[Dom3] ANOTHER newbie game - MA, [5/5] - In progress

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon May 21, 2012 3:24 am

Archmage wrote:So I started the game, but I realized I had accidentally submitted the wrong version of my pretender. Since I'm sure no one actually did jack in the two minutes after starting the game, I reset it, made sure I submitted the right pretender, and started it again.

Therefore, if you have two emails about the game starting and giving you your first turn file, that's why.

You were indeed quick enough to cover your mistake unnoticed. I am going to compare my starting points and say angry things at you if the first one's better, though.

Edit: Angry things.

Edited edit: Happy things! I got the two confused.

Actually, no. I was happy because I was starting in a lightly-forested area near a city, but this actually sucks hard. I only have two land connections to my capital, and two sea connections which will inevitably be R'lyeh's. For a faction with high-resource cap-only sacreds, I just got royally fucked. And that's on top of having another player own literally half the provinces around my capital. Why does this map not have any no start tags?

I'm going to ask for a do-over, but I won't bitch if I don't get one and I'll just play normally. Two land neighbors is kind of the threshold for starting shittiness I'm willing to silently tolerate, especially as someone like Ashdod, so I've got to try. I'd even be willing to modify the map and no start the provinces that don't contain at least three connections to the same type of province (land or sea). I really don't want to hold the game up any more, but damn this is shitty.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Mon May 21, 2012 4:47 am

Two of Rlyeh's neighbors are land.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Zanthu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Mon May 21, 2012 4:56 am

DSMatticus wrote:Actually, no. I was happy because I was starting in a lightly-forested area near a city, but this actually sucks hard.

Not like much happens the first turn. If no one else objects and your start position is that awful, we can restart again. There's always the odds that you'll get an even worse start position or that someone else will get an utterly shitty start, though. If people are really passionate about it and someone wants to edit the map start positions, fine, but I'd like to get that done within the next 24 hours if that's the case.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon May 21, 2012 5:37 am

While we don't have to use it for this game, if anyone's interested I made a slightly different version of Small Divide (wrap). I added no start to all provinces which only have two connections to the same type as themself. This was probably unnecessary for sea provinces (aquatic factions can usually take some indies on land with not much extra effort), but it gets rid of some genuinely shitty land starts. Seriously, there are two (maybe three, can't remember) islands which connect to only one other land province but have a bunch of sea neighbors.

Also, there are two cases where provinces shared an obvious border but did not connect: 42<->46 and 28<->39. Added those.

Link: http://www.mediafire.com/?9qnotzr7vc8wriq

The download doesn't include the image file; it uses the same one all the other small divides use, continents.tga.

Changelog:

Code: Select all

No starts&#58;
3
13
15
21
28
34
39
45
54 &#40;Not strictly necessary&#58; has 3 aquatic provinces, but a slew of land ones. Looks like an uncomfortable start, especially for amphibious-weak water nations.&#41;
56
69
72
76

Added Connections
42<->46 &#40;These share an obvious border, yet they have no connection. Plus, it gives both of them three land neighbors.&#41;
28<->39 &#40;This is an island between two sea provinces which borders only one of them. Not sure if it was necessary, but it definitely looks like there should be one there.&#41;

Archmage wrote:If no one else objects and your start position is that awful, we can restart again.

I feel dickish holding things up, but it's pretty terrible for anyone, but especially for a faction with 88 resource cap-onlies. But like I said, if anyone disagrees (or just wants to handicap Ashdod, which is slightly understandable) we can move on.

koz · Post by **koz** » Mon May 21, 2012 6:35 am

Since I have already submitted my turn (and have an awesome start location), I'd rather we didn't start again. Just sayin'.

Drago0661 · Post by **Drago0661** » Mon May 21, 2012 7:45 am

Since i've also submitted my turn, I'd rather not restart as well.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon May 21, 2012 7:51 am

Thanks a lot, guys.

Lucky you.

Well, fuck it. Onward then!

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Mon May 21, 2012 1:52 pm

For some reason I'm getting a game not found error when I try to submit my turn

EDIT: problem solved

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon May 21, 2012 10:21 pm

I am hating this game with the fury of a thousand suns.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Mon May 21, 2012 10:40 pm

On turn two?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Mon May 21, 2012 11:52 pm

One of my two expansion options happens to be full of 90 militia, longbowmen, and knights. The other is probably doable, but costly, and it's a gamble I have to make because judging from the nearby paired VP's I have two close neighbors and can't afford to not expand quickly. And then I got unlucky patrolling and some other little shit here and there.

I don't mind losing, but getting shafted by chance from turn 1 on isn't actually any fun at all.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Mon May 21, 2012 11:59 pm

More than willing to take another vote on restarting, using the map you edited, if someone else is willing to set up the game. I don't want someone to be miserable from turn two because they feel like they have no chance whatsoever before the game has even really started.

koz · Post by **koz** » Tue May 22, 2012 12:06 am

I can have a restart happen, but I'd rather not. Although honestly, Ashdod seems so boned that a restart is almost inevitable. So yeah, ok, whatevs.

Drago0661 · Post by **Drago0661** » Tue May 22, 2012 12:31 am

Sigh, i really don't like hold ups, but if it really that bad i guess a restart is inevitable. Just as long as whoever is remaking is quick about it, and everyone submits there pretenders fast, i'm ok with it.

Archmage · Post by **Archmage** » Tue May 22, 2012 12:38 am

http://www.llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi ... enNoobsTwo

I created a new game using the map DSM modified; I'm pretty sure we have 4 out of 6 voting "restart is okay," so resubmit your pretenders and we'll try this again.

I haven't closed/finished the other game yet. I'll do that when everyone has submitted pretenders to this one, which I'll take as a sign that we're good to restart. Ashdod was pretty quick about shooting in their pretender and I expect no one is going to change theirs around or whatever. >_>

Who wants me to set Ashdod to AI and play the two games in parallel!?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue May 22, 2012 1:16 am

Really, really sorry everyone, but very appreciative of the restart. If anyone wants to go over my map to make sure I didn't screw anything up, that'd be great. I'm gonna go through it again myself. I'd hate to have missed something and anyone get totally screwed next time.

For reference, my capital was 45. Tip of a peninsula. Woo. Now, look at 36; put 90 militia, longbowmen, and knights there. That leaves 32 to expand into. Oh look, there are VP's in 10 and 18; one of those is probably a player. If it's 10, I really have no choice but to declare war on them. No way we're going to draw up peaceful borders, I'll be sealed into my little peninsula + the bridge until I can crack those knights. If it's 18, slightly workable. Aaand across the bridge, there are VP's in 48 and 57. One of those is probably a player, too. I can't expand north any distance at all without hitting someone else, either.

If the stars aligned just right, and 10 was someone's capital, and they expanded north into 27, I was declaring war on turn 3. I had no other good expansion options.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Tue May 22, 2012 1:44 am

No.

Find another player. I'm not happy starting next to Archers, Shark Knights, Trolls and a Kraken, but I'm not going to fuck around until everyone is happy with the poptype of their independant neighbors.

Have fun.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue May 22, 2012 2:15 am

FFS, it was two connections. It was literally the 'smallest' VP on the map. If you want me to deal with it, I will, but pretending it wasn't a genuinely, unfairly shitty start is just being a jerk. If I'd been on one of those three potential islands with only one other land connection, would you have told me to suck it up then? Or are you prepared to admit that maybe there are starts that aren't actually fairly playable?

There is a reason people design maps where provinces with only two usable connections have the no start tag; it is a shitty, game-crippling start for anyone who gets even moderately unlucky in their indie neighbors and it is shitty, game-crippling start for anyone who cares about their capital's resources. Sure, you can have five connections and get unlucky on all five of them; that sucks. But it's a fuckton less likely and later you're going to have five provinces feeding resources to your capital so your capital will actually be useful.

I feel bad for the hold up, but I do not feel bad at all for bitching that I only had two connecting provinces because that is crippling from turn one on. But regardless, let's just pick a game that causes the least bitching from everyone else and I'll run with it. I'm not interested in any drama and I have other games running if this one doesn't go anywhere for me. It's irritating, but it's not the end of the world, so let's just do whatever causes the minimum amount of irritation.

Zinegata · Post by **Zinegata** » Tue May 22, 2012 2:36 am

I'm not entirely sure how you do it (ask Frank), but you guys should really make sure each starting province has at least 4 or 5 provinces connected to it, and that each starting province is at least 3 provinces away from each other.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Tue May 22, 2012 2:47 am

No aquatic nation, no need for a map with water provinces. Noone has a coastal start. I don't have to put up with the clusterfuck involved in ensuring everyone has a selection of easy indies available to steamroll.

Everyone wins. Have fun.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue May 22, 2012 3:50 am

Zinegata wrote:I'm not entirely sure how you do it (ask Frank), but you guys should really make sure each starting province has at least 4 or 5 provinces connected to it, and that each starting province is at least 3 provinces away from each other.

You can add no start site tags to the map so people can't start there. I don't know how you guarantee a distance, I suspect Frank just picks provinces that seem like good starts and meet the criteria, and tries to fit as many as he can that way by hand. Which probably leads to very good starting arrangements on maps, but takes a decent bit of time.

I don't really care if someone gets an awesome cap with 6-7 connections; more to them, and I don't really mind having as few as 3. This game is never going to be perfectly balanced, and luck is going to be a big part of it. But resources feed from neighbors to forts and all else being equal, the difference between 2 and 3 neighbors is a 50% gain in incoming resources from neighbors; the difference between 3 and 4 is 33% gain. Between 4 and 5, 20% gain. Not having your third link is just a proportionally bigger deal than extra links after that.

Winnah wrote:No aquatic nation, no need for a map with water provinces. Noone has a coastal start. I don't have to put up with the clusterfuck involved in ensuring everyone has a selection of easy indies available to steamroll.

Oh for crying out loud; the coastal start is shitty, and the knights were fucking terrible but it happens: all of that is just salt in the wound that unless I'm prepared to fight you in the water, my capital only has two fucking neighbors! Ever. Period. Open up small divide (not my version) and look at province 46. Two connections. Mine is like that, except worse in every way.

This isn't some slippery slope where we restart until everybody's happy; it's really fucking simple. Everyone gets at least three neighboring provinces they can actually travel to with their damn starting army. We should have set up the map to be that way to begin with, but I've never actually seen this happen before so I didn't even think to. I've set up the map that would just work like this out of the box.

And your complaint isn't that "man, I'm pissed that we're holding up the game," which is totally legitimate and something I have the good sense to feel bad about, but it's that: "No, Ashdod (or someone else) should only have two neighbors. Fuck that guy." Like I said, you're lucky nobody started on one of those islands because then your "no restart, ever!" position would be totally and obviously batshit insane.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Tue May 22, 2012 4:18 am

Winnah's position is entirely reasonable. You got a game restarted because your indies were too hard; I wouldn't stick around after that either.

Also, your position on resources really only holds if all provinces have roughly equal resources amounts. In reality you get more out of neighboring two mid pop forests/mountains than 5 wastelands/farmland of almost any pop.

Finally, might I suggest that you use the 48 resource sacred giant instead of the 88 resource sacred giant? They aren't quite as invincible but they kill 90% of indies just as dead, and if resources are a serious issue you can get almost twice as many of them.

Winnah · Post by **Winnah** » Tue May 22, 2012 4:30 am

This is the third start in two days. I honestly don't give a fuck if you restart the game another 2 times. I'm no longer interested in playing.

In case you're wondering, I have played a game where I had 2 lands neighbors and 3 fucking water provinces. As Bogarus. Sure, my early expansion seemed fucked because of my limited ability to recruit their Heavy Cav, but that convenient bottleneck saved my arse repeatedly later in the game. As for those water provinces, I did not get them until I researched enchantment and blew all my death income and a few mage turns on longdead.

Ashdod's position is hardly untenable. They're just incapable of accesing those sea provinces immediately and their other options require them to make sacrifices.

I'm past caring. Start another game. Make sure Ashdod has access to plenty of high resource provinces as neighbours. Turn the indie difficulty down to 1. Don't involve me. I'm already sick of the whining and I'm damn sure it's only going to increase in its intensity as soon as another 'insurmountable obstacle' is met.

Drago0661 · Post by **Drago0661** » Tue May 22, 2012 5:14 am

Sent my pretender for the restarted game. But what is happening for the 'current' one?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Tue May 22, 2012 6:30 am

Akula wrote:Winnah's position is entirely reasonable. You got a game restarted because your indies were too hard; I wouldn't stick around after that either.

No, I asked for a restart as soon as I saw turn 1 and that I had two fucking connections. To decribe the insults added to my injury, I elaborated on the other details as they happened, and now you and Winnah both are using that as some sort of half-assed strawman to make it sound like "boo-hoo, there are knights within sight of my capital, RESTART." Fuck you and the horse you rode in on for that one. It's not a fair characterization at all, and you and him are being incredibly dishonest about this.

Winnah wrote:I'm past caring. Start another game. Make sure Ashdod has access to plenty of high resource provinces as neighbours. Turn the indie difficulty down to 1.

And fuck this, again. How many times do I have to respond to this empty claim? I have clearly defined what I consider reasonable and fair start conditions. If you want to ignore those clear definitions and yell at me about something else entirely, what are you even doing? Who are you talking to exactly? No one.

Bitch about how I'm holding up the game. Bitch about how Ashdod is OP, and maybe the handicap is fair. Find other people who have similar shittily starts, and therefore it's not all that unfair to me. But the position you currently have is unreasonable. I remind you: this map has islands with one land neighbor as a valid start! If I started on one of those, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. The need for a restart would be obvious. "No restarts ever" is a stupid position if you're playing a map with shitty start sites, because sometimes someone will just get them. That is how random chance works. Unless you just want to occasionally shaft people on turn 1, but that doesn't actually sound like it would make for a fun game.

Sigh. This was not supposed to be a source of bad blood. Complaining about an unfair start is not a contentious thing to do. But at this point, I don't really care and I just want to do this in the way that causes the least amount of ill will. If it'll get Winnah back at the metaphorical table, or if anyone's gonna be ticked that I cost them an awesome starting position, let's just roll with the first one. And for any future games I play, I will personally no start tag them so this ridiculous bullshit does not happen again. Seriously, if anyone has any complaints, let's just not restart. That's fine. I won't ragequit, I won't throw the game, and I won't drag everyone down by bitching everytime I see a new turn. I've got it out of my system.

And if anyone's capital really is in province 10, and you are now worried about a giant rush because I basically said I would do that, send me a PM and we'll work out peaceful borders. Of if you're Mictlan, I suspect massed jaguar warriors could probably take sacred giants and you may want to rush me, actually. You may want to check in with someone who gives better advice first, but massed high-damage units tend to tear apart sacred giants.

This got way more complicated than it was fucking meant to.