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

I’m not participating in this game, but can probably manage the selection process if you want someone unbiased.

That would be great Sharaleo if you can do that.

Ok I’ve just tried MA Ermor/Asphodel in a team, and this is curious… with Asphodel as pretender, Ermor ends up getting Asphodel freespawn units.

So Ermor ends up with its huge D gem income, Asphodel chaff, and much higher gold (since Asphodel popkill rate is much lower than Ermor) but no units it can recruit.

And if you have Ermor as the pretender, Asphodel gets Ermor freespawn units, but much lower gold (since Ermor popkill rate is much higher than Asphodel)

Some very weird combinations possible!

Still think MA Asphodel as a disciple of a non-undead pretender is acceptable.

MA Asphodel/Ermor as pretender is just too weird though!

Thank you for looking at that psyanojim. With regards to unique Dominion, particularly pop kill dominion, I’m still not sure. Asphodel/Ermor does sound troubling, and particularly unfair for their neighbours unless they act against it, and that diverts resources away from conquering the throne. But there is the potential for some interesting combinations with Disciples play, because of the number of unique Dominion mechanics in play with middle era, notably when it is pairs. Asphodel as a prophet sounds fine. Ermor as a prophet would be difficult (their priests can still reanimate armies). C’Tis Pretender, difficult, but not obnoxious I believe, would go well with Agartha, but no one else. Agartha Pretender would be ok. That’s about it? I suppose the more I muse on it, all land nations allowed, but no dominion pop kill mechanic is the rule to follow.

I do need to do up a formalised post with all the details, probably once we get teams sorted out and we begin nation picks. Round robin pick, like with QTDoom sounds good. I’d suggest Sharaleo’s order of names/teams he puts up be the pick order, keeping it simple, each team picks one nation at a time. The order will be reversed for designating nation start for each team. I do want to use customised fixed starts because I don’t completely trust the game to cluster starts correctly, and there are particular passages to the throne that I want each team to use as a preference (via the large province farms). Bear in mind the mountains do have their own passes when under warm dominion.

QTAnon

Added 36 hours

Tis blasphemous that this thread has sunk to the bottom of the second page! Sharaleo! I call upon you to release the names of the participants in the yet unnamed game! The game that has Strato cackling in glee from his Outback lair as he configures the evil that is the King of the Hill map! The game that psyanojim wants to be dead in! The game that will have only one winning team, that being, of course, akaoni and ______ !!!

What do you need me do?

I assume just:

Randomly assign teams
Randomly assign team nation selection order

Also, do you want all team info public?

I’m OK with public

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
DireAussie
belouski

The Pink Robe Initiative picks Vanheim
Pyperkub
Strato

The Demonic Claw Cartel picks Eriu
Otthegreat
Evil Steve

The Secret Bone Clan picks Ashdod
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.

:( Hurry up with that underwater patch please Illwinter!

It always amazes me the number of weird strategies that are possible in this game! I’m not sure that Asphodel as a disciple without popkill and freespawn would be a strong choice, but at least its viable, and means we don’t have to outright ban more nations than we have to.

And Asphodel as a prophet of Ermor could be quite a horrible combination to play against, other than the obvious Burden of Time strategy I can think of some nasty ways to combine them, and I’m sure others can too! Definitely a combination that would have to be wiped out fast.

Awesome, thanks Strato. Questions:

  1. Score graphs on or off?
  2. Random events ? (default is rare).
  3. Research settings ( there was some talk of it being set more difficult than default, but I do not think anything was decided).
  4. Hall of Fame (set to more than 10?)

And I assume the story mode is turned off.

Off, common, normal and 15 for me…pretty much the current standard for our games!

Yeah slower research speed was the only deviation I thought we were considering, to emphasise armies slightly more than mages

Oh yeah, I was going to look at the game setup page and go through the list there.

  1. Don’t know about score graphs, some like them on, some like them off. Might be nice to have them on for a change? I’m going to say on.

  2. Common random events. The default (in game) is wrong in my opinion because it makes fortune/misfortune scales less important.

  3. Research will be normal (standard). Harder was only if bumping up income.

  4. Hall of Fame to 15. Personal preference, and given the number of players, probably good to have more than the standard.

In addition:

Independent strength 5.

Story events off

Renaming on

Number of starting provinces 1

Artifact forging limit 1/turn

Mods: Tempted by worthy heroes mod. Does anyone have any game experience with this mod? I’ve played one game, and it was fairly forgettable for me. No nation mods.

I’ve always preferred score graphs off tbh

Makes scouting and communication more important

Rather than just ‘everyone pile on the guy with the highest score’

In this king of the hill game, I can see an increased rationale for score graphs on, but not a large one.

This is it, the moment you have all been waiting (on me) for. The time when new alliances are forged and friendships are forever ripped asunder, I present the QTtheHill team selections.

The names of those that would rule supreme have been collected and assigned into five groups of two, using a method heretofore untried (by me) - a strange hybrid school of science and magic known as pseudo-randomisation, barely in its infancy of understanding (by me).

A Divine Word of Power was used as a seed to facilitate this process during a holy ceremony conducted on an ethereal plane known only as random.org. This Divine Word of Power shall now be revealed, such that the awesome potential of pseudo-randomisation can be refined and tested by future generations - but beware those unprepared to behold the awesome beauty of infinity (or at least as close an approximation as can be represented by 6-bits):

Divine Word of Power:

thisisstratosqt3dominionsgameofepicnessonly1teamcanbevictorious!

Once the contenders were grouped into their teams, The Oracles were consulted for suitable spine-chilling monikers by which they should be known throughout the realms. Again, using the Divine Word of Power, these names were pseudo-randomly assigned and scribed into the annals of future history.

Behold, your team selections:

The Grimoire Guild
BotBaddict
psyanojim

The Furious Titan Coalition
DireAussie
belouski

The Pink Robe Initiative
Pyperkub
Strato

The Demonic Claw Cartel
Otthegreat
Evil Steve

The Secret Bone Clan
Pyrhic
Akaoni

Note, the team order above is also the order by which nation selection shall take place.

One reason for score graphs being left on is that this game won’t end until Llamaserver is directed to end it because of the lack of an achievable victory condition. As a result, there is no final turn, so no one will be able to view the graphs for all nations and view how they went.

Secondly, even with graphs on, scouting is still vital to see what opponents are up in terms of army arrangement, battlefield spells, that sort of thing.

I also update the game post about the round robin picking and start location pairings.