Okay, here is a rough draft of the teams. This is the first round, please PM if you have any concerns about it. I really am open to making changes.
Each team will get at least one new player. we have 3 players that i characterizes as 1, 2 players that might be 1.5, and 1 player that is a 2. The rest are various levels of 3 to 4. I tried to spread it out as best I can.
Since I can only @ 10 people at a time, I will break it down to 2 posts.
Team 3
@legowarrior
@belouski
@jaygittings
Team 4
@dfs
@Baconsoda
@Galdred
As you can see, DFS and I both have slighly less experienced players, but considering how DFS is doing in our current game, and I am organizing it, I think that is more then fair.
Let me know by the end of the week if you have any concerns about the teams, and I’ll work though it. By Friday, the teams will be set. By next week, we’ll do nation selections.
A couple of things to identify. There is water, but not a ton, so only one pure Water nation (preferable none). There is a lot of coastline, so Atlantis and Oceania might just be fine if both them are in the game, but I have my doubts if Pelgia and R’lyeh would fit together. Maybe a combination of Oceania/Atlantis and Pelgia and R’lyeh might work.
Please don’t pick Therodos. I’ve tried, and its just hard. I won’t stop you, but come on.
Remember, one of you will be the pretender, so all of you will face the same scales and bless. Try to pick a pretender nation that actually helps the other nations. Maybe not Mekone as the pretender nation? Might make a great disciple though.
Also, since this is a new player friend game, everything is binding. No Real Politik here.
Let me know if anything is missing or if you have any suggestions. If all goes to plan, we will start by in 2 or so weeks.
What mods did we settle on? Was it balance mod and worthy heroes?
Not exactly sure what you are saying here. “Don’t be a jerk?”
We are planning on the floating Archipelago map shown above?
Everyone should take a look at the balance mod.
When you say “the Hero mod.” you mean worthy heroes?
I’m willing to be “the experienced one on a team of three,” but if somebody else wants that experience I’ll gladly give it up.
Do we pick nations as a team in a set of three or individually?
New guys…download the dom5 mod inspector. You’ll want it. Also be prepared that learning a nation takes a bit of time. Once the game starts, things will slow down quite a bit.
Actual links to these mods would be helpful for a newbie like myself.
Did we pick an age?
I thought it was early age.
Newest Worthy Heroes is http://dominionsmods.com/index.php?showtopic=3838
Balance Mod https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LyV_3nGY6wNzgPiJ_uq5hRDJBhuel5aFwTH4b9vg2Uk/edit
They get put in the mod directory which under windows is something like user/appdata/roaming/dominions5/mods
The map is in the steam workshop for an automated download or you can get it from https://steamcommunity.com/app/722060/discussions/1/1743353798883988902/?l=latam and put it in the map directory next to the mod directory.
The mod inspector can be run through a browser or off line depending on how you set it up. https://larzm42.github.io/dom5inspector/ runs it.
[soapbox] With all the options for managing mods available why the hell am I downloading ZIP files from a Google Drive?? [/soapbox]
Pretty much exactly right. Newest Worthy Heroes and the Collab Balance Mod - .71 version right now.
If you use the Dominions Inspector (and you 100% should) there is an option to load a mod. That will give you an option to upload any mod to the inspector, but you won’t have to, because Collab Balance Mod .71 is an option already. Just click the box, and it will upload that mod to the inspector.
https://larzm42.github.io/dom5inspector/
The mod developers have a google doc with all the changes. It buffs fire, makes Rain harder to cast (and Foul Vapors) and removes Magic Duel and Blink. It also makes most of the starting Armies good enough!
I know, some people swear by DE, but DE makes giant changes and is more than just a balance mod. I like this one.
As for teams, people should be selecting nations as part of a team, to avoid Caelum and Abysia being on the same team, or Mictlan and Ulm being on the same team (in that case, Mictlan wants way more of a bless then Ulm does).
It should also make it easier for new players, since experienced players can help with the nation selection.
Finally, @dfs the teams are not 100% in stone yet. I believe the 2 most inexperienced players are with Team 1 and Team 2, @Valambrian and @Mellified. I gave us the most experienced players that weren’t in the 3 to 4 range. So, @Baconsoda and @Galdred have experience with earlier versions of Dominions, instead of being brand new to dominions, while @belouski played in the last MP game, and @jaygittings seems to be involved with several SP games so far.
Continuing from early.
If @wahoo, @pyrhic, @Strato or @Kelan want to trade with you, that is fine by me.
As for the Rules - yeah, I’m pretty much saying don’t be a jerk. For this game, the spirit of the agreement is just as important and the letter of it. Where the spirit is unclear, that’s fine. I am tempted to play a 0 diplo game, because we already have teams, or maybe we should set it so diplo is only through team Pretenders?
This is all new terrain for me, so I’m listening to all suggestions.
Anyway, let me know if I missed anything.
Teams are good for me, we have already discussed strategy ;). If we have to start over, that is fine. It still helps the learning process!
I assume we’ll be doing some sort of round robin drafting?
Okay, something that I hadn’t thought of is team selection. There is no fair way to do it, so I think it should go in order of least experienced team to most experienced team. So, reverse order of the team numbers. Let me know if this sounds fair to people.
Alternatively, we could go player by player instead, but I think that could leave you hanging worse. I wouldn’t want to select Neifelheim, someone else takes all the other cold nations.
No matter how we do it, I think some people will lose their first pick though.
Ninja’d me @pyrhic
Okay, I thought about it, and I think round robin could work. I think it should be over the course of 12 days, starting on Saturday, June 7th. Pretty simple -
7th - Team 4 selects
8th - Team 3 selects
9th - Team 2 selects
10th - Team 1 selects
11th - Team 1 selects
12th - Team 2 selects
13th - Team 3 selects
14th - Team 4 selects
15th - Team 4 selects
16th - Team 3 selects
17th - Team 2 selects
18th - Team 1 selects
That’s all three teams. The teams don’t have to wait until that date to select, but they must follow the order. So, if 3 teams select all on the same day on June 7th, Team 1 still has until the 10th to make their selection.
Would that work? Its not super fair, but the teams that benefit are again the teams with the fewest experienced players.
Let me know this works, or if you have a better system.
I think that’s fine, but i have some recommendations:
June 6th: All teams choose a position(A/B/C/D). Team 4 has first choice, then team 3, then team 1 and team 2 gets whatever’s left. I just went by overall experience on the teams, with the most experienced getting whatever position no one else wants.
7th - Position A selects
8th - Position B selects
9th - Position C selects
10th - Position D selects *2
11th - Position C selects
12th - Position B selects
13th - Position A selects *2
14th - Position B selects
15th - Position C selects
16th - Position D selects
20th - all teams have prentender/disciples submitted?
We were planning on there being a draft, so just let us know when we are up for a pick!
Picking Niefelheim would be a risk to take as there aren’t a lot of cold nations, and only two other cold 2/3 with Rus and Caelum at cold 2? Heat has a lot more at Heat 2 (5?) so heat scale is a little less risky, and of course most are neutral.
The last time we did this someone had a heat/cold scale table with the nations listed to help out. I made a quick one I scratched on a piece of paper for now.
I saw that patch come through this morning. Interesting nation. Some sites show up later and have some powerful mages and troops available in them. I wonder what determines when the sites show up.
Another elf nation?
