled, with no problems. Actually, I wouldn't mind a further mod that changed the color of province names, since on some maps (like this one) the standard color is too light to easily read. (Of course a map like this one usually has the territories clearly labeled anyway. And any territory's name can be read from the main province info screen at the top, once it's right-click chosen.)


I'll also try to remember to look for all the crowns on the map this afternoon and list where they're located, here in the gamethread.

Reading your post over again makes me wonder if I haven't missed something that's really obvious (I do that a lot).

The balance mod (only) is enabled when I fire up the Groghammer game.

The balance mod and three graphics mods are enabled when I fire up any of the different practise games that I've started to make sure I understand the rules (which I don't completely, but I'm getting there).

Your two posts on this subject could be read to imply that you think there's a way to enable a graphics mod in a game that has already been created.

If there's a way to enable the three graphics mods that you are using in a game that has already started I would love to know about it.

Otherwise I'll just have to get used to those funny telephone polls with the strand of toilet paper hanging from their tops.

If there's a command that I'm not aware of (or am too pig-headed not to overlook) please advise.

I would like to be crushed as elegantly as possible.
Every generation gets the Greeks and Romans it deserves.


History is a bad joke played by the living on the dead.


Senility is no excuse for feeblemindedness.

elitesix

Sorry for the confusion, the original post was:
QuoteLook at the northeast corner for example. It's sick how much land that one capital has. And it's not even wasteland (despite the depiction on the map). The sheer amount of territory the player in the northwest will capture uncontested is mind-boggling. Then look at the isles to the middle west portion of the map-  the isles. Or the sea between Jason and me. If those wars between close capitals aren't over quickly, the outlying nations will have a huge advantage- there are a few areas of the map where a player is about 7+ provinces away from another capital. It will be incumbent upon those nearest to those faraway capitals to expand directly toward the faraway capitals. Otherwise, you're going to see huge nations emerge into mid-game without any worry about having an early rush, so they power through with low military high research and have the ability to overpower nations that had to grow more cautiously.

It should read:

Look at the northeast corner for example. It's sick how much land that one capital has. And it's not even wasteland (despite the depiction on the map). The sheer amount of territory the player in the NORTHEAST will capture uncontested is mind-boggling. Then look at the isles to the middle west portion of the map-  the isles. Or the sea between Jason and me. If those wars between close capitals aren't over quickly, the outlying nations will have a huge advantage- there are a few areas of the map where a player is about 7+ provinces away from another capital. It will be incumbent upon those nearest to those faraway capitals to expand directly toward the faraway capitals. Otherwise, you're going to see huge nations emerge into mid-game without any worry about having an early rush, so they power through with low military high research and have the ability to overpower nations that had to grow more cautiously.

Philippe

Out of curiosity, is it possible to modify a map so that starting locations can only occur in pre-selected locations? 

In other words, modify (for example) the Faerun map so that there are only 25 possible starting locations for however many players.  The exact starting positions would still be random, but it could be made impossible for two players to start too close to each other.

I'm sure this is in the part of the manual I haven't read yet.

Every generation gets the Greeks and Romans it deserves.


History is a bad joke played by the living on the dead.


Senility is no excuse for feeblemindedness.

byrdman57

Yes it is. When you open up the map editor, you can select specific provinces and check a box that enables that province as a start location. It seems like a fairly tedious process in a map with so many provinces though...

elitesix

Quote from: Philippe on April 19, 2013, 03:35:34 PM
Out of curiosity, is it possible to modify a map so that starting locations can only occur in pre-selected locations? 

In other words, modify (for example) the Faerun map so that there are only 25 possible starting locations for however many players.  The exact starting positions would still be random, but it could be made impossible for two players to start too close to each other.

I'm sure this is in the part of the manual I haven't read yet.

It is.

mkivcs

Likewise this may be covered elsewhere but how random is random. I did a test run of my setup just to make sure that I was not totally borking myself from day one and the computer placed me within 1 province of where I started in the real game. I presume that the system does a match on terrain type to ensure that the location is appropriate but it does seem fairly non random. (Although it gave me one less thing to worry about on turn one so suited me.)

JasonPratt

The random start should be completely randomized within the constraints of (1) where the map modder allowed starts; (2) no land for sea factions or vice versa (a hardcoded constraint for obvious reasons); and (3) whether the map modder allowed any random starts at all. Also (4) whether the person starting the game (or the map modder in various ways) forces the game to allow a certain number of territories already under player control at gamestart.

So for example, I could have modded the map so that there would only be 23 start locations, and tried to set them with balanced distances and lands, and there would have been random starts among those 23 locations only. Or I could have set up the map file (by direct textual coding) so that if Atlantis shows up in a game it will always start at this location, and Oceania will always start over there if present, etc., for all the factions. Or for ONLY factions I expect to be playing (so no R'yleh for example). I could even set up the map this way so that the three ocean factions will always start in the same locations, but the landstarts are left open for the system to randomplace at gamestart.

This map was partially balanced by the designer in the sense that he tried to ensure weak areas were nonstarts. But otherwise he left the starts random.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
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JasonPratt

Philippe, in regard to the mods, I don't know why the Groghammer game would be turning off graphic mods, but now that I think of it I haven't really been paying attention to whether the graphic mods actually seem to be working in-game.

If that's the case, it doesn't matter what you do, the graphics mods will always be turned off, I guess, since I didn't specify when creating the game that any should be on. I didn't expect there to be a consequent negative action by the system (turn off this mod if not turned on), but then again it occurs to me that Llamaserver code may not distinguish between graphic and ability mods. If not, then the only safe thing to do would be to turn off all mods unless specifically allowed by the admin at setup.

I'll poke around and see if I can turn on the listed graphic mods from Llamaserver after the fact.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Nope, can't setup graphic mods at the server after the fact. Sorry. Will keep that in mind for the future.


In other news, I have set the gameclock back to 48 hours, although that won't go into effect until sometime late Sunday night British time.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

LOLOLOLOL!!! Elitesix was yanking my chain. I accomplished almost nothing.

Oh, I may have gotten rid of some of his troops, but still. I have no particular hope of winning.

Not that I'm giving up.  ;D
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Incidentally, I can't for the life of me figure out how to search magically for water or death sites.

Arcane probing for astral sites; various other things for earth, nature, air and fire sites.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

byrdman57

Dark Knowledge and I think Voice of Apsu for death and water respectively. They're in the conjuration path I believe.

Bison

I had no idea you could probe for magic sites outside of looking for them with a magic user dude.

JasonPratt

Thanks, Byrd; that made sense once I read the descriptions, but I never would have thought to look there. (I suppose by the power of deduction I ought to have figured it would be either there or Construction, though!)

Bison, yes there are several ways of doing so magically, but the easiest way involves researching up to level 2 in various magical paths (or level 3 conjuration for water, for some insane reason), then having a mage with two strengths of the correct color (although astral needs only one strength) cast the proper ritual aiming for a province.

I'm setting up a scrying farm in another game; I doubt I'll live long enough in this one for that to ever happen. ;)

In Thaumaturgy, Gnome Lore finds earth; Auspex finds air; Hasuspex finds Nature; and Augury finds fire.
In Evocation, Astral Probing finds astral sites.

Then the other two in Conjuration as Byrdman said. But Voice of Aspu for water is a level 3 ritual.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

elitesix

Quote from: JasonPratt on April 19, 2013, 05:04:53 PM
I'm setting up a scrying farm in another game; I doubt I'll live long enough in this one for that to ever happen. ;)

Just a random thought that I am musing...

There is one way to guarantee your nation's survival... but it would involve you making landfall asap and allowing me to puppet your nation by installing a friendly dictator (ie a sub of my selection starts playing your nation)...much like real life, you can only trust those who you put into power :)...or we can fight to the death!!

just a thought!