Scenario: There can be only....3?! 2009 Megagame Concept

[Redeyes]

Regardless of specific victory conditions, as long as the top three players win I imagine some dynamics will change for the worse. As is, you often see two big players going for each other. What if the two biggest guys on the block now say "screw this" and together start gunning for everyone else?

Would perhaps make the game a bit shorter, which is good
But if the most powerful nations never fight each other, is the win really a valid test of player ability/nation power?

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

I imagine some dynamics will change for the worse. As is, you often see two big players going for each other. What if the two biggest guys on the block now say "screw this" and together start gunning for everyone else?

Would perhaps make the game a bit shorter, which is good

Because as I was saying, the design of the game also gives more incentive to every other player in the game, to cooperate to take down the front-runners. As it is, one of the biggest hurdles to cooperative strikes of that sort, is the fear that you will use up your own resources, and someone else will make most of the gains. In this scenario, they can remain your ally, and you still have a shot at victory, even though they reaped most of the rewards of one war or other. Also, since ultimately you need capable friends to maximize your chances of victory, they should be more likely to pass some of those lands to you after the fighting anyways - or they may just switch to a stronger ally, at which point the war of attrition begins again, with them on the receiving end this time.

Originally Posted by Redeyes

But if the most powerful nations never fight each other, is the win really a valid test of player ability/nation power?

Also, see above. With diplomacy being a huge factor in displaying one's "ability" in this arena, we've already shown that an individual with such skills, should be able to secure an uncontested win early on, if they put in the time and effort. Just examining the graphs for this game, you can see that LA Agartha became one of the frontrunners very early on, and because of diplomatic positioning, had the opportunity to push the advantage at several key steps. Part of my point is that under the same circumstances, anyone near Zeldor would have had to say "if I am not in the top 3 now, perhaps I should be looking for ways to topple Agartha, rather than cooperating with them". They were already admitting defeat, essentially, by saying "if either of us wins, it looks like him, and I can't beat him, so GG Zeldor". That is how they played it out. But if there is more than 1 slot for victory, suddenly it doesn't matter if he is just #1, there is a lot of maneuvering that can be done to still become one of the victors.