Roll call, interest check for a new game (New-inter) Thread - Dominions 3: The Awakening

Alright, so with the arrival of Dom4, which is now running in full swing, Dom3 has almost fully died out, pretty much the only games that are still running on the forum are the ones that started before the release of Dom4, with a few exceptions. Now, Dom4 seems good and all, but I am a bit wary of stepping into its multiplayer scene when it's still at a rather early stage of balance and there is no community patch either, so I'd rather spend a little more time with Dom3 while this is still possible.

So, this thread has been created basically to see how many players are still interested in jumping into one more game. This is not yet an announcement of a new game - if only 2-3 people express their interest, these plans may be scrapped or postponed. I'm looking for skill levels from absolute newbie to solid intermediate - I'd prefer that the big pros sit this one out so that the skill discrepancy isn't too great, but otherwise, in the interest of finding as many players as possible, I'm okay with a somewhat more heterogenous mix of skills than usual.

I don't really want to start a game with less than 6 people, but it'd be optimal if there were more. If you do apply, please cast your vote on some things below, so that we can create a game that everyone will enjoy:

• What era do you want to play in? (In order of preference)
• Score graphs: on or off?
• Diplomacy: Macchiavellian (i.e. only trades are binding, otherwise lie however you want) or none at all (no communication inside or outside the game permitted)?
• Game settings: what non-default settings are you interested in? (Higher independents? Difficult research? More common magic sites? Say it, and if there's enough interest, we'll try it out!)
• And anything else you want to be included, of course!

I won't be influencing the choices since almost anything is fine by me, except that I'll cast tiebreaking votes in the end where necessary.So, let's see who's still here then, shall we?

I'd absolutely be interested in a new game of Dom3 - once I manage to actually finish one of my current games, which may be a couple months. These things last longer than I expected. I'm mostly posting here to reinforce that I am indeed interested in Dominions 3 games - I think you are right to be wary of MP Dom4 without community patches, as the balance of Dom4 at the moment is a bit questionable.

I don't have any strong preference for era or settings - the only thing I actively dislike is "no communication" games.

I would join a new Dom3 game as long as a more recent version of CBM is used.

Any era.
Flexible on score graphs.
Flexible on diplomacy.
Flexible on game settings except I'd prefer not to have more common magic sites.

I'd like to join as long as the game isn't too big. Oh, sorry. I guess I'm outside the skill level window.

Edited by: tenuki

I'm not fitting to the game, but I guess some feedback is better than no feedback.

Radiator wrote: I'm looking for skill levels from absolute newbie to solid intermediate - I'd prefer that the big pros sit this one out so that the skill discrepancy isn't too great, but otherwise, in the interest of finding as many players as possible, I'm okay with a somewhat more heterogenous mix of skills than usual.

It was not defined whether "high commitment" or "casual" game is intended.

From my experience truelly "high commitment" games require strict level restriction. As soon as absolute newbies become neighbours of intermediate players, participants can forget about any fair contentiousness - it will be a newbie-trampling rush, and the ones blessed to have adjacent newbies will benefit most.
As a fan of "high commitment" games and "intermediate" player myself I would deliberately try to avoid such a vague and wide skill restrictions.

From the other side I'm not sure it will be such a pleasant experience for newbies to be heavily rushed, so I would say exclusion of "solid intermediate" would make sense.

P.S. Personally I would spend like a pair of more years in Dominions3 if I had such an opportunity, awaiting of growing-up and polishing of Dom4. Mostly in "high commitment" and "no diplomacy" games.

P.S. Personally I would spend like a pair of more years in Dominions3 if I had such an opportunity, awaiting of growing-up and polishing of Dom4. Mostly in "high commitment" and "no diplomacy" games.

Seconded, with no diplo not being an absolute requirement in my case.

Edited by: tenuki

Well, I'm not against diplomacy itself, but diplomatic high-commitment games of similar-skilled opponents become true burden.
It is not just diplomacy and communication takes huge amount of time, but it creates strong negative feedback (you can take risk, do your best, win the war against neighbour to be rewarded with... becoming an object for others ganging), what leads the game into lategame.
So roughly speaking such a game can take times more efforts than no-diplomacy game. The latter would have midgame going twice faster (immediate impact of lack of communication), and the latter would likely be resolved before lategame (lategames turns can be times more consuming).
Maybe it is just my experience (or bad karma:)), but in all of half a dozen of diplomatic games I took part, winner was defined only in lategame.

At the same time diplomacy is certainly an intresting facet of diminions.
And aforementioned considerations are about "high-commitment" games, not MP games in a whole.
Also communication/diplomacy gives a lot of opportunities to learn if you are active on diplomatic fronts.
(So for a newbies or for casual games no-diplomacy can be not a good approach).

Edited by: chelubey

So, are we gonna start a new game that is open to vets?

It requires someone who has enthusiasm time to organize such a game.
(And in case of no-diplo game it will probably require someone else to be running admin, however this is lesser problem).

I intend to stick with DOM3.

However, I'm currently in another game at turn 20, so I'm not immediately looking for another game right now.

Hey, new guy here. I've played a total of 6 turns of multiplayer! I'd play in a game!

For my preferences:
Era: In order MA/LA, EA
Diplomacy: Macchiavellian

The other things I had no opinion on!

Edited by: PrinceFacestab

You can Count me in if I manage to be killed (or win) in one of the two games I'm playing -witch looks likely BTW- before we start.

Macchiavellian diplo
MA/EA/LA
No graphs/extended hall of fame if we are more than 5
Strong indies 6-7 or +
And I'm no fan of "concepts" in between "brackets" but I would stress out the "high commitment" thing like chelubey does as in:

"please commit to play until the game is over. specially If you end up loosing play until the game is over, experiment, try new tactics out and try to have fun!"

Is that what you mean by high commitment chelubey?

This might be good, but i am in the middle of a game at the moment, which is a shame.

Edited by: lukasr

Fraggomon wrote: And I'm no fan of "concepts" in between "brackets" but I would stress out the "high commitment" thing like chelubey does as in:
"please commit to play until the game is over. specially If you end up loosing play until the game is over, experiment, try new tactics out and try to have fun!"
Is that what you mean by high commitment chelubey?

"High commitment"-"Casual" dichotomy of multiplayer dom3 games appeared relatively recently.
There was agreement between veterans on Dom3mods forum, that such a division may be useful to better define the goal and style of MP games:
Z7.invisionfree.com
(follow the link if you are interested in details)
"I think it's clear that there are basically two kinds of dominions game out there. Casual and Serious. One where you are expected to compete seriously and the other where you are only expected to have fun.
Obviously both these types of game can have further rules and even in a casual game if the admin sets a rule, you need to follow it. But there's a fundamental difference in player attitude between the two. A serious game is to be taken seriously. It is a commitment. A casual game is not, it's just a game.
I think this is perhaps the single most important piece of information about a game and I think all admins should be forced to give it and all players to take notice of it. "

This is indeed maybe the most important characteristic of the game. Even newbie player among much more experienced ones can cause a lot of harm, and die in honour making intruders to pay for every inch of earth (to the mutual enjoyment).
At the same time no matter how experienced player is, if he suddenly loses interest, especially goes AI or "just" starts sending not properly planned turns, than such a player can be a great dissapointment for other players.

I don't say "high commitment" games are better than "casual" ones.
Better or worse depends on the goals we set before ourselves. Casual games are neither better, nor worse - they are different.
It is not less esteemed to play casual games. The point is that the more efforts you put into the game - the lesser is ouctome (as game success). Diminishing return makes "casual" games to be a good option. You'll likely pay much more time for "high commitment" game.
Why not to concentrate on the most important instead of spending hours on testing or tedious micromanagement?
Indeed - why not?
Casual games is an option, high commitment games is another one.
( However truelly competitive games can be only "high commitment". )

The most important thing about it is that it is admin's duty and responsibility to make sure every player has the same mindset that game creator intended from the game. Neither "casual" or "high commitment" games are problems by themselves.
Problems start when there is a mix of players in a different mindset.
E.g. Imagine you want some quick light game. You prefer ot make it fast. And there is a player(s) who always tend to drag the game, requesting delays sometimes. Not good.
Imagine you are for "high commitment" game. You spent hours on every turn. You created SP emulation and tested everything there. And after you spend several months and many scores of hours - your opponent just says he is no longer interested in this party and goes AI. Or stops causing resistance. Even less good.

Chelubey I basically agree with you (and sorry everyone for derrailing the post)

Dough you seem to see a dichotomy where I see none.
( you actually just made me think of a classic that sums it up: "The world is divided in two kinds of people: those who divide the world in two kinds of people and those who don't".)

For me the only line in the sand is in general terms "do not abandon" and that takes commitment yes. If you REALLY don't enjoy the game and you cannot put your heart in it find a sub.
But It takes a lot of "casualness" -not commitment- too to keep playing a loosing position to your best (and being in one of the games I'm in in a loosing position since turn 8 having played 60 turns to the best of my skill I know what I'm saying) you need to have fun doing it and part of that is created by the attitudes of the players around you.
So- I repeat myself, I know- all this dichotomy is not only meaningless to me. It also seems to create confusion and division where there should be none. Casualness on the part of all the loosing players is needed so all the winning players can keep playing a competitive game. So the division seems quite artificial. All that talk about high-commitment makes me sometimes feel that people, in
fact would love to play SP but with a better AI, and that if they had
that they would avoid very much playing MP at all.

Also I must mention that the thread you linked is basically Callahan and Sombre talking, half a dozen people basically agreeing with them with a few idea droplets here and there, TheDemon playing devils advocate and couple of -lightly- dissenting voices. It hardly makes for the opinion of the whole dom3 community. And with the bulk of it migrating towards dom4 I dont think is wise to mantain such artificial restraints. We will reach a point that we will be a small community with few additions here and there. More than segregating players we should be "showing them around" our game and saying " this is how we like to play" so they can enjoy playing it the same way we like...

Is like we want "rules" so we don't have to deal with "nasty" situations ourselves. Well sometimes I need to PM a player and be very clear about my disapointment with the way they play without starting a flame war. And sometimes I have to decide not to play with someone I really dislike. And sometimes it might be needed to go in the forum and warn against a player or publicly shame him, or worse sometimes I might need to get to know someone before judging him/her and that takes commitment too.

Casual is Ok, High-Commitment is OK too but I guess I would want a
term to define a game that is neither casual nor high commitment but
that all gamestyles are welcome, also for clarity you see because the no division mindset is
another mindset.
But I know you and I can agree in most things and friendly disagree for pages long on the details:) so I drop the issue here.

Fraggomon wrote:
Casual is Ok, High-Commitment is OK too but I guess I would want a term to define a game that is neither casual nor high commitment but that all gamestyles are welcome, also for clarity you see because the no division mindset is another mindset.

You are confusing a high-commitment playstyle with a high-commitment game. I can put a lot of effort into a casual game without anybody complaining. However, a high-commitment game only works when I can reasonably expect my fellow players do the same. In a casual game I have no right to expect this kind of effort from others.

Effectively the 'no division' mindset comes down to a casual game.

Edited by: tenuki

Apollogies as I said I was dropping it but you illustrate my point precisely.
How confusion emerges from an intend of clarity.
Please, I love this argument and I feel there should be talk about it
but I feel really bad about derailing the original post shall we move
on? I am replying now the rest in the original thread you sent me: Z7.invisionfree.com

I will stick with Dom3 for the foreseeable future, and I'd like to join a new game (if Radiator hasn't enough of me already ).

• MA/EA/LA
• Score graphs off (I'm also in the "extended hall of fame club" for big games)
• Machiavellian diplomacy,
• Indi strenght 6 (7+ can be unfairly disruptive for the nations with weaker base troops, in my opinion)
• For a 6+ player game I'd try difficult research and a low province count per player to avoid a dragging late game.

So far, then, we have:

Ready to play: Radiator, Marginale, PrinceFacestab, Henotheist
Might join later: KestrelM1, Brihaspati, Fraggomon, lukasr

Not bad so far. It looks like we ought to wait a bit for games to finish, but eventually there should be a big enough group. Everyone who applied so far, please keep watching this thread and stand by! Otherwise, signups are still open, indefinitely for now, so keep coming, people!

I'll comment on the casual/high commitment issue later.

Henotheist wrote: For a 6+ player game I'd try difficult research and a low province count per player to avoid a dragging late game.

My personal experience is limited on this matter, but I was troubled with dragged lategames a lot and thought about it a lot.
It looks like one of the powerful solutions here are carefully chosen victory conditions.
For instance if it is 6 player's game, one can set 4 capitals as victory condition, another one will set 3 capitals.
In the latter case I can barely imagine that some lategame will take place at all.

Lesser province count is a solution, but if you aim for some balanced wraparound map with fixed capitals, you'll find a lack of less than 15 provinces/player maps.

We could play more than six then we would have less provinces per head. Also find intriguing the difficult research. Probably makes for an intensely tactical middle game.

Be aware that I just made a new thread for the whole High-Commitment vs Casual discussion here at Desura (Multiplayer section).

Holy macaroni but you are fast! I was just investigating myself how to do that!

I'm definitely interested although a new game right now is no-go - too busy with 3 games. Give it a couple of weeks and I'll probably be free to play - since SixKingdoms is dying and Oktober2 is probably going to be called as Villery looks to be running all over me and running away with the game.

Game wise I don't mind about era, want CBM and normal settings and diplomacy no graphs would be OK but I'm not strongly concerned.