MP: Land Rand - Jotunheim Wins!

[DonCorazon]

I think smaller maps with fewer and more qualified (either by reputation, track record or whatever) players and no NAPS is a movement in the right direction.

Large games invariably lead to a number of problems.
You get the fly-by-night players with 3 posts that sign up after having a few drinks and wake up like they were next to Sade the Harpy and abandon the game. Then there is the overenthusiastic noob signed up in 10 games that will flare out half way through and collapse meteorically.

In large games also there is the sense that with 12+ nations, you can dogpile on a few and not worry about the consequences until much later. A lot of these games are just a series of regional dogpiles. I am guessing with 6 or 8 nations, while there still will be dogpiling, the paranoia of survival kicks in much earlier and just the fact there are less nations to team up with will reduce the tag-teaming, especially if the map is set up right.

Finally, smaller games/maps will lessen the late-game micro hell.

[Meglobob]

Won't smaller maps just weight the game even more in favour of the strong bless nations and giant races? Well weakening the more magic/research driven nations?

I suppose you could have easy research and high gem site % thou to help counteract that somewhat.

[Zeldor]

Meglobob:

The idea is that for smaller number of nations it's possible to pick only nations on similar level. You can pick only powerful nations for example. And with bigger map you use almost all nations, so some people get really bad nations while others get awesome.

[DonCorazon]

Oh yeah, that was the other point I meant to make - thanks Zeldor.

[Burnsaber]

I really don't play RND games at all, but this discussion caught my eye.

DonCorazon;

Ditto very much on all of your points. I basically just skip all games with over 12 players.

Originally Posted by WraithLord

Getting stuck with crappy, significantly weaker, nation in a RAND game is not fun. You know from the starters the game holds 0 promise for you. It's not fun the first time it happens, less fun the 2nd and gets worse for me - having had a bad luck streak with RAND nation assignment. When skill level is homogeneous there's no way to compensate for a weak nation. The nation selection element needs to be addressed.

Abot random nation selection, Gregstrom made a fine game sometime ago with quite good random nation selection. It went like this;

Each player, upon sign up, selects a nation. Once all players have selected a nation, the players are assigned RND nations from all of the nations selected by players.

Basically you likely end up with all weak nations or all strong nations depending on the first pick, but with healthy variation.

[namad]

I had an idea once where wars could not be joined...
this is how it would work...




no one may attack anyone period.

If you would like to attack someone else all you have to do is post publicly a declaration of war. you may then attack them as much as you want.



Anyone who wishes to ally with you against that nation may do so. A full turn later though that war get's locked in on your side. That means no one else can attack the other player until either the other player wins the war, gets you to agree to a truce, or gains his own ally. (once a truce is joined the status goes back to how it was before... or some such)




If you have been attacked by another player you may call upon allies to assist you... however you again may only declare allies on one specific turn. (just like starting a war) these allies may then attack the enemy allied group and vica versa until the war is won or is over or is halted publicly...





so under these rules no one can ever sneak attack anyone and no one can ever dogpile onto someone.... (you can still make a sneak attack in that the person will only ever have one turn of warning... which is still a lot less than 3turns everyone is getting nowadays)



This will also prevent people from just randomly joining a war as it continues... however you can still create a large (or small) alliances designed to dogpile others but you have to do it well in advance... (things could be changed so that all wars are duels that may only be 1on1 but that would be stupid and boring and totally remove diplomacy all together)


under these rules there would be no point at all in a nap3 because all nations everywhere always have a nap1... so the main diplomatic agreements to secure would be ally-ship in publicly posted wars which were nearly locked into position for quite some time...


It sounds like it might work but I am sure anyone with half a brain could pick a thousand holes into it

[WraithLord]

KISS

The solution needs to be simple to understand and follow or else it won't work.

After giving this more thought I now hold that RAND concept is sound at it's core. The main issues are:
a- subs, specifically newb subs in a vets RAND. The situation is all too familiar. The vet player is replaced by a newb. His nation, whether a strong empire or a humble kingdom is either quickly devoured or is extremely passive. Both ends unfairly impact the game result.
b- nation selection should be semi random.

[namad]

i don't think my idea is inherently complex... as far as i can tell it could be implemented in such a fashion that it would be SIMPLER than the current system...


if anything the only flaw I see in the system i proposed is that it is far too simple in every way by disallowing nearly everything and turning diplomacy into a boolean operation


i'm just inarticulate and long winded ... you know what might work well? RAND games with HALF the total player count.... smaller games end faster

[PashaDawg]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

KISS

The solution needs to be simple to understand and follow or else it won't work.

After giving this more thought I now hold that RAND concept is sound at it's core. The main issues are:
a- subs, specifically newb subs in a vets RAND. The situation is all too familiar. The vet player is replaced by a newb. His nation, whether a strong empire or a humble kingdom is either quickly devoured or is extremely passive. Both ends unfairly impact the game result.
b- nation selection should be semi random.

Good points, me thinks.

[PashaDawg]

Hello:

Turn 54 is out.

Deadline is Thursday at 9:00 p.m. Boston time.

Thanks.

Pasha