Danger - The Future of Tomorrow (MA 2v2) Thread - Dominions 4: Thrones of Ascension

Hi everyone. I recently got a friend of mine into Dominions 4, and we thought it would be good to do a 2v2 game, so we're looking for two opponents. Here are the game rules.

Players: Four. Myself, Irazel, and two others.
Game Type: Disciples.
Age: Middle Age.
Hosting Method: We will use llamaserver.
Hosting Schedule: We will keep to 28-hour hosts for as long as possible. Hosting may be extended to 36 or 48 hours.
Skill Level: New-intermediate. I am a competent player, but my partner is a newcomer.
Expected Commitment: Moderate. Repeated stales (more than, say, four) will result in a kick. If you need to leave the game, please find yourself a sub. I will extend hosting deadlines if you ask within a reasonable timeframe and you don't do it too often.
Nation Selection: Nations will be selected manually (I'm not going to bother with a four person draft) AFTER we have a final player roster.
Mods: Burnsaber's Worthy Heroes mod may be used; that is up for discussion.
Game Settings: Most settings will be left to default.
Renaming will be enabled, score graphs off, events set to common, and
there will be 15 entries in the Hall of Fame. We may discuss increasing
the site frequency to 45.
Diplomacy: I have a hard time imagining any kind of diplomacy happening, but if it does, so be it.
Map: We will use a map of approximately 50-60 provinces. The exact one is up for discussion.
Thrones: There will be about 8 points to win. The focus will be primarily on level 2 thrones. The exact numbers will be discussed later.

I suggest having some method of communicating with a potential partner in mind (skype, IRC, steam chat, PMs on these forums, etc.) before signing up.

I haven't finished any MP games yet, but I'd be willing to join. I'd prefer no mods, but I won't press the issue. Worthy Heroes in particular doesn't seem that invasive to the core game so it's fine I guess.
As for communication, both forum PM and IRC are fine (live UTC+2, work evenings).

I won't pick a nation before discussing scales with whoever else joins up.

Cool. Welcome to the game. I'll get Irazel to post on this thread soon enough.

I am the aforementioned Irazel, and I am posting so my existence can be confirmed by all.

meh why not, I've never even played a MP game before if Herdy's allright with that, but I'm down to play

Actually I'm no longer in this game. I switched to Incomp's other game. A 3v3 disciple match.

ah good to know, ah well, if this game is still up I'm still interested, but now I'l be the one looking for partner

The game is most definitely still up, Terenak. Unfotunately, as HerdyGerdy said, he has switched games. Still, welcome to Danger - The Future of Tomorrow! Hopefully we can pair you up with a relatively experienced partner.

So, the current status is Myself and Incomp vs Terenak and whoever shows up next, correct?

Hi Incomp, my friend and I have been playing a number of 2-player games so far and we'd be interested in playing together in a 2 vs 2 disciples game exactly as laid out here. Are you still interested in hosting this game?

Whoah. I thought this game was long, long gone. But, uh, yeah sure. Irazel and I are both still interested. One thing I will say is that after the first fifteen turns or so I will be forced to turn back the hosting speed, probably to 48 hours, as I am rather busy this semester and cannot commit to making a turn every 28 hours.

I guess we'll wait for you and your friend to confirm readiness to go, and then we can pick nations, thrones, the map, and so forth.

Edited by: Incomp

Hi Incomp, I'm sirdan friend. And I'm also interested in trying a 2 vs 2 game. About the settings, I would like playing with Worthy Heroes. I also prefer playing with score graphs on, especially since we will be mostly beginners, it will help us in seeing whether we have a good pace or not. The rest I fully agree with (just make sure to not add any level 3 thrones, the Throne of Eternal Suffering may have cost me my last game against sirdan).

The proposed hosting times seem perfect to me as long as we have autohost on. I should probably be able to make daily turns, but I'm fairly busy myself and additionally ephafn and myself are on different timezones so would appreciate having 48 hours as a backup in case we need to coordinate something.

In terms of a map, Atha Avin (https://www.indiedb.com/games/dominions-4-thrones-of-ascensions/forum/thread/atha-avin-929-wraparound) is absolutely gorgeous and I would love to play on that, although perhaps it's a little bit large. The only two standard maps that fit the 50-60 provinces requirement are Silent Seas and Fantomia.

As for picking nations, I am going to play Vanheim, that is unless one of you two would like to, and then I could choose something different.

I know I'm not in this game but 60 province maps aren't exactly jumping at you here.

Elmokki has made a few maps that fit your size category:
Murky Moor (47+5)
Coasts of Goats (54+6)

CoG has a couple of land provinces that look like sea provinces. Isn't bad for the gameplay but is bit of an eyesore if you let it bother you.

That said, I've had some very fun SP matches on Silent Seas. If you're ok with the special terrains (lots of wasteland in the middle, forests up north), then I think it's a really good map. It might force both teams to take a nation that's amphibian capable though.

Thanks HerdyGerdy for the suggestions.

I have to say that I prefer non-wraparound maps (like Silent Seas), so I may have a preference for that map. Not that the fact that I'm thinking of picking Agartha has anything with it...

Thank you for the suggestions, HerdyGerdy. However, ephafn, for balance reasons, wraparound maps are strongly preferable. I don't like them much either, but they do a lot to prevent one side from getting screwed over by flukes of capitol placement.

Atha Avin I am aware of, and yes, it is gorgeous. It is also really big for four people. Fantomia, a sixty-province map, has my vote.

I vote for Silent Seas. With clustered team-starts and because it's only 2vs2 on a constrained land-mass, I don't think that lack of wraparound would create an imbalance. I would however suggest that whatever we end up choosing, if one team feels on T1 that the initial distribution is inequitable we can roll-back to pretender setup which will reseed the start locations.

That's true, we can do that. Silent Seas is an absolutely tiny 45 provinces, though, and a huge number of them are wasteland. I find the map to be appropriate for duels, and for little else. I apologize for the negativity, but I am using my admin veto on silent seas.

Then what about Fantomia, it has 62 lands (+19 seas)? I never tried it though (and it is wraparound).

Okay, let's do Fantomia then. I tried two starts last night and my capital ended up on wasteland both times though.

Fantomia is good for me.

By the way, me and sirdan221 are more or less decided on our nations. We will play as Agartha and Abysia. (I was going to say we were the A-Team until I saw that are 6 nations starting with 'A' in MA, so we will be "Équipe Cave" instead.)

Fantomia, as I said, is fine by me. Sirdan, if you were testing as Abysia, well, Abysia is strongly weighted towards starting in a wasteland, so it's to be expected. I don't know about Agartha, though. I think their preference is for starting in a cave, obviously, but most maps don't have caves.

I choose Ashdod for my nation, and Irazel picks Vanheim. At least, that's what we planned on earlier, so if you've changed your mind, Alec, say so.

I think the general opinion was in favor of Worthy Heroes. Anyone against it?

Finally, the throne count needs to be discussed. With four players, I think 7-9 points to win is appropriate. I would distribute the thrones something like this: 5 level one thrones, 4 level two thrones, 2 level three thrones. That would result in 15 total points available. If we decided on 9 points to win, that would mean a team would need 60% of the total throne points to ascend.

ephafn, I know you expressed a preference against level three thrones, but I think you might either be exaggerating or have ran into an unfortunate fluke. The Throne of Eternal Suffering is usually a pretty strong throne to control. If you are truly vehemently opposed, then I will accept that and we will use level one and two thrones.

Edited by: Incomp

Worthy Heroes: OK

Throne count: 60% to win is definitely too low, since we are two teams, not four players. One team could technically achieve this without any fighting between the teams due to the random distribution. I would advise 75~80%, so 11 or 12 points out of 15.

Level 3 thrones: okay, I can accept to have level 3 thrones, in the hope that the TES doesn't appear. If it does appear, I will be grumpy. If it does appear next to me, I will be very grumpy. But I won't ask for a restart and accept this as having picked misfortune -3 in the pretender design.

(The Throne of Eternal Suffering is probably the worst of all level 3 thrones, and is also worse than many level 2 thrones. I did actually check that by starting a test game with max # of thrones. It is not as bad as the level 1 Throne of Fall, but the only reason why I would claim it would be for the dominion boost, which is not that high for a level 3 throne, or to get the points needed to win.)