Dominions 2 : Rankings and Tourneys ?

[BF_Napoleon]

Hey folks !

My name is Napoleon from the site The-Battlefield.com. Its a site that offer FREE Rankings and Tourneys for RT strategy and especially round based strategy games like Age of Wonders Series, Civilization...

Accounts are totally free.

The rankings are maintained and run automatically. The engine calculates points when a game is reported by the winner.

So many AOW Players told me about DOMINION 2 , they said its a great game so i took a look and i really liked it ! Now we are thinking about adding it to our site and offer FREE Rankings and Tourneys, Medals, Prizes to you guys.

What is your Oppinion gamers ?
Would you be interested in :

- free Rankings (1on1, FFA, Team...)
- Tourneys (Easy setup, no email sending, all autmated)
- Medals and Prizes.

Please give a feedback ! When the interest in the game is big we will add a big Section for Dominion 2 ! I thinks its worth to !

YOur FEEDBACK is welcome ! We also run a POLL at the mainpage about if Dominions 2 shouls be added !

Best regards,

Napoleon

[ April 25, 2004, 21:00: Message edited by: BF_Napoleon ]

[Cheezeninja]

One part of me says it would be a good idea, but another part of me says it would just be an invitation for people to play to win instead of play to have fun.

[Kristoffer O]

I do not think that is a problem. People who have fun when attempting to win like tounaments. People who have fun anyway avoid tournaments.

I say it's a good idea.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think its a good idea. I probably wont participate. (now I have to figure out if its because Im mostly a solo player, or because I know I will always be in a laughable position)

BF_Napoleon take note: In case you werent aware, that Kristoffer guy is one of the 2 developers of the game.

[ April 25, 2004, 23:01: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

[sergex]

I'm just afraid that all of the tourneys will be decided on stale turns and who keeps interest the longest. If you are giving prizes and such, games can Last forever with the normal settings. You'd have to have really small maps if you want tourneys to finish within a month with the usual 1 or 2 turns per day set up.

Perhaps you could set up a tourney that has a set time limit and require blitzing during set hours so the games don't drag on indefinitely. Say, 2 week game, required to be Online 8PM-10PM Thu, Fri, Sat, and to quickhost the rest of the time on 24 hour turns. That way I could see getting around 70-100 turns in 2 weeks and then just decide the game basded on # of provinces.

Anyway, my point is that with default settings the game isn't set up for a timely tournament structure. It could be lots of fun, but you'd need some house rules and strict time limits and victory conditions.

[Duncanish]

I think it's a nice idea. I'd probably enter, get beaten, then never use it again though. ^^; What kinds of medals/prizes were you thinking of, or have you not planned that far ahead yet?

[Karacan]

Hmm, I am afraid that while a multiplayer game of AoW can be done easily in four sessions (including manual battle, that is), Dominions II takes much much longer to complete. This has various side-effects unwanted in rankings, such as the ranking never actually reflects the *real* position, because the player might get his behind handed over in three games at the moment, which will still take a couple of months to finish.

Furthermore, a lot of people don't stay in Dom II to the very end, but turn over to AI or drop out forever, once they find themselves in a loosing position. Part of that is, again, the usual duration of a game. Even if you're obviously loosing, it could still take lots of turns to the final defeat.

[sergex]

Ya, when ranking comes into play people will quit right away if they don't think they have a chance to win, which will make lots of games end up with 2 or 3 people against a bunch of AIs. A newbie who finds himself in a game with lots of experts may just quit right off but not go AI and really slow the quickhosting down.

I just see lots of problems that need to be addressed.

There are plans and implementations of a Tourney System. My Tourney Organizer has not gotten back to me in quite a while (More than likely RL intervening). Things that still need addressed are

A.) A Website Designer to Design the website for posting of the new html feature of the ScoreGraphs and registration for Tourny and Proxy tracking.

B.) Assistance in finding an equitable system of rating based off of game types. Please note that due to the factors of Dom2, that only certain types of games *can* be Tourney Games (VP or Victory Condition games, no Ironman) and the system is based on multiple players recieving a rating based on a number of factors, not just winning.

So as you can see. If you have either of those talents, we have the other nessecary components for a Ladder System. Please Email me if you have any of those talents and an inordinate amount of time on your hands.

[Gandalf Parker]

I think it might also have been on Shrapnels wishlist. And there is some web-based ladder-tracking softwares at sourceforge. (but no web-based PBEM management system)