First inkling that you�ve won/lost an MP Game?

[Rathar]

You have done a pretty good job of that in Priori Velusion I shall have to say!

Pesky bugger.. Down to 2-3 provinces a few times and wipes out a key army to set me back 3-4 turns! Gotta love it imho!

I personally have not played many MP games and have won 2, gotten second in one (one more turn!!), lost horribly but fought a turns unending battle for my capitol and went AI in a recent one when I was reduced to 3 provinces which recruited jack and crap with the two biggest players at war with me. Give me a 5% chance of prevailing even minorly and I shall stay or even less % if I feel slighted. (surprise attacks etc)

[B0rsuk]

Always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them as much.
- Oscar Wilde

[Ylvali]

Kristoffer O said:
> I play to have a good time, mostly. Winning is an unlikely bonus. Surviving to the endgame is fun.

I agree with Gregstrom, except I prefer to die before endgame.

I like local politics and petty wars. In a game I (or my pretender alter ego) would be surprised and annoyed if another nation expected me to attack some kind of mighty far away nation. My war is my fun. A good dominions game are several games in one. Some of these might culminate to a greater epic, but I don't mind a mosaic of politics and lesser goals.

But I believe I'm more of a roleplayer than a cometitive player. Not that I don't like competition, but I prefer it on a regional level, in a global setting so to speak.

That is my perspective too. The fun of MP is in the roleplaying. Building relations. Making sneaky little plans. posting funny stories at the forum. Etc. Etc.

I find that I am much more loyal to a game where I took my time to build a personality and roleplay my pretender, especially if other player are feeling the same way. Primea is a good example.

[Agema]

According to the game, whoever doesn't win, loses.

But some people may prefer to go away with the thought "I was second" because they were they were the last player to be defeated, or may even think "I allied with X for him to win therefore I was part of a team victory".

Not stopping large and dangerous opponents is also actually realistic: the rise of Nazi Germany; the Celts not uniting to resist Caesar until he'd already pacified most of Gaul; the crusaders sacking Constantinople with the Turks approaching the gates of Europe.

I think it's true that there's a sense people want to take down a bitter opponent. There's a sense of victory in overcoming a local opponent, even if you can't overwhelm the big guy who comes after.

[Gregstrom]

Or, in a nutshell, players are free to set their own limited victory conditions :-)

[Aezeal]

hmm once I know I'm not competing anymore I'm setting a new goal (which will always be: eliminating the one who made me not reach nr 1... to bad that USUALLY is the one who will be winning so that makes me just die faster (which is nice then I can start a new game without really abandoning the other.))

[DonCorazon]

ano said:
Air dome is quite easy to dispel with the simplest spell "Voice of Apsu". At an average of 10 water gems you should dispel it. That's why air dome may but shouldn't be used alone. It needs to be backed up by astral or (maybe even better) fire or frost dome.

Are you saying one casting of Apsu will dispel an Air Dome? Damn, if only I had read this a few days ago. To avoid an air dome protecting a VP province, I tried teleporting to an adjacent province and accidentally ran into another huge army that was intending to take the same VP - mutual obliteration was the result. I am sure the guy in the air dome province loved watching his enemies self-destruct outside his walls! And meanwhile I am sitting on a lot of water gems just looking for things to use them for...

[Valandil]

Not quite. On average, five voices will take out the air dome. Of course, it could take 1, or 10, or 100...

[DonCorazon]

Got it - he was just using Apsu b/c it is so cheap. Thanks.

[vfb]

"Cheap" is the word. I think this is a pretty cheezy tactic, I wouldn't do it. I suspect there's a lot of people who'd disagree with me though.