PBEM game: The first step (Running)

Alneyan · #1 April 24th, 2005, 08:39 AM

As usual, I have settled on a wonderfully unimaginative title for my game ("A journey of a thousand miles began with a single step").

So, this game is intended for new players to get their feet wet; for this purpose, a new player is someone having not played in multiplayer at all, or just a little (started a game, played with a friend, and so on). There will be a few "seasoned" players, who will answer questions and give a few hints to the other players (but certainly not a perfect strategy).

The game will be played in the Play-by-email format (PBEM), where turns are sent in mails; more specifically, the host (myself here) will send .trn files, the players will play their turns as usual, and send back their order (.2h) file.

The following players have expressed interest in joining the game as players:
- RibbonBlue: Man
- Sushiboat: Ermor
- BigDaddy: Pythium
- Agrajag: Jotunheim
- CyborgMoses: Machaka
- Molog: Pangaea
- Enforcer: Arcoscephale
- Schmonk: Marignon

If you have already made up your Pretenders, feel free to start sending them to me. They can be found in the newlords directory: if your nation is Ermor, the Pretender fille will be ermor.2h . My address is alneyan[AT]fastmail[DOT]co.uk (replace [AT] and [DOT] by @ and . respectively).

The seasoned advisers:
- Quantum_Mechani
- Ironhawk

Settings for the game will be fairly standard, along those lines:
- Map: Likely Inland (comes with the game), as it is a rather small map, and it does not have any corner.
- Strength of independents: 6, the level where independents are no longer push-overs, but aren't too deadly yet.
- Research level: Standard research
- Hall of Fame entries: 15
- Magic site frequency: 45 or so
- Renaming is on
- Graphs are likely to be on, allowing all players to see how well they are doing compared to the other nations.
- Turn-around: 48 hours, with the turns running as soon as all turn files are in.
- Mods: A tricky one. Enabling mods for a first game may be contradictory, but a mod such as Zen Pretenders Balance could be interesting, as it reduces the gap in power between all Pretender choices (making poor choices less of a problem). Zen Pretenders is attached to this mod, along with a readme file listing all changes made by the mod.

sushiboat · #2 April 24th, 2005, 12:10 PM

Please put me down for Ermor.

I haven't tried Zen's Pretenders Balance mod yet, but using it would be fine with me.

Agrajag · #3 April 24th, 2005, 12:42 PM

Im thinking about joining (I havent actually played an MP game yet), can someone explain to me how PBEM works and what will I need to do?
Im not 100% sure I'll join since Im not a huge fan of MP, but it might be a good way to improve my skills.
Thank you.

Alneyan · #4 April 24th, 2005, 12:52 PM

I have given a short summary for now about PBEM; I believe there is a slightly more detailed part in the MP guide. Basically, you will have to create a Pretender, send it to me, and off we go; to play the actual turns, you will put a .trn file into a game directory (any game directory actually), play a turn as usual, and send back one file (the .2h file).

Once I get all the files from the player, another turn will run, and will be sent to everyone, and so on.

Agrajag · #5 April 24th, 2005, 01:24 PM

If that's all there is to it, great!
I'd like to try my luck as Jotunheim.
I haven't tried the Balance Mod, but I don't mind turning it on if everyone wants it.

RibbonBlue · #6 April 24th, 2005, 01:33 PM

Alneyan, where I do I get the balance mod? Also, each time I get a turn file, do I remove the old one?

Alneyan · #7 April 24th, 2005, 01:43 PM

Welcome aboard Agrajag!

The mod is attached to this post, and will be added to the first post as well (a zip archive including a readme file, listing all the changes).

In order to use the mod, extract the contents of the archive into your mods directory, and enable the mod. To do so, go into the Preferences screen, then Mod preferences, and click on Conceptual Pretender Gods 2.01. Once it is done, create your Pretender as usual; there will be a black and white banner displayed in the main menu once the mod is enabled.

Once the game has been started, Dominions will automatically handle the mod, disabling and enabling it as needed, so it will not interfere with other games.

There will be two files in the game's directory: man.trn and man.2h (or ermor.trn and ermor.2h for Ermor, and so on). The .trn file is the one I will send you, and any new file will overwrite the new one; the .2h file is the one created after you have finished your turn, so the game will automatically overwrite this one. So there is no need to delete files by hand, as both will be overwritten by newer files automatically.

CyborgMoses · #8 April 25th, 2005, 05:12 AM

Please sign me up for this game; I've never played multiplayer before, and would like to give it a shot. I suppose I'll take a try with Machaka.

Alneyan · #9 April 25th, 2005, 05:37 AM

Welcome aboard CyborgMoses!

Alneyan · #10 April 25th, 2005, 10:54 AM

So, there are now five players in the game; I think we have room for a few more players, two or three or so.

On another note, what patch should this game use? I have most patches from 2.08 onwards on my computer, so I can use any patch; using the same patch as the host is needed to ensure that the battle replays aren't incorrect.