[Dom3]Newbie EA game

koz · Post by **koz** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:46 am

Seeing as the last MP I'm in is about to lead to critical existence failure for me (in all likelihood), I'm open to another game.

The game will have standard settings (renaming allowed, obviously), and be set in EA. 5-6 players would be ideal, and it would be better if the stronger Dom3 players on the Den not take part - I'm still very much a noob, and this is very much meant to be a newbie game.

My preferences for factions are Pangaea, Arcosephale and Abysia, in that order.

Drago0661 · Post by **Drago0661** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:01 am

I'm in for this game, much to the eventual outcome of our current game.

Preferences in order: Caelum, Hinnom, Ermor

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:01 pm

If you need a fifth, I might be up for R'lyeh, Hinnom, or Mictlan.

Ikeren · Post by **Ikeren** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:23 pm

If you don't mind my playing again, I'm interested in EA Niefleheim >>> EA Lanka >>> EA Marveni, in that order.

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:27 pm

If I still count as a noob, I'd be up for this -- gimme Kailasa, Yomi, or Ctis. This would be the second MP game I've played from turn 1. No hard feelings if you'd rather leave me out though.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:31 pm

I'm tempted to throw in, but it would be my first MP dominions game and I'm generally all around still pretty shitty at regular Dominions. I'm sort of busy at this instant, but I'll drop another post in 5-6 hours with faction preferences. (Any recommendations for the noobliest of noobs?)

koz · Post by **koz** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 7:18 pm

Orion: After your performance in the last game, I doubt you count as a noob, sorry.

DSM: Basically, if you want an easy faction in EA, you want one of the following:

- Helheim
- Niefelheim
- Ermor

The first two are giant factions with crazy-good troops and good (but not excessive) magic diversity, and the last is a (fairly) easy human faction with good crafting options. If you're up for a bit of a challenge, you can try Mictlan, but expect a fairly steep learning curve.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 8:25 pm

Hm. Never really gave Helheim a try, though have been annoyed by their armies before. Let's go Helheim, Abysia, Ermor. Any good guides on Helheim I can use as a starting point?

Orion · Post by **Orion** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:13 pm

Given his talk about giants and magic diversity, I think he meant Hinnom. Hinnom has giants with lots of magic. Helheim has death/earth/air and stealthy flying sacreds.

Other reasonable options are Sauromatia and Atlantis. Atlantis starts underwater and thus shouldn't get eliminated early, but has reasonable amphibious troops and mages with strong guaranteed paths for nuking and buffing. Sauromatia... is very complicated to use optimally since it has so much going on, but has some simple and effective strategies. Indie expansion is easy with hydras or massed cavalry, poison archers are ridiculously good against everything, and their main mage, the Enarie, sits at a really nice place in terms of research speed, efficiency, mobility, and combat magic.

Also, they can start a Gorgon which is just a brutally effective god for indie clearing and midgame fighting if you put Awe and some Earth on it.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:56 pm

Yeah, all I actually remembered from Helheim was annoying invisible armies. I thought their primary units were cavalry and some giants, but apparently I was as confused about the giant bit as Sinister. Maybe that blurry glamour effect makes their units look bigger.

Anyway, giants sound a lot simpler to use than invisible cavalry, and I don't really trust myself with a faction whose primary infantry have move 1 even if I do think Abysians are awesome.

Let's try that again: Hinnom, Atlantis, Ermor.

koz · Post by **koz** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 12:00 am

Yeah, I did mean Hinnom. My bad.

Edit: It seems we have four. Currently, priority 1 choices are as follows:

MisterSinister: Pan
Dragon0661: Caelum
Fectin: R'lyeh
Ikeren: Niefelheim
DSM: Hinnom

So currently no clashes.

I'm giving everyone 24 hours to change their preferences. If this doesn't happen, I'm gonna create the game.

Ikeren · Post by **Ikeren** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 5:15 am

That's 5.

Also, slightly fewer provinces this time? (50-75, not 100) please?

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 9:49 am

50's pretty low, that's only 10 per person. Seems like that'd lead to some quick tensions and wars. And with just the five of us, I imagine it won't be hard for the first... ahem... "border disputes" to turn into world wars. 15 per sounds okay, though.

koz · Post by **koz** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 10:46 am

10 per is a VERY quick game. I'd prefer at least 15, better slightly more. This means we're looking at about 75 provinces. Hunting for a suitable map.

Korwin · Post by **Korwin** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 12:09 pm

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/The_Land ... Efficiency
Probably to small for you 49 land 9 water.

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Wesnoth_(green_borders)
Detto this one: 55 land, 5 sea.

While
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Westeros
will be to big: Land 81, Sea 28.

Would maybe work without an sea nation, but then
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Turkey_(map)
will work to. 81 Land, no Sea.

This one looks suitable:
http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Sha_Bay
Land: 68, Sea: 12

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 3:02 pm

Sha Bay isn't going to be great. If I'm R'lyeh, it'll force me onto that central island, and then you all will have a really hard time dislodging me; probably in ways that aren't fun.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 7:21 pm

As the only aquatic power, is there any map that dislodging you won't be a terrible frustration on? But I agree that Sha Bay is probably a bad choice. You're going to have the water provinces and that island at basically no contest, and that turns out to be 20 provinces. Given that you're also probably going to have the most peaceful time of it, that sounds like a good recipe for domination via research and economy.

koz · Post by **koz** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 7:47 pm

I would have to agree with both DSM and fectin on this. I'll look into some alternatives.

Edit: How about this? http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Small_Divide

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 9:00 pm

I'm not nuanced enough to spot any problems with it that I care about, but R'lyeh might not like that his sea empire will be connected by a chain of length 3, width 1. It'd be awful easy to split that in half. On the other hand, he has impunity under the water for awhile and that gives him a lot of coast for amphibious assaults. It kind of encourages a rather aggressive R'lyeh oh god why am I saying this stay off my beaches you fucking squids! Back! Back in the water!

But yeah, if Fectin feels that his aquatic domination makes up for the expansionary funnel/theoretical weakness, I'm fine with it.

koz · Post by **koz** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 10:32 pm

How do you make a map wraparound? I like the map I posted, but I wanna mod it so it wraps around.

TarkisFlux · Post by **TarkisFlux** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 10:38 pm

Ugh. Hunting for maps there makes me cry. So you're welcome.

I could put thumbnails on there as well, but that would require me to make changes to the map template, and I'm not ready to be that assertive over there just yet. Let me know if you want anything else on there.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Mar 16, 2012 10:56 pm

If you want to wraparound the map, I think you could open it in the dom3 map editor, click the wraparound button (which doesn't actually make the map wraparound, but it repeats the map image on all sides so you can see tiles on the other side of the map), and then you just click to add province connections on adjacent provinces. Just have to be careful to get the links right.

Just be careful not to do corner to corner wraparounds (i.e. bottom left to top right). That could be weird.

koz · Post by **koz** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 12:48 am

TarkisFlux wrote:Ugh. Hunting for maps there makes me cry. So you're welcome.

I could put thumbnails on there as well, but that would require me to make changes to the map template, and I'm not ready to be that assertive over there just yet. Let me know if you want anything else on there.

Yeah, that wiki has obscenely bad editors and mods. So thanks, Tarkis, appreciated.

Edit: What should I do to upload the map? I've never tried Llamaserver with a custom map before...

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:29 am

Appears to be a link on the create a new game page of llamaserver. Or more directly, here:
http://www.llamaserver.net/uploadMap.cgi

What do I have to do to play a llamaserver game, anyway? Is it fairly intuitive? Game shows up on their list, I click on it, it tells me to do things, I do them, magic happens, everything works out?

koz · Post by **koz** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:33 am

DSMatticus wrote:Appears to be a link on the create a new game page of llamaserver. Or more directly, here:
http://www.llamaserver.net/uploadMap.cgi

What do I have to do to play a llamaserver game, anyway? Is it fairly intuitive? Game shows up on their list, I click on it, it tells me to do things, I do them, magic happens, everything works out?

It is fairly simple. Basically, you first have to send the pretender. You make a pretender god for the right nation and era, and you send it to pretenders(at)llamaserver(dot)net, with the game name in the subject line. After everyone has sent, it will send you a .trn file. You put this in your saved games folder, in a folder with the same title as the game. Then, if you run Dom3, you'll see the game show up in your existing games.

After you've done the turn, you end the turn as normal. Then, if you check that folder, you will find a .2h file. Send this to turns(at)llamaserver(dot)net, with anything in the subject line. When everyone has sent, it will do all the turns, and send you the next file. Then just rinse and repeat.