Map idea
 

I just had an idea for a map that people might like to try out.

The idea is to make an Arena or Deathmatch area that isn't so random and is actually worth participating in, especially in the early game.

The idea is this - You make a province called Arena with good income which grows throughout the course of the game. It starts off with a single barbarian chief or something defending it. You then connect it to each of the nation caps. Now the players play as normal, but use the house rules that,...

You may only enter the province with a single commander
That commander may not lead any troops
You may not have more than one commander in there at any moment
The commander may not use any command once there other than defending, or moving out of the province back to your own cap
You may not send a prophet or god
You may not cast spells, change the tax or in any other way mess with the Arena province

With these rules, you have a constant ongoing deathmatch arena available to anyone who still has their cap. It would be very attractive in the early game and encourage the sending of thugs, national mages etc. In the late game it would be more of a prestige thing, but with good growth it would still be worth having, attracting some mid power SCs (the real SCs would be off fighting actual wars).

Re: Map idea
 

Sounds cool. Maybe you could add something that would make it better to have in the late game? Like maybe it has a unique site that can give you a buttload of gems? I suppose you can balance it out by not allowing anyone to go there for maybe a year or two? You know, give them time to gain experience and kit out their fighters. Or maybe put a better independent champion there, like a giant or even an indie pretender if there's something really nice there.

Re: Map idea
 

It's a very intriguing idea worthy of further consideration.

Something to think about: In a two player game, it may be possible where one player with a Dom10 awake pretender may dominion kill another with a weak dominion through the arena province.

Re: Map idea
 

That's a good point about the dominion kill. Hard to see how that could easily be dealt with. Could add 'buffer' provinces as a kind of walkway into the arena, then connect people to those, but that's getting sort of complex.

As for the late game - you could make the house rule that anyone who held it for a certain number of turns (more than 3 maybe) had to be paid a tribute of some sort by all players, each turn until defeated. Or you could play a cumulative victory points game and make the province a worthwhile one in terms of VP.

Re: Map idea
 

maybe instead of connecting the arena to the home provinces, put it in the center of the map?

Re: Map idea
 

But how are people going to get to it? The whole point is that everyone can participate in a deathmatch there. If it's just in the middle of the map it's like any other high value king of the hill type province.

Re: Map idea
 

Can you create a site that allows the one it enters to teleport? Then you can place one of these sites into each capital, and one in the arena, and don't have the dominion problem. The players must be reminded that they mustn't use the teleport sites for anything else, of course.

Re: Map idea
 

you've got a problem of people casting spells on the province to say decrease income or increase say cold, so that a cold blood will be beaten out of hand.

and for your connect issues just make it connected to the capital, since theres no time limit you can send your fighting commanders to the capital to compeat, you can just have it in the middle of the map, only connected to the capitals.

Re: Map idea
 

the teleport option sounds like a good idea

Re: Map idea
 

Hmm..

Lab? The champion should be able to refit items..but gems are the curious bit if a caster. Or maybe not refit and cause them to potentially give up the province without a fight?

House rule that you have to declare your intention to attack the turn before? No details other than nation? Is surprise more intriguing?

No PD, no Indy pop.. white man hill for growth?

Curious what a good late game advantage may be other than prestige. Tribute might work, but extra micro is always a bummer. Maybe just the ten thousand things site, 1 of each gem. Not a great late game bonus, but nice early.

30k pop? or moderate pop and gold mines?

Dominion - anyway to hardcode in a stone idol type site? or perm hidden unit with stone idol? with no AI affiliation?

I like the idea.. especially early. Although some nations (Jarl's and such) have good thuggable units right off the bat.

Re: Map idea
 

You can't mod teleport gate sites, no.

Putting it in the middle of the map, graphically, does nothing about the dominion - that is purely controlled by what province is connected to what. As far as the game is cncerned, the provinces would be adjacent, no matter where it was placed on the map graphic.

No building labs and no casting spells on it is part of the house rules - there's really no way to enforce them - if people want to break them they can, but then there isn't much point in them playing a game with the Arena anyway, is there?

Re: Map idea
 

perhaps there is something that could be done by looking at the files generated at the end of each turn i believe ive heard gandalf talk about crazy post turn scripts that he's.

each nation has a special teleport province, which you send your champion to. when the next turn is being generated, all of the teleport provinces are checked and the troops contained there in are sent to the arena province.

once again, dont even know if this possible, just a thought.

Re: Map idea
 

Seeing that people have sent units to the "teleport province" is possible fro the game logs. But transporting them would get into game-file editing which has been decided is a BAD can of worms to open.

The only option for mid-game changes is in the MOD file and I dont see a way for that to do it either.

Re: Map idea
 

Waitaminute...
(its bad to challenge me with things that cannot be done)

OK its impossible to do. But I have always said that impossible is just a technicians term meaning it can be done but its probably more trouble than its worth.

If a dummy mod was created, with a placeholder unit representing the champion of each race and the game puts all champions into the arena at the beginning of the game. Then the logs are watched by a program which "sees" the champions entering the teleports. A version of god-view reads the champion and edits the placeholder to match. See? more trouble than its worth.

edit: hmmmm removing the originals would be a problem.

also edit: this would only work for one arena.

Oh well, maybe I will have another brain fart later.

Re: Map idea
 

I think dominion kill won't be a problem, because the arena will be very highly connected. So, say a high dominion nation produces a candle. It will have some chance of entering the arena (say, 1 in 5 or something depending on how many provinces are adjacent to their capital), then if it moves on the probability of it landing on a particular player will be 1 in (number of players). I reckon that's diluted the dominion spread to the point where it won't be particularly important.

Re: Map idea
 

And of course often the candle will just settle down in the arena and not move on, particularly because its likely that candles from different nations will keep on annihilating in there.

Could be worth a test, I'd be surprised if it were noticable.

Re: Map idea
 

Of course what would happen if MA C'tis managed to get a dominion foothold in the arena? Anyone not cold blooded would eventually die from disease and nobody would want to send their thugs there. And what about anyone else with particularly potent dominion effects, like LA Ermor and R'lyeh or somebody with a global enchantment that effects provinces in their dominion (later game, I know, but still). I think we really need to find a way to make sure nobody gains dominion in the arena. The hidden indie spy with the Stone Idol is a good idea, but I'm wondering if it is do-able?

Re: Map idea
 

well if the post-turn script deal works, you could just tack some more code in there to force the dominion to neutral in the arena