Ray the Wanderer Ray the Wanderer

Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread

▼

Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread

from Stardock Forums
The Prancing Pony

The welcome sight of a tavern greeted the weary traveler as he moved within distance of the town. Having traveled for many days, he longed for a cool mug of ale to slake his road-thirst.

As he approached the inn, he could see a sign of a fat pony rearing up on its hindlegs. The letters, THE PRANCING PONY, was painted in white.

The common room was large and rowdy. A bald and overweight innkeeper stood bent over the counter, whispering the latest gossip into the ears of a patron. On the benches were various folks, the local drunks for most part, but in corners of the taverns, he noticed there were groups drinking by themselves.

Setting himself down, the traveler handed a couple of coppers over to one of the bar wrenches for ale.

“Welcome to the Pony.” The traveler was mildly surprised to find a sprightly old man next to him, holding his gaze with keen eyes that belittled his obvious antiquity.

“Thank you, and whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

“Folks around here call me Ray and I do enjoy meeting up with newcomers to see if there is any assistance I could render.”

“That would be great, Ray. I would love to learn about the people who reside in these parts.”

“Ah, that’s a frequently asked question and one I’m well qualified to answer. There are a couple of factions here in Meta that you will want to watch out for.

The Pirates are currently dominant. Not the most refined of speakers but they are a jovial bunch, with a particular weakness for good drinks.

The Diplomats hold power in the Courts. Their courtiers are many but they don’t really mix with us common folks.

The Farmers are our working class. Hardworking and honest, they are however on occasion given over to overly elaborate festivals and celebrations.

The Galahs are a group of seafarers. They are also good trainers of livestock.

The Warlords are our warrior class. Their love for long campaigns leaves them frequently out of town.

The Spiders monopolise our merchant guilds. They are by far the most invertebrate bunch of traders you will ever see.

Far to the north, the Undead holds a death grip over the wastelands. I would caution you against traveling down that road.

There are many other smaller factions around, but I leave the details of those to Barley our bartender.

One of our tavern regulars, Gerakken the Spymaster, is also in the know with regards to many of the factions. So do buy him a drink if you want to find out more.”

“Thanks for the insights, Ray. But how about yourself, which faction do you belong to?”

Smiling to himself, the old man stood.

“Come round the Fellowship Halls tomorrow morning and I’ll show you around.”
477,576 views 2,185 replies
Reply #1951 from Stardock Forums Top
Congrats Ray for staying on the top of the evil, neutral and good boards for so long.Cotal has just bullied her way to the top of the good board.
End of quote


I don't understand the morality rankings. They seem to update irregularly.
I'm top again for Good but I've not submitted any good scores.

~SDC~
Reply #1952 from Stardock Forums Top
Just submitted a Maso Huge Neutral game. What's unique about that game for me is that I took neutral for every event. The Tors had a good start and I spent most of my game as the Surrender Monkey (not Cheese-Eating). It certainly felt easier to maintain good relations with the all evils AIs as opposed to when I played good.

What I couldn't figure out was why my score is the same as the other Maso Huge which I took all the good choices and got more TGs/wonders and researched about 20 more techs. The only major difference is that my latest game had quite a bit of fighting.

~SDC~
Elemental: Reforged
Reply #1953 from Stardock Forums Top
Strange indeed
22/09/2003 Ray the Wanderer 37 186783 
23/09/2003 Ray the Wanderer 37 187678 
And now Ray the Wanderer 37 189318

Cotal's score has stayed the same since i grabbed the data today (well yesterday)
23/09/2003 Cotal 68 189015



[Message Edited]
Reply #1954 from Stardock Forums Top
I think the morality scores get recalced every day.

~SDC~
Reply #1955 from Stardock Forums Top
I've calculated that 3 more 50k games should tip me over 300k player score.

Killa, I liked the rally point for ships, stable planet disbanding, obsolete ship governor, cheat codes (for easy testing of stuff), locked sliders, retire option and the random Arcean tech research path.

~SDC~
Reply #1956 from Stardock Forums Top
3 more 50k games should tip me over 300k player
End of quote


Fleet Admiral maybe....

Alex


~SDC~
Reply #1957 from Stardock Forums Top
Ray, you deserve my thanks for the tips on metaverse score submission. I got a zero mpts today on a large crippling 1.1. As per your tip, I went back to old save games and did the "retire". The recent save games were all zero scores but the one from 6 hours ago had points so maybe that is still good. Doh!!! I presume there was an electronic glitch somewhere but I am pretty sure if you get a score like 24k and below it where it usually say xxx mpts it says 0, that means anomalous. Oh well, what the heck. Many including Theoden and others have had that happen before.

I went back and re-read some threads on the metaverse scoring. I believe one can play the game and play the metaverse too. I had a good time today playing but somehow the zero mpts (presumably anomalous metaverse score) makes me feel like I didn't finish the game. LOL.

I sent a couple of the anomalous save game folders to Cari in case there is something funny going on with 1.1 and anomalous scores. Large, crippling, although harder than large painful or tough still allows the major AI to trade cash, so one can play it like tough or painful. I look forward to giving the maso tutorial walk-throughs a test soon.

Again thanks for the tip Ray on catching the anomalous on the launching pad and declining to submit. I also like the competitive metaverse part with GROSS as an extension of the game too (I joined FOTR when we were struggling to overcome the first-place GROSS) but FOTR members please forgive if I don't replay this large crippling game from the beginning. LOL.

Thanks vincible for clearing up the comments I interpreted were about the GCCG and EBZ. Emperor Ray, I respect whatever you decide to do here but am concerned about the health of FOTR empire if you are away too long. You don't have to make any long term plans right now. Get your fleet admiral stripes and take a break.

Bye all. Sorry I couldn't submit a game today to help the home team, but that's the breaks. I am going to put Gal Civ away for the night and watch a DVD.

Rick
Reply #1958 from Stardock Forums Top
The Galtrix down for almost 12 hrs.

Wanted to reply to Rick but found that I couldn't post.

Seems like this is almost a monthly event.

~SDC~
Reply #1959 from Stardock Forums Top
I couldn't even access the site. It said the servers were busy. I thought maybe the site was under attack. Glad to see everything's back to normal!
Reply #1960 from Stardock Forums Top
Congrats on beating Crippling, Rick!

Seems like you need to do a retire now and again as you play so you don't waste another game to the anomalous black hole.

Emperor Ray, I respect whatever you decide to do here but am concerned about the health of FOTR empire if you are away too long. You don't have to make any long term plans right now. Get your fleet admiral stripes and take a break.
End of quote


I wouldn't be away for any long period of time. I'll just be trying out other fun ways to play that probably would not score well. Maybe also play another game or two. The Fellowship would have to depend on all of you to deal with the grotesque pirate scourge.

I've already thought of one scenario which I always wanted to try. That's playing against just 1 Incredible AI.

~SDC~
Reply #1961 from Stardock Forums Top
It's happened about 3 times or so already in my memory, Theoden. Yeah, the first thing I thought of was a denial of service attack too. :)

~SDC~
Reply #1962 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm going to be out of the office for a few hours today visiting a customer. :notsure:

Probably won't be a Metaverse Review again today. :(
Reply #1963 from Stardock Forums Top
Theoden of Rohan . . . no point strugling against the pressures of that dam thing called reality . . . better off doing it when your creative juices are flowing freely . . .
Reply #1964 from Stardock Forums Top
I've already thought of one scenario which I always wanted to try. That's playing against just 1 Incredible AI.
End of quote


Tried it once. Unfortunately the one AI got a corner start. (This was before I knew about the first turn influence bug.) I didn't bother finishing the game.

Btw it ranks as "simple"--it seems to be evaluated as if you had four sub-fool AIs.
[Message Edited]
Reply #1965 from Stardock Forums Top
Ray. Thanks. I think I will save hourly or so on a large game and do a retire to make sure I have points. In retrospect, the interface in the lower right corner (near the I key to inspect ships) got a little funny like two interfaces together at once so I saved the game ASAP. When I clicked the quit game the machine locked up and I had to reset button the machine, go through scandisk, etc. So there was something funny going on somewhere. In addition to routine saving and checking I guess my advice is to save ASAP if anything seems strange and then immediately retire the save games until one finds points.

I may play it again to see if it can be resuscitated at the point where the saved game shows points. Has anyone done that? It was a rare, large and after colonization, I had 4 planets, two other majors had 4 planets, one had 3 and two had 2. So it was a pretty even start (especially since I had the four LOL)and fun to play.

If it replays OK, I will post so others know a work-around for similar problems. I remember in one thread, several of us were moaning that "Gee, it would be nice to know if it is anomalous before we submit". It looks like we got our wish so that part of 1.1 is good.

Saw "Ferris Beuhler's Day Off" (1986) on DVD last night and thought it was very funny. For fantasy-fiction fans, I finally watched "Legend: The Director's Cut" (1986) on DVD. My wife and I thought it was really fun. I know they aren't brand new but back when they were made, I was working 16 hours per day and didn't get to watch them. Another fun fantasy-fiction flick I saw recently was "Willow". OK, time for this hobbit to try and govern the Terrans again.

And, vincible, what is the "first turn influence bug". Sounds like an infectious disease. LOL.

Rick
Reply #1966 from Stardock Forums Top
The first turn influence bug is pretty handy. You probably know that you can check the influence ratings of civs in various sectors using that colored button in the top right part of the screen. (I didn't figure this out until I'd played seven or eight games.) Anyway, the bug is that you can check influence in sectors you haven't explored yet. So on the first turn you can find out where all the civs are by clicking on various points on the map and seeing where they have influence. If you are so inclined, you can use this information in your colonization strategy.

I use it to make sure that I'll have some room to colonize--if I find I'm sharing a cluster with three other civs I can hit control N right away rather than playing half an hour before I find out the bad news.
Reply #1967 from Stardock Forums Top
vincible thank you; I didn't know that was a "bug" but some sort of nifty terran intelligence agents. ;)

I tried that large, crippling game again and it is history. After a few turns I hit retire and get zero mpts. Oh well, that's one out of fifty-something games that went anomalous so I am not complaining as long as it doesn't become the norm. I will have to live without having a crippling game in my player profile - at least for now. I think I might clean out my save games folders now instead of over-writing everything. Could that make a difference? Oh well - big deal. It's time for a maso.

Rick
Reply #1968 from Stardock Forums Top
Let's welcome the newest member of the Fellowship, gamer3999! :CONGRAT:

Do drop by and say hi, gamer3999.
Oh, and there is no need to read through the earlier 2000 posts. :)

~SDC~
Reply #1969 from Stardock Forums Top
Welcome to the FOTR gamer3999.

Won my first maso today and it is a totally different game because there is no money and the human is always behind until the end. In spite of reading this before I played, it was hard to comprehend until one has played it. I broke out laughing a few times when a minor is only going to give me 2 bc per turn for 20 turns for six or more techs. Of course that is better because the major will only give you 1 bc . . . for 6 or 7 turns. LOL.

I would hate to write a walk-through based on my game because I tried to culture bomb but the Dregs were awesome. So, I allied with them to stay alive and got in some wars I would have preferred to avoid. Forunately on tiny, rare setting, the alpha strike is a one planet affair but it is still hard to come up with the ships. I certainly did not dominate any part of the game.

The scoring is amazing. I played against all evil AI but otherwise was just trying to survive. While staying alive I researched enough to beat the computers to cultural max. I never did get cultural conquest and only researched 23 techs. I culture bombed with 153% starbases (6 constructors I think). About 4 to 6 do a nice job in one sector. I ended the contest ASAP before something bad happened without any score milking. I was able to put about 500 bc each turn into research at most so running the tech tree would have taken all night. LOL.

At the end, I was fourth in tech score, second in military, second in econ, and first in society. I had a around 5k bc at end so could have managed one or two terror stars max but I figured the culture-bomb constructors were cheaper. Plus I never made it to terror-star tech.

There are a couple of good things about maso so far. One is you are a weenie in the military department and the computer is awesome so you don't have to worry about sharks and pirates. LOL. Two is the metaverse scoring is so generous that you don't have to milk the score for a 23k game. My total score went up almost 12k and for the next 5 minutes (or less) I have a number 3 spot and a new medal. LOL.

OK. That was fun but it's now time for a movie. Thanks to Ray, vinicible, PontiousBruinPilate, Killa Koalla, Jeff DeSilva, Cotal and all who posted tips and walkthroughs especially on maso. I couldn't have done it without you. :)

Rick
[Message Edited]
Reply #1970 from Stardock Forums Top
Well done with the win and congrats on 3rd! :CONGRAT:

Glad you are enjoying the game. :)

~SDC~
Reply #1971 from Stardock Forums Top
Rick, vincible,

Cheese aside, how hard do you think Maso is over Crippling? Forget about scoring, I'm asking about difficulty.


~SDC~
Reply #1972 from Stardock Forums Top
I don't know how to judge. I've played enough that they're both rather easy at this point.

I guess the key thing is that I can't conceive of circumstances in which I'd lose on crippling, other than perhaps starting in a corner with three stars in a Gigantic galaxy (now *that* would be an interesting scenario). A bad start would wipe me out on maso, but I feel like if I get a good start with the proper starting picks I'll almost certainly win.

Other than that, I don't know how one would judge difficulty.

Congrats on third, Rick!

I just installed Galciv at work--I should have done this long ago ;)
[Message Edited]
Reply #1973 from Stardock Forums Top
Yeah, I know there is no good answer to that question but I wasn't looking for a "it's 37% harder" answer. :)

Personally I think it's at least twice as hard.

Once you get the hang of playing Maso, I feel Crippling simply does not become a challenge anymore.

Seems like there is certainly room for an intermediate level in between.

~SDC~
Reply #1974 from Stardock Forums Top
Once you get the hang of playing Maso, I feel Crippling simply does not become a challenge anymore.
End of quote


I will agree with that. If for some reason you fall behind on Crippling you just think "hey things were this bad the whole game last time."
Reply #1975 from Stardock Forums Top
OMG I'm never going to be able to play a game at home again. This work computer is SO much better than my pathetic home machine. Everything runs so much more crisply. Even the ships move faster.