How I Make Games for New Players

Overview

A set of steps for making games using mostly tools that come with the game. Assumes knowledge of advanced server stuff / linux terminal stuff. You could probably do most of this in OSX without modification and in Windows if you know what you’re doing.

How I Make Games for New Players

First I open up the “template” command line from a recent game.

In the same file I will copy over the other “template” for new game stuff.

Then I do a “Find and Replace” operation, replacing the old game name with the new one. I then do another for the port I’m using for my new game. The last find and replace I do is for age (the –era is numeric so I change it by hand).

I then copy the command into my (linux) server using GNU screen. The map doesn’t need to be there yet; I generate it after the player list is finalized.

I make a channel on the Dominions discord (anyone can ask for a game channel there) and paste the big game heading into the channel and pin it. I then paste the blurb at the top into the games lobby. When eight people join I move it to the main games list from the recruiting list, and will adjust the roster length accordingly if a few more people want to join.

For reasons I don’t entirely understand 8-12 player games tend to run with fewer problems and usually take 1-3 months.

Maps and More

At some point before the game starts I make a map. For this game I did

Because 12 people ended up joining I made the map with 180 provinces. 33 for the –seapart variable was for the two UW players, my base value is 17.(I usually run games with 15 provinces per player)

This is the map we went with
I post a screenshot of the map to get player feedback. We regen as needed. I like to have a “pool” for each UW player and sometimes that takes a lot of regenning.

After the map generates, I run it through a page that runs a script that automatically sets nostarts: [link]

I swap out the .map “downloaded” from from the page and open it in the map editor. I make sure the map has island starts if Phaeacia needs one, and enough UW starts (the game won’t start if there aren’t enough places for players to start).

Then I go through the maps and change road connections with ‘r’. I do this to connect farms and towns. I save my work and upload the .map the .rgb and the _winter.rgb to my server.

I might change some settings; sometimes I backup the folder before I start if I think there might be some problems that require a restart (disciples games tend to have more problems).

Starting a game is simple, I wait for everyone to upload a pretender, adjust the thrones as needed and go through this procedure (sorry for all the linux terminal command references):
I like to ps ax|grep “game name or port number” to get a pid to use with screen, so I screen -r <pid> to get a view of the game, then with another terminal window open I cp a file called soon with a body of “settimeleft 5” to a file called domcmd in the game directory. The game reads the file and sets the timer to five seconds. I watch the first window count down, then I ping everyone that the game started after the game starts. Be sure to ask for a role for your channel so people can ping the whole channel.

I can do this pretty quickly and painlessly. I have two mods installed which should be clear to anyone who understands how to load mods through the dominions command line. This makes for pretty standard games. There are lots of rivers in the maps I make, which makes taking the heat 3 scale less enticing.

Also I set a password. I make each password unique to each game, but these days that isn’t so important.

If you want to make a game for advanced players you follow most of the same instructions, but you make it clear the game is for advanced players. Many advanced players play with the Dominions Enhanced mod, which has worthy heroes and better arena built in.