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Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread
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"Nice place you have here, Ray.h The hobbit moved about the dungeon chamber, admiring the various apparatus of torture. He shuddered as he passed the Foot Tickler, one, as a hobbit, he hated the most.
gHowfs the spying mission coming along, Dark? I know itfs only been a day.h Ray eased into a comfortable chair, built specially for the viewing of the spectacles performed by the Chief Torturer.
gYou underestimate me, Ray. Ifve already accomplished a key part of my mission. It was much easier than I thought.h
DarkHobbitfs wrist flicked out and a small, slim piece of wood spun towards Ray.
Rayfs eyes narrowed just so slightly and the wood piece came to a bobbling halt before his eyes, suspended in the air.
gI have gotten key information on the leader of the Pukes. His name is Winer and there is a drawing of him on the wood piece.h
gWhiner?h Ray asked as he scrutinized the picture before him.
gNo, Winer. He got that name from an apparent weakness for wine. And it seems that alcohol makes him weak in the mind.h
gYes, even a Wizard sometimes indulges in strong drink and pays the price.h Ray nodded wisely.
gProblem is Ray, this Winer never stops drinking.h
gHmmm, it looks like Winer is bald, has beady eyes, a needle nose, a line for his mouth and I must say the scrawniest looking pair of arms and legs Ifve ever seen. I have apprentices with more meat than this fellow! And hefs the leader of the Pukes? Ha!h
gThatfs a stick figure drawing, Ray.h
The piece of wood ignited in a burst of flame before Darkfs eyes.
gAre you trying to make a fool out of me, Dark? This is a dangerous game you are playing.h Rayfs words took on a menacing tone.
gWell you hired a spy, not a bloody elf artist. Anyway, you didnft have to pay extra for that picture, itfs a freebie I give to my clients to keep them loyal.h
gWhat else did you find out about him?h
gHis main offensive capability is his mouth. His two main attacks are the Cuss and the Puke. The Cuss attack basically attempts to enrage his opponents so much that they fall over and impale themselves on their own weapons to get to him. If that doesnft work, he uses his Puke attack to nauseate them into fleeing from him.h
gHe has a special attack reserved for times when his opponents beat him into a pulp, and that happens often. He uses his Wail attack just when his opponents are on top of his prostrate body. Itfs effect is that not unlike that a Banshee, seeking to drive foes insane. Itfs not very effective though, and it usually provokes his opponents to kick him a couple more times in this face.h
gThatfs why his face is so flat.h Ray nodded wisely.
gI said it was a stick drawing, Ray.h
gOh, yeah. Did you manage to find out their plans?h
gYes, I infiltrated their base and was hiding in the shadows, squatting behind the chair where Winer sat. They are discussing their plans to assault the Fellowship.h
gWinerfs plan is to walk up the Fellowship Halls and challenge you to a magical duel, one-on-one.h
gWhat! You didnft say Winerfs a mage.h
gHe isnft, Ray. But he thinks your magic is pretty much the same as how he makes a childfs candy bar disappear into his mouth while they are not looking.h
gAll the Pukes fear Winer. He hates being corrected and when he is mad, he pukes all over, nauseating everyone. One of his men however was brave enough to try to dissuade him from this foolish course of action. He reminded Winer that you could turn him into a pussy cat with absolute ease.h
gWiner then said something quite profound. He said the only two reasons why you are better than him are that you can cast better magic and that you are more dedicated to your craft. If it were not for that, he would have been the better mage.h
gVery profound, indeed.h Ray nodded wisely. gI mustnft underestimate this foe. Are you sure itfs him who said it and not one of his lackeys?h
gItfs him, Ray. None of the others have his unique intelligence.h
gI also saw something very interesting. One of Winerfs men is a triple-agent. His name is Bat and Ifve seen him when he was in the Fellowship Jail. He works for two other organisations, one of which is the Evils.h
gExcellent, Dark. Continue with your mission. Youfve earned yourself an advance of two bags of gold.h
Ray turned around with a smile and noticed that Dark was gone.
          
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| The extra techs are fun and it seems like the end game techs require less turns to complete (is that correct?) , which is good. |
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There is a reduction of the tech premium (additional cost added to unresearched techs based on the number of techs you have already researched) from 3% to 2%. I personally don't think it makes any noticeable difference because techs are already so expensive at the end.
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Theoden's responsible for our media and foreign affairs. He'll undoubtably get in touch with you when he gets back from his vacation. 
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Just posted the second instalment of my Galciv blog on joeuser.
 Link
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Yes, I have, bakka.
Mudflap, Cari keep mentioning GC2 and this demo that they are working on. I suspect they are doing up an early GC2 demo for Brad when he goes on his road trip to interest publishers on GC2.
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(We rejoin our heroes as they return from Mordor in an appropriated Fellow-ship, after a pointless quest to destroy a fake Ring. The film rights for this story are still available!)
Ancient History
‘“...and five syllables in the last line,” he said.
“Like this?” I said.
Upon a time, I
met a maid. Her hair looked good
but it was man-made.
“Yes, I suppose...” said the elf-lord, “But a true haiku is of its time. It should at least hint at a season. Like this:”
shadows fall softly
upon frosted winter grass
a good time to dream
“Sure, I can do that,” I said.
Snow falls upon my
head. It’s cold. Any chance of
another cuppa?
I could tell that they were impressed. Not long after, they said that I had learned everything Rómendor had to offer, and it was time I returned to the Western lands to pass on my wisdom. They seemed very insistent...’
“Please!” cried Theoden. “Enough!”
“Enough?” said Downie. “I’m not even up to my 150th birthday yet. There’s plenty more good stuff to come.”
“I said I'd put a _brief_ biography in the Fellowship records.”
“This _is_ the brief version. The long version is an epic comprising 28 massive volumes, not including the commentaries and appendices.”
“How long are you going to keep me tied up like this?”
“Just until we’ve reached safety.”
“Safety? With Ray hunting you down? Nowhere will be safe!”
“Hmm. Milady? What’s the range of this thing?”
“It says here it can go for thirty light years without refuelling. Is that a lot?” she said.
“Thirty years?” mused Downie. “The blink of an eye. And yet an hour can seem like an eternity...”
“So I’ve noticed,” said Theoden.
“Where are we now?”
“At an altitude of 15,000 feet, approaching the Misty Mountains,” said Milady.
“Why there?”
“To pick up my pony, of course.”
“Erm... He’s probably in a better place now.”
“Hey! No animals aboard!” said Theoden. “Ray makes me clean this thing.”
“Waark!” said Gwainhar, flapping his wings to get out the way of the approaching ship, which landed on the sharp mountain peak and span a few times before settling down, like a prize-winning ring-toss at a travelling fair.
Milady got out first. “Hey! Where was our rescue?” she said.
“Haw! I was waiting until you’d destroyed The Ring.”
“We nearly got killed!”
“Didn’t, though, did you? We eagles don’t like to come unless we’re needed.”
“I’ll forgive you if Snowball’s OK,” she said.
“Hmm... let's see... I gave it to the kids to play with. Thorondir! Have you still got that little horsey?” he called.
There was a pause. Another eagle, with a wingspan of just eighteen feet, came up the slope, beating its wings forcefully. It bore something in its claws, a small and traumatised looking white pony.
“Snowball!” cried Milady.
“You kept him?” said Downie, popping his head out.
“Course we did,” said Gwainhar. “I promised we’d take good care of him, didn’t I?”
His son, Thorondir, chipped in. “We’ll miss him. I had so much fun, taking him down to the nearest paddock. I used to practise swooping down at him from behind and plucking him up off the ground.”
“How about my pony?” said Downie.
“Well... I never made any promises about him, did I?” said Gwainhar. “But if it makes you feel any better, he was delicious. Haw!”
“So, what now?” said Downie.
“Let’s go back to the Fellowship,” said Milady.
“Are you insane? Ray will kill us.”
“Ray needs us.”
“The Ray you knew is gone! Lost forever!”
“No all those who Wander are lost,” said Milady, quietly.
“...That was rather well put. OK, but only for the sake of poetry.”
They touched down at the spaceport, and released Theoden.
“Thanks for the ride,” said Milady.
“Yes,” said Downie. “I hope you’ve got all you need for my bio?”
“I may have to trim it down a bit,” said Theoden. “To about three paragraphs.”
“Really? Then let me leave you with a traditional Elvish blessing. May your thaurmeler be blessed by copious showers of rochwing!”
“...I’m going to look those words up.”
“Ah, here comes Ray,” said Milady, “Let me do the talking.”
“Suit yourself,” said Downie.
“Hi, Ray. We’re back. Mission accomplished.”
“’We’?” said Ray. She looked around. Downie had disappeared.
“He’s... around here somewhere. Anyway, I hear that no-one knows about the loss of The Ring. I suppose you covered up its theft to keep morale high? Because of its great symbolic value?”
“Ah... Yes. No-one can ever know that the ring that stands on the appointed pedestal is just a fake. After all, if we didn’t have a Ring, we could hardly call ourselves The Fellowship of the Ring, could we? We’d have to be simply ‘The Fellowship’. And that would sound just feeble.”
“So, we can go on as if nothing happened?”
“I don’t see why not. You did anger me at the time... But that’s all ancient history now. Lucky for you I’m in a Good mood today.”
    
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Matthew,
Got a suggestion for you. If you have an old save of the 1.1 anomalous crippling game you played (not endgamesave), do a retire and see if the score is zero. If that's the case, you could try retiring your Maso Gig game to see if the game is anomalous.
Rick,
I don't think the slight nerfing of non-Maso scores were intended but it is tough to tweak scores due to the rather complex scoring system that Frogboy has chosen.
If you recall an old thread, Frogboy said that the intention is to reward higher difficulties and not penalise lower difficulties. I've loaded an old calkwalk game under 1.092 and the score is unchanged.
Frogboy also said that he expects the top tier of the metaverse to be made up mostly of Maso players. That's what is going to happen looking at things.
Personally, I think 2x Maso scores over Crippling is fine. However, SD needs to fix some exploits in the game to make Maso the challenge it used to be. Remember that Maso was meant to be the un-winnable level. I would be dealing with some of these issues in my Galciv blog.
vincible,
People are going to whine about scoring systems until this game is dead and buried. The Metaverse survived very well with the old system where difficulty is not really rewarded, it would survive with this new system where the challenge levels (crippling + maso) are. What we really need are the exploit fixes.
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And vincible, you should know better than to discuss scoring with Pontius.
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Welcome to the Fellowship, duncanthemad! 
I see we are going to reach the 12000 series in player numbers soon.
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ric - I caught your post in the GROSS thread. I've noticed your progress with the Large games and my experience on small maps would echo that. I would, if really concentrating  , tend to score 10,000 small tough, 12,000 painful, 14,000 crippling - and am now watching 28,000 point maso small games being logged in. I can see no real choice between tough/painful/crippling in the longer term for scoring; you may as well play at the level you enjoy the most. I agree that maso should score highest but cannot support the notion that it should be a flat line until a spike at maso doubles the score. Crippling is certainly NOT being rewarded. I would think a graded increase is fairer for all, especially for new players arriving. Frogboy will indeed have the Masoverse he desires.
vincible: not wishing to get in the middle of that other thread but feel it is unfortunate things take that turn.  I suspect many of us will be reflecting on how we participate here; check the ANZAC thread too for an example. Cheers!
  
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Wombat, since you have played both Crippling and Maso, how hard do you rate Maso over Crippling?
10% harder, twice as hard, or others?
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I just want to state again that even though many of us enjoying competing on the Metaverse both individually and as an empire, it is not the sole purpose of empiring and this forum. Our purpose is also to be active contributors both to the game and forum and also role-play/story writing for those who enjoy it.
If anyone here feels unbelonged just because you aren't able to submit any Maso games - don't. We value your participation in this empire not because of your scores. If so, I would have kicked out all the zero-pointers long ago (sorry Blue, can't resist  ).
It's great to see that many of us are regular posters and also active participants in the main and strat forum.
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| Wombat, since you have played both Crippling and Maso, how hard do you rate Maso over Crippling?10% harder, twice as hard, or others? |
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Ray, I admit that's a tough call. Since I win well at Crippling and not at all yet as maso, it's obviously much harder! I guess it's the exponential rise that seems staggering, as opposed to the intuitive grading that would suggest if a player has worked their way up to the second highest difficulty rating (8th out of 9), they probably deserve a bit more than half the score of the next level up (9th out of 9). You and I are having this talk over two threads, and I realise there is no real answer - only the answer that Frogboy programs into the Metaverse. I'm not 'upset' and I'm not leaving, just expressing a point of view.
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| I'm not 'upset' and I'm not leaving, just expressing a point of view. |
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I know you are not emotional about this issue, that's why I'm having the discussion with you.
I appreciate your opinion.
However, to bring everything into perspective, it's exactly what you said - Frogboy ultimately decides the rules of the game. We can give our opinions and suggestions but ultimately we decide whether we want to play.
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| Matthew,Got a suggestion for you. If you have an old save of the 1.1 anomalous crippling game you played (not endgamesave), do a retire and see if the score is zero. If that's the case, you could try retiring your Maso Gig game to see if the game is anomalous. |
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Good idea.
I went back to my earlier save games for the anomalous - I kept a few backups. In August 2183, I could retire and get 714 metaverse points. In Feb 2185, retiring gave me 0 metaverse points. So whatever went wrong must have happened some time before the end of the game.
That means it is possible to monitor your games for anomalousness if you save and retire on a regular basis.
Might even be a good thing. Encourages you to take regular breaks.
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| Good idea.I went back to my earlier save games for the anomalous - I kept a few backups. In August 2183, I could retire and get 714 metaverse points. In Feb 2185, retiring gave me 0 metaverse points. So whatever went wrong must have happened some time before the end of the game. That means it is possible to monitor your games for anomalousness if you save and retire on a regular basis.Might even be a good thing. Encourages you to take regular breaks. |
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Good news. Now we can be more confident of playing without finding our efforts wasted at the end.
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I'm just started another Maso Huge game. This time I'm taking all the neutral choices for events to end up with a neutral alignment. My previous neutrals were all based on reverting back to neutral at the end of the game.
Really tough not choosing evil as I had 2-3 +30%PQ events.
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