A few DLR games

[LPhillips]

Looking around at the Warlords fan sites, I see that they are dying off and disappearing. People are moving on. That's fine; we're adults and not looking to stay in the past forever. Even so, here's a little nostalgia in me, yearning for the fine game Warlords 3: Dark Lord's Rising. I haven't played it in at least a couple of years, and I want to run a few games with people.

So, who's up for some games? KGB may set the rules; he has stayed in touch with the game and probably has tournament experience with it. The turns will be passed by email, and I will gladly provide files to anyone who needs them. The game is available for free for those who don't have it.

On a side note, Warbarons is the finest, most developed, active, and complete continuation of the Warlords legacy online. Thank you, Snotling and Piranha! You've created something genuinely enjoyable here
.
KGB, glad to see you maintaining the Warlorders site. Looks like you've even gathered one or two campaigns I'm not familiar with. Tell me, is "The First Humans" campaign still woefully incomplete? Is the hosted version of "The Huge Wars" playable (the old one wouldn't work for me back in the day)? And I may have one that you don't; I'll do a little checking to verify that.

[KGB]

LPhillips,

The First Humans: Not sure what you mean by incomplete. I've never played it personally other than testing out the first scenario to make sure it loads. If you are looking for the intro/winning text, then yeah that's mostly blank. But there are 10 playable episodes and rewards etc.

The Huge Wars: It's works as far as I know. Certainly no one ever said it didn't and if they had, I would have fixed it if possible.

KGB

[LPhillips]

Hm... Apparently I need my disk to play the version currently installed on this computer. Too lazy for that, so...

Here is a download site for a version which does not require the disk, and comes with some extra campaigns. http://lastcitadel.ru/Downloads.aspx

[LPhillips]

It occurs to me that we may simply need to pass out a fully modified version of the game for play. KGB, since you're setting the rules, would you provide such a copy? I have tournament sets, NUT sets, etc., but after syncing my files I have no idea what I'm using anymore.

So, You have Ephross 2, is there an Ephross 1? There are a few that I don't have too, nice!
Looks like you have all of the ones I have, although some are under different names.

Edit:
Legion of Blood fails extraction, just one file, some kind of ruin.DAT. Breaks the campaign so that it doesn't appear in the game. Also, I don't see the Divine Rights package -not that it's too useful anyway, but it is extensive player-created content.

[KGB]

LPhillips,

The version on that Russian site is up to date (I still play PBEM games with that Warlord so I know he keeps things current) in terms of all the latest heroes/units etc that are used for PBEM play. So that's really the ideal download to grab since everything you need is in one easy to install archive.

There is an Ephross1. Unfortunately no one I know seems to still have a copy. I hope one day a long-lost Warlord will turn up with it when they come back to the site or I stumble across an old site still there that has it.

I'm glad to know I have a few you don't. A *lot* of players contributed campaigns and custom maps when I put out the call for stuff I didn't have. It's amazing the amount of content that was out there and how much was probably lost because we just never thought to archive a copy.

Legion of Blood should just contain a single file called LoB. It's a fully extracting archive. It completely changes the look/feel of your DLR as everything including all the graphics in the game were customized. There is a nice uninstaller that puts everything back when you are finished playing. What I did was make a complete duplicate DLR directory and installed Legion of Blood there so that it doesn't interfere with the base game. There is an incredibly amount of work there including a custom world map. It definitely installed and ran for me (I played through the first chapter). If you can give me the exact file/location, I can sent you a copy of whatever you are missing.

I have Divine Right. It's not on the site right now because I am modding it. The original author passed away from cancer a couple of years ago and I became the guardian of his work. It's functionally complete, but was not fully balanced as he was tinkering with map/spells/heroes/items/units in some PBEM games when he became really ill. I've cleaned a lot up, fixed a lot of the balance issues from play testing and will shortly upload it again. If you really want, I can send you an early copy.

KGB

[ChickenChaser]

So is there a "how to" forum on how to start pbem games on dlr? Got the game, just never played against a living opponent. I logged in to Molotov's site and accepted a challenge, but I don't know what to do next.

[KGB]

ChickenChaser,

One of you must contact the other person by email. I have not used his site (I know most players emails so I just directly contact them) so I don't know if it shows the email address or not. Basically you need to decide:

1) Are you playing a specific scenario (an already created map) or a random map. Specific scenarios usually means you are taking one of the pre-built sides in that scenario. Random Map usually means you are custom building your own side from the available heroes/units. Just about 100% of the PBEM games these days use the K4 Heroes and the StormHeim units. This means you select your 4 heroes from the K4 hero list and you can use any regular DLR unit + anything in the Stormheim expansion pack.

2) Game setup parameters. This is things like hidden map on/off, Fog of war on/off, Teleport allowed (typically no), army start (1, 1-4, X number of setup points). It can also include timed vectoring on/off, boat penalty etc.

Once you decide on the above stuff, one of you sets up the game (I suggest you let the other person do this since you have not done it before). Then if you are playing custom sides, you will need to send the other person your custom army set. After that, you just email the turn back and forth.

It sounds complex but it's really easy once you do in once or twice.

KGB

[magian]

Thanks for the link Lphillips.

I now have DLR up and running and am up for some pbem action. Like Chicken, I have only ever played DLR solo (and a fair bit of hotseat). But, it would be a nice change of pace to play against an opponent with a real brain.

After playing warbarons for a while and going back to DLR, I was really struck by the speed of the units and the crazy payouts for quests and ruins. Its a fun change, but it should be interesting trying to play it competitively.

Loving the DLR heroes (haven't tried the Kheroes versions yet though). Not sure about the stormheim units, I'll have to try and get used to them (I suppose).

[KGB]

You should definitely familiarize yourself with the K-Heros and Stormheim expansion pack (about 25 extra units) for PBEM. I also highly recommend re-acquainting yourself with army set construction since you'll have to do that too unless you play a preset scenario and it's probably the most important thing you'll do in any game.

DLR definitely has much more movement than Warbarons and it's always something I have to remember when switching back and forth between games. The quest/ruin payouts are similar to War2 which as you note are much higher than Warbarons. Those differences tend to make Warbarons a slow paced game built around army production while DLR was a fast paced game built around heroes with a lot of dynamic changes from turn to turn.

If you have the internet connection speed, DLR is best played online in simultaneous mode rather than PBEM mode. That allows things like teleport to be used without it being way over powered.

KGB

[LPhillips]

Well, I'd like to take a few more days to get familiar with the units and game mechanics. It's been a while. Is Wednesday a good day for everyone?
Our players are:
KGB
Magian
Chickenchaser
LPhillips

KGB, as you have the most experience, would you create the game for us? I'll send out a private message to collect emails. We need to send you our unit/hero sets, right?