Uncommonly Good: A Story of Elves

[pling]

I‘ve been trying to come up with a way to see the late-game civs get a chance of showing off what they’ve got. That would also eliminate legitimate concerns about using “advanced start” to skip the early game tedium. However, many of the civs with no early advantage simply need that beginning period to set up their game – Bannor to grow cottages, Sidar to farm experience, Khazad to collect gold for vaults. So as much as I’d like to see the Amurites, Luchuirp, and Sheaim stomping around with late-game toys, I don’t think that would be achievable in a fair way.

Can you do something like come up with a list of civs that are primarily late-game & then the players choose from that very restricted list? (Or by lottery perhaps, with a list that's exactly as long as the number of players in the game?). Or does that just leave you with far too dull a start to the game?

[Gaspar]

An option for “fun” games would be something with more of a roleplaying bent. Elves vs. Dwarves, good vs evil etc, although they lend themselves a little more to team games. One fun idea I had was some kind of “capture the flag” event. The victory condition would be taking a superpowered city at the centre of the map. The civs are free to do what they like amongst eachother, but can only win by wiping out the Big Baddy. My big worry would be the mapmaker challenge balancing the difficulty/timing of the final showdown.

I like this idea, but you still have to win by normal means as well. Write up some sort of story about an evil commander, etc, then they have a huge city in the middle of the map, several held baddies in it, citadels around, etc. Kind of like an adventure in the middle of a PBEM. Fits theme quite well.

Can you do something like come up with a list of civs that are primarily late-game & then the players choose from that very restricted list? (Or by lottery perhaps, with a list that's exactly as long as the number of players in the game?). Or does that just leave you with far too dull a start to the game?

Problem with this is that I think everyone agrees that the Amurites are the most powerful of the late game Civs. Its half of why they often get snuffed in the cradle. I just think we're doomed to never really see a super strong Amurite or Sheaim late game empire.

Let me off this cart! I'm not dead yet!

Ok, so I'll be able to read it soon. . Frankly, if we played with Compact Enforced, I'd be fine playing another dead lands game like that. Or for that matter - if it were an Adventure instead of a PBEM, so finding the overpowered strategies was a fun game instead of a 'dang, that feels unfair'.

I do like the idea of trying something different for a map. Highlands is certainly one reasonable possiblity. Another would be something like archipelago (Lanun/OO banned) or Arboreal (elves banned).



The ball won't be rolling until someone makes a post in the general forum asking for a game . I know that Tasunke character gave it a whirl, although his request to use a mod no one here plays with probably killed it.

Shall we start an e-mail conversation? I've got your and MBTM's addresses, and could add Azoth and NobleHelium if they're around and interested.

No problem on the email chats, you both know where to find me. I'll let someone else herd cats to start with at least. I think a water map in FFH has a lot of issues, but otherwise would like to see it. Themed stuff like G v. E and Elves v. Dwarves just doesn't work quite as well with humans around. I do think we're at the point in FFH PBEM gestation where variant play makes a lot of sense though. We have a pretty good idea what's going to happen in a straight up game. No coincidence that the last 5 games included heavy civ restrictions, a teamer, a free adept to start, ran unrestricted/duplicated leaders and are using a mod. Hell, we haven't really run a truly 100% normal game since this - even FFH8 had trait bans.

Anyway, let the spitballing continue!

[uberfish]

I‘ve been trying to come up with a way to see the late-game civs get a chance of showing off what they’ve got.

Well so far Kurio, Elves, Malakim and Doviello have won the 4 completed games - seems a decent mix of civs. Although you could certainly argue that tier 2/3 is usually where the game is won or lost anyway.

Sheaim have done poorly but I would also say that they have been unlucky.

[Mist]

I do like the idea of trying something different for a map. Highlands is certainly one reasonable possiblity. Another would be something like archipelago (Lanun/OO banned) or Arboreal (elves banned).

Start with it before any of my current games end and I might be tempted to draw something themed like the one made for PBEM IX.

It would be good to see an EiB game that's not a teamer on a mirrored map, but there's probably still a lot of mileage to be squeezed of fairly basic setups.

The ball won't be rolling until someone makes a post in the general forum asking for a game . I know that Tasunke character gave it a whirl, although his request to use a mod no one here plays with probably killed it.

He picked a bad time with most of the potential players already tied in a game, but yes, mod request and tight deadline for discussions on chat didn't help either.

[Mardoc]

Start with it before any of my current games end and I might be tempted to draw something themed like the one made for PBEM IX.

That sounds very tempting. Your map in X is much fun already - I can just imagine one that actually had a decent turn pace .

And it's also true that slightly more feedback for Sareln ought to help immensely. I just am not convinced that a full scale EitB game is recruitable at the moment. Maybe I'm wrong, though.

[Man Behind the Mask]

I like this idea, but you still have to win by normal means as well. Write up some sort of story about an evil commander, etc, then they have a huge city in the middle of the map, several held baddies in it, citadels around, etc. Kind of like an adventure in the middle of a PBEM. Fits theme quite well.

It is a crazy idea, and it actually working as envisaged may be as much luck as judgement. I don't agree with your first statement - since by definition only one team could conquer the city, nobody else could complete both win conditions.

I'm sure we can come up with something a little less extreme but also fun.

[Mardoc]

I'm sure we can come up with something a little less extreme but also fun.

There's an obvious way to handle that. Make it Acheron (Clan and Dominating Sons forbidden). Then, the victory condition requires you own the Dragon's Horde at the end of the game. It'd automatically cause a King of the Hill effect, since it can be stolen multiple times.

Edit: Hmm, and could go one further, potentially. No wars allowed except between you and the holder of the shinies. Shiny holder allowed to declare on anyone. *That* would force the late-game civs to shine!

[Gaspar]

There's an obvious way to handle that. Make it Acheron (Clan and Dominating Sons forbidden). Then, the victory condition requires you own the Dragon's Horde at the end of the game. It'd automatically cause a King of the Hill effect, since it can be stolen multiple times.

Edit: Hmm, and could go one further, potentially. No wars allowed except between you and the holder of the shinies. Shiny holder allowed to declare on anyone. *That* would force the late-game civs to shine!

Dragon's Hoard as a "flag" that has to be captured to win actually makes a lot of sense. You could allow the clan, just have the stipulation they have to disband any Sons, and obviously they'd need to declare war on the barbs to get the Hoard. And just agree that nobody can dominate the Sons and keep them. If someone wants to dominate them as part of their strategy to take the city, that's fine.

Actually really like the idea.

[Mardoc]

Continuing a conversation from e-mail, this part has no spoilers.

Gaspar's got a point that people might not like their hands being tied - for example, if we had that NAP rule here, we'd be confident that Kyan would win regardless. If you've seen rage about NAPs signed voluntarily, image the rage if they were forced. For that matter, it's too easy to plan to rush the Tower the turn you take the treasure, defeating the king of the hill stuff. And MBTM has a point that it might not be fun, or victory preventable. I certainly agree that the Momus-style game would be boring as a player, the fun part is setting the high level goals and working backward to make them happen.

Maybe we need to jettison the NAP portion of the game idea, therefore. If we still want to encourage delayed conflict, we could ask the mapmaker to make all roads go by Acheron, so any stacks would potentially be whittled down.

Or here's a thought: suppose we ignore standard victory conditions entirely except as a means to end it. Who wins is a simple question of who held the Hoard for the most turns. So...when you have the hoard, you've an incentive to find a victory condition, so you can lock in your victory...unless you're not the first one to get it. In which case you want to fight defensively until you're in position to win. In all cases, this gives a strong incentive to grab the hoard early and start racking up points, if you think you can. Even if you can't get an official victory, you'll force everyone else to delay. Or potentially - hold the hoard for 25 turns, make sure someone else gets it and *then* race for victory, aiming to finish before the timer runs out. I think this mechanic would induce a lot of late-game chaos.

I'd like to add a piece about NAPs being void when you have the hoard, but maybe that's too much in the unfun category. I suspect it'd be enough to warn the players that signing a treaty without an 'in case of hoard' clause is risky.

I still think a game setup like this would encourage late game civs to be picked, as you've got to pick a civ that can take on Acheron and then fight a defensive war while going for a victory condition. If we want to nudge it further in that direction, ask for a Large map for a 4-6 player game

[Man Behind the Mask]

The only thing I don’t like about this is that it’s maybe starting to get a bit convoluted. Even then, though, the big issue of tracking who has the Hoard could be easily done via the tech thread. I hope that my niggling fear the game might go on forever is tempered by the fact you can win even when someone else is in possession at the exact moment of victory (although we might need to make total conquest an override to the Hoard mechanics).

I think it’s good that this design encourages the game to be interesting throughout. It also makes it less difficult to get the right balance for the Hoard city, since it is more exciting if someone is able to conquer it relatively sooner.

This sounds like a fun addition to the regular FFH experience. The “best” civ should still win, but the setup sows seeds for fun action along the way.