Would you play to the death?

[llamabeast]

Basically I agree with you Bananadine, but I suspect that you just haven't been trapped in a late game situation where you can't win. They do exist, and they're not fun. If someone has 6 wishes for gems going off a turn, and you're just moderately powerful, then you're not going to beat them whatever you do, even with the help of allies (assuming the allies are of similar power to you). However, it will take them several turns to finish you off, and in the meantime you may have to invest hours of non-fun time.

Now I think that this situation isn't what dominions is about at all, and I think most players (and very probably the devs) would agree. For this reason I think it's more fun to play on reasonably small maps (say, Cradle of Dominion), with reasonable victory conditions (maybe capture a third or a half of capitals). Then it will stay exciting! Also I am inclined to avoid playing with gem generating items in the future, as I think they are a large part of the problem. Without them a player's power is still limited by their territory, so raiding the leading player would actually be useful. If they have several hundred clams under a load of domes then there really is nothing you can do to hurt them, so fun goes out the window.

[Bananadine]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Basically I agree with you Bananadine, but I suspect that you just haven't been trapped in a late game situation where you can't win. They do exist, and they're not fun. If someone has 6 wishes for gems going off a turn, and you're just moderately powerful, then you're not going to beat them whatever you do, even with the help of allies (assuming the allies are of similar power to you). However, it will take them several turns to finish you off, and in the meantime you may have to invest hours of non-fun time.

I was trapped in such a situation in my last game, and it started out fun, but yes, it turned silly after a bit. I hope to mostly avoid this via appropriate victory conditions, as you suggest.

Originally Posted by thejeff

The first game I quit on, I was losing a war against one of maybe 3 major powers. One of the others was helping me, well keeping me alive really.

That sounds like it could be fun! But more likely it would leave you feeling unimportant. Was it really in that person's best interest to use you as a moat, rather than simply taking over your land or letting the enemy take it over? Well, maybe it was. In that case, is such a situation common?

Originally Posted by thejeff

I'm assuming that someone far enough ahead of me to be moving into the late game(SCs) while I'm stilling stuck in the midgame, is probably at least as good as I am.

They might only have gotten lucky. Maybe all the nations around them happened to attack others, leaving them to clean up independents etc. Maybe they started with a strong nation, and had good magic sites.

Back to cooperation: Suppose non-leading players band together against the leading player, until there's a new leading player. Suppose you happen to be the trailing player throughout. Is it really so likely that, now that the old leader is no longer the main danger, you are even further behind the new leader than you were behind the old one? That's tremendous chaos for y'all to be peeking through with your future glasses! And sure, you'd still probably be at or near the bottom of the ranking. But why wouldn't you have had fun taking part in the destruction of the leader?

I think you guys won't convince me to give up my plan just by talking about it! Maybe somebody else will pop up and do that though.

[llamabeast]

I think your plan is good so long as you choose game settings to avoid late game micromanagement horror. That is the real issue IMHO - if each turn takes two hours of faffing then it's not going to be fun regardless of the drama of the situation. If it's reasonably quick, I think there would be much less inclination to throw the towel in.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Bananadine

I think you guys won't convince me to give up my plan just by talking about it! Maybe somebody else will pop up and do that though.

And I think you have this backwards. You're asking people if they would play a certain way, because you'd like them to and have set up a game for it. Right now it seems like you're trying to argue people into doing it, not the other way around.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just this isn't a 'convince Bananadine not to run his game' thread. It's more like a 'Bananadine argues you should play a certain way and doesn't understand why you don't' thread ;]

[Bananadine]

I am cool with both of those kinds of threads!

[thejeff]

Originally Posted by Bananadine

Back to cooperation: Suppose non-leading players band together against the leading player, until there's a new leading player. Suppose you happen to be the trailing player throughout. Is it really so likely that, now that the old leader is no longer the main danger, you are even further behind the new leader than you were behind the old one? That's tremendous chaos for y'all to be peeking through with your future glasses! And sure, you'd still probably be at or near the bottom of the ranking. But why wouldn't you have had fun taking part in the destruction of the leader?

Following the tangent, since I don't think there's much more to say about the rest of the topic.
In some ways it would be nice if it played out that way. Though frustrating for the leaders and prone to all sorts of attempts to not look like the leader.
But what usually happens is people do get involved in their local wars and that's not always just short-sighted foolishness. It may be fun to take part in the destruction of the leader, but it's also fun to complete the destruction of the fool who attacked you and kept you from rising to great power status yourself. And of course you'd have to convince him to stop attacking you. You may have to give up gains you've won or accept that you won't get your stolen provinces back. And all of that just to shift the victory from one enemy to another.

[chrispedersen]

In dominions, cooperation between multiple people is *very* *very* difficult. For example in Betelgeuse, Executor congratulated me because I successfully coordinated (more or less) four people, for about 30 turns.

And four people was barely enough to slowly start attritioning the leader. And ultimately the game was called for real world reasons, not my brilliance.

That was with ALL of the remaining players ganging up. Had there been other players not willing, throwing monkey wrenches, it would have not been possible.

Think about it: everything you want to do- is difficult.
In turn messages take 3 turns to process (sent)(recvd)(reply). No mechanism for allied movement; no transparency to allies.

[Illuminated One]

Well, honestly I'd say if you want more drama, then you should set up a game where noone tries to win (as in become strong enough to fight everyone) but to create the most drama. Trying to win (or not wanting to loose) is what generates these situations.

If you are trying to win would you rather...

attack someone who ...
a) is likely to quit
b) fights back

attack someone who ...
a) can't respond to your attack for whatever reason and might as well hand over his territory
b) can fight back

...
a) quit a game that you are going to loose and join another
b) fight on

...

[thejeff]

Well, I can't imagine trying to coordinate through the in game messages.
I've always worked through the forum or email.

It's still not easy. The lack of mechanics doesn't help.

[Bananadine]

(Re: chrispedersen's scenario: )

Hm well that sounds pretty fun to me! Except for the slow, painful communication.

But isn't that part of what these forums are for?