hosting without the gui

[Johan K]

I for one would love to see a Pocus' Dominions Autohost!

I believe it would be perfectly possible to do with Dominions and I would gladly try to add some more autohost friendly features if the current ones aren't good enough.

[Johan K]

Yeah, we have a heavy weight SE4 guy in the Dominions forum!

Regarding a dominions pbw I think the largest problem is to integrate everything with a web page. So you can see what games are starting and join a game and that stuff. Hmmm... have to get some seiv.pbw folks to start playing Dominions.

[Pocus]

As of now, my little utility is mostly a graphical&windows interface from which you can send a 2h to a server, get a trn from it, see who submitted his turn (light is green for the players having done that), and read a message from the host indicating when the turn is due. If you can run a windows app, I can send it to you, you will see 2 small french games running ).

I dont think it would ask much time to transform it into a bot capable to launch dominions to process due turns, and send a mail to players (perhaps at most ~50 hours of work, and I'm estimating with big excess IMO).

... *but* time constraints wont enable me to put the needed hours in expanding my little ftp service to a full autohost before say 2 months telling them that the new turn is ready.

(*start of add* : hobby time already spent into beta testing Pax Romana, a game not unlike a blend of Republic of Rome and Imperium Romanum, soon to be released, be sure to check it out. The graphical engine is akin to the ones used in Europa Universalis. Go to http://forum.antikgames.com/ for further informations - *end of add*!).

Also, some players here are from SE IV. There is a play by web service already doing that for Space Empire. Perhaps one of these informed players will convince the authors of SEIV- pbw to expand their hosting utility for Dominions.

[Pocus]

one more problem : this is a windows utility only. I use delphi, which is capable of generating code compatible with linux system (with Kylix on Linux), IF you are only using official components, and I dont know if the FTP services I use are supported by Kylix too.

This is not to say that I dont want to try expanding my utility. If nobody managed to make such a utility within 3 months or so (or if SE IV play by web is not interested to support dominions, hint : talk to PVK, he is a heavy weight in SE IV community ), no problems, I will commit some time to finish mine.

[Rollo]

Originally posted by Johan K:
Yeah, we have a heavy weight SE4 guy in the Dominions forum!

Regarding a dominions pbw I think the largest problem is to integrate everything with a web page. So you can see what games are starting and join a game and that stuff. Hmmm... have to get some seiv.pbw folks to start playing Dominions.

yeah, send Geoschmo a free copy

[Gandalf Parker]

This has been a long-time subject with me (sorry Im just now checking in here from the newsGroups)

If the dom host can run without GUI, entirely by command line switches, then it should be easy to interface to a web site on a linux or sun box.

A cron job can run randomly generated maps of small, medium, and large on a daily basis (I already have that running on my site)

Standard player map games can be offered for a web signup. Also randomly created maps can be displayed and offered for download and play.

Games with not enough signups can be deleted after a certain amount of time, games with enough players can be started. A directory created and the host called to start a game. Each game can have its own email address for receiving turns which would make it easy to move incoming turns into the game directory. And would create an archive of past turn-ins in case a turn had to be manually moved back.

Since a "full user" could be created for each game (might as well, already up to having a directory and an email address) then the directory created for each game could also support web pages which means each game could have its own webboard (with NO banners or ads), its own automatic elist, its own ftp directory.

The games webpage could automatically include any information that the game is designed to write out to seperate files. The map of course could be displayed. Score standings, player/pretender names, who has/hasnt submitted turn files.

Another advantage would be in the area of anonymous games. Complete anonymity could be done. Or various levels such as supporting a player creating a whole new persona for each game played but still allowing player-to-player contact for diplomacy which does not carry consequences from game to game (we have had many threads on this subject in the newsGroups)

Yet another advantage is that there would not need to be any human doing any of this. With a full-time server, and full automation, new games could be started and run without having to coordinate with anyone. And with the option to use a randomly generated map there will be no foreknowledge by anyone of where special things are. Even special items, sites, specially designed provinces could be randomized for a completely fresh and fair game each time.

OK this seems like alot but as far as I know there is nothing listed here that is all that hard to do. Most of it I have already done on my server but Im more idea guy than I am manage guy. I only messed with the pieces long enough to figure out that it could be done, then I dropped it. Im a system admin. We have player programmers Im pretty sure. Do we have any webmasters?

[ October 07, 2003, 14:44: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[DominionsFan]

What is a newsgroup?

[Psitticine]

DominionsFAN:

A USENET newsgroup is rather like this forum, being that it is full of threads and conversation on a specific topic. (Well, usually on a specific topic. Spammers and trolls are aggrievatingly common on the unmoderated newsGroups.) Your ISP should provide a news server, which should hopefully carry any Dom-related newsGroups, but they vary in their content from ISP to ISP.

Gandalf Parker:

My editing partner (the Bionic Giraffe) is a web designer. I'll point her to this thread and see if she thinks she has time and so forth to help out.

[Pocus]

specifically, when 'we' (understand the players of doms I) speak of 'The' newsgroup, we speak of

comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.strategic

Why do I'm saying that? Because this newsgroup is not specific to dominions, and speak of any game which can be qualified to be a strategy game (RTS included). You will find many people interested in discussing with you of games like dominions, but also in UFO aftermath, Galactic civ, C&C generals, etc.
Many players (including me) didnt knew dominions before reading discussions about the game in the NG. Then you are intrigued, try the demo, and the deadly addictive process begin.

[Gandalf Parker]

NewsGroups are older than WWW. Older than Internet in fact. There is a newsgroup for every hobby, team, music group, job, geographical area, etc etc etc that you have ever heard of.

Your ISP often gives you access to newsGroups. It is considered a part of what "internet service" means, like email and a web page.