Global War (upgraded to 3.20)

[CUnknown]

Rathar, so the game will be on hold until a sub for Pythium is found. Or, I guess Zeldor can take them back over on the 5th.

[CUnknown]

The game is back on, because we found a sub for Pythium (archaelept)!

[Kheldron]

I've given some thoughts about a possible sequel to this game.

First of all, I want to assure everyone that I'll be adamant to play this game to the end. There's no playing and investing 40+ turns over several months in a game to just let it slip into nothingness.


- I really like the secret enemy idea even though it didn't played out as I thought it would. Imho, two things went wrong : a lot of evil players didn't have connection with their secret enemy and many secret enemies died by other hands before any connection could be made.

There are two ways to correct it : either we force starting sites to make secret enemies neighbors or we give several secret enemies to each evil player on medium-large maps.
The second choice has my vote because it would be a heck of a task for any moderator to place each starting players and it wouldnt be that secret if you knew from the start that your predator was necessarily starting close to you. It would narrow your choices and lessen the backstab possibilities.
Imho, a good rule of thumb would be one secret enemy every 5 evil players. 1 for 1-5 evils, 2 for 6-10, 3 for 11-15...
That would assure you to still have a secret prey and/or predator by mid-game and make for a lot of gleeful backstabs whwen connections can be made.

- The ban on any kind of communication for evils was at best frustrating to them and at worse cause for weakness for the depth of this game imho. It hadn't got any rpg reason and it didn't bring any more pleasure for anyone I fear. imo evils should be able to communicate with anyone.
If you want to believe or trade with an evil player, do it at your own risks ! At best you're dealing with someone so untrustworthy you may never see the other end of your trade fulfilled, at worse you're dealing with someone who may very well have got your head on a pike as a victory condition !
The only exception would be for good players to trade items or gems with evil players for rpg reasons. Evil players should be allowed to communicate (insult, misinform etc...) with any players, up to the listener to believe or not, but I don't think a good player would lower himself to trade and help an evil in any way.

- Neutrals were supposed to be alone in this world but for most purposes they never acted as enemies and should not as long as good or evil represent any threat. When and if evil and goods are defeated or on their way to, neutrals shall fight as in vanilla...but I don't see the point : this doesn't fit in this game flavor imo. The settings make them unofficial allies? Well, just make it official and they shall be recon with. You could even have goods or evil striking at them before the end...

- otoh, I don't see a point in giving neutrals anymore advantages as evils and goods already have to cope with each others.

Good advantages :
- allied till the end. Win or lose together.

Good restrictions :
- can't use death and blood magic or gems.
- victory conditions : all evils defeated and possession of all good starting locations.
- can communicate with evils but can't trade items or gems or make any NAP with them. can do anything they want with neutrals.

Evil advantages :
- biggest faction on the map
- can do anything they want as long as it further their (evil) goals

Evil restrictions :
- must eliminate all good and neutral nations.
- They also have 1 secret enemy for every 1-5 evil players on the map. Only those who meet the first and second victory condition shall enter the hall of fame
- Goods wont trade with them and the above makes them at best third choice partners for any trade or alliance be it neutrals or other evils.

Neutral advantages :
- no restrictions on behavior whatsoever.
- goods dont have them as primary targets as they dont need to eliminate them to win.

Neutral restrictions :
- They must eliiminate good and evil factions to win. Win or lose as a team.
- They are the smallest faction

All this sums up to a sequel where we would have 3 real teams, evil, good and neutral. For obvious reasons, they should number according to their advantages and restrictions. 3 neutral vs. 5 goods vs. 8 evils is a good ratio imho. or 2 vs 3 vs 5 for a small map. 5 vs 8 vs 13 for a big one.


What do you think ?

[Baalz]

Hmmm, I'm trying to decide how much of this game played out because of the setup of the game, and how much just because of the particular players involved. My suggestions:

Evil players cannot trade with any other than neutral players. Evil to evil trades can be brokered through neutrals via whatever mechanism is agreed upon. Neutrals are not required to turn a profit, they can do this for free if they can be convinced it's in their interest, intimidated, etc.

No restriction upon evil communication, evil can plan anything with anybody, with the exception that no peace agreement may be made with good. Thematically, don't be surprised if evil doesn't honor their word, players are encouraged to play evil races as untrustworthy backstabbers when it's in the nation's interest. Hint: get your secret enemies to commit to a bloody war before you hamstring them! Note: though evil cannot make peace with good, they can coordinate with good temporarily to screw another evil player.

Each evil has 3 secret enemies (out of 9 evils). That means that although evil is free to coordinate in any way with all other evils, they know 1/3 other evils are out to get them!

Evil victory: All good capitals in evil hands, you loose if your secret enemy holds their capital when this happens.

Neutrals get no overt benefit other than not being in a ceaseless war the entire game...that is quite enough! Neutrals win when there are 2 or less of each faction remaining (including neutrals!) in control of their capitals and neutrals are in control of 2 good capitals and 3 evil. Neutrals can and should work together with everyone...to a point. If good or evil is about to win, that's the bestt time for neutral to swoop in and try to snatch victory from the presumptive winners. Note: it's in good's interest to make sure a neutral player is not intimidated by evil into giving them an advantage! Support neutral in this case!

Good - full coordination with each other and an any trade they can negotiate with neutral. No trading with evil, nor peace agreements. Victory - good holds all good capitals and evil holds none of theirs. Good is intended to play as thematically good and should honor agreements made even if they are with untrustworthy evil - be cautious making a deal with the devil.

[archaeolept]

heh the timer got turned off... which is fair, because lolomo wasn't given a hosting deadline when he signed up to take over arco...

[Rathar]

Oh futz.. I missed our finding a sub and will get a chance to pop out a turn this evening! Sorry for making you wait!

[Kheldron]

Well I quite agree with you on most of your suggestions. The only thing that still bothers me is the neverendinig peace for neutrals. For having played it, I find it an unfair advantage as they almost play in an environment like in solo games.

As I see it, evils should start the game with a rather simple objective : they must destroy or weaken goods and neutrals alike enough so that when the backstabing starts in mid-game they only have evils to deal with anymore.
Goods and neutrals are the two weakest factions and must seek survival in early game in order to benefit from synergies later on.
Neutrals have that advanttage to benefit from both synergy and death-blood magic which own in late game.

My issue with too much neutrality for neutrals ( ) is they almost have a garanteed ticket for late game and therefore garanty for ownage.

The trick is to find something of a challenge for them to reach late game.

Apart from that...I'm in for the next game!!

[CUnknown]

I was sort of surprised that none of the evils attacked the neutrals until late-ish. That wasn't the way I envisioned it, for sure.

Btw, the timer is back on, and a new turn is up.

[Zeldor]

I surely want to be in new edition of that game. I can also give some tips, the biggest one would be to create a special map with thematic starting locations [and nice choosing of secret enemies then].

[Baalz]

Yeah, I was thinking that with my suggested changes:

1) Evil would work together better early, but be hesitant to be too tightly coupled and always be jockeying to come out *more* ahead than their allies in any engagement.

2) Evil must kill good, but they also have an incentive to attack neutral because they're defacto immediately at war with neutral as soon as good starts to crumble.

3) Neutral is likely to be bullied by evil due to evil's better coordination (it's a lot more tempting to gang up on a surrounded and unsupported neutral if you can get another evil or two to attack from another direction). This will be counteracted by neutral's ability to bribe - it's better to have a friendly neutral so that items/gems can be exchanged among evil. This is of course balanced by good trying to maneuver so that no neutrals are surrounded and unsupported for exactly this reason.

4) If neutral's 'peace' advantage does manage to get them a ticket to late game, they still need to eliminate one of themselves - so neutrals can't trust each other too far.