Fun with Alternative Victory Conditions
 

I'm a newb, and have been trying hard to learn to play Dominions II. Tonight I decided to experiment with a death/blood PoD with Ulm (with dominion 5, i wanted a little challenge). To spice things up, I put on an alternate victory condition: first to 464 or so dominion wins. Most of my "practice" games don't go far anyway so I didn't really care. This was on Aran with 6 AIs, Marigion, Caelum, Tien Chi, Pangea, Mictilan and Pythium, with easy research and sites at 50%.

Well, as I played along, I was having a lot of fun. Eventually I remembered why I was playing and starting trying to get blood slave.

Although that failed, the game ended up being played through, and quite a nailbiter at that!

(sorry its a little tough to make out the dark blue)

http://www.rose-hulman.edu/~kellyjw/pics/ulmgraph.png

If there is interest I might try to write up a battle report, though it would be mainly from memory so probably not too great. If nothing, I hope this post inspires some newbies like me to try some different game types if they hadn't...it makes the game move along a lot faster when you're racing to a set goal instead of the ultra-mega slugfest!

Re: Fun with Alternative Victory Conditions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Something to remember not to do with Mictlan. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Cool graph, btw. Who won, since both lines are above the threshold?

Re: Fun with Alternative Victory Conditions
 

I did, luckily. Apparently even when two or more nations satisfy the victory conditions, the highest value wins. It seems a bit silly in the fantasy setting, but hey, whatever. I can just picture the royal sages running between provinces, tallying belief, while an angry PoD and Sacred Statue (the opposing pretender) wait idly by. Conjures images of the 2000 election here in the US...

Re: Fun with Alternative Victory Conditions
 

That sort of graph is interesting. It seems to show that winning the game was not a foregone conclusion in the ordinary way (without alternate victory conditions).

Maybe I'm being unreasonable, but I think it would be neat if your alternate victory condition could be (1) dominion of at least "X" AND (2) dominion exceeds dominion of closest opponent by at least 40%.

This way, you would need to establish yourself as the dominant power in order to win.

Re: Fun with Alternative Victory Conditions
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I would like it if it was "dominion of at least X" and "Dominions exceeds closest opponent by Y%" and Y can be between 1 and 100.
But if this is hard to implement, I guess that is another issue?

Re: Fun with Alternative Victory Conditions
 

That sure is skin of your teeth! It looks like you knocked out Mariagon and quickly rushed in to take over their areas. I love that boost you get right after another Pretender goes down. Last night I surrounded Miticlan and waited till their dominion faded away, then strolled in for a stack of gems and cash. My stats did a similar jump, which is why I was guessing it happened to you.

It was good strategy you used, you filled in the space they suddenly vacated. Of course, if you used a different strategy, it was also really good and I would be interested in your main plan.