Sitting on the fence

[Alneyan]

As the title goes, I've been thinking about taking up Dominions again, but I still need to overcome my initial inertia. So, how would you convince someone to jump back in the arena?

I'm mostly interested in MP, so I'm looking for the crazy game ideas you came up with, or how Dominions 3 makes betrayal so much more pleasurable. In other words, what's the Great and the Brilliant in Dominions MP these days?

[Jurri]

I am the Great and the Brilliant!

...errr, that is to say, many of your old Dom2 buddies like me and Pashadawg still play regularly: what more reason could you need?

[Kristoffer O]

Something interesting and fun, but not necessarily playable, is the 62 player perpetuality game. Gandalf or some other freako has made a mod that enables all nations of all eras to play simultaneously. I do not play in the game, but have been following the discussions occasionally, and it sounds quite fascinating. I believe there is talk about starting a new one.

[Morkilus]

It's been playable and fun for now... it's exciting knowing that beyond your initial politics of 6-10 nations, there's another 50 out there you haven't even contacted yet. Trading becomes much more important, as well.

Anyway... welcome back, Alneyan! Stop by the IRC channel sometime.

[Shovah32]

Welcome back! As morkilus said stop by the IRC channel, im sure someone could fill you in.

[Gandalf Parker]

Alneyan said:
I'm mostly interested in MP, so I'm looking for the crazy game ideas you came up with, or how Dominions 3 makes betrayal so much more pleasurable.

"crazy game ideas"? Sounds like Im being paged.

games with victory-point conditions

games using CBM (conceptual balance mod)

games with no indepts at all

games where each player is provided with a "blind email" on a server. maximum effort to try and keep all players totally anonymous which tends to increase the backstabbing and paranoia by quite abit.

games with no national sites (and elite units)

games where the players "bid" for their nations.

games where the farther down on your choice list you go, the higher the starting benefits you get. such as extra starting population

games where everyone turns in their gods but then they are randomly assigned to the players so everyone plays something other than they turned in

A game of "Musical Chairs". If there are 10 players then the game hosts whenever 9 have turned in their turn. The last player always stales.

games using mods as better AI's. Purposely unbalanced mods such as Amos does. Setting all of the AI's to ally with each other against all of the players can also be interesting.

games using low resources which seems to make the AI play better. Also trying the various other settings possible in the game which I dont think has been done completely in MP games

large games on a wrappable map

game on mega large map which makes nations play abit different (such as ones with stealth having advantages they dont get in small map games)

games with players and AI's which give the AI's a 10 or 20 turn head start

games on a tower map (very high but only wide enough for one nation at a time, very different playing)

games using the SemiRandom generator. Either to scatter interesting provinces on the map. Or using it to generate a game with AIs that have designed gods/scales instead of randomly created ones which might choose self-destructive settings.

games with all nations playing together at once. There are two of those running. One with 62 and one with 75 but with AIs included. The single nation mod allows all 3 eras to play together but setting up an MP game with it is rough.

games with the "randomly generated module" which changes one feature of every unit in the game forcing you to relearn and adapt during the game

Im also still messing with what kindof fun mid-game changes can be done by editing a mod while the game is running. Im thinking of tying it in with a routine that will watch the log output or scoreboard for certain occurances. The turn number, or someone getting a certain size, or first person out.

Hmmm I think thats all I can think of at the moment
Gandalf Parker

[quantum_mechani]

Alneyan said:

I'm mostly interested in MP, so I'm looking for the crazy game ideas you came up with,

1) Civil War- modded game where everyone plays the same nation.

2) Astral Fragmentation- play a map with all province connections removed and easy mass teleport modded in for all.

3) Unchalleged Victory- independant strength 0 game.

4) Untainted- game with only 8 players, and a mod that resticts each one to only one magic path (or optionally school).

5) Broken Empire- scenario set up where one player starts in the middle with a sizeable empire, they are declared the winner if they survive X turns, anyone else wins if they capiture the empire's capital.

6) Entitled- compile list of thematic bonuses for rare pretender titles, then have a third party assign them via map modding to nations that manage to generate them.

EDIT: Gandalf beat me to a list.

[Gandalf Parker]

@QM:
Civil War!
I forgot that one. Ive been asking for people to create mods that perfectly duplicate a nation. If we had an Ulm mod then a game could be played (I think) that puts that mod into every one of the 75 nations slots. A great way for people to prove who is the best at playing certain nations.

As long as you slightly rename the nation (Ulm1, Ulm2,.. , Ulm75). Maybe need new flags also. Flags with numbers? And a color for each?

[Salamander8]

Kristoffer O said:
Something interesting and fun, but not necessarily playable, is the 62 player perpetuality game. Gandalf or some other freako has made a mod that enables all nations of all eras to play simultaneously. I do not play in the game, but have been following the discussions occasionally, and it sounds quite fascinating. I believe there is talk about starting a new one.

I'm loving the megagame, and it's only my 2nd ever MP! It had a couple early bugs, but has been great fun with lots of diplomacy.

[Velusion]

Kristoffer O said:
...or some other freako

Hey!! I resemble that remark!