Noob questions!

[Pocus]

Originally posted by johan osterman:
I think you are overstating your case. If you bring an amulet or veneance or other similar item you can just screw with one of the AI nations. And so what if the AI's prohpet dies, it is not like it puts a huge dent in his carefully laid plans.[/QB]

You are right : it is not that much important to send or not cursed items or booby traps to the arena, the problem lie elsewhere, so let me point out the obvious then : there can only be one survivor from the Arena.
The AI is coded to send a powerful minion, or even the god. This lead to the fact that each arena event is the perfect thing to kill a lot of good/special commanders, or even - shiver - gods from the AI, for a prize which is very meager (a proof being that no player will send a critical commander in the arena).

Oh look Abysia lost his equipped archdevil, oh look Jotun lost Angerboda, oh look Pythium lost his god.
I dont think that the AI need this thorn in his side, frankly. Or at least give a real benefit to the winner, a benefit big enough that players will consider entering the arena. If they do not enter the arena, then I still dont see the point of having it.

Anyway, thats your game not mine, the feature was added because it is fun for you, so my arguing has no real purpose...

[PDF]

I agree with both Johann - the Arena concept is fun - and Pocus - it's an open door for abusing AIs ...
May I suggest some tweaks that I think will make the "game" fairer and more interesting ?

1/ NO items in the Arena, the combattants enter naked, all their stuff go to the Lab
2/ At the end of the fights, all survivors are fully healed/cured/restored/curses removed, they come back as new, only the dead remain dead !
3/ Prizes should be various powerful unique artifacts, or a big pack of gems, not always the same half-potent but cursed weapon

I think that those rules would kill most of the arena cheese, the players would either have to pass on an opportunity to kill enemies and gain something worthwhile, or send themselves powerful leaders (as the AI does and as the devs intended to design Arena combat).
I concur that the Dom1 Arena prize isn't that good, it's nice with a supercombatant pretender or a big fighter type leader if you get it very early, but even so ends later as a drawback as you can't get rid of it when you can forge better stuff ...

[Nagot Gick Fel]

Originally posted by Pocus:
I propose a challenge : take a nation, put the scales at disorder 3, sloth 3, death 3, luck -3, drain 3, and add some 2-3 impossible AI. The one which Last the longuer will have his name praised in the forum

Ermor & maritime nations excluded ?

Something like that was already done in the past - we call that a "death game": no Ermor, common random events, everyone has to pick max turmoil and max unluck.

If you ever play in this kind of game, let me give you a hint: growth and production aren't worth s***, except in the very early stage. After a while your provinces will be so depleted you won't see any difference between growth+3 and death+3 ;-).

(Note from Psitticine: Sorry to have gone in and edited here, but there are the usual "child friendly" language policies in place here.)

[ October 08, 2003, 16:29: Message edited by: Psitticine ]

[Mortifer]

Originally posted by PDF:
I agree with both Johann - the Arena concept is fun - and Pocus - it's an open door for abusing AIs ...
May I suggest some tweaks that I think will make the "game" fairer and more interesting ?

1/ NO items in the Arena, the combattants enter naked, all their stuff go to the Lab
2/ At the end of the fights, all survivors are fully healed/cured/restored/curses removed, they come back as new, only the dead remain dead !
3/ Prizes should be various powerful unique artifacts, or a big pack of gems, not always the same half-potent but cursed weapon

I think that those rules would kill most of the arena cheese, the players would either have to pass on an opportunity to kill enemies and gain something worthwhile, or send themselves powerful leaders (as the AI does and as the devs intended to design Arena combat).
I concur that the Dom1 Arena prize isn't that good, it's nice with a supercombatant pretender or a big fighter type leader if you get it very early, but even so ends later as a drawback as you can't get rid of it when you can forge better stuff ...

Hell yeah! Very good ideas! I agree with this totally. This would stop the AI abusing.

[Pocus]

Originally posted by Nagot Gick Fel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pocus:
I propose a challenge : take a nation, put the scales at disorder 3, sloth 3, death 3, luck -3, drain 3, and add some 2-3 impossible AI. The one which Last the longuer will have his name praised in the forum

Ermor & maritime nations excluded ?

Something like that was already done in the past - we call that a "death game": no Ermor, common random events, everyone has to pick max turmoil and max unluck.

If you ever play in this kind of game, let me give you a hint: growth and production aren't worth s***, except in the very early stage. After a while your provinces will be so depleted you won't see any difference between growth+3 and death+3 ;-).

---

Stone idols allowed?

[ October 08, 2003, 16:30: Message edited by: Psitticine ]

[licker]

As to the arena thing...

Perhaps a penalty should be assesed to nations that don't enter the arena, futher penalties could be assesed depending on how well your champions does. Loses right away your people get more unrest, wins the whole thing, unrest goes down, or extra cash is raised... somethings like that.

This way it makes sense for every nation to start training arena competators (at least to some extent) otherwise they can get hit in their economy. Heh if you want to be really cruel give curses to all commanders of a nation that doesn't send a representative to the arena

[Saber Cherry]

Another possiblity would be a temporary dominion increase of 1 candle/province for the winner, and a temporary decrease of 1 candle/province for any nation who does not enter the competition. This would be nice and thematic... who can have faith in a God who can't even muster a champion for the world Arena tournament? An increase in unrest in all provinces, as was mentioned, would also work... as would a temporary decrease in tax revenue... or getting hit by a couple "bad luck" events. In these cases, nobody would dare to not enter the Arena.

A great addition would be "Qualifying Rounds", where each competitor MUST win a simple qualifying fight against an experienced gladiator (or an experienced indy prot-15 commander, for example). If you lose this qualifying fight it is the same as having not entered. This would have several effects. First, sending in a suicide competitor with an exploding medallion, etc. would no longer work. Second, you could not simply send a cheap, disposable scout or priest to have "technically" entered, without really trying. Lastly, it would add extra, interesting Arena rounds, so you can get a feel for the competitors' strengths before they start duelling! I find reviewing the Arena fights to be a lot of fun, and this would make it even more so.

-Cherry