Dominions 3 Middle Age "GROGHAMMER" game [running]

[Lunaje]

Hi All,
I've seen your post at Desura about this game. I've been playing for a while, but I'm no expert; I go by the same name in the other forums and would like to try playing in different communities. I really want to try Marignon if positions are still open.

[JasonPratt]

Lunaje, yep positions are still open! I'll add you as Marignon to the list in a few minutes. You can follow directions for getting set up in the game, by reading the first posts; we're trying to start by-or-before Friday, so try to have the balance mod installed (do that first before designing your pretender), the map files downloaded and installed, and your pretender sent in to Llamaserver by then. (Sending me the email address you'll be playing from is important, too, but not strictly necessary.)


Incidentally, I still feel pretty comfortable about Westeros even with 15 players, which comes to an average of 14 territories each or about 1 and 1/2 steps before players will start running into the diameter of other players.

However, I do want everyone to have the freedom to play around and grow for a couple of weeks, practicing against indies, before having to start dealing with other players; so should I start looking for a larger map? Ideally we'd be using a map 285 land spaces, or larger to allow room for a few more players if they join before the criteria deadline. (Nothing will be as awesome as Westeros, admittedly, but there are some larger maps running around. I can't promise they won't be wraparounds though!)

[JasonPratt]

This game is going to be epic!  I look forward to my elephants pooing in all of your capital cities!

Eww the poo!

(Not that I have much room to talk. Monkeys ride my elephants...)

[Lunaje]

  It would be real nice if we can still play on Westeros. That got my attention on the first place :P. Jason, I've sent you my email. I can probably upload a pretender on Thursday. And I can speak Spanish, which will make my Inquisition feel more real.

[JasonPratt]

There are some larger maps just as nice, but they're MUCH larger (like the Forgotten Realms at almost 400 lands, or the World of Greyhawk at over 1000!)

[Ubercat]

I understand that the Westeros map is appealing, but 14 territories a player is not nearly enough. If they were evenly distributed it might be so, but that's never the case. Half the players will be squeezed into corners by the other half. I recommend a minimum of 20, and better yet 25 per player.

[JasonPratt]

Well, Faerun would definitely give us 25 per player at the moment!


Worth noting also is that on a wraparound map (which fantasy-property maps typically aren't), any player is less likely to be cornered by others.

[byrdman57]

A wraparound might be interesting. That eliminates the sort of unfair advantage players in corners have. I would also vote for a larger map. Just playing around with test games and 14 players, I usually ran into an AI capital within the first 5 turns.

[elitesix]

EDIT: I'm thinking about joining if you are still open.

What's the commitment level of this game? (Sorry if it's posted somewhere and I missed it)

[JasonPratt]

Yes, the game's still open, although we're quickly running out of nations! (If you're a new player, I recommend Ashdod out of the remaining options.)

At the moment we're thinking of a standard 2 day turnaround, which can be temporarily extended by request.

If you don't send a turn back by the end of the time limit, the system will autogenerate your turn for you, so we can continue but only things that your faction would continuously do would be done for that turn (like research).

If you miss three deadlines without explaining why, I'll have to consider that a drop.

If you auto-drop or you intentionally drop, and if you have given me the email address you'll be sending/receiving gameturns with, I'll be able to set your faction to AI, and the game will actively develop and try to win with your faction; then if you can come back later, I should be able to hand control back over to you by reversing the operation.

Otherwise, I'll have to boot your faction from the game -- not sure what happens then, if all your lands empty or the AI takes over actively or passively, but you won't be able to get back in. (The booting wouldn't be punitive, though; I'd only be doing it so that we aren't locked into necessarily waiting the full 2 days for turnaround. The system is set up so that a new turn will be generated whenever all factions have sent in their moves. We could have five turns in one day, although that isn't very likely with this many players!--but normally the maximum turnaround time is 2 days.)

Does that makes sense? Was that what you were asking about?

[JasonPratt]

Also, this afternoon after work I'm going to take a look at a Faerun map. It's still a little big even for 16 players, but Westeros is looking increasingly cramped for a newbie game; and we may yet pick up more players before Friday!

[JasonPratt]

Hmmm...I cannot help but feel like I should join this bandwagon.  But alas I don't have the game and missed the last sale.  So it's CoE3 for me.

Dom3 is still only US$30 at gamersgate, which is more than half off what I paid for it. ;)

[elitesix]

Put me in as Ashdod :)

[ScottWAR]

Eww the poo!

(Not that I have much room to talk. Monkeys ride my elephants...)

Hey, I think I saw them at the circus!

[JasonPratt]

In case anyone is feeling worried that all the easy factions have been taken already -- well, I'd say all of them have. ;)

Out of the remainder:

Atlantis -- an underwater nation, which while offering some early defensive protection for new players (and which experienced players can exploit later in the game) ends up being a difficult constraint later.

Bandar-Log -- wildly variable and fiddly ape faction, plenty of potential but weak out of the gate, needs lots of magical support.


(I've bolded the land-based factions.)