Request for strategy: Late game tips

[jutetrea]

Good points, in the ones I have played I've made it a point to get as much intel as possible as to what is going on in the world. Who borders who, who's attacking who, etc Trading information. In a huge game that would be a lot harder to handle, and will probably come down to the 5-10 nations in the surrounding area. So I definitely agree.

That would be the point Shovah, only reason I would ever say exact gem cast would be to reduce percieved threat. They KNOW exactly what it would take to dispel it and it would then just be a matter of whether they wished to or not. Less of a threat than an enchant that may cost you 80 astral to dispel and then fail or not knowing if you wasted 30 gems. If I was actually putting it up for the reason I said, then I'd be fine with it getting dispelled if I felt it paid for itself. I would be annoyed if it was next turn, but that would be the risk weighed vs. the benefit of reduced threat.

is it common to trade mages? Charm and hellbind? or vacating a mage producing site province?

[Gandalf Parker]

jutetrea said:
is it common to trade mages? Charm and hellbind? or vacating a mage producing site province?

Its been common in my larger MP games. And not because I initiated it. I find that many of the veterans do some trading along that line. Of course there is eq trading also which I meant to mention but everyone thinks of that. They dont often think of straight gem marketing or commander trading. I also saw one game where a person created quite a market selling SC's. Summoned, altered, then sold or traded.
Yes it usually involves some sort of conversion spell.

@Baalz (and others)
Most of the predictions about the game really need to wait and see. But from what Ive seen in big games, defensive agreements are much easier to arrange than offensive ones. In other words, a destructive global cast with XX gems is fairly easy to arrange to get broken with a pool of XXX gems. By the time someone can cast a destructive global with XXX gems, or enough that a shared effort cant afford to break it, its usually so far into the game that its not some sort of unusual event. That nation is powerful enough to deserve to keep the spell up. IMHO opinion there doesnt need to be enforced balancing of such things with mods and such since I feel the game would have balanced it on its own by being large and many nationed.

But.. come to think of it.. a game using all of the nations with all human players is new territory (even for me). Having multiple beneficiaries does bring up an interesting point. Whether or not the beneficiaries of a global can pool more than the ones hurt by it is something I hadnt considered.

[Shovah32]

Sorry for not being constructive but (I)n (M)y (H)onest (O)pinion opinion dosnt really work Mr Parker.

[jutetrea]

marketing fairness and willingness to micromanage may be a definite factor. Some folks just don't want to deal with it.

I think the 62 game is going to be crazy no matter what. My main questions concern this game, but also what might apply to other late game strategies. The info on globals is definitely interesting, and I'm curious how much unit trading goes on. Seems the easiest, especially early is to trade provinces that produce indys.

How about perceived threat vs real threat. I've asked the question before because I think its a huge part, but have gotten some good responses so want to see if there's more info to be had.

Is it ever good to curtail research, site searching or expansion for the cause of portraying yourself weaker then you are? Leave indy's within borders unconquered, site search slowly even though quicker searching allows better accumulation, purposely stop recruiting mages to curtail research, stop recruiting troops to keep the army #'s in check, etc? I know this is related to score graph games primarily.. but it also can be taken as what you can say during negotiations, etc.

[MaxWilson]

General principles of negotiation say it is better to appear strong than weak. However, it's bad to appear DANGEROUS. Some people are so terrified of Niefel Giants that they won't rest until Niefelheim is extinct. I suspect that e.g. Marverni can get away with pulling ahead on the research graph where LA R'lyeh could not. You might try combining an appearance of strength with NAPs with your weaker neighbors; assure them that you'll be going after somebody else if they'll consent to support you with some minor tribute. Paradoxically, paying tribute could make them feel safer (as long as it's cheap) because it gives you a reason to want them around. If you phrase it nicely enough they might even think you're spearheading an alliance.

-Maximilian

Edit: another way to make people feel threatened is to keep them in the dark. Conversely, it might be useful to provide strategic information to your tributaries when you extort money from them. "Player X has 300 Z units parked in provinces A, B, and C. I want to build 200 Ys to attack him. I need an extra 200 gold from you to make this work." If you've done things right they'll be eager to be helpful as long as you can protect them from retaliation by X. If you wanted to you could also lie about how many units are involved to make yourself look bigger and tougher to your tributaries. Of course I would never condone outright lying but maybe Yublub the Old Old One, Dweller in Everlasting Burnings has a different perspective on the matter.

[vfb]

MaxWilson said:
Marverni can get away with pulling ahead on the research graph where LA R'lyeh could not.
-Maximilian

Excellent point Max. Marverni is your friend, and they should be allowed to do their harmless research in peace.

[Baalz]

Jutetrea, I've found its much more often the case that it's better to appear powerful than to appear weak. Unless you're in first (possibly second) place by a good bit, you're more likely to be ganged up on because two or more of your neighbors think that you'll be easy pickings to their combined forces. True, you don't want to shoot out way ahead of everybody else unless you're ready for the attention, but definitely don't retard your growth for the sake of appearing non-threatening. Much better to be feared than ignored....

[jutetrea]

Hmm, I would think ideal position would be top 3 in provinces, forts, army and top 2 in gems/research. At the same time honest and willing to make a deal.

Top position seems threatening, while lower position seems weak so it would be best to stay near the top of the curve as being said.

IMO dishonesty is the worst, once you break one deal you're pretty much the lowest denominator in any future deals.

On the other hand, masses of low quality troops don't help that much and eat up the income, so troop quality needs to be considered as well as paths. Someone may look to have limited research, but they may have sped up to a high level in a particular path to take advantage of their fewer options.

Love it...now just to survive till end game.

[Gandalf Parker]

Shovah32 said:
Sorry for not being constructive but (I)n (M)y (H)onest (O)pinion opinion dosnt really work Mr Parker.

Heehee. Well being about the only person in the conversations AFAIK that has played Dom3 games anywhere near this large both AI and MP, and maps anywhere near this large, the IMHO was more out of diplomatic habit than needed. I very rarely put IMEO.

We tested the extremes pretty well in beta before the game was ever released. Altho we didnt ever achieve anything like 62 human players. But many of the best players were in those games so I figure that their actions were fairly representative of what could be done.

[MaxWilson]

Gandalf,

Shovah was actually correcting a grammatical solecism. "IMHO opinion" repeats "opinion" twice. Although I'm not sure I should even post this, since three posts on a typo seems excessive (and the laws of irony guarantee that this post will also contain at least one typo).

-Maximilian