unbalance, micromanagement due to all-vs-all
 

I've just finished another two-vs-two game, "starts with C vs. ends with heim", and I am now convinced that most of the alleged "balance issues" and "micromanagement problems" in Dominions 2 do not occur in formats where there is proper incentive to make war.

In an "all vs. all" format, if you make war on a neighbor before you have gained a substantial strategic advantage, you will almost certainly lose the game. You might succeed at conquering your neighbor, but even if you do the other players who spent their resources conquering independents, researching, hoaring, and summoning will easily conquer you since you spent some of your resources making war.

So in an "all vs. all" game, most good players will wisely spend 50 or 100 turns making Non-Aggression Pacts with their immediate neighbors, conquering independents, researching, and so forth. This leads directly to the alleged "balance" and "micromanagement" issues, because in those games the number of provinces, armies, clams, and research levels becomes high.

I'm not sure, but I believe that in a typical "all vs. all" game with good players, by the end-game everyone has achieved research level 9 in some or all of the schools that they care about. Is that true?

In a "proper incentive for war" format, such as a format with exactly two teams (one vs. one, two vs. two, etc.), then this is just not an issue. The Ascension War is a hot war from the beginning, and the game is over long before the micromanagement becomes boring or the spell casting becomes unbalanced.

This theory of mine is consistent with Kristoffer's comment on this bulletin board to the effect that he has never played a game that went as long as the games that are discussed in the "balance" threads.

My theory is that Kristoffer and Johan have already made Dominions 2 well-balanced for games that don't go too long.

The way to play games that don't go too long is to play a format in which there is proper incentive to make war.

Pentragram Pantheon
 

There is only one other format that I am aware of that provides proper incentive to make war. It is the Pentagram Pantheon format, in which exactly five players can play, and each one is properly motivated to conquer his enemies before his competitors do.

You could also play a Pentagram Pantheon format where there were five teams. For example, ten players could play, in five teams of two players each.

Re: unbalance, micromanagement due to all-vs-all
 

For what it's worth, Entwined Destiny (6 teams of two players) has also resulted in a lot of fighting, and a fairly balanced game I would say. We are only on turn 35, but two teams have been destroyed, and the third one isn't exactly in a good shape (a godless Marignon, busy proving that indeed, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition). For now, the game has been rewarding the warmongers, but we shall see what happens next.

I would also agree with your point about the length of the game: the slightly more aggressive French players (heh) don't really have the experience of games where hundreds of clams are the norm, and such games can indeed happen. When you have an Astral Nexus, two hundred clams and the Forge of the Ancients, everything seems a lot cheaper for some reason. Likewise, if you have the time to recover gems invested in your Air Queens, they aren't so expensive; if you get dragged in a war meanwhile, you will miss all those air gems/alchemised gems.

An another interesting note: in that 2vs2 game, Vanheim was currently summoning creatures considered to be way too expensive for what they do. More specifically, I have seen some Cave Drakes, a few Wyverns, and creatures along those lines in their ranks. In a game where you aren't in danger of a war, I don't think such summons would have been used, as there are much better things available... if you can afford to wait for them.

Of course, for all of this to work, players have to feel like waging a couple of wars: I guess a 1vs1 game could still end up in a Maginot mentality, if both players do not feel like launching an attack (resulting in the same matter of hoarding resources, chain-summoning, and the like).

Re: Pentragram Pantheon
 

If you are seeking a format for warmongering, something like King of the Hill could work too (the Dom 2 game, not the Space Empires tournament in my link). Put a central province, and add a victory condition like "hold the Hill ten turns, and you win".

A shorter number of turns needed to win should result in less "high-end" means, while creating the challenge of keeping a province against several foes. If you *need* to hold that province for two turns, wouldn't you use everything you have at your disposal? Likewise, if you *must* retake that province in two turns, every single spell you have would become extremely valuable.

Such games are fun to oversee too: I was quite entertained by the King of the Hill game, where Machaka, T'ien Ch'i and Broken Empire fought it out (T'ien Ch'i eventually snatched the victory, but Broken Empire ended a single turn away from victory, after having successfully defended the Hill against several determined assaults).

Re: Pentragram Pantheon
 

Speaking of King of the Hill, any chance youd be interested in hosting a second one? I really enjoyed that game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Pentragram Pantheon
 

I have been considering hosting the sequel to KOTH. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif If all goes according to the plan, I should create a game thread for KOTH2 later today.

Re: Pentragram Pantheon
 

As an alternative to the "war mongering" (just thought Id toss it in) it can be fun to do something along the line of my WEvsTHEM campaign. Boost a number of AI's as much as you feel they need. Make their gods, give them extra castles, spells, troops, a 10 turn head start, whatever you feel will give them the advantage. Then create a players alliance to try and defeat it.

An alternative to that, which I was considering, was to play many games up to the point that I feel I was the winner. Then instead of quiting the game as I usually do, turn it to AI and save it at that point so that I can play against it later.
There are some things to iron out in that concept but it has possibilities.

Gandalf Parker

Re: unbalance, micromanagement due to all-vs-all
 

I think the Devs once mentioned that it was an explicit design decision that the world population decreases much easier, so that the world is depopulated at the end of the Ascension war. Hence one could think that this encourages players to win a quick war before their resources are all spend. However, since money and resources become more and more unimportant as the game progresses and magic resources and need-not-eat-nor-upkeep creatures become more and more available, the situation is quite the opposite, encouraging delay. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Maybe some ritual spells should consume gold or resources as well. Hmm, or maybe the maximum dominion strength should be tied to the population size. The effectiveness of ritual spells could also be tied to dominion strength, hence encouraging to speed up before all lands are laid to waste forever... (proposals for Ermorian Dominion in this setting?)

---

BTW: we finished a 7-player game on inland with the victory condition graph as outlined by me in your pentagram-thread (cited in the second post). It was a fast and violent game and very funny in my taste, although it was prematurely ended by another player sending his Caelian flyers grapping a couple of victory points, which we had as an alternate victory condition...

Funnily, my friends either really liked the game for its speed or heavily disapproved the style because it prevented build-up/hoarding strategies...

Re: unbalance, micromanagement due to all-vs-all
 

I'm currently involved in a no diplomacy game on Karan (I think, the map with the ocean at the bottom middle). Everyone agrees not to make non-agression pacts or alliances with the other players.

It's only turn 25, but there is increased tension every time you run into another nation. Will he attack or not? This might force players into buying troops because if they don't, they might be run over.

Sure enough, the first nation I ran into attacked me straight away. The 2nd and 3rd nations I've run into retreated their armies from our common border. But I've just found out that they seem to be at war.

So, this no-diplomacy game might discourage turteling and hoarding. I like this.

There is a new game starting up ("yet another game" or something like that) that I think is also going to be a no-diplomacy game. I'd like to see how that turns out. Maybe no-diplomacy games are the way to go.

Re: unbalance, micromanagement due to all-vs-all
 

I dont feel this is a valid example. It is almost always more valuable to attack independents than human players. Who would make war before all thier indies were taken without some kind of unbelievably lucky advantage? And if you choose to attack a neighbor and win, do you not have 2x the resources of any neighbors that were not at war? Additionally, why would you allow a hoarding nation to remain unmolested? Sign war pacts against them or clandestinely encourage thier neighbors to skirmish or attack them.

This example, along with most of those in this thread all rely (either explicitly or implicitly) on there being no diplomacy between players. And while that is fine if you are just looking for a wargame, I personally *like* diplomacy. In my opinion it is the mark of a good player if you can make war on a neighbor and keep your neighbors off-balance enough themselves that you remain competitive until you can capitalize on all the lands you gained.

But! I will not argue about the preponderance of turtling, even tho I personally dont persue it. My only suggestion would be to keep diplomacy in the game and instead just put an artifical time limit on the game. Say, 50 turns. Whoever has the most territory at 50 turns is declared the winner. Then you still get lots of trade and diplomacy, but you also get vicious war and scrabbling amongst all the players.

Re: unbalance, micromanagement due to all-vs-all
 

The time-limit and King-of-the-Hill variants would both seem to solve the problem, too.

Re: unbalance, micromanagement due to all-vs-all
 

I think i can say that i am one of the biggest hoarders .

My experience so far is that a hoarder is easily beaten until turn 70 , has still problems until turn 90 and only after that he is nearly invincible .

Especially from turn 40-70 a hoarder is EXTREMELY vulnerable though .

This is only a rough turn estimation cause it depends on the site frequency , world richness and research difficulty especially .

Hoarding is really no problem .
If you can't win with rushing until turn 90-100 then the hoarder deserves the win .

With 50% site frequency and normal world richness 1 Province is worth about 3 clams and 2 fever fetishes averagely if you only look at the resources .
But more territory provides other boni :
1st and most important you get more flexibility by special sites + indies like blood bonus sites , crystal mages etc. .
2nd and almost as important you gain time because you can afford to temporarily lose a few provinces just like russia did in the 19th and 20th century .

If you hoard hardcore you will be rather small in territory normally . By turn 80 you can have 200-300 pearls and 100 fetishes with most nations .
But an opponent might have on turn 80 100 provinces and thus getting 200-300 natural gem income . And he gets far more gold then you with your 25-40 provinces you will likely have .
And he can hoard a little also .
50 clams are easy to do for any nation .

And then there are the numerous counters to clamhoarders . Flames from the sky , Wrath of God , Armaggedon , Burden of Time etc. etc. .

Clamhoarding is really not an issue . It does not guarantee you the win instead you are likely to lose . Still i like clamhoarding but it is damn dangerous cause you are extremely vulnerable for 30-50 turns .

Re: unbalance, micromanagement due to all-vs-all
 

I totally agree with that, but not with all of your reasoning...

Not necessarily. As a criterion for the good war I use my ability to have positive territory gains without expending too much resources. Usually, the winning combination is plenty of small bands that are better than enemy's small bands plus some ability to defend your own forts (pretty good solution to that is to have sturdy forts - like castles). Often you don't need to defeat the enemy, it's enough to just take territory from him.

See my previous point, the idea of good war is to get balance benefits of conquest from the war with the war expenses.

I would certainly disagree. In almost every game I've played (I'm just being cautous, it's probably in every game I've played) the winner was somebody who was aggressive and successful early on. Of course, it's wise to made treaties with some of your immediate neighbours, however you need to leave somebody as a victim of your aggression.

Now I'll offer my ideas of the reasons why the late game tends to bog down. Sometime in the mid-game, maybe starting from turn 35-45, storming castles becomes impractical, because people are getting access to various tools like murdering winter, wrathful sky, rain of stones, ghost riders etc... Even if you were successful in the early game and have significantly more resources than the enemy, it's still very hard and costly to storm forts: you don't have enough gems to forge protection to your mages, the enemy knows your SCs and have counters to them, and simple mass of regular troops doesn't work at that stage either. Of course, you can still conquer the enemy, but the cost of that becomes prohibitive, especially in comparison to those who stay at peace. Instead, it's much better to start hoarding at that stage using all your superior resources to feed your hoarding machine. This effectively allows you to grow much faster than through the conquest.

Typically, my victories in long games went like: aggressive expansion early on, defeating or squeezing badly one or two neighbours, start hoarding as soon as enemies research mass destruction spells. At the same time use small armies to control uncastled provinces (and take more of such from enemies). But not trying to go for decisive battles. Later in the game when hoarding will start to pay off, conquer enemies with overwhelming forces. This works quite well, but the part after the initial wars is not much fun. I've met few hoarders (those who were hoarding from the beginning) and they stood no chance. They're much weaker by mid-game (when I'd start to hoard) and they still have less gem income from their provinces and generators combined than you'd have from your conquered lands.

I think that the key to keep the game dynamic is to make conquering forts easier in the mid-late game.

I think so. More than likely it will be 9 in every level.

I agree that this kind of formats tend to produce more dynamic and enjoyable games with minimal micromanagement. Typical "all vs all" games are also fun and they are different, but I somewhat dislike their micromanagement/fun ratio.

I agree on that. Though in long "all vs all" game Dom-2 is still very well balanced, that's just amount of micromanagement hurts too much.