YARG - Yet Another RAND Game [Isokron's Midgard wins!]

[WraithLord]

There's an element of luck here. A vet can get LA Ermor and another LA R'lyeh. They may or may not clash, may or may not be ganged on by neighbors.
These nation always get banned these days. I want to give them a chance. I want to hear more opinions on this before decision whether or not they get kicked out of this one as well.

Why, I played lot's of relaxed games that did not die. Some players stick to the end, other's drop. That's why I'm saying out front how this game is gonna host. If you (plural) don't like it then skip this game.

RAND games take to be shorter. Since diplomacy acts as a balancer and prevents nations from growing ubber unchecked.
Artifacts would have been over already had I not been in it.
That said, I see your point and agree 12 is too high. Perhaps 9 would do.

[WraithLord]

ano, do you object to CBM?

got your point WRT LA R'lyeh.

So far we have one player vote against LA Ermor - yours.

[TwoBits]

Originally Posted by WraithLord

ano, do you object to CBM?

got your point WRT LA R'lyeh.

So far we have one player vote against LA Ermor - yours.

My last "friendly" MP game, meaning among my RL friends, before I dipped my toes into the Llamaserver fun, I was LA R'lyeh, and I was being thwarted even before the nerf-patch came out (a billion free-spawn, even if they only suck up 1/10th the upkeep, still can suck you dry) by a demon-heavy Bogarus. Post-nerf (which was when I threw in the towel), there's no reason to ban R'lyeh.

Can't say about Ermor though.

[WraithLord]

ok. LA Ermor has three votes against it. It looks like it's on it's way out of this game.

9 VPs it is then.
CBM out b/c the thread originally stated no mods and b/c ano objects to it.

I'll wait for more comments and edit the first post with the updates tomorrow.

[ano]

WraithLord
1) I didn't understand your position as for CBM. This game was announced as no-mod game.
2) As for Ermor and R'lyeh, they should not be put into one basket nowadays, IMHO. I won a big game with R'lyeh once and I must say it was not that overpowered even before it was seriously nerfed in the last patch. Yes, R'lyeh is really powerful in the late game but you have to reach that stage in good position to be successful and when your mages eat all your gold which you don't have because your pop dies like flies... Well, it is really hard to be successful.
Population death doesn't mean a lot for Ermor because undead are not money dependent but it (in my opinion) makes R'lyeh one of the hardest nations to play. I never heard of anyone being successful with R'lyeh after that patch (I mean the games that began after it was released) and I personally think it is the weakest nation in LA now. If we want to ban it for this reason - I'm ok with it but not because it is overpowered. Perhaps it is still playable but I wouldn't want to check it. Really.
Ermor is another thing though. In my current game I allowed Ermor and didn't regret it, but... Ermor is certainly unbalanced and very hard to deal with. And in no-diplo game it will be a real pain. Noone wishes to fight Ermor because the gains are negligible even if you win. And nation who fights Ermor is usually pushed far behind. It ruins the game balance, in my opinion, because you are forced to do things that you would never do otherwise if there were no Ermor at your border. And, of course, Ermor in hands of good player will be death for everyone.
Just an example: as LA C'tis with base dom 8 (+ about 16 temples total) and a temple nearly at every province I'm still being pushed by Ermorian deadly dominion. I have a ton of priests preaching (not an exaggeration at all) and still my dominion at the border never exceeds +3 and sometimes becomes negative. I don't know if it is due to dominion spread bug or something else but it is a real pain even in a game with diplomacy.

[ano]

ano, do you object to CBM?

Yes (if I play, of course). Though I find it good I never played with it and I wouldn't want to start with a serious game like this.

[Gandalf Parker]

Personally the only problem I see with relaxed hosting times is if the same person ends up holding everything up for extended time on every turn (thought that does bring to mind the musical chairs game version which fixed that). Also with a rand game, conversation about that in this thread would be extremely difficult without giving away who is who. But if the person running the game is willing to do abit of judge/jury/executioner without calling for votes then it can be workable. Maybe it should be clearly stated how long with no contact will be considered too long before admin takes action.

I agree on CBM. There are plenty of games that use it. It would make a large difference for those who are very familiar with it. Particularly when randomly receiving a nation/god to play. I like seeing a fairly vanilla game with all nations show up. Mark me as approving of all settings already mentioned.

[Calahan]

I vote for both R'yleh and Ermor personally.

And I don't agree at all that more relaxed games tend to die. Yes they will die if players who prefer fast games sign up for them, as these players get bored and disappear. A slow paced game is fine if the players know what they are signing up for when they agree to play, which in this case they will if they bother to read the status page. If players who like fast paced games sign up for this game, and then drop it due to it's slow pace, then it's full shame and blame on them, and nothing to do with the pace of the game at all.

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

Personally the only problem I see with relaxed hosting times is if the same person ends up holding everything up for extended time on every turn (thought that does bring to mind the musical chairs game version which fixed that). Also with a rand game, conversation about that in this thread would be extremely difficult without giving away who is who. But if the person running the game is willing to do abit of judge/jury/executioner without calling for votes then it can be workable. Maybe it should be clearly stated how long with no contact will be considered too long before admin takes action.

I don't quite understand this. Is the 'holding everything up' reference in regards to someone who is staling, or someone who is always leaving it until the last minute to submit their turn? If it is the former, then they can just be dealt with like normal stalers (assuming non-playing admin involved somewhere). And the latter for me is not even an issue.

[Dimaz]

9 VPs is fine.
Ban Ermor, I hosted no-diplomacy game once with some experienced players - still they had no chance, he ate one of the weaker ones and then rolled everyone.

[Zeldor]

I wouldn't agree that RAND games last shorter. Maybe in a previous one it was the case, but in RAND that is happening now everyone is still alive. And people are way more afraid to attack with no NAPs to secure borders.