60 Player MegaGame Discussion Thread

[Velusion]

This is an open thread to discuss a 60 player MP TCP/IP game I will likely host in the near future. This is NOT a signup thread, but rather a thread to discuss the best selections/options for the game. The game will include ALL the nations that exist in all of the ages (total as of 3.06 is 60). You will need to use a mod to play this game and it will be based on Gandalf�s Single Age mod (but slightly modified � v2). This mod does not change the basic game play.

There are a couple of game settings that are not open for discussion � and are simply my personal preferences. The settings not open for discussion (unless you want to tell me how awesome my preferences are) :

� The map we will use is here: http://67.66.187.69/dominions3/perpetualitysmall.jpg
� Speed: 24 hours per host for the first 18 turns moving to 48 hours per host after that. Once the game gets into turn 70+ we will up it to 72.
� Victory Conditions: 650 out of 1000 (~65%) provinces controlled, or the surrendering of all other players (the latter is much more likely).
� Graphs: On
� Hall of Fame: Highest possible
� Magic Research: Difficult or Very Difficult
� Magic Site Density: 40 (default middle age setting).
� No other mods� this is because we can�t be sure they will work properly. If this one goes off well I might try and host a CB + WH modded game of this.
� The only real house rule: Arcane Nexus is BANNED. I already thought this spell was overpowered in larger games� but with 60 players I fear there would simply be a rush to put it up as fast as possible. Casting Arcane Nexus gets you put on AI.

Things I want input on:

� What �age� do we want to set this in? This matters as far as the indys that we fight. I think I can easily update the mod to set the game in another age besides early if desired.
� Do we want Magic Research Difficult or Very Difficult? My desire is to make it so at the very end of the game the biggest players have acquired about 60-75% of the available research points. I�m leaning toward Very Difficult, but I�m not sure of the consequences�
� Nation Selection. I normally do random nation assignments because I like to try new nations and I dislike the standard �first poster gets whatever nation they want� method. However I know random nations wouldn�t appeal to everyone. So state how you think they players should pick/assign nations here. Try to think of something fair but not complicated.
� Patch Level. Do we wait for the next patch? I keep hearing it is coming out soon...

Also, I�m not a modder and I don�t really have the time between hosting/playing games to delve into the wonderful world of modding� but�If there is modder (or two) out there who would like to contribute to this huge game (and future games) there are a few things that would be extremely handy:

� New Nation Flags for some of the duplicate era nations (maybe just change the color on 2 of the 3). This could be a separate mod but it would probably be better to integrate it into the Single Age v2 mod.
� Larger Hall of Fame � it would be great if the mod could include a HoF that is 25 in size!
� More Global Spells � it would be great if the mod could give 10 open Global Spell spots. (if anyone can think of reason that would be very bad mention it here).

Remember this isn�t a sign up thread � just give me your thoughts! If there is something I didn't think of or address here, feel free to bring it up.

[Meglobob]

I like EA best for indys.

I would like very difficult research as well, there is a tendency to pass over all the lower level spells, unless your desperate, saving gems for just the high level stuff. Would be fun to use the low level spells for longer. Never played with difficult or very difficult research so no idea as to the long term consequences.

Nation selection, I really think in a mega longterm game like this a player should get a nation they really, really want to play. How about everyone gives a top 5 in order of preference?

Patching causes alot of hassle, especially with new players, also it looks like its going to be a pretty big patch so everyone will be keen to use it. Having the 2 new nations will be fun too. So I say wait for the patch. It will probably take some getting going, a game like this anyway.

Finally, what if the game does not fill up ie... all 60 nations or not taken? Leave them out or have them in as AI?

[DrPraetorious]

Peronally, I like my bidding system; but with a game like this, we'd need alternates - are the alternates stuck with the bids of whomever they replace? I suppose they'd have to be. Also, just managing the bids for 60 players would be quite a headache.

Very hard research is a real problem for certain positions which are heavily magic dependent - Pythium, Marignon, for example. I think a system of bids would help to alleviate this problem, as well as making all 60 nations viable.

The flags are easy from a modding standpoint, but I'm no good at drawring.

The other two options would require diving into the executable, I believe. For one thing, the window isn't big enough to display more than 5 globals, so you'd have to add a scrollbar to the GUI, which I don't think you can do, at least at present - so even if I code-dive I don't think I can change that.

Finally, if you're going to ban Arcane Nexus - I can add a line to disable it in the many-nations mod. Likewise, if we wanted any other mods - I suggest my blessing hotfix, which many nations (LA Ulm for example) rather need to use some of their sacred units. All it does is allow regular bless to affect undead, and it definitely works I've tested it pretty thoroughly.

I should say, given how powerful Arcane Nexus will be, and given only five slots for globals, people will fight over it, and fiercely, so it may not be needful to disable it.

[Velusion]

DrPraetorious said:
Peronally, I like my bidding system; but with a game like this, we'd need alternates - are the alternates stuck with the bids of whomever they replace? I suppose they'd have to be. Also, just managing the bids for 60 players would be quite a headache.

Yea I have my own bidding system I worked on awhile back that I considered... but really I want the setup to be rather simple. I think this game is too big to be trying out bidding on for the first time.

DrPraetorious said:
Very hard research is a real problem for certain positions which are heavily magic dependent - Pythium, Marignon, for example. I think a system of bids would help to alleviate this problem, as well as making all 60 nations viable.

Maybe just difficult then? Any more opinions on this?

DrPraetorious said:
The other two options would require diving into the executable, I believe. For one thing, the window isn't big enough to display more than 5 globals, so you'd have to add a scrollbar to the GUI, which I don't think you can do, at least at present - so even if I code-dive I don't think I can change that.

Ahhh well thats a shame - but not that huge of a deal.

DrPraetorious said:
Finally, if you're going to ban Arcane Nexus - I can add a line to disable it in the many-nations mod. Likewise, if we wanted any other mods - I suggest my blessing hotfix, which many nations (LA Ulm for example) rather need to use some of their sacred units. All it does is allow regular bless to affect undead, and it definitely works I've tested it pretty thoroughly.

I'm not opposed to mods that fix verified known bugs - provided thats all they do. There probably are a number of them.

[DrPraetorious]

The fact is, nations from different eras are not well balanced against eachother, especially at very difficult research.

You could give people larger starting armies, or you could give people big piles of initial money, more than 1 starting province, there are various things you could do but they tend to reward some nations/strategies and punish others (like having an awake SC God.)

I think a bidding system is the only robust solution - everyone is entitled to their own opinion about which nations are over or under-powered, and to vote with their wallet.

Of course, my bidding system isn't well-tested yet. I'm planning to start a bid-based game as soon as the patch comes out.

[Velusion]

DrPraetorious said:
I think a bidding system is the only robust solution - everyone is entitled to their own opinion about which nations are over or under-powered, and to vote with their wallet.

I agree, but I'm not really super-concerned with balance this game (or I would have looked into the CB). I also think that with the more players the more self-balancing (to a certain degree) the game gets. The late game is going to be crazy and unpredictable.

I guess I'm saying that I agree bidding would be a fairer way to distribute nations, but I'm more concerned with starting with little or no hassle. I'd be happy to test your bidding system in a future game though...

[Micah]

No one is going to know how strong a nation will be in this type of situation, so it will be hard to post meaningful bids, especially with the large number of nations available making it hard to be familiar with all of them.

I think putting too much effort into trying to balance something this large/ambitious the first time through is just going to end in frustration. Obviously any glaring holes should be patched up, but a point-by-point bid system isn't going to work outside of giving people the illusion of having control over what they end up with. People who play in this game are going to have to realize that things WILL be unbalanced, and deal with the problem accordingly. Diplomacy will be vital.

As for research - You're going to be stuck either hamstringing research-reliant nations early on or having everything researched very early, and I don't think there's any way to fix that without altering the geometric series equation (so low level things are still easy to research but high levels get really really hard). I think very difficult research would be the best way to keep the late game interesting though, and to me that's more important than early game (if you get blitzed and killed on turn 10 because you can't research the spells you need you've spent maybe 10 hours on the game, total...by turn 50 you've invested a lot more into the game, and since the turns take 2 hours each I'd want them to hold my attention instead of just turning into a phyrric gem-throwing contest.)

[solo]

I concur on suggested mods and EA, and would also like to try very difficult research.

Otherwise I agree with Meglobob to allow players to select nations, and think first come first served is okay, because many nations have similar versions.

If not all nations are taken, I think it's best to leave out the ones not selected. If only 30 or so want to play, we might consider have each player control two nations instead of one!

[Ironhawk]

An ambitious plan. I do think you are headed for some trouble tho just in the sheer number of players involved. It is hard enough to get 18 players on the same page (pretenders uploaded, mods correct, etc). The thought of trying to manage 60 is daunting. Additionally, player turnover will be a problem. As DrP says, you'll need alternates. But with a game of this size I wonder if there are enough players in the community to support a full staff and alternates.

Personally, I think you would be better off trying with just two ages first: maybe early vs. late?

BTW, you cannot mod the size of the HoF or the Global Enchants. We asked for this as a game setting in the beta and it was not accepted by the devs.

[Velusion]

Ironhawk said:
An ambitious plan. I do think you are headed for some trouble tho just in the sheer number of players involved. It is hard enough to get 18 players on the same page (pretenders uploaded, mods correct, etc). The thought of trying to manage 60 is daunting. Additionally, player turnover will be a problem. As DrP says, you'll need alternates. But with a game of this size I wonder if there are enough players in the community to support a full staff and alternates.

Well, while I do think getting 60 might not be possible, all my large MP games fill up in less than 12 hours normally. I'm reasonably confident I can get about 30-40, we'll just have to see if we get more .

I think I've gotten pretty good at managing games, so I'm not concerned about the admin time.

I would require passwords from everyone so we can replace a missing player. I don't normally require alternates because I can usually find replacements for players fairly fast on the forums - worse comes to worse the nation gets put on AI.

I know there are a number of players that dislike including AIs in games (I know I do) but with large a game it's going to happen occasionally.