Shurrock - MA Team-based PBEM game (Recruiting)

[Alneyan]

I would like to host another team-based game, much like in the spirit of my Dom 2 Entwined Destinies. The recipe is simple: take several teams of two players (even numbers are best) and make them duke it out. In Entwined Destinies, this led to a pretty interesting game with a lot of warring and a creative nation synergy on the part of the winners (namely YellowCactus and CUnknown, as Mictlan and Ulm).

I expect to run the game through Llamaserver, as Llamabeast has kindly accepted to let me be as lazy as humanly possible. I will not take part in the game (for the players in Entwined Destinies, I will also not succomb to the temptation of subbing for players who went AWOL. It was fun alright, and it had little impact on the game, but itjust doesn't hold water when it comes down to hosting policy).

So, if you would be interested in playing in that sort of game, feel free to join in, even if you don't have a teammate yet. A few points about the settings:

For this kind of game, a warparound map with hand-picked starting points seems to work best, so that all teams are no more than a few provinces away from all other teams, and all capitals are evenly spread out. Suggestions for the actual map would be appreciated.

Assignment for the nations will be carried out on a team basis. Each team will pick one nation in order, and the order will be reversed for the other nation. The players should discuss which nations they would like beforehand, though, so that the nation assignment doesn't take too long.

In Entwined Destinies, graphs were off but some information was provided every five turns in a midly obsfucated form. I don't think this process hid much information, but the idea of only getting graphs every few turns could be interesting.

[HJFudge]

I would LOVE to play this game. Anyone wanna be my partner? What age and such?

[Zeldor]

Alneyan:

Partners in teams are neighbours on a map, right?

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

What era are you thinking about- and roughly what size?

I'm interested.

[Alneyan]

- Partners start next to each other, with one province between them to reduce the odds of insta-domkill.

- Size should be around 10 provinces per player, but given the scarcity of warparound maps, it may be difficult to find a map of exactly the right size. We used Inland last time, which was the closest fit in the 'small-medium' department. The much bigger Theater of War had also been suggested with a victory condition of 'hold most provinces in the central isle', to avoid giving birth to a monster game.

I've not seen any new map that could work out for that sort of game, so suggestions are definitely welcome.

- I've not made up my mind regarding eras yet; if someone would like a particular era, speak up and ye shall receive. If nobody has any particular preference, I'll let blind luck pick the era.

- A small fix about the nation assignment: I'll only do four rounds with three teams picking one nation per round to speed up the process (the first team names one nation, the second one two, and the third three).

[llamabeast]

What's this 'Theater of War' map? I've not seen that one. If it's for Dom 2 I understand it would be easy to fix up for Dom 3.

[Alneyan]

llamabeast said:
What's this 'Theater of War' map? I've not seen that one. If it's for Dom 2 I understand it would be easy to fix up for Dom 3.

Yeah, Theater of War is a Dom 2 map, but it works out-of-the-box on Dom 3. it has about 275 provinces and is designed like a clover, with six corners (having each 35 provinces or so) and one central isle with the remaining provinces. Works great for games with six sides and a victory condition.

For reference, Inland is also a Dom 2 map, with warparound and around 130 provinces.

[IndyPendant]

Just a comment, but wouldn't Theatre be a *terrible* map for this sort of game? If the partners started on the same section, only one at a time would be able to access the central continent--accross a narrow path of two consecutive single provinces. If they start on different sections, it negates many of the benefits of having a partner in the first place--early game, at least...

[Alneyan]

Right, it seems I forgot to bring that up about Theatre of War; each team would have to work out a way of securing that link to the mainland (it shouldn't be that difficult, but it could be an annoyance). It was more the sheer size of Theatre of War that allowed Inland to win the ballot last time around, though.

[Zeldor]

Any mods? CB? Worthy Heroes?

But count me in