Idea for an "SP Challenge" game

[sansanjuan]

Gandalf Parker said:
Totally.
I HOST games but I dont tend to RUN games. I think that most of the hosts end up in the same boat. Its enough hassle to do the hosting. Its VERY helpful if someone else starts the game thread, debates the settings, sets the rules, gets the players, checks the thread multiple times a day (or at least daily), and then is the one person who PMs me of anything needing a change.

I would eventually like to take a crack at hosting an "SP Challenge Game" on your server. Having never hosted before I'm curious how we'd run such a game(s). Would we create a dozen clones of the game on the server (game1,game2,game3, etc) and have each player assigned to a specific cloned-game where the game would act exactly like an MP game except all nations would be AI (except the player's of course)? Is there a way to do this with a single game and behind the scenes each games would save in a subdirectory named the specific username of the player? e.g. a filesystem redirection based on the user's submissions.

-SSJ

[NTJedi]

sansanjuan said:
Awesome NT. I wonder if to get our feet wet it might be best to start with a small map. This might bring in more players. Might be useful to hand pick the AI opponents (including pretenders and scales) and bump up the supply feed (work around the AI starvation issue). Make the AIs/Scales as strong as legally possible. Throw down the gaunlet NT! What do you think about allowing players to play the same game more than once (though only the first one counts for score to minimize leveraging preknowledge of sites, etc )? I'm psyched. This migth involve significantly more SP players in the forum/community.


My $0.02,
-SSJ

I would also be interested in hosting two or more types of "SP Challenge" on Gandalfs server. I believe having a sticky in the Multiplayer and AARs forum called SP Hall of Fame/Scores would also generate interest in participation. Greater methods of SP game balance can also be achieved using a MOD which removes spells and items which cripple AI opponents. Spells like Astral Corruption and Utterdark quickly kill AI opponents since the AI is unaware. Players should be allowed to play the game more than once, but only their first play counts as the score. Also if Gandalf has a method for identifying the IP address or MAC address of the individual logging into the server we can greatly decrease cheaters using multiple names. My large "SP Challenge" maps use victory points otherwise the games would take almost a year or more to finish.

Some maps remove optional game settings such as Dawn of Dominions where the research level or other settings cannot be chosen. I wonder if there's hidden commands for specifying these settings within the .map file and then locking them... probably just my wishful thinking.

Another suggestion for drawing the greatest interest is by providing a small map, a medium map and a large map for the SP challenge. If KO or JK were also to complete one of the SP challenges it would also draw interest from other members to participate.

[sansanjuan]

NT,
That would be the cat's pajamas if you could set things up for the SP challenge. Your mod skills are well known and will be indispensable. I would be happy to assist in anyway I can (even if I'm just waving pom poms most of the time). Given enough participation it might be statistically significant to measure the relative strength of different nations more meaningfully than is currently possible. I would like nothing more that to see Nief/TC/Ermor's aggregated scores eclipsed by a brilliant strategy by a supposedly weaker nation. I would predict that scores for fewest turns would generally get much better as new players absorb AARs and fine tune strategies to attack the map. This is all good stuff. My second prediction is that MP participation would rise as some SP only players might become emboldened by the "DOM on a server" experience.

Note: I'm not saying SP-only players are wall flowers or anti-social. Only that some may perceive multiple barriers to MP play where one such barrier is setup and playing on a hosted DOM server (really quite easy). I Know I was quite hesitant myself at first being an older guy with zero PBEM experience.

Victory Conditions on the large map sounds very interesting and now makes sense to me.
-SSJ

[Gandalf Parker]

sansanjuan said:
I would eventually like to take a crack at hosting an "SP Challenge Game" on your server. Having never hosted before I'm curious how we'd run such a game(s). Would we create a dozen clones of the game on the server (game1,game2,game3, etc) and have each player assigned to a specific cloned-game where the game would act exactly like an MP game except all nations would be AI (except the player's of course)? Is there a way to do this with a single game and behind the scenes each games would save in a subdirectory named the specific username of the player? e.g. a filesystem redirection based on the user's submissions.

-SSJ

Dominions is very efficient at being a server. Having multiple instances of it running is not a problem. Especially if its not on Windows (in this case Linux which is also very efficient for being a server)