Surrender, Routing, and Pacificm

[Starfighter08]

Originally posted by Arryn:

quote:

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Originally posted by Alarik:
But for SP something along the lines of MOO's Galactic council would be nice. Hereditary hatreds and natural alliances only spice up the action. Do some of you think a "Council of the Gods" would be interesting even if it were just an option?

Dom 2 is quite a different game in concept than a typical 4X like MOO3 or Civ3. In them you can win by diplomacy and/or simple domination (having the largest empire). You do not have to win by being the sole remaining race (though you can if you wish). In Dom, you MUST wipe out ALL other "gods". There is NO room for compromise of any sort. Nothing short of the total annihilation of everyone else is tolerable. A "Council" implies cooperation. The idea that more than 2-3 gods would ever agree on anything in a setting like Dom's is ludicrous.

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From the point of view of a monotheistic religion this is certainly true. But with all the pretender gods that are around who says that you couldn't create a polytheistic one.

I think a second kind of victory would be acceptable too: become the King of Gods (like Jupiter/Zeus) in a pantheon of gods. That opens up a whole new world of cooperation and intrigues among the gods like in a greek drama.

[tinkthank]

Originally posted by Arryn:
In Dom, you MUST wipe out ALL other "gods". There is NO room for compromise of any sort. Nothing short of the total annihilation of everyone else is tolerable. A "Council" implies cooperation. The idea that more than 2-3 gods would ever agree on anything in a setting like Dom's is ludicrous.

I agree. However, I would like to point out that you only have to destroy the other Gods, not the people who may or may not live under their dominion and may or may not be conscripted to fight for them. This is the classic distinction I was referring to between ius ad bello and ius in bellum. We are often mixed apples and pears in this discussion.

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Starfighter08:
a whole new world of cooperation and intrigues among the gods like in a greek drama.

Dom is a strategy *wargame*, not an RPG ...

Dom is, at its core, a MP Version of the old Amiga game Populous. Cooperation and intrigue is the purview of games like Morrowind.

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually I can see Arryns point. The devs, in most of the text descriptions thru the game, clearly mean it to be a "Last god standing" type of game. And in solo-play that seems to be the "default" obvious method of play. The solo players (like myself) have asked for diplomacy things to be added to the game.

On the other hand, the way the game is played in multiplayer mode tends to be the opposite. Very few games occur without alliances. Long discussions in the strategy newsgroup over Dom1 got rather heated with some players feeling cheated when so many games ended by agreements rather than winners. Eventually we pointed out what many felt was the problem. We all knew each other. It was a small gaming community. We had reputations that go from game to game. Its not a bad thing really but by the time I join a game here Im not just Pangaea, Im Gandalf playing Pangaea.

We did some games in the newsgroup where efforts were made to make sure that NONE of the players knew who was playing a nation. A little more effort to do but it can be interesting. The game went VERY differently. Alliances were made but they were also broken. Sometimes in very devious side-switching back-stabbing ways which didnt seem to appear in the other MP games.

In my humble opinion, one of the things which can most clarify the game as a "Last god standing" for those that want it, is the work being done on creating a web-based game signup site. Having anonymous play of a nation will probably make a big difference (good or bad Im not sure) in the way those games are played. Then diplomacy additions wont "ruin" the game for some players. In fact, it would become another tool for war.