MP Game - Live and Learn (newbie game)-running

[Yvelina]

Hey, hey, a couple of points!

o Petar is not playing this game, I am. I am not positive that Pythium is the one taking down my enchantments.

o I thought that you cannot dispell an enchantment unless you put in as many gems as were invested in the first place. If this is not the case, then I am a fool for using at least the double of gems for each of mine (but that unfortunate first FoA). Or maybe tripple, you know? ;-)

o I have realized I positively HATE not knowing who my enemies are. Right now, I should probably be declaring war on Abysia, but have not, because if my secret enemy is Pythium, he will probably ally with Abysia and I will be in trouble, and if C'tis is the one who was taking down my enchantments, he does not deserve my help.

o And finally, I did not cast Fire Storm at C'tis. I have no fire mages or fire on my pretender, I am alchemizing all of my fire gem income, and unless I am mistaken, Fire storm is a level 9 spell, and I do not have level 9 Evocation researched.

o Oh, and did I mention, I hate this game. I wanna play team games, where you know which way your front and rear are.

o As for the tons of gems, I am using them for some benefit to me (or trying to) Whoever is taking down my enchantments is wasting them.

o I hate diplomacy. I think I will write Pythiumx2, Abysiax2, C'tis and AI on a dice, and see which way it rolls.

[bleach168]

I think Schmoe is refering to the level 7 evocation spell, Fire Storm. Oh, and he most assuredly knows where it came from. =)

But Yvelina, you should be happy about the position you're in. The rest of us are just crippling ourselves while you hoard and what not. We spend all our gems fighting and the thought of casting a global hasn't even crossed my mind.

I am having lots of fun though. =)

[Schmoe]

Yvelina said:
o I thought that you cannot dispell an enchantment unless you put in as many gems as were invested in the first place. If this is not the case, then I am a fool for using at least the double of gems for each of mine (but that unfortunate first FoA). Or maybe tripple, you know? ;-)

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the cost to dispel is related to the extra gems put into an enchantment, but not directly equal. In order to Dispel, you have to spend the cost of the Dispel (30), plus an amount equal to the amount originally spent above the base cost of the enchantment you are dispelling. For example, let's say opponent X casts Well of Misery, spending a total of 100 death gems (80 base + 20 extra). The cost to dispel would then be 50 astral gems (30 base +20 extra). Most globals have a base cost higher than 30 gems, so you can effectively dispel for fewer gems than the amount spent on the global.

o I have realized I positively HATE not knowing who my enemies are. Right now, I should probably be declaring war on Abysia, but have not, because if my secret enemy is Pythium, he will probably ally with Abysia and I will be in trouble, and if C'tis is the one who was taking down my enchantments, he does not deserve my help.

o And finally, I did not cast Fire Storm at C'tis. I have no fire mages or fire on my pretender, I am alchemizing all of my fire gem income, and unless I am mistaken, Fire storm is a level 9 spell, and I do not have level 9 Evocation researched.

As bleach said, I know who cast the Fire Storm. Oh yes, I know the culprit, and his red, scaly butt will be mine, I tell you, mine!

o Oh, and did I mention, I hate this game. I wanna play team games, where you know which way your front and rear are.

Sorry you're not having fun. To be honest, the tension in the "cold war" was getting to me, too, so I decided to stir things up a bit. It looks like I may have been better off waiting a few turns, but it's more exciting this way. I may lose, but I'm determined to enjoy doing it

o As for the tons of gems, I am using them for some benefit to me (or trying to) Whoever is taking down my enchantments is wasting them.

Well, I actually disagree. Dispelling your enchantments hurts you. What does an opponent want to do to his enemy? Hurt him/her. I personally don't expect any global to Last long. I just hope I get some use out of mine before they're all gone.

o I hate diplomacy. I think I will write Pythiumx2, Abysiax2, C'tis and AI on a dice, and see which way it rolls.

Hey, what about Arco, Machaka, and Pythium! They're still in this too.

Anyway, I'd be interested in a team game, too, once this one is over. Could be fun.

[Thufir]

Schmoe said:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the cost to dispel is related to the extra gems put into an enchantment, but not directly equal. In order to Dispel, you have to spend the cost of the Dispel (30), plus an amount equal to the amount originally spent above the base cost of the enchantment you are dispelling. For example, let's say opponent X casts Well of Misery, spending a total of 100 death gems (80 base + 20 extra). The cost to dispel would then be 50 astral gems (30 base +20 extra). Most globals have a base cost higher than 30 gems, so you can effectively dispel for fewer gems than the amount spent on the global.

Here's a clip from a thread somewhere that I saved:


AFAIK if both the global spell and the Dispel pay the base cost, there is about a 50% dispel chance. This is however modified, depending upon (for both spells) :
- extra gems spent,
- difference in skill of the caster and the level of the spell.
There is also an open-ended d6 added to the gem input of every global and dispelling attempt.
Exemple : a lvl 10 nature mage casts Gift of Health (lvl 5) with 25 extra gems. Sum=25+5+D6(oe). Dispelling astrologer has astral lvl 3 only but uses 35 extra gems. Sum=35+D6(oe). Dispel will probably succeed (35+d6 vs 30+d6) : it's hard to beat a difference of 5 with one (even open-ended) d6.

[Thufir]

We're waiting on Arco, and I know he staled Last turn. J Henry, are you still with us?

[Thufir]

J Henry has had two consecutive stales on us now, unless he shows up in the next 12 hrs, or unless someone objects, I'm going to change him to AI sometime tomorrow.

[Schmoe]

I say we give him another 24 hours. Since it's on 48h quickhost, and usually somebody takes more than 24 hours, it shouldn't be a big deal.

I know, it's a longshot, but it would be better than setting him to AI.

You know Thufir, the more experience I'm getting with this game the worse I feel about going AI in the Last game we played. I know that me doing so really screwed you over. I realize now I should have at the very least tried to find a sub, so consider this an apology.

[Yvelina]

With him stalling every turn, it's just as if we had 48h with quickhost disabled. My term has started, and I really like it this way. And to make things even better, I know it is not Arco who is throwing spells at me. I really do not get it. Machaka, Abysia, and C'tis are fighting. Pythium should be happy to let me join the fray, so he can remain at peace and build up. Who the hell is testing my domes every turn? I wish I could throw a few fire domes

[Thufir]

Schmoe said:
I say we give him another 24 hours. Since it's on 48h quickhost, and usually somebody takes more than 24 hours, it shouldn't be a big deal.

I know, it's a longshot, but it would be better than setting him to AI.

Well, I'm in no rush here, but I believe that it has been more than 4 days now since J Henry took a turn. IMO, Arco has been very static the entire game, and other than further perplexing Yvelina as to the source of hostile spell casting (which actually was of considerable value - but thats permanently lost now, no matter whether he shows up or not ), I don't see that he was likely to have much impact on the outcome of the game.

You know Thufir, the more experience I'm getting with this game the worse I feel about going AI in the Last game we played. I know that me doing so really screwed you over. I realize now I should have at the very least tried to find a sub, so consider this an apology.

Actually, I just went through my list of games, and I don't see that you went AI in any of them, unless you were using a different ID? There were a couple of positions that went AI prematurely in Pandemonium (they were owned by "Jarenko" and "odd_enuf"), so I guess your apology is going to the wrong person?

In all the games I have created, I've never seen the need to be that "hardcore" about going AI or not. I can see the fun in creating a "no quitter" game, and I'd have a different opinion in that case, but none of my games to date have been declared as no quitter games.

In our game, it would certainly be bad if any of yourself, Yvelina or Bleach went AI. And if the game became unbearable for any of you, I'd certainly work to find a sub. But for the rest of us, it doesn't seem that we are likely to play a major role in the outcome.

OTOH, I've also never gone AI myself. If I become uncompetitive in a game, the level of fun in it does drop, but I usually find it pretty easy to crank out turns that are far better than what the AI could do, without a large amount of effort. I can also maintain a line of diplomacy that's consistent with the history of the nation I've created. I'm sometimes surprised by how many players go AI when they're down to their Last two or three provinces. It take so little effort to play at that point, and I usually value the opportunity to experiment tactically, w/o any great consequence hinging on the result. If I can drag out my ending for 1-2 turns longer than the AI could've then I congratulate myself for having contributed to the game.

So, generally, fighting it out to the bitter end is a good thing, but I've never felt it should be required. What *does* get me torqued is when a player just disappears w/o any notice whatsoever. It takes 5 minutes to post a PM to the game owner w/ your password and say "I'm gone". It takes maybe half an hour to post on the forum a note looking for subs, and doing a bit of follow up. Simply disappearing is totally lame, IMO.

[Thufir]

My apologies for the delayed response - I've been meaning to reply to this for a while.

Yvelina said:
o Oh, and did I mention, I hate this game. I wanna play team games, where you know which way your front and rear are.

...

o I hate diplomacy. I think I will write Pythiumx2, Abysiax2, C'tis and AI on a dice, and see which way it rolls.

I can certainly sympathize w/ the desire to play team games. I've talked a bit with Boron about the team game that he's in, and it does sound like fun. The downside of a team game is that unless your team has the time and the will to communicate and coordinate effectively, then there's not much of a point in being a "team". From what Boron has told me, they have had some communication problems in their game.

You may have read this, but a while back Bleach started an excellent thread ( here) on what this community thinks is reasonable while conducting diplomacy in MP games. I come from a background of playing the boardgame "Diplomacy" where cutthroat play and back stabbing are essential to the game being interesting (and it can get *very* interesting indeed, if you're interested in complex strategy). Partly based on Bleach's thread, I've decided to moderate my behavior while playing Dom2, as I think the majority of the Dom2 community has a different mind set than most Diplomacy players have.

That said, even in Dom2 I find it helpful to cultivate a bit of deliberate split personality disorder (as one would with any RP type of game - particularly those RP games that permit/encourage inter-player conflict). As such, the one that thing that I can promise you, Yvelina, is that if you were to attack the nation of Pythium magically, or otherwise, based on a possibly mistaken belief that Pythium cast those dispels, then I would react with fury in-game (well such fury as the weakened Pythium is capable of ), but would *not* carry it over to any new games.

YMMV, but for me the 2 keys to making FFA, diplomacy type games fun are to deliberately split in-game and out-of-game mindsets, and making sure not to carry over grudges between games. Oh, and perhaps not taking the game *too* seriously - if I've made my guess wrong and attacked the wrong player - who cares? It's just a game!

On a separate note, I've hosted four games, and this game has had the most fun/interesting group to play with! It's been quite interesting to watch the ebb and flow of who's in the lead, and I'm looking forward to seeing the ultimate outcome!