MP Game: How bad is too bad?

[Louist]

How good is too good? At what point do you consider kicking a player for playing too well? What if one player is easily dominating all the others, to the point where their strength and superiority is warping the game?

Sorry, I couldn't help it.

In my opinion, it sounds like the game is playing exactly like it should. There will always be poor players, including myself. I'm not sure I've ever won a game of Dominions against other players. Back to the point though, why would you ever consider subbing out a player because he is circling the drain? That's Dominions. Someone is going to be the first to fall. Someone will be a second. And a thrid. And a fourth. Etc.

If that player is willing to continue trying to fight a losing battle than he's earned my respect. Far too many people will drop out of a game like Dominions when things are heading south. Try playing a couple games of Civ IV, and watch as half the poor performers leave or "mysteriously" lose connection. It's a rare breed that is willing to fight to the end.

I'm not trying to troll, but in a game as strategically deep as Dominions 3, there are going to be enormous differences between different players. And in a game so random, even good players might find themselves falling behind. Should the other players not try to capitalize on that?

TL;DR: I'd never kick a player for doing poorly. And kudos to that player for marching on!

[rdonj]

There's a difference between a player who is underperforming, and a player who is not performing at all. For example, someone who controls 6 provinces by the end of the first year, this could be combined with weird scale choices, perhaps they even lost their awake SC pretender trying to expand into indies. Or you could have a player who is playing so poorly they have maybe captured one province by the end of the year. Or someone who takes over the leading position in the game from another player and proceeds to squander their empire by sending out geared thugs and SCs with no scripts (and doesn't learn from the mistake), alchemizes all their gems and uses them to cast acashic record, or sends out mages who have huge globals attached to them and gets them killed pointlessly. Someone who casts battlefield spells with armies and not protecting their own mages from the effects, so they slaughter dozens of their own mages... repeatedly.

These "not performing at all" players are the sort that sombre is referring to, not just someone who's having a bit of a bad break, or a noob getting crushed by a more experienced player. If someone is losing and fights on until the end, great! But that really doesn't have anything to do with the topic. Being killed by another player is expected and a part of the game. But what about someone who's killing themself?