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Post by vladikus on Feb 26, 2012 16:26:02 GMT -5
Last updated Apr 17th: below is what is being considered for the CoE3 Trial by Fire list
Prospective scenarios:
Friends Indeed: A challenging scenario where you have to play multiplayer with an ally to win (no common cause)--both players must survive the whole scenario in order to have won the achievement.
In King Arthur's Dreams: A scenario map full of wild quests for a small band of disgruntled knights with some heroes in tow.
Snake Infestation: Gandalf Parker's Indept Lords map. Need to get the turns to speed up a little bit. Other than that, it's definitely a challenge from what I've played of it. Need to determine what makes it somewhat manageable (or perhaps this should be the insane achievement that only someone legendary can beat-- something akin to CoE3 ascension).
Jack of Two Trades: Doo's hotseat challenge where you go against the AI, except you have to manage two classes at once. Need to decide what classes might be difficult to play.
The Moat Will Keep Them Out You must defend your citadel from attacks on all sides. But luckily you were smart enough to put in a moat... at least you thought it was a good idea.
Horrorbombing (thanks to Noir) You have pronounced its doomsday and decided to call up friends from the deep. The cultist is only allowed to have normal units, only starspawn are allowed for summons and they must be stationed at the capital. They are only allowed to defend the capital and scry/horrorbomb.
Did I Really Say That? In your land there is a desert island where exiles are taken to die. But you have bragged that you could withstand the desert for 42 years. So prove yourself.
God Save the Queen Your job is to escort a queen across the map to her castle where an Enchanter has a portal waiting. The catch is that the castle is infested with enemies and that the land is slowly sinking into the sea...
Besieger There are castles scattered across the land. Your job is to capture them all.
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Post by mulkmulkmulk on Feb 26, 2012 22:42:07 GMT -5
Once i get accustomed with the game i would love to try em out. How is the verifying going to happen :X?
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jsv
Indept
Posts: 26
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Post by jsv on Feb 27, 2012 2:17:01 GMT -5
Nice idea. I'll try the challenges once I'm done with my Senator vs 7 Counts game. Same clarifications: - In cases where a challenge do not specify a society, is it supposed to be random or I'm free to choose one that fits my class best? - Should the challenges vs allied AI be played with Common Cause on? - What is suggested save game policy? Usually I restore from an autosave only if I made an interface-related mistake (accidentally moving a commander because of pressing a wrong key, recruiting in a wrong place, etc.). - In The Apocalypse challenge, are the AI players not allied? In that case, not much of a challenge. I've beaten 7 Baron AIs already and was doing well against 7 Counts when my autosave become corrupted. I'm currently playing another game vs 7 Counts... not yet sure about the outcome, the situation looks dangerous but manageble.
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doo
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Post by doo on Feb 27, 2012 5:20:19 GMT -5
How about a hotseat challenge for one player. You pick two classes and set as allies, clustered start and fight against high level ai's. I just played as Hobergs and can see that playing as Necromancer or Priest King, killing all towns and hamlets to farms and then hoberg farming them for massive weed income would be cool. Also playing as two classes as allies allows a quick expansion, but would it be good enough vs high level ai's?
Testing needs to be done to determine what really is a good challenge.
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Post by vladikus on Feb 27, 2012 16:31:11 GMT -5
First, thank you both for this excellent feedback. Nice idea. I'll try the challenges once I'm done with my Senator vs 7 Counts game. Same clarifications: - In cases where a challenge do not specify a society, is it supposed to be random or I'm free to choose one that fits my class best? - Should the challenges vs allied AI be played with Common Cause on? - What is suggested save game policy? Usually I restore from an autosave only if I made an interface-related mistake (accidentally moving a commander because of pressing a wrong key, recruiting in a wrong place, etc.). - In The Apocalypse challenge, are the AI players not allied? In that case, not much of a challenge. I've beaten 7 Baron AIs already and was doing well against 7 Counts when my autosave become corrupted. I'm currently playing another game vs 7 Counts... not yet sure about the outcome, the situation looks dangerous but manageble. I got rid of the Apocalypse challenge, but will keep it in the back of my mind for refining (or maybe a possible map). I also went back and specified common cause, society choice, and cluster start wherever they applied. I also set forth rules about save games. How about a hotseat challenge for one player. You pick two classes and set as allies, clustered start and fight against high level ai's. I just played as Hobergs and can see that playing as Necromancer or Priest King, killing all towns and hamlets to farms and then hoberg farming them for massive weed income would be cool. Also playing as two classes as allies allows a quick expansion, but would it be good enough vs high level ai's? Testing needs to be done to determine what really is a good challenge. I like this idea and think it's worth making an accomplishment for. Making this challenging is going to be somewhat difficult (and that refers to all the accomplishments)... As for mulk's question, I'm still considering how to verify successful games. Instead of using game logs for verification, maybe a screen recording of the game would be more appropriate. Although, that would be irritating for people who played off and on. But there is a much greater chance of being clear that settings were correct and that the game was properly played. Still, I'm not sure what linux users would use in the way of a screen recorder... also where to host so many videos might cause an issue.
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doo
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Post by doo on Feb 27, 2012 18:56:11 GMT -5
Just did a test and with hotseat allies don't have a simultaneous move, so different class armies can't team up. Bit of an annoyance as it would allow for fast expansion. Have to think about this one.
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Post by coyotetheclever on Feb 27, 2012 18:57:03 GMT -5
Since it seems posting gamelogs is now required, I'd find some sort of tutorial on how to do that helpful Another thought of mine is that these challenges should have a point value, and we should be able to work our way from piss boy and up as we get points for completing them
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Post by vladikus on Feb 27, 2012 20:32:55 GMT -5
Ack, the formatting of gamelogs in Windows is pretty ugly. I didn't anticipate that.... I am really favoring the screenrecorders the more I think about it. Though that might be asking a bit much Here is a tutorial on how to save gamelogs and view them, though I don't have a Mac handy, so they are excluded for now (don't remain that way, I encourage you to send me directions for how to set Mac gamelogs). coe3.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=43&page=1Also, I saw your comment about the hotseat doo and then the feature request. We will keep our eyes peeled. As for rewards... I think that using forum titles here is going to get a little wild (you all can set custom titles for yourself, so that wouldn't work well, and to make a group would involve some weird forum permission issues). How about a locked and stickied thread where I'll try and maintain a scoreboard for achievements and points for people on the forum? If Illwinter updates the AI (my fingers are crossed), then you can complete the achievement again for an additional point (this goes for each AI update). This is because some achievements that are easy now might be far more difficult with AI improvements. I like the idea of using the AI levels for player titles... although we may go beyond Emperor for sure. A point is considered completing one achievement. Right now, we are all Piss Boys (don't you feel better about yourself?). I'm up for changing the points scale and titles, but remember that the list of achievements will (hopefully) grow immensely. Also, titles are earned, not given. Points Title 0-5 Piss Boy 6-10 Jester 11-20 Butler 21-30 Knight 31-40 Baron 41-50 Count 51-70 Marquis 71-90 Duke 91-110 King 111-130 Emperor 131+ Get there and we'll talk about it
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jsv
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Post by jsv on Feb 28, 2012 1:28:52 GMT -5
As for mulk's question, I'm still considering how to verify successful games. Instead of using game logs for verification, maybe a screen recording of the game would be more appropriate. Although, that would be irritating for people who played off and on. But there is a much greater chance of being clear that settings were correct and that the game was properly played. Still, I'm not sure what linux users would use in the way of a screen recorder... also where to host so many videos might cause an issue. Recording the entire game is unfeasible for me. I tend to play in short sessions on different computers. Running a video recorder each time, then editing those clips would be too much work for too little gain. Even maintaining a consistent gamelog is going be a bit of hassle, but at least I know how to work with text files. All I know about video is how to view it. Recording the start and the first 15-20 minutes of the game can be done I guess. In theory I even like the idea, though I don't know how to do that on Linux too. Well, asking the package manager about screencast applications would probably be a good start. Ultimately, I think there no reliable way to prevent cheating, at least not without making things very inconvenient for the players. But is cheating going to be a problem? There is no money prize offered and one can't expect to gain a lot of fame and power by winning a couple of contests in such a small community.
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Post by vladikus on Feb 28, 2012 8:48:47 GMT -5
Actually, after viewing the progress log, a screenshot of your score chart at the end of the game/some way to export it would work.
You're right jsv, the honor system is less of a hassle for everyone involved and cheating would really be pointless (takes the fun out of challenges in the first place, does it not?).
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jsv
Indept
Posts: 26
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Post by jsv on Mar 1, 2012 5:23:22 GMT -5
After playing the "Anti-progress" challenge, I think that a reverse scenario, where you'd play a noble baron fighting evil cults, can be fun to play as well. Something like that:
The Witch Hunter. Player class: Baron AI classes: Witch, Necromancer and Demonologist Common Cause: on Clustered start: off Society: Empire
Not sure about map size and AI level. I'd start with Huge and Knights... The Monarchy society seems to be more fitting thematically, but balance-wise, I think, the Empire is better. It has less towers for you and more cities for AI. And indies of the Empire are all but tame, so AI should be developing faster. Demonologist can be replaced by other sacrifice-based evil cult, the High Cultist and the High Priestess being obvious choices.
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Post by vladikus on Mar 1, 2012 18:18:18 GMT -5
After playing the "Anti-progress" challenge, I think that a reverse scenario, where you'd play a noble baron fighting evil cults, can be fun to play as well. Something like that: The Witch Hunter.Player class: Baron AI classes: Witch, Necromancer and Demonologist Common Cause: on Clustered start: off Society: Empire Not sure about map size and AI level. I'd start with Huge and Knights... The Monarchy society seems to be more fitting thematically, but balance-wise, I think, the Empire is better. It has less towers for you and more cities for AI. And indies of the Empire are all but tame, so AI should be developing faster. Demonologist can be replaced by other sacrifice-based evil cult, the High Cultist and the High Priestess being obvious choices. Many thanks! It sounds like you and coyote had interesting games... do you think that, for the anti-progress challenge, I should remove the Witch and Troll King class and keep it as a Necromancer and Demonologist game for the challenge (perhaps find something harder for the Witch)? I like this witch-hunter idea. You all are lucky, I want to play (busy with school lately). Really glad to hear the games were fun (and a bit tough). There's more challenges on the backburner and (as I play more), there will definitely be more added.
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Post by gp1628 on Mar 1, 2012 21:09:54 GMT -5
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jsv
Indept
Posts: 26
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Post by jsv on Mar 1, 2012 23:50:07 GMT -5
do you think that, for the anti-progress challenge, I should remove the Witch and Troll King class and keep it as a Necromancer and Demonologist game for the challenge (perhaps find something harder for the Witch)? We can replace Witch and TK with Druid and Bakemono. The Druid can be challenging depending on Ancient Forests' location. I haven't play with Bakemono yet and have little idea of have difficult it can be. But it's probably more challenging than TK Or we leave them as is and simply award more points for completing the challenge with weaker classes. And more points for playing against higher-level AI than specified in the challenge. My first attempt at Alone Against the World was highly unsuccessful. A was a Necromancer in the Dark Ages and the Random Number Gods were cruel. Laughable hands income, no castles in my part of the map, no temples, and Dark Knowledge only revealed a single battlefield on the other side of the map. Abandoned the game after a couple of hours, as playing it till the end would take forever and I'd probably still lose.
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jsv
Indept
Posts: 26
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Post by jsv on Mar 1, 2012 23:57:10 GMT -5
Ah, thanks for reminding about this one. I saw the thread back then but, without the game to try the ideas with, it didn't sparkled my interest. Will read it now, some of the variants look interesting.
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