Allegiances (Team Game, Experimental - PLAYING)

[Micah]

Bidding works by either having the players give up a portion of their design points to get the choice they want or giving some sort of bonus to the people/teams that don't get their first choice (or a combo, I guess).

For example, say we're dueling on a small map, Helheim vs Marverni. I would bid say, 500 design points on Helheim, which means if I get Helheim I'd leave 500 design points unspent when making my god. You can then do either one round or multiple rounds of bidding. If it's one round puts in a bid at the same time, and whoever bids the most "lost" points gets the nation at their specified handicap. If there are multiple rounds each player goes back and forth, nudging up the value until only one person is willing to take the handicap.

Similar situation with bonuses, only in reverse.

Oh, and Abysian blood hunting is easy, since you don't have to make any hard choices...you ALWAYS get a blood mage every turn with MA Aby...cap only sucks, but there's a certain simplicity that comes with it that's nice.

[DrPraetorious]

The bonuses are more properly a "draft" then a bid. Everyone drafts their nation of choice, and anyone forced to take a round X draft pick gets (round X-1) bonuses.

Well, are the following teams balanced?
R'lyeh + Atlantis
Helheim + Tir
Mictlan + Sauromatia
Niefelheim + Caelum
Pangaea + Abysia (but not certain, EA C'tis can be powerful if allowed to fester)
Lanka + (Yomi or Kailasa, not sure)

and... I suspect T'ien Ch'i + Arco would be the strongest pair, but I'm not certain. Ermor's death magic really complements.

Anyhoo, yeah, that's close enough to balanced that, with a draft, it should work out okay.

Let's do the draft *before* I put the map together, so that I know whether to put a pair of water start locations in one of the quadrants.

Also, pick a province total, and a bonus to apply after each round assuming we are doing the draft.

[Thrawn]

Okay, the bidding thing makes sense to me. We can do that, if that's the route we want.

First, we should pick our era. I like EA, personally. If we went EA, and the 2 vs 2 vs 2 vs 2 approach, we could have four teams setup based on Baalz thematic structure above. Since he picked three nations per theme, that would leave each team of to pick one nation each.

The themes were:

DEMONIC: Lanka, Yomi, Kailissa
VANIR: Vanheim, Helhiem, and Tir Og
BARBARIANS: Mictlan, Ulm, Sauromatia
CIVILIZATION: T'ien Ch'i, Arcoscephale, Ermor
HALF-MEN: C'tis, Pangea, Abyssia
UNDERWATER: R'yleh, Oceana, Atlantis
FROZEN: Niefelhiem, Caelum, Marverni

Can we find four of these themes that seem to be a fair mix?

Would MA be more fair?

Once, we get this locked up, we can decide if we want to bid for the themes, or just random roll them.

[Thrawn]

Sorry, DrPraetorious. Must have been open typing while you were. I am open to whatever mix we all agree is fair.

[Micah]

I'd swap out Marverni and Ulm for thematics in Thrawn's list, since Marverni's not at all a cold nation, but they're certainly pagan/barbaric. Ulm as a "frozen" nation is a bit of an overstatement, but they have a scale preference and 50% CR.

I might also swap out Kailasa and Abysia...Aby's got a lot more going on in demon land, and I think monkies are close to half-men, no?

If we're not using all the nations anyhow I like the idea of picking out 2 of the 3 available, since it'll allow for more flexibility.

[Thrawn]

So, rearranging per Micah...

DEMONIC: Lanka, Yomi, Abysia
VANIR: Vanheim, Helhiem, and Tir Og
BARBARIANS: Mictlan, Marverni, Sauromatia
CIVILIZATION: T'ien Ch'i, Arcoscephale, Ermor
HALF-MEN: C'tis, Pangea, Kailasa
UNDERWATER: R'yleh, Oceana, Atlantis
FROZEN: Niefelhiem, Caelum, Ulm

I think Praetorious was saying the T'ien C'hi/Arco/Ermor combo might be too powerful? We have 7 groups, which means we can lose 3, if we feel they are unfair.

[Thrawn]

Praetorious: 220 or 230 province total? That's 55 per team. Sound right?

No idea about the bonus.

[Micah]

It sounded to me like DrP was debating which 2 of the 3 to include as the nation choices, as opposed to saying they would be overpowered in relation to the other teams. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The teams look pretty good to me, although the Half-Men faction might be a bit weak (And I don't think Abysia being back in there would change that). That being said there are 3 spare teams, so no big deal even if I'm right (and I might not be since it's hard to read how this will play out). No one has to play them.

[DrPraetorious]

All I was saying was that I think T'ien Ch'i and Arco are both more powerful than EA Ermor, but not by much. What about Agartha?

I'll start cranking out maps. Do we want water, or no?

On balance:
Nifelheim + Caelum - this looks scaaaary. Caelum raids while Niefelheim punches in the face, and you get excellent magic diversity.
Helheim + Tir - not as powerful as it looks, since the two positions don't contribute that much to one another. Still, raiding bless rushers can coordinate to cause serious hurt.
Lanka + Abysia - Brutal, and covers every path except water quite well.
Pangaea + Kailasa - I hope you like nature. Decent, but not terrifically exciting.
Arco + T'ien Ch'i - If they can survive to take advantage of their great research and gem income, very powerful indeed. But probably will be killed early.
R'lyeh + Atlantis - If their quadrant is mostly water, but there's little or no water elsewhere, should be balanced.

[Folket]

When did we decide on early era?