Preponderance 2 - RAND team game! [few more spots left, join now!!!]

[Zeldor]

Preponderance 1 has finished earlier, due to massive end game madness. Now, with some tweaks, to prevent bad things from happening, 2nd edition is accepting players.

Settings - that time it will be RAND game. That means you don't know who is who [you know who is with who though], no trading allowed, no NAPs, no allainces, no communication at all. You know who was playing a nation once that team is eliminated.

All nations are divided into 2 sets [not decided how exactly, probably strong-weak], you get one nation from each set. Choices will be probably final [or you can switch 1 nation to one of free, but cannot reverse it].

Settings [can be still modified]:
Map: WoG Remake Team Arena [12 teams of 2] with some tweaks
Gold: 150%
Resources: 150%
Magic sites: 55
Research: Difficult
HoF: 15
Mods: latest CBM [1.5] + banned spells + banned uber discount sites [except placed on map] + banned gem-gens [we can add CPCS too, if majority is for it]

Teams:

01. EA Sauromatia - MA Eriu
02. EA Mictlan - MA Agartha
03. EA T'ien Ch'i - EA Kailasa
04. EA Fomoria - LA C'tis
05. EA Abysia - MA Shinuyama
06. EA Vanheim - MA Pangaea
07. EA Helheim - LA Pangaea
08. EA Lanka - LA Ulm
09. MA Ermor - EA Arcoscephale
10. MA Arcoscephale - LA Patala
11. MA Mictlan - EA Yomi
12. MA Vanheim - MA Marignon
13. MA Jotunheim - MA Ulm
14. LA Arcoscephale - MA Caelum
15. LA Mictlan - EA Ulm
16. LA T'ien Ch'i - LA Abysia
17. LA Agartha - LA Pythium
18. LA Midgard - MA Machaka
19. LA Utgard - EA Marverni
20. LA Gath - EA Tir na n'Og
21. LA Marignon - EA Agartha
22. LA Caelum - MA Bandar Log

Priority for signing will have vets and players from Prepo 1.

About the map - please make suggestion on what to fix. Biggest problem is with Troll Kings, so they will be removed [or have their cost upped appropriately, to 500-800 gold per one].

Other map tweaks will include improved guards in caves, bodyguards for important mages, boots of youth where needed, increased population in caves.

Players signed so far:
1. Namad
2. Unoptimized
3. Gregstrom
4. sansanjuan
5. P3D
6. namad
7. Cicadian
8. Alpine Joe
9. Frozen Lama
10. Trumanator
11. DrP
12. Ossa
13. OoohSnap
14. nozshand
15. Zlefin [?]
16.
17. shard [?]
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.

Teams:

1. Frozen Lama + Trumanator
2. Gregstrom + DrP
3. namad + Alpine Joe

[Zeldor]

Also Zlefin may be able to finish his F/W thug mod soon, so we can add it. I guess it will be cool addition? :)

[sansanjuan]

Z,
Interesting. A couple (perhaps stupid) questions.

Is RAND an acronym for something or referring to a random assignment of nations?

If a player signs up there will be a process whereby each player is given (secretly) a (random) strong and his teammate a (random) weak nation to play or vise versa?

Trading between these two player owned nations is ok but not with other player nations.

Unsure of what the Troll King issue could be. Could you elaborate?

I like to try. Any idea when it would start?


-ssj

[namad]

i'll play pending someone i like agreeing to be my teammate (possibly someone i don't yet know)

additionally i'd like to know more about the nation selection process i thought it went reasonably well last time? how will order of selection be determined? lottery?


i guess pm me or irc me if you think i want you to be my teammate... if you are even suspecting it slightly then i probably do and i will probably ask you at some point when i am not afk.....

or is zeldor assigning teams instead of letting us cherry pick?

[archaeolept]

no troll kings. is that even a question? ;p

edit: sansanjuan - RAND means random nations no diplomacy - so you are not allowed to state what nation you are playing, or enter into any communication w/ the other nations for whatever purposes.

[Zeldor]

Yeah, named for famous Pasha's RAND games :)

Nation selection is simple: you get one nation from group A and one from group B. You can change one nation to undistributed ones from same group [you don't know which ones are free and you cannot change back]. You decide with your teammate who plays which nation.

You can [should] pick your teammate. You can talk with him about everything, you just cannot say what nation you are. And you just cannot communicate with other nations/players. So you are on your own, no trades or alliances.

And yep, Troll Kings will be removed. I may add something else there, considerably weaker though. Maybe smth from Endo's mod site pack [which I will probably include too].

[Executor]

Preponderance 2, so soon?
What the hell happened?

I really disliked the map in this game, led to a 3 vs 1 in the first 15 turns...

[Gregstrom]

I think I'd like to play in this. I'd vote for CPCS, and Endo's Site Mod, and possibly even Mytheology to be included.

[TheDemon]

So you can talk to your teammate, but you can't tell him who you are? Won't he figure out right quick in the course of normal discussion? Or is it you can talk to your teammate about anything, but you cannot talk to anyone else about anything?

[Gregstrom]

You decide with your teammate who plays which nation.

You can talk with him about everything, you just cannot say what nation you are.

I spot a contradiction :D

[Zeldor]

Huh, bad interpunction. You cannot tell anyone else who you are :P Omit the coma and just and it makes sense :D

[TheDemon]

The weak/strong division seems a bit arbitrary to me. For example, both Marignons are certainly not weak, and there isn't much that makes LA Caelum stronger than MA Caelum; LA gets a little death, but can't cast storm reliably or forge air boosters (I would call both weak, even if they did do well last Prepo). MA Mictlan is another that I'm not sure about.

[namad]

ah i see so everyone gets a random nation and doesnt know which nations are unchosen? but you may choose to "reroll" once? and get another random nation? how about more than once? how about we debate things a little and totally remove from teh game several nations?...

how about we choose as many nations as players as there are to be played? then just randomize those? and use no undistributed?

i do agree a lot of those nations are awful and wouldn't be fair to distribute theres gotta be a way to narrow down the list some? should people begin proposing a couple nations to just totally throw out?


i'd personally like to see 8-15nations just totally thrown out chosen in some diplomatic way?

[Zeldor]

I had to draw line somewhere. There were some nations in between that could be put in both groups. I think that LA Caelum mages get way better combinations of spells. I'd say they are maybe 0.5 point better than MA Caelum.

[Zeldor]

namad:

Yep, you can propose some nations to be not included. I think it should be 5-8 at most though. Only few of them are really hopeless, especially in team game.

And rerolling once [1 of 2 nations] seems fair, especially if we remove some nations totally.

[chrispedersen]

Has anything been done to fix the WotG income/ resources imbalance: aka outside (cave provinces) have no income/population/resources compared to inside provinces.. *and* its exacerbated by the number (few)of sites with multiple neighbors?

[P3D]

Interested. Sign me up.

[Zeldor]

chrispedersen:

Cave provs will get set amount of population. Much higher than standard cave provs. 5k for small provs, 10-15k for entrance, linkers, 25-30k for gateways.

[chrispedersen]

Well thats cool.. but how will they compare to standard provinces?

considering that standard provinces have 3-6 neighbors and many caves have 1-2... I think you need to make some sort of assumption as is done for seas. either they represent huge cavern systems with concomitant income etc. Or perhaps just each cave system should have a lot of resources (raw minerals et).

Although interestingly, caves act like dominion propagation wave guides.. blasting out the entrances of the caves.

[sansanjuan]

So items, gems and money can be traded with your partner but no one else. Intriguing..

Has anyone written on dual nations regarding early/mid/late game synergies, forger/SC synergies, etc?

-ssj

ps sign me up

[Alpine Joe]

I'd also like to sign up, if there is a spot available, although I will of course defer to veterans. I don't have a teammate, so if someone wants to be paired with me, send me a PM!

[TheDemon]

So items, gems and money can be traded with your partner but no one else. Intriguing..

Has anyone written on dual nations regarding early/mid/late game synergies, forger/SC synergies, etc?

-ssj

ps sign me up

Not sure how applicable that would be since your nations are randomly picked. In an ideal world you would be able to cover most paths and forge all the right boosters and useful items.

[Zeldor]

You still have 2 pretenders to design and put magic paths on. And you can reroll one nation, if it's really bad and you want to take the risk.

[Executor]

In prep 1, a player could sub for his own teammate for a while, will this be the case here?

[Zeldor]

Yep.

[PsiSoldier]

Alright I'm back in for this one.. I'm really hoping to see this one through to the end one way or another.

[Zeldor]

谋事在人，成事在天。

[namad]

why not just say "more people" ?

[Cicadian]

I'd like in on this. I don't have a partner lined up but I'm sure I can persuade some poor fool.

[GrudgeBringer]

What if you wanted to sign up for a weak nation that you could pick and have your stronger partner get you by random draw?

I think I can do better with some weaker nations than I could possibly do with the stronger ones (I know I know:doh:)

LOL, like you need more to mess with, just thought I would ask.:up:

[Zeldor]

As I said - it's your job to find the teammate and divide nations later. I really prefer whole teams to join than single people. So please organise yourself into teams :)

I am signing only people that directly write that they want in.

[namad]

one of the biggest aspects of a team game is team nation chemistry... we will be totally removing that...

why not just preselect 15-20 nation pairs... and then rand off those?


in a rand game the nations are randed.. that would be analogous to rand'ing a team.... randing nations that make up the team would be like randing nations and also randing their pretenders or something


the main point of rand is you don't get to pick your team and you don't communicate with anyone at all or even know who anyone is.


having odd team combinations isn't really in that spirit?

no one will have "picked" their team if we just diplomatically organize the nations into teamunits before randomizing their assignments


also if odd teams are what you are looking for on purpose thats cool too... but if it's not maybe we could find a solution (additionally if we just choose a set of reasonable/fair teams and then rand them there will be no need for rerolls? rerolls aren't especially RANDish anyways)

[sansanjuan]

So items, gems and money can be traded with your partner but no one else. Intriguing..

Has anyone written on dual nations regarding early/mid/late game synergies, forger/SC synergies, etc?

-ssj

ps sign me up

Not sure how applicable that would be since your nations are randomly picked. In an ideal world you would be able to cover most paths and forge all the right boosters and useful items.


Like Z said I was thinking along the lines of one nation (regardless) setting up for early strength (bless rush?) and the other mid/end game. One the forger/SC side one guy could completely forgo construction with the other being the item maker. Of course the one would miss out on golems, etc.

I wonder if some have tried to create "charmable chassis" for allies (e.g. thug with no MR items set in front line to retreat against charming cadre from allies nations). Nice if trading troops or seamless allies would be a feature in team games.

-ssj

PS Zel- how close would teams start to each each other?

[namad]

the map has fixed team start locations...

they start close to eachother and sealed in a little box surrounded by super indies like strength 87 customly added...

this may have changed in any degree

[Frozen Lama]

Well we're not vets, but me and Trumanator will sign up as a team.

p.s. i really like the concept of this game, it forces people to work as a team with nations not meant to team up so they have to actually think outside of the box.

[Zeldor]

namad:

What we have should be like it is. That's the idea. Different approach to team game. And we can remove some nations from weak list, so you don't end up with LA Mari + Ma Man.

Everyone should take a look at WoG Team Arena map. Start a game on it and see where people start, but make sure not to select any water nations [so no randoms], just pick 24 land nations.

P.S. I really hope no one gets Fomoria, LA Marignon or LA Atlantis, or I will have to work around it again...

And as in PRepo1, team can choose who starts near caves and who near plains.

[P3D]

What about banning Tartarians, like in your proposed mod? So nations that did not get Chalice/GoH won't be in that disadvantage. Alternative SCs would be limited due to eliminating Stones and Clams anyways.

[Gregstrom]

Looks like you can put Dr.P down with me again. We hope not to be summarily exterminated this time.

[Trumanator]

I vote for CPCS.

[Zeldor]

Ok, updating player list.

P3D:
Tartarians will stay for now, I will do smth about them when llamabeast releases his thug mod.

Gregstrom:
Tell him not to overexpand :) And Micah+QM rather won't play that time, so you have good chances.

[P3D]

Second suggestion.
Mod the middle and late era sites so that everyone would get at least 6 gems at start. Actually, I might do that myself...

[Ossa]

I'd like to join in;)

[Lingchih]

This game looks way under-recruited for it's size. I would suggest scaling it down.

[Burnsaber]

I'll join if the game is scaled down a bit. Huge games have the problem of being a lose-lose situation. if you get eliminated early, it sucks. If you survive to the turn 50+ with over 8 players still standing, that sucks too because of the micro. (althought the clam-ban will help, I admit.)

I also believe that it would be better to set like 25 nation-pairings and randomizing those. Simplicity for the win.

[namad]

hard to have any fewer players on this map since the map is so huge....

????

[Zeldor]

There are exactly 24 spots on the map, that map cannot go with less. It's either 24 or 12 players :)

And give it some time, we will get enough people.

[Zapmeister]

Sign up Zapmeister and Bluff as a team, please.

[PsiSoldier]

Ok count me out, If you want to alienate one of the only people to happily play the first Preponderance through to the end fine. I'm guessing this game will pretty much have the same fate anyways and be a big ****ing disaster regardless.

[Zeldor]

If you want to present attitude like that it's probably better if you don't join.

That game is different, name is mostly because of same map being used. If you don't like it, you don't have to stay. I thought that you'd want to show people that you can acchieve smth here and you'd want to play for the win. Anyway, Prepo is over and it should have been over, continuing it would be painful and counterproductive.

[Zapmeister]

Sorry about this - please withdraw the Zapmeister/Bluff team from the signups.

[DrPraetorious]

I'm not in any hurry, but if it takes too long to fill up, people are going to join other games and not have enough time for this one.

On nation selection:
I suggest that EA Tir and EA Yomi be moved to the "strong" list. The strong list now has 24 nations on it. EA Tir and EA Yomi aren't the most devastating positions, but combined with many of the strong nations they'd be insane.

Rather than a re-roll, give each team 2 "strong" nations and 2 "weak" nations - you can pick one of each (or both weak, if you wish.)

Finally, there's no mention of victory conditions - I suggest 1 VP per capital, with victory accumulation, and the team with 50 accumulated victory points between them gets the victory. Llamabeast has scripts which do numerical conversion of the score graphs, which we should use.

[Zeldor]

There are 26 VPs on the map [24 from caps]. I was thinking about 8-10 VPs required to win. With accumulated - why you'd want any script? We can add 2 numbers easily :)

And yeah, I have to PM some people that could join. There are few peopel that want to join, btu didn't get teammates yet, so I didn't put them on the list.

[OoohSnap]

Been a while since I've been in a Team game,

I'd like to sign up sir

[namad]

combined accumulation of 50... 1per capital...

that means on turn 25 if there have been no wars that ended ... the game ends in a 12way draw?


or did you mean that your own capital was worth 0? if that was the case then .....losing your own capital would have no penalty in terms of VP? (which it probably should)

of course if zeldor doesn't want to go with vp accumulation this doesn't matter... but if he does... the limit needs to be raised

(as a game that cannot possibly ever last longer than 25turns is probably too short)

[Zeldor]

VPs in cumulated VP condition are added every year at mid-summer month. So ~300 turns with 2 caps controlled [25x12]. So at least 80-100 if you conquer few more VPs.

[namad]

ohhhhh maybe lower it then ;)

[DrPraetorious]

@ adding two numbers together:
Do the score graphs display things graphically instead of numerically? The llamaserver thing definitely displays it numerically, and in easy-to-read format.

@ number of accumulated VP required:
Fine, it could be 30. Point is, there are 24 on the entire map, so holding half the map should make you win in about 2 years.

[nozshand]

sign me up plz, do i need to bring a partner?

[Zeldor]

Either bring one or get one from here.

DrP:

I think we will stay with normal VPs, 1x at caps, 2 at central island. How many should we choose though? 8-10 range, I think.

[namad]

looks like i'll be teaming with lidjis AKA alpine something or other


will scoregraphs be on in this game?

[Zeldor]

Ok, we need few more people and we can get teams assigned. I think I will go with prerolled teams, as some people are afraid of it. You will still have a chance to reroll one of the nations.

[Zeldor]

Teams have been rolled. That nations that are not there won't be used. When we have all teams I will distribute nations. You then have 24h to request a reroll on one of the nations. You will get one from the teams that were not distributed. And you won't know about final teams and nations in the game until all picks are final. At least you know you can't get any of the nations that are not on the list.

P.S. I have madmay avoid rolling Fomoria and LA Marignon teams due to coastal flag their caps have.

[OoohSnap]

P3D + OoohSnap are now teamed up

[PsiSoldier]

If you want to present attitude like that it's probably better if you don't join.

That game is different, name is mostly because of same map being used. If you don't like it, you don't have to stay. I thought that you'd want to show people that you can acchieve smth here and you'd want to play for the win. Anyway, Prepo is over and it should have been over, continuing it would be painful and counterproductive.

Well with you going for the VP Accumulation like you are I would change my opinion and say that this game will probably not be a disaster and may actually go fairly well.

Not that I want back in on the game because I dont since I still dont care for some of the other game options but at least I think this game has a much better chance of actually working now.

It is a cool map and I really do like it, you did a good job making it but Its just really not the best map for a team game still which I think hurts it. But like I said I was having fun with the first game until everyone else started crying that they were not. (But then I didnt have a team anymore either lol)

[DrPraetorious]

PsiSoldier - thanks for the vote of support, but I'm not administering the game, so it looks like VP accumulation will *not* be used :).

[PsiSoldier]

Oh... Well I have never been a fan of VP accumulation, I really dont like it, but in this case on this particular map I think it might be the best option.

[Septimius Severus]

Yes, Zeldor has put together a fine game here. Let us give him thanks. And while we are thanking him, let us head on over and check out Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43195).

We are recruiting now! If you only join one Dom3 game this year (aside from Zeldor's:)), make it Noobs vs. Vets III.

Not quite a Noob? Don't have enough experience yet to call yerself a Vet? Currently overcommited but with a little spare time? No problem. Join as an alternate on the side you most identify with.

Join now. Your satisfaction is guaranteed or your money back!

Join the Revolution.

(Shamelessly posted with permission of the admin)

[Zeldor]

Come on, we need some more people! If everyone that signed here without a teammate looked for one outside the topic we'd be full and ready to go.

[sansanjuan]

Z,
Alas, fun as this looks I must withdraw my name. Looks like starting a big game will not be possible for me until later this summer/fall. Once you herd these cats and get the game going I will enjoy reading the AARs.

Lurkers...
The other team game I played this year was one of the best Dom3 experiences ever. If you haven't tried one yet give this one a ride.
-ssj

[Frozen Lama]

Zeldor,

I'm actually really excited for this game to start, but obviously we have a problem. are you just going to try again in a month or so, or can we maybe just use a smaller map?

[Zeldor]

There is really not a big choice of team maps [I think mine is the only one with teams in mind]. And that wouldn't be Preponderance then. I think we will try again in some time. We are still 8 players behind and probably those that signed forgot about it already. I will maybe start another different game now, with mods meant to be used here. And maybe when summer comes people will want to play team games again :)

[militarist]

!!!