The Armageddon Counter

[Kael]

We are trying to get the Armageddon Counter tuned appropriatly. In 0.20 it was a fixed amount, in 0.21 it is a scale based on the amount of players in the game. Obviously the AC tends to rise more slowly in the big games most players play. My question is, is it to slow now? Still to fast? Or just right?

Please fill out the poll for any map sizes you typically play on.

 

[Nimbus]

I am playing on a huge map right now at normal speed, started with 16 players basium and hyborem have not entered the game in the year 250 and AC is at 3. before that played on a huge map with normal speed, started with 16 civs, hyborem enetred in year 267, basium in year 269. AC is at 20 in year 300. Last weekend on a huge map on normal speed in a hotseat game with 16 starting civs the AC is at 6 in the year 250 and again hyborem has not made his appearance. It definately seems to pick up steam once Hyborem enters the game, but he is coming in much later now and the AC crawls very slowly before he enters.

 

[vorshlumpf]

My first, only, and current game with the AC: huge map, 16 civs to start, and epic speed. And I think I'm closing in on turn 1000.

In my novice AC opinion, the counter is going just fine. However, if I wasn't playing the Clan, I think it might go up too slow (then again, I haven't even gotten to the point where Ashen Veil is discovered yet - I'm expecting it soon, though).

Just a quick comment: I'm a neurotic builder and terraformer, but I was quite pleased with the Blight affect at AC40. I had never experienced that before.

- Niilo

 

[Marnid]

My experience is somewhat limited with this but here is what I found so far. (I am assuming the counter goes up to 100?) I am assuming that if I am a good civ I should feel threatened by it and have to do something to stop it.

I only play on small and standard maps and it seems like the the 'geddon counter rises too slowly,

the highest I've seen it was in a .20 game where I was playing as Hyborem and all evil civs excepts for Cassiel and Morgoth were in the game, at the end hell terrain covered 95% of the world and every city was ahsen veil but the counter was only at 47. (briefly at 52 before decreasing more).

It seems like it should be very hard to increase it very high when the AI has that wonder that gives the prophecy marks. You get one point for each city raised and each city with the veil. On a small map there are maybe only ~30-40 cities in the game, maybe it there should be more prophecy mark making wonders or buildings to get the AI making the counter more dangerous?

 

[3141592]

Although I voted that the counter seemed to slow on large, now it almost seems to fast. I'm playing the Shiem and it took 500 years to get the counter to 40. I am the Shiem however, and also have the prophecy of Roanok, so I am probably much better at raising the AC then the AI.

Some notes about it: Up until it hit 40 the AC seemed pointless. There was no satisfaction from raising cities and building the eulogies just to see the counter go from 15 to 35. However, as soon as the counter hit 40 it only took another 50 turns to get to 70. Right then the counter seemed very bad (for everybody else) it has now stalled again, but I'm not worried, the next war should tip it over 100.

Right now the raise of the counter doesn't seem foreboding enough, it happens, but it doesn't happen easily and it could be put down quickly enough if the AI knew what it was doing. Personally I think the counter should go up once every X turns when Hyborem enters the game. That would probably give it a more foreboding and inevitable feel.

Is there any way you could add little things to happen when the AC is between 0 and 40? maybe something like a volcano or two, possible have some angels and infernals appear next to each other and fight it out, nothing terribly bad, but enough to get the idea that the AC is for real.

Anyway, overall the mod is great and the AC is one of its best parts, keep up the good work

 

[Chandrasekhar]

Yeah, effects that happen on the way to 40 would be really nice.

 

[Kael]

Although I voted that the counter seemed to slow on large, now it almost seems to fast. I'm playing the Shiem and it took 500 years to get the counter to 40. I am the Shiem however, and also have the prophecy of Roanok, so I am probably much better at raising the AC then the AI.

Some notes about it: Up until it hit 40 the AC seemed pointless. There was no satisfaction from raising cities and building the eulogies just to see the counter go from 15 to 35. However, as soon as the counter hit 40 it only took another 50 turns to get to 70. Right then the counter seemed very bad (for everybody else) it has now stalled again, but I'm not worried, the next war should tip it over 100.

Right now the raise of the counter doesn't seem foreboding enough, it happens, but it doesn't happen easily and it could be put down quickly enough if the AI knew what it was doing. Personally I think the counter should go up once every X turns when Hyborem enters the game. That would probably give it a more foreboding and inevitable feel.

Is there any way you could add little things to happen when the AC is between 0 and 40? maybe something like a volcano or two, possible have some angels and infernals appear next to each other and fight it out, nothing terribly bad, but enough to get the idea that the AC is for real.

Anyway, overall the mod is great and the AC is one of its best parts, keep up the good work

There are some numeric things that occur before 40, but its intended to be pretty quiet from a "armageddon" perspective until 40 is hit. Its not intended to be a linear progress but a exponencial effect.

ps. Are you 6283184's half-brother?

 

[Yoshi2942]

Throwing my two cents in -- without voting -- My experience with the AC is similar to those above -- I play pretty much only on Standard maps at Standard speed with 9 civs; and usually Hyborem enters the world sometime between 150 and 250 depending on the number of evil civs. Like I said - I didn't vote because my tech tree is much different, so when basium/Hyborem enter the world in my game may not be relevant.

With that being said - I find that the Arm Counters progression goes something like this:
0-1: very slow, which completely makes sense.
1-10: usually quicker than I would have expected. Probably because the counter doesn't move until either Prophecy or a city is raised, if prophecy then it just keeps going up, if city on fire - then probably a war which continues the escalation.
10-30ish: slows back down. I would expect it accelerate during this period - but I usually find that it doesn't. Maybe the Elohims are using the ritual? I can't think of any other dampening effect prior to the founding of AV.
30-40: quick, I expect that the AC is now causing AI's to go to war with each other, having the dual effect of additional cities on fire + less of a chance for the Elohim to use the ritual because they are likely in a fight.
40-60: Varies. Usuallly AV has been founded by this point, and lots of battles are taking place.. but if it is a "gang-up-on-me" day, then it is likely that I'm just sitting in my cities and having my land destroyed while I wait for the opportunity to get peace so I can go back to my building.
60-X: usually very quick, I've only actually seen the counter reach 100, one time, as very often I am either so far ahead of the AI's, or so far behind, that I just start a new game; or if it is close to completion - then I just finish the game (altar). Not to mention that my system usually crashes at this point because of the number of things it needs to load and my laptop isn't really cut out for this mod.. having only 128MB video RAM.

 

[Vittra]

I accidently clicked the wrong button, and (forgot) until after I clicked the button that I had changed my vote for the small/standard category, so if you could lower the value of On normal maps (small, standard) it rises just right by one, then it'd correctly represent the votes I meant to give. Thanks.

 

[3141592]

ps. Are you 6283184's half-brother?

Actually, he's my double.

 

[Bad Player]

Personally I think the counter should go up once every X turns when Hyborem enters the game. That would probably give it a more foreboding and inevitable feel.

.

 

[Sarisin]

I play only on huge land maps, usually fantasy realm and I think the counter is about right, BUT...

Do you play on taking a look at how the counter moves with respect to game speed and if you select raging barbs/aggressive AI?

IMO Fire is unplayable on a large/huge map at Marathon and/or with the raging barb/aggressive ai option.

Right now I am playing at Epic with aggressive ai and having great games.

But, sure miss the loooong game with those lovable raging barbs!

 

[Blakmane]

I play mainly multiplayer games on quick speed due to time restrictions. If i'm not personally raising the counter I find it barely budges at all. Out of the 5-6 games i've played so far not a single AI has founded the veil, hyborem has never come through (unless I was veil) and if I was neutral or good or even just octopus overlords, the counter would never reach above 10 or so. ATM i'm playing a multiplayer game with 6 AI and one human. I'm Elohim and it's remained 0 for the entire game. The 4 evil civs on the map are either leaves or octopus overlords.

 

[GrandSultan]

I play mainly multiplayer games on quick speed due to time restrictions. If i'm not personally raising the counter I find it barely budges at all. Out of the 5-6 games i've played so far not a single AI has founded the veil, hyborem has never come through (unless I was veil) and if I was neutral or good or even just octopus overlords, the counter would never reach above 10 or so. ATM i'm playing a multiplayer game with 6 AI and one human. I'm Elohim and it's remained 0 for the entire game. The 4 evil civs on the map are either leaves or octopus overlords.

I rarely if ever summon Hyborem, and as such the counter never goes up. The evil civs either
a. are afraid of Hyborem, rightly so, and/or
b. they realise they wont live anymore after every other civ ont he map gangs up on them because they converted to the Ashen Veil.

 

[Bad Player]

Perhaps the AV needs to be powered up a tad more?

 

[Nikis-Knight]

10-30ish: slows back down. I would expect it accelerate during this period - but I usually find that it doesn't. Maybe the Elohims are using the ritual? I can't think of any other dampening effect prior to the founding of AV.

The dampening effect is robably that by this point most cities are large enough for people to keep rather than to raze, and there are few areas for barbarians cities to pop up.

I've only had one long game on v.21; I founded the AV spread it to the other civ and summoned Infernals. Standard map, 7+1 civs (no Basium, which was strange). I think it rose a little slow considering there was a lengthy war (100 years or so) facilitated by my Patriarch.

 

[Black Attila]

I only play on Huge Maps and it crawls. I may as well be playing Light again , because the Armageddan Counter has become meaningless.

 

[daladinn]

ok , i thougth i shoudl add my 2cp in since it seems none of those speaking up are avid ashen players. for me it seems the large the map the easier it is to end the world and i mean WAY easier. on a huge map you can easily get 3x the number of cities as a small map before your even contested. as a sign , i can often found the viel before turn 150 on a quick game and bust the counter wide open by turn 200 if i try.

can the armeggedon counter be used as decimals and displayed truncated? and if so can we use a simple multiply based on land size and number of opponents? the larger the land size would give multiplier smaller then 1 and the more opponents give multipliers greater then 1. say using the baseline small map as a centerpoint for this map.

 

[Habilis]

In my last game (0.21b, huge map, 12 civs, prince level) I've got to year 500 with AC still at 19. And I was forced to research Ashen Veil myself, because no one else wished to do it.

 

[Nero's fire]

On the counter to Daladinns point, on a tiny map it takes forever for AV to get the AC up. I had half of the map taken over and the AC was up to 15.