playing ANYONE against everyone

[Gandalf Parker]

Meglobob said:
Errm...thinking about it abit more, would'nt the LA nations have a huge advantage at the beginning with better weapons/armour and then in the end game the EA nations should come out on top with there more powerful mages/magic.

That did show up abit in the tests with AI's but Im willing to hear the expert veterans claims that AI's are at best a bare minimum comparison.

Human players might make all the difference. Can a great EA player make it far enough into the game to gain ground? Can a great LA player hold what he gains when the EA nations start gaining in their research?

[Meglobob]

Gandalf Parker said:

That did show up abit in the tests with AI's but Im willing to hear the expert veterans claims that AI's are at best a bare minimum comparison.

Human players might make all the difference. Can a great EA player make it far enough into the game to gain ground? Can a great LA player hold what he gains when the EA nations start gaining in their research?

This MP Gandalf, a player playing a LA nation could try to organise a early game massacre of all the EA nations. Can you imagine that, a huge alliance of LA nations slaughtering every EA nation they come across because they know such nations have a huge advantage later in the game.

EA Arco does'nt look so good now eh...as he could be public enemy no.1, would be good fun thou.

Or am I just ?

[Gandalf Parker]

Actually I was thinking that a lucky position would be EA arcos landing in the corner with LA Ulm sitting in front of him and cutting one super NAP (non-aggression pact for lurkers) "protect me now and I will make it worth your while later". Im thinking that either way, NAPs will have a big impact on a game this big.

[Baalz]

Yeah, diplomacy in general would be important. Don't want to be known as a pact breaker in a game running for 2 years.

[Xietor]

Do most of your mp games have diplomacy? The ones I play with my 3 friends are always everyone for himself. Diplomacy is considered cheating.

[quantum_mechani]

Xietor said:
Do most of your mp games have diplomacy? The ones I play with my 3 friends are always everyone for himself. Diplomacy is considered cheating.

That's the way I prefer to play, but most games/players are otherwise.

[Gandalf Parker]

In a game of purely testing strategy, then there usually isnt diplomacy. There doesnt tend to be diplomacy in chess. Also random events, random maps, any kindof luck really.

In a more role-playing game, diplomacy is part of the role playing. So is taking your lumps with random things. Yes, this is my preferred playing style. Im afraid that I got alot of the random stuff added to the game. Try not to hold that agaisnt me.

Dominions tends to be split. There are those who play their god, and there are those who consider their god just another piece in the game. Since there is no easy way to keep diplomacy out of the game, I think this one will have alot of it.

Side Note: I do have a list of hacks I did to try and create a game with no diplomacy. Blind email accounts all off of my server, watching the log and reporting any msgs between players, etc etc. It still ended up short of absolute but I might host a game like that one day down the road.

[Meglobob]

To quantum_mechani and Baalz:-

Yea, I agree with you both, some EA nations, like the ones you mentioned would be powerful from the start.

I was however, talking about the entire age as a group and generalising about overall strategy not focusing in, on a couple of nations.

[TirAsleen]

Ashen Empire - I can see armed soulless for years.

[HoneyBadger]

I'd absolutely play EA Niefelheim.