Capture the Bane

[zorro]

I was thinking about alternative game modes that Warbarons could offer.

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Capture the Bane
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Player colors are assigned randomly in this mode. Black gets an extra hero on the first turn who is Lord Bane. The one who kills the Bane wins (suicide excluded, maybe Bane is a passive hero!?). Best played with peace for the first ten turns. Bane wins after a certain number of turns (or once he has spammed the map with at least 666 creatures or whatever fits).
I already found some graphical glitches were I could hide Bane for a while. Oups, its Lord Bane! Will he hide?

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Utopia
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Well known warlords mode, capture a well defended center city and hold it for x turns.

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King off the Hill
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No, thats not a typo! Could be played on a map where the center consists of xx hill tiles. Once one player enters the hills the mode starts ticking. A warning and a counter will appear. Other players have to enter the hills within 5 turns or the first player who entered wins. From the moment where more than 2 players are in the hills a player can win if he manages to be the only party in the hills at the end of his turn.
This mode could be on any sort of terrain or in an arena or whatever, just that hill sounds cool.

What modes do you think could be fun?

[KGB]

Zorro,

I've mentioned some of these before since they are DLR game variants. I also asked for Capture the Flag (by far the most popular DLR variant), Fortress (own all enemy capitols) and Battle of the Titans (each player starts with a L10 hero on turn 1).

Your Lord Bane option only makes sense if there was an AI who could control Bane.

KGB

[zorro]

I do not even really wish for these options, just thought the ideas are fun and they might open up peoples mind about easy ways to crack the static form of the game.

Game modes and also game settings offered great variety to DLR. Most of them could easily be introduced.

[LPhillips]

I'd like to see Utopia.

I'd also like to see capturing 50% of the enemy player's gold when you take his Capitol. Isn't that the way it was in W2?
Anyway, it would be a great feature. What's the most you are going to capture from a very wealthy player mid- to late-game? Even if they have $6000, they probably have at least 20 castles, and then for some reason you only keep 50% of what you capture, so your take is what... $150?

[KGB]

You should be keeping 100% of what you loot from another player. The 50% tax rate definitely wasn't in War2 and there is no good reason to have it in the game since it's not unbalancing.

I would not like to see taking 50% of an opponents gold if you take his capitol (something not in War2). There are too many early game capitol's taken from bats and other fast units and looting potentially 1000 gold is crippling at that point in the game. The only way 50% seems reasonable is if it comes into play starting on turn 10 by which point players know to have a unit or two there on defense.

KGB

[LPhillips]

Maybe it should be a setting "Valuable Capitols on" or something like that. Many settings need to be optional. I'm not going to have self-raze on in any FFA games that I host, because it encourages cheesy play.

[KGB]

LPhillips,

Not sure what you mean by cheesy play.

Once that option exists I'm not sure I'd play games that don't have it turned on. The ability to self raze is one of the most important in the game. It allows the defender to:

1) Reduce his city exposure on defense (ie, strong enemy stack approaches 3 cities, you can't defend all 3 but you might defend 1 so you raze 2, pack all the defenders into 1 city).
2) Allows players to invest in better production because the self raze prevents the attacker pillaging every city for lots of gold.
3) It's one of the only ways to stop an enemy hero from establishing a point city for vectoring because razing a city prevents it's use as a vector spot.

Self raze has been used since the dawn of time. The Russians made a career out of it against Napoleon and Hitler. Denial of resources to the enemy is one of THE most effective defenses in Warlords and real life.

KGB

[zorro]

...given that stuff can be razed AND built up

[LPhillips]

I'm concerned rather with players simply destroying their own resources to deprive their enemies while being defeated. I understand the concept quite well; my distaste for it comes from the ability to use it in cheesy ways. If someone kicks your ***, he ought to get his reward. It's a poor show if you're in a 5-player FFA, someone takes down another player (at great expense to himself), and then gets nothing in return because the loser is a bad sport and simply razes everything as he loses it. Then the better player comes out short overall.

Of course I see the opportunity for more options in your gameplay strategy, and all that it adds to the game. I will just be reluctant to use the option. I may make exceptions when competing with known players. I would much rather see a "self-plunder" option (where production is destroyed and maybe only a small amount of gold is kept, like 25%), which has never been a part of Warlords afaik. Either that or some sort of penalty for self-razing.

[KGB]

LPhillips,

I'm concerned rather with players simply destroying their own resources to deprive their enemies while being defeated. I understand the concept quite well; my distaste for it comes from the ability to use it in cheesy ways. If someone kicks your ***, he ought to get his reward. It's a poor show if you're in a 5-player FFA, someone takes down another player (at great expense to himself), and then gets nothing in return because the loser is a bad sport and simply razes everything as he loses it. Then the better player comes out short overall.

Why should the player who is being defeated care about the player who is defeating him? It's not his job to provide resources for his conqueror to then use them to conquer someone else. It's up to the conquering player to acquire the resources intact (or rebuild them). After all, the other 3 players in your 5 player example could legitimately complain that the losing player didn't raze his stuff to help THEM out, especially if they are self razing their own resources.

That is the nature of FFA games. It's no different than 3-4 players ganging up on you, or another player simply resigning/quitting mid game and having his cities turn neutral giving someone lots of neutrals (when they should be all razed), or another player simply emptying out his cities and giving them to another player, or players giving another player lots of XP (by repeatedly attacking a hero stack with fodder to level them up) or players giving away items (in Beta4) etc.

Stuff like that happens in FFA games all the time and when you sign up to play an FFA game, you sign up for those things because that's what FFA stands for.

So you have 2 choices: Play FFA games or don't play FFA games.

Personally, once Beta4 comes out with team games I suspect I'll stop FFA games altogether and just play 1-1 or team games. I suspect that a majority of players will do the same and that FFA games will end up being of the smaller variety (4 players) played among friends/known opponents.

KGB