Re: Noob questions!
 

Another possiblity would be a temporary dominion increase of 1 candle/province for the winner, and a temporary decrease of 1 candle/province for any nation who does not enter the competition. This would be nice and thematic... who can have faith in a God who can't even muster a champion for the world Arena tournament? An increase in unrest in all provinces, as was mentioned, would also work... as would a temporary decrease in tax revenue... or getting hit by a couple "bad luck" events. In these cases, nobody would dare to not enter the Arena.

A great addition would be "Qualifying Rounds", where each competitor MUST win a simple qualifying fight against an experienced gladiator (or an experienced indy prot-15 commander, for example). If you lose this qualifying fight it is the same as having not entered. This would have several effects. First, sending in a suicide competitor with an exploding medallion, etc. would no longer work. Second, you could not simply send a cheap, disposable scout or priest to have "technically" entered, without really trying. Lastly, it would add extra, interesting Arena rounds, so you can get a feel for the competitors' strengths before they start duelling! I find reviewing the Arena fights to be a lot of fun, and this would make it even more so.

-Cherry

Re: Noob questions!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Never thought about stone idols! I believe that's a patch item, I don't remember if it existed when we had our little death game.

Hmmm, BTW, does anyone use stone idols often? I tried maybe a couple times, and didn't notice a strong effect (if any at all) on my neighbor's dominion.

Re: Noob questions!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Err, if that idea was ever implemented, I think in MP most arena events would feature mostly scouts.

Re: Noob questions!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hell yeah! Very good ideas! I agree with this totally. This would stop the AI abusing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree. This is the best idea so far. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Noob questions!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hell yeah! Very good ideas! I agree with this totally. This would stop the AI abusing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree. This is the best idea so far. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">...I like 3, but I really dislike 1 and 2. A qualifying round would stop AI abuse without negatively altering the nature of arena combat. The way I see it, removing the ability to equip competitors means that a God, Jotun, or astral mage will always win. And removing afflictions afterward... seems unrealistic, and makes it a zero-risk proposition for the strongest entrant.

Re: Noob questions!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Err, if that idea was ever implemented, I think in MP most arena events would feature mostly scouts.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Maybe, but then if your scout gets knocked out early you still suffer some penalty to your nation. The trick is to make the risk/reward/punishment scale meaningful without overbalancing it. Others I'm sure have more experience and better ideas than I do, but I think the premise is sound.

Send no one, really bad things happen.
Send a wuss who gets knocked out fast, bad things happen.
Send someone who does mediocre... neutral.
Send someone who makes the finals (semis whatever) small good things happen.
Send someone who becomes the champion... better things happen.

Furthermore, make a penalty to a nation who has the champion when he loses. That way if you want to you can send a tougher dude than the champion to give that nation a headache, then the next time another nation will send a stronger competator... eventually the cycle could wind up with fairly decent if not out right strong champions being taken on by buffed opponents to knock out that champion.

Its all in how the payoff is set up...

Re: Noob questions!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">You are right : it is not that much important to send or not cursed items or booby traps to the arena, the problem lie elsewhere, so let me point out the obvious then : there can only be one survivor from the Arena.
The AI is coded to send a powerful minion, or even the god. This lead to the fact that each arena event is the perfect thing to kill a lot of good/special commanders, or even - shiver - gods from the AI, for a prize which is very meager (a proof being that no player will send a critical commander in the arena).

Oh look Abysia lost his equipped archdevil, oh look Jotun lost Angerboda, oh look Pythium lost his god.
I dont think that the AI need this thorn in his side, frankly. Or at least give a real benefit to the winner, a benefit big enough that players will consider entering the arena. If they do not enter the arena, then I still dont see the point of having it.

Anyway, thats your game not mine, the feature was added because it is fun for you, so my arguing has no real purpose...

Re: Noob questions!
 

I agree with both Johann - the Arena concept is fun - and Pocus - it's an open door for abusing AIs ...
May I suggest some tweaks that I think will make the "game" fairer and more interesting ?

1/ NO items in the Arena, the combattants enter naked, all their stuff go to the Lab
2/ At the end of the fights, all survivors are fully healed/cured/restored/curses removed, they come back as new, only the dead remain dead !
3/ Prizes should be various powerful unique artifacts, or a big pack of gems, not always the same half-potent but cursed weapon

I think that those rules would kill most of the arena cheese, the players would either have to pass on an opportunity to kill enemies and gain something worthwhile, or send themselves powerful leaders (as the AI does and as the devs intended to design Arena combat).
I concur that the Dom1 Arena prize isn't that good, it's nice with a supercombatant pretender or a big fighter type leader if you get it very early, but even so ends later as a drawback as you can't get rid of it when you can forge better stuff ...

Re: Noob questions!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Something like that was already done in the past - we call that a "death game": no Ermor, common random events, everyone has to pick max turmoil and max unluck.

If you ever play in this kind of game, let me give you a hint: growth and production aren't worth s***, except in the very early stage. After a while your provinces will be so depleted you won't see any difference between growth+3 and death+3 ;-).

(Note from Psitticine: Sorry to have gone in and edited here, but there are the usual "child friendly" language policies in place here.)

[ October 08, 2003, 16:29: Message edited by: Psitticine ]

Re: Noob questions!
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hell yeah! Very good ideas! I agree with this totally. This would stop the AI abusing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I agree. This is the best idea so far. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">...I like 3, but I really dislike 1 and 2. A qualifying round would stop AI abuse without negatively altering the nature of arena combat. The way I see it, removing the ability to equip competitors means that a God, Jotun, or astral mage will always win. And removing afflictions afterward... seems unrealistic, and makes it a zero-risk proposition for the strongest entrant.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think the ONLY way to balance the Arena fights and stop the AI abusing if items wont be allowed in the arena matches.
If the items are allowed you can abuse the AI easily, IE send in a crap commander to curse the pretender etc. etc. etc.

Do you have any other idea, that how to stop AI abusing?

OR there is another solution: Do not allowed specific item types only, like cursing items etc. Maybe that should do it as well.

[ October 09, 2003, 09:09: Message edited by: Mortifer ]