Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[BFEL]

I'll give one more day for recruitment; on Saturday we can work out settings, and hopefully be playing by early in the week. I assume we'll not have too many more people than what we do now, if any. Start thinking about maps, eras, and sacred power...

For maps hopefully something mid sized for the amount of peeps playing. Also hopefully not wraparound. Its just SOOOO mind jarringly ugly I can't stand it. I should NOT see five copies of a region at the same time.
Er...moving on
Era's don't really matter overmuch, and personally I find sacred power doesn't really do anything noticeable either. So basically whichever combo of settings gives me the most OP thing ever is what I would go with

As for things like thrones and such I'll leave that to you more experienced MPers as well because in my games I usually play with ALL THE THRONES and it gets silly.

Are story events as bad for MP as the game claims they are? I...really only think I saw two so far, and neither seemed all that bad. One gave me a mummy, and the other gave me goats and then attacked the goats with a dragon and the goats won.

[Boksi]

Sometimes you get goats, sometimes you get gates to hell.

[Frumple]

Yeah... I was playing an SP game just recently, and as near as I can tell some kind of story event happened and... well. Something like a quarter of silent sea's indie provinces ended up a hellscape of undead, demons, and garnet amazons, and an army or two of mine almost got wiped by packs of devils. A couple of smaller patrolling groups did get wiped by amazon attacks. It was pretty nasty, ha. Not actually sure if it was a story event or just something related to being adjacent to a garnet amazon province, but still.

[EnigmaticHat]

I'd say:
Wraparound yes: its always more balanced, double wraparound would be best.  Also with this many players it should be large enough if you stay zoomed in and focus on your own country you'll barely notice its wraparound unless you get huge
Story Events no: I just don't like them, and yes they do mess with MP balance if they decide to happen
Sacred power normal: I actually find the sacreds generated under this more practical.  They get about the same weapons, and while the sacreds under the other settings do get better stats and health they also tend to be burdened by a lot of unnecessary features that drive up their cost without making them more practical (like, say 20+ morale, 13+ MR, or random resistances).  Not a strong preference
Site rate 55: finding sites is more fun than not finding sites
Research rate normal: preference, also the only way I know how to play plus its the default
Era MA: I've never played an MP game in the MA, but I'm not sure this would even count... also not a strong preference
Thrones: maybe... two per player, half or one over half to win?  All level one.
 
Those are the settings I can think of off the top of my head

[E. Albright]

My proposals, to be accepted or rejected the same as everyone else:

Normal sacred power: ratcheting this up can make the non-sacred/non-elite parts of a nation less relevant.
Story events off: I love them, but they're sooooooo unbalancing.
Site rate: I say 50, but 55 would be fine too.
Research rate normal: because seriously, why would you want anything else?

Now for more controversial opinions:
I'm gonna propose Valanis or Hexiwyr for map. Valanis is non-wrapped, but most of the wrapped maps are overconnected and end up being disproportionately cramped for their size. Also, wrapped maps aren't inherently more balanced. The only thing they offer is a general suggestion that there will be few or no provinces with only one angle of approach. They're not better in general, they're just better for a certain popular play style. Having said that, Hexiwyr ratchets the overconnectedness up to 11, and by making it uniformly overconnected, it's less of an issue. It also would help that its province count would be slightly high for our current player count; the last few games I've played have been painfully cramped and I don't wanna repeat that.

I'm going to also suggest 18+9+3 thrones, with 31 of 45 points (which is to say 17-24 of 30 thrones) to win. This is not going to be a balanced game no matter what, so why not loosen things up a bit? More reason to go with 55 sites rather than 50, come to think of it.

---

Era needs considered, though. Era matters for NG. You'll have more humans and fewer supernatural races in LA, more in EA. Tech will be affected as well: fewer crossbows and plate, more leather and bronze. Abysians are more likely to be replaced with degenerate Humanbred as time wears on. The fae races retreat to their mounds and you get fewer Vann and Sidhe - or giants. Etc. Basically, NG will to some degree mimic demographic shifts in vanilla through the various eras.

---

RexMundi, yup, recruitment is still open. I'll cut things off tomorrow morning, like as not, but you're in.

---

I actually got some significant work done on Caelians last night, so it's possible I might substitute 0.6.7 for a just-released 0.6.8 at the last minute. Assume we're gonna use .7, but if I get something releasable before we lock in and generate our nations, I'll probably switch to that instead. After all, why forgo a chance at getting stuck with hoburg colossi?

[EnigmaticHat]

My angle on wraparound isn't about approaches to provinces, its about approaches to nations.  Having your back against the wall is a huge advantage, being in a central location is a huge disadvantage.  That's why, while the game I hosted is wraparound, it started with everyone getting their own edge of the map.  Furthermore wraparound encourages a more aggressive game as every nation has multiple targets and its much harder to come up with chokepoint centric defense plans.

[BFEL]

Albright, will you be my spirit animal?
I.E. I agree with everything you just suggested.

As for era I suggest MA then because then you have a roughly even chance of interesting races(EA) and interesting equipment(LA)

[Frumple]

Yeah, I'd back EA's layout on this'un, with 55 (or higher ) for sites. Same for thrones -- I don't really have an inclination beyond "more" (my usual funsies SP games are 75 on sites and maxed level 2/3 thrones, heh, with mods boosting diversity and power for both). Definitely have a preference for non-wrapped maps (they're easier for me to wrap my head around, ha), but if it's a serious deal breaker for anyone m'okay with wrapped, too. Valanis would be fine.

Era wise, I'd put my suggestion for early. The tech I've seen generating some nations is... honestly kinda' boring, t'me. Whereas more weird critters and stranger mounts and whatnot is very much not boring, heh.

[BFEL]

Era wise, I'd put my suggestion for early. The tech I've seen generating some nations is... honestly kinda' boring, t'me. Whereas more weird critters and stranger mounts and whatnot is very much not boring, heh.

That...is a good point actually. Changing my vote to EA then

[IWishIWereSarah]

I would like to play too, as it is still open.

I mostly agree with E. Albright :
normal sacred power, story events off, site rate ~50, research rate normal (so your troops matter more than the late game summons), (double)wraparound map.
About thrones, as long as we have a majority of lvl1, and 1/2 to 2/3 points needed, I'm ok.
About era, I'd prefer EA/MA.

Others options
Score graphs: Off (seems obvious)
Hall of Fame: 15 (cool as there are many players)

[E. Albright]

Tech differences will be more pronounced in the next version, what with differentiation between bronze and iron weapons, and bronze armor for "standard" nations. As it is, though, the differences do tend to be more subtle than they could.

Era also matters in re: indy populations. EA will give you more Amazons and barbarians of various tribes; LA will give you more viable alternatives to your national troops, for better and worse, but far fewer basic indy shamans and such.

[IWishIWereSarah]

I think MA sounds best, that way :
Would rely on indie crossbowmen if your nation lacks them (LA), but your mages would matter more than the indie ones (EA).

[EnigmaticHat]

After generating some EA nations, I have to go with Frumple.  Much more interesting.  Go on, try it yourselves.

[Il Palazzo]

I'm partial to Valanis - it's THE unbalanced game. Why not up the ante with a non-wraparound map?

55 sites, normal sacreds, normal research, EA, whichever way re: story events, with E.Albright on the thrones. No score graphs and 15 in the hall of fame.

[BFEL]

Tech differences will be more pronounced in the next version, what with differentiation between bronze and iron weapons, and bronze armor for "standard" nations. As it is, though, the differences do tend to be more subtle than they could.

Huh, weird question: does Dominions follow RL metallurgy in that bronze>iron or is it fantasy metallurgy that puts it the other way round? Never really paid enough attention to it to know for myself you know