Dom 3 slow game (2 day turnaround)[closed]

Started by Yskonyn, March 04, 2013, 01:34:57 PM

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undercovergeek

oh - i thought with the 'jason pratt transpondulator hex algorithm' we were close to cradle

ill bow to your greater experience

cos mines very limited!

Phobos

Quote from: JasonPratt on March 09, 2013, 10:42:02 AM
Phobos: Bogarus (a nation added in the 3.14 patch, so not mentioned in the printed instructions, probably). Basically Dom3's version of medieval Russian Orthodox, mixed with some pagan Russian mythology. A fine choice, and one of the relatively more ethical factions. Possibly our only hope against the Ashen Empire.

Relatively ethical.  Their priests are big on self mutilation and terrorising the peasants with displays of fanaticism.

They also make use of reserve armies composed of poorly trained conscripts. One third of them gets an axe and their main role seems to be diverting attacks from all of the important people on the battlefield.

I'm not going to downplay their strengths.  Their wizards look pretty good.  They can also recruit some decent noble cavalry and mounted archers from the fringes of their empire.  Against an undead faction, their priests become far less of a hindrance.

JasonPratt

#62
Well, until some of the others choose their factions we aren't going anywhere anyway.

12 players would average 16.6 provinces each on Cradle (not counting sea territories); 9 players would average 22. It's (about) a three hex difference either way from the ideal 19 per player, or a difference of six extra territories per player.

Oh well. Closer to the ideal 171 land territories for 9 players (19 * 9) would be something like Squirrel's version of the World of Warhammer map: 178 lands, 37 seas, specially balanced by Squirrel for a land-only multiplayer map.

Or if we wanted to squnch a bit closer together, at about 12.5 territories per player (116 territories) we could go with Northwest Middle Earth!

Two classic fantasy maps right there on the Llamaserver, good looking art, too.

Not entirely sure how well they're actually designed, but their description reads like someone was really trying.

Remember, 19 territories per player (very close to the Warhammer map) means an average of only two steps in any direction before running into someone else's diameter of land. 12.5 territories (on the Middle Earth map) would be like two steps in one direction and one step in the other, on average. I'm okay with that, it'll move the game along faster before Ermor can steamroll all of us. :)
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!

Huw the Poo

Quote from: JasonPratt on March 09, 2013, 08:15:46 PM
I'm okay with that, it'll move the game along faster before Ermor can steamroll all of us. :)

You're forgetting that, perhaps contrary to canon, Ermor in this instance is being led by a fool. :D

Phobos

I have not faced off against the Ashen Empire in multiplayer, so keep that in mind as I say the following.

In singleplayer, the issue with late Ermor is not that they are especially powerful, it's that they kill the population in their territories in order to generate undead.  With less people in a province, you generate less taxes and have less resources to feed your troops. 

That means you can potentially spend a lot of money to recruit an army, but unlike the conquest of a normal nation, you get very little in return.

There is also the issue where if the Ermorian faith takes hold in your territory (their Dominion candles show up in your lands), you get the same problem with population dying off.

The incentive to act against them is highest early in the game, before they have killed all their living population in their territory.  Later on, you still want Ermor gone, but you want someone else to do it for you, so you can focus on warfare that will strengthen your nation.

I think they add an interesting dynamic to the game.

JasonPratt

#65
Pft, they let themselves become the Dom3 equivalent of Necrons. I'd say they were led by fools already.

Besides, LA Ermor is kind of fool-proof. A lot of its work is done automatically. You can still screw it up, because it plays so differently from anything else (even R'yleh), but don't be surprised if two or three or eight of us team up to nuke you off the bat, just to be safe. :)

(And don't feel bad if we do. That's a compliment; Ermor is THAT dangerous. Although personally I'm not planning on allying with anyone, as far as you know.)


Phobos: they don't have to feed their troops, their troops are undead. The gold can be a real problem (other resources are handled normally), but Ermor generates undead troops automatically. Death magic summoning makes up a lot of the intentional troop creation, and that doesn't require gold at all.
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!

Corwin123

Yeah,  If we are switching to LA then I will try  Utgard the Well of Urd if it is still open.  Haven't played it but haven't played any other LA.  Are we still using CMB 1.94 or any other mods?

parone

i think i posted this, but if we are LA, ill still go ctis.  i know nearly nothing about them, too. 

a middle earth map?  that might be cool.

i just figured at 20+ provinces per person at the rate this game is paced, it might be thanksgiving before we found eachother!  but honestly, i really don't mind no matter what.

undercovergeek

im liking the sound of the WH/fanatsy maps - do you have linkys Jason?

JasonPratt

Parone, or it might be two turns, i.e. two business weeks. ;) I go out two steps one way, you go out two steps the other way, we're suddenly next to each other.

Five-day turnaround is pretty slow in any case. BUT--it won't necessarily be all of five days each time. That's just when the system autoresolves. If we all send in our turns faster than that, the system generates the next turn the moment the last player emails his move. (Or her move; I'm using English neuter "he". ;) ) In theory we could end up going just as fast as the 1-day turnaround game. Which itself could end up going two or three turns a day!

Still, your concern is well-noted. :)

If the players would like a much tighter game with an average of only one step from homebase, that would be seven provinces per player 9x7 = 63 territories (not counting sea). Or a step on only one side would be four territories, 9x4=36.

We (or Ysk) should decide how much elbow room we actually want before choosing maps further.

Perhaps everyone should post up the minimum territories they'd accept for themselves? I want at least one step, so I'd like seven starting territories please. :)
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

#70
Under'geek,

the two maps I mentioned are hosted by Llamaserver, fortunately. I'm sure there are other Dom3 map repositories on the net, but I haven't looked up any yet.

I can't link directly to the maps, only to the server maplist. (Any map we choose or generate will have to be uploaded to the maplist anyway.)  I'll post up pngs of fantasy and realworld map options already available as I go down the list.

Note that once we decide how large a map we want, I can go back and create another list of server maps in that size range within say 10% variance. There are many more than these; these just look like they ought to be familiar somehow. I'm posting them in downlist order, but starting from bottom up will find the latest editions of the same maps.



That's "Alexander", based on the area of his empire (with some extra bits of fantasy fluff). It's a wraparound map of 246 lands, definitely too big for us (unless we pick up more people.



"Asia Twist", 267 wraparound + a lot of water, also too large. (Parts of Scandinavia were added.)



"Bering", the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia, plus some fill. 93 land, but a large amount of water. (However, it's probably a wraparound, so technically all land areas are contiguous except for the Aleutians maybe and a couple of small islands. Even if it isn't, Ysk can probably tweak it so it is.)



Here's Cradle of Dominion for comparison; 199 lands.



A very nice non-specific fantasy map called "Dawn of Dominions". Only 132 lands, but may be locked for Early Age and specific factions.



That's Conan's Hyboria, only 90 lands!



"Northwest Middle Earth" (i.e. literally all of Tolkien's maps put together), 113 lands.



"Oeridia" the World of Greyhawk. If you have to ask how many lands, you can't afford it.  ;D



"A Pangaean Earth", only 108 lands.



"World of Warhammer", 178 lands. Several versions of this map on the server.



"Yggdrasil"; appears to be locked in Early Age with specific factions. 98 lands.



Unsure if "Tyrande" is based on any fantasy property, but it sure looks nice. Several options on the server. Only 82 lands!



"Faerun" (i.e. the Forgotten Realms), several tweaks of this map available, 397 lands.



"Greece Stain", several server variants, 181 lands.



Westeros, several server variations, 209 lands.


Those are all the historical/fantasy maps I could find, including a couple that looked like they might be based on fantasy series art (but I wasn't sure).

As noted above, once we decide on a mapsize I'll go back and report all the current Llamaserver maps of about the same size (10% variance either way).
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!

Yskonyn

I have kicked off our smaller game!

We have some nice influx of players for this game! Something I didn't expect to see with our slow interval.
Great stuff, people!

With 9 players we have a good game, so I am all for getting this one rolling asap too. There is still one individual called Vlam, who showed interest in our game over at the Shrapnel forums. I have directed him(her) to here, but haven't seen him(her) yet.
I'll shoot a note to see what's up.

Let's go for Late Age.
I'll roll for Caelum again to see how different they are in LA from EA.

Jason, if you could be so kind to keep track of who plays what, then I can conveniently copy it into the first post. :) Thanks!
As far as maps go. I have played Cradle of Dominion with 12 players (Parone was in too) and I think we did ok. It wasn't cramped by any means, so I am thinking parone has the right of it with claiming that 9 on that map might be a bit too few.

But there are so many maps to choose from. I have no preference and not really much experience with any others, so I'll gladly accept anyone else's input on what map would be good.
"Pilots do not get paid for what they do daily, but they get paid for what they are capable of doing.
However, if pilots would need to do daily what they are capable of doing, nobody would dare to fly anymore."

undercovergeek


JasonPratt

#73
In alphabetical order thus far:

Airboy: called Abysia for EA, so may or may not still be playing LA Abysia's Blood of Humans, mostly blood mages with some fire giants.

Byrdman57: goes with Midgard, the LA version of Vanheim, somewhat balancing against Corwin's Utgard.

Corwin123: wells up in tears of joy with Utgard!

Huw the Poo: wins with the Ashen Empire (unless maybe Bogarus can stop him).  ;D

JasonPratt: I've decided to go with the eastern human Jomon Daimyos, the samurai faction.

Parone: goes with C'tis, the mummy lizards of the Desert Tombs!  8)

Phobos: Bogarus (a nation added in the 3.14 patch, so not mentioned in the printed instructions, probably). Basically Dom3's version of medieval Russian Orthodox, mixed with some pagan Russian mythology.

Undercovergeek: picks Black Forest Ulm, basically the westward next door neighbors of Bogarus. Relatively little magic (kind of death oriented), lots of ironclad (and foresty) buttkicking.

Yskonyn (the game host): Return(s) with of the Raptors of Caelum.



That's nine players so far (not counting whoever may join the game after this post) -- have I missed any?

We still need Airboy to pick a faction -- the guess I listed above is based on his previous Early Age pick.
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

Also, everyone should either vote on a map on the list (or off the list ;) ); or else tell us how many starting territories you want on average (either for yourself or as a general total) so we can find or generate a proper map size.
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!