Preponderance - Big Team Game! [1-2 subs needed!]
 

Here comes the biggest team game of the Fall, or maybe even of that year. I had plans to do it for some time and here it comes.

Rules are simple:
- 12 teams of 2 players
- you start near each other and kill everyone around [well, almost]

Map:
- modified World of Geometry by Twan [2 starting water locations are changed into land ones, most of water is changed with land, every team of 2 starts in a valley you see, one player near caves, one near rich plains, every team has same amount of starting land, that is about 12-15 provinces, you need to take out indie garrisons to get to other players, caves or plains]
- link: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=41261
- updated tga file: http://www.mediafire.com/?7h12ypdmnix

Mods:
- Conceptual Balance Mod 1.3 complete - http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39679
- All Era mod - http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attac...9&d=1212179279
- Banned Spells - http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?p=653551
- Llama's Streamers and Standards - http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39989

Hosting:
- PBEM on llamaserver [when it gets working again]

Game settings:
- Indies: standard, Middle Age
- Magic Sites: 60
- Gold: 150
- Resources: 150
- Research: Normal
- HoF: 15
- Renaming: On
- Score graphs: On

Banned Spells:
- Utterdark
- Astral Corruption
- Arcane Nexus
- Burden of Time

Victory Conditions:
- controling 12/26 VPs
- every capitol is 1 VP
- central island is 2 VPs

Team choosing:
- you have 10 - TEN points to spend on nations, you pick who starts near caves and who starts near plains [I am still working on the map and I will release it next week so you can see how it looks like, but take a look at WoG for now, it will be really similar]

Nation ratings [with points a nation is worth - I want 3! sets of nations from every team, sorted by preference]:

Ea Arco: 5
Ea Ermor: 4 - taken
Ea Ulm: 5
Ea Marverni: 2
Ea Sauromatia: 6 - taken
Ea TC: 5
Ea Mictlan: 7 - taken
Ea Aby: 5 - taken
Ea Caelum: 7
Ea C'tis: 3 - taken
Ea Pan: 4
Ea Agartha: 3 - taken
Ea Tir Na Og: 5
Ea Fomoria: 6
Ea Vanhiem: 7 - taken
Ea Helhiem: 8
Ea Niefelhiem: banned
Ea Kailasa: 3 - taken
Ea Yomi: 3 - taken
Ea Hinnom: banned
Ea Lanka: 8 - taken
Ma Pythium: 6 - taken
Ma Man: 3
Ma Ulm: 3 - taken
Ma Ermor: 7 - taken
Ma Arco: 6
Ma Marignon: 4 - taken
Ma Mictlan: 5
Ma Mackaka: 5
Ma Agartha: 2
Ma Aby: 4
Ma Caelum: 5 - taken
Ma C'tis: 4 - taken
Ma Pan: 4
Ma Van: 7
Ma Jotun: 6
Ma Bandar log: 5 - taken
Ma Shinuyama: 4
Ma Ashdod: banned
Ma Eriu: 5
Ma T'ien Ch'i: 4
La Arco: 5
La Man: 4
La Ulm: 5
La Mari: 5 - taken
La Mictlan: 7 - taken
La TC: 6
La Jomon: 1 - taken
La Agatha: 5
La Aby: 3 - taken
La Caelum: 5 - taken
La Ctis: 4
La Pan: 5
La Midgard: 6 - taken
La Urgard: 6 - taken
La Patala: 3
La Gath: 8
La Atlantis: 4
La Pythium: 5
La Bogarus: 4 - taken
La Ermor: banned

Teaming Rules: [may be relieved if we don't have enough people]
- no hardcore teaming [so 2 of the best of the best cannot play in one team]
- no newbies [unless teamed with experienced player]

Rules are simple, they rather won't be changed [but I may always take suggestions into consideration]. You can sign whole teams [but 2 people should post here declaring participation] or search a teammate in that thread.

Signed up so far:
1. coobe (???) -ferrosol (nkican)

EA Vanheim - MA Ulm

2. atul-evilhomer

LA Abysia - LA Midgard

3. wingeddog-pretorian

EA Yomi + EA Mictlan

4. phalent-apsophos

EA C'tis - LA Marignon

5. gregstrom-DrP

MA Bandar Log + EA Abysia

6. Ossa - vfb

MA MAri + EA Sauromatia

7. namad-fungalreason

LA Utgard - LA Bogarus

8. JimMorrison-MadFrancis

LA Jomon - EA Lanka

9. Micah-QM

MA Caelum - LA Caelum

10. chrispedersen-Kheldron

EA Agartha + LA Mictlan

11. otthegreat-Denisius

MA Pythium + MA C'tis

12. PsiSoldier-executor

EA Kailasa + MA Ermor

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

searching a teammate for this... willing to play something weaker

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Nation ratings are made by QM [thanks :)] and are based on specific conditions and are surely not perfect. There is a big probability they will be slightly tweaked.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I'm in

do we pick nations now?

I will tentatively go with Kailasa.

I can be on coobe's team, or someone else.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

When you get a team one of team members sends me a PM with 3 nation sets. Points may change slightly, but you can start thinking about some basic ideas.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

If the game will go to 48h relatively quickly (15-20 turns?), I'd like to join. I'm just about beyond the newbie stage.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I'd like to play in this, I don't know if I'll be able te contact my potential teammate before monday, I hope the game won't be full by then.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Gregstrom:

Rather closer to turn 25, at least 20.

Apsophos:

I think it will be rather 2-3 weeks till game starts, probably one week to get people in, then some time to get them into teams, pick nations, create pretenders...

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

hmmm an interesting idea... I'd prefer some sort of bid system for nations though

also, as I've barely played Dom III, I count as a noob :)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

the bid system might be best. if someone else is trying to assign the values of each nation, it becomes rather contrived because no one can actually envision all possible contextualities, and it is quite easy to read through the list and see what nations are undervalued if only because they pair phenomenally well some other nation.

the single place were there actually is a 'wisdom of the masses' is in bids and betting. we are calculating risk taking animals.

on the downside, teams with players experienced with many nations would have a strong advantage, because they would be in a position to make the most accurate bids.

We would have to have two rounds of bidding: one for the first nation and another for the second. I like this idea better than coming up with three pairs too, because then teams really feel in more control of what they get. An adjudicator having to pour through 12 teams with three pairs each would have to make subjective calls, and the way the teams and nations coalesced could be questioned; no matter how even handed the adjudicator.

if there is a tie during a round, the tied teams can be asked if they wish to up their bid. the highest bidder wins. if there are still ties after a second round, teams are asked again. if during any of the tie breaker rounds all teams decline increasing their bid, then that nation is randomly assigned to one of those teams at whatever their most recent bid was.

this also guarantees the points work out perfect. with assigned values it may prove impossible to give each team a 10-value setup.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Doing an auction could be verrrry interesting, I'm all for that.

However! If it sticks to the original format, I am powerless to turn away from this thread.....

I would like to play Jomon, and hopefully game doesn't actually start until after patch. :angel This means under the original format, I am looking for a partner who wants to take Hinnom or Niefelheim - so if you see taking Jomon as "jumping on the grenade", then you need look no further for your wingman, if you want to rock out with your giant out. :happy:

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Team games are generally random. It is hell to try and arrange all the teams based on player preferences. Everyone signs up, then teams are assigned. We broke that rule a bit in Revenge of Pimping, since it was a continuation type game from a game that had ended because of a dead server.

Forgive me if this has been said before. I did not read the whole thread.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I'm guessing you didn't even read the first post. ;)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I am willing to play in this one. Do you wish to team with me Jim ?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Anyone else searching for a teammate?

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

hm thought homer want to team with me, but apparently not so im still searching :) pm me

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I am willing to team up with Coobe for this game.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Me and my buddy Pretorian are willing to join as a team.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

This sounds interesting. I'm also looking for a teammate, please pm.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I know nothing can be perfect. Bidding system was one suggestions, but rather not good for a game with so many players [as there are just few nations people would really want to bid for]. I think we may introduce one more things - bonus for choosing combination of nations with less than 10 points total. I'd have to ask llamabeast what bonus is possible [like more design points or gold or gems or some item].

Remember - that game will be quite bloody, especially on plains. 150% gold gives you a lot of gold for armies, so you can make a slaughter fest for plains, which are really rich and high pop.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Uhmn, I am happy to team with you coobe (just didnt receive any answers so started to fish for alternatives). But sure, lets team up - Write an pm to me what nations you are interested in.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Ooh, that sounds like real fun. I guess a custom mod giving the nations in question some appropriate advantage? Design points would be easy, as would items I believe. What would the Jomon/Marverni dream team be worth? :D


Oh yeah - I'm definitely in. If anyone wants to team with a somewhat inexperienced player, pm or just post in the thread.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I guess I should voice that I am against Hinnom being in this game at all, and possibly the other new nations.

as is, ONLY jomon could even be paired with Hinnom. This raises an important point:
is there any other combination that could possibly compete with this?

* gold and gems are completely plastic. even the weakest nation paired with Hinnom would just be built to solely support Hinnom by supplying them with gold and gems.

or

* would giving Hinnom/Ashdod/Gath the weakest nations leave any other nations to be paired with the other superpowers that would not lead to other powers being completely overpowered? ie, we give all the weakest nations to H/A/G, whose left to pair with Neif and Lanka and others that would not leave them overpowered?

essentially, the plasticity of gold/gems and the lack of underpowered enough nations combined with quite a few already well overpowered nations means that including the Hinnom et al nations in the mix is just too much power to be absorbed. I think the overall game balance would be preserved by disallowing them.

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Omnirizon:

I think that with that points both Hinnom and Niefel are almost as banned. I would not recommend anyone pairing with Jomon as a team, just pick smth fair :) And if you want Jomon you can get some free stuff for spare points. Even letting that 2 nations as a single whole team would be bad [and defying team game idea].

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

actually, the size of the game is what makes the bidding system preferred. there are three reasons:

1) on assigned point system, many teams may end up picking the same combos and

2) as is, someone has to adjudicate the nation choices, and their are some combos which are just phenomenally better than others, and they will have to give those to someone. lastly

3), related to point 2, with a bidding system it will be VERY costly if not impossible to get preferred combos, because many players will be gunning for certain ones. one nation of that combo will become too costly for it to become paired with the other half, making that combo unattainable. the bidding system will force the mixing up of combos, and making getting a _planned_ combo much more difficult. it will actually create more diverse combos because it confounds the easy getting of very planned combos that many teams might go for. With adjudicators, _someone_ will get that perfect planned combo. with bidding, that combo might become ungettable because other teams will overbid one half of it. Even if you say as adjudicator that you will just disallow the overpowered combos, you can't possibly think through all overpowered combos. each team only has to think of one and then submit it, and it may be a phenomenal combo that you hadn't thought of, and you will give it to them for rather cheap. the bidding system will confound this completely. and it doesn't require an adjudicator's oversighting.

Highly planned combos defeat the purpose of a team game. For example Lanka might just combo with Maverni and have Maverni blood hunt their capital to extinction and give all the slaves to Lanka, when the capital is finished, Lanka just takes it and the other half of the team leaves the game. There is no real team work, just a highly specified and planned combo designed to boost and already superpowered nation that really doesn't benefit from having any particular teammate except to provide them with extra gold and slaves to help boost them in the early game.

If you want to go with your assigned point system and someone overseeing and choosing each teams assignment that's your prerogative, but I had always thought you were anti-communist.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Last thing:

teams should NOT start out next to each other. in fact, using a map like geometry, we should start teams out on OPPOSITE sides. this completely removes the benefit very powerful nations would gain from teaming with very weak ones and just using the weak nation as their *****. with the two teams seperated, other teams would just gang the weak halves very quickly and remove that benefit.

thus, with opposite starting positions, the problem of overpowered not really being harmed by pairing with underpowered is removed.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Omnirizon:

And bid with what? If you have interesting solution I could make it as a part [for a situation when multiple people want same nations].

And situation with Lanka/Marverni you described would result in him getting turned AI. There are tactics and there are abuses too. It's a team game, not a single player with other one getting leeched. I will just admin that game so I will be able to check if bad things happen.

We have 24 players and about 50 nations to choose. It should work fine :)

P.S. to your edit: I surely won't change that, that is my vision of the game, one near caves, one near plains. As I said before - I expect people to play fair and play it like a team game.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I sort of thought that, barring a random distribution, placing the teams adjacent is the fairest way to go about it. Otherwise, there is no incentive to even take a nation that is perceived as weaker, because you neighbors will just rush you, knowing with absolute certainty you will die alone.

As far as my first post, I spoke to my roommate who has decided to finally purchase another copy of the game and he wanted to partner with me - with his first choice as Niefelheim, and as a rather inexperienced MP player.

I sort of thought the dynamics of the point system were already thought through to some extent, as far as that it's obvious that with Hinnom and Nief at 9, they ONLY partner either could get, would be Jomon.


Zeldor - I think in a bidding system, you would just give each team a budget as well (for bidding, something higher like 100 points would make it more dynamic), and then there would be an auction for the most sought after nations, and those who got very powerful first nations, would likely pay so much that they'd have to take "the kid who gets picked last" for their second choice. With 10 the range of bids would be too restricted - you might get f teams bidding 7 on a nation, with none wanting to go up to 8, not sure it would be nice to just random it off. I don't know, it seems this is all getting so much more complicated than the original post.

I had been planning to run a team game at some point in the future. What I had meant to do, was pair nations up beforehand. They wouldn't be random, nor would you choose what nation was paired with what, you would just choose the pairing that you wanted.

Fully random just seems like a horrible way to go. Not only do you deliberately not avoid overpowered combos, but you add in a great risk of people getting badly uncomplimentary combos. Imagine an Eriu/LA Man pair - 2 rather weak nations with access to only a couple of magic paths. They'd be dead before the game even started.


Ultimately, any setup is going to have its flaws. Arguing against a system doesn't do any good, if you can't present a system that is not significantly better. The major flaw with the bidding system, is the effort involved to make it really work. Just doing it as a single blind wouldn't be as exciting, and would be horribly time consuming - but it's not like we'll be able to hold a live auction for them either. (Bear in mind in single-blind bidding, if we had an auction once a day, we'd have to 3 nations each day just to get the game going within 3 weeks from now. The more nations you run at a time, the faster it goes, but the less fair and interesting it becomes.)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Sounds like fun. I'm not sure why we need CBM if we're also assigning points values to nations - but I'll give it a shot. Am I correct in understanding - the only team-mate allowed for Niefelheim is Jomon? :)

I'll team with anyone and I'll take the weaker nation in the pair

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I had missed the part in the OP where teams would be seperated..

with that done, the point system is much more suffurable, because each player is force to play for their own nation, and building a highly specialized combo becomes much more difficult to pull off.

we still do face the issue of subjective assignment of points and nations though. bidding i must admit isn't perfect here either because one nation may go unbid on and a team may take a chance and bid low on it, and get it real cheap. but blind bidding will make it so the most powerful nations go at appropriate prices, and underpowered nations go cheap. for example, in your current system you have machaka at 5 points? that is WAY overvalued. no one in their right mind will opt for that nation at that price. There is a host of other nations on that list that are cheaper than machaka that are in so many situation equal to if not more powerful than them.

with bidding, a nation's _subjective_ value becomes very important. a nation which you or quantum objectively believe are cheap may become very valuable to a certain team for a specific quality of that nation. In order to secure it, they will bid high on it. not to wax theoretical, but a bidding system is a fusion of objective and subjective; such that one cannot undermine the other. with you and quantum setting objective prices, the subjective value of that nation may be much higher than your objective price, and that nation becomes a steal for some team. the bidding system helps prevent that.

but i guess I'm happy either way, because I think any system is exploitable. I just think the bidding system is a little less so if only because there is no one person deciding on what is worth what and it overall is a little more transparent.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

actually, jomon is the only possible teamate for at least one other nation too, which is why i am advocating strongly for the disallowing of that one other nation *cough* Hinnom *cough* *cough*

Zeldor, we can already see how at least half the current people/teams claiming nations are going for the very powerful teamed with a very underpowerd. It is like I said, due to the plasticity of gold/gems and power, there isn't a whole lot of disadvantage to forcing very powerful nations to team with underpowered ones. Unless we disallow inter-team trading, there is simply no way to find a bright line where a 'tactic' becomes an 'abuse'. Starting nations at opposite sides helps alleviate the problem, but there is no possible way to police the abuse of the team system where one nation is just the ***** of the other; we simply can't define where the inter-team cooperation and trading becomes one just being the other's *****.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

DrP:

I am more and more inclined towards banning Niefel as they are really overpowered. Even with Jomon as teammate. And as people here are supporting that opinion I may just oficially do it.

Omnirizon:

Nah, you start next to each other. One near caves, one near plains, so pretty much it is every nation fighting. But one has to expand into caves and fight there and other into plains. Theoretically you can make some other ways, but then other nations gets stuck with just 4-6 provs and won't be able to really help.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I wanna join too if there's still room.

No teammate or nation preferences, anyone want to team up with harmless "less-than-10-actual-dom3-games" player? *blinkblink*

Lets dance.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

May I make the first claim of nations?
Team: WingedDog & Pretorian
Nations: Yomi (3) & LA Caelum (5) with total of 8 points

I'll post the other two picks later.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I'll play in one team with this doggy ...sorry, winged doggy :))

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

You think Niefel is more overpowered than Hinnom ? Both are early game monsters, but Hinnom is just better in the later parts of the game.

Anyway it seems that ONLY one of these two nations will be in the game, so its probably oki. As to this "feeding" the stronger nation strategy, it seems really dull and I doubt it will be done.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

Look at the first page - Hinnom is already banned.

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Evilhomer:

Nah, I think Hinnom is stronger than Niefel, but both of them are way overpowered, even when compared to nations like Lanka. And team game makes them even stronger as it is easy to get an ally that will just work for them, not with them.

WingedDog:

Send nation choices via PM :)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now!]
 

I am teamed up with atul now zeldor. Will there be any benefits for picking teams with less than 10 p total, if so, what will that be ?

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Evilhomer:

There may be some, hard to say what as I'd have to check what is really possible. Probably easiest to add would be some inceased pop or gold making site next to capitol. But it should rather be granted to people that have 2+ free points or are left with some bad nation choices [but that shouldn't happen]. I'd prefer [as I'm lazy :)] that everyone just makes 9-10 point teams and there is no need for any bonuses. Ratings are not 100% accurate anyway, you could easily argue that said nation should be +1 or -1.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

I'll team up with anyone who wants a partner - just send me a PM.

I'll also do whatever nation my ally wishes.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

Just to clarify:

Do you want these 3 sets contain all different nations, or can I (should I adamantly wish so) ask for one from the set of (MA Agartha, Nation X), (MA Agartha, Nation Y) and (MA Agartha, Nation Z)?

And no, I'm not asking for MA Agartha. Just a placeholder.

Seriously.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

atul brings up a good point and another reason why the bid system is superior.

the bid system not only helps alleviate the burden on an adjudicator, it rewards innovation. as is, no one has any incentive to try and think of a nation no one else will pick using a strategy no one else will try and then low-ball it, because we can all just do three picks all involving EA/LA Mict or Lanka with a cheap other choice and feeling assured we will get one of our picks. In fact, only three teams can possibly get something like this. Other combos that might be able to compete with this are kind of too expensive with the point system the way it is. A bid system would allow non-Mict/Lanka teams to hook up something a little better than what they could right now and actually be able to compete.

EDIT: nvm. then ppl could just low-ball Mict/Lanka and no one else may bid on them, and they go real cheap.

but atul is right...

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

Hello all

I'll form a team with Apsophos :)

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

I assume Zeldor here is operating on a basis of good faith, which is reasonable considering we're all mature adults here...

...I think.

Anyway, the reason of diplomacy and an arbiter is to beat the living pulp out of anyone abusing the system. I wouldn't want to play with mechanics based on thesis that my fellow players are underhanded cheaters, so lets not try to game the system too badly.

Bidding system has its good sides, but is work intensive. And looking at current situation at stock markets, has its bad sides too.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

I really think we have responsible players here. As I said, I'm not -playing it and I can make sure everyone has fun.

atul:
I think you can do both. But if you want 3 combinations with one nation then add 1-2 other possibilities, just in case.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

I just had an idea...

If a team wants two nations worth less than ten points between them, perhaps they should be get preference for the chosen nations?

PS: I've teamed up with DrP, by the way.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

Actually yes, if there will be conflict about who takes a nation, the one with less points total gets it.

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

i think comparing stock exchange to a closed bidding system is a gross oversimplification.

do you like miss kitten?
stock exchange

Re: Preponderance - Big Team Game! [join now! - 8 spots left]
 

I'll play.