Divine Intervention: Garden of the Gods (Bullpen)

[Diamondeye]

@CCRunner (NFTE):

Spoiler :

I could use some help, but wouldn't even an evil god work against the beast (if he ever realizes that he is infact working with the beast)?

We should PM about this, I think. I'll look at the updates in the other thread.

 

[civplayah]

Never Mind

 

[Rhel]

Hi, Ive been lurking and reading here for some time now and Tracnar/Montezuma's "Age of Metal" speech gave me the idea that maybe as a result of his burning down the forests and going for modern technology and industry a God of Metal could have been born.
I'd use Chalybas as a name, which according to the internet is greek for "steel". I'd generally encourage him to stay his current course and maybe even actively desecrate nature further.
Hower atm. i dont have BTS so someone would have to do my edits.
If that's fine with you people then i'll go write something up.

Edit: With Metal i mean the material, not the music

 

[Tracnar]

im okay with it...as long as the great seven are not opposed to it

 

[CCRunner]

Sounds great. Welcome to CFC! I guess I can make your edits, it seems as though I'm doing it for everyone these days...

 

[Terrance888]

Who are the Great Seven?

Right now i am learning how to do this, so next time I will do another god, forge different alliances, and try to not screw him up too bad.

 

[Tracnar]

i just picked the seven gods that updated every round(or most)....you are i suppose, among them.


i did not think your updates were so bad....less then subtle, and with little backstory, but they made my first round interesting.

 

[Terrance888]

Well

Trickery on a Grand Scale BBY!

Next turn I will do another god.

 

[TheForestAuro]

Divine Intervention 6 will be played by me, and I will be introducing a new Divine Commandment list. Despite all of the whining going back and forth, I would like to urgently remind everyone that this is Divine Intervention, the world is not fair, gods are free to do whatever they want, and the entire point of the original series was to throw the players into a sea of oblivion where they have to try their very hardest to survive.

In the original Divine Intervention, Mice's entire army was turned into animals right in the middle of a war with russia. This, alarmingly, forced him to sue for peace and spend quite a great deal of time recovering. Then, he recieved a TON of cities on random islands all over the land that dragged his economy into the dirt. He didn't complain...he just kept going.

In the course of playing Divine Intervention for two games, I encountered some incredibly difficult circumstances (especially in my game as Ragnar, towards the end) and life sucked.

Do not volunteer to be the mortal if you are going to complain.

 

[Tracnar]

Divine Intervention 6 will be played by me, and I will be introducing a new Divine Commandment list. Despite all of the whining going back and forth, I would like to urgently remind everyone that this is Divine Intervention, the world is not fair, gods are free to do whatever they want, and the entire point of the original series was to throw the players into a sea of oblivion where they have to try their very hardest to survive.

In the original Divine Intervention, Mice's entire army was turned into animals right in the middle of a war with russia. This, alarmingly, forced him to sue for peace and spend quite a great deal of time recovering. Then, he recieved a TON of cities on random islands all over the land that dragged his economy into the dirt. He didn't complain...he just kept going.

In the course of playing Divine Intervention for two games, I encountered some incredibly difficult circumstances (especially in my game as Ragnar, towards the end) and life sucked.

Do not volunteer to be the mortal if you are going to complain.

I admit, you are right. Divine Intervention is not fair, and i should not have complained, but I did play it. In my defense however I was not mentally prepared for the smiting i received, should i have complained, no.

BTW on the argument in the DIV V thread, I'm perfectly fine with Winston's changes.

Spoiler for Forest only :

Spoiler really :

Spoiler no seriously you don't want to read this :

If you had a problem with me and complaining about the changes, you should have sent me a tell. Instead you singled me out and embarrassed me in front of everyone. IMHO, that was not called for.

 

[Winston Hughes]

@Forest

As enjoyable as the original DI was, the format has moved on a long way since then, for which you take much of the credit.

Personally, I still think Tracnar's complaint was justified. I don't mean to be over-critical of Arsonist (who usually does a great job), but the four-city plains/junglification seemed neither relevant nor fun.

The way I see it, we gods have two priorities: to make the story work (hence, rewards/punishments should fit with both the player's actions and the god's role) and to make the game enjoyable, so the player doesn't get bored.

I had this in mind when I made my own controversial intervention, and specifically set out to find a punishment that (a) fit the crime, and (b) would be fun to deal with.

Spoiler What I did :

First, I looked around Trac's empire and saw that Confucianism was the sole religion in many cities, all of which (except the capital) had a very small garrison. I also noted that his empire was significantly larger than any AI civ, that his tech position was very strong, and that he had a huge army ready to sail.

Then, I then tried out a series of increasingly nasty punishments - all based around the idea of rebellion in those eight cities - until I got to the point of handing some of them to the barbs (which is still far nicer than laying waste to the surrounding terrain). When I realised that that still didn't put a dent in Trac's ambitions, I decided to go for the full revolution, tested it, and found it to be an enjoyable sub-plot with no lasting effect other than to slow the Aztecs down a bit.

Returning to my original point about subtlety, what I'm trying to get across is the idea that - ideally - all interventions should be carefully made, and should fit with the story as closely as possible. In most cases, that means being subtle, or else the story descends into chaos. But, in those instances where a dramatic intervention is required (or would be really cool), the intervening deity should be extremely careful to make sure it's a good one.

 

[Robert Can't]

So, who are you going to be playing as next DI?

 

[TheForestAuro]

We'll burn that bridge when we get there, Robert. This one isn't over yet.

I think that subtlety is unnecessary depending on the god that you are...as the god of nature, things ought to evolve naturally and subtly, however when playing as the God of Terror things were often frightening, abrupt, and very un-subtle.

The trick is for the God to understand that when the time for smiting comes, these changes need to be (1)intelligent, (2)relevant, and (3)fun.

Examples of Previous, Excellent Changes
-- When Hannibal decided to disobey the Mountain God, and kill him instead (!) for blocking his military conquests with a mountain chain, the god in question allowed himself to fade and even took his mountains with him - unfortunately, these mountains were something of a backbone and a peninsula of his crashed into the ocean, taking his second-best city with it. However, the area that had been blocking his mighty conquests had now turned into mineable materials. The update was relevant, it was both punishment and dynamic, and it was not Cataclysmic.

@Winston Hughes

The format of the game has improved, but I feel as if the original spirit of the game is and will always be "sea of chaos". Unfortunately, (With the strange exception of Paulus ) the player rarely ever listened to the gods and the god would punish them for not doing what they asked. Then, when the player would continue to ignore them despite punishment, a god would get angry and go "ka. .. .. .. .YOU!" with barbarians or massive, irrelevant terrain changes. I myself am guilty of that in this particular DI, and after I realized that I decided to switch to international politics to affect the player.

Extreme changes aren't necessarily bad. Making them interesting is often enough to soothe the wound you've created, but "haha your island of gold is now an island of ice because you killed the NPC I told you not to even though it was the best choice and you were already dedicated to that before I even joined the game!" (but...you're the god of like elephants...) is bad.

Spoiler For Tracner's Eyes Only :

You know I have an inbox too.

 

[PaulusIII]

Well... I gave a perfect justification for that, did I not? If you wouldn't have blasted a city and added these !@$%!@%^!! nightmares, you wouldn't have made Pericles (and me ) frightened to death of simply ignoring or defying the gods. In that the God of Terror had succeeded - you scared the hell outta me!

Add to that that I intended to listen to the gods rather than go my own way - I remember that we briefly had that discussion before DI IV, and decided that we wanted something different rather than just go berserk on the world like Ragnar did or I tend to do in every single offline game I play.

If anything Pericles tried to listen. However, that made my play there less focused than the other mortals tended to do.

 

[TheForestAuro]

It's a good lesson, I think that those like six or so nightmares were far more terrifying than 15 swordsman outside your city could ever be.

Sure, it might hurt more, but the nightmares were much scarier.

 

[PaulusIII]

They were more of a PITA if you ask me.

 

[Diamondeye]

Spoiler DI V, NotForTracnarsEyes :

Okay, since I am The Beast I ought to tell the gods something: Perpentach grows stronger with every Shrine that Montezuma conquers - and there are only two left. It will be VERY HARD for anything to survive if he reached the last shrine, even Montezuma himself.

Of course, this is the mortals game, so don't just go sweeping in and wall in the shrines in mountains. I want HIM to figure out I am the beast if he is to elude this fall.

SO: Now you can give him vague warnings about a great evil descending on the world; four of the six pillars that support the Beasts dominion have been awakened and only two remain untouched.

Other info: Once the fifth shrine is found, the Riders of the Apocalypse will enter - they will be three, but much stronger than the messengers currently placed.

Judaism is the religion of the beast NOW. It's six "spikes" on the star represents the six pillars. I just wanted you to know.

There you go, fly fly, warn our mortal (please don't be too direct, like "Perpy is the beast and this-and-that").

 

[Arsonist]

Can someone please tell me why the AI is so stupid as to delete 5 Infantry with CG1,2,3 and replace them with a single longbow? Why? Damn the AI to the high heavens and let the beast feast upon its code

 

[Tracnar]

Can someone please tell me why the AI is so stupid as to delete 5 Infantry with CG1,2,3 and replace them with a single longbow? Why? Damn the AI to the high heavens and let the beast feast upon its code

if it helps....i lost the city to a couple barbarian grenadiers....from where i have no idea.

at this point it is going to be east to take it over...again next round


but it is strange, i was wholly expecting the infantry, i passed by with my ship on the way to zululand and i notice that they are gone, i took it to my advantage of corse

if you fell like going back through the saves, you can pinpoint when they were deleted(either by a god or the AI)

 

[Arsonist]

It doesn't matter, even if you hadn't took the island, you've got oil from the new Zulu lands anyway