Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

If we don't have enough overlords next game I'd be happy to give an it a whirl if the independent/neutral dominion change is put into place (whether or not any further benefits are given do them). Though, I admit, I do not meet the qualifications for "experienced" it seems like it would be both a challenge and a blast.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

The independent/neutral change is almost definitely going to be in. I favor it, everyone who's commented has favored it. It's probably in.

I like the idea of expanding attack options, personally. How exactly this is going to be handled is what I am not sure of yet. I like squirrel's banner idea, but if I used it I would put a limit as to how many banner armies you can have.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

The whole point to the banners is they aren't limited. But you do have diminishing returns - the more you have, the lower the marginal value of the *next* one. So there's some logical point at which you stop making them. And every one is some number of gems you aren't spending on other uses. I don't see a need for a hard limit.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

how about every 10turns of the game you get +1max attack armies per turn?


that way early on when you are three times as big as your neighbors you are severely limited but in the end game when things boil down equally between finalists the limit is high?


also if the overlords have no restrictions on attacking indies early in the game and start with so many starting provinces i fear that they might just kill all the normals by turn 20 if not turn 12? what would be done to prevent this? perhaps if the overlords have no restriction on attacks against indies they should also not get so many starting provinces? maybe they should get 3forts with labs and temples in them and 0extra provinces between?


just rambling... i think also maybe we need a new thread? discuss ideas about overlords2 in another thread so people can still come to this thread for clear and concise and easy to find information about the current actual game?

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

@namad, agreed. The indie thing allows them to leverage the start. That's why I don't support any changes on attack rate.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Yes it will and on it's own it would radically change the next game compared to this one. The Overlords will be able to expand much quicker. In this game only the overlords R'lyeh and Marignon got any reasonable expansion in the first year. So I think being able to attack neutrals sorts out the slow Overlord expansion at the beginning but still protects the Normals from an Overlord rush fuelled by his extra early game castles and income.

But there is also the problem overlords face now - that they cannot run a proper war at this stage. A Normal is now far more dangerous than an Overlord who can only really hit one territory a turn.

So I think some relaxation of the attack rules needs to happen in the mid/late game. I think Namads/my idea of allowing an extra attacks based on the game turn would work well as it slowly makes the Overlords more dangerous.

The problem I have with Squirrel's Standards idea is that it is too cheap rather than the idea itself. 15 gems is very little and means that the Overlords could buy several in the first year. There is little else that would be as vital to use with those early gems. That allows early game Overlord rushes very easily. And those will neither demonstrate Overlord skill or be any fun for the Normal who is rushed due to the inbuilt inbalance in their starting positions. If you made them cost say 50 per banner (make it a summonable creature and one needs to be in each attacking army) then it would work better.

Also please remember this map has really affected the game. Many Normals had effectively only one Overlord neighbour. The water too has acted early on as a map edge. I am not sure this was really the original intention. Making sure everyone has several neighbours including (for Normals) two Overlords would make the diplomacy far better.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

The main thing is I don't want overlords to be able to field too many armies early in the game, because I'm pretty sure that would just lead to them crushing everyone. Currently I can think of two ways to deal with this. 1) You can build one banner for each x time that has passed, or 2) Make these banners construction 4 or 6 so you can't make them right away.

Anyway, I'm not sure I'm doing this yet to begin with.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Hoplo: its a sites 20 game. 15 gems is maybe an overlord's per turn gem income at the start. That's a significant expenditure of resources.

50 gems is just obscene. Its unplayably obscene. For 50 gems you can get a RoW (with hammer) or your choice of 2 good artifacts (like the chalice and the scepter of dark regency, both with a hammer).

Consider that overlords got something on the order of +10gems/turn advantage. Now, without considering the disadvantages of that gem income being spread around, you're basically saying that for each extra attack they get to make they have to spend 1/2 a year's 'bonus' gem income. Now consider that Eriu or Vanheim or Jotunheim can produce multiple thugs each turn by year 2, and probably forge sufficient gear for all of them in the same time frame by year 3. Basically, severely limited attacks means the overlord loses any raiding war instantly.

Really, 25 gems is probably too much, but anything higher than that is certainly out of the question.

It absolutely has to be an item, so teleport/cloud trapeze raiding is possible.

Making them require Constr 4 is certainly reasonable - Overlords wouldn't need them early.

Namad's proposal doesn't increase attacks fast enough unless its on an exponential scale (+1 year 2, +2 more year 3, +4 more year 4, etc...), and even then it might need to be every 6 months by year 4.

Basically, there's a fundamental disconnect between how the game is actually played and how people seem to imagine its played. How the game is actually played involves potentially dozens of attacks by year 5 or 6 in a single turn.

Consider VC3, which is on turn 52 (mid year 5). The game leaders have ~40+ provinces each. If I can't make at least 20 attacks on turn 1 of the war against one of them, its not worth starting the war, and a more reasonable estimate is 25-30. Why? Because if I don't I will not inflict sufficient damage to make victory likely, and will probably be facing a similar size retaliation.

Now imagine I was an Overlord attacking a normal in that situation. I can make an anemic 6 attacks based on Namad's theory, or *maybe* that many based on Hoplosternum's gem cost (VC3 has a normal sites setting, and I maybe could have bought 4 standards at 50 gems and have been reasonable under those settings. Sites 20 would involve fewer gems...). Then my target retaliates with 25 attacks, my empire is halved in size, and the war more or less continues in that vein until I inevitably lose.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Yeah, I don't think the people playing normals really understand how handicapped overlords are. Just consider the fact that as the nominal leading overlord I would not be at that much of an advantage in a no holds barred fight with Vanheim right now other than the natural water defense advantage R'yleh always has. There is effectively no way for me to do anything to him whatsoever (good luck pushing my dominion into that blood sacrifice) - other than loom ominously ready to squish an army that goes for TC's cap. Same thing Ashdod just realized against Ermor. The way the game is set up it only makes sense for overlords to attack other overlords, and couterintuitively be at the mercy of a normal ally. The way the restrictions are work fine for the early game, but as Squirloid illustrates they're utterly crippling for late game fights.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

the idea I was having is that if the overlords are allowed to attack any indies any time they'll expand 2or3 as fast as they did in this game which was already fairly fast....


if you can only attack 6provinces a turn when you want to attack 18-24in one turn maybe that isn't so bad if you are 300% as strong as your enemy... i mean if we end up saying overlords can attack up to 24provinces per turn on turn 50 then they basically have totally unrestricted abilities to attack, and as such why did they bother being called an overlord and why did they get any advantages at all?

I guess you are saying you'd rather pay a high price for each additional army so that in theory you have the option to attack more per turn even if in practice it works out to the same or less than a fixed per year increase?

maybe overlords could get 1extra attack per year and one extra attack per vassal? encouraging them to get vassals and representing the vassal's logistical advantage to the overlord? i dunno.... we could just play a game without overlords :-p

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Btw, I have gone ahead and made an overlords 2 discussion thread, so for the future please try to keep such comments to the other thread.

Thread is located here.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Oh, i see, Vanheim isn't killing me because you're being ominous. Does anyone mind if I set AI? I mean, I can still be annoying, but my effective income is *30*/trn, my gem income is a trickle, and there's no way those mages are getting me out of this mess on their own.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Nah, I'm gonna roll onto your cap very shortly and put you out of your misery (or at least try to), so you won't have an indefinite wait for a last ditch fight. Probably better to script something nasty in the castle and stale than switch AI and let me pick apart the last of the defenders as the AI attacks out.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Don't see why not... Machaka's now AI

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

I don't see any way an Overlord is winning this game now. Hell, I'm doing great, but I can't bust out anywhere. I'll continue to play though. It would be cheesy of me to bow out, while I have such stupendous forces.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

anyone want to trade me gems? I have F/S in abundance and I need all other types in various quantities...

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Was the restriction on normals casting global's lifted or something? Thought that was pretty much their only restriction? Doesn't matter much to me that its up, just want to know if I'm unaware of a rule change, or perhaps I misinterpreted to begin with?

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

I'm not aware that that restriction was ever lifted. Oceania should probably kill off the caster of the Wild Hunt, since it was cast against the rules of the game. Or, Oceania should be disqualified.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Meh, was probably just an accident. Not like wildhunt is a game-changer far as I know--disqualification is probably a bit harsh. Killing the caster seems more than reasonable.

I was really just interested if it was lifted, as I'd revise my strategy somewhat.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

wow, completely my bad. With all the other rules talk the restrictions on us 'normals' casting globals completely slipped my mind. I'll try to get him killed off somehow. I'm sure Marignon or someone will be glad to oblige.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Totally understandable, kianduatha. The rules to this game are quite mind boggling. Just kill the caster off.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

had this not been brought up again in the thread i was planning to start aiming for a global myself :-/

so don't feel bad and... dangit back to the drawing board on my plans!

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Yeah, killing the caster off is a fine solution. Disqualification would be a little overkill for just casting one global. It's a good argument to looking into modding out globals for the normals in the next game though.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

all globals could be modded to be national spells for all nations that are chosen to be overlords? or would that be too much work? or would it mostly just be copy/paste?


also is there anyway to specifically know which mage cast a global? like if you see that mage in battle does he get an icon on him or something? i forget... or i never knew

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

since no one wants to trade for my astral gems.... does anyone want to sell or rent a province to me that allows recruitment of astral mages? pm me or find me on irc to haggle


also anyone wanna give me a bulk discount rate on antimagic amulets? like 4s each if i buy a large enough amount?

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

IIRC, to make normals unable to cast globals and overlords able to, I'd have to disable the normal globals, and make some copies of them for the overlords to use and give those to them as national spells. However I think you can only give the same national spell to 3 nations, so if there were more overlords I'd have to make two different versions of the copied spell to use.

There's a green pentagram or something that shows up on a mage that has cast a global.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

dang i actually lost a unit to the wild hunt... seems if the commander routes it dies (assassination style battle)

if you need any help killing the caster of that spell and there's anything i can do to help lemme know cause... all my mages are priests and if i have to script all of them and/or lose more of them i'll be inconvenienced

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

You're already helping him suicide, don't worry :)

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

wts lots of dwarf hammers in exchange for something that is not fire gems (other gem types or... use your imagination ... pm offers)


also interested in trading my fire gems away for some non-fire gems.... willing to do 12fire gems for 10nonfire (feel free to pm and haggle worse offers)

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

You can pm me with an offer if you like. Last time I offered you something the response was "your craaaaazy" or something like that, lol.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

want to sell dwarf hammers, accepting payments in any gemtype besides fire... reduced prices!

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

So, we should probably put some game counters up. I have a vague idea who is winning, but by no means a complete idea.

Heh... leave it to me to finally play Ashdod, in a game where they cannot attack anyone.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

I am winning. No. I have already won.

...

I'm not playing anymore! =p

(BTW Baalz, hoped you liked getting your teeth kicked in by a dying nation =). Damn blood sacking skinshifting loonies. At least I took ~100 of them with me as well!)

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

does anyone know who ended up with the 3machaka forts that count as vps?

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

So, I'd like to change my vote to be to lay this game to rest. I find myself completely apathetic and phoning in every turn...I feel like there is nothing I can do. I don't mean that as a whiny exaggeration, I mean literally I'm sitting on a pile of mages and gems and I can't do anything productive with them. Just keeping beating back the indie attacks (my luck-3 scale doesn't help much where my dominion isn't) would be pretty much a full time job for my pretender...who of course needs to be called back due to my half-assed efforts. Literally, I've got nothing I can do right now other than perhaps a suicidal plunge into another overlord while I wait for one of the normals to really realize how utterly unable I would be to respond to any kind of attack (hint: Vanheim's blood sac has pushed my dominion out of my capital...so good luck fighting around there). Those of you not playing overlords just consider for a moment how you would plan an attack on another overlord with the assumption that their normal ally is going to counterattack you there where you have no prayer of pushing your dominion. On top of this, the bar is so high for an overlord victory as to be essentially impossible, thus I find it very difficult to much get into doing these turns. I get the impression from general comments from other overlords that I'm not alone in this feeling, so my vote is we call it a successful experiment and gg all.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

why not just alter the rules in some fashion? making overlord victory easier? allowing overlords to attack indies at will... allowing overlords a 2nd type of army that can attack anywhere?

etc?

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Heh, to be honest, I haven't been playing for the quick win for a while now, I've been playing to test out some things.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

I don't think you appreciate the scope of the handicap. Yes, those things would help a little, but at the end of the day the overlords cannot realistically bring a fight with a normal to a close. As we pull into late game and it becomes not too uncommon for 20 provinces to switch hands in a single turn of a war, only being able to commit to big fights is completely paralyzing. Not to mention the single point of failure that happens if you lose your pretender and gatestone due to bad luck or clever planning by your adversary. Also, an overlord planning to go on the offensive needs to consider whats going to happen if he does start succeeding in taking out one of the remaining overlords...I can't imagine any way that plays out except several normals attacking him to keep him from winning, which is just absurd to try and think about fighting off with two offensive armies.

It seems like several of the normals want to keep playing, but the overlords are all finding themselves sitting around unable to do anything that would not be suicidal. Really the only way I can see this being viable for the overlords going into late game is to essentially scrap the overlord restrictions almost entirely, and I don't imagine that would be accepted.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

uhm maybe.... overlords can attack anyone anywhere at will provided that whoever they are attacking is a player that has once before attacked them? (so use your god to attack someone and as soon as they attack back you're allowed to attack them at will? or they can refuse to attack back and just lose the one province a turn?)


or like... any better ideas anyone can think of in the next 1day?

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

I'm going to make an executive decision on this. Either - all restrictions are lifted and this finishes as a normal game, OR we end it now and reorganize a new overlords game with more sensible rules where it's actually possible for overlords to win. If we do end up calling it I can leave the game up for anyone else who wants to continue playing.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Sounds good. Scraps my defense ;) but if its a way to keep the game going, whatever.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

i'm all for totally removing the restrictions. I do think that if we are to totally remove all restrictions we should impose a turn that is not the current turn for the rule change to take effect on.... that way anyone at war with an overlord has at least a turn or two to plan for the change? does that sound reasonable to anyone else?

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Haha, it'll take much more than one turn before I retool everything, that's more than fair.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

well I was just saying one turn should be the least.... and one turn I think makes that first turn 43? so ... 3turns would be 45? and etc...

Hopefully I'm not at war with any overlords so it's not much a concern of mine but... some specific number is probably fairest in general...

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Might as well do another 3 turn changeover deal. So on turn 44, you may proceed to give whatever orders you like.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Hmmm. I could go either way. I'm strong enough that with all restrictions lifted, I could probably quickly do a lot of damage. On the other hand, I would not miss the game were it to end now. Sorry if that sounds wishy-washy.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Yeah, with the rules as they were I'm not really surprised with overlords being a bit apathetic at this point. Well, no one seems to really be calling for the game to end, so I would assume you all are moving forward.

Also, I've set the hosting interval to 72 hours. I figure it can't hurt since the holidays are upon us, and technically I was supposed to do it turns ago anyway.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

what are the overlords new victory conditions?

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Victory by concession or control of 50% of the map. At which point should have long since been obtained.

Re: Overlords - Game Thread. (playing)
 

Oh no!

I have been away so couldn't respond before now.

I agree this rules completely knack the Overlords fun and I can see why they are completely apathetic. I am surprised they have continued so long especially after the thread began talking about how the rules made the game both unwinable and rather pointless for them.

But the rules were stacked massively in their favour. It took me (with a great deal of manual and spell site searches) till turn 35 to get in to double figures of gem income (apart from a turn when I stole one of TCs provinces) and thats with 20+ provinces. I still have less gems per turn than an overlord started the game with.

Marignon (especially) and R'Leyh are massively ahead in research and have large gem rich empires. They are also two of the best players. Baalz's gem income lead is huge and has been for a long time. While Vanheim and Ashdod are fairly powerful anyone seriously think the eventual winner won't be Baalz or Atul from here if all restrictions go? But with a conquer 50% of the world victory condition it is going to take a long time from here.

So I vote we abandon this game under the Rdonj's new victory conditions.

But as we have all invested a lot of time to this game though if people do want to complete it at least make any victory conditions quick so the game ends soon (or at least could). The game was not designed to be fair (in a free for all sense) and has been anything but. So if we move to free for all rules at least leave the easy victory conditions. Let everyones victory conditions be the same as a Normal. 5 Capitals (with other peoples Overlord starting Forts counting as capitals too).