Forbidden Magic: Darkness and Light!

[Ironhawk]

Im surprised you are putting Astral in the hands of Evil, rather than Good. After all, astral has a load of spells which are anti-undead: Solar Brilliance being the epitome of that class. Additionally, with the major exception of Ryleh, most astral heavy nations in the game (pyth, mari) are considered "holy", thematically.

IMO, the paths would break down like this:
Good: Nature, Astral
Bad: Death, Blood
Nuetral: Fire, Water, Air, Earth

[moderation]

@sum1lost: Well "evil" is just a placeholder for the bad guys right now, and is probably too loaded a term. Anyway, the rough story if you re-read the original post is that the Forces of Darkness (tm) are screwing everything with their dark magic that is unleashing horrors and messing up space-time, etc. which is bad for the other pretender gods. Therefore, the Forces of Light (tm) have banded together to put a stop to this, so yes, it would be unthematic for them to send horrors to enemy provinces since it would further mess up space-time, etc.

However, it's perfect okay for them to chop up the Forces of Darkness (tm) into little bits or burn them or whatever since this fulfills the greater goal of getting rid of the bad guys. So maybe it's an uneasy alliance for the good guys as well, or maybe everyone lives happily ever after if the Forces of Darkness (tm) are defeated. I'll admit it's not Tolkien, but hey at least it is a story-line.

@Foodstamp and Hoplosternum:Originally I thought about limiting the magical diversity of Darkness because they're already so powerful with Astral, Blood and Death. However, Abysia's Fire and Blood theme does work pretty well with the whole satanic, hell-fire, devil-summoning theme. So maybe a combination of limiting pretender magic paths and nation choices will provide and simple and enforceable solution. If Light happens to find indie Amazon who will "convert" and help out by casting Dust to Dust, then so much the better.

So here's a lineup of possible Villians:
Abysia: Hellfire and Blood!
Ermor: Undead Legions
R'yleh: Mind enslavers and void gate openers.

And Heros:
Pythium
Caelum
Arcoscephale
Ulm
Man
Mictlan, MA

Actually, I'm finding it more difficult to come up with reasons why the good guys are really good. I think it is partly just the way the game is designed that no one is really "good" and all nations want to come out on top. But of course we can try to use nations which fit our general sense of goodness and order, as long as pretender choices like the Prince of Death are avoided for the good guys.

Another idea: Maybe a grudge match between Kailasa and Lanka. However it might need a bit of handicapping. Likewise with Pythium and Ermor.

"Astral could be used by both, but have a list of prohibated spells for the good guys - no Enslaves, Soul Slay (& therefore Mind Hunt), Soul Drain, Unravelling, Doom, Horror Mark, Abominations etc." Yes, I agree with this for thematic reasons if the bad guys are responsible for all the horrors.

Note, Darkness and Light could be changed to Chaos and Order. Chaos and the whole horror summoning, ruining the world theme works well together, but figuring out who is order will be harder. Of course, Light is also a rather murky concept.

Finally, I want to emphasize this isn't a finished idea by any means. I think what would be ideal would be an epic Lord of the Rings style war, but of course, we'd probably need some more mod nations.

[AlgaeNymph]

moderation said:
Darkness and Light could be changed to Chaos and Order.

If we base that on the scales a nation most benefits from, we could end up with...peculiar...alliances, say Ulm & R'lyeh vs. Ermor & Pangaea.

[llamabeast]

I had the idea of organising a "Last Stand of Humanity" game some time, though I never got round to it. It would be something like Man, Ulm, Marignon, Pythium, T'ien Ch'i vs monstrous nations - Abysia, Jotunheim, Pangaea, Shinuyama etc. I was thinking of having all the human nations start in the middle of the map, with all the monsters around the edge, closing in on them.

[Hoplosternum]

Well I am very interested however you split the teams. I would suggest you keep the player numbers small - even if the game map is slightly larger if you want a long game - you want to get to tartarians & abominations for the theme surely?

This is because with only two sides you want all players to have a front line. It won't be much fun for the player who is surrounded only be his own side and just ends up as a gem & magic item factory! And rememeber that even if you place people next to enemies some people spread quicker and if a weak enemy goes down some players may find themselves cut off from the enemy. Swapping provinces is fine for access if its just the odd territory but will hardly work if huge chunks of territory need swapping for access.

I would think 4v4 is probably about the maximum you would want or you risk people being cut off early and often? You could always have multiple games if the demand is there. Then you can have a Life v Death struggle, a Order v Chaos struggle, a Good v Evil struggle etc.

[llamabeast]

Here's an idea for player layout to maximise contact with the enemy. First of all, choose a wraparound map. Then put the players on like this:

O X O X
X O X O

That way everyone has 4 enemies as neighbours.

Unfortunately it only works with 4, 8, 16 etc players, but a fudge with some intermediate number of players should be possible.

[Ylvali]

I love the idea and would very much like to be involved.

[Tuidjy]

Interesting idea, but I do not think that most magics are inherently good or
evil. For example, Pythium is definitely a holy, good nation, despite having
strong astral, and Abysia is an evil nation despite having elemental fire.

I think you are better off just choosing an era (for example MA) and a theme for
the fight, for example [RACIST HUMANS] vs [DEMONWORSHIPPERS] vs [NON-HUMANS]:

[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon17.gif[/img] organized, lawful, good to their people, but hate non-humans
Pythium, Marignon, Mictlan, Arco, Ulm, etc...

think humans are cattle and use them as such:
R'lyeh, Abysia, Pangea, Vanheim, Jotunheim, etc...

[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon27.gif[/img] want to subjuggate humans, but abhor demons and blood sacrifice
C'tis, Shinuyama, Eriu, Bandar Log, Caelum, etc...

They should start at war... write some history why it is so, and why no peace is
possible. Allow trash talking on the forums... and make damn sure that players
understand that they are supposed to HATE, HATE, HATE the enemy, and while it is
OK to gang up on the current leader, backstabbing the third party for immediate
advantage is righteous and encouraged.

Use a random map with about 20 provinces per player. Yes, that is big, but
remember, the win condition is one faction remaining, not one pretender.
Let people start randomly, and the in-faction communication and planning
will be a great advantage.

Or alternatively, make a custom, wrap-around map, and have each faction starting
together, but in possible contact with other factions. It's tricky, but far
from impossible.

By the way, I think that if this game ever happens, you better make sure the
teams are right from the very beginning.

[otthegreat]

Since there is so much interest in thematic games, I also suggest multiple games. Maybe tie them together as wars across plains/dimensions in the same universe. That way the 'good" team in one game would be cheering on their counterparts in another game and vice versa.

Also, perhaps Sauromatia as an evil/dark nation?

[moderation]

@DryaUnda: Yeah those alliances would be really strange...

@llamabeast: Actually I think your idea is really good since it ties together thematically a lot better. I started off on the Good vs Evil track because I had this huge Lord of The Rings campaign in mind, but I think it would require a more complete set of modded nations. It just feels weird with the Dom 3 nations because no one is really that "good".

However I'm wondering if the O X O X setup would be a good idea since it would give each team an incentive to gang up on one or two players and eliminate them quickly. I sort of like the idea of having a "common front" for each team, with some territory swapping between teams as necessary if someone gets cut off from the front. But of course since there is so much interest we can experiment with multiple setups to see how they work.

@Tuidjy & otthegreat & Hoplosternum: The common theme here seems to be humans vs the non-humans of various varieties. I think hosting a number of smaller parallel games is probably a good idea.

I'm not sure the game mechanics are available for one victorious army to make a gateway into make a gateway into another game, but this is a pretty cool idea. It would almost be like a strategic MMO, without the shortcomings of MMOs.

Does anyone have suggestions on good 4v4 maps that we could get started with? I'm going to look through my folder of downloaded maps and see if I can find the one that I had in mind.