Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarkko
...No diplomacy games are just a variant of singleplayer games, period.
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Yes absolutely. And zero diplomacy SP games are exactly what I want out of my MP games
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jarkko
Why play multiplayer games if you do not like to discuss with people?
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Dominions is the only game I have ever done (online) multi-player gaming with. Everyone has their own reasons why they start playing MP games, but for me the one and only reason why was that I really loved Dominions 3 as a strategy game, and I just purely wanted to have better AI opposition. As I had played against the AI for 18+ months before playing MP, and I had finally run out of variant ways to handicap myself, or role-play against it. And the only way to get better AI opposition was to turn the AI opponents into human opponents.
I personally have no interest in the diplomacy side of MP games, as I'd prefer my fortunes to be based entirely on my actions and strategy in-game, and not on whether or not I can sweet-talk, bluff, threaten, plead, with my various neighbours. I have every respect for players who like the diplomacy aspect of MP games, and even to some extent envy those who are good at it. But for me diplomacy plays far too big a role in MP games, as it doesn't matter who you are, or how good or bad you are, diplomacy can counter-act everything. It is very common to see players making in-game decisions purely based on which player, and not which nation (or it's actions), they border, or can attack, or feel most threatened by.
I also think diplomacy in this sort of game is un-thematic, as if for no other reason than I can't believe for a moment that the nations would all share a common tongue, so communication between them would surely be difficult. Or that vastly differing nations would instantly get along as neighbours. Because there is no in-game mechanic for diplomacy, this results in there being no restrictions on which nations can team-up together. And of course the overall sticking-point of there can be only one.
In some ways I think diplomacy is the ultimate game balancer in Dominions. But I personally don't like the thought of there being something that is powerful enough to entirely negate a players skill level. And while it rarely happens that skill level is completely negated by diplomacy, even the greatest player(s) on offer would lose very quickly if surrounded by poor players who simply agreed to all attack the good player for no other reason than he/she was a good player. I've seen several well known players post on the issue of getting ganged purely because of who they were, and nothing to do with their nation or actions. And to me that is just wrong. As every player should start every game being completely equal in status (baring which nation they are)
And all of that rambling is why I like RAND games the most