The Dominions 4 Thread of Multiplayer Stabby Stabby Ascension - 2014 Edition

good work. talking to yourself on a forum is clearly the way to go

[have i really been here ten years?..]

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.

If we want to emphasize bigger armies, merely adding more gold wont help without also augmenting the resources. MA means a lot more troops wearing armor. I agree that Difficult research or even Very Difficult research might be picked. There are going to be a ton of forts, and if every one of them are spamming out mages, the difficult research curve wont matter.

Actually, if we want to limit the mage impact, the special site frequency should be lower - gems are rare and special, gold is cheap!

And did we want to include or exclude, water nations? Not sure what Strato wanted, but psyanojim seems keen on them.

Yeah, I am in. Although if we do get an odd number of players, I volunteer to play the ‘grumpy old man’ nation that is guarding the throne, and only the throne. Get off my lawn!

Yeah I’m keen on them, but not until after the underwater patch! I think its a good idea to exclude them from this game since there are almost certainly some big buffs/nerfs/rebalances coming soon

The issue with modifying research is that you are not penalizing all nations equally. Some nations have cheaper research paths or easier ways to ramp up(pythia comes to mind) and for that group of nations, the extra research doesn’t present that big of a hurdle - but for the nations that have poor research growth, they get impacted to a much larger degree. I like the concept that’s presented - but the execution of it is flawed.

Also, with thrones, you might want to check that the victory condition isn’t understood by the game to be all the thrones (even if it seems like it’s set at above the thrones).

I’m a maybe - if you need another player, i can likely be persuaded.

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.

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 ;)

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?

QTAnon

Added 72 hours

I have no advice to offer on King of the Hill, but I agree with Strato that default may be the best place to start.

Could we set up start positions in a rough ring around the edges of the map, so no one is sitting right on the throne, and everyone is roughly equidistant? Flying armies won’t have quite as big an advantage then…

The best map option, assuming pyrhic’s inclusion and the game set up being 3 teams of 3 is Grigionia Magnus. The file states ideal for 6 people, however there should be room enough for 9. All nations will be in a ring, equidistant from the edge. Not all starts are created equally, 3 nations will either end up starting on a cave, or in wasteland. Both wasteland and caves can of course be toggled off, but given the nations who like caves, might be better to leave on? Likewise, based on 3 nations having cave starts, everyone else will start on a forest tile.

I know that you are trying to work with only nine folks, but I think you are absolutely correct that having only 3 teams means that it will be a 1 vs 2.
With nine of us, its either we get another for five teams of 2, or I can bow out.

We could go it alone…true king of the hill?

True, but some players want to be part of a team.

Another option could be that one person plays both nations in his own team (twice the work, but perfect communication, assuming the player does not have a split personality!).

I also think we need a bigger map, if its scaled for only six (assuming ten provinces per?). We would just get a repeat of Hangman’s money problems. Strato, where are you finding these maps? Desura? And I wonder if we can trust the random map generator at all.

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 ;)

I like the sound of all of that, much better than what I was initially thinking. So just so I understand, we have:

1.strato
2.otthegreat
3.belouski
4.botbaddict
5.direaussie
6.evilsteve
7.psyanojim
8.akaoni
9.pyrhic
10._____________

So right now we have 3 teams of 3. If we get a 10th, we can have five teams of 2 (which I think would be much better). Failing that, we could have eight people in teams of 2, and strato playing two nations.

I would recommend we have someone good with random numbers (cough pyrhic) come up with the teams once we decide which format. Then we can determine nations, probably based on one pick at a time per team.

Also, we would have to check the map after strato is done modifying it, before we start. Is that it?

Sounds good to me. People were interested in a Middle Age game, right?

Tempted, but I’m in 2 games right now (and in 1, I’m running 2/3 of a disciples team).

Yup, I like it all!

I’ve emailed everyone at the domqt3 mail service the .map files for the KotH game. I hope I have gotten everyone. If not, let me know. By all means offer feedback etc. Still want to play around a little bit and see how it is all balanced out. I’m not particularly fond of the KotH5 map given the variation in start locations for the 5 potential teams, but that is about the best I can come up with in terms of positioning right now. Changing maps is an option I want to consider last. Also, I don’t totally trust the game to cluster starts and will suggest we consider locking in nation locations.

And yep, the game will be MA. The only nations restricted will be underwater nations. They will be seriously compromised in this map as it is given the small pockets of water that exist. I haven’t decided on excluding Ermor or Asphodel yet, but I think they’ll have to be removed as Dom pop killing mechanics just adds another headache to their neighbours who will be in fairly close proximity.