Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Heh... I'm most certainly going to let someone else try their hand at LA Ermor.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Yeah, im not playing Rlyeh again. I have gotten them so many times in vels random lottery.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

I might be able to help out with the flags. Let me know what you had in mind.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

I'll PM you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

I actually do not know why we can't vote to eliminate gem producing items from the game. That would eliminate much of the micromanagement.

IMHO, that is one thing I would like to see the developers eliminate. Why intentionally add a micromanagement strategy to the game?

Gem producing items also undermine the importance of globals that give gems.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Here is my favorite sp map ive been using if interested. I like the way the sea is connected to everything...

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Keep in mind that there are people who enjoy micromanagment.
I always thought that the games normal progression would be that the blitzers would enjoy the early game, and then turn themselves over to MM people while keeping an eye out for being able to sub failing empires later.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

If people enjoy micromanaging, then why are we discussing a turn limit because they get sick of it? cannot have it both ways!

And I am still alive in the Big game, and I am not looking to turn my empire over to some MM i killed off earlier in the game. Sorry to disappoint you! The sad thing is most mm hide in the water, so they can survive the early game rushes.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Yay, root for the underdog! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Anyway, I kinda liked the way Perpetuality's nation lottery worked out. Don't know what could be done to further make unwanted nations feel happy, maybe even more bonuses?

I'm just wondering, how would the simultaneous auctioning of 60+ nations work out, and with what mechanics. What would prevent someone winning several nations, and what could you do then? Perp lottery was kinda exciting when you could not know what others did put as their choices.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Just wanted to say that if you put any kind of turn limit on the game or victory condition you force ppl to use one of a very few stratagies to win. The whole game expierance will be limited.

As for my part, I tend to not play in any game that has some random limit.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Again - blanket statements... but no examples. How will it be significantly different? I'm not wed to the idea - but you have to get into more detail than: "The entire game will be ruined oh-es no-es!!"

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Yeah, I was gonna hurry up and write another guide. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

I don't think being good at battle strategy and having the stomach to micro a large empire are mutually exclusive.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Please oh please no turn limit on the game, It creates an artificial end of the world point that all strategies must point towards.

We had a horrible time in one of Zacariah's games (where his position was eliminated early) when he sprung a previously undiscused, unannounced 75 turn limit on the game just as the final decison making wars were starting.

I personally disagree with this current mindset that the late stage game is not fun. For me, it is the most fun. All that happnes before is prelude to the cataclysmic battles with wild magicks in the apocolyptic endgame.

Don't confuse your pwrsonal time constraints with the playability of the game. The real problem of the game is that it takes 2 minutes to do a turn or up to several hours depending on where you are in the game

Usually we are all wishing we were in more games as you can be in 4 games taking 20 minutes a day or even less and then gradually you have two or three games in the several hour a turn stage and you are screwed.

Hard to predict too. You never know when you start a game whether you will get eliminated early, or kept in a smaller marginal postion all game or have a globe spanning massive empire with several constant campaigns.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

[quote]
atul said:
Eh, the more I think about it the more I think that an auction is probably not feasible as it would take too long.

I think I'll just fall back on the way it was done last time - though I might increase the bonus if you get a random selection (say 15% more pop than the last selected nation - so you will get a bonus of about 30-35%).

If anyone has any suggestions on how to perform nation selection that would take no longer than week I'd be interested.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

If you want an auction that can be done in set amount of time, but which can be a bit burdensome for organizer, how about some variation of Dutch auction?

Everyone submits their nation bids. The organizer starts on monday with some ridicilously low amount of cap population / design points / whatever manna, say 25%. Every bidder with a bid to some nation with 25% or manna gets the nation, with exact bids roll the dice. Come tuesday, the result of monday is published and taken nations are removed from the list. On tuesday, the cutoff is at say 50% of the standard, wednesday 75%, thursday 100%, friday 125% and on saturday organizer performs a lottery of remaining nations with some manna bonus.

It could be ruled that you can't bid two nations with same percentile, and your favorite is considered the one with less good stuff. Also, say, bidding in 5% increments. Also (and this is important), bids can be revised daily with bids above yesterday's cutoff, so you can adapt to situation. EDIT: and in case it wasn't apparent, all bids are hidden before the cutoff line is reached, after which won nation and winner are published.

So, as an example:

On monday, I feel no nation is worth less than 25% points, however I submit my original bidding scheme, say:
LA Ermor 45% (decided on tuesday)
Lanka 55% (decided on wednesday)
Sauromatia 85% (thursday)
MA Man 90% (also, thursday, I get this only if Sauromatia goes to someone else)

Come tuesday's cutoff line, I notice both Ermor and Lanka gone, and not to me. Oh well, I still have Sauromatia and Man as bidding options, so I don't need to react.

Wednesday, I notice every nation I've bidded for is already taken by someone else (I had no outstanding bids below 75% line), and I tire of my life, so I submit the following line:
MA Ulm 80%
MA Agartha 85%
Shinuama 90%
EA Marverni 95%
Which I all win. However, since only one nation per player, I get MA Ulm since that was my lowest bid.

Obviously that's quite a work load for organizer for he has to organize everyone's bids and update them almost daily. Bids should be able to be given in advance in case not everyone has time to sit daily on the 'net, but that does increase the work.

Anyway, that's a form of auction you could pull off in a week. I'm not sure how well it'd work, or what to use as a stick/carrot (LA Ermor probably won't mind the pop loss), or whether it'd be manageable. The previous system did work, though.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Or hell, you could always just do a random draw. I'm thinking that it's so much of a pain to even wrap my brain around these auctions and such that I'd rather just have a nation assigned to me.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Well, Velusion and I are the ones who administered the auction http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

My end of it wasn't hard to do at all, I just had to read a list of 80 lines. I don't know how difficult it was for Velusion to coordinate the actual bids, but I'd be happy to handle it if it was a pain.

And anyone who doesn't want to take part in the draft could get a random nation, so they should be happy as well.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

An easy bid system:

Each player submits a list of maximum ten nation bids, followed by a negative or positive number inside some interval, say between -30.000 and +10.000. A negative number means the population you are willing to give up, while a positive number is the bonus you want in order to play that nation.

An example: Homers list

1. LA Rlyeh -20.000
2. EA Lanka -15.000
3. MA Rlyeh -13.000
4. LA ermor -5.000
5. EA Caelum -2.000
6. LA patala -1.000
7. MA bandar Log +4.000
8. MA Jotunheim +7.000
9. MA ulm +10.000
10. EA marvereni +10.000

After that everyones bids are calculated and the winning bid is found for each nation. A winning bid is the largest negative value, or if no negative bids exist the lowest positive value. If one player wins several bids, he wins the bid with the lowest nation number on his list - the rest of the bids are removed, and the second highest bidder is found.

Example: say Homer above won the following bids

2. EA Lanka -15.000
4. LA ermor -5.000
8. MA Jotunheim +7.000

Then Homer plays EA Lanka with the starting population of 30.000-15.000= 15.000. The rest of his bid are removed, and the next highest bidder is found for LA ermor and MA Jotunheim.

*In the unlikely event two players gives the exact same bid, luck will decide between them who gets the nation.

*Players that doesnt win any bid or signs up for random nations are given a random nation among the remaining nations with the maximum pop bonus (here: +10.000).

I belive this will add a bit to the start since you are basically forced to evaluate at what price you are willing to play the stronger nations. Also the work for those setting up this game will not be that hard.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Homer's system would potentially work, of course, but I think that the 5000 pop/round draft worked surprisingly well, and see no reason to fiddle with it.

I can try making a wrap-around map using GIMP and then let Szumo fiddle with it. The maps are generally quite pretty, but I'm not sure how well his map-reader will deal with them.

I attached the example output of the default "Render Map" functiom fromp GIMP as a jpeg; obviously the real map would be much bigger, just for starters. My knowledge of scheme scripting is not outstanding, but I can figure out this script well enough to modify it, I believe.

- How many pixels should the map be? Square?
- What portion of the actual area should be water? What portion mountains?
- I have to add farmland, swamps and wastes as a new layer. How much of each, and should they / can they overlap with any mountains?
- What color scheme do we want?

I'm also working on a mod to add 11 custom nations to a megagame. There are more than 11 mod nations in existence so I'd like to combine and revise a bunch of them, mostly have permission from the mod authors.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

I was thinking about the amount of water on the map in light of how Perpetually developed. I'm feeling like the next game perhaps needs significantly less water as the two greatly dominating nations are *sharing* the water. Winning would be a certainty (rather than a high probability) if one conquered the other - without ever really having to leave the water. Water nations are at too much of an advantage underwater to be able to win without ever leaving it IMO. If we're going with 15 provinces per player it should be more like 10 water and 5 land for each water player since they really are intended to have to fight their way above water at some point for the win.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

There is definitely too much water in Perp - which is my fault and is having a huge effect on the game (though to be fair no one complained about it until we started even though the map was available). The new map will have significantly less. Perp has 1000 provinces which should equate to 16.1 provinces per player. However water nations (7.5) are allocated over 21.2 water provinces per water player while land nations were allocated only 15.4 land provinces per player. Not good.

Personally I'd rather just see the ratio fairly distributed (16-15 for everyone) and see how that works. I think 10 would be way too harsh. After all there are number of land nations that can easily take and hold water provinces.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Oh things are always clearer in hindsight, no worries on not thinking of everything. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Perhaps 10 would be too harsh, I don't really know. My thinking was that water nations are at a significant advantage if they're allowed to stay almost completely in the water and they're (with the possible exception of EA R'yleh) at less of a disadvantage on land than any land nation is in the water so it makes more sense to force them onto land than to force land players to fight them in the water. Since land nations tend to avoid picking fights with the water nations until late game they have the leisure to cherry pick the land fights they want to engage in. The competition on land in Perpetuality seemed to be *much* stronger which I'm sure was in large part due to the province count, but part of it was just that there were more hungry players, more borders to defend, and more scheming. Ah well, I was thinking about trying to snag MA R'yleh this time around anyway, dunno what I'm complaining about. Makes sense to try it with an even count to see how that works out.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

I agree with Baalz for this one..

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

So, assuming there will be a turn limit the gem generators will be increased by the following:

Clam of Pearls will require a path 2 (instead of 1) in Nature Magic (Water will stay the same). This will increase the cost to forge.
Fever Fetishes will require a path 2 (instead of 1) in Fire Magic (Nature will stay the same). This will increase the cost to forge.
(New in v1.1)Blood Stone will require a path 3 (instead of 2) in Earth Magic (Blood will stay the same). This will increase the cost to forge.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

It looks like you decided to have a turn limit to the game. How sad.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

I thought about putting it up to a vote, but then I realized I don't really want to play in a game that never ends. If I'm not gonna play, I'm not going to bother hosting. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

On a side note, no one ever even attempted to seriously address why having a turn limit with an province-average end would significantly change the game which only strengthened my own resolve that an end needed to be enforced.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

My biggest problem with turn limits are as follows.

It's difficult to predict when a game is going to end. What if the artificially set turn limit comes just as a bunch of nations are ganging up on the leader? Why then, should a nation that is /going/ to lose, win simply because of the clock. What if, right now, LA R'yleh in Perpetuality was declared the winner simply because he had the most territories. This is especially frustrating for people that are on the other side of a huge map who have no, to little, ability to contribute to the war effort / diplomatic situation.

If this game is going to have an artifical turn limit, I'll just go ahead and withdraw my application to play. I have no interest in one. My suggestion would be to have a tentative turn limit, and then when it comes up, have players vote if they want to stop or continue.

Jazzepi

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Thats an easy answer - since the turn limit is known (and it will be an average of the last 15 or so turns probably - so it probably won't be crystal clear) the nations SHOULD have ganged up on LA R'lyeh earlier in your example. Not doing so was a strategic blunder and they deserved to lose.

If it's obvious that someone has locked in the game 20 or so turns early well then perhaps people should have gotten off thier *** and attacked him a long time ago?

It's not different from a normal game really.
1. Nations put off attacking big power
2. Nations suddenly realize they need to do something about big power
3. Nations come to realize that even all their combined might won't bring that nation down.
4. Nations resign and the big power wins.

The game is the same - you just need to make a judgment call of when "too late" is.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

My problem is that this...

4. Nations resign and the big power wins.

Does not happen in turn limit games. I don't need some artificial metric to tell me when to give up. I'm perfectly fine at making that decision on my own.

Jazzepi

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

I'm for the turn limit.

Reason? The number 4. Instead of a big game stopping with a whimper (everyone just quits), it goes off with a bang (everyone's bidding their hand for top position). At least in ideal universe.

I just played a game of Risk 2210 AD with my friends. The largest change to normal Risk was a turn limit. After 5 turns, the game ends and winner is declared. Sounds like madness, but it actually worked really well.

BTW, turn limit of 120 turns or so is a lot. Perp is in turn 66 and has only third or so of the original cast left.

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And arguably is not terribly far from coming to a head in terms of critical mass of a couple of nations. I'll be kinda surprised if it goes another 20 turns without it being overwhelmingly obvious who the winner is going to be.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Why has the game to end at a fixed turn?
If you want to make it shorter, then there are enough other possibilities for victory, like the first to reach 250 provinces and hold them for 3 turns wins. So there is a game where noone will have to manage 400 province empires and it will not end apruptly. (as the empire that has 250 provinces needs to be strong enough to hold his provinces for 3 turns [i think using the normal province victory of dom3 would make the game too suspectible to air drop blunders])

I personally think that a turn limit is a pretty boring end to a megagame. Also, how would it be for the nation that has just 1 province less than the victor and now just lost the game (maybe this secon nation gained already defeated the 'winning' nation at war, but just needs some more time).

If you want to end the game, just wish for armageddon ten times, and most players will leave out of frustration.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

In radiance the game went to turn 105+ or so with 5 or so viable contenders. That wasn't even a mega game.

Jazzepi

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Yea - and the game ended without a real winner because people were simply too tired to keep playing. Radiance is an excellent example of why I support some sort of end.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

I could agree to something like that. 250-400 seems somewhat reasonable.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

So, basically what you're saying is that propping up a victor, through an artificial metric, who didn't really win is better than no winner at all. I completely disagree.

Jazzepi

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Velusion, there was quite a bit of discussion on why turn limits are bad. So i very much disagree with your statement that noone seriously addressed the issue.

The biggets reason is that it causes all strategies to warp and culminate at that end of the world turn limit.

I, along with others who have said so, will not play in any turn limit game also. But at least you tell us in advance, so we can choose whether to play or not. Unlike the last game I played with another host.


And, having said that, you host, you get to choose the rules. So we all can choose.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

well, hmm, ok, just read your last post,

I have to agree your upper turn limits sound way more than reasonable. 250-400. I think we can all agree on something there so Velusion does not have nightmares about hosting some game forever.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

That was a number or provinces, not a turn limit.

Jazzepi

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Any ETA on when this game will get started ?

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

The plan was to wait for the next patch. I suppose we'll stop waiting in about next 3-4 weeks and just go ahead and start.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

I updated streamers and standards to include Eriu and Tirnanog flags. I can do a larger update as per Velusion's request when the next patch comes out.

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As far as playing a nation that you wrote a guide for,
I'd love to try my hand at EA R'Lyeh in an MP actually. Not saying I'd win for that, but would definately like to give them a shot.

I was pretty happy with Perp's nation draft really. If you are like me and prefer certain nations, you stick them high on your list (and my list was 20 nations long!) and try to get them and forgoe bonuses. If you don't really care which nation you get, you just take what fate gives you with a bonus.

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The system was adequate - the bonus was not sufficient in my opinion.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Sweeeet!

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Should we up the bonus to 10% instead of 5%?

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

1. I think we should wait for the patch since many major changes coming, including battlefield enchantments ending when casting mage retreats.

2. I am fine with random nation selection that we had in perp, but i do think no one should play the same nation again. I also think people that played water races, should be forced to play a land race. In other words, i do not want to see musical chairs with same players still in the water, but with different nations.

3. I am for a mod that nerfs the hell out of gem producing items or a limit of 25 total per race.

4. I am for banning the few truly game ending spells.

5. I am not in favor of ending the game with artificial limits. At the point a clear winner emerges, most players will voluntarily step aside and crown him. But I do not think they should be forced to step down if they want to fight it out.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

There is no ETA for the patch. I'll give it a couple more weeks but I'm not keen on waiting indefinatly. When the patch comes out after we have started we will pause to patch up.

People will be free to select whatever nation they desire. Wether they win it on the other hand...

I am considering raising the cost of gem producing items even more than initially suggested. "Nerf the hell out" is probably not going to happen.

Arcane Nexus will remain banned. No other game spells will be modified.

Re: Placeholder for new Megagame - Evermore
 

Wishing for Armageddon might be the only thing that is really ugly as you can drop a few of them as a parting gift and the effect is devestating.