[PBEM game] Entwined Destiny (Over)

[PashaDawg]

TheBirthdayParty said:
Where can I d/l the theatre of war map and i don't think starting provinces has been mentioned. 1 each? Depending on the map, 3 each might be good?

You can download the map on the Illwinter website (on the map page). http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/maps.html

Pasha

[Boron]

Yvelina said:
All I am trying to do is to make sure everyone realizes that without victory conditions we will play a hoarder's wet dream. Why?

To be a hoarders wet dream the map would need a water province for each nation .

As it is it is more then inept for hoarding especially since you could look up the starting province numbers in the mapfile and then you would know the enemy capitols without scouting and can try a shoot out of the blue with 5 flames or so . Chances for being successful are quite high since most players leave most of their forgers in their capitol .

[Aku]

I agree with Boron. Also if you sit and hoard then you miss out on the central province. The rushers are going to get the middle province that has some cool bonuses to it. I don't see what all this debate is about.

[The Panther]

Boron said:
Flames from afar target HIDDEN scouts also . So hoarding is not secure or anything only if you are underwater .

Boron - Is this really true????? I did not think so. Are you 100% certain about this? Have the developers spoken on this topic? If it is, then I may be more vulnerable in one of my games that I had previously thought.

I still say that hoarding is a good strategy ONLY because clams (and fetishes, but to a lesser extent) are so woefully underpriced. If they had a proper price attached to them, there would be no discussion.

[CUnknown]

There is no diplomacy in this one? Did I hear that right?

How is this going to be enforced?

What is the point? Doesn't it take away from an important part of the game?

Oh, and I think the map seems awfully large.. Is there any chance of playing on a smaller map?

[Aku]

Panther...I asked Boron the same question. He told me that him and Thufir in another game killed off each others hoarders with the flames spells and including their scouts died. So it is tested and confirmed.

CUnknown the map is a good size because we do have 12 people so its 6 teams and this map lets it easily be divided with the start locations. About diplomacy I believe it is being enforced by only the host knowing what players are playing what nation. So if nobody knows what players are on the other nations besides your teammate it is a bit harder to do diplomacy. The in game messages do work but comon that is so slow and usually too hard to organize anything at all and too much a pain to even bother.

[Alneyan]

Diplomacy (or making it harder) was requested some posts ago by Yvelina, and was something I should have brought up earlier. All I can do to enforce it is hide the nations, and regularly check in-game for in-game messages (if nobody minds banning in-game messages). What I cannot do is check emails, private messages and the like, though I am working on an increase of my powers.

Boron, Theater of War comes with preset starting points, so starting provinces will be very well known. If you leave your best mages in the capital without adequate protection, only you can be blamed for that. If we play another map, I can keep the .map file a secret, so the players will not know where the other starting positions are.

I am certainly fine with a vote. Feel free to vote on this thread or in private.
- Map: Theater of War, Inland, Ringworld have been suggested (any other?)
- Victory conditions: Yes or no here. If you would like victory conditions on only some maps (Theater), please say so.
- Diplomacy: Yes or no. I can keep nations secret and make in-game messages forbidden, but I cannot enforce anything else beyond that.
- In the case of Theater: do you want to keep the forts at the chokepoints?

[Aku]

- Map: Theater of War
- Victory conditions: No
- Diplomacy: Doesn't matter to me
- In the case of Theater: do you want to keep the forts at the chokepoints? Keep the forts and the special province in the middle. It adds flavor to the map.

[Boron]

The Panther said:
I still say that hoarding is a good strategy ONLY because clams (and fetishes, but to a lesser extent) are so woefully underpriced. If they had a proper price attached to them, there would be no discussion.

They are not underpriced at all .
20 turns without a dwarfen hammer , 14 with a dwarfen hammer until they reach break even point .

Add to that that they soak up valuable forge slots .
Either 50 clams per turn or equipment for 7 scs / turn .
Not an easy decision also .

Only for water nations they are really good but otherwise there is always the high risk of flames from the sky .

[alexti]

- Map: Any smaller (not huge) map (Inland, Ringworld, or anything with 8-12 provinces per nation)
- Victory conditions: depends on map: the target is to determine the winner by turn 60-70 (to satisfy hoarders we can stop let's say at turn 60 and calculate the score of each alliance, counting their gold and gem income (including from gem generators) and various assets (maybe averaging over few turns). It's a bit of work, but that's just once, not every turn.
- Diplomacy: probably on, mostly because I don't like restrictions which are hard to enforce.
- In the case of Theater: do you want to keep the forts at the chokepoints? I'm for no forts (mostly because they leave the province undefended).

Essentially, I don't want to commit time to do mindless micromanagement and I'll agree on any settings that eliminate it.