Scenario: There can be only....3?! 2009 Megagame Concept

[Dragar]

Just a random thought - what would the dynamics be like if there were one winner per era? Players would essentially be driven to compete mostly against other nations from their own eras, and would tend to ally with those from different ages.

[Redeyes]

Regardless of specific victory conditions, as long as the top three players win I imagine some dynamics will change for the worse. As is, you often see two big players going for each other. What if the two biggest guys on the block now say "screw this" and together start gunning for everyone else?

Would perhaps make the game a bit shorter, which is good
But if the most powerful nations never fight each other, is the win really a valid test of player ability/nation power?

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by Redeyes

I imagine some dynamics will change for the worse. As is, you often see two big players going for each other. What if the two biggest guys on the block now say "screw this" and together start gunning for everyone else?

Would perhaps make the game a bit shorter, which is good

Because as I was saying, the design of the game also gives more incentive to every other player in the game, to cooperate to take down the front-runners. As it is, one of the biggest hurdles to cooperative strikes of that sort, is the fear that you will use up your own resources, and someone else will make most of the gains. In this scenario, they can remain your ally, and you still have a shot at victory, even though they reaped most of the rewards of one war or other. Also, since ultimately you need capable friends to maximize your chances of victory, they should be more likely to pass some of those lands to you after the fighting anyways - or they may just switch to a stronger ally, at which point the war of attrition begins again, with them on the receiving end this time.

Originally Posted by Redeyes

But if the most powerful nations never fight each other, is the win really a valid test of player ability/nation power?

Also, see above. With diplomacy being a huge factor in displaying one's "ability" in this arena, we've already shown that an individual with such skills, should be able to secure an uncontested win early on, if they put in the time and effort. Just examining the graphs for this game, you can see that LA Agartha became one of the frontrunners very early on, and because of diplomatic positioning, had the opportunity to push the advantage at several key steps. Part of my point is that under the same circumstances, anyone near Zeldor would have had to say "if I am not in the top 3 now, perhaps I should be looking for ways to topple Agartha, rather than cooperating with them". They were already admitting defeat, essentially, by saying "if either of us wins, it looks like him, and I can't beat him, so GG Zeldor". That is how they played it out. But if there is more than 1 slot for victory, suddenly it doesn't matter if he is just #1, there is a lot of maneuvering that can be done to still become one of the victors.

[zlefin]

this idea made me wonder: what about having 3 different victory conditions? i'm not sure it'd really work for the megagame, though perhaps for some other. like a victory condition for research, dominion, and territory? at a set number of turns? yeah, i can't think of a way this would work well for megagame, but it is an interesting idea.
Zlefin

[LoloMo]

3 winner condition will just ensure that whoever is the biggest and the second biggest early on can pick and choose who they fight with. Everyone else who are looking to win will just pick on the third biggest nation, who will in all likelyhood be much smaller than the 2nd biggest nation.

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by LoloMo

3 winner condition will just ensure that whoever is the biggest and the second biggest early on can pick and choose who they fight with. Everyone else who are looking to win will just pick on the third biggest nation, who will in all likelyhood be much smaller than the 2nd biggest nation.

I'd like to think that it would be made somewhat clear that they are an alliance, against other alliances, and that taking down #3 won't get them a joint win (winners CAN be from separate alliances), and the only reasonable course is to go after the top dogs.

Besides, until the game is declared over, or 3 people manage to become dominant, I doubt it will be clear who is in what exact rank. I mean obviously you can always go by province count, or number of caps, but that is not 100% indicative of true power. The best course of action in this scenario, will always be to hurt the biggest person that you can, who you are not allied with.

Obviously no matter what, there will be players who don't understand the full implications of all of this, but hell, either some of the people who supported LA Agartha in this last game did not understand that they were "kingmaking", or they did so willfully. I fail to see how increasing the potential for victory will make people behave less wisely.

[Zeldor]

To be honest it was more often someone offering to be my ally, than the other way. I also never asked anyone to help me win the game, but of course it's how alliances work [but I wouldn't ask them to give me their capitals for VPs]. But looking at KM, TNN would be close to 3rd position, if we'd look at province count [but prov count as victory condition is never good]. There were already agreements between big nations. Niefel and Caelum, biggest eastern powers, have agreed not to fight each other. I also had agreement with Lanka to have war only in the very end, 1:1, to decide who wins, but it proved to be not necessary. I attacked strong Helheim, but his chances for being a contender at that point were already slim.

[JimMorrison]

There can be only three!