you need to give it all of the parameters of the game on the command line, or walk thru the startup screens. It can be confusing to mix them. Like this...
dom3 --era 2 -g MyGame --port 7232 -STd --statfile --scoredump --preexec /dominions3/savedgames/MyGame/pre.sh --postexec /dominions3/savedgames/MyGame/post.sh --indepstr 8 --hofsize 15 --magicsites 65 --uploadmaxp 4 --renaming --mightyai 34 --m
ightyai 32 --mightyai 46 --mapfile teammap.map --masterpass oMfGPjev -q --hours 24
Of course not all of those are absolutely necessary. And there are more that could be added.
I LOVE the options of this game.