The Gaming Den

So anyone online right now want to email me the dom3.exe file?

I'm trying to get it installed on my work laptop by a combination of the demo installer and patches. I've got my legit cd key, so I just need the real exe file.

email address is myusername.dreams@gmail.com

(Don't have my real media because the eshop DL link has timed out, and my real installer is on my home computer at home)

tried an email, got this back:

This is the Postfix program at host karen.lavabit.com.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.

The Postfix program

<myusername.dreams@gmail.com>: host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com[74.125.157.27]
said: 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist.
Please try 550-5.1.1 double-checking the recipient's email address for
typos or 550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces. Learn more at
550 5.1.1 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answ ... nswer=6596
p7si2906034ybk.92 (in reply to RCPT TO command)

Here's an MF link:

http://www.mediafire.com/?u2ie5xdbb13z8bo

EDIT: as of my post right now, you have 1337 posts. I find that funnier than I should.

It's a tradition to remark on it.

It's actually 'my user name' like.. cthulhu.dreams I was mixing it up to avoid the spammers!

Anyway, mediafire is woefully blocked, so I dropped you an email.

Thanks for that though.

Sent. TRN and zipped exe should be attached.

So, I don't think indie underwater scouts exist. This sucks muchly.

That is kind of lame. Are you looking for info on land or water provinces primarily?

Mostly watching battles. Other stuff I can get through a tactic I call "conquering the entire ocean".

Yeah, there arn't any afaik. Maybe try invading a forest province?

Okay, I got someone else to download the MF link and email it me.

Mission Accomplished

If you lose your media in the future guys, it appears you can get a functional game by downloading the demo files, renaming the folders, patching and putting a 'real' .exe in there.

Running some tests now to check, but everything appears to work.

Indie underwater scouts don't exist, but there's a surprising number of underwater fortresses you can find with nature magic.

I'd forgotten or didn't know that Asterios can trample naturally. I wouldn't bother giving him another means of doing so; just some weapon so he's not using his fist and a pendant of luck to give him a chance of surviving until you can make better gear.

Turn returned.

Oh, I found out that my EA Tien Chi guide is still online.

It's mostly still accurate, although the bug that prevented you from blessing your ancestor spirits has since been patched.

-Username17

Yeah, I was reading that - I'd love to know the story behind the orginal take down, but then again, maybe not.

How different is the MA story?

You lose death access (site searching mind, not real high level shit), and you get shit sacreds instead of awesome ones.

In return: The age is saner, which is nice because barring Ashdod you don't have to worry about giant's knocking over your tiny men. Your non-capital mages get a whole heck of a lot better. (for researching, they still suck at everything else, though Geomancers have the potential to be nice in a communion) And you get nice cavalry instead of shitty tramplers. You are still the worst version of this nation, but not bad in any way.

Turn sent in

The original presentation of MA Tien Chi was "Early ra, but with less stuff". But in the patches, they have added a bunch of stuff to the faction and now it's merely inferior to the other eras of Tien Chi.

The army is mostly the same. The backbone of your force is still the Composite Bowman. Unfortunately, you're in the Mid Era, where competent bowmen are more common, and you are now being compared to Man's Longbowmen and Marignon's Crossbowmen. But again, you're still one of the better archery powers, it's just that now you are not as good at casting Flaming Arrows. You'll notice that you don't get Noble Charioteers any more, but you also don't have to defend yourself from Helheim, Tir na nOg, or Formoria, so you don't really care. You also notice that your Warriors of the Five Elements have been replaced with the Red Guard. The Red Guard are pretty much useless, so that's bad.

However, it's not just yanking stuff away from you, you also get a bunch of perplexing military options. You now have the opportunity to pay more for any of your infantry options who wear armor. This is an intriguing option in the case of the people with scale cuirasses, because they now have a move of 2 and higher skills (+1 attack on the ministry glaiver, +1 defense on the ministry tower shielder), and better morale. Those Ministry Footmen are worth including in small amounts to had up units of normal footmen. The Imperial units are garbage. They cost 13 gold a piece and have a move of 1. Yes, they have better armor and combat skills, but they are totally not worth the lower move and increased price.

You also have two more kinds of superior cavalry. The Imperial Horseman is a mediocre knight. He has a better sword than most and decent skills, but his armor and shield are on the low end of what is acceptable in heavy cav. For this perfectly reasonable tradeoff, he costs relatively few resources. The Heavy Horseman is like the regular horseman but upgraded to Protection 14 armor and given a minimal shield. Probably too expensive compared to the regular Horseman, but still a very good unit all around.

But the real crazy is the leaders. Your casters are totally different. First, let's talk about what you lose:

• The Master of the Dead is gone and you full stop do not get death magic on anything or anyone. You do less magic than EA TC.
• Your Celestial Master sucks now. They trade their Fire for Earth (which is less synergistic as battle magic), they lose an entire random pick, they have a shorter list of available magics, and they don't fly. They are now speed 1 and you save exactly zero gold for this severe castration.
• Your Imperial Alchemist is a lot worse than the MAster of Five Elements. He costs more than half again as much and is not sacred. So in addition to costing 110 more gold upfront, he costs an extra 13.6 gold every turn. Also he searches for 5 kinds of magic instead of 6 because he is not a priest. In exchange for this you get a 10% chance at an extra random, and your base random is just FAWE and you always get the Nature 2. Also you are completely pointlessly Poison Resistant 75% (so a poison stinger will still kill you), and you are a 40% healer. Also, you get more money for alchemy with him, which unless you are building castles out of fire gems is still a net loss because he costs so very much more than a Master of 5.

Now let's talk about what stays the same:

• Masters of the Way. Still the same. Still a halfway decent researcher and some of them are useful in battle and/or as communion fodder. You will however never have to use them because you get..

And here is what you gain:

• The Alchemist. He costs 100 fucking gold for a Nature 1 with an element random. But he's a Healer at all, so he's kind of worth considering for long sieges or whatever. You won't use him much, but it is nice to know he exists.
• Apothecary. For 50 Gold you get a Nature 1 who is a Healer 20%. If you for some reason were able to build infinite commanders, you might send a few of these guys with armies. But you might not.
• Geomancers. 80 bucks gets you an ES who prevents bad events and is old. Now we are talking. You can guaranty being able to make all that Crystal Crap, including the Communion matrices and you can make your own communions without having to wait on a random from the Masters of the Way.
• Ministers of Magic. This is what you will mostly be building. He's 70 gold and he has 1.1 randoms off of AWES. Which isn't great, but he has only random picks and therefore does not require a Lab to build. Also he has a +2 Research Bonus. Mid game your research will be titanic because these guys are awesome at research. One in four are even good communionists.
• Minister of Rituals. 100 gold gets you a level 2 Priest who prevents bad events. But he also creates good events, some of which are very good.

So basically your early game is still pretty similar. You conquer some land with footmen and composite bowmen, and have a master of the five elements wander around and search by hand. But your master of the five elements casts a smaller net and costs way more gold. So that's bad. And your capitol only battle mage is not even really a battle mage anymore, he's kind of a waste of time. And they took your heavy footmen away and gave you elites to buy instead, but if you stick exclusively to the 2 move characters it's actually a net improvement because you have more options. But your mid-game research push is better. Like, a lot better.

And your whole Order/Luck thing isn't bad.

-Username17

....

Order luck thing?

You get free PD in provinces that are under your dominion and have order scales, Minister of Rituals opens up some events with luck scales. Plus you can always use more money for more forts for more cheap researchers.

So you want Order, and you also want Luck. Those scales are actually pretty sweet.

Turn 6:
[link deleted]

EDIT: wait, something's wrong.
EDIT: savegame is messed up. Don't use the link yet.
EDIT: got it. The 2h files didn't copy right, and I hadn't advanced. Those were the same files from this turn. Should be fixed now, I'll have the real link up in a bit.

EDIT:
Here we go, this link should be right.
http://www.mediafire.com/?fy201px231gv4ja

My turn is in. My economy looks about as expected.

-Username17

The heroic ability Asterios got this turn gives him more action points. Presently, he has a tactical move score of 25. This may actually be a bad thing. He's going to run ahead of the rest of the army even sooner and trample until he falls unconscious once he gets to the enemies.

I'd like to note my mild surprise that Avor bought himself the services of Bulrelk's city guard, which is the mercenary militia force.

What were you thinking?

Asterios just needs to be properly scripted and positioned to deal with that problem.

60 militia should slow down the indies long enough for my astral evocations to do something. With 2 mages throwing evocations and 12 decent infantry behind the militia and scripted to hold and attack, something decent might result. The scouting report doesn't mention archers, so I should be able to close to melee without the militia routing. Also, I forgot that the mercs were militia.