Tip: Template for reducing late game MM hell

[Stavis_L]

Originally Posted by K

I'm amused that all the suggestions for removing MM in endgame all involve neutering anyone's ability to achieve game-ending dominance in the endgame, thus insuring the game goes on longer and there is more MM required.

Globals and gem-producing items and forging and SCs are all ways that players achieve asymmetric power, and removing them guarantees that games will be bogged down in stalemates and endless diplomacy as people decide who to gang up on.

I believe the frustration is that these tools no longer provide game-ending dominance, and do not provide asymmetric power, because everyone has them (saving the globals, of course; I think the objections there are a little odd, other than the spells that are just broken because they aren't really designed for large games.)

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Stavis_L

I believe the frustration is that these tools no longer provide game-ending dominance, and do not provide asymmetric power, because everyone has them (saving the globals, of course; I think the objections there are a little odd, other than the spells that are just broken because they aren't really designed for large games.)

I believe his point is that these are all options for endgame power, and as two players are unlikely to choose the same ratio of investment in each then their power develops asymmetrically.

If you remove some pathways as valid choices, you vastly increase the odds that two players make identical or sufficiently similar investment choices and thus their power does not really diverge in any category.

(Of course, there is the distinction between possession of power and application of power, but such contests can go on a long time if neither side can actually attack the other's real power base.)

Part of the problem is that an existential threat for a large nation is much different than an existential threat for a small nation. To make a nation of 50+ provinces even *blink* you have to take ~5-10 more provinces/trn than they can take from you. (or do an equivalent amount of damage to their production structure - gem gen holders, summoners, etc...).