Divine Intervention Games in FFH

Randomness · May 19, 2012

This sounds cool! I have a few questions though.

1. Are you using strict FfH lore or are you open to the expanded version (modmods included)?
2. Would it be possible to play as an archangel instead of a god. I ask this because Arawn does not take part in Erebisian affairs, but his archangel (who's name escapes me) does.
3. How often do you think updates would be (rough guess)?

If allowed, I would like to play as Arawn's archangel (which would require me to look up her name).

Derf · May 19, 2012

Agares' Archangel is Hyborem, IIRC.

I'm also intrigued, but I have a query.
Isn't Mulcarn dead?
And for that matter, Bhall fallen so she can't actually influence Erebus?

I might call dibs on Mulcarn anyway though, since his influence still occasionally seems to make itself known when his constellation shows up. I seem to recall it causes some Tundra to spread.
If not him, then Camulos.

Lplate · May 19, 2012

Mulcarn might have died but the precept of ice is eternal. I would imagine it's up to whoever is doing that precept to decide how they want to play it.

If someone claims a God they're claiming that precept and all the associated arch angels and hangers on. The player could choose to do their contributions using just the archangel, rather than the God if they wanted. As Esus, I'd expect not to have him directly get involved that much (or at least to keep plausible deniability if he does).

I think Gyra was the archangel of Arawn that didn't go off demon-slaying.

I haven't done a DI game before, or a multi-player other than hot seat so I don't know how practical it is to have more than one mortal player. Could someone explain the technical side of how it's done? Is a scenario saved every x turns and the Gods edit the scenario before returning it to the mortal(s)?

Bhall fell and is recovering in Agares vault. You could read the previous DI thread to see how that player got Bhall involved in Erebus.

Derf · May 19, 2012

That would make Mulcarn a bit of a challenge to play, since I believe Taranis is trapped on an isle in a lake he can't freeze because of the Orb of Sucellus. I think that's how the lore goes, anyway.
I imagine the three Priests of Winter, who make a reappearance with the White Hand ritual, could be used, but even then if the Illians aren't around I don't think there's much they can do.

Reading the old thread now, to get the feel of it. Starting to have ideas already that fit almost perfectly with Camulos, so I'm going to voice my claim on him for sure this time.

Aline · May 19, 2012

Well since we are all claiming gods allredy... dibs on Cerdiwen

Empedocles · May 19, 2012

Lplate said:
I haven't done a DI game before, or a multi-player other than hot seat so I don't know how practical it is to have more than one mortal player. Could someone explain the technical side of how it's done? Is a scenario saved every x turns and the Gods edit the scenario before returning it to the mortal(s)?

It would be done very similarly to the DI games that happened in the past, with the mortals playing 50 turns together and then giving them to the gods to edit. The gods would then give the save back to the mortal who is hosting and the mortals would play another 50 turns.

The easiest way to play together would probably be direct IP. One mortal would host and any others would need to enter in his IP to connect to the server. All players would need to open the proper ports on their routers, and the host might have to change a few other settings. I could host or help another player set it up, if none of the players know how to.

We'd probably want an IRC channel for the mortals to coordinate connecting, and they would need to establish when they will be getting together to play.

Lplate · May 19, 2012

I think this is what's people have claimed so far:

Spoiler :

There's still lots of open Gods and so far there's only one mortal. How many Gods do we want ready from the start of the game? Is anyone volunteering to be another mortal player?

@Verdian, can your original idea for the Kuriotates work with multiple mortal players?

Derf · May 19, 2012

Also, having not given MagisterCultuum's modmod a go myself, can I ask how MP-stable it is with multiple mortal players at once (as opposed to a SP or PBEM game).
Even if it's not yet decided to use that modmod. I don't mind which personally.

Empedocles · May 19, 2012

There's still lots of open Gods and so far there's only one mortal. How many Gods do we want ready from the start of the game? Is anyone volunteering to be another mortal player?

We could probably start as soon as we have the mortals worked out. It won't be hard to add gods later, and we can say that all of the open gods are simply minding the compact for now. Fewer evil gods would probably actually be a good idea. Would any of the evil gods like to be an evil mortal instead?

If possible, I would rather be a mortal player than a god. I'd use either Dain if there was a third evil mortal, or Tebryn Arbandi if it is only me and Verdian. I am not as good a writer as Verdian, but I think that multiple human mortals would add a very nice dynamic. Mortals would need to compete for the favor of the gods rather than all the gods trying to get one mortal to worship them. We'll probably want to keep each mortal's story in a seperate thread.

However, for that to work out we need to ensure a few things: that it is ok with Verdian, that Magister's modmod is MP stable, that someone will take over as balancer/biaser, and that all the mortals could play reliably at the same time.

@Verdian Would you like to weigh in on this? Would this work for you? Also, what timezone are you in and can you put aside a couple of hours each week to play? We wouldn't necessarily need to play 50 turns every round.

Lade · May 19, 2012

I can't say that the idea of multiple players exactly strikes me as a good idea for keeping the game moving.

Empedocles · May 19, 2012

Lade said:
I can't say that the idea of multiple players exactly strikes me as a good idea for keeping the game moving.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. It will delay the mortal players' turns, since the players would all need to be available at the same time. The more players, the more of an issue this would be. I think we could make it work with 2 or 3 players. Personally, my schedule is quite flexible for the foreseeable future.

In any case, the longest delays seemed to be waiting for the gods to all make their changes.

Also, we could continue the game even if one of the mortals went AWOL or couldn't play. It wouldn't be ideal, but we could let the AI or the patron god of that mortal take over and still have the game continue. The last DI game couldn't finish because the mortal player quit. They could have continued if they had multiple players, though the story would have suffered.

Bad Player · May 20, 2012

I'd prefer to play regular FFH2 for this (I know the lore etc better) - this sounds really interesting (started reading The Divine Blood of Heroes)!

Idea 1: Victory Condition for each god (not game ending):
Perhaps gods should have some ultimate goal that each god is working towards (becoming dominant or fufilling some requirement). It wouldn't end the game or anything, just a Victory Condition to achieve when the player has finished the game. Something measurable examples (numbers are examples only!) might be: >50% of all land tiles are tree covered (Cernunnos), getting any civ to > 5000 gold (Mammon), >80% of all cities have Order temples (Junil), >500 units die during the game (Arawn), etc.

Idea 2: Power of the gods depends on their mana in the world:
Maybe there is some way of making a god more powerful for each civ if that civ has the god's mana sphere. E.g. A civ with multiple death mana might be able to be gifted extra units for completing a quest of Arawn whereas a civ without death mana may receive just 1 skeleton.

Is there a way to prevent the player from reading the gods writings other than a spoiler? A QuickTopic maybe?

----------
Suggestions for gods' rules:

1) No more than x number of squares terraformed per turn (e.g. 5 squares per god)

2) Gradual terraforming (i.e. no deserts suddenly becoming ice or flatland suddenly becoming mountains). So gods can only terraform deserts <-> grass/plains <-> tundra <-> ice. Also flatland <-> hills <-> mountains.

3) Special powers to gods perhaps? E.g. Only Daladin can terraform land to water and to do so he needs an adjacent water source (coast, river, lake). He can create a river/oasis with no water source in one break then in a later break terraform land to water.

4) Limits on how much gold can be given out per break. A god might be able to distribute (for example) 500 gold and can give all to one civ or divide it among many.

5) A limit on adding/removing bonus resources/mana.

Derf · May 20, 2012

Having more mortal players could make it more interesting. That said, I've not done a DI game myself, only read the thread of the previous one.
I don't see a problem with those divine rules, though I'd extend them to include adding or removing units and buildings as well, to or from any civ. Even the barbs.

Lplate · May 20, 2012

I'd prefer to play regular FFH2 for this (I know the lore etc better) - this sounds really interesting (started reading The Divine Blood of Heroes)!

Given the FFH lore guru that magistercultuum is, I understand that his modmod stays very true to the original lore, i.e. No new civs, etc. I'd be happy to use his modmod or original FFH.

Idea 1: Victory Condition for each god (not game ending):

I'd be very anti this idea. I believe the last DI game died because one of the Gods wanted to "Win". For the Gods, it should all be about telling a good story. For the player, it's also about telling a good story but they have to worry about making sure their CIV survives the game.

Idea 2: Power of the gods depends on their mana in the world:

I'm not to keen on this one either. The Gods can discuss their plans before unleashing it on the game. Whoever is Dagda should temper any extreme plans. As regards civs getting different rewards for quests based on devotion, mana, techs researched, etc , I thought that was all part and parcel of the flavour within a DI game - Gods tend to help those Civs who support their Precept or help those they're trying to convert. I wouldn't try to invent any mathematical rules around that.

Is there a way to prevent the player from reading the gods writings other than a spoiler? A QuickTopic maybe?

If you can't trust a player to play in the spirit of the game, you might as well give up. The mortal player is the core of the game. All the Gods are replaceable. I'd trust mortals not to open properly labelled spoilers but a lot of the God discussions can be done on a separate thread.

Suggestions for gods' rules:

I'd see these more as guidelines than rules. Again, I think if it makes good sense for the story and you can sell it to the other Gods, it should be allowed. Regarding the Danalin example;
Kilmorph could lower land to allow the sea to rush in or Bhall could raise an oceanic volcano (example of an instant mountain), triggering a tsunami which permanently floods some land. I think if a God can weave it into the story and justify it with their Precept, then it should be okay. I'd also be very much in favour of stories where Gods describe deals being struck between them, so that the Precept of one will be used to benefit another (e.g. Mammon striking a deal with Kilmorph to create a temporary land bridge allowing his worshippers to claim valuable resources).

I'm in full agreement with the theme of your suggested rules, "Don't go mad, just because you're a God.". Smooth, subtle changes will make for a better tale.
The occasional dramatic flourish could add something as well though.

Bad Player · May 20, 2012

Yeah I agree Derf, more mortal players would be great - the instability of MP that ppl mentioned is the only thing that might be a problem. :/

Bad Player · May 20, 2012

LPlate - I agree with your idea that some instances there should be dramatic landscape changes but as a general guideline, slower terraforming would be better.

I'd like to read what went wrong in the last game with the gods competing because if they each have a lore-based VC they want to achieve and have restrictions on trying to change stuff to get there (i.e. Cernunnos can't build more than 10 forests per break), then the gods rely on subtly manipulating the player/AI to achieve their VC.

In practice what Cernunnos' strategy (VC is 80% of land with trees) might include is:
1) Cernunnos builds some forests (but he can't build anywhere near enough by himself)
2) Cernunnos tries to spread FoL so that players convert to FoL and more forests are built by FoL priests

Arawn's strategy (VC is 500 deaths) might include:
1) Create conflict between nations via
a) Diplomatic penalties from e.g. the arranged marriage event
b) Encouraging different nations to have different religions so wars are more likely
c) Teaming up with Esus to help surprise attacks or teaming up with Junil for Holy war (spreading The Order)
2) Helping the barbarian civ build cities so they produce more units to fight with

Bad Player · May 20, 2012

There probably should be a "How to be a god of Erebus" which deals with OOC practical matters (i.e. how not to cause CTD's).

Examples from a thread that need to be addressed:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8692565&postcount=45 -CTD note
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8693816&postcount=47
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8693902&postcount=48

Lplate · May 20, 2012

Bad Player said:
There probably should be a "How to be a god of Erebus" which deals with OOC practical matters (i.e. how not to cause CTD's).

Probably the best move is what you're doing, seeing what issues happened in the previous thread.

It might be an idea for Gods to do an Autoplay after saving their changes to make sure that there are no common ctds.

Some issues we'll just discover and deal with as we go along.

Empedocles · May 20, 2012

I don't think we want specific victory conditions or mechanics for the strength of the gods. I mean, they are gods after all. If they really wanted to, they could grow trees across huge tracts of land at once or kill everyone in it. The real limit to their power is the compact and wanting to prevent another gods' war. That is best played out as a discussion between the god players. If other gods are unhappy with the number of forests that Cernnunos creates, they can set them on fire or turn them into haunted lands or something. Or Dagda can convince him that his actions were too extreme or revert them.

They should have general goals they are working towards, but specific win conditions will lead to the gods trying to game the system rather than making a good story. Deciding which one god wins is pointless. The gods can just be happy or unhappy with how things turned out. Also, the win conditions are bound to be very unbalanced.

Derf · May 20, 2012

FWIW, Gods shouldn't be trying to win. Have goals, nudge players both AI and human toward them, and occasionally make a pest of themselves to the mortals, but not trying to win. That's the job of the players.
We're there to make Erebus more interesting for them. Maybe one of the mortals is going to war, so decides to appeal to me (as Camulos, natch) to try and get me on their side. I might respond, I might not - I might ask them to do something for me before I'll throw any support on their side, and even then I might not keep my word, or I might provide aid in a way they're not expecting.
But it's not up to me to win the game, or win the game for them.

I think that's pretty much what you said, but with a bit more. I ramble a bit.
But hey, no one's perfect.

Divine Intervention Games in FFH

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Modular Mushroom

Esus (Allegedly)

Modular Mushroom

Cat

Chieftain

Esus (Allegedly)

Modular Mushroom

Chieftain

Prince

Chieftain

Deity

Modular Mushroom

Esus (Allegedly)

Deity

Deity

Deity

Esus (Allegedly)

Chieftain

Modular Mushroom

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