Tip: Template for reducing late game MM hell

[Illuminated One]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Really? How can you do it? Enlighten me please.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43892

Look at the example mod in there.
It doesn't create sites, but I does change the gem income of one of sauromatia's home sites.
Remove some "super sites" (discount sites and special indies) and replace them by sites where the player can increase the gem income through his actions (or maybe pay for a discount).
(You can also create sites, not by changing the mod, but by changing the savegame files)

Originally Posted by Micah

Why are people so keen on preserving the gem generation mechanic?

From my experience playing without them it makes for a much better game, IMO. I'd like to hear why people are so reluctant to get rid of them.

Well, I think you are right that they do not enhance the game as they are now. But it's the only mechanic that allows to affect your nation's economy besides the scales that you set on the very beginning.
Sure you can say that you want only battles but imo there is a much greater sense of archievement in creating and maintaining the economy that fuels your war than without it.
And then if you went down that direction (i.e. all that should be of strategic importance are battles) then I don't really see for what reason you'd want to keep the strategic map at all, since it only waters it down with luck (Ha! You underestimated me. Didn't quite expect that wrath of the sky from the air mages I found somewhere, huh?) or silly metagame stuff (Player X is known to go AI after some light raiding but Player Y makes sure whoever attacks him doesn't win the game, now, who should I attack). I guess in that case you could just give every player x rp and y gold and z gems to assign as they like before the game and then let them duke it out on some (completely) barren wastelands. That would even make for a fun game, I'm sure, but that's not for the long haul that dom3 games normally are.
So to come to a point, gem gens are broken, but I'd rather change them and see what happens instead of removing them.