Dominions 3 Middle Age "GROGHAMMER" game [running]

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

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JasonPratt

15 per player is about one and a half steps from home in any direction on average before running into someone else's diameter.

On a newbie game I wouldn't recommend anything less; I'm inclined to recommend 19 (a full two steps) instead. Indies give time to work on learning the game system, time to recover from early failures, time to readjust a little, and time to grow.
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!

undercovergeek

Quote from: JasonPratt on April 10, 2013, 05:01:55 PM
15 per player is about one and a half steps from home in any direction on average before running into someone else's diameter.

On a newbie game I wouldn't recommend anything less; I'm inclined to recommend 19 (a full two steps) instead. Indies give time to work on learning the game system, time to recover from early failures, time to readjust a little, and time to grow.

+1

mkivcs

OK my brain hurts - Pretender submitted.
I did a test game this afternoon with my intended setup and lost to the the independent troops in the next province several times without capturing a thing. I guess my troops don't like fighting midweek, hopefully by the weekend they will have worked out which end of the spear is the sharp one.

Ogaburan

Erm... Greetings!

Im new around these parts, been a Groghead for less then a minute now, so 'ello again.
I haven't read the whole 11 pages, because im not insane. Only read the first few posts, so if i missed anything please inform me.

Form what i gather this game is still recruiting? And there are only 2 option available, a banned-from-diplo Atlantis and Bandar-Log.
If this is correct, i would like to join the game with Bandar-Log.

I own domi for less then a week, so i am the definition of "noob" lol.
Played a few SP games on normal, and found the AI lacking, then i read some MP ARR and started drooling... it seems domi is even a better game then i thought it is.
(im into TB, strategy & 4x and quite a shame that im tickling my 30's and haven't heard of this game till now!)

If i am accepted... can someone also point me to some Bandar-Log guides/tips?
As i have never played nor faced them in my SP's lol.

Also, i have a bad case of new-game-fever, so if anyone knows of another noob-friendly game opening up anywhere else, please do share!

Cheers,
Oga

PsiSoldier

I think 19 per player sounds pretty good too.  This game looks like it is going to have every nation or damn near every one and should be pretty epic thus would suck to be tossed out of the mix too early because you get rushed by someone.   

On a side note, do we still need to submit our pretenders to lammaserver or wait until there is a new map chosen.  I'm not sure if you can change the map without remaking the game (Ive never started a game as admin only finished a few as admin so I don't know how that works)

elitesix

Is this a newbie MP game or a complete MP/SP newbie game where players don't know the game system?

If it's the latter, I don't know if I should be here. I know the game system quite well, in and out, having won multiple singleplayer games (after much trial and error) quite easily.

Quote from: JasonPratt on April 10, 2013, 05:01:55 PM
15 per player is about one and a half steps from home in any direction on average before running into someone else's diameter.

On a newbie game I wouldn't recommend anything less; I'm inclined to recommend 19 (a full two steps) instead. Indies give time to work on learning the game system, time to recover from early failures, time to readjust a little, and time to grow.

undercovergeek

Quote from: PsiSoldier on April 10, 2013, 06:04:52 PM
I think 19 per player sounds pretty good too.  This game looks like it is going to have every nation or damn near every one and should be pretty epic thus would suck to be tossed out of the mix too early because you get rushed by someone.   

On a side note, do we still need to submit our pretenders to lammaserver or wait until there is a new map chosen.  I'm not sure if you can change the map without remaking the game (Ive never started a game as admin only finished a few as admin so I don't know how that works)

map wont affect pretender set up - go ahead with pretender if youre ready

Quote from: elitesix on April 10, 2013, 06:11:27 PM
Is this a newbie MP game or a complete MP/SP newbie game where players don't know the game system?

If it's the latter, I don't know if I should be here. I know the game system quite well, in and out, having won multiple singleplayer games (after much trial and error) quite easily.

Quote from: JasonPratt on April 10, 2013, 05:01:55 PM
15 per player is about one and a half steps from home in any direction on average before running into someone else's diameter.

On a newbie game I wouldn't recommend anything less; I'm inclined to recommend 19 (a full two steps) instead. Indies give time to work on learning the game system, time to recover from early failures, time to readjust a little, and time to grow.

i think its probably somewhere in the middle, there is no other way for 'i just bought the game' guys to learn without playing with 'i know my way round the interface but am quite new' guys plus i would imagine we can open up a help thread for 'i just got attacked by XXXX, any advice' - IMHO you should be fine

Dear lord do we need to set up another?

elitesix

Just a suggestion - we have enough players that it may be worthwhile to see if we can split this into two smaller games, simply because those with extensive SP experience have a significant advantage to those who are completely new - there are so many nuances to the game!

I'm all for epicness, but it'd probably more be fun for totally new players to be in a game where others are the same place - diplomacy and race restrictions aside, an SP veteran can easily beeline for conjuration 9 with a death pretender and start summoning tartarians with SC equipment - this is probably not something a total newbie is prepared to handle.

On the other hand, for those total newbies who join this MP game, I suppose they could make an endeavor to play a good amount of SP game in next few weeks, before action gets heated up in the MP game.

Edit: That being said, the Faerun map is f'ing cool. haha. it's awesome looking!

JasonPratt

Quote from: elitesix on April 10, 2013, 06:11:27 PM
Is this a newbie MP game or a complete MP/SP newbie game where players don't know the game system?

No, some of us are not entirely newbs -- I know at least one other person than myself has been playing since Dom2, although sporadically. None of us are particularly experts, though.

Total newbies may of course band together for protection in alliance. :)


This does bring up the question of more-experienced protocol. Personally I don't usually invade someone else's territory unless (1) I think they're strong enough to handle it; and (2) my dominion has spread there already. If my invasion works really well, I'll most likely hold up prosecuting further until when-if-ever my dominion spreads further, thus giving the other player time to adjust. If my invasion was a hard-fought fight, I may continue another province further in at my own recognizance. If my invasion completely failed, I may pretend that was my plan all along and try to bluff the other person into worrying about counter-invading me. Unless I'm bluffing now by saying so of course. Ahem. :)

I say "usually" because playing an underwater nation puts me at some handicaps as well as advantages, so I may alter my protocols a bit to adjust.
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

Quote from: elitesix on April 10, 2013, 06:25:52 PM
Just a suggestion - we have enough players that it may be worthwhile to see if we can split this into two smaller games, simply because those with extensive SP experience have a significant advantage to those who are completely new - there are so many nuances to the game!

Let's not start over; totally new players can learn from more experienced ones through alliance, example, thread questions, etc.

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

Quote from: Ogaburan on April 10, 2013, 05:39:30 PM
Form what i gather this game is still recruiting? And there are only 2 option available, a banned-from-diplo Atlantis and Bandar-Log.
If this is correct, i would like to join the game with Bandar-Log.

I'm not entirely sure we'll go with underwater contra mundum house rules now, but completely new players should avoid playing underwater factions anyway. Not that Bandar-log is easy.

IF ANY OTHER EXPERIENCE PLAYER WOULD RATHER TRADE THEIR FACTION FOR ATLANTIS, FREEING UP ONE MORE LAND NATION, NOW'S THE 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!

undercovergeek

Quote from: JasonPratt on April 10, 2013, 06:28:44 PM
Personally I don't usually invade someone else's territory unless (1) I think they're strong enough to handle it; and (2) my dominion has spread there already. If my invasion works really well, I'll most likely hold up prosecuting further until when-if-ever my dominion spreads further, thus giving the other player time to adjust. If my invasion was a hard-fought fight, I may continue another province further in at my own recognizance. If my invasion completely failed, I may pretend that was my plan all along and try to bluff the other person into worrying about counter-invading me. Unless I'm bluffing now by saying so of course. Ahem. :)




JasonPratt

#162
Well, I tried uploading the new Faerun map directly to this thread, but currently Grogheads doesn't accept tga files (and/or maybe the map file was too large), so just go to this dropbox:

http://koti.welho.com/ehalttun/dom3/

Download the two zip archives at the bottom, straight into your dom3/maps folder. Unzip the April one first, extracting directly into your maps folder; then unzip the May one and allow the two files to overwrite (since they contain some corrections to the data. If accidentally unzip the May one first, that's okay, just so long as you DON'T let April overwrite!)

When you're done, you should now have a .tga file for Faerun, and two new .map files for Faerun (both of which use the same tga), the adventure version with special scripts and victory points, and the nospecials version. We're going to use the nospecials version, but both are now yours and you can start your own new games with them whenever you want.

When Llama sends out the turns, it will know to call for the nospecials version, so once you've extracted those zips to the "maps" folder, you're done.

Don't worry about resending your pretender, that won't be necessary.


Also, I've modified the official victory requirements to 14 victory points, or about 2/3 of the capitols. I'll bump that up to 15 if we pick up a final player.

Note that the "adventure" version of the map probably has more "Forgotten Realms" fluff built in, but it also has 100 victory points (plus any I assign to capitols), and Llama only allows a max of 60 for victory: we'd need 82 for a 2/3 victory of 123 VPs.
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!

Bison

Quote from: Ogaburan on April 10, 2013, 05:39:30 PM
Erm... Greetings!

Cheers,
Oga

Welcome Dude!  Well you might have been smart to not read the entire thread to preserve your sanity for another day or so, but stick around and sooner or later you will be assimilated.  MAHAHAHAHAHA! 

Bison

Honestly I don't really care if I get whooped on in this game.  I just here to learn.  Well unless I get beat by a Brit, then my worldview will have been shattered.