The Masterized Game / Evolutive mod concept

[Twan]

Tests have shown that most changes made in a mod during a game take effect immediatly (the known exception being spell moding). So a mod can be used to create worldwide events (changing things like the gold per population or scales effects) or base stats of units / nations during a game.

It's also very simple to create a scenario with a fantom nation (in a province not linked with the rest of the map) that can be used by a game master to be informed (ie the nation can have stealthy 100 spies on all provinces), to recieve money (the gm nation being the bank you pay for things like upgrading your nationals troops), or to organize events like special invasions (using units modded to be able to teleport themselves out of the unreachable province) etc...

Of course, the game mod wouldn't be changed each turn but something like one time per game year (12 trns) or 1/2 real weeks.

The features of a masterized/evolutive mod game may include :
* buying upgrades for your nation each year (better stats, weaponry or new special abilities for national troops, or even making new kind of troops recruitable, changing buildable castle/terrain, changing gem production of your sites, etc...)
* buying infos from the gm spies (or any other info system, ie the gm may spread rumors in a newsletter)
* random or scenarized worldwide events each year (ie like the "week of..." in the HoMM serie there may be a "year of" system, for example in the year of magic the magic scale effects may be doubled)
* neutral factions / special monsters played by the GM and eventually bribable by the players (ie imagine some dragons controlled by the gm nation, raiding random provinces each turn unless the players corrupt them)
* etc... etc...

Of course all this will come with some flaws like... the need of a gm sufficiently competent (and crazy) to organize that, and able to stay neutral, all players having to download/replace a mod on a regular basis (with possible unknown bugs related to mod evolution or players forgeting to upgrade their version), and the possible balance issues related to upgrades (of course the prices system should be well thought). But all in all the incredible potential of masterized games worth to take some risks IMO.

For the moment my idea is just theorical, I'm not planning to host this kind of game in a near future, but the possibilities of Dom 3 in this area just amaze me.
And you... Would you be interested by a game with a GM using a fantom nation and an evolutive mod ? Is there someone here planning to try to organize this kind of game ?

[Agrajag]

Wow, that's a really awesome idea, Twan!
Though personally, the idea of GMing such a game is more appealing to me than playing it

[Maltrease]

I'd definitely be interesting in playing in a game like this!

[Ironhawk]

It sounds like fun, but the pitfalls you list worry me. In particular, what if there is a flaw in a mod upgrade that accidentally boosts a unit far out of proportion of what it should be. And then a player invests thousands of gold in them thinking it is a good deal. But when placed in combat the other players complain, the bug is noticed, and then what? Do you undermine that players gold investment?

[Gandalf Parker]

Ive been leary of mentioning the "change game on the fly" since it adds to the concenr of trusting your host. Its a problem that we had in Dom2. Also, I suspect that use of it, might cause Johan to fix it (Ive personally had problems along that line )

However, it does hold some wonderful possibilities.
Here are some tidbits for you:

A) it is possible for an external program to programmically make changes to the mod during the game. For best results the game should be brought down and rebooted after the change is made.

B) it is possible for an external program to "see" and react to:
1) what turn it is
2) what season it is
3) certain nations failing to upload turn files, or failing to upload a turn for X number of hostings
4) how many nations have dropped out
5) how many are owned by a nation or by all nations:
1a) provinces
2a) forts
3a) income
4a) gem income
5a) research
6a) dominion
7a) army size
8a) victory points
6) all of the above as it applies to Independents to guage the progression of the game. Such as when there are less than 10% provinces held by indepts.
7) largest change in any of the above
8) how many of something has entered the game:
1b) assassins
2b) horrors
3b) global spells
9) certain specific provinces being attacked (when the home of xxxx is attacked then)
10) certain spells being cast (meaning a way to check if a certain research level has been reached, or to know that AI Ermor is now capable of xxxxx)
11) what random events have run
12) specific items gotten from combats
13) overkills (such as a 2000 army killing a 200 army)
14) more than one nation playing with the same serial (one person playing as two and allying with himself?)
15) arena results

Gandalf Parker

[Teraswaerto]

The idea is cool. How well it actually works hinges on the GM, but in theory it could be great. Playing in a game like that would be interesting.

[Twan]

Ironhawk said:
It sounds like fun, but the pitfalls you list worry me. In particular, what if there is a flaw in a mod upgrade that accidentally boosts a unit far out of proportion of what it should be. And then a player invests thousands of gold in them thinking it is a good deal. But when placed in combat the other players complain, the bug is noticed, and then what? Do you undermine that players gold investment?

Logically, if it was an accident to boost an unit more than it should be, making lots of these units is to be seen as some kind of bug exploitation, and the player who has spend his gold trying to exploit a bug has no reason to be refunded.

The problem is more IMO, units profiting more from normal upgrades than others, as some combos of good stats and weapons may be devastating (ie : if you pay the same price for upgrading precision from x to y, no matter what kind of unit you upgrade, nations with arbalests or longbows may become overpowered if they spend most of their gold upgrading their archers ; units with many attacks may gain more benefit of more strength or attack skill, some cavalries may become too good with more defense etc...).

Some minor problems in balance between nations may become far worse with the optimization allowed by upgrades (a big part of the gm work would be to developp good rules and limitations for his upgrade system). But I think this optimization contest may be a very interesting element too.

Ps-Gandalf : as I said I'm not imagining this kind of game with the host being one of the competitors ; he has to be neutral and seen as a gm like in a roleplaying game.

(I also can't understand why Johan would nerf the incredible possibilities his own game has, but as he did this with the maximum number of players, it's of course a possibility. Anyway as evolutive mods work with the current dominions game, it would be possible to host this kind of games with the actual version at least (as it's possible to play with a 79 nations scenario if you avoid the last patch)

[Foodstamp]

Using ideas like this would make it interesting to link two different games together.

Imagine having an external program gather data from a Dominions 3 multiplayer game, and then using that data to affect say a Neverwinter Nights online module (IE changing troops in a zone to match the army that conquered a province in the dominions game etc)

The best part is, the NWN players would not even have to know what dominions is. Bogus the troll would come wtfpwn them in a certain area when that random event triggered in the dominions game. If you could affect the Dominions turns as well, you could have the players of the RPG affect the outcome of turns by capturing key points in the different areas.

[Agrajag]

Wow, Foodstamp, that actually sounds like a cool idea. I'm not that familiar with NWN developement and GMing tools, but I suspect such a project can currently be done manually (it is possible to mod in a nation as a spectator, and the spectator could change the server every time a new turn is hosted to reflect whatever it is that is up. [mind though that modding isn't the only way to do that])

[Gandalf Parker]

A game created from a game (NWN style) could be done by map easier than module. It would be very interesting to have map where the object is to knock out the well established empire of Ermor, and then in game two find yourself as a new nation whose goal it is to take out the one that won game one. So if you won with Ulm in game one you would enter game two facing Ul with the same god, units, setup, provinces, forts, etc.
Hmm well, not easy. But I think it would be esier to do it as map commands than as mod commands IMHO