Qt3 QTtheHIll Dominions Disciples game thread

[Pyperkub]

Taking a small liberty here to clean up asI think the other thread is getting a bit bloated, so here are the details:

@Strato

QTtheHill

A King of the Hill style game for 5 teams of 2 players each.

Victory Conditions
The goal is to capture and claim the single throne in the middle of the map and hold for a minimum of 6 turns. The count down timer starts from the moment a message appears at the beginning of game turn stating “Pretender or Prophet” has claimed “Throne.” For clarity, the timer means that if a nation claims the throne in Early Spring, then victory will be declared at the beginning of Early Autumn; Late Summer is the final turn to successfully displace a player from the throne.

Team Arrangement

The Grimoire Guild picks Pangaea and Asphodel
BotBaddict
psyanojim

The Furious Titan Coalition picks T’ien Ch’i and Shinuyama
DireAussie
belouski

The Pink Robe Initiative picks Vanheim and Jotunheim
Pyperkub
Strato

The Demonic Claw Cartel picks Eriu and Nazca
Otthegreat
Evil Steve

The Secret Bone Clan picks Ashdod and Mictlan
Pyrhic
Akaoni

List of players

Strato
Otthegreat
belouski
DireAussie
BotBaddict
Evil Steve
Akaoni
Psyanojim
Pyrhic
Pyperkub

Sharaleo is kind enough to volunteer for arranging teams, and once those are posted, the list above will be adjusted. Also, for anyone that visits Australia, go to Perth (seriously). It’s a long bloody distance from anywhere else, but a beautiful place. (Full disclaimer, I was not asked or paid to say that). Many thanks to Sharaleo for organising this.

Map

This game will be played on Grigionia Magnus. It is a 154 land province + 15 sea province. It is not wraparound. It follows a hex arrangement for province neighbours. This map will have fixed starting positions for all nations. Some starts might be better than others. 2 nations will begin 6 provinces from the throne, all other nations begin 5 provinces from the throne. One amendment for the map has been made to rectify an error in neighbours between province 6 and 57. All other neighbours appear to be fine based on checking.

There are large provinces tagged for the farmlands in 104, 127, 107, 60, 43 and 57. The lands surrounding the throne 103, 92, 79, 71, 76 and 91 have been tagged as many sites. The throne itself takes centre stage in the middle at province 85. It is tagged as a large province, with many sites.

An email to all player’s Qt3 Dominions email has been sent with the map file. This forum doesn’t really like the length of the .map file.

Start location picking will be in reverse order of nation pick. Team five gets to pick their position, with which nation will start on that position, so on and so forth. Paired starts will be: 32 and 11, 33 and 66, 108 and 139, 158 and 134, 106 and 61

Nations:

This is a Middle Era game. Banned nations are all underwater nations. This is: Atlantis, R’lyeh, Pelagia and Oceania. For Pretender creation, Ermor and Asphodel are banned (no Pop kill dominion this game). Both nations are allowed for Prophet players. Thank you to Psyanojim for testing the mechanics of those nations, and the argument that Asphodel are still a decent nation minus their dominion.

Nation pick is round robin. Team one picks their first nation, team two picks their first, so on to team five, then back to team one again to pick their second nation. There is no rule as to whether Pretender or Prophet nation is picked first, nor do the player’s have to disclose which nation they are playing.

Game settings

Resources, Income, Gem sites, Supplies will be set to normal/default levels for MA. The map itself looks suitable with its number of resource sites and farmlands to not need to tweak those values up.

Diplomacy

Any and all diplomacy is allowed.

Is there anything further I’m missing? If there are any exploits (I don’t know of any in Dom 4) that go against the established game rules, don’t do it. Thankfully, we all seem to play nice here based on what I’ve seen.

Yes please. The easiest way I considered was to list all names in the Random.org list randomiser, then use the randomised list generation to set the pairings (1,2 = team 1, 3,4 = team 2) etc. And that list to become the order of pick, so that the first team picks first. Once the picks are done, we will reverse the list order so that the final team to pick their second nation gets first pick of start location.

I would like team info to be public in this case. It is up to each individual team if they want to disclose who is playing what nation.

Ok, the Grimoire Guild would like to invite MA Pangaea to join our book club.

Promoting literacy amongst Harpies and Minotaurs is a noble goal.

The Furious Titan Coalition take Tien Chi.

PRI drafts MA Vanheim

The DCC picks Eriu.

Apologies for the delay.

The Secret Bone Clan wanted to pick something secretive, but Van and Eriu have already been taken. Thus, we have been angered!! And nobody knows how to be angry more than giants! So we go with Giants! Giants who eat people! NOM NOM NOM ASHDOD!!

The satyrs and revelers have been a little too loud in the Grimoire Guild’s libraries, so to quiet them down a bit we’ve invited folks who are more down, more sullen, more…grim?

Asphodel will be joining us.

[Pyperkub]

Map for QTtheHill

[Akaoni]

I think this is absolutely correct, that team 1 gets Asphodel. Team 5 (us) was not planning on doing back to back picks. Instead we get the first pick of the real estate.

[psyanojim]

Yep, and team 1 gets an advantage from nation picks, but no choice at all when it comes to starting location

[Pyperkub]

@Akaoni

I think this is absolutely correct, that team 1 gets Asphodel. Team 5 (us) was not planning on doing back to back picks. Instead we get the first pick of the real estate.

OK. I’ve never done real estate picks - how do you setup choosing your capital location(s)?

[Pyperkub]

Some other miscellany:

@Strato

I do like MA, nice mix of magic and national troops, and yes, I agree, making research harder is pretty much necessary.

I am liking the idea of King of the Hill style gameplay. One throne, hold for an unknown number of turns. I’d aim for either 3, 6 or 12 turns, that way it is easier to track the time left based on the time of season - capture throne in late Summer, win in late Autumn, Winter or Summer, depending on timeframe. There are a couple of scenarios that could play out which I don’t like.

One is what happens to an army defending the throne when it has nowhere to go. We all know what happens, and suddenly that player is going to have a bad time. Having large armies, and large incomes might mitigate that if I find a map that has a nice land-locked location suitable for a single throne. Alternately, going pairs might be helpful too. Because of this, I’m avoiding islands as possible throne sites, tempting as they are. It also gives too much of an advantage to flying/air magic nations.

Secondly, a fortress filled with summons that don’t need supplies will be difficult to siege down the defenses. Particularly problematic if the fortress is insta-built with ritual like 3 Red Seconds or Wizards Tower, or the event that fires when unrest between 10 and 100.

But otherwise, that is my thoughts for the next game - King of the Hill, one throne only, hold 6 turns. And based on numbers, either teams of two, or singles, Middle Age with increased income, supplies, dependent on map I think, having just done a run, and even at 200% increase, money was absolutely rolling in, which makes it too easy to build forts. Difficult research and maybe a slight buff to special site frequency (50). No underwater nations.

Give it a few more days to see who else is interested, then I think work out a map, and go from there? In many ways, this style is a bit of a testbed, bit like QTDoom, so anyone playing has to be prepared for gameplay that might end up being unfair.

@Strato

I did check that by placing a single throne on a small map with no independents, and racing toward it with an awake Pretender. Having claimed it, and ran 5 turns after claiming it, the game kept on going. I have no reason to believe Llamaserver will have a problem either. I’ll try a testrun via Llama on Sunday.

Normal Resources: The idea was to promote fortress building and keep the focus of the game on the throne, rather than easily trampling through other player’s lands.

Research: Probably the hardest balancing act of Dominions, and I’ve come to accept that not all nations are created equally.

One further problem is that blood magic nations will be still incredibly powerful, particularly if gem sites are reduced. I suspect having the enhanced gold income will allow them to be even more efficient with their blood hunting from much more earlier in the game.

I think adjusting the incomes, research etc will end up being too chaotic. Bit like my head right now, thinking of the various parts of the game and how they can be impacted.

@pyrhic

Y’know, adjusting the incomes down might be the more interesting control. Less money, the more important/valuable forts are, the more ‘right-sized’ armies need to be, the more interesting choices need to be made (should i get a mage or 15 units, since i can’t have both)

just throwing it out there ;)

@Strato

Damn you pyrhic, that sounds excellent, in theory at least. It would also make those early research spells a little more useful (eg: body ethereal) when having armies of 20 vs having armies of 200. But last game (Hangman), I am mindful of the general concerns a few of us had with what ended up being reduced income. Maybe part of it was mindset in that none of us expected to be scrounging around under the thrones for a few odd coins to recruit more guys.

For the first King of the Hill, I think keeping it at default is the most sensible option, to limit some of the variables and see how the game shakes out in terms of entertainment. Has anyone else done a KotH game before? Do they have any experience they can offer?

@Strato

I want to keep teams if possible given the broad range of experience. I’m of the belief that King of the Hill offers a different sort of dynamic in that the pressure always has to be on the middle. A 2v1 scenario will play out, but then so too can a 4v1 situation if team numbers increase, that’s the nature of the game. 3 players in a team does give some capacity for holding the mid point, plus defending the homelands from opportunistic invaders.

By having three teams, each team has a shared border with each other. The current set up is all players starting equidistant from the throne in a ring. The map itself is a flat, edged map (no wraparound) shaped like a hexagon. All provinces are set up as though they are shaped like hexes similar to hexrealms in QTAnon. The map has 154 land provinces, 15 sea provinces, so plenty of room for 8-9 people. The sea provinces are small 2-3 province lakes scattered around. Unlike Estates of Econometrics, there is ample farmland present, somewhat clustered together so I don’t think income will be a problem. In the middle of the map, immediately surrounding the throne are “large provinces” with “many sites” tagged. I’m inclined to leave that as per the mapmaker’s design. My only edits would be to readjusting the start locations, and removing the excess throne sites. The start locations have players within a team starting 2 provinces from each other so a ring can be set up around the capital, and for those bordering another team, three provinces between each other.

The throne will be a level 3 throne to prevent a team from rushing it too early. After all, not all nations are created equal, compounded by randomised independent arrangements, and there is still a bit of effort required to get into the middle of the map.

The map itself I found via Desura forums. I spent a bit of time looking around Desura, and also going through the llamaserver game setup page for maps. This is, admittedly, a harder game to setup, and I want to thank everyone for their patience. And also, please, any commentary, I’ll gladly hear it. I do want to try and get this happening sooner rather than later. I suppose the real sticking point is getting the team arrangement right (ie: 3 teams of 3, or 4 teams of 2, 5 teams of 2). I don’t mind doubling up and playing as two nations myself if there is strong demand for pairs, I have some holidays coming up soon as it is to paint the house, so Dominions can be a welcome distration ;)

[Akaoni]

@Pyperkub

OK. I’ve never done real estate picks - how do you setup choosing your capital location(s)?

Strato noted the pairings of starting sites in one of these messages. Pyrhic and I will pick our pair, and then everyone else in sequence. Once the Secret Bone Clan has chosen the form of your destruction, of course.

I am not so sure on the new Ghostbusters… it better be written well.

[Strato]

@Pyperkub

OK. I’ve never done real estate picks - how do you setup choosing your capital location(s)?

Bit of simple map editing. As with this link http://www.illwinter.com/dom4/manual_mapedit.pdf there is a table down the bottom that has numbers assigned for each nation in each era. Simply writing #specstart with the province number, and nation into the map file will assign that nation to choose that position over all else, except for when the map places thrones and screws it all up. That won’t happen here. This was about the best, most efficient way I could think of to make nation picking fair. I can not emphasise enough just how much I’ve aimed to make it fair for all teams, so if there is any sort of criticism or feedback, I’m most happy to hear it.

And thank you for making a new thread. For some reason, this forum seems to refrain from making new threads for new games, particularly with Dominions (and I still remember the massive thread from years ago). Good to break with tradition.

[DireAussie]

The Furious Titan Coalition picks Shinuyama

[Pyperkub]

Pink robes will hide the giants of Jotunheim nicely then

[Otthegreat]

The Demonic Claw Cartel requires a moment to strategize, but will be ready to announce the final member of the family tomorrow morning.

[BotBaddict]

Wait, is this thing still on? Test test 123…

[Otthegreat]

Yes, sorry! I’ve been working nights and weekends and this past weekend was our busiest of the summer so I didn’t end up getting the time I needed. But now, without further ado, the DCC picks…

Nazca

[pyrhic]

Red rover, red rover, secret bone clan calls Mictlan over!

[Akaoni]

Cryptic, Unseen, Dark, and Undisclosed describes the way that the Secret Bone Clan picks 61 and 106 to be our starting points!

[Strato]

Do you guys have a preference for which nation starts on which point?

[Akaoni]

@Strato

Do you guys have a preference for which nation starts on which point?

Let us have a confidential, furtive, and conspiratorial discussion and get back to you.

[Otthegreat]

While we’re waiting (are we waiting?) could the DCC post our province selections?

[Akaoni]

The Secret Bone Clan has no problem with the DCC and others making selections. Part of the Clan is preoccupied with work, which is why we haven’t responded yet.

[Akaoni]

With regards to the map, 57 and 6 are connected, and I doubt that was the intent. Not sure if this has been noted yet.