Surrender, Routing, and Pacificm

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Alarik:
But for SP something along the lines of MOO's Galactic council would be nice. Hereditary hatreds and natural alliances only spice up the action. Do some of you think a "Council of the Gods" would be interesting even if it were just an option?

Dom 2 is quite a different game in concept than a typical 4X like MOO3 or Civ3. In them you can win by diplomacy and/or simple domination (having the largest empire). You do not have to win by being the sole remaining race (though you can if you wish). In Dom, you MUST wipe out ALL other "gods". There is NO room for compromise of any sort. Nothing short of the total annihilation of everyone else is tolerable. A "Council" implies cooperation. The idea that more than 2-3 gods would ever agree on anything in a setting like Dom's is ludicrous.

[vanedor]

"There is NO room for compromise of any sort."

Why do some people keep repeating comments like this? We perfectly know that currently, it's a game about total annihilation. We(or at least myself), think the game would be better if it was different. How could some diplomacy make this game inferior to you, especially if it's optional?

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Alarik:
Are some of you saying that you think the war game elements would be less compelling if some diplomatic options were available in SP?

Not less compelling, no. But it would change the entire theme of the game. It's what I was talking about earlier - people seem to want one game which does everything they've ever wanted it to do, instead of taking each game's strengths, intent, and such on its own terms. The broader something gets, the more it tends to become shallow.

And any game that allows blood sacrifice and dark rituals is exploring the issue of good vs evil. To each his own but I would rather run a nation that doesn't resort to those methods to win the game. I would rather run a nation that rescues virgins from a pretender that is using bloody sacrifice. So for at least one player (Moi) the game does have good vs evil implications.

But that's just it: you are bringing an agenda to the game, and that's perfectly fine. The game isn't bringing it to you. As I said quite a bit earlier, I am a devout Catholic and am quite strict about my own - real-life - morals and those of my daughters - but this game is pixels and data, not real life. This game is a fantasy, and it's a fantasy purely about war and power.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by vanedor:
We(or at least myself), think the game would be better if it was different.

If it was "different", it wouldn't be the same game then, would it? Which renders the concept of "better" meaningless.

Adding diplomacy would so fundamentally alter the nature of the game that you really couldn't consider it to be Dom any more. It would be, at best, a Dom-like game. Or, more accurately, a game with some of the flavor of Dom, but more closely resembling Age of Wonders, etc.

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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Originally posted by vanedor:
We(or at least myself), think the game would be better if it was different.

If it was "different", it wouldn't be the same game then, would it? Which renders the concept of "better" meaningless.

Adding diplomacy would so fundamentally alter the nature of the game that you really couldn't consider it to be Dom any more. It would be, at best, a Dom-like game. Or, more accurately, a game with some of the flavor of Dom, but more closely resembling Age of Wonders, etc.

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Yes, that's exactly what I was getting at. Part of the beauty of single-player Dom II is its focus, and it's just as Norfleet has said: "my side is the 'good' side, all others be damned." Not "all others be damned only if they use blood slaves or unless We are feeling most benevolent and deign to traffic with gods who, after all, may be just as godly as We are."

That just isn't...Dominions. It's something else. When I want Age of Wonders, I play Age of Wonders. When I want Dom, I play Dom.

[Starfighter08]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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Originally posted by Alarik:
But for SP something along the lines of MOO's Galactic council would be nice. Hereditary hatreds and natural alliances only spice up the action. Do some of you think a "Council of the Gods" would be interesting even if it were just an option?

Dom 2 is quite a different game in concept than a typical 4X like MOO3 or Civ3. In them you can win by diplomacy and/or simple domination (having the largest empire). You do not have to win by being the sole remaining race (though you can if you wish). In Dom, you MUST wipe out ALL other "gods". There is NO room for compromise of any sort. Nothing short of the total annihilation of everyone else is tolerable. A "Council" implies cooperation. The idea that more than 2-3 gods would ever agree on anything in a setting like Dom's is ludicrous.

---

From the point of view of a monotheistic religion this is certainly true. But with all the pretender gods that are around who says that you couldn't create a polytheistic one.

I think a second kind of victory would be acceptable too: become the King of Gods (like Jupiter/Zeus) in a pantheon of gods. That opens up a whole new world of cooperation and intrigues among the gods like in a greek drama.

[tinkthank]

Originally posted by Arryn:
In Dom, you MUST wipe out ALL other "gods". There is NO room for compromise of any sort. Nothing short of the total annihilation of everyone else is tolerable. A "Council" implies cooperation. The idea that more than 2-3 gods would ever agree on anything in a setting like Dom's is ludicrous.

I agree. However, I would like to point out that you only have to destroy the other Gods, not the people who may or may not live under their dominion and may or may not be conscripted to fight for them. This is the classic distinction I was referring to between ius ad bello and ius in bellum. We are often mixed apples and pears in this discussion.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Starfighter08:
a whole new world of cooperation and intrigues among the gods like in a greek drama.

Dom is a strategy *wargame*, not an RPG ...

Dom is, at its core, a MP Version of the old Amiga game Populous. Cooperation and intrigue is the purview of games like Morrowind.

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually I can see Arryns point. The devs, in most of the text descriptions thru the game, clearly mean it to be a "Last god standing" type of game. And in solo-play that seems to be the "default" obvious method of play. The solo players (like myself) have asked for diplomacy things to be added to the game.

On the other hand, the way the game is played in multiplayer mode tends to be the opposite. Very few games occur without alliances. Long discussions in the strategy newsgroup over Dom1 got rather heated with some players feeling cheated when so many games ended by agreements rather than winners. Eventually we pointed out what many felt was the problem. We all knew each other. It was a small gaming community. We had reputations that go from game to game. Its not a bad thing really but by the time I join a game here Im not just Pangaea, Im Gandalf playing Pangaea.

We did some games in the newsgroup where efforts were made to make sure that NONE of the players knew who was playing a nation. A little more effort to do but it can be interesting. The game went VERY differently. Alliances were made but they were also broken. Sometimes in very devious side-switching back-stabbing ways which didnt seem to appear in the other MP games.

In my humble opinion, one of the things which can most clarify the game as a "Last god standing" for those that want it, is the work being done on creating a web-based game signup site. Having anonymous play of a nation will probably make a big difference (good or bad Im not sure) in the way those games are played. Then diplomacy additions wont "ruin" the game for some players. In fact, it would become another tool for war.