Tip: Template for reducing late game MM hell

[Psycho]

Originally Posted by Sombre

Wait, what?

Which problem? The problem of micromanagement? Which spells made cheaper in CBM increase micromanagement? I guess there are a few, a couple of the globals might force you to assign more bodyguards,...

Wasn't expecting CBM spells to come up in this thread as a problem.

Well, Wraithlord said: more gems = more forge/rituals = more MM (thinking about site frequency). I don't particularly agree with that, but CBM lowers costs for some spells too much, so it could be a part of the problem. Off the top of my head: devils and domes.

[Psycho]

@Wraithlord: Take a look at the rules for Momentum2 game

[Valerius]

People always say that if you remove gem gens you have to compensate certain nations. I assume the reason for this is that those nations don't have a strong late game (if the argument is that they have a weak early game, well then clams aren't going to help them with that). But there's lots of nations that don't have a strong end game. Given that the end game is dominated by SCs, if you don't have recruitable/national summon SCs or get the Chalice/GoH you pretty much don't have an end game (maybe with the exception of someone like R'lyeh).

So rather than fix nations one by one, why not just have an SC that everyone can summon late game? In particular, I think the whole Chalice/GoH --> tart mechanic is broken so why not just have tarts as a normal SC summon? No afflictions, commander status. And if not them, then another unit. But I think tarts are a good candidate because you can't beat the efficiency of summoning an SC for 30 gems (27 CBM) - probably even if you have national summons. Basically I think there should be a default end game SC. Some nations will have SCs that are better and that's an advantage of that nation. But even if you don't have national SCs there should be something you can summon to have a fighting chance.

A word about RAND games. I think the no-diplomacy is a helpful idea but I don't think the nations have to be random. Calahan's point is a good one but if there's only certain nations you enjoy playing being stuck with a nation you don't like takes the fun out of the game. Anyway, I think settings like RAND or map size are separate from decisions about the mod contents. Guidelines could be helpful but it's easy enough to change that on a game-by-game basis.

[Sombre]

Well domes probably do increase MM, yes. I don't have that much experience of domes in cbm but I believe the philosophy was simply to make the worse ones actually be worth the cost as a defensive measure. I don't think any summon you can stick on monthly cast causes big MM problems though, compared with forging etc.

[Sombre]

Originally Posted by Valerius

So rather than fix nations one by one, why not just have an SC that everyone can summon late game? In particular, I think the whole Chalice/GoH --> tart mechanic is broken so why not just have tarts as a normal SC summon? No afflictions, commander status. And if not them, then another unit. But I think tarts are a good candidate because you can't beat the efficiency of summoning an SC for 30 gems (27 CBM) - probably even if you have national summons. Basically I think there should be a default end game SC. Some nations will have SCs that are better and that's an advantage of that nation. But even if you don't have national SCs there should be something you can summon to have a fighting chance.

I think this runs pretty much counter to the philosophy of, say, CBM, where the idea is to increase the breadth of strategic options, but it could definitely make for an interesting experiment in a game. I don't personally think the answer to the tart problem is to accept that the endgame /should/ just have 1 default SC castable by all - I prefer the route taken by llamabeast in his as yet unreleased mod which added a variety of SCs in different paths, to try and break the dominance of the tartarian and the necessity to pursue death and nature like crazy.

[Sambo]

Here's another idea to reduce micromanagment. In my limited experience, the problem isn't the forging, moving guys around, hoarding gems, etc.; it's the fact that you have to do it in a million provinces!

Solution, shamelessly stolen from poker: raise the blinds.

After 40 turns (or whenever), reduce the provinces by half. Seriously, just mash them together. Do it again after 80 turns, and again at 120 if it goes that far. The big 400 province map, necessary when you started with 24 nations, is now a maneageable 100. Like in poker, the little guys get screwed, but that's kinda the point. :

Dunno if it's possible. There would be a large issue of merging sites, fortresses, units, etc.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally Posted by Sambo

Here's another idea to reduce micromanagment. In my limited experience, the problem isn't the forging, moving guys around, hoarding gems, etc.; it's the fact that you have to do it in a million provinces!

Solution, shamelessly stolen from poker: raise the blinds.

After 40 turns (or whenever), reduce the provinces by half. Seriously, just mash them together. Do it again after 80 turns, and again at 120 if it goes that far. The big 400 province map, necessary when you started with 24 nations, is now a maneageable 100. Like in poker, the little guys get screwed, but that's kinda the point. :

Dunno if it's possible. There would be a large issue of merging sites, fortresses, units, etc.

A very interesting idea. But at first glance Id be tempted to say its not possible. Of course then I immediately remind myself that impossible is just a technical term for "more trouble than its worth" so I will think about it abit.

Personally, the fix I find for any irritating re-occurring actions in any game at all is the same. Every game eventually sees players come up with a way to automate boring micromanagement actions. Ive seen it from MUDs to WoW. A macro scripting software such as AutoHotKey will allow you to record your mouse moves and typing then assign them to a keypress such as Ctrl-Alt-A. I havent played with some of the fancy latest programs along that line but I do know that good old AutoHotKey works fine with Dom3 on WinXP.


Gandalf Parker
--
To some people, unlimited options seems to them to be zero options.
Without a menu of choices, they are lost.

[Kuritza]

Originally Posted by Valerius

People always say that if you remove gem gens you have to compensate certain nations. I assume the reason for this is that those nations don't have a strong late game (if the argument is that they have a weak early game, well then clams aren't going to help them with that). But there's lots of nations that don't have a strong end game. Given that the end game is dominated by SCs, if you don't have recruitable/national summon SCs or get the Chalice/GoH you pretty much don't have an end game (maybe with the exception of someone like R'lyeh).

If you have national summons, but dont have the gems to summon them in sufficient quantities, you are still in trouble. A whole one thug wont save you. Even whole two thugs are often not enough.

[spathi4tw]

Originally Posted by Zeldor

Even banning dwarven hammers would make more sense.

I'm surprised that this hasn't been put forward as a more formal suggestion. The hammer has a drastic multiplicative effect on the number of forging commands that have to be issued each turn. It also doesn't seem to me to really offer much in the way of strategic choices since it earns it's cost back faster than any of the gem producers (potentially in only a single turn).

The balance tweaking that would be required to eliminate it would be small in my opinion (although the strategy changes would be large, it would only be nations that depended on the hammer for early game success that would be disproportionately affected).

[Ironhawk]

Just catching up to this thread - pretty interesting!

However, I have to dissent on the issue of RAND. I think that it takes a lot away from the game to remove diplomacy. If its your preference to play without then thats fine. But to say that there is consensus that it should be used is crazy IMO. RAND/ND games, while being the new fad, are not the most common game, nor the most interesting.