Global War (upgraded to 3.20)

CUnknown · #1 May 6th, 2008, 03:15 PM

The game might be over by next week, man.

Well, the Neutral nations will still probably be in it, but Good will likely be all but destroyed in 7 turns.

Maybe after some Goods are eliminated, they can switch to the winning side and take over Abysia.

Hoplosternum · #2 May 6th, 2008, 04:52 PM

But don't the Evils only have to knock out the goods to win? and their secret enemy of course

CUnknown · #3 May 6th, 2008, 05:31 PM

No, the Evils have to kill all the Goods and Neutrals to win.

moderation · #4 May 7th, 2008, 12:39 AM

Hmm, there's not much I can add to this except to add that this type of game is inherently hard to balance. Maybe we'll get it right the next time around. Unfortunately, having a large number of allies in Dom 3 introduces a lot of inefficiencies since you have to spend a whole turn sending gold or gems or items between each other. And having forts in provinces next to your ally also hurt you because you cannot get resources from their provinces. Maybe with more space and time to expand it would not be such an issue because then allies will not have to worry about micromanaging a very small pool of gems and gold in an early war.

Also, some of the evil nations getting lucky enough to start in the middle of high income grasslands (like Abysia and Ermor and Lanka) has also skewed the balance a lot. If we do this again, it would be important to carefully consider the map and maybe build a custom map for the game. I'm not too unhappy about it though. I'd consider this game a beta test, I think games with such large teams are uncommon, and therefore it will take a good deal of testing to get this type of game balanced.

Hoplosternum · #5 May 7th, 2008, 01:42 AM

Quote:

CUnknown said:
No, the Evils have to kill all the Goods and Neutrals to win.

Then we are really really screwed

Kheldron · #6 May 7th, 2008, 02:24 AM

Let's see how the game plays out before deciding it's over and things are unbalanced please. AFAIK goods are still around, even if in bad shape, and neutrals fare fairly well so...

IMO the main problem with goods and evils is they are fundamentaly at an advantage at different stage of the game.
Goods should have a growing advantage as time passes due to synergies increasing while evils should have an advantage at start by sheer numbers and postponing of secret enemies wars.
And that's exactly what we get.
Besides, neutrals are supposed to balance out things in middle...well, we're just entering mid-game, I don't see how we can judge anything at this point.

Fal · #7 May 7th, 2008, 07:49 AM

Quote:

Kheldron said:
IMO the main problem with goods and evils is they are fundamentaly at an advantage at different stage of the game.
Goods should have a growing advantage as time passes due to synergies increasing while evils should have an advantage at start by sheer numbers and postponing of secret enemies wars.
And that's exactly what we get.

very true, good nation will gain advantage later on in the game. That's why i chose Lanka, which is naturally good at rushing, knowing that time is not on evil's side, I played rather aggressively this time. some good nations have been quite incompetent in the initial expansion phase, but they made their own mistakes, can't blame the game balance.

I personally don't think this game can be balanced. If the game is to start over however, IMO the good nations don't need to be next to each other, which might be better for them. and maybe have less evil players - they are going to be allied anyways, maybe ban double 9 blessing as well. And I still think secret enemy is a stupid idea and isn't going to change anything, say if we were to use secret enemy this time, my two enemies is located no where near me and even if they were I would still rush the good nations out before I attack them.

IndyPendant · #8 May 7th, 2008, 10:40 AM

Heh. Another thing to consider too: we have spent posts and posts making much on how evil gets the early game advantage, but good will gain a huge advantage late game, when their synergies start to truly pay off.

Now. If you were playing evil, and heard that, what would *you* do? I don't know about you, but I would be thinking "Right. Top priority? Get good out of the game before they grow too powerful."

What good needs to do in a game like this is strategize for beating off the hordes of enemies early game so they can survive to end game. Perhaps with an SC pretender, or maybe a double-bless of their own.

I am curious though; I started too far away from most goods to see. What were these 'horrible mistakes' everyone seems to agree good made?

CUnknown · #9 May 7th, 2008, 10:48 AM

I agree with Fal.. I don't think the game itself was unbalanced for sure.. (although maybe the map set-up was) and that Good made some mistakes. We could have done a much better job, even given the map and everything.

I don't think we should ban the double-9 blessing, Fal. You are doing everything you are supposed to be doing, it's just that we should have defended better. We should have had a plan for when Lanka and Ermor appeared on our borders in serious numbers on turn 9. We didn't.

Kheldron - we will be continuing to play this game. I will keep fighting until the end!! But, given some of the events unfolding in recent turns, that end is approaching for Good.

We might be able to survive with maybe half our number (2 or 3 players) alive out of the original 5. The problem is, no matter what the Neutrals do at that point, I'm still pretty sure the Evils will press and finish us off. But, we'll have to see how it goes.

If anything, for next game (if we do another one) we should play on a slightly larger map or with slightly fewer players. Good would have done much, much better had we had maybe even 2-3 more turns before meeting the enemy.

Hoplosternum · #10 May 7th, 2008, 02:37 AM

I know I am complaining

But I don't mean any criticism by it. This was an experiment. It is hard to balance these type of games. When we were planning the game it was not clear to me at least that it would be so uneven.

And as with all team games it's been fun and interesting discussing strategy and tactics within the team. Even though it has been clear for some time that we would lose quickly.

But this game clearly isn't very balanced. It doesn't seem to be that much fun for all the Evils either as some of them are complaining too!

I am definitely up for another themed team game after this. But I think having everyone in teams and allowing diplomacy between teams would have been better.