Bug description
When attacking a city the game crashes and plops out of existence.
This is the first crash I've had since I started playing Insecticide 1.40n.
Up till now it never crashed.
Versions
This bug is present in insecticide 1.40n.
As yet untested on 1.31.
Confirmation
Confirmed by shirts. See next comment.
Save game & Reproduction Here's a save game.
When attacking the city with the 2 heroes on myrror the game crashes instantly.
Combat starts, enemy wizard casts a spell, crash. Blurred text on screen says "Divide error" and a DOS prompt.
Analysis
There's also something wrong with Shalla.
On the overland map all is good, but in (another) combat she shows up as invisible as zero hit points.
But when inspecting her, she looks fine.
Since the general chess thread is a little cluttered and some players didn't like the "spoilers" during the last team match I think it makes sense to open an extra lurker thread for this match.
This way players and lurkers who like to chat can join in here, while others can play their games undisturbed.
(October 25th, 2013, 08:30)Rowain Wrote: Looking at the ELO-rating of the opponents I'm not sure this pairing is so much better than the cancelled one .
Good Luck folks
The last pairing had two players above 2050 and two more above 1800, so it's at least a slight improvement.
And I have no doubt that the brave players of Team RB will defend our undefeated record! (if not we can still make fun of them in this thread )
My predictions:
uberfish (1669) - Mitkis (1785) 1.5-0.5
If uberfish can get a wild game with lots of tactics he can win any game. However, he is not as strong in positional play, therefore I think he will have to concede one draw.
Makholm (1558) - HummingTheBlues (1752) 1-1
Makholm sometimes has great games, but also sometimes plays the occasional blunder, so I think this one will end 1-1
pindicator (1545) - franpedre (1757) 2-0
There is no doubt that pindicator is vastly underrated, while his tactical strength is only average, his superb positional understanding and solid play will net him 2 wins if he doesn't enter totally crazy positions.
regoarrarr (1507) - abeluchin (1676) 1-1
rego is a solid all around player with no particular strengths or weaknesses for his level of play, so I think this one is a tie.
Jkaen (1383) - KINGLOU (1669) 1-1
Jkaen's problem is technique, which means he gets great positions against much stronger players but has trouble converting them. If he keeps his cool he can win any game, but I don't think it will work in both games, so I am leaning towards 1-1.
DavidCorperial (1247) - a123xxsp (1633) 0.5-1.5
This is a matchup with a rather big rating difference. However, I am confident DavidCorperial can reach a draw in at least one of the games, maybe in both.
Once upon a time, there was a certain succession game. In it, a team played a fairly typical game of FFH with one crucial caveat- they were forbidden to communicate or plan in any form. What unfolded was one of the most glorious SG's to grace the RB forums.
I am now looking for 11 or more brave souls to join me in attempting to vaguely recreate that experience in PBEM form.
The rules & key settings for the game are as follows:
* Four teams of at least three players each (more are encouraged!)
* Players on each team take 10-turn shifts.
* Players are absolutely forbidden to communicate with each other regarding any aspect of the game through any means while either of them is participating in the PBEM. Essentially, No Talking. Don't be the guy who tries to provide worker micro in cryptograms.
* Diplomacy is allowed, with the following conditions:
Players can't have anyone pass information to their teammates for them.
All correspondence must be run through Google Translate in the following order before transmittal: English -> [three subsequent discrete foreign languages] -> English again.
* Signs and naming of units, cities and leaders / civs is allowed, as long as players don't violate the "no coordination / communication" rule.
* All teams play as Perpentarch- civs will be set to "random" (unrestricted leaders).
* Map will be randomly generated, with as many random settings as possible. Quick speed, size is open to debate.
* Spoiler threads are per-player instead of one-per-team. Try to keep yours updated- reading what the heck your teammates were thinking after the game is half the fun!
* Game is with EitB v9.
* Have fun & don't take anything too seriously.
So, who is interested? Players of all skill levels are encouraged to join! Especially anyone hilariously inept at basic management! I myself haven't touched FFH in over a year and am so rusty my PC has tetanus.
Once there is a pool of at least a dozen players we can sort into teams by timezone & get rolling. No need to wait for some sissy mapmaker!
-----
Game / Concept Settings:
* Four teams of at least three players each, with room to grow.
* Players on each team take either 10-turn shifts or pick a random number between 8-12, depending on team preference.
* Players are absolutely forbidden to communicate with each other regarding any aspect of the game through any means while either of them is participating in the PBEM. Essentially, No Talking. Don't be the guy who tries to provide worker micro in cryptograms.
* Diplomacy is allowed, with the following conditions:
Players can't have anyone pass information to their teammates for them.
All correspondence must be run through Google Translate in the following order before transmittal: English -> [three subsequent discrete foreign languages] -> English again.
* Signs and naming of units, cities and leaders / civs is allowed, as long as players don't violate the "no coordination / communication" rule.
* All teams play as Perpentarch- civs will be set to "random" (unrestricted leaders).
* Map will be randomly generated, with as many random settings as possible.
* Spoiler threads are one-per-team, or per player depending on team preference. Updates are strongly encouraged- reading what the heck your teammates were thinking after the game is half the fun! Obviously all turn-reports and everything even tangentially related to the game must be safely enclosed within spoiler tags. And yes, this goes for lurker posts as well.
* Game uses EitB v9.
* Have fun & don't take anything too seriously.
-----
Map Settings:
* Orcus on
* Barb activity set to standard
* Emperor difficulty
* All Unique Features
* Whatever the Double Random Events option is (is on)
* Hyborem and Basium are allowed, but none of that fancy human take-over stuff (so no summoning an RB buddy to help out).
Also, in the interest of not over-centralizing the game, Cultists are banned if and only if it is clear to a global lurker from every team's start that the map is something akin to tiny islands archipelago (meaning not only a lot of water but also very small landmasses).
All other settings are whatever are the EitB defaults.
-----
Player Roster and Emails:
1. Bobchillingworth [Bobchillingworth at gmail.com]
2. Selrahc [selrahctheeternal at gmail.com]
3. Mardoc [rbmardoc at gmail.com]
4. Qgqqqqq [hawk2370 at gmail.com]
5. Yell0w [rbY3110w at gmail.com]
6. The Black Sword [ben(dot)quigley2(at)mail(dot)dcu(dot)ie]
7. Ellimist [Ellimistbeyond at gmail.com]
8. DaveV [rbdavev9 at gmail.com]
9. HidingKneel [hidingkneel at gmail.com]
10. Nicolae Carpathia [nicolaecarpathia420 at gmail.com]
11. Sareln [Sareln09 at gmail.com]
12. Azarius [rbazarius at gmail.com]
----
Teams:
1. Team Plays At Night: Selrahc, Sareln, The Black Sword (roughly 17:00 - 22:00 GMT)
2. Team Plays Late At Night: HidingKneel, Yell0w, Mardoc (roughly 21:00 - 3:00 GMT)
3. Team Plays Even Later At Night: Ellimist, Azarius, Bobchillingworth (roughly 23:00 - 4:00 GMT)
4. Team Nightmarish Mishmash Of Timezones: Nicolae Carpathia, Qgqqqqq, DaveV (roughly 3:00 - 14:00 GMT)
----
Tracker Info:
We will be using an automated email system to forward & receive turns. Simply email your save file to ffh.31.tracker {at} gmail.com (no subject or body next necessary), and the tracker will automatically pass the turn on to the next team in line. You can access the tracker using the password "tracker31", which is useful for finding out who sent the turn last if the game becomes inexplicably stalled. Note that logging into the tracker means you'll encounter spoilers about who is currently playing on every team, so try to get a lurker to do it for you or ask permission first in this thread.
Note on Late Signups: Due to the nature of the game, anyone can join at any time provided they are unspoiled and a team is willing to take them. Unspoiled non-lurkers are encouraged, since there's roughly a 300% chance we're going to lose a player or two before the game finishes. Note that there is no such thing as a "dedicated lurker" in this game for teams. You can lurk for an individual player (although why you'd want to is beyond me), but you can only substitute for their share of turns should the need arise.
----
Note on Diplomacy: Diplomatic correspondence should be posted in spoiler tags directly in the thread of whatever team a player wishes to communicate with. Please don't abuse the privilege of visiting your opponent's team threads , and keep out until you actually have contact. Cool people will also post copies of any missives in their own turn reports, for ease of future lurking.
Reminder that all messages must adhere to the following rules:
Players can't have anyone pass information to their teammates for them.
All correspondence must be run through Google Translate in the following order before transmittal: English -> [three subsequent discrete foreign languages] -> English again.
And that's all! Go nuts!
Why do I keep switching between the 2nd & 3rd person tenses? It's craaaazy!
I was getting kind of bored of solo queue, so I was wondering if there would be any interest in arranging a semi-formal RB LoL night, or at least to co-ordinate times so a few of us are on at the same time and can play together. A few of us used to play semi-regularly on the NA server and it was really fun, but numbers have thinned out recently so I thought I'd start another recruitment drive. Either ranked teams or normal would be fine (even ARAM at a push I guess, although I find that mode really boring!). The emphasis will be on having fun and becoming better. Either of the main servers (EUW/NA) are fine; a few RBers have level 30 accounts on both, including me.
If there are any newer players who'd like to play some informal games with other people from RB, feel free to add me (Terror Incognita on both EUW and NA).
I had in mind to write up a somewhat-concise wikia article on lair treasure, and I have reached a point where there is not a whole lot more I can do on my own to research this subject in MoM without knowledge of the code. ILSe, RJAK, and Twilight have been a great help to me in getting details right in other articles for the game, and I thought I would come here to see if I could get some advice on treasure.
Please be aware that the wiki I'm submitting to, though 650 pages, is still plodding through the vanilla (1.31) ruleset and it seems like we aren't yet coming through with patch info until things either get really tidy or lots of people suddenly start showing up and editing that information in. So, 1.31.
The issue in 1.31 is that the seeding of items seems, well... strange. The Prima Guide is inaccurate on a bunch of specifics, and this is one of them; it advises that any item below 3000 mana is fair game for normal loot, and that this is uncapped in the case of acquiring a "failed special" (an artifact discovered which replaces a retort or spellbook that fails to show up can be any of the 250 items).
This is of course bugged and not true, but it appears that certain items from the 250 will never appear in loot due to properties they have. I knew this from years of play, though having done some botting in the game this week some trends became rather stark (but still without me being able to say something conclusive about A LOT of items). I popped ten lairs in different maps 1000-2000 times apiece, and certain plain items are heavily favored by the RNG. Items with colored properties tend to be far less frequent. And some items just seem arbitrarily impossible to find. Book restrictions (as enforced in insecticide) are not evident. General summary and lists located here.
Anyhow the goal will either be to provide someone's exalted explanation of HOW the game selects items in treasure, or a basic list of these items. Any help is appreciated; for instance, if you've seen an item I've listed in the above link as unsure or prohibited, definitely pipe in here...
Settings:
Game speed Normal
No elephants
No blockades
Everyone starts with scout
Barbs ON
Huts OFF
Events OFF
Corps on/off? OFF
Vassals on/off? OFF
Espionage? Passive Only
Tech trading? OFF
Method to pick civ/leader? Normal Snake Pick
Diplomacy? AI diplo
See the start before picking leader/civ YES
Bans? Nukes, India, Inca, Pacal, Willian.
Serdoa has offered to make the map so we will play on that. This is an idea of map:
1) Several continents, no one isolated.
2) Non-mirrored starts.
3) Due to 2: Balanced but I can't guarantee that one does not feel that the grass on the other pasture is greener.
3.1) Balanced meaning equal number of happy (but not necessarily the same), close approx. of one of copper, horse or iron - stone and marble completely random via random.org giving me a tile-number to put it and it be put on the nearest land-tile.
3.2) Check to have late game strategic resources available, but not necessarily next to your capital.
4) NO pre-placed improvements or similar stuff.
5) Relatively natural looking though I reserve the right that not all of the map will, if it is necessary for balance or simply makes for a more interesting (read strategic) game.
6) Circum-nav available.
Serdoa will set the difficulty depending on the wrap of the map.
About the pick order, at this point I will ask Krill to do it but he can't so I think that someone could ask Plako to do it, if he is to busy then we can ask Brick. I guess everyone will trust that none of then are going to scrub anyone on purpose.
This is it guys, this is the settings for PB16 now if you don't like it you can drop off the game. If there is not enough people to play then we call off this game and wait for another.
The Cat Lady describes itself as an indie gory horror adventure game, though I would classify it more as a dark psychological adventure, at least it didn't scare me so far.
I feel the story is quite interesting: Susan is a depressed lady who tries to kill herself in he beginning of the game. However, she doesn't really die, but gets stuck in-between the world of the living and the dead and is eventually sent back to the world of the living in order to kill 5 murderous sociopaths known as "The Parasites". Susan can not die (again) until all 5 of these people are dead.
The Cat Lady has a great atmosphere. If you like a dark, depressed, gloomy and gory game once in a while I'd recommend that you check it out.
At the moment the game is on sale at the developer's site for a mere 6.39 Euros without any DRM and the soundtrack is included. The Cat Lady is greenlighted and will be released on Steam soon - every buyer gets an additional Steam key later. A demo is available as well.
I'm wondering what Extreme difficulty does, exactly. The only documentation says:
"new difficulty level "Extreme", same as Impossible, but with 25% lower AI bonuses"
In the official strategy guide, Table 28.1 on p.397 has a list of what changes between difficulty levels. The relevant parts are quoted below. I guessed at some of the values for Extreme based on Impossible * 0.75.
Code:
Table 28.1 Game Difficulty Summary
Area Affected Intro Easy Normal Hard Extreme Impossible
Initial spell/skill 11 11 11 13 ?? (14) 15
picks for CPs
CPs must select from No No No Yes ?? Yes
limited starting races*
1 or 2 CPs must start No No No Yes Yes Yes
on Myrror?
Median time between 46 40 38 36 ?? 33
random events
End game victory point .5 .75 1.0 2.0 ?? 3.0
multiplier
CP = computer player
* Only halflings, high elves, high men, klackons, or nomads can be chosen when starting on Arcanus
** Multiplies the adjusted total amount produced on a per city basis, rounded down
I know that Insecticide removes the "CPs must select from limited starting races" restriction, which I like. Makes the game less boring to see more races on Arcanus. I also know that it is quite possible that the official strategy guide is wrong, seeing that it makes references like "this will be fixed in v1.3". I would like to update this table and add it to the documentation.
Online Users
There are currently 127 online users. »2 Member(s) | 125 Guest(s) Borsche, pindicator
.
, and keep out until you actually have contact. Cool people will also post copies of any missives in their own turn reports, for ease of future lurking. 
