Ideas for games with weird or unusual settings

[moderation]

Post your ideas for unconventional games here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

One that I was just thinking of was a musical chairs type game designed to encourage casual play. Maybe each player would only stick with one nation for a set number of turns, after which they rotate. That way you don't get too stuck on a particular position and have some room to experiment. And of course everyone else has the same problem and advantage. Of course, I'm not sure how workable this is. Maybe it would be more feasible to rotate between teammates in a team game. Anyway, there are probably other ways of encouraging casual plays, this is just one that came to me right now.

[Endoperez]

Perhaps a game to promote Ballbarian's SemiRandom. AAR-type game would work best, or at least reports about all the strange independent fights everyone had.

[AlgaeNymph]

A game hosted by Llamaserver called "Poggle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poggle#Poggle)," after the last mammal on Earth*. The game will be Late Age with no human nations allowed, humanoid or subjugated-human nations being a gray area.

*Or one of the last if going by the book version of The Future is Wild.

[Folket]

How many LA nations are there without subjugated humans or humanoids?

Arcoscephale, human
Ermor, humanoid
Man, human
Ulm, human
Marignon, human
Mictlan, human
T'ien Chi, human
Jomon, human
Agartha, human
Abysia, human/humanoid (matter of defenition)
Caelum, looks somewhat humanoid but do have wings...
C'tis, humanoid
Pangaea, humanoid
Midgård, human
Utgård, human
Patala, humanoid
Atlantis, humanoid
R'lyeh, humanoid
Pythium, human
Bogarus, human

[AlgaeNymph]

Ermor, humanoid
Abysia, human/humanoid (matter of defenition)
Caelum, looks somewhat humanoid but do have wings...
C'tis, humanoid
Pangaea, humanoid
Patala, humanoid
Atlantis, humanoid
R'lyeh, humanoid

Hey, eight; it all works out! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Wrana]

Probably for this Poogie-type a special mod should be written... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif
BTW, the idea of scenario matches with not balance-oriented mods strikes me as good. Possible examples are BlackMoon Chronicles, WarHammer mods when they are ready as whole (& WarHammer World history certainly includes many possibilities for scenarios...)

[moderation]

I don't get it, would Poggle play like any other game except with the nation restrictions? It is an interesting idea in any case.

[AlgaeNymph]

moderation said:
Would Poggle play like any other game except with the nation restrictions?

Pretty much. I'd also have the strength of independents set to 1, to represent the whole decline of humanity theme.

[Aezeal]

I'd love to play a MP game on the gangwars map I once made.. it needs to be played so it can be improved.

[cleveland]

Astral Duel
Battle for the Astral Plane

Small map (~10 provinces) with ALL PROVINCES INTERCONNECTED. In other words, every province neighbors every other province, simulating the dimensionless nature of the Astral Plane; thus all armies can effectively "teleport" to any location on the map. Map might be shaped like a decagon. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decagon)

Would make for some very unpredictable (and possibly fun) duels.

Recommend the following special settings
-Starting PD>=50, to discourage immediate capital capture.
-Magic Site Probability=Max, to simulate magical nature of Astral plane; on the same vein, set Magic Research=Easy.
-All Landtypes=Plain, as you are battling for the featureless void.
-Change indy guardians to Ether Warriors lead by an Ether Lord, a la the "Ether Gate" spell.

I've been meaning to make a map/scenario like this for a while, but like all things Dom3, it's taken a back-seat of late.

[Aezeal]

make it so cleve

[Wrana]

-Starting PD>=50, to discourage immediate capital capture.


Well, at least in monkeys' case that would be for no profit. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif
And 10 provinces - do you mean that all provinces are capitals? If so, it would be just rush for whoever could pull it from the start... Not a lot of fun in my opinion. And I don't understand what guardians you mean in such a case.

[cleveland]

Wrana said:
do you mean that all provinces are capitals?




No, it would be designed for only 2 nations to "duel" each other at one time. Sure, it would make a rush ridiculously easy against an unwary opponent, but of course he'd be expecting that...;)


Wrana said:
And I don't understand what guardians you mean in such a case.



Test out the Conj6 spell Ether Gate. It gives you an Ether Lord (an Astral+Death) mage, and a bunch of ethereal troops; their description claims they come from the Astral Plane or some such nonsense, so it would be thematic to have them guard the "provinces."

[Ironhawk]

The Astral Duel makes me recall an idea that QM had a while back. A game of only capitals where all were interconnected. So you would come out of your gates and immediately be fighting massive capital defense and seige battles. Game would only last 12-18 turns I bet.

[Ironhawk]

And if you are just polling for ideas, I ran a game towards the end of the Dom2 era called, unsurprisingly, The Artifact Game. In this game I handed out all the artifacts in the game to each nation at start. It turned out to be really cool to see how each artifact influenced that nation. Also the capture and trading of artifacts was pretty cool.

[moderation]

Ironhawk said:
The Astral Duel makes me recall an idea that QM had a while back. A game of only capitals where all were interconnected. So you would come out of your gates and immediately be fighting massive capital defense and seige battles. Game would only last 12-18 turns I bet.



I like the idea of games that only last 12-18 turns. Might be nice for a blitz... except for the amount of planning each turn might need. Or just a 1-2 week game. The artifact game seems like a fun twist too. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I've been thinking about balanced map designs lately. Here's an typical symmetrical map from Wesnoth that I've been thinking of imitating:

http://forum.wesnoth.org/download/file.php?id=536&sid=4d2cf031eee2d163c5496c20f9d83e 5f

http://forum.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=3483

[K]

Lands of Darkness

Start the game with the Utterdark up at 999 gems, and make every home province have like 300K population. Basically, this is game for summons, SCs, and blood hunting.

[Aezeal]

Ironhawk I think it would last longer since starting armies don't break walls that fast

[Ironhawk]

Only one way to know for sure http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[AlgaeNymph]

Speaking of planescapes, I believe the [url=http://dom3maps.wikidot.com/system:eightgates]Eight Gates[/i] map qualifies as an unusual setting.