Demanding Pretender.

[HoneyBadger]

Here's an idea I'm borrowing from Dwarf Fortress, that came to me while I was reading the old Yarnspinners 2 thread: Suppose there was a way, atleast in SP if not in MP, for your Pretender to make demands of your nation? A given Pretender might demand that you sacrifice a quantity of gems/bloodslaves, forge or sacrifice a magic item, research to a certain level in a particular school of magic, build or destroy a castle, temple, lab, or conquer a random province.

If you do, all is well, and you might even get an award-maybe your Pretender even grows more powerful-but until you do what the God wants you to, some bad thing or things happen. Your Dominion might shrink, your priests might get old more quickly, your Pretender might even become insane.

Maybe there would only be one demand per game, or maybe one per Pretender Title (tieing this to Titles would be fun), but it would give Pretenders a load of character.

It might be too much of a headache in most MP games, but even in an SP game, having a bizarre goal here and there, could make all the difference, in keeping interest up.

[Darkwind]

Maybe if it was an option. It might make the difference between playing and just letting the save collect5 dust, but it could easily be a bad effect. Think about it - you're in a bad position, your Cyclops pretender barely surviving the horde of AI chaff, when suddenly he yells to the world "I want an Eye of Aiming!". Or Bow of Botulf. Or, hey, a Fever Fetish. And woe be unto those who do not do their god's bidding. Though it could be kind of cool, too, if tied to your god (ie, a god who's racked up his kills int where no one else has his level of experience might demand an Arena Tournament held in his honor, with the winner fighting the god).

Besides, demands in Dwarf Fortress are always annoying (or so I've heard). Your nobles might demand an Adamantine guitar and woe be to the soapmaker who refuses his request, regardless of the presence of Adamantine. Besides, if you hit Adamantine, there's no way it's going to be used for useless trinkets.

[Aezeal]

Well seems quite some work to implement... so considering posts of the staff etc I wouldn't hold my breath for it.

[sector24]

Reminds me of the quests in Warlords 1 and 2. Also, there was some board game I played with cards in which you had to fulfill the objective on the card to win, but no one knew what card the other players had, so sometimes players did seemingly strange things but only because they were following their own objectives. Maybe it was Risk? It would be interesting if there was a dominions victory point game but the "victory points" were tough objectives.

Example dominion objectives:
Build a castle in province X
Kill units owned by player X
Forge X artifact
Summon X creatures (Tartarians, Tarrasques, etc.)
Obtain 999
Obtain 100,000 gold

Actually, the game host could the list of objectives and silently distribute them to players at random. So the players would know what objectives people might be shooting for but not who was after which one. If you met the objective you would just have to tell the moderator that you won the game all "bingo" style.

It could be fun depending on how hard the objectives were, but it could also be a huge waste of effort if you played for months and someone met their objective without any fighting.

[HoneyBadger]

Definitely not an auto-win...it wouldn't be thematic, in my opinion, but maybe the Pretender bestows a level of Holy magic on a random Commander, or the Pretender gains a powerful Second Shape, or forges a random artifact, or creates a new magic site.

Maybe it could be like a role-playing game, where the objectives are things your Hero or Heroes specifically have to perform, and as they do, they develope in power over time.

And it wouldn't even really have to be coded in. It could be part of a scenario, or even a MP where each nation gets a random objective, and then the host distributes the awards upon completion by modifying the in game map.

[Loren]

I like the idea but it needs some tinkering.

How about a new nation. Temple checks produce local dominion but do *NOT* spread it to other provinces.

Instead, you get a series of tasks. There are always a few outstanding, when one is completed another takes it's place. Each task has a number of temple checks associated with it, completing the task grants that many temple checks at the location where it was completed.

[HoneyBadger]

That sounds great, but I have no idea how that would work in practice.

[AreaOfEffect]

Sector's idea is the most appealing to me. It is also the least amount of work to implement. Risk does indeed have a method of play where you need not beat every faction into submission, but instead complete an objective which is half-way toward victory. It always ended a game before it got to that depressingly sad moment where the winner wanted to squash the last player who didn't have a chance.

I think it would be nice if every player was assigned 2 or 3 enemies. And victory was achieved by having your enemies eliminated. So long as everyone has a different enemy the game always remains interesting. For example:

In a four player game each player is given 2 enemies.
-Player 1 has 2 and 3
-Player 2 has 3 and 4
-Player 3 has 4 and 1
-Player 4 has 1 and 2
If player 1 is eliminated then player 3 and 4 only need one more opponent removed. This creates a dynamic game were people help other factions simple to buy the time they need to beat up another faction. If it so happens that two players need the same opponent to lose in order to win, then I suppose the one who kills him wins.

I think it would be more interesting then simply, "gang up on the scary guy".

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by AreaOfEffect

Sector's idea is the most appealing to me. It is also the least amount of work to implement. Risk does indeed have a method of play where you need not beat every faction into submission, but instead complete an objective which is half-way toward victory. It always ended a game before it got to that depressingly sad moment where the winner wanted to squash the last player who didn't have a chance.

I think it would be nice if every player was assigned 2 or 3 enemies. And victory was achieved by having your enemies eliminated. So long as everyone has a different enemy the game always remains interesting. For example:

In a four player game each player is given 2 enemies.
-Player 1 has 2 and 3
-Player 2 has 3 and 4
-Player 3 has 4 and 1
-Player 4 has 1 and 2
If player 1 is eliminated then player 3 and 4 only need one more opponent removed. This creates a dynamic game were people help other factions simple to buy the time they need to beat up another faction. If it so happens that two players need the same opponent to lose in order to win, then I suppose the one who kills him wins.

I think it would be more interesting then simply, "gang up on the scary guy".

That would have an incredibly awesome "free for all cage match" feel to it if it were a 12 player map, and each player had 3 rivals to eliminate. Especially, I am sure there is an equation that would show the mathematical distribution - but if no one had reverse applicable lists. That is, you are not trying to kill any of the people who have you as a target.

I'm strongly considering setting up such a game now, I think it would provide incredible hilarity and tension.

[Poopsi]

Big deal. I have ways to deal with demanding nobles in Dwarf Fortress