MP Scenario Guide?

vladikus · #1 July 22nd, 2009, 09:39 AM

I'm not trying to be annoying by any means, and I'll be honest, I don't play the game enough (I find enjoyment in tweaking--okay, okay I suck), but I am interested in the scenario aspects of Dominions. For me, just trying to make your dominion present everywhere and eliminate opposing dominion is a fun concept, but I like many other possibilities too.

Gandalf mentioned the possibility as being a game master. While I understand the GM can send messages and watch the game as it is played out and send items, or monsters upon players landing in certain provinces, I'm not exactly sure how to receive such powers upon the start of the game--a cheat perhaps? Or is this done through modification? How are they able to see what goes on in every province?

Also, I believe that if a GM plans to do this, they should be courteous to the players by providing a sheet of what is planned to happen at certain provinces (such as a monster attack province 202 if taken), and this sheet should be made available solely to a third party that players can consult if they feel they are being picked on).

Gandalf Parker · #2 July 22nd, 2009, 10:24 AM

Good point about 3rd party moderating.

Seeing the entire game and being able to act on it is one of the reasons I created the "watcher" mod. Its on my mods page.
http://www.dom3minions.com/mods.htm

On my Links page is a link to a thread about game variations which might be useful. I believe that thread also goes into the many things that a GM can "see" about the game from the game logs which makes it easy to check each turn for specific actions you want the game to responsd to.

On my Hosting Games page is a list of possible features that can be added to a game to make it more useful to the players.

Illuminated One · #3 July 22nd, 2009, 10:43 AM

Well, as for gems, monsters and items that's very simple.
Give the GM's nation a modded wish spell (restricted, 1 pearl cost) and some guys who can cast it.
Maybe if you feel like tele dropping things on players you can probably also copy Send Horrors and stuff and customize it for the GM.

Gregstrom · #4 July 22nd, 2009, 11:27 AM

The Debug mod would presumably be a useful starting point for some of these powers.

It's a shame you can't set up one-way links between provinces, come to think of it.

vladikus · #5 July 22nd, 2009, 12:30 PM

Well, I'm going to go ahead and throw some ideas out there... if a game happened to be a scenario then it would probably be appropriate to make a map specifically for it. In this case, the GM could given a starting point off the map that is connected to no other provinces. The GM nation would be comprised of many units (is there a max on how many units a nation can have?), and it could equip SC sort of characters to attack provinces (somewhat like the adventuring party special events. All units could cost 1g and 1 resource, the GM could have all spells too. Any events that would happen would occur after certain numbers of turns. Not all events would be bad, for instance, if the player went into one province, they might get a message saying, one of your soldiers found a powerful item under a pile of leaves and it has been put in your magic laboratory.

Also, there could be rewards (like gold sent to players) for defeating certain creatures in provinces.

In essence, the game would run like a story, the setting and characters laid out, but the characters creating the plot as they play. Victory conditions could then be whatever the players agreed upon. I think a lot of fun could be had with an excellent gm.

Gandalf Parker · #6 July 22nd, 2009, 01:13 PM

Some of that was discussed in the Watcher thread. And in the Monster Scenario thread.

Editing a map can be simpler than it seems at first. Take any map and add one white dot to the far upper-right corner. That will increase the province count by 1 creating a province with no connections without shifting any other provinces.

The watcher mod creates a nation which makes it very hard to abuse, very unlikely to die a death from lack of dominion or stray random events, and has a starting spell version of "Eyes of God" to see everything that is going on (one thing I couldnt get rid of is it takes a global spell slot). It also has little invisible units that can move across the whole map so that you can position them to watch combats and such if you want to.

Here is another thread I found along these lines.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...nts#post485570

I also like the idea that has been put forth in the past (cough cough) of a GM or some dom3 veteran role-player-type playing as an opponent nation. Go ahead and boost the nation mightily and preset them with an entire portion of the map, multiple castles at strategic points, extra units, a god not usually available as a god. Make them strong and well set so that the game becomes a giant alliance to take them out (kindof a lord of the rings type scenario tho I wouldnt go as cheesy as to make it exactly LoR)

Gandalf Parker

Gandalf Parker · #7 July 22nd, 2009, 01:15 PM

By the way; I would be happy to host such a game so that it could be mega, include both direct and pbem players, and give easier access to things like the games log for the GM.

Illuminated One · #8 July 23rd, 2009, 06:05 AM

Hmm, I wanted to do something a bit along these lines in a month or so.
No scenarios with background but fleshing the game out more by customizing provinces.
If you're good with maps we could help each other. I can do scripts and stuff. Depending on how far I can/have to go I might even add some automatic province stuff.

Ironhawk · #9 July 23rd, 2009, 12:54 PM

Agema is looking to start a game pretty much as you describe right now. Go check it out on the MP forum. I'm sure he would appreciate more players

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43628