Ray the Wanderer Ray the Wanderer

Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread

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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.”
475,493 views 2,185 replies
Reply #202 from Stardock Forums Top
Welcome back Staffa, I was hoping you wouldn't notice me moving past you ;)

Nar, I think I would need a good 10 games at 15k to reach 100k total. Can't do that in a week. Maybe two if I play non-stop.

And Pontius, the game can't be milked now, Brad said so :). I'm merely playing the game as Brad wants the game to be played, which is SimGC. I get my kicks now from the occasional Maso and the GOTM.

No worries, Gerakken. Due to the criticality of the mission, we need a first rate job from you. Take all the time you need.

Good luck bruinb77, do share your exploits with us!

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Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #203 from Stardock Forums Top
Congrats Ray on your silver medal.
End of quote


Thanks, Nemesis of Ray.
Reply #204 from Stardock Forums Top
Mad: I think you are coming to the same disillusioning consequences that I am. I submitted a defeat game and is _lowered_ my score. That of course encourages me to cherry pick and only submit certain games... this does not give the people of the metaverse an accurate picture of what players are like. Persoanlly I would liek to see low scores and defeats posted without penalty. it is a human truth that we often learn more form failures that sucess and I would like to ask the Big players about some of their failures and what happened in order to learn vicariously...

Cypher: Gads sounds like we did just submit the same type of game. I wanted a tech victory cause I had never had one. I am very upset about the point score though. I could play a medium map at beginner level and win military in one hour for 6300 points. Instead I played Huge, spent 20+ hours for 5500. Unbelieveable. it would have been MUCH easier to win military victory but that gives more points.... I can see there is no point winnign anyway other than military if you care about your metaverse score. Terrible shame, it robs the game of the only richness that separtes it from other 4X games. I think I will play Fallout tactics, SpellCross, and Jagged Alliance 2 for a while instead.
Reply #205 from Stardock Forums Top
Quite a number of us have come to this stage of disillusionment with the Metaverse, Theleb. The ones who get over it are still here in the forum. The rest are gone.

But to be fair to SD, there will never be a ladder that could cater to most players. For the camp who prefers similar scores for all 4 victory types, there will be those who think they should score differently. For the camp who says speed would be rewarded, there will be another who likes SimGC and smelling the flowers.

The only near unanimous factor is that difficulty should be the key component of scoring and unfortunately that issue is yet to be resolved. But it definitely indicates that most people would like the Metaverse to be more a reflection of skill than commitment.

If you find that you are unable to make peace with the Metaverse, then ignore the scoring aspects of the game. Play the game for fun.
Reply #206 from Stardock Forums Top
Play the GotM! :)
They are lots of fun. But I have to say that the most recent scenario is a huge pain in the butt. When you finish and read my AAR, you'll see why.
Reply #207 from Stardock Forums Top
Hey all. Thought I'd stop in and say hello.

That Ray, he's a committed recruiter. :D

I can't say I've been submitting much to the Metaverse lately, but the FotR is welcome to my crummy 20000 points.

Now maybe I should read those Tolkien books at some point... ;)
Reply #209 from Stardock Forums Top
Really glad you decided to join us Michael!

We try to find a good niche for ourselves in this Metaverse. I believe we are the only empire so far which has been explicit in saying that we would like to serve the community. We are also into discussing strategy and thinking up new ways of playing the game. Lastly, we enjoy roleplaying, with a fantasy flavour, not just Tolkien.

Now it would really be great if you continue to run the GOTMs and we have other Fellowship members running other game forms like the Sequential Games.

Speaking of which, no takers for Sequential Games playtesters?
Reply #210 from Stardock Forums Top
Ehh, I haven't heard any details on how to do the Sequential Games, yet. Mind filling me in? And whatever it is, I would like to try.

Welcome to the Fellowship, Michael.
Reply #211 from Stardock Forums Top
That's the game form we were discussing in posts 70+ where players take turns to play the same game towards different goals.

I posted in #112 asking for two playtesters to test out the concept. If you are keen, we would need another player to test/compete against you.
Reply #212 from Stardock Forums Top
70+? That's quite a number of players. I'll be game to be one of the testers. Just flesh out the details with me and we'll get started as soon as we have another.
Reply #213 from Stardock Forums Top
Funny Gengsta, I meant post numbers not players.

Great, Gengsta's in. Anyone wants to playtest this concept with him? It would be good if it could be someone in roughly the same time zone to speed things up. Gengsta's in Boston.
Reply #214 from Stardock Forums Top
Sorry! I was not paying attention. I'm writing up something to stir the Halls of the Fellowship.
Reply #215 from Stardock Forums Top
Alright guys, you know we were talking about playing Challenges in which a player is presented with an advanced game state in a near-hopeless situation. The Challenge is obviously to reverse that and win.

We potentially have one from Gibbie in which he is stuck in a corner and faced with a war against a powerful 3-way alliance.

I want suggestions on what we should call this type of Challenge. Let's crank those creative juices of ours.

First one from me :
The Phoenix Challenge - Rising from the Ashes
Reply #216 from Stardock Forums Top
Go for it, Gengsta, our MMORPG has quietened down too much for my liking.

And we have seen jaw-dropping role-playing stories in other empire threads recently.
Reply #217 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm practically next door to Gengsta, in Cambridge. I guess I might give it a try, but I should warn you that my schedule is really unpredictable. Some days I have hours and hours of free time, some days I have practically none.

Also I've never played any sort of sequential game, or any multiplayer 4X TBS game ever, so I might not be the best person to evaluate this.
Reply #218 from Stardock Forums Top
Has anyone ever tried a game versus just one Incredible AI, with the other four disabled? I'm curious as to whether it's easier or harder, presuming of course that you don't cheat by boxing it in the corner. I think it will be harder since you don't get to exploit trading, but you rushers might find it easier.

I think I'll give that a try in my next game.
Reply #219 from Stardock Forums Top
There is a difference in difficulty, but my guess is that it is comparable to all five enable. You cannot exploit the trading, but the AI doesn't trade amongst themselves either.

You'll have to make a very good grab and outnumber the AI's planets. You can still trade techs with the minors. In fact, when you do get ahead in tech, try catching the minors up by giving them prerequisite techs.

The rush is harder since you will have to take out so many more planets and the AI will have a population advantage.
The alliance is easier because you have only one AI to deal with.
Reply #220 from Stardock Forums Top
The only near unanimous factor is that difficulty should be the key component of scoring and unfortunately that issue is yet to be resolved. But it definitely indicates that most people would like the Metaverse to be more a reflection of skill than commitment.
End of quote


How can it be? How can it ever be if submissions are voluntary and we don't play against each other? The answer, my friend is blowin in the wind. WOOOOOOOSH!!! IT CAN'T!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOSH. The answer is blowin in the wind. When oh when will we stop chasing a pipe dream and just have fun?

Reply #221 from Stardock Forums Top
omg Gengsta

Unless there are multiple Maike Gengs in the Boston area (which is quite possible) we go to the same school. (Not sure if you want specifics made public.)
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Reply #222 from Stardock Forums Top
Ah, I was wondering if you are not going to show tonight, Pontius. Busy cranking out your next gigantic, are you?

You forget my friend that this is also Brad's dream as well. I've reposted his old posts where he talked about making the Metaverse ranking a vague reflection of skill and his dream scoring where there are big differences in scoring between difficulties.

But it's his Metaverse and his call on the scoring. I've just holding on to some faint hope that he would tweak the difficulty scoring someday. That would be the only change I would ask for in the current scoring mechanism.
Reply #225 from Stardock Forums Top
Hey, the Fellowship now becomes the Find Your Classmates website.

Tell us more, vincible and Gengsta!
We love reality TV.

Now this is a great story for our MMOROG. Two wizards who studied under the same Master!
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