Preponderance - Big Team Game! [1-2 subs needed!]

[atul]

Sounds like a fun game.

I haven't looked at the nation prices that much, but is it even possible to buy two rush nations for one team?

Besides, it wouldn't be a team game if a team shouldn't play together, instead of like two loosely allied nations.

[Zeldor]

It's supposed to be tight, but not extremely. It is afaik 14 provinces there, including 2 capitols, and there are 2 provs between capitol, which is standard in team games. You should think about potential problems, including dominion spread. Map should be ready soon, so you will all have chance to test it and suggest any changes. And don't forget gold is set to 150%.

About nation picks - yeah, you can put one nation 3x, but you should add in that situation 1-2 more alternatives without that nation. I understand that there can be only 3 combinations with 8 point nations. I will resolve any problems when they occur, I doubt that so many people will really want to play just one of that nations.

[Zeldor]

In case someone didn't notice - there was minor tweak, both gold and resources are at 150% base now.

[Omnirizon]

in my usual role of the voice of criticism, I should state that increased resources ALWAYS results in decreased diversity. This is because the competing demands within as organism, an ecosystem, or within a nation, and a battle betwixt nations or much easier to meet, and so survival falls upon some least common denominator which all things evolve towards.

In the royal island simulations, unlimited resources actually resulted in the complete death of all organisms, as the oscillations of population explosions between two populations, prey and predator, would magnify to the point that one population would go extinct, and the other would die off too. These oscillations would magnify so much because there was no resource limitation to bound them.

When ecosystems are flooded with typically bounding resources (such as nitrogen) it results in an explosion of the least common denominator, organisms designed soley to consume resources and reproduce; aka microbes of some sort. These explode in the population and use up ALL the resources (including oxygen) and kill off the more diverse collection of species who have all evolved to compete in some way for limited resources.

in our little simulation of nations here, the competing demands within nation design will be much easier to meet (resources, gold, magic gems, ect), and all nations will be able to meet these demands with much less, and be free to focus all their design on the least common denominator: absurd magic power (aka the 'mentok' phenomenon; rock, paper, scissors, mentok: mentok beats all). Things like luck, production, and gem producing spells are considerably devalued, and things like dominion and magic paths become more valued. There is really no point in considering a Turmoil/Production/Luck strategy because with such high magic the luck is pointless, and with such high resources so is production, all we need is more gold and more dominion and more magic paths; and this is what all pretender design will shift towards. Less diversity.

[JimMorrison]

I am not sure if the analysis of an ecosystem translates properly. Nations do not fill niches, they are all directly competitive by nature. There is no possibility for one to flourish without impacting the others.

Sure, you will see less light infantry perhaps, but with a relative balance between resources and income, people will tend to build armies in the way that is most effective, not the most pleasing. That is to say that while it may be attractive to only build your strongest elite unit, if you don't have any actual cheap chaff, then the enemy's mages will kill your expensive troops first.

Certain nations will still favor Productivity. There is still a balance between gold/resources, so high resource nations will still compete in troop count with low resource nations. It think the only thing that will lose relevance is Luck, as it fails to scale according to income levels.


Anyway, how did you know I was going to go with a Mentok pretender?

[Zeldor]

Luck is much better in CBM.

[Omnirizon]

an ecosystem analogy translates perfectly. this is not something that is one way in one system but not another. It is an iron law: increasing resources decreases diversity. When nothing is forced to adapt to compete for resources, nothing will. There is no need for justice in a perfect world. When you keep bailing them out, they keep ****ing up. Change and diversity comes from having less, not more.

The process of creating a nation is itself an internal struggle, as competing needs within a nation vie for points (gold, resources, gems, magic paths, dominion, ect.). With some of these bounds removed, all the points will simply shift into others. Big blesses are the most benefited, because they were usually bound by gold and resources. Atul already lamented in IRC that the problem with team games is they invariably end being a BIG bless nation just getting fed by their teammate. The money, resource, gem multipliers in this game only further benefit that type of team design because now the blessing nation doesn't even need to worry about resources, and the combination of high money multiplier and magic sites means there is no point for a luck scale because gems will already be plentiful and income from luck isn't going to be multiplied, while other income will.

with typical bounds on nations lessened, others take their place (dominion and magic, just like I said above). All nations will now simply have more points to invest in these things; thus all pretenders design strategies will begin to converge toward them.

[JimMorrison]

I am pretty confident that you will find that any player who tries to go only for the biggest and best in this scenario, is likely to fall sooner than one who remains adaptable, and is as creative as possible in their application of force.

Changing from the default settings WILL create different dynamics. However, it's a bit silly to make the assertion that while the game is fairly well balanced, that it is balanced out in such a way that altering the settings (in ways that are meant to be able to be altered) in some way wrecks the game as a whole.

I would consider that more of a personal problem, than a flaw in the system. Just as it seems that my thoughts about the map, are personal issues.

[Omnirizon]

i don't think it will reduce fun... i was just saying for the sake of saying...

don't you feel more cognizant of the world around you now?

at any rate, it is all just another dimension, guessing how these dynamics may shape up is ultimately what determines winners... that and finding new ways to specialize and exploit the team opportunity that are not readily perceivable... perhaps specializing in not specializing.

[Zeldor]

The discussion about resources is as old as dominions. There is no way to get a good value, ever. There are many ideas to improve productivity, but rather none of them will appear before Dom4. I think that nations that will take Sloth3 now would have it with resources on 100 too. And nations that decide to take Productivity will get a nice boost and will be able to field really many troops, especially with CBM [it reduces mostly gold cost for high res units from what I remember].

Overall goals of setting was to make game more dynamic. Big armies, many magic sites, a lot of bloodshed. And even with gold at 150 you will find there isn't so much of it. I had 2 games on that map with standard gold settings and even then it would've been better with 125-150 gold setting. But plains will generate a lot of gold.

And when we are on that subject - I am still working on the map, I will probably redo most of .map file as editor will probably change prov numbers [I have to redo some borders, maybe add few provs]. Plan is to add 8 towns on plains [around 20k pop], all with special recruitables [4 of them will be Sages]. On the central island there will be Throne of the World, Ancient Forge and 2 more sites [one of the with cool indies, maybe even Lore Masters]. Also that pretender chassis put over there spawns a lot of Soldiers of the West [or East?], so expect 500-1000 troops there if it stays unconquered for longer time.