EpikBattel - Started

Gregstrom · #1 December 4th, 2007, 12:13 PM

Well spoken, Bananadine.

How are we handling team assignments?

Zeldor · #2 December 4th, 2007, 12:27 PM

The problem with most of the maps except for WoG [and some others] is that if all players have the same skill starting positions can really influence a lot who wins. I have seen that on Uraparrand - there are extremely good and bad starting positions available. Cradle of Dominions doesn't look fair too. And placing teams on not-wraparound map with irregular shape will be impossible.

I vote so heavily for WoG not because it is big, but because every players has the same starting location and it is only up to his skill and diplomacy, not luck.

Torin · #3 December 4th, 2007, 01:06 PM

im in favor of a wraparound

llamabeast · #4 December 4th, 2007, 01:16 PM

The thing is, unfairness due to placement pales into insignifance compared to the "injustices" resulting from diplomacy, particular nations' differences etc.. Dominions just isn't the kind of game where you can aim for that.

I mean, imagine you start next to MA Ermor. If you're Ulm, you're probably stuffed - there's no way you can deal with all those undead. If you're C'tis or Pythium, you'll laugh at them. This is "unfair", but interesting, so I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Actually I think it's very cool. You just have to remember that Dominions is not chess.

Sorry Zeldor, I'm sure I'm really winding you up here, because you obviously really want to play on World of Geometry and I'm obviously not being very encouraging for that on this thread. This is just because I really, really like Dominions and I want other people to get into it too, so it's hard not to offer advice which I think will make people enjoy the game more, and I honestly feel that playing on such a huge map for your first MP game (not yours, but some other players') is a terrible idea. Regardless, if this game does not end up being played on WoG, you can always just make a new post for a World of Geometry game, explicitly stating it is a massive map and the game will last a long time (six months to a year I'd guess) and you will have enough players in no time, and I would be more than happy to host the game for you.

Incidentally I have to agree that WoG is a lovely map. I wonder if Twan would be interested in making a version with less provinces. And also, apologies again for poking my nose in.

MartialDoctor · #5 December 4th, 2007, 01:44 PM

Sounds like you guys still need a final player. I'll join in as Arcoscephale.

Gregstrom · #6 December 4th, 2007, 01:52 PM

After some thought, I'm with Llamabeast on the map issue. An over-large map would be pretty bad for micromanagement. And I'd rather have an interesting game than a prefectly balanced one, too.

Zeldor · #7 December 4th, 2007, 01:58 PM

llamabeast:

I don't care about nearby nations, I care about getting 3 or 6 capitol neighbours. Or getting wasteland only or bad terrains. Or having 4 or 5 nations near me, while others have for example 2. And even with diplomacy the one with better starting position has diplomacy options too and will use them.

I just want to play on a fair map. I love dominions, but 95% maps are good only on SP, not MP. Twan made a great map like WoG, but it is the only one that is really good and supports MP games [except for really small maps].

Torin · #8 December 4th, 2007, 02:21 PM

im ok with WoG. or a Wraparaound instead of an unbalanced map. unbalanced=boring.

llamabeast · #9 December 4th, 2007, 02:39 PM

Quote:

95% maps are good only on SP, not MP

Well, I guess that's obviously subjective. I don't think it's generally considered much of a problem, and it's not like there hasn't been many MP games going on. There are of course a few notably unbalanced maps (e.g. unmodified Parganos), which I agree should be avoided. But such problems are easily corrected - e.g. if manually placing start positions (which I recommend), you should simply choose start positions with similar numbers of neighbours. And putting one player in the middle of a load of wasteland or something would be silly, so you wouldn't do it. With Parganos I just altered a lot of the terrain so it is much fairer.

I have to agree that letting Dominions do the capital placement and using random maps both tend to lead to quite unfair positions, and aren't as good an idea.

Quote:

I don't care about nearby nations, I care about getting 3 or 6 capitol neighbours. Or getting wasteland only or bad terrains. Or having 4 or 5 nations near me, while others have for example 2.

Actually you've just pretty much listed the problems which can be easily fixed by manual capital placement.