Forge of Godhood - started

[Calahan]

Many thanks for the 15 hour delay qm. And my hungover head thanks whoever asked for the additional 3 hours as well.

Reading the recent posts reminds me of just why I love no diplomacy games so much.

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Calahan

Reading the recent posts reminds me of just why I love no diplomacy games so much.

Reading the recent posts reminds why I love so much diplomacy games. No diplomacy games are just a variant of singleplayer games, period. Why play multiplayer games if you do not like to discuss with people? With no diplomacy there is no drama, there is no feeling, just pure dullnes

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by Jarkko

...No diplomacy games are just a variant of singleplayer games, period.

Yes absolutely. And zero diplomacy SP games are exactly what I want out of my MP games

Originally Posted by Jarkko

Why play multiplayer games if you do not like to discuss with people?

Dominions is the only game I have ever done (online) multi-player gaming with. Everyone has their own reasons why they start playing MP games, but for me the one and only reason why was that I really loved Dominions 3 as a strategy game, and I just purely wanted to have better AI opposition. As I had played against the AI for 18+ months before playing MP, and I had finally run out of variant ways to handicap myself, or role-play against it. And the only way to get better AI opposition was to turn the AI opponents into human opponents.

I personally have no interest in the diplomacy side of MP games, as I'd prefer my fortunes to be based entirely on my actions and strategy in-game, and not on whether or not I can sweet-talk, bluff, threaten, plead, with my various neighbours. I have every respect for players who like the diplomacy aspect of MP games, and even to some extent envy those who are good at it. But for me diplomacy plays far too big a role in MP games, as it doesn't matter who you are, or how good or bad you are, diplomacy can counter-act everything. It is very common to see players making in-game decisions purely based on which player, and not which nation (or it's actions), they border, or can attack, or feel most threatened by.

I also think diplomacy in this sort of game is un-thematic, as if for no other reason than I can't believe for a moment that the nations would all share a common tongue, so communication between them would surely be difficult. Or that vastly differing nations would instantly get along as neighbours. Because there is no in-game mechanic for diplomacy, this results in there being no restrictions on which nations can team-up together. And of course the overall sticking-point of there can be only one.

In some ways I think diplomacy is the ultimate game balancer in Dominions. But I personally don't like the thought of there being something that is powerful enough to entirely negate a players skill level. And while it rarely happens that skill level is completely negated by diplomacy, even the greatest player(s) on offer would lose very quickly if surrounded by poor players who simply agreed to all attack the good player for no other reason than he/she was a good player. I've seen several well known players post on the issue of getting ganged purely because of who they were, and nothing to do with their nation or actions. And to me that is just wrong. As every player should start every game being completely equal in status (baring which nation they are)

And all of that rambling is why I like RAND games the most

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by Calahan

And all of that rambling is why I like RAND games the most

I pretty much agree completely about diplomacy. That said, I do miss being able to discuss unusual happenings with my opponents in RAND games. For me, probably the perfect game is one that allows communication, but with an honorable group of players who agree to not make any kind of deals with it.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by Calahan

I also think diplomacy in this sort of game is un-thematic, as if for no other reason than I can't believe for a moment that the nations would all share a common tongue, so communication between them would surely be difficult. Or that vastly differing nations would instantly get along as neighbours. Because there is no in-game mechanic for diplomacy, this results in there being no restrictions on which nations can team-up together. And of course the overall sticking-point of there can be only one.

There is in-game diplomacy: Sending messages, gold, gems, items. Also known as tributes.
Nations never needed a common tongue to communicate. They need one tongue both nations can share, lie the old language used for Pantocrator liturgy before the Pantocrator fell. Spaniards managed to make allies in Mexico to fight the Aztecs without knowing the language for instance, so it's not really a problem.
I respect the fact that one may not like the diplomatic aspect of the game, but I think Dominions is a game about becoming the only ruler of the world, and there is not just war to achieve this. There is also dominion push/preaching, for instance, but there's also diplomacy. War is a side effect of diplomacy. In reality, most nations would rather convince their neighbour to give them a territory than enter war to seize it. War is a side effect of diplomacy, and no-diplomacy games are only realistic if there are few exactly 2 or exactly 4 nations: 1 vs 1 is pretty obvious. 4 results in 2 1 vs. 1 fights. If it's 3 vs. 1, one of the three is going to get a bad position and be killed by his former allies if he ends in the middle. In a 3 players game without diplomacy, one player is most likely to lose because of geography (hello Mr InTheMiddle). I think it's worse than losing because of lac of diplomatic skill.