12-14 player Urgaia

[Cohen]

I'd suggest instead not to design pretender, but to assign nations randomly.

So on everyone design his pretender of his randomly got Nation.

I believe many ppl could bet upset to have a blessing suited pretender when they want something else. Or such things.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

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Originally posted by Cainehill:
But maybe if you did a lottery to see who gets first choice of nations, who gets 2nd, etc? Everyone has a fair chance of getting something decent - the 1st person gets a primo nation, sure. But the next to Last and Last get to make a choice with the knowledge of just what nations are going to be in the game, which might even it out a little bit.

That's essentially what happens: In the event of a collision, there's a random toss to see who gets it, and who gets to pick something else. Even if it was strictly "dibs", first come first serve, being the first to choose is not necessarily an advantage: Yes, you get the nation you like most, but everyone knows this before they even have to decide, and you're making your choice blind: You have to be fairly confident in your ability to play that nation to do this. At the opposite end of the spectrum is the late entry, where many nations are taken....but you know what you're up against, and if a nation YOU want is still open....great! If not, at least you know it's not, and can move on. Picking in the middle of the pack, on the other hand, lets you glance at some of your opposition, while still being able to snag one of your choice nations. It's all a tradeoff, either way: Randomly assigned nations is really a good thing, as most people don't have adequate playing experience with every single nation out there.[/qb]

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But I think you'd agree that almost everyone would generally prefer having first choice, and very few would want Last. Currently, you get people grabbing dibs, getting first choice (and possibly some advantage) while others coming late look at the leftovers and decide not to play.

Doing a lottery means that every player in the game has a chance at a good pick of nations; maybe they don't get one, but they have the chance. While the regular fanatics don't always get their favorite races just because they check for new open games every 10 minutes, all day, every day.

But I agree - randomly assigning nations would be good as well, possibly leading people to discover a new favorite, and at the minimum giving them a better understanding of the nation, helping them to play more effectively against it.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
But I think you'd agree that almost everyone would generally prefer having first choice, and very few would want Last. Currently, you get people grabbing dibs, getting first choice (and possibly some advantage) while others coming late look at the leftovers and decide not to play.

Well, if I wasn't the big dog around, I'd be actually inclined to pick later, when I know I'll be up against. Yes, some people will look at the leftovers and decide not to attend this round....but he loses nothing from this. Not everyone can afford to lifelessly study every single nation like I can, after all, and even I don't find every nation is suited for me in equal measure.

Originally posted by Cainehill:
But I agree - randomly assigning nations would be good as well, possibly leading people to discover a new favorite, and at the minimum giving them a better understanding of the nation, helping them to play more effectively against it.

Err, well, I meant to say it wasn't a good thing, but I'm old and I have a long beard. It's a cute idea for an experimental game, but probably not a great plan for a competitive tournament.

[The_Tauren13]

Originally posted by Cohen

I'd suggest instead not to design pretender, but to assign nations randomly.

So on everyone design his pretender of his randomly got Nation.

sounds reasonable to me; imho someone cant be considered good unless they can play well with all nations. and this way nobody can blame a loss on a lousy pretender.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by The_Tauren13:
sounds reasonable to me; imho someone cant be considered good unless they can play well with all nations. and this way nobody can blame a loss on a lousy pretender.

It'd suck to be the guy who ended up with Tien Chi, though.

[The Panther]

Norfleet!

Are you trying to say that T'ien Ch'i is an inferior race? It is unbalanced then? If so, than you should be forced to take T'ien Ch'i in your next game to see if you are truly an expert or not.

Of course, I admit it would be nearly impossible to truly balance 17 races. However, I do like to go random, which means choosing my race by dice roll.

I am a total newbie so would just like to know your opinion.

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by The Panther:
Of course, I admit it would be nearly impossible to truly balance 17 races.

I'd really like to see something where all players could have the same nation, picking and designing their pretender and scales given the shared nation/theme.

Not only would that be a helluva lot of fun, but it'd really be great as a way to level the playing field.

It'd also be great for doing scenarios that simulate a civil war - fantasy / Dom2 Version of the War of the Roses or the Hundred Years War.

If Illwinter had tied units / provinces / sides to the player, this could fairly easily be done; unfortunately I think they used nation as the index / identifier. (Not that that wasn't a decent design decision - simpler code / structures to do things that way. Flexibility isn't necessarily the first design constraint. )