Tip: Template for reducing late game MM hell

[Ironhawk]

Just catching up to this thread - pretty interesting!

However, I have to dissent on the issue of RAND. I think that it takes a lot away from the game to remove diplomacy. If its your preference to play without then thats fine. But to say that there is consensus that it should be used is crazy IMO. RAND/ND games, while being the new fad, are not the most common game, nor the most interesting.

[Gandalf Parker]

I totally agree with IronHawk.
Every once in awhile I see someone saying that a particular game type or mod has become "standard practice". I always try to check just to be sure but I have rarely seen anything approach at MOST 50%. And thats usually on a specific server or a within a specific group of players. (so far Streamers and Standards seems to be the winner). I tend to put such comments in with the best nation, worst nation, game killer strategy, etc comments. Everyone seems to agree that they exist but there doesnt seem to be an agreement on what it is so it all seems to balance out.

On the other hand...
There is an interest at the moment in the RAND games. I have played around with the idea of an even deeper anonymous game. Since I do have my own server I could create a huge game called Anon and provide email addresses to each player. That and since it would be on my server I could monitor the connections and game logs to insure (as much as possible) that no multiple players and in-game messaging is going on. So far each time I come up with another way of monitoring it I come up with another way to get around it so for now its just a bunch of notes in the game-types folder.

Gandalf Parker

[LDiCesare]

1. No gem gens.

Agreed, they are MM hell. Remember to remove gem gens from pretennders and sea troll kings too while you're at it.

2. Determine an upper limit on map sizes. Consensus
Say 200 provinces?

I think that most games are played with too many players, and therefore too many provinces, to avoid late game MM. You're probably better off limiting the number of players to maybe 8 if you want to avoid MM and have room from a gut feeling, so that'd be more like 100-120 provinces imo.

3. Difficult research. Consensus

I can't see why it should be mandatory. Just get smaller maps.

4. CBM increase gem cost of spells and items.

Don't like it at first glance.

5. Low gem income (like LA settings).

I think it's just removing options.

1. RAND. Consensus

No way. War is a side effect of diplomacy. Removing diplomacy from games is fun sometimes but unrealistic and unfun if it's made general. Forbidding trading of gold/gems/items is more interesting than forbidding any kind of diplomacy imo.

2. Ban MM intensive nations. Like blood dom spreaders. LA R'lyeh.

No. If people want to play them, let them do so. If you want a random nation, you just have to accept it when you get a bad one or you don't play full-random nations.

3. Ban MM intensive spells. Like astral corruption and Forge.

I miss the point about astral corruption.

4. Cap research levels

Do you mean reduce research ability off some units? So Magic will become the best scale? No.

Overall, I'm sorry to say that I think the game is designed for less players than it's being played with often. 4 player games generally have all that you like: No late game MM, not much in terms of diplomacy. The issue is that, well, you don't reach "end game" and the game is over faster, which is exactly what your changes try to accomplish.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Ironhawk

Just catching up to this thread - pretty interesting!

However, I have to dissent on the issue of RAND. I think that it takes a lot away from the game to remove diplomacy. If its your preference to play without then thats fine. But to say that there is consensus that it should be used is crazy IMO. RAND/ND games, while being the new fad, are not the most common game, nor the most interesting.

Well this thread isn't about how ALL games should be - the thread starter is just trying to assemble the needed changes to create games which avoid MM hell.

Is there consensus that RAND helps avoid MM hell? That's the question.

[Illuminated One]

[shameless selfadvertising]

Concerning Research, I was working on a Mod that sets research output to a fixed number.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43679

I don't have the time to work a lot on it currently, but there is a "finished" version for SP EA games.

The features (beyond not having to mm your researchers) are:
Faster research in the early game
Slower research in the late game
Starting armies are out also, you could mod them in without commanders, but I haven't much bothered because with a few exceptions every nation has a way to get an acceptable start without awake SCs with the current settings.

At this point playtesting would be helpful

[/shameless selfadvertising]

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by Valerius

You know, there's a cap on how many units you can recruit due to upkeep costs. I wonder if a lot of the late game drudgery would be eliminated if summons also had an upkeep cost - paid in gems, not gold. This would limit the number of summons you could field. Having to make tough decisions on how to allocate limited resources is what makes the game interesting to me. But barring IW making that change that seems impossible.

Indeed.