MP: Noobs vs. Vets III: Revolution, MA, CBM. Game Over. Noobs Triumph!

[atul]

Much of the early start was due to EA having stronger national troops and weaker indies. Wouldn't think MA had similar problem.

And 50k capitals are insane. Noobs already get double income thanks to their numbers, that advantage would give them quadruple the money. Just organize better and it's going to be a close fight.

[Calahan]

Just another outsiders comment but doesn't enhancing the noob start locations go against part of the idea of this game?

My understanding is that this game series is between a team of new players against a team of vets, with the noobs obviously hoping to pull off a surprise against their esteemed opponents. But above all else, isn't the idea of this game to help the noobs learn how to compete better in MP games? Either from their own endeavours, or from picking stuff up from the vets. If that is the main aim though, then giving the noobs handouts at the start to compensate their poor expansion technique is defeating the point of the exercise.

Being able to expand well against the Indys is a key part to all MP games, and if you don't learn how to do this properly, then you don't compete in MP games full stop. So IMO there's no point skipping around the issue by plying the noobs with large sacks of gold, since they can't expect to ever have that advantage in any other MP games. So while it may help them in the here and now, it will probably do more harm than good for the noob player overall, since the noobs in question will still keep using bad expansion technique in future games, instead of encouraging them to learn a better technique right now. I think the same also goes for lowering Indy strength.

My two pennies worth, for what it's worth, is that you should keep Indys on at least 5, and the noobs just have to learn to expand better. Since if that is the main problem, then it's best to tackle it head-on rather than trying to compensate for it. And again if my understanding is correct, if the noobs do learn how to expand better because of this game, then it can already be considered a success regardless of the end result

[Ironhawk]

Originally Posted by Septimius Severus

It is either that or setting Indy strength = 0 or 1. Aside from the noobs getting smart all of a sudden, those are the only two measures I can think of to address this expansion gap. Choose your poison.

Sept, seriously, you need to let go of your expansion gap fixation. I just finished reading the noob forums from 2 and its clear that you considered the game practically over by turn 10 just from looking at our expansion. Thats just crazy! You are overlooking the fact that on a *team basis* the noobs and vets were 1:1 for lands in that game. And I can tell you quite honestly that if noob organization and tactics had been just slightly better the game could have gone quite differently.

[rdonj]

Personally I would just use the same settings as the last game except without the NAP, and changing the vets get to pick all their nations first rule. I guess some of the vets later decided the NAP did help the noobs out, but I'm not completely sure about that.

I think the noobs did do pretty well in the last game. I don't think they need as big a boost as 50,000 population in the capitol to be competetive, definitely. If you want to give a small boost to expansion ability, maybe set indies one lower than normal. Much more than that is probably not necessary, and would most certainly taint any noob victory that came from it. If you really want the theme of large armies you can still go with 125-150% gold and resources, but you should probably stay awsay from team-specific advantages to prevent it from looking biased.

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Ironhawk

Sept, seriously, you need to let go of your expansion gap fixation. I just finished reading the noob forums from 2 and its clear that you considered the game practically over by turn 10 just from looking at our expansion. Thats just crazy! You are overlooking the fact that on a *team basis* the noobs and vets were 1:1 for lands in that game. And I can tell you quite honestly that if noob organization and tactics had been just slightly better the game could have gone quite differently.

Especially if things had gone slightly better in sauromatia. Hopefully after having been able to look at the vets forum for this game the next noob team will better understand what they need to do to be competetive.

[LumenPlacidum]

I'm all for going with the same settings in this as in NvV2. The expansion really is something we have to learn. Actually just by following Calahan's comments and testing, I realized that I've been using about 10x too many troops to expand with some of my better nations. If we just accept it as something we need to practice then we will and we'll be better at it next time. So much better to fix a problem within the framework of a system of rules rather than changing the rules.

[TheDemon]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Personally I would just use the same settings as the last game except without the NAP, and changing the vets get to pick all their nations first rule. I guess some of the vets later decided the NAP did help the noobs out, but I'm not completely sure about that.

Its not so much as the NAP helped the noobs rather than it didn't really affect either team. We far enough seperated from the other team that, while we might have skirmished and you guys might have raided, we weren't ready to start full-scale offensives until turn 11.

I think the NAP helped the vets more, had you been allowed to raid us it would have helped stem our team prov advantage. I just think it was overall it was pretty pointless.

[atul]

Probably one of the biggest effect of the NAP was that I was able to take many provinces near C'tis' capital and tax them at 200% for five turns in a row before he could've take them back. Without a NAP wouldn't have bothered, but don't think it affected things much.

[P3D]

Old settings were just as fine. There were three main problems.
a/ suboptimal Noob placement. Mictlan was right in the middle, and capitals were too close.
b/ Atlantis got the seas uncontested
c/ two players with strong nations ignored the forum.

A nation with the income of two smaller ones is stronger due to having twice the research (very simplified, but still).

BTW, I won't play in this game.

[Lavaere]

Yeah same setting ares fine, as long as there ain't no stinking NAP.

Why couldn't anyone give the monkeys some lov'n