unbalance, micromanagement due to all-vs-all

[Zooko]

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.

[Zooko]

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.

[Alneyan]

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).

[Alneyan]

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).

[The_Tauren13]

Speaking of King of the Hill, any chance youd be interested in hosting a second one? I really enjoyed that game

[Alneyan]

I have been considering hosting the sequel to KOTH. If all goes according to the plan, I should create a game thread for KOTH2 later today.

[Gandalf Parker]

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

[Chazar]

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. 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?)

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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...

[jeffr]

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.

[Ironhawk]

Zooko said:
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...

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.

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 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.