Hi,

sorry for starting a new thread about the "We fear you are becoming too advanced" subject, but the forum software seemed to have hit a "We fear you are discussing too much" limit - I was unable to access Sirian's last reply to the old thread, both in "linear" and "threaded" display mode. All I got was the second last page, or a different reply. The only method I was able to read his reply was by clicking "post reply" and scroll down...


Emphasis on following quote are mine:

Jester Wrote:Perhaps it was merely an unfortunate coincidence. It might be that your score (or perhaps your tech lead) was raised by exactly the amount required to seal off further trading.

It might not be the AIs keeping track of what you traded, so much as they each make a decision based on your tech level, your score, and your trading history with them.

Sirian Wrote:Is it AIs vs the player, ala Civ2? No.

I'm finding that my reports for these adventures are getting bigger and bigger - and posting it directly in the forum doesn't work as well when you have some 50+ pictures and huge blocks of text.

So I decided that I had better get a website to put my reports; I started working on a geocities one, but unless I get a paid account my max space is only 15megs - which doesn't seem like a lasting solution. Despite working in the search engine industry for a few years before returning to school I, sadly enough, know next to nothing about website creation/hosting/etc. etc. I guess I'd be willing to pay a small amount per month if need be, I just don't know if it is a better deal to go with a mass provider, or get my own domain and find someone to host it, or...what.

Thanks, and sorry for the dumb questions
-Xenikos

DISCLAIMER: LONG first post:
First, some background . . .
I've been down with Civ since day one, but always remained at a novice, "princely" level throughout my 'career' (if you could call it that) ~ even now, i only consistently win on noble via time victories 90-95% of the time ~ unacceptable to me.

It's only been over the past week or so (literally) that i've come to see the more strategic, chess-like, aspects to the game and have come to a MUCH deeper appreciation of it in many regards. Now, ideas like 'strong/weak cities' or 'an agressive city' actually MEAN something to me, and I can see how these things all affect game play. well, DUH you may say

What changed my understanding was the reports on this board, first found via sullla's walkthrough. Once i read that, i was 'hooked' as it were. I went through all his records there, and followed the links (where i continued to devour records, like a civ locust going from website to website). So, by the time i came to the forums, here, i had a pretty good (PRET-TY, PRET-TY good) inkling of the Epic 1 game and the Extreme Azteskimo Adventure game. So, before i had skimmed through only 1 or 2 reports of Adv 1, i decided to take on the warlord 'challenge' just to prove my mettle, as it were (rather than ranting, I believe this smiley is praying feverishly)

So, keeping my cheating in mind (in that i had some information about the layout and such), my results were:
Diplomatic Victory (backdoor Domination really)
1872 AD
Score: 21865
Game Score: 5076

Herewith are my Meditations on RBCiv Adventures 1:
During the initial exploration, as London built a warrior, i came upon Isabella. Here was my most flaggerent cheating offense. As Izzy's warrior moved east, i declared and sacked her city. Now, i must say, that i don't think that i'd've EVER thought of that move on my own, though now it seems perfectly logical enough (if their first warrior is exploring, of COURSE nobody's home).

I built a scout or two, an archer perhaps, explored, met the others and founded York on the ruins of the Spanish 'empire'. I nabbed Judaism shortly thereafter, and began spreading the faith as well as my English progeny. City 3 went btwn the horse and wine, on the outlying grassland north of London. City 4 nabbed the copper, deer and sheep southwest of it. I built up my cities and my infrastructure, spread Judaism (Frederick and Peter converted; only Asoka remained ~ a Hindu). I built two cities on the northern peninsula that: one in the east to act as a canal and nab the wheat, the other in the west to grab the iron and the fish.

I got both Fred and Pete to declare on the infidel Asoka, and, shortly thereafter, Fred asked for help. I obliged, deciding that instead of having a core of a few, strong cities to settle the new world and win by space, i would move for domination. I quickly took out Asoka, leaving him wiht only one city on the small island lying north (almost, the 'England' of this 'old world'). [ed. note: now, after the fact, i see that i should've used my army to go after fred or peter (prob. Fred=only 4 cities) in order to secure the domination, but "say lavey" ]

So, with half of the Old World mine, I set off for the New, not minding the smaller islands to the north. Found a city on the island halfway btwn the continents, sacked one barb (took me several days to realize barb meant was short for barbarian ~ i thought it was the real world 'barb' ) city in the north, two more in the north over the course of my settlement. Once i had 99% of the New World done, I still had only about 61% of the land.

D'oh!!

Not wanting to take the time to settle the northern islands, i build the united nations (though now i realize that, for time and scoring purposes, i should've dropped sci to buy the UN faster, but . . .) Got the diplo. victory in 1872, w/Freddie voting for me and Pete being the other candidate (but i didn't need any other votes anyway).

Conclusion: Well, i cheated, so that skews things a bit to say the least. Even still, being that i consider myself a seriously weak and 'thoughtless' player (or at least I was), i was proud of my win ~ a win on warlord is betting than a Time on Noble, at least for last night it was.

So, i'm off to play Epic 1 and Adv 2, even though I know the scenarios inside and out at this point. a)it IS random to some degree, so my game won't be exactly the same as the others, and b)on Noble (and esp. Monarch levels) i need all the help i can get.

The latest in a long line of rants from the PvP community is this: The Lieutenant's Helm. It's only available in the Henge of Denravi ("Home of Hated Equipment"), costs 500 gold, 8 steel ingots, and 2 bolts of silk to craft. 60al, +10al 'gainst physical, and lacks an innate attribute boost.

There's a pretty good reason why it's so disliked. Notice the mod?

It's an absolute hex-killer.

Curious, I dropped some of my rapidly-diminishing stores of materials and cash onto buying this (In the last week or so, as my thoughts turn towards PvP, I've bought a full set of Droknar's Gladiator's, runes for that set that matches my main, a new pair of Platemail boots that I'd destroyed to get a major/vigor rune off of when I found a sup, a pair of Stonefists, a pair of platemail gloves that I also destroyed in rune salvage... Oh, and orange dye for the lot. Just as well I'm cheap on that account.) and ran a test run in Grenth's Footprint while ostensibaly looking to capture Dwarven Battle Stance (That Droknar's hammer was expensive too.). Two, hideously painful and long-lasting hexes being Rust and Ice Spikes.

Yep, I can say that halfing the hex duration was really beneficial in both counts. Man, I can't honestly believe that this helm has slipped through the cracks for so long.

Jormund on the Guild Hall forum (A primarily PvP one, which makes me wonder why the hell I still hang around there) did some more experimentation with the Lieutenant's Helm and some Me/N hexes in this thread and the numbers are quite astounding. Want to reduce a crippling hex specced at 12 down to 0? Slap this helm on yer noggin and go wild in the arenas. The only skill that's actually more damaging with the helm is Wastrel's Worry.

But basically, as reaction to Jormund's post, people are jumping on the bandwagon in asking for the removal of this helm. Anet required less prompting to remove the infamous SoA axe.

Personally, I'd like to see this helm added to the PvP pre-made list for reasons I can't exactly explain. In short it boils down to this: The SoA could be farmed en masse by someone prepared to rush pre-Searing and a few post-Searing quests. To get the Lt. Helm you have to make it to an oft-skipped outpost in an oft-skipped part of the PvE campaign to get something that only one person of one particular prime profession can use.

But meh, it'll probably get removed soon. Not even "removed" in the same way that the Denravi Sword was, but retroactively wiped from the game like the SoA axe.

First post here. Hopefully not the last. Hoping to do an adventure 4 report.


Anyway I read about city specialisation in lots of posts here and think it might be a good thing to try as I have massive economy problems in every game I play.

However something occured to me. Say I go for a commerce city how do I get my workers to build the right land improvements? Is the only way micromanagement (hope not as one of the things that attracted me to civ4 is the worker automation seems soooo much better than previous attempts), or if I set the city manager to commerce (the coin) will the workers play ball and build the best commerce improvement on the tiles available?

I will get this economy thing licked one day.

I must say as an ex "expand like crazy to win" TM civ2/3 player this is a bit of a culture shock

I started a new game this weekend picking Asoka on an archipeligo map settings Prince on a small world on Epic speed. So I can peacefully build my way to te end. Or so I think

I start on some island find my capital and directly find Genghis next door. So the first setback not completely alone well I'll remove him and then finish peacefully right?

Well declaration comes he drops 2 warriors near my capital where to chariots clear them up. I have Horses, Iron and Copper he has none of these
So the invasion begins and i built some units of which 2 swordsman survive with level 3 city raider going to 17 exp and 2 others already got past 17xp and got strenght upgrades as extra's. I'm still not aware where this will lead so hang on and some screens will come

Now I founded hinduism (didn't ever get a Phrophet even with good chances popped 3 Merchants instead) my other neighbour, Saladin a real believer like Isabella, who founded buddhism. Can you feel it coming? Yup declaration from Saladin. He drops some meager offence on my lands which i dispatch with the some chariots I used on Genghis's effort. In the meanwhile I ship my troops from the west to the east. I made peace with Genghis because I took all nearby cities and he settled somewhere far off. Now I start on Saladin ripping away his closest city joining it to my empire razing another and capturing his capital (budhist holy city). Those best 2 sword get to 26xp and get cover upgrades Saladin has no iron or copper either GREAT!

I'm moving up north where one of my swords hits 37xp and becomes level 7 and I'm like that's an elite sword


Now I wipe Saladin from the world and get another sword towards 35xp. I start going to builder again and spread buddhism to get shrine income to compensate for expenses. Somewhere there I decide to get my sword even higher up the promotion ladder. This quickly becomes the goal off this game

So i ship some units with my two great elite swords to genghis's last three cities. They rack a few xp points there aswell. Quite uneventfull wiped Genghis off the board happened soo quick So What next? Well Mao obviously he cancelled open borders and three trade deals anyway (I'd have done the same with such an aggressive player but hey ).

So from northwest to the extreme south with those swords here the most elite one with some other units in front off Beijing.


He'd smack down two units there and finally enter Being. Time to pick promotion number nine WOOHOO.


Now that is some list of promotions isn't it?

Bummer Asoka ain't aggresive and the unit wasn't build with vas+theo+pent+ WP.

Ohh shut up by that time you don't build swords anymore stupid!

Uhm, sorry about that.

Back to the units. Oh yeah Mao got to meet Saladin and Egypt. I lost my second best unit at 50xp that was a bummer he had good odds too
So it's down to the last one! (That's both that sword already around 70xp and Egypt).

Egypt has longbows, pikes and maces so i better watchmy step. Some screenies failed here but the frigates and cats nicely reduced defenses. Longbows fall easy to my sword my cav's deal with his maces and in the capture of Egypt's second last city my Swordsman reaches level 10!! His current promotions. Combat I-IV, Cover and City Raider I-III. So what else??


Commando offcourse and without healing I send him storming at Egypt's last city with a Longbow fortified on a hill (defenses reduced) ....


He wins and gets two more experience ending him at 84xp. The cavalry also on that square finishes the job and I win a conquest victory.

I just wanted to share this with you all it isn't a real complete story because I didn't plan it that way

Conclusion:
I had clear goals and plans on the start and I love the way it turned out completely different. Asoka's Organized and Spiritual traits where still usefull so I could adapt pretty well. I love the promotions system where a sword stays usefull. I have to admit I was at a loss when I first upgraded a 26xp unit to find him at 10/35xp for the next level, though I guess that balances it somewhat. It might need a bit of tweaking, like retaining 1/2 it's current xp or something similar to that. Anyway, anyone care to tell about the highest promoted unit they got?

So....it's been a while since I played Diablo, Classic that is, and I figured I should finish Otrere's tale. After re-reading Otrere's Tale on the Stories page, I realized, I needed to re-start her at Nightmare level.

Unfortnately, that means starting from scratch and rebuilding her. And dusting of the unused braincells for Amazon rules, LOL rules, as well as tidbits of how to defeat certain creatures when encountered.

As I've run her up to 17th level, I started to wonder if there was a glitch in the system when unique items started dropping. I've seen more uniques in the last two weeks than my entire time playing years ago. Anyone else notice that? hehe should ask if anyone still has their CD.

Anywho, I'm on the b.net in Otreres_quest.

Otrere hunts again...

Rakhir

Hi all,
I have a question concerning that of my computer. I have a high speed computer and that whenever i play guild wars, it shuts down by itself. is it becuase I have too many quest at the same time, fighting too many enemies or what?
I have another question:
When ever I use my speakers (I know this has nothng to do with Guild Wars) it has a very disturbed sound like that of a radio with bad signal. What should I do?

Forgive me for my utter noobness, but despite reading about the rules and spirit of RB, I still don't understand the differentiation between epics and adventures. For some reasons, the epics "seem" to have a greater level of status attached to them, though that perhaps is just my perception.

But how do they differ? By gamespeed alone? But how does the difference between a normal and epic game compare to the difference between games on warlord and monarch? A change of tactics is required, for sure, but that's true for Adventure 1 through 4, too.

After all, everyone plays the same game. The rules are the same for everyone. Why not a game on Quick or Marathon? Or an adventure on Epic speed?

Does it have to do with the amount of preparation by the game sponsor? Assuring a desired "experience", that is dependant on the game speed?

Sadly, I missed Epic One, but according to my hall of fame I've played 3 of my five games on epic. Just goes to show how much I suck; I didn't even notice a difference

So we've had our first "Gentle Adventure". I'd like to get feedback from those who played the game, or who would consider playing games from this line of "easier than normal" games.

* What did you think?

* Did anybody (who did or didn't report) have a hard time with this one?

* Was it too gentle?

* Should most "Gentle Adventures" be set up to play on Noble level, in the future?

* Anything else you'd care to add?


Your feedback will be used to help determine future scenarios. Thanks.


- Sirian