Scenario: Checking interest for a large(ish) scale game.

[Calahan]

Any game that has over 20 provinces per player is just asking for a disaster. And if the total provinces on the map is over 250, then while not as bad as the former, it is still asking for trouble to call at some point in the game.

You said above that you are new to Dominions, and so new to Dominions MP. Please do yourself the biggest favour possible and play in some regular MP games first before deciding that you would be happy to play a game under the settings you've outlined on this thread. It honestly doesn't matter how much you enjoy playing the game in SP, or enjoy spending hour upon hour playing it in SP. Nothing can prepare you (time wise) for the huge step-up to MP games. The community has lost several players over the years due to people opting to run at full speed before they could stand. So please allow yourself to get a good taste for Dominions MP games in general before even considering to play in such a massive scale game.


As I can not stress strongly enough how bad an idea such a high (20+) province-player ratio is. Dominions does not scale the same as other strategy games, as while it can be fun playing Gal Civ or Civ 2/3/4 with mega maps, the same can not be said of Dominions. The UI offers no help in managing huge empires, and the reality is that while it can be fun some nights to spend 2-3 hours playing Dominions, if you have to put in 2-3 hours every night of every day for 6-12 months just to play one game, then the fun factor evaporates very quickly. It is impossible, and I mean absolutely flat out impossible, to get the feel from SP games of a large scale MM heavy empire in the late stage of the game.

So as I just said, please do yourself a big favour and just play some regular MP games first.


Plus I really don't envisage you getting many players for the setting you are proposing, simply because most playes know that such a large scale (player-province ratio) is a really bad idea. And those that don't know will get told it the moment they ask anyone sensible. Just check out the Doomday5 game (or all the previous ones) currently taking place if you want to observe what disaster can await any game that has stupidly high player-province ratios.

[Vanguard X]

Originally Posted by Calahan

...
You said above that you are new to Dominions, and so new to Dominions MP. Please do yourself the biggest favour possible and play in some regular MP games first before deciding that you would be happy to play a game under the settings you've outlined on this thread. It honestly doesn't matter how much you enjoy playing the game in SP, or enjoy spending hour upon hour playing it in SP. Nothing can prepare you (time wise) for the huge step-up to MP games. The community has lost several players over the years due to people opting to run at full speed before they could stand. So please allow yourself to get a good taste for Dominions MP games in general before even considering to play in such a massive scale game.


As I can not stress strongly enough how bad an idea such a high (20+) province-player ratio is. Dominions does not scale the same as other strategy games, as while it can be fun playing Gal Civ or Civ 2/3/4 with mega maps, the same can not be said of Dominions. The UI offers no help in managing huge empires, and the reality is that while it can be fun some nights to spend 2-3 hours playing Dominions, if you have to put in 2-3 hours every night of every day for 6-12 months just to play one game, then the fun factor evaporates very quickly. It is impossible, and I mean absolutely flat out impossible, to get the feel from SP games of a large scale MM heavy empire in the late stage of the game.

So as I just said, please do yourself a big favour and just play some regular MP games first.


Plus I really don't envisage you getting many players for the setting you are proposing, simply because most playes know that such a large scale (player-province ratio) is a really bad idea. And those that don't know will get told it the moment they ask anyone sensible. Just check out the Doomday5 game (or all the previous ones) currently taking place if you want to observe what disaster can await any game that has stupidly high player-province ratios.

I appreciate your concerns, and your advise, as I recognize you as a vet player.

I would like to clarify a few points regarding my position on desiring to play a game with higher than average province count though.

- I am not basing my desire for a larger game based on SP. While I recognize that many here find the time investment of a large scale game daunting, I don't find it daunting at all. And SP is severely boring to me.

My gaming background lends itself quite well to heavy time investment games. I cut my teeth on table-top, grand strategy games ages ago, and have over a decade of MMORPG gaming under my belt- I know how time consuming a gaming hobby can be.

Yes, I am new to Dom3; and to speak frankly, I am somewhat disappointed by the lack of competitive activity I have been able to engage in so far. I didn't expect to buy this game only to play a turn for maybe 30-60 minutes, every other day (which seems to be the norm from what I can see- excluding multiple games). I expected to be engaged in a higher degree of enjoyable time involvement when I read up on what this game engine offers.

I read things like: max 1500 provinces; max 21 players; over 1,000 units; hundreds of spells! Amazing depth. I'm thinking "Whooo hooo!! I just found heaven!" And jumped right in.

A maximum size map, with max players averages 71.4 provinces per player. And now I'm hearing about how horrible it is over 20 provinces per player.


Yes, I understand that is not everyone's cup of tea. That is why I made this thread to check if there are others who might be interested in exploring alternative country set ups.

If we can muster up 4 players, I think that would be fine to start. That's only a 100 province map, and each player will start with 5 provinces. Seems rather tame from my point of view

Thanks for your reply.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by Vanguard X

Yes, I am new to Dom3; and to speak frankly, I am somewhat disappointed by the lack of competitive activity I have been able to engage in so far. I didn't expect to buy this game only to play a turn for maybe 30-60 minutes, every other day (which seems to be the norm from what I can see- excluding multiple games). I expected to be engaged in a higher degree of enjoyable time involvement when I read up on what this game engine offers.

Definitely sounds like you can devote more time to the game than most players so that will limit the audience. People are able to complete their turns at different speeds but I find late game turns can easily take a couple of hours (assuming I'm at war).

So your best bet is maybe a couple of fast pace games that only go up to a 48 hour hosting interval. That way you could rotate them and, once you reach late game, be able to spend 1-2 hours a day on each game. The catch is it will take some time to reach that point (assuming you do make it that far). This will tempt you to join a lot of games but that can be dangerous because if you do well you may find it's too much even for you to have four late stage games going at once. Best to be patient at first - later it will be easier to balance having a mix of time consuming late stage games and fast moving early stage games.

I wonder if a blitz might be something you'd like? Get a few people together for an afternoon of quick play?

Originally Posted by Vanguard X

If we can muster up 4 players, I think that would be fine to start. That's only a 100 province map, and each player will start with 5 provinces. Seems rather tame from my point of view

That's much more reasonable. Sure, it's a high prov/player count but the total number of provinces isn't extreme. Now, I'm still no a fan of gem gens regardless of map size but I won't push that on you.