MP Alliances functionality?

[Talleyrand]

I'd like to see this. Story is null in most multiplayer components of strategy games anyway. For example, I can choose zerg while my partner chooses protoss, etc. even though the two are fictionally opposed to each other. There doesn't need to be justification for why a team aspect is available. It's purely for player enjoyment and could only benefit this game and the community. Whether the resources are there to implement it or not is the question though, and I doubt it.

[JaydedOne]

It just seems that the resources should be fairly inexpensive. The team-algorithm would seem to be a string of pretty simple IF/THENs (IF player A flagged "team A" THEN add X, Y, Z from all other "team A" flags, etc.)

I could be totally wrong here, but a bare-bones system, I'd think, should be fairly easy to implement.

[Edi]

It'd be easy to do if ally setup would be from the beginning of the game and can't be altered during the game, that would enable teams. It'd cause a lot more problems, though, because you couldn't attack allied provinces or troops, which would be a logistical nightmare if you needed to take troops through allied territory. Unless the allied flag would allow "sneaking" through allied territory so that the ally sees roughly how big an army is moving there but can't do anything else.

The downside would be prevention of the ruthless game of diplomacy and opportunistic backstabbing that MP now entails.

Edi

[DominionsFan]

I've forgot to mention, that moving through your allies territory with your troops [without attacking their provinces] would be also awesome. We had a 2v2 team game on the Silent Seas map a few days ago, and our team's placement was horrible. I blocked my team mate totally on land, so he couldnt move anywhere only when he took my bordering provinces.

[Nerfix]

Edi said:The downside would be prevention of the ruthless game of diplomacy and opportunistic backstabbing that MP now entails.

Edi

Not necessarily a downside as the option for ruthless games of diplomacy and opportunistic backstabbing would still be there.

[Teraswaerto]

I wouldn't like it if an MP game had pre-set "teams". Diplomacy, forging alliances, trying to figure out who you can trust, etc. is huge part of what makes MP games fun.

[DominionsFan]

Teraswaerto said:
I wouldn't like it if an MP game had pre-set "teams". Diplomacy, forging alliances, trying to figure out who you can trust, etc. is huge part of what makes MP games fun.

True, there should be an option to offer alliance even when the game is running. Than pre-set teams wouldn't be required at all. However shared vision, moving on your allies territory without attacking the provinces etc. would be a must have still.
On a second thought I doubt that these things will be added, since the concept of the game is somewhat against it. Gods are fighting, so forging alliances are probably out of question.

[Teraswaerto]

Shared vision takes away the possibility to give false information to your "allies", and the other things might have similar effects depending on how they are implemented.

Adding some kind of support for alliances would be good I guess, but you'd have to be careful it doesn't take away something else.