YARG - Yet Another RAND Game [Isokron's Midgard wins!]

[Calahan]

Kailasa and Machaka are another two off the top of the head that suffer greatly under no gem gen.

[Frozen Lama]

tell me about it

[Executor]

EA and MA C'tis are my favorite nations beside Mictlan and I think I am pretty good with them, however that would be like cutting off your own leg. Compare it with EA Mictlan without the blood slaves, what's the point?
If you want a competitive game with ALL nations even LA Ermor and such and see all the nations at their best, you can't really cripple some nations like this as you'll be creating major unbalance by doing so.
That's just how I feel.

[Calahan]

I must say that I am hating gem generators more and more in games, so I welcome any new games that start with bans on them. But....

Originally Posted by Executor

If you want a competitive game with ALL nations even LA Ermor and such and see all the nations at their best, you can't really cripple some nations like this as you'll be creating major unbalance by doing so.

This is a bloody good point. You can't really ask players to bring their favourite nations to the table for an ultimate showdown if you are going to handicap a load of them before it even starts.

[Gandalf Parker]

There is no way to NOT affect some nations by the choices that are made. Everything affects someone. Thats one of the pros and cons of Dominions. There is no absolute "best" in anything because that best is likely to be raised or lowered by game settings, nation choices, mods, map type and size, etc.

Eventually the person running the game will just have to select the game settings and take the knocks on who was affected by it.


Gandalf Parker
--
To some people, unlimited choices are no choices.

[WraithLord]

Basically the pros and cons for gem gens are:

Pros: Some nations shine with them or are not playable w/o them.
any more?

Cons: MM. They are one of the reasons all end games tend to look the same. They allow hoarders to "hide" huge piles of income.
more?

I'm not a fanatic of either choice. I wanted them out b/c I thought that's the latest fashion and I wanted my next game to be in moda. We can take that down if player don't like this choice.

And yes I do want players to feel free to take LA Ermor or Pythium or Fomoria etc.

I think AsiaTwist (my 2nd game ) is approaching show down. It can take a month or two to complete and then I'll start the new game. I'd have loved to start it now but I vowed not to do 3 games in a row anymore. So I settle for talking about the 3rd one

[rdonj]

As arcoscephale has staled the last several turns in a row and I have been unable to get in contact with its player, I am opening a sub request. Hopefully one can be found before the next turn hosting.

[WingedDog]

In my humble opinion the best ally of gem generating strategy is a NAP. When you feel safe you can invest extra gems for the better future. In RAND game you can put priority #1 to producing gem generators, but just don't cry when you find out clams do not help you fight off enemy invasion.

[WraithLord]

@rdonj, Thank you for your effort!

@WingedDog, That's a good point.

I think I'll just put this to vote and let majority decide. It's either that or let YARG winner decide (assuming he joins)

[Micah]

Cons: Creates an inflationary feedback loop with wishing, especially with forge discounts, which in turn makes Forge of the Ancients a game-breaking global instead of just a very good one.

Decouples gem income from provinces, making raiding and even wholesale province capture hold little meaning.

Can be transferred to an allied nation upon the forger being killed off, unbalancing the game considerably, especially in the late game.

Is a mandatory strategy. Any winning strategy in a game with standard settings will be forced to use the gem items to be competitive, and when everyone has to do it why not just take them out so no one has to?

Makes site searching later in the game largely irrelevant. Who cares if you find a new site when you're cranking out 10 new gem items a turn? The only sites that matter are discount sites or indy mages. Playing without gens makes every site discovery an important event.

I'm going to go ahead and flat-out disagree with WingedDog's investment comment. The payback on a blood stone is quite short and it serves as a booster (7 turns for the E gems, and once you have about 10 of them in play your E income isn't going to be very constrained) and clams are also quite short, with the additional complication that W gems pretty much totally suck, so you're essentially investing the spare change you have under your couch and getting back pure gold.


The pros for them remaining in are also largely overstated. It isn't that hard to break into clamming, so claiming they help balance is reaching a bit. (Worst case for normal settings: 80W is less than 8 clams, which will empower an indy shaman to W2, add a water bracelet and you have a clammer that can summon naiads for any additional needs. Most of the "natural" clamming nations need to get to cons6 for water bracelets anyhow, so there isn't a significant time savings for many of them.) Blood stones in particular also tend to help some of the stronger nations, since national blood access is already a huge plus for a nation. Hinnom doesn't exactly need tons of help.

The fixes that should happen IMO are giving boosts to some of the nations and/or the W path in general to compensate for the slight bit of damage done to them by the removal of the gens, which would actually make them fun to play with, as opposed to boosting them with a mechanic that drags the whole game down by its very presence.