MP Noobs & Vets: Rise of the AI Menace. EA, BI. Game Over. Team ACGHHS wins! - Page 6

Frozen Lama · #51 September 16th, 2009, 12:22 AM

actually that's a good idea. sure, i can be an alt

Septimius Severus · #52 September 16th, 2009, 02:14 AM

Frozen, your in as an alternate for Noobheim.

Hoplo, your modding skills may be needed, I had either you or Gandalf in mind to setup the AI team and do the actual nation and team placements which is a non-playing position. Haven't heard back from Gandalf. Unless we can get someone else or someone has a better suggestion for who'd do the best job of it, I'll hold off on assigning you to a team. Which would you prefer more? to play or do design the AI and perhaps co-admin?

Septimius Severus · #53 September 16th, 2009, 02:47 AM

So we need one more vet captain, a neutral volunteer to design the AI builds and place teams and nations, more alternates are always a good idea especially for teams with players who may be absent from time to time, a few more noobs, a co-admin to help busy Severus would be nice too.

I'm turning my attention for the moment to the question of victory and handling team concessions.

The victory condition is quite simple but may need some refinement. It is essentially defeat all other teams which is another way of saying last team standing. We may need to define/refine what a "team" means for this purpose.

If one player is left on the team that wins, does that still constitute a team?

Should there be a requirement that at least 3 nations be alive on the winning team or the game be called a draw by default?

I do have a slight fear that the game might devolve into a FFA between the vet team captains with everyone else having been killed and want to ensure that captains will not forsake the noobs on their teams.

Regarding concessions. At first I was going to say no team can concede but that would be difficult to enforce and likely impractical. Obviously this won't be an issue with the comp team, since it will not concede. But the human teams are different.

For instance, a team reduced to a single nation and a few provinces may very well want to throw in the towel and may hardly be expected to continue playing till they are completely wiped out or may otherwise lose interest and stale anyway.

We could handle team concessions by turning the team's remaining nations AI. However this would turn AI against AI if the AI team is still alive or in the area.

Or we could let the conceeding team just stale.

Or possibly distribute the remaining nation or nations to other human teams.

Show their be an automatic concession/defeat rule? Say if you lose 1/2 of your team's nations?

Comments/suggestions?

chrispedersen · #54 September 16th, 2009, 03:19 AM

You could say that a vets team loses when 2 of the 3 non vet players are eliminated.

The team continues to play to try to defeat the others - they just cannot win.
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My concern about the victory conditions however has to do with the *all* nature.

Usually a victory is decided *way* before the final citadels or players fall. Unless people are really looking for a fight to the last drop scenario?

Septimius Severus · #55 September 16th, 2009, 05:41 AM

The last team standing must have 3 out of their 4 nations still alive for a team to be declared the winner. That's kind what I was leaning toward. Failing that condition, it would effectively be a draw or stalemate in terms of real team victory.

But if we opt to just say that a team can win with only a single nation intact, well that would work also and may be the inevitable outcome, but it wouldn't encourage cooperation, teamwork and the "we win as a team or we don't win at all attitude" that I'd like us to strive for.

*All* in the stated victory condition just means that all opposing teams must eliminated or forced to concede but not necessarily completely wiped out to the last province. The exception of course is the AI menace team and/or AI controlled nations which will not concede and must be completely wiped out.

Septimius Severus · #56 September 16th, 2009, 05:55 AM

A slight tweak was needed to the revised option 1 starting locations. The .map file included in the archive has also been updated to fix a few issues with start provinces neighbors in the revised maps.

Now all starting locations have at least 4 neighbors and the secondary/optional AI starts have at least 3.

I've also posted a list of the province #'s corresponding to the starts in both map placement options. This will be used by our AI moder to place the AI and human teams.

rdonj · #57 September 16th, 2009, 06:16 AM

I don't really like the idea of needing so many team members alive to win. It's in the team's best interest to keep each player alive anyway due to forging paths and capabilities, making a requirement of having most of your team alive to win is unnecessary. Besides, if you can't win, what's the point in playing on? Sure you could frustrate the other teams, but overall it would just be depressing. And what if a team that's unable to win takes over the entire map? Or what if all teams lose enough players that no one can win?

Likewise, forcing a team to give up their nations if they lose a certain number of players seems wrong also. If you really want the teams to do that though, I suggest that a team goes AI if their vet leader is killed off. That would be slightly more palatable.

Septimius Severus · #58 September 16th, 2009, 06:47 AM

Rdonj seems to be in the camp that believes that a team can achieve an official team victory regardless of the number of nations they have left? Any other opinions?

No human team composed of more than 1 nation could really be set to AI if they concede as their individual nations would attack each other. Only the original AI team will be modded to ally with each other.

But we could have our AI modder add #allies commands to the map file for each human team just in case we need to set players to AI. This may result in more than one AI team present and competing with each other but that is fine I guess.

Edit: we could even have the AI modder go further and add the allies command for the AI Menace team, as well. This would take care of the issue of what to do with conceding teams as every nation that went AI would effectively become part of the AI menace team. Though that is alot of extra commands.

chrispedersen · #59 September 16th, 2009, 02:54 PM

Personally I think that if all the players teams have conceded or lost there is no reason to have to defeat the ai.

I like the idea of requiring the newbies to live. A vet can win only if his newbs win - talk about encouraging cooperation...

Hoplosternum · #60 September 16th, 2009, 02:58 PM

With the set up we have I would have victory conditions as follows:

There are 20 Capitals in the game. You should need 10 to win (and hold them for 3 turns). But you need at least one Capital from two different (none AI) teams. And your own Capitals only count if they are held by their original power (AI or not). So if you lose a team Capital you can take it back / gift it back to the original player and it still counts. But if that player has been eliminated or for what ever reason does not hold his Capital, even if his team does, that one does not count and they need an extra capital from somewhere else.

That should ensure that the teams try to keep everyone in, but doesn't cripple them if one or more are lost.

As I am not one of those players who likes to play on and on and on and on just for the sake of it. I would also allow concessions if there is a an obvious winner. Let say that if all the other Team captains (the Vets) agree then a winning team can be declared before this.

Re whether I play or mod the map. I would prefer to play as I like team games

But if you can't find anyone else I will step down and mod the map.