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

[Septimius Severus]

Hoplo, I'm putting you on Chris' team unless you prefer to go elsewhere, since he asked for you. Gandalf has agreed to setup the AIs for us. Hopefully he'll also agree to place the teams and nations into their starting locations as well.

Yes, I didn't realize the complication that multiple teams brings (versus just 2 teams) to a game. Of course this is all hypothetical and we may never have a problem but it is good to be prepared.

You do propose an interesting solution albeit one that strikes me straight off as a bit difficult for me to follow and I'm not quite sure how that would ensure team captains have an incentive to keep most of their members alive. But I'm probably a bit tired right now.

That is one issue, the other one I was worrying about is handling individual team concessions not in terms of victory but rather game-wise. In other words what to do with them after they concede and other teams are still viable. However, it seems that this can be handled via numerous #allies command in the .map file so that if any nation or team should need to be set AI (should they resign) they'll ally themselves against other human teams/nation.

Yeah, sure, a team or teams should be able to concede whenever they feel they've reached the point of no return as it were. I am sure we will all do our best to honor the good player pledge though and fight till the last minute.

[Septimius Severus]

We could just say this, instead of the 3 out of 4 idea or the single nation idea:

In order for a human team to win at least one noob must survive on the winning team. This would provide that incentive for team captains not to ignore their lovely noobs (not that they would) and put an effort into leading them and helping them stay alive and also make it possible for a team to win with 1 or two players left alive.

In the event all 8 noobs are completely wiped out or concede, which is what the above rule attempts to avoid, the winning team (aka last team standing) would need to have at least 1 intermediate player left alive for a team victory.

This works for me, of course I'll go with whatever the concensus is though.

[Hoplosternum]

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

Hoplo, I'm putting you on Chris' team unless you prefer to go elsewhere, since he asked for you. Gandalf has agreed to setup the AIs for us. Hopefully he'll also agree to place the teams and nations into their starting locations as well.

Cheers

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

You do propose an interesting solution albeit one that strikes me straight off as a bit difficult for me to follow and I'm not quite sure how that would ensure team captains have an incentive to keep most of their members alive. But I'm probably a bit tired right now.

Well you can double up the penalty for not holding one of your original capitals with the original power if you like. So each lost capital requires you go and get two others to compensate.

But I don't think Vets abandoning noobs or taking them over will be a problem. Why would the Vet want all the extra admin when he can simply ask for most of the gold and gems instead Plus this is EA so capital only SCs/mages are even more common and important than usual. Your teammates capitals are usually better off in their hands.

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

That is one issue, the other one I was worrying about is handling individual team concessions not in terms of victory but rather game-wise. In other words what to do with them after they concede and other teams are still viable. However, it seems that this can be handled via numerous #allies command in the .map file so that if any nation or team should need to be set AI (should they resign) they'll ally themselves against other human teams/nation.

I believe setting each team up as allies will work. But you can't link them to the original AI team as then the AI team won't attack them (I think). I know that you can attack an allied AI, but I am not sure they ever attack you (or at least attack you first).

But teams quitting will be a potential issue. How do you keep people playing when they have lost interest or see no hope? Teams help. It is harder to quit when you are letting allies down. Plus if the victory conditions are not that hard then a team in a hopeless position does not have that long to hold out before someone wins or knocks them out.

[Fantomen]

Interesting as it sounds, I will bail out of this game.

[rdonj]

Hoplo's suggestion seemed like a good one to me.

[Septimius Severus]

Frankly, I haven't the slightest idea what Hoplo is talking about really and keeping track of who holds what for how many turns and which capitals are held by the original owners, and what else? Makes this sound far to complicated to me . But I do thank him and anyone else who has had something to say on the matter.

Basically, those two rules I elucidated boil down to not allowing the vet captain to claim a victory if he is the only nation left on his team. It was intended to address my concern that the game might naturally devolve into a FFA between the 4 vet captains who are likely to outlive the less experienced members of their teams and also to act as a way to reinforce the responsibilities and leadership role of the captaincy.

I agree, most of this is academic talk and probably will not become an issue. I am sure the vet captains will do everything they can to keep their less experienced team members alive and will show excellent leadership and cooperative skills.

While Chris and myself seem to be in one camp and rdonj and hoplo in the other, if there are no other opinions I won't let this be a deal breaker or stumbling block. We will drop the issue entirely and just let a team claim victory regardless of who or how many nations are left on their team.

Yeah, hoplo, as a precaution, to handle the issue of if/when a team concedes, what to do with them, we will likely add ally commands for each human played nation on each team, so that if a team concedes, and the nations are turned AI, the individual nations on that team would not attack each other.

Now do we want these newly AI'ed nations to also ally with the orginal AI team (if by some chance they are still present) which can be done easily as well, against any remaining human teams/players? Or do we want them to fight against the AI menace as if they were a human team (AIs fighting AIs). I am in favor of the former option, as it would fit the theme of the game.

Be aware though, that just as in NvV, we cannot set individual nations to AI within a team if there are any other human nations still playing and keeping up the fight on that team since the AI WOULD attack other members of the team. All the more reason to make sure we've got alternates ready to go or someone else on the same team who can take two nations on.

[Septimius Severus]

Just need three more noobs and a vet to captain The Blessed Ones team and we are ready to being nation selection. A few alternates wouldn't hurt either.

Is the preference for ordered list or first come, first serve method?

Thanks.

[Executor]

The minimum required number of players for a team to achieve victory should be a single player of course.
No 'single' player will get credit for winning this game so I doubt any vet will sacrifice his own team member.
We're only playing for the fun of it, well that's just how I see it. After all this is not a game for victory driven players.

I seriously recommend CBM pretenders and scales mod this time. I'm fine either way, but it opens for much more.

[hunt11]

Sounds interesting, I would like to join. My game experience is 7 games but out of those 7 I have only survived 3 times into late.

[chrispedersen]

I would like to suggest each vet orders the remaining nations into groups of three, by his teams preference. Each nation to be chosen once.

If there are no conflicts on a teams choice, the team gets its choice. If a nation is desired by more than one team, neither team gets it.

This would encourage choosing lesser used nations.

So, for example


Mysterious.....Darlings.....Blessed.....Noobheim
Ermor..........Ermor........Tir.........Arco
Sauro..........Rlyeh........Pan.........Ulm
Hinnom.........Ulm..........Ctis........Aby
*************************************************
Cael...........Agartha......Ulm.........Pan
Yom............Hinnom.......Hinnom......Van
Rlye...........Fomoria......Tien........Hel


... etc.


In the first round the blessed's get their pick - no one else picked em. Everyone else had at least one one conflict, so they graduate to their second picks.

There are no conflicts in their second pics (Blesseds don't count as they got their first picks).

I would then say assign the AI's from the available first picks= )