A twist on an old idea

[PvK]

Hmm. What about forming a different kind of "pantheon" to _defeat_ the overpowering player, rather than only being able join the biggest bully?

PvK

[Ygorl]

Yes... What fun is it to muck around doing little pathetic things, in the service of making a likely victor even stronger? Much more fun to join forces to bring that likely victor down!

[johan osterman]

Ygorl said:
Yes... What fun is it to muck around doing little pathetic things, in the service of making a likely victor even stronger? Much more fun to join forces to bring that likely victor down!

Well, as the idea stood the intention wasn't that there would be anything stopping you from allying yourself with a player of equivalent power, just explicitly making all players but one in an alliance as lesser partners. And in the case of allied victory making the head of the pantheon the primary winner, with his supporting cast just getting some sort of runner up mention. Ideally there would also be some problems dissolving an alliance once agreed upon. Also the options to pool resources that allready exist would still have been present, nothing stopping you from coordinating attacks etc.

[Fate]

I think that it might be interesting to have an almost "barter"-esque table. Where I could maybe rent out units like mercenaries (appears in a buyer's province and reutrns to me after 3 months or some such). Agreements on moving through each other's terrain, mutual attacking, maybe even allowing my opponent to take resources from my provinces w/ a fort. Or gem donation, item donation, and gold donation. I think that that would cover most all the possibilities. And maybe if I give away some armies and am conquered before their return they become real mercenaries.

I know that this is probably too much and a small thing compared to others, but it would be sorta nice.

[magnate]

I think the important gameplay issue to solve is allowing two allied armies to fight an enemy army *together*. I don't particularly mind whether you have a straightforward MoO-type diplomacy system or some kind of vassalage/pantheon system, but the whole point of being able to work together is to defeat people you couldn't defeat on your own. Sequential attacks on a powerful enemy are a lot less effective than attacking together. In fact now I come to think of it why limit the design to two allied armies ... a certain famous Middle Earth battle comes to mind ...