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.