(FINISHED) Grogspocalypse Prequel: Early Ages Boogaloo [Dominions 5]

Started by al_infierno, July 24, 2020, 03:10:16 PM

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al_infierno

Quote from: Tanaka on July 27, 2020, 06:34:59 PM
I'd be down to join if there is still space available? If so Abysia please.

Abysia is yours!   ;)
A War of a Madman's Making - a text-based war planning and political survival RPG

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge.  War endures.  As well ask men what they think of stone.  War was always here.  Before man was, war waited for him.  The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.  That is the way it was and will be.  That way and not some other way.
- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian


If they made nothing but WWII games, I'd be perfectly content.  Hypothetical matchups from alternate history 1980s, asymmetrical US-bashes-some-3rd world guerillas, or minor wars between Upper Bumblescum and outer Kaboomistan hold no appeal for me.
- Silent Disapproval Robot


I guess it's sort of nice that the word "tactical" seems to refer to some kind of seriousness during your moments of mental clarity.
- MengJiao

TheMeInTeam

I've been practicing with indy strength 6, but I'm not sure it's the best or what would be the most balanced.  I've had a few test runs blown up by unfair indy setups (twice by an A6/A2 mage pairing that you can't see in a scouting report, looks like a normal province).  In one of those cases the province in question was "mostly militia" with some other stuff and immediately adjacent to cap.

I'm not sure if indy strength factors into generation of such provinces at all, but it's really nasty to lose an early expansion party with effectively no counterplay.  It's a non-linear effect on future expansion, probably halves the t12 outcome and costs in the 1000's of gold in practice.

Most provinces are reasonable in that you can see if a strong mages is present/radiating with power, or that the indy type in the province is unusual.  Having an air mage stronger than a conjuration 8 5 path summon appear with a bunch of air gems to throw first a few air elementals, then 100's of phantasmal troops in your face without warning seems a little excessive.

Ajidica

Always glad to have another person!

On the subject of indy strength, I haven't had any problems with default indy strength, especially compared to LA where every province is full of heavy cav and crossbows it seems! That said, when using the random map generator, it seems nasty indies can appear more often than on the fixed maps; though that could just be because random maps seem biased toward giving you only one or two paths out from your cap.

al_infierno

On the subject of maps, MapNuke tends create an evenly balanced, rolling landmass rather than the "continent" that the vanilla mapmaker gives you.  There also tend to be much fewer extraneous water provinces if there aren't any UW nations.  I'd agree that early expansion is generally less challenging, since you tend to have a lot more options for expansion with many provinces around you.  I've also never seen thrones end up next to capitals on MapNuke-made maps, which is a plus.

That said, I'm still pretty fond of the vanilla mapmaker, even if it has its issues.  Feels like a rarity when it doesn't place me on a coast or next to a throne, though.
A War of a Madman's Making - a text-based war planning and political survival RPG

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge.  War endures.  As well ask men what they think of stone.  War was always here.  Before man was, war waited for him.  The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.  That is the way it was and will be.  That way and not some other way.
- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian


If they made nothing but WWII games, I'd be perfectly content.  Hypothetical matchups from alternate history 1980s, asymmetrical US-bashes-some-3rd world guerillas, or minor wars between Upper Bumblescum and outer Kaboomistan hold no appeal for me.
- Silent Disapproval Robot


I guess it's sort of nice that the word "tactical" seems to refer to some kind of seriousness during your moments of mental clarity.
- MengJiao

solops

Quote from: Ajidica on July 27, 2020, 08:08:13 PM
Always glad to have another person!

On the subject of indy strength, I haven't had any problems with default indy strength, especially compared to LA where every province is full of heavy cav and crossbows it seems! That said, when using the random map generator, it seems nasty indies can appear more often than on the fixed maps; though that could just be because random maps seem biased toward giving you only one or two paths out from your cap.
I would point out that the default strength is 5. We have been using 6 in our games to slow things down. Paths...yeah. particularly out of caves. I could not get more than two caves on the map unless I changed the default setting from 3 to 7  or eight. I don't know a great deal about the other generators, though I have tried them. I do like having a few roads on a map.
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

TheMeInTeam

After some practice games I am changing my pick to Atlantis.

Default strength is 5, yes.  The issue with increasing indy strength is that this does not affect each nation the same way.  Some are forced into more attrition while others can, with bless or just big prot/etc take out huge numbers w/o losses.

Since I'm playing a water nation I can't have something stronger than an air queen in my underwater cap circle, though that isn't why I'm playing them.  I underestimated them a bit since their magic path diversity is kind of bad (no sorcery outside S1), but they do get some things that help make up for that.

Myrmidon

Welcome Tanaka! 

This game is shaping up to be pretty exciting.  I agree with the general sentiments about sticking with an indy strength of 5.  Although RNG can't be eliminated, it's ideal if we can mitigate it to a certain extent.

I'd like to throw out another idea.. my other MP games all utilize 2 point thrones only (of course, the ascension points needed to win is adjusted accordingly).  I like this because claiming a throne now becomes somewhat of an investment, but it's typically worth it. Again though, I'm not married to the idea.

Having a water nation, especially manned by TheMeinTeam, is going to be very interesting.... :arr:

solops

Definitely won't be safe to go in the water. Must add Jaws music to my playlist.
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

Ajidica

Now that everyone has settled on a nation, do we know what map we are going to use?

Myrmidon

I was just browsing on the Llamaserver website at the already loaded maps... I hadn't made it down very far, but the first one entitled casualracism(not racist) looked OK.  150 land provinces, 25 sea, looked fairly balanced....

But there may be some much better ones on there that I didn't get to.  We also need to decide how many provinces we are shooting for.

Ajidica

if we want to use a map on llamaserver that we don't already have in our games, it has to provide a download link

As far as province count, was thinking 15-20 a player with about 1/6 water provinces. Agartha can contest water fairly well, and late game Rus has some interesting water summons while ctis' skeletons can go under water.

Tanaka

Quote from: al_infierno on July 24, 2020, 09:36:01 PM
Agartha is yours!  Good to have ya back :bd:

As for map choice, I'd agree with doing a random map this time.  I've had good experiences with MapNuke making pretty balanced maps, with the downsides being: A. they're harder on the eyes than the vanilla maps, and B. someone would have to basically curate the map while seeing everyone's starting points.

If we want to keep it simple, then we could do a vanilla random map and restart until everyone's happy.  I'm also not against using a premade again, of course.

My vote is for random MapNuke as well...

al_infierno

I think I like the idea of creating a MapNuke map, uploading it to DropBox for everyone to download and playtest for a period of time (1-2 weeks?) before we start the game, or someone can veto in favor of a re-gen if their start sucks.  That would be a decent balance between randomizing a map catered to our nation list, and giving everyone a fair chance to test expansion.

The big issue here is that start positions seem to be more strictly defined on MapNuke than vanilla.  You can set generic starts, but our nations are pretty diverse - the only 2 nations who share starting region types are Agartha and Abysia, who both start in caves, so it would be pretty obvious who is where anyways.

If randomizing our start locations is important to anyone, I'd recommend we use the vanilla mapgen or a premade.  Any thoughts one way or the other?
A War of a Madman's Making - a text-based war planning and political survival RPG

It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge.  War endures.  As well ask men what they think of stone.  War was always here.  Before man was, war waited for him.  The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.  That is the way it was and will be.  That way and not some other way.
- Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian


If they made nothing but WWII games, I'd be perfectly content.  Hypothetical matchups from alternate history 1980s, asymmetrical US-bashes-some-3rd world guerillas, or minor wars between Upper Bumblescum and outer Kaboomistan hold no appeal for me.
- Silent Disapproval Robot


I guess it's sort of nice that the word "tactical" seems to refer to some kind of seriousness during your moments of mental clarity.
- MengJiao

solops

I am pretty ambivalent about the map generator used. 15-20 areas per player sounds fine. The map Myrmidon mentioned would probably be OK. A map that has a few roads would be desirable but not necessary. Random starting is preferable to using a map with pre-determined starting spots unless ALL the spots are occupied. Oh, and an all caves map would be really great, too.
"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of England
I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston Churchill
Wine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

Tanaka

Quote from: al_infierno on July 28, 2020, 11:24:34 PM
I think I like the idea of creating a MapNuke map, uploading it to DropBox for everyone to download and playtest for a period of time (1-2 weeks?) before we start the game, or someone can veto in favor of a re-gen if their start sucks.  That would be a decent balance between randomizing a map catered to our nation list, and giving everyone a fair chance to test expansion.

The big issue here is that start positions seem to be more strictly defined on MapNuke than vanilla.  You can set generic starts, but our nations are pretty diverse - the only 2 nations who share starting region types are Agartha and Abysia, who both start in caves, so it would be pretty obvious who is where anyways.

If randomizing our start locations is important to anyone, I'd recommend we use the vanilla mapgen or a premade.  Any thoughts one way or the other?

My vote is just to accept what the rmg gives us and start playing and not keep waiting weeks for people everyone to be happy with a perfect starting position...