Hi -
By way of background: my cousin was a big D2 fan and decided to evangelize his extended family to play D3 together. Nine of us now have copies of the game (my uncle, a brother, three cousins, two nieces, and a nephew - hehe). I am going to create the game for PBEM. Aside from my cousin, we are all newbs and learning the game for the first time. We plan to play RP style and for fun and use the Glory of the Gods multiplayer version map. Here are my questions:
1. The game victory conditions are winner-take-all, but since we are playing this RP-style among only family (e.g. competitive but not cut-throat) I am trying to figure out how to create victory conditions that will maximize the chance all the players will remain involved and we don't end up with seven nations wiped out early and only two playing on. In other words, I would like to find a way to have the game play out Kingmaker style, where even though you have one winner the players all are in it till the end, rather than Risk style, where you end up always with two slugging it out.
Can anyone suggest themed rules they have developed for fun, RP-style games that I can modify and use for ours? And is it a good idea to use cumulative VP conditions? These seem likeliest to avoid people getting wiped out too soon.
2. As far as where the nations start out on the multi-player map, is there any way to designate where the nations will have their starting province? I think it would be fun to have desert nations start in a desert, cold nations in the icy north, etc, but it seems the game always places nations randomly. Is there any way I can modify the game set-up to place nations in a specific province?
Thanks for any help with these questions. This is an amazing game, but it takes awhile to play and I am trying to figure out how to maximize the fun.