As I'm not really playing MoO for the time I'm lacking some of the screenshots to finish off the Ship identification chart i wanted to make for myself. and I hate leaving a "project" halfway finished

So if you guys could use the ctrl +f5 in dos box to make a screenshot when the game ask You to identify a ship. I don't need the answers just the screenshot.
Please don't use windows screenshot functions. using dos box ctrl+F5 will make sure they all look alike despite different scale Engines and sizes

Thank you for any help

I really want to avoid spamming this forum, but I thought some of you might want to know that the alpha for ROTP is starting on June 1st. More info here: https://remnantsoftheprecursors.com/2016...week-away/

Thanks again for everyone's expert contributions!

Yee haw

since nothing is happening yet, there is a thread on civfanatics.
I expect it will be locked because of blasphemy sometime in the future.

any interest around here in civ2?

P.S. mod(s) can move this thread (topic) if this subforum is deemed inappropriate.

In the wake of T-Hawk's recent Civ 4 Adventures, and given the recent tenor of some of the Civ VI discussion, I thought it might be interesting and fun to revisit C3C, 15 years after Vanilla's release and more than 10 since its fanbase moved on. Is anyone else interested in this?

In particular, it is my belief that late-breaking patches have made the final version of C3C different in some important ways from anything that was ever played competitively on RB. This final version seems to have come into effect around the time of this game:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/archive/in...05224.html

which itself illustrates some of the changes. Most notably:

-- Self-research may be generally viable at high diffiulties. I have personally found this to be true, have beaten Deity several times with no GPT buys save the odd broker, and plan to mostly self-research in this game, if it occurs.
-- The AI seems better at conquering, especially vs other AI. At high difficulty, Pangaea and Continents maps often see single AIs (usually Agricultural ones) start to dominate large landmasses in the late Middle Ages or so.
-- Monster AI's in the above pattern will usually threaten an 100k culture win in the late Industrial Age, requiring invasion.

These changes make for a game that is harder and, IMO, much more fun than previous versions. But some things about the final version of C3C are still broken. I'd probably use a mod to make some changes for balance reasons, such as:

-- Lethal land bombardment removed from airplanes.
-- Medival Infantry cost raised from 40 to 45 shields. I have found this a pretty balanced (ie, offering a meaningful choice vs longbows) number, but am open to discussion on the exact amount.
-- Status of Zeus expiration moved up to Education.

I'd also lean towards the following changes:

-- SGLs removed to ease luck factors in wonder-building.
-- Armies nerfed significantly, possibly by removal from the game since the Conquests AI forgot how to use them.
-- Airplane range decreased.
-- Possibly UU-specific changes depending on our civ (0/1/3 Chasqui Scout? fixed Hwach'a?)

I'm open to discussion on all of these, and would also be open to other changes, if a consensus forms around them. We'd also be playing with standard RB exploit rules from way back when, unless there are lots of objections to that.

Game settings would be flexible, but I'd like them to include standard map size and continents or pangaea landforms to (hopefully) allow the AI changes to show up. As far as difficulty, my initial thoughts favor something around Demigod, providing challenge to old hands while allowing for some amount of rust-shaking (but let me know what difficulty you'd prefer).

Please tell me what you think! I am open to feedback and comments of all types.

This past weekend was Microsoft Puzzle Hunt 17. I and three friends contributed a module, including two puzzles by me. Here is one of them.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sr463rco5at7h9...1.PDF?dl=0

INTRODUCTION
The mornin' is already hotter than tarnation as you step into the saloon. You come up short, because there's already a whole passel of hombres crowdin' around the bar. In the corner, a lonesome piano man plays the tinkling strains of "Never Going To Give You Up". Standing on the bar, lookin' grim, there's a heavyset feller with a white beard and a sheriff's star just set to speechify. He waves you over to the rest.

"Now listen up here, folks. I hear tell that Bad Hoss has been lookin' to expand his operation here in Bangtown. I aim to see that he don't make no headway here. Trouble is..." he pauses, and careful pulls aside his duster to show off his well-used six-shooter. "I think some of you fellers have already taken that bad dude's coin."

You all stir, lookin' nervous-like at one another. It's a rough pack of gunslingers here, ten in all countin' yerself.

The sheriff smiles. "I have it on decent authority that some of you are secret bandits, but danged it if I know who. So here's the deal, padres. You are all hereby authorized as my deputies. Talk amongst yerselves, put in some votes all nice and legal-like...an lynch one son of a lick-eared sow each night. Help yourselves to the booze around here, but don't skip town."

With that, the sheriff stumps out of the saloon, lettin' the door swing wide as he left. You all stare at one another all quiet-like for a moment.

You have an item or two that might help, but using it here in the daytime ain't exactly good fer yer health. During the drunken and dark nights, though, gunshots and hollerin' means you can use 'em just about however you like.

Standard RB Werewolf Rules:
-Days are 48 hours long. Nights are 24 hours long.
-Days and nights end at 1300 CST / 1800 GMT. The forum clock is used as the official clock. Votes and actions posted at xx:59 count, votes and actions posted at xx:00 do not.
-Posting is not allowed after the day and night deadlines until the GM has posted a phase resolution.
-In the event of extended forum downtime or downtime that occurs in close proximity of the deadline or some other event that disrupts the game, the day may be extended 24 hours at the GM's discretion.
-During the day each player may cast one vote for someone to be lynched. Players may also vote for "no lynch" and if "no lynch" receives a plurality there won't be a lynch.
-Votes must be posted in red text or they will not count. Votes with spelling errors of names do count so long as it's unambiguous in the GM's opinion whom is being voted for. Votes embedded in quotes do not count.
-The player with most lynch votes at the end of the day is lynched and eliminated from the game. Normally, in the event that two or more players are tied for the most votes, the tied player that reached their current vote total first is lynched. (A gets to 4 votes first, B gets to 4 votes later in the day, A is lynched).
-Night actions have been preassigned a priority order.
-Anyone failing to vote for 2 consecutive game days or 3 days total will be mod killed and removed from the game with a loss.
-Dead players may make one posthumous post that doesn't contribute to discussion.
-Forum profile camping is not allowed.
-To prevent confusion that may arise in the case of cross posting, posts may not be edited for any reason.
-Players may not communicate with other players about the game outside the thread via PM, email, chat, quicktopics etc. unless told otherwise.
-Players must check their PMs and make sure they're alive each game day before posting.
-If all players are simultaneously eliminated, or the game reaches a stalemate situation, the game is a draw.
-The main scum faction (Bandits in this game) will win in a tie situation (like 3 scum 3 villager).
-Directly quoting role PMs or other communication from the GM isn't allowed unless otherwise specified.
-Breaking rules will result in penalties ranging from warnings to loss of abilities to being mod killed, depending on the severity of the infraction and the GM's discretion.

Werewolf 42 Notes:
This is a werewolf game with known player powers and randomly assigned items, largely used at night. Use of your item(s) is outlined in the item's text.
-All alignments are random; Novice might not be the Survivor.
-Your player character and powers is shown in the linked card; please place your card in your signature line as you see in mine.
-ALL ITEMS ARE ONE-TIME USE. You cannot use two items of the same type at night (so only one bullet, one beer, etc)

Alignment PMs:
Deputy- You are a fine, upstanding citizen of Bangtown, best city the territory has. You weapon is your vote, lynchin' by day...of course, during the drunken nights, your weapon is also your weapon...assumin' you can find some bullets.

Bandit-You are BANDIT, workin' for the horrible hombre of hate, Bad Hoss. You aim to take over this here town, might's well begin with these here deputies...

You speak with your fellow bandits all-quiet like day and night in the following QT:
[redacted link]
You can slip one of your compadres at most a single item from your hand during the night.

Player : Character

Novice Chuck Wingam http://i.imgur.com/i9o2sbW.jpg
Winston Kit Carlson http://i.imgur.com/ho6kudl.png
Lewwyn Pedro Raimirez http://i.imgur.com/ribzeGg.jpg
Psillycyber Vulture Sam http://i.imgur.com/LHT6ong.png
Zakalwe Paul Regret http://i.imgur.com/h4cKf8j.jpg
Rowain Slab the Killer http://i.imgur.com/Cli4E4t.png
Gazglum El Gringo http://i.imgur.com/ZFwBiFM.jpg
AdrienIer Belle Star http://i.imgur.com/DFPLpyn.png
Jabbz Lucky Duke http://i.imgur.com/KCgoxzN.png
Qgqqqq Calamity Janet http://i.imgur.com/RbWc1pP.jpg
Ryan Bill No-Face http://i.imgur.com/CmQTvVS.jpg

Anyone up for a casual game? Pitboss if we get enough people, PBEM otherwise.

Rules
Game version: RtR 2.0.7.4
Map type: Toroidal
Speed: Normal
Other map details & difficulty: Up to mapmaker
City and unit trading: banned
Espionage: Passive only
Barbs: on
Huts: off
Diplo: AI Diplo
Others: snake pick, see start before pick, don't be a jerk (e.g. double moves)

Roster
1. wetbandit & ipecac
2. Gawdzak & chumchu
3. OT4E
4. DTG + picklepikki
5. Borsche
6. dcodea (TBS backup?)
7. Nicolea Carpathia (maybe)
8. StarDoor
9. GSorel/DMOC
10. NylesStandish
11. Elkad
12. pindicator

I believe most of us are familiar with the Worst Wizard ever thread, which was about figuring out what is the weakest wizard you can play in vanilla MoM.
This thread aims to do the same for CoM now that every major spell and racial update is done.
Once we manage to come up with a conclusion, playing that wizard will be a new version of the challenge, which I'll attempt myself, and ofc encourage others to do that as well.

My thoughts :
Race
None of the races are particularly bad in CoM but I believe Lizardmen is far the least suited for high difficulty games. While their fast growth is a decent advantage and their units even have good stats, the aggressive and reckless settling required for this race to function well is not viable on high difficulty where you are unlikely to be able to protect your territory or avoid wars.
Halflings would be my second choice, while they are a pretty great race as a whole, their lack of strong military for the entire game aside from slingers and magicians (which means major vulnerability to any Sorcery wizards) can be crippling on max difficulty. Still, they can be potentially good so I'm not so sure about this.
Barbarians, although they have severe building limitations, can most likely pull off a successful invasion in the early game with superior and faster military so they might not be the worst possible choice at all, but worth considering.
High Men, while a quire superior race, have a really bad early game with the additional unrest and no racial benefits until mid tier units, but they're definitely not bad enough for this challenge.
Klackons are one of the stronger races in the mod, High Elves were and still are top tier, Orcs are quite good, and Gnolls have a too strong early game without having most of the restrictions on barbarians.
Nomads however, while a good race on its own, can be pretty bad if the proper land options are chosen due to their no granary limitation : on Dry land I would assume they would be rather underperforming.
All of the Myrran races are awesome, so those are definitely not an option.

Books/Retorts
Runemaster, while a good retort, is expensive at 2 picks and contributes nothing unless you have high end spells that need to be protected from dispelling. Cheaper Arcane spells are useful, but not particularly good. Stronger dispelling, although powerful, at the highest difficulty level, not so much, enemy wizards will likely recast their dispelled enchantments way faster than usual.
Myrran sounds like an obvious choice if not playing the better races but it actually is not : Not having to compete for land against 3 other wizards in the early game is a major benefit....unless playing Barbarians, who strongly rely on finding enemy cities to conquer.
Sage Master is a good way to waste a pick, while researching faster is a good thing, doing so without having enough spell books to get spells that are worth it is ideal.
Charismatic, while it helps in diplomacy, on high enough difficulty merely helps AI wizards to develop even faster due to the player maintaining peace and not wasting their resources with wars. It's an especially bad pick for Barbarians, I would skip it for Lizardmen though who benefit greatly from not getting into early wars.
Cult Leader is perfect for Barbarians who cannot build the buildings that benefit from the ability, but probably should not be taken with Halfling.
Famous, while a good retort, without proper spells to keep heroes alive is not very useful and might be a good way to waste another pick.
Chaneller is another excellent retort to have, but it's more of a late game one, in the early game distance penalties are not harsh enough to really matter, and this costs 2 full picks. It's one of the stronger picks taken but other options would be even better so it has to be done. Also, Channeller is only as strong as the spells we can spend mana on, and we are going to make sure we don't have those at all.
Finally, taking 1 book of every realm means only common spells can be learned found or traded for -aside from one researchable uncommon per realm - and no spell is given at all at the beginning. However, since quite a few retorts are good with heroes, to deny access to healing and resurrection, I believe Life books should not be taken.
This leaves 1 pick to use which I would probably use on Artificier, which is not not cumulative with Runemaster and the spells can only be traded for commons so they have no value either.
Although Artificier+Famous+Charismatic is an excellent hero strategy, without Life magic to keep heroes safe and level them up, and lacking ways to get the resources to buy or create the items, they're still the weakest retort one can get.

So the 12 picks should be 1 of each book except Life, Runemaster, Famous + Charismatic or Cult Leader depending on race, Artificier, Chaneller, Sage Master

Land options
With Lizardmen, the my "worst" choice would be Huge land, poor minerals, and Dry climate : not only would it be impossible to take advantage of water walking, but the low population limits from deserts would disable the advantage of fast growth, and poor minerals would make sure those deserts do not contain ores to help either.
For halflings I would probably do Huge, rich and wet, the extra resources and generally more fertile lands would help computer players a lot, while quickly building a large number of Halfling towns does not hep much due to their weak and one-sided military.
For barbarians, Tiny land would hurt especially hard, as they'd be stuck conquering nothing for a long while, poor minerals and dry climate keeping them even more starved for resources.

Portrait
This depends on whether the game is played with optional portraits or not, but I believe the least threatening enemy wizard in the game is all Life, meaning Ariel or Reimu. Due to heavy influence of Life, they tend to get the least aggressive personalities and objectives, on top of lacking early summons.
Patchouli might also be a good candidate to take because playing her, the AI gets more common and fewer rare spells due to having all 5 realms, which is exactly the bad strategy this game will attempt to do. The original portraits do not have a wizard of this type however.
Sorcery+Death is particularly powerful in the mod so I would not want to take out Kali/Yukari.

Hey there,

I've been browsing the pitboss archive and I just got a "Website is offline" error, blaming the host.

Just letting ya know.

Page loaded fine after the fact...