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Unclemike's Corner
#21
Effective Immediately:
  • During multiple engagements, retreating from any battle will now prevent your group from interacting with a pc or encounter. Previously, if multiple groups attacked yours and your group was victorious in the last battle despite withdrawing from the others, your group would still be allowed to continue forward. Now, retreating from any battle, even if you were successful in conquering all opponents except the one that you withdrew, will prevent an interaction with a pc/encounter.
  • Alternate capital assignment (order #495) now only costs 4,000 food and 4,000 gold when you issue the directive. The reoccurring cost for maintenance every turn has been eliminated.
  • If a group was inactive or patrol (no troops) at the beginning of the turn and troops were transferred to it which were then subsequently healed by a priestess/wizard, the heal will now be successful and the kingdom turn report will no longer state an error that the troops (from the inactive group) were not properly fed/paid that prevented the heal from taking place.
  • Moving an emissary, agent, or priestess with order #350 (or gate with #351) to a non-populated map area (without a pc) will now entail a 50% chance of death due to the possibility of being killed by bandits or eaten by wild animals.
  • The Druid kingdom now has an intercept radius of 3 (was 4).
  • The Ring of Spells is now a Superior classed artifact.
  • The order entry website has been enhanced to display all your games registered under your account. This may be useful if you are playing in multiple games for its comprehensive display. BTW, the number of orders listed in this area includes the "free" transfer orders so that players may verify that they are above their normal limit (use the Verify button for the accuracy of your orders). On the Home page, click on the All Games button and the results should be given in the message box area. To pick up the latest version of the website, you will need to press your browser refresh button (hold down the Shift key while clicking on the browser refresh to force the browser to reload the page rather than reference its cache).
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#22
Made some touchups this past week:
  • Moving an emissary/agent/priestess with order 350 (or gate with 351) to a non-populated area on the map was made a bit safer as follows: Ambassadors and L1/L2 agents have a standard 50% chance of death (as before) and lose 0.3 pts influence. Higher level emissaries/agents have a lower 25% chance of death and lose 0.3 influence. If any figure is determined to die there is now a chance of spending 5,000 gold to pay as ransom for the return of the figure (automatic check). If your kingdom does not have the 5,000 gold to pay then the figure is killed and your kingdom loses 0.6 influence total (0.3 from being captured plus another 0.3 for not paying the bandits).
  • Population centers that are destroyed by pillage or the meteor strike spell are now broadcasted to all kingdoms (to help prevent moving figures to empty map areas). Meteor spells that destroy the population center (not just damage it) automatically reduces the regional reaction level by one.
  • Leader/Wizard death rates were reduced (both combat and encounter battles) for greater survivability
  • Investigating encounters now considers a greater range of group power ratings so the more powerful your group strength (leaders, wizards, traits, artifacts) over the encounter's rating, the safer it will be for the survival of your leaders/wizards (regardless if you succeed or fail)
  • Added text to the Rod of Fire and Wand of Lighting artifacts that they add +20 to the group strength value when investigating encounters
  • Releasing a skeleton (or scandal spell) now reduces influence correctly if the targeted kingdom was on the high council (they are expelled and lose 2 pts of influence total)
  • Halfling's special order to hire new figures (marshal, pwr-2, agent-7) quantity has been increased to 3 so you may hire a new figure if your kingdom has less than 3 of the same or lower level figure
  • Online order entry website now adds +5 to the morale of the group possessing a Champion Stallions artifact in case forced marching needs to be validated
  • Kingdom turn report group section now displays text if your group is actively sieging and at what level (shown as {Siege: 1}) if your group completed siege stage one (should help newer players in case they miss the message of their siege being broken if they happen to move their group)
  • Touched up the printout of the agent search and eagle familiar to display as a bulleted item list (helps to distinguish adjacent blue sentences as separate areas that have an encounter)
  • Clarified kingdom setup text for Ancient Ones' consuls to have nearly all of the priestess orders (but not those that require Devout trait like summoning angels)
  • Clarified text for Acuity trait (prisoners get bonus to escape)
  • Clarified text for ESO seapower to say 7+ fleets in each of 2+ seas
  • Clarified text for ESO recover 4 artifacts from encounters to not include characters (wizards/princes/marshal), dimensional portals, or great diamonds found at encounters
To pick up changes to the online order entry website, hold down Shift key when clicking on the browser refresh button.
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#23
Alamaze Game Queue is now available. Read about it here: http://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/showt...0#pid46000
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#24
Testing went well so all games are now active!!!

This is a new server so when you login, hold down the Shift key and press your browser's refresh button on the order entry's Home page. The first time that you visit the site may take several seconds (to load into cache) but you should be fine afterwards.

Network Solutions recommends to wait 24-36 hours for the DNS transfer (website) to propagate throughout the internet so if you're having issues, wait until the following day or so and you'll be ok. The website was fine for me in under an hour (in USA) but if you're traveling overseas, you may have to wait a bit. I made the DNS change at 6am EST today (Tues May 30).

Also, the game queue is back online and accepting new game requests! The forum should only be used for setting up custom games that the game queue doesn't handle or to advertise your post in the queue.

Have fun all! Shy
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#25
Awesome job Mike.  I am accessing the games without difficulty.  Gray Mouser has saved orders.

We have a few extra days to get reacquainted with our ongoing game positions.

All service renewal dates will be moved out 15 days. 

Its great to have Alamaze back in town. 

Thanks again, Mike.

Let's get active again back in the forum.
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#26
Made a few corrections:
- order 350 (351 gate) no longer has a death/influence penalty when moving to a non-pc (wilds) map area
- player dropping themselves from a game via the game queue now sends the proper email to support
- fix for the '+4 orders above influence' option
- game queue's turn interval now has a max possible value of 20,160 minutes (two weeks between turns)

Please clear your browser cache to automatically load the latest version of the website's files.

For Google Chrome, clear the cache by: (1) click on the 3 dots or bars in the upper right corner of the browser, (2) go to Settings, (3) go to Show Advanced Settings or Advanced (at bottom of page), (4) scroll down to Privacy and Security section and click on Clear browsing data button/section, (5) select Cached images and files. Then press Clear browsing data button at bottom. When done, go to the Alamaze online order entry website and logon. The browser should automatically download the updated files.

As an alternative (not as good though), you may login the order entry website and at the Home page, hold down the Shift key on the keyboard and click on the browser's refresh button. You will need to do this on all menu tabs (Political, Covert, Divine, etc.) and not just the Home page since each menu tab is a separate HTML page. If you are using a mobile or PDA device (which doesn't have a keyboard), you may have to clear the browser's cache manually (as above) before visiting the Alamaze order entry website to force the browser to download the latest files.
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#27
This is just FYI but yesterday, we launched our new Automated Account Registration website!

From now on, new players (or returning players who want a new persona), may take care of registration themselves on the www.alamaze.co website (under the Sign Up tab). If you're interested, you can click on the link listed there to see what the new site looks like but I wanted it to have the same look-and-feel as the game queue which is the next step for new players to take (e.g., sign up for a free duel or solo/tutorial game). The automated registration process also sends the new player a Welcome email on what to do next with Alamaze and we've already had two new players create a duel game by themselves and started playing without further guidance (sweet!).

I also updated the www.alamaze.co website's Sample Turns and Blog areas. For Sample Turns, I've added a Dark Elf kingdom setup so potential players may see the different kinds of cultural traits, companion troops, and such that exist in the game. I also uploaded a specially crafted Necromancer turn result (that took hours to configure) to show a detailed battle report that has the different phases of combat. I bet new players will like reading about wizardry magic vs. fiery dragon breath too! The kingdom report also presents a selected list of artifacts, spell lists, and leader decorations to show that Alamaze has been enhanced quite a bit from the past. For the Blog section, I added newer posts that are up to date so potential players will see that Alamaze is still active and not dead like other PBM games.

With the automated registration website done, that brings us to 9 software modules to handle Alamaze (acct registration website, login website, game queue website, order entry/validation website, poller module for 24/7 turn processing, launcher module for emails, game engine to generate turns, Valhalla website, and the server's utility program for admin use). That means only 4 modules remain: create a solo/tutorial game, automate billing/subscription, create an online version of the player aids by Frost Lord, and finally the ultimate of all, create a browser-based landscape (map) for players as a GUI when filling out their orders.

So this post is just FYI of what's been going on and what's coming up in addition to any new expansion packs like Maelstrom...
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#28
Over the weekend, I'll be upgrading the server to allow for Solo Tutorial games. I'm still working on this but I need to update some programs on the server to get further along. While working on this probject, I added or corrected the following:
  • Newly created artifacts from kingdom customization (order #11) will no longer provide status points nor be counted for ESO requirements. This applies for newly created games after this point.
  • Main program now checks if all players drop out or are eliminated at the same time to end the game (a rare occurrence but now cleans up the server if it happens)
  • Modified the server program to trap error conditions better. We didn't have an issue but this version should prevent excessive attempts to recover from a failed condition (i.e. would have bogged down the server without this change).
  • To help new players, I added text under the Emissary section when a figure has ownership of an artifact or is under a spell effect:
         [Crown] - ruler (king, queen, regent, consul) has the Crown of Anzu
         [Staff] - ruler has Staff of Disdain or Staff of Great Orator
         [Dagger] - agent/fanatic has Ancient Annihilator, Demon Bane, Demon Death, or Ruler Eliminator
         [Enchanted Weapon] - agent/fanatic has a weapon-classed artifact
         [Boosted] - agent/fanatic has Ring of Invisibility
         [Disguised] - any figure has Cloak of Disguise
         [Guarded] - any figure has Guardian Talisman
         [Hidden] - any figure has Mist Talisman
         [Gate Enabled] - any figure has Onyx Amulet
         [Mounted] - any figure has Red Elk Mount
         [Protected] - any figure has Amulet of Protection or Ring of Protection

         [Concealed] - any figure is affected by a Conceal Emissary spell
         [Slept] - any figure is affected by a Sleep spell
         [Warded] - any figure is affected by a Ward spell
         [Blessed] - any figure is affected by a High Priestess Bless spell

These indicators should help newer players know which figure has an appropriate item for their class (e.g., ruler must possess a staff to activate it). Also, if your agent/fanatic does not have the [Enchanted Weapon] indicator next to their name, they won't be able to assassinate an undead figure (lich, wraith, nazgul).
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#29
Alamaze's Solo Tutorial game is now available!

Sign up for one in the Game Queue and let us know what you think. Keep in mind that this game isn't designed to be like Fall of Rome's Centurion game but rather as a step-by-step tutorial on how to play and to fill out some of the more common actions in the game. I may add more comments and hints later on but the solo game is just about complete.

BTW, I added some minor cosmetic changes to the kingdom turn report in order to help newer players (e.g., displaying the season in the production/pc section and showing the defense value of a pc in the group detail).

I had to update some of the Online Order Entry webpages so you may need to clear your browser cache to pick up the newer version of the website.
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#30
Today, I updated the server to send an alert email to players if they haven't saved their orders 24 hours before the turn's deadline. This feature is only available for ready-enabled games that have a turn duration of over 24 hours (1,440 minutes).
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