riadsala

* official, as in, Troy is planning on joining in. hi, the forum title sort of sums it up. I'm not a huge Dominions fan, but I played a few games of Dom3 and quite liked a few aspects of the design. And, I really like slow, multi-player long form play-by-email games. They scratch a certain itch that other games can't quite get to. So, the plan is to get a group of people together for a game of Dom4. If you have never played before, don't worry... I'm yet to buy Dom4 myself. And, the games aren't quite as hard to get into as their reputation maybe suggests. And personally, I find them a lot more fun when treating them as a role-play game, rather than min-maxing everything and trying to be really competitive. The 3MA podcast on the game is here: https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/8891-episode-234-seeking-new-god/ And, I found this a fun read and it explained a lot of the Dom3 concepts: http://lparchive.org/Dominions-3/ If you're interested in joining me and Troy, post below. The plan is to start sometime around February. I'm not sure what the best number of players is, we'll have to have a think. I know that the game can support a large number, but it becomes somewhat less fun and a lot more cumbersome. If anybody has strong feelings on what game mode to play, etc, feel free to make suggestions. Have a great new year Riad ps. It's New Year's Eve, 2013. I wonder what the chances are of this game being completed by the end of 2014! ................... list of people wanting to play Riadsala Troy Procyon Lotor Greenturtle Bisbo ShadowTiger dknemeyer valambrien srslyyou heliocentric

Hey! I apologise for not rounding up everybody properly. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, i'm sorry. How about, if people are interested, we get this game started? I still have Dom4 on my HD, largely unplayed!

Even if the planets are a little tricky to handle, I think Uber deserve more credit for trying to do something a little new and different. Shame the game wasn't better , but I have no hard feelings about the money I spent on the kickstarter.

GalCiv2 felt more like a game set in an ocean with archipelagos dotted around the place. The map was/is a flat grid, with featureless terrain, and with the odd planet (island). Most space games are the same. Which is a shame. As outer space has a load of interesting features that make it unlike anything on Earth. Now, I'm not saying I only want to play "ultra-realistic" space sims (I don't!!!). But I think a game should try to tackle at least a few of features of the domain. And I'm happy with things being abstracted away in a sensible way. Space is really big, with huge distances. And it's in 3d. And there are interesting communication lags. Planets orbit each other, meaning within a solar system, you have periodic "launch windows" when planets are closer to each other. Sure, these all present difficult game design problems. But they probably afford interesting solutions which will make for interesting new games,rather than generic space 4x again v2. Sword to the Stars did a good job on this front. The map was 3d (with the option for 2d if 3d maps disagree with) and each race had a unique FTL technology, which translated into different movement rules for each race. This meant that you had a map that was unlike anything on earth, with a weird topology. Some races used warp lanes, some races could travel freely, others moved at really slow speeds between stars, before putting up gates that allowed for near instantaneous travel from A to B. Made for an interesting game. Shame the sequel wasn't meant to be much good.

I would be interested in a semi-regular "patch/update/mod" show. It would be interesting to see if all the post release patches for Rome2:Total War have improved the game significantly, or is it still a game to avoid. I'm sure there's a plenty long list of strategy game that have been released in recent years and have seen significant post release/review changes. i *still* plan to back to Elemental (or whatever they're calling it these days) and see how it eventually ended up.

Seems a bit crappy from a game-mechanic point of view.

Uuurgghh. I came to GalCiv2 late, after reading some brilliant AARs. Found the game to be a massive disappointment. Yet another space game that decides that it doesn't want to actually be set in space.

Glad it's not just me! I think I'll return to CivIV soon.... what with the Fall from Heaven, and Legends of the Revolution mods, there are still plenty of fun playthroughs to be had!

anybody still playing this? I've recently been playing it quite a bit, it's a good time filler.

any idea if it's the same Roger, or two brothers/cousins both called Roger?

is local ironman an option? I've clearly been doing it wrong, as oh my, was the cloud based saving sucking all the fun out my last game. Really slowed the whole thing down

I guess we play different games. I always get the impression that the designers are basing war off the rise of Rome, from a small Kingdom to an expansive Empire. Not that I'm disagreeing with you, as the end results are more or less the same

Just wanted to add that this was a really good episode (Just a shame Troy wasn't there to chime in too). Can we have a part II ?

Great. That's at least half of us back and awake

I haven't sent mine in yet either. I think I just need to chase everybody up. Given how long it took me to sort out setting the game up, I think it's only fair to give people some time to get round to joining. if everybody could take responsibility for getting in touch with their partner, that would speed things up a bit!

OK, I finally have the game set up on LlamaServer. The game name is "ThreeMovesAhead" There is an FAQ which gives instructions on how to join here: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showpost.php?p=529316&postcount=2 If everybody could chase up their partner, hopefully we can finally get started! Sorry for taking so long.

Looks good. I just hope it's not a reskin of CiV with some SMAC narrative thrown in. Don't get me wrong, I really like both CiV and SMAC, but I've played both of them already. So here's hoping for some interesting new game mechanics and a different narrative.

Yes, well, that's how it works for Dom3. Although, Heliocentric has offered to help me set up a game on llamaserver. So expect details incoming.

hi, would everybody be happy with using dropbox to swap files?

Sorry for dropping the ball on this.... I moved to a new city and new job last month, and it disrupted life more than it would! Anymore, more or less settled in, and ready to go! I belive that everybody knows who their partner is now? I will look into getting a game set up this week (with server and stuff, so we don't need to do PBEM). Sorry again for the delay

Sure, i'm good with that. and in the interest in keeping things moving, lets go with it. So now, all teams should know which pair of races they have. Time for everybody to confer and plan our their pretenders. If anybody is more experienced than me, and has more free time this month, feel free to take charge of setting up the game, hosting stuff etc! Moving and starting a new job is eating up a lot of my free time, and I'm tied up every weekend this month! Eeek [i'll easily have time to take turns each week, or even more often though!]

Good question. What do people think? It could be amusing to not pre-plan things? I'm open to suggestions. I'm happy with taking either side: I've played Dom3 a bit in the past, but this will be my first Dom4 game. I should have the internet set up in my new flat this evening, so hopefully i can be a bit more on top of things!

Cool, done. (sorry for being a bit slow on this... I moved to a new city last Saturday and so have had other things on my mind!) dbaum: you're on my team. I'll let you select which pair of races we want (from the list I posted).

ok, Bisco is officially out [ unless he reappears before we find a replacement ] Shall we wait and try and find another podcast listener to join in? [Or perhaps Troy can find another panelist?] Or shall i just ask some of people I know from the RPS forum who love Dominion? What do people think?

I'm still trying to track Bisbo down. If he doesn't surface by, say, the end of the week, I'll try and find a replacement. Here's hoping it won't come to that!