Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

Expert Players vs Newbies game
OK now that I have your attention... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Im trying to revive interest in my "WE vs THEM" project. http://www.dom2minions.com/WEvsTHEM.shtml
OK I will dig up a smaller map. Maybe something like..
MEDIUM 10 each, or 170 total provinces. Best done as 150 land and 20 water.
LARGE 15 each, or 255 total provinces. Best done as 225 land and 30 water.

What I have in mind is for the Expert Players to design the AI opponents to be hard (Ermor, Atlantis, and Rlyeh. No MOD I think. Just pretender designs). Then have a newbie game where they all ally with each other against the fearful-3. That way new players wont feel pressed into a prove-yourself player-vs-player game right off the bat.

[ May 27, 2004, 22:24: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

LOL! Good one, Gandalf!

I don't count as expert for pretender-optimizing, so I'll defer to the experts on that!

PvK

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

So if I'm to understand the question, the experts should not necessarily be experts on Dominions II's multiplayer aspect, but instead, experts on single-player Dominions II, and how to design a pretender most suitable not for themselves, but for the AI.

The catch being that AIs never pursue anything that's defineable as a strategy, but instead, just sort of operate in an ad-hoc manner, frequently getting its pretender killed. As such, pretender builds optimized for specific esoteric strategies will be of no use to the AI, who will not pursue said strategy.

With this in mind, the best choice is scales with a no-magic wyrm. Since the AI will casually get its pretender killed, and any magically-oriented pretender will uselessly cast spells until it passes out, the AI pretender should be denied this by not being magical. Ermor should be given, instead, a death-magic POD.

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well the design would tend to be one trying to work around the AIs weak points. The AI bonuses for hard and impossible settings only gives it gods with more points so the design does not have to stay within the human-player choice range.

I was actually playing with the idea of giving all 3 of them Wyrms. Since the nations have it in common it made for a good storyline having them all be children of one nest. They have decided to become the leaders of seperate nations and ally against everyone else.

Magic, scales, equipment all can be added. Also extra starting commanders, troops, and maybe 2 or 3 castles each right from the start. The hard part will be finding the balance. Im hoping to achieve something that CAN be beat but only be beat by an alliance.

Im more interested in running things to help move new players forward than I am in games for experts to fight each other. This is one type of game I would be willing to keep always running on my server over and over. Which means (of course) that if we also wanted to add abit of random to this then that would be fine also.

[ May 28, 2004, 14:59: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

Can you script Messages to occur in game on certain turns? This would make a fantastic tutorial.

You could write a multiplayer tutorial, with set starting positions and races. On your first turn you might get a message saying something like this:

"Welcome lord, to your throne room. You have appeared at Last, as legend said you would, in the hour of our greatest need.

Three foul wyrms, sibulant siblings of the same nest, have emerged to lead the evil nations of X,Y and Z in a foul crusade, to wipe all free creatures from this world.

We have allies in the nations of B and C, but our foes are strong, and only if we work together can we destroy the three wyrms.

We have a small army already. I humbly suggest you organise Borok to lead them into battle, and have him stay behind the lines while the heavy troops charge forwards at their nearest foe. (Select the province "Capitalton" and then click on "Arrange Units". Select all the heavy troops at the top, and click on Borok to form a new unit. Click on "Click here to select orders" and set Borok to Stay behind troops, and the troops to "Attack nearest".) Having done this, send them at the province to the West. I am reliably informed they are weakly defended, and should proove an easy conquest"

I'd be very glad to write such a tutorial's text, though I'm perhaps not (yet :-) the best person to ask for it's content.

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

I'd be interested in playing as a beginner if you decide to set this up. I feel like I'm missing a lot of the complexities of the game and I'm not certain why.

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I'm certainly not an expert, but I think that I've seen the AI reserve its high-magic human pretenders (ie: great enchantress) for rituals/research, instead of sending it out to die. So designing some sort of high-research, high bless-effect or rainbow mage on a human chassis might also work OK for the AIs.

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Afraid not. Apparently MODs can be swapped in and out during a game. Also, Im thinking maybe the map image file can. I might play with doing that so that a "message" to the player, or certain highlights, could be changed in mid-game

I have a couple of other newbie-tutor things in the works. A new Version of mini-map being done as a tutorial on mapping. And a "care package" for new players which will include a full set of premade gods, a started game, and a web-based walkthru. Whats done so far is scattered into a directory at http://www.dom2minions.com/starter/

Im also considering a Version of the web-game board being worked on here to run something of my own. Somewhere between the MP games its doing now, and the competition ladder done by battlesite. Mine will be an arcade ladder where everyone plays against the AI for the "top 10" score position in each Category. Not only would that be good for newbs but I think the data might be helpful to the devs.

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

so any offers? If not then I will eventually get around to whipping one out myself. I dont want to hear any comments about how badly I achieve it from the various experts in AI behaviour http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">AIs can't play bless effects worth crap. Instead of focussing on their sacred units, they'll continue to churn out LI and militia. They don't even accompany their sacreds with a priest to bless them! No human player would ever use his sacred units without a priest...but the AI doesn't care.

It follows that the AI should not be playing a bless effect.

The AI also does not intelligently use spell tactics or forge items. You just don't see wrathing squads, drainlife/skeleton squads, flaming arrow casters, or any of the obvious spell manuevers that humans pull.

This is why the AI does very badly with mage and summon-oriented nations such as Mictlan, and does much better with straightforward nations like Ulm.

In conclusion, it's mostly a waste to give the AI any kind of magic on its pretender: It won't know how to effectively use that magic to summon powerful critters and/or equip them with goodies. The no-magic wyrm for anyone but Ermor, who needs at least some death magic to create commanders, is what the AI will handle best.

[ May 29, 2004, 20:05: Message edited by: Norfleet ]

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

OK so high magic would be possible but not high bless. Im not sure that a human high-magic pretender would offer more of a challenge than a Wyrm. Maybe for Atlantis since I considered its land-attack weak I was thinking of placing it behind the others. They would provide protextion so that Atlantis can research heavily for later game. Since they wont attack each other it would be easy to trap atlantis to where thats its only optionf or something to do.

But Rlyeh does well with magic doesnt it?

If the pretender is a Wyrm then it will go out and combat. Would the scale costs be worth adding magic to a Wyrm? I still like the idea of a nest of Wyrms. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nope, fraid not. Usually, the AI R'lyeh is killed by some landlubber, because R'lyeh is a magically-dependent nation that is very tricky to play, because Astral magic lacks the directness of other magics.

AIs simply do badly at magic: They don't synergize, they just make seemingly random decisions that are very short-term at best. Thus, any investment of points made into the AI's magic will yield poor returns. Give him lots of scales instead, so he can churn out lots of crud, something he does well.

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

So if a 3-way alliance between Ermor, Atlantis and Rlyeh all had Wyrm pretenders with scales that cranked up on order and productivity and high-admin castles on a map which would allow some build-up time.. this would be step-up in challenge?

Who should get the most build-up time if none do magic well? Who does best in early, mid, late game? Should the map try to arrange it so that Rlyeh has first front? Then Ermor, then Atlantis?

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

Ermor needs some death magic, however: Otherwise, they can't summon their mages and commanders.

The other problem with putting the AI allied with Ermor, is that then the AI will do absolutely nothing about the spread of Ermor's dominion into their lands: The result being that all the other nations will quickly lose their population and die off if Ermor is placed near them, particularly if Ermor is placed between them. Water nations, in particular R'lyeh and Atlantis, are unusually susceptible to dominion loss in such a manner due to the way water tends to expose their profiles.

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

Put all the newbyes in the center of the map, and the big 3 CPU at the border, or however so that CPU won't clash its dominion.

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Originally it was becuase the 2 water nations and Ermor were the nations I always left out of my early solo games. I felt they were too hard to learn against so they became my idea of a hard AI.

If it goes over well (and I do think there is a desire for co-op play vs AI's) then I was going to do others. I like the idea of doing it with dragons. Maybe also one of just big heads, the high priest and high bless nations.

Nations of death could be a possibility, Bless/priest is another especially for nations where the description refers to close history with another nation, maybe devils/blood, Non-humans vs humans.

Re: Expert Players vs Newbies game
 

Brilliant idea Gandalf!

I would definitely go with a theme for the enemy alliance, like the dragons. Pick 3 different coloured dragons and match them up with nations that are in style with the dragons colour/attributes. Eg., red dragon = Abysia.

Then add 9 picks of the path that relates to the dragon's immunity. Red = 9 picks of fire magic, Green = 9 picks nature magic, etc. Since a pretender loses 1 point from each path if it is slain, it will be reduced in power each time it is slain, but not so much as a rainbow mage would suffer.

The AI will inadvertedly also make some nice moves by pure circumstance when you have a nation like Abysia and a fire immune, 9 fire picks, red dragon pretender (eg., when it eventually unleashes a fire storm, some of the units in it's army will just happen to have fire immunity, because that what Abysia is a bout). So despite the limited intelligence of the AI, it should prove interested for new players.

Make one nation based on fire, one on poison (C'tis or Machaka), and one on something else.. Perhaps an underwater nation would be a good idea. New players are generally hesitant to get their feet wet (after they have their first heavy cavalry section chewed to bits by a school of sharks.) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif So maybe blue dragon and Atlantis as the third nation.

If you want Ermor as the antagonist, that could be a different (but similar) scenario. Ally Ermor with some of the other death themed nations and see if it works out (Carrion Woods, C'tis death theme?)..

/Rainbow