Tip: Template for reducing late game MM hell

[DonCorazon]

Agree on 1 and 2.
3 just makes the games last longer and favors bless nations.
4. is going to make nations with recruitable SCs even more powerful
5. might be the same as 4. - make it harder to get enough summons to fight recruitable SCs when you are playing a human nation

I have a draft post on some of what I dont like about Dominions that involves MM, but also things beyond MM - maybe I will dig it up.

PS getting rid of hammers would save a lot of time - i like that idea.

[Gandalf Parker]

I totally agree with IronHawk.
Every once in awhile I see someone saying that a particular game type or mod has become "standard practice". I always try to check just to be sure but I have rarely seen anything approach at MOST 50%. And thats usually on a specific server or a within a specific group of players. (so far Streamers and Standards seems to be the winner). I tend to put such comments in with the best nation, worst nation, game killer strategy, etc comments. Everyone seems to agree that they exist but there doesnt seem to be an agreement on what it is so it all seems to balance out.

On the other hand...
There is an interest at the moment in the RAND games. I have played around with the idea of an even deeper anonymous game. Since I do have my own server I could create a huge game called Anon and provide email addresses to each player. That and since it would be on my server I could monitor the connections and game logs to insure (as much as possible) that no multiple players and in-game messaging is going on. So far each time I come up with another way of monitoring it I come up with another way to get around it so for now its just a bunch of notes in the game-types folder.

Gandalf Parker

[LDiCesare]

1. No gem gens.

Agreed, they are MM hell. Remember to remove gem gens from pretennders and sea troll kings too while you're at it.

2. Determine an upper limit on map sizes. Consensus
Say 200 provinces?

I think that most games are played with too many players, and therefore too many provinces, to avoid late game MM. You're probably better off limiting the number of players to maybe 8 if you want to avoid MM and have room from a gut feeling, so that'd be more like 100-120 provinces imo.

3. Difficult research. Consensus

I can't see why it should be mandatory. Just get smaller maps.

4. CBM increase gem cost of spells and items.

Don't like it at first glance.

5. Low gem income (like LA settings).

I think it's just removing options.

1. RAND. Consensus

No way. War is a side effect of diplomacy. Removing diplomacy from games is fun sometimes but unrealistic and unfun if it's made general. Forbidding trading of gold/gems/items is more interesting than forbidding any kind of diplomacy imo.

2. Ban MM intensive nations. Like blood dom spreaders. LA R'lyeh.

No. If people want to play them, let them do so. If you want a random nation, you just have to accept it when you get a bad one or you don't play full-random nations.

3. Ban MM intensive spells. Like astral corruption and Forge.

I miss the point about astral corruption.

4. Cap research levels

Do you mean reduce research ability off some units? So Magic will become the best scale? No.

Overall, I'm sorry to say that I think the game is designed for less players than it's being played with often. 4 player games generally have all that you like: No late game MM, not much in terms of diplomacy. The issue is that, well, you don't reach "end game" and the game is over faster, which is exactly what your changes try to accomplish.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Ironhawk

Just catching up to this thread - pretty interesting!

However, I have to dissent on the issue of RAND. I think that it takes a lot away from the game to remove diplomacy. If its your preference to play without then thats fine. But to say that there is consensus that it should be used is crazy IMO. RAND/ND games, while being the new fad, are not the most common game, nor the most interesting.

Well this thread isn't about how ALL games should be - the thread starter is just trying to assemble the needed changes to create games which avoid MM hell.

Is there consensus that RAND helps avoid MM hell? That's the question.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

4. CBM increase gem cost of spells and items.

I am personally fine with CB doing nerfs like this, however I think there would be a lot of resistance. And, on a related note, if anyone thinks some spells are made too cheap in the current CB, I'd appreciate the feedback in the CB thread

And on gem gens, yes they will be unique items in the next CB.

[Zeldor]

I don't think it does. Knowing you have NAPs and that you can buy some items rather decreases the time you spend on your turns. So I'd say that RAND style games increase MM [unless someone claims diplomacy is part of MM].

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Sombre

I think this runs pretty much counter to the philosophy of, say, CBM, where the idea is to increase the breadth of strategic options, but it could definitely make for an interesting experiment in a game. I don't personally think the answer to the tart problem is to accept that the endgame /should/ just have 1 default SC castable by all - I prefer the route taken by llamabeast in his as yet unreleased mod which added a variety of SCs in different paths, to try and break the dominance of the tartarian and the necessity to pursue death and nature like crazy.

I agree with the CBM philosophy. The problem is that if you don't have recruitable/summonable SCs your only option is tarts. My suggestion was a quick and easy way to give nations access to some kind of SC and at the same time fix the tart problem.

But opening up other SC options through llama's mod is a much better option. It might be interesting to combine that with a mod adding national SCs to nations that lack them. With other options in place the cost of tarts could be made more realistic. As I recall QM didn't want to make them too expensive since it would make things even harder for nations without GoH/Chalice. With other options now available tarts could be priced accordingly (not necessarily on base CBM since it probably wouldn't include the new summons).

As an aside, I think at this point it is unlikely IW will be adding much content to the game (especially revisiting existing nations). If it seems like there's an interest in adding national SCs to nations that lack them I'd be willing to coordinate and put together the mod, but I'd need help with graphics.

Originally Posted by Kuritza

If you have national summons, but dont have the gems to summon them in sufficient quantities, you are still in trouble. A whole one thug wont save you. Even whole two thugs are often not enough.

With the removal of gem gens I'm not against adjusting the costs of some summons downwards. The last thing you want to do is give nations with recruitable SCs even more power. My point was directed more towards the fact that there are some nations that currently don't have an end game SC option if they don't luck into the Chalice or GoH. And towards the fact that tarts are out of line with other SC costs.

Originally Posted by Sambo

Here's another idea to reduce micromanagment. In my limited experience, the problem isn't the forging, moving guys around, hoarding gems, etc.; it's the fact that you have to do it in a million provinces!

Solution, shamelessly stolen from poker: raise the blinds.

After 40 turns (or whenever), reduce the provinces by half. Seriously, just mash them together. Do it again after 80 turns, and again at 120 if it goes that far. The big 400 province map, necessary when you started with 24 nations, is now a maneageable 100. Like in poker, the little guys get screwed, but that's kinda the point. :

Dunno if it's possible. There would be a large issue of merging sites, fortresses, units, etc.

Interesting you should mention this. I had the same thought a while back but didn't see any way to implement it.

You know, there's a cap on how many units you can recruit due to upkeep costs. I wonder if a lot of the late game drudgery would be eliminated if summons also had an upkeep cost - paid in gems, not gold. This would limit the number of summons you could field. Having to make tough decisions on how to allocate limited resources is what makes the game interesting to me. But barring IW making that change that seems impossible.

[Calahan]

Catching up on the thread. I must say I really like the sound of getting rid of Dwarven Hammers (by making them unique). As besides the MM relief involved, it could result in a lot of new strategies evolving for several nations if they no longer had to concern themselves during the build phase with how they are going to aquire Dwarven Hammers during the game.

[Illuminated One]

[shameless selfadvertising]

Concerning Research, I was working on a Mod that sets research output to a fixed number.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43679

I don't have the time to work a lot on it currently, but there is a "finished" version for SP EA games.

The features (beyond not having to mm your researchers) are:
Faster research in the early game
Slower research in the late game
Starting armies are out also, you could mod them in without commanders, but I haven't much bothered because with a few exceptions every nation has a way to get an acceptable start without awake SCs with the current settings.

At this point playtesting would be helpful

[/shameless selfadvertising]

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by Valerius

You know, there's a cap on how many units you can recruit due to upkeep costs. I wonder if a lot of the late game drudgery would be eliminated if summons also had an upkeep cost - paid in gems, not gold. This would limit the number of summons you could field. Having to make tough decisions on how to allocate limited resources is what makes the game interesting to me. But barring IW making that change that seems impossible.

Indeed.