Mega Grand Campaign 3 - 8 player MP AAR

[AlanC9]

Re: hmm

Originally posted by Mowers
Basically we had a good game and then the engine clearly broke ...(snip)

Some parts of the game were clearly broken throughout the length of the game, like the unbalanced DP sliders and the all-cavalry armies. Short of swapping in a new combat table (possible) and different slider values (not possible, though you could use the EEP events that punish going full aristocracy and serfdom), you're not going to do much about this; though letting DPs change only by event would produce an interesting game, it wouldn't change the effects of the DPs.

The problem that shows up later is that the human countries can end up with obscene amounts of cash, which both translates directly into tech and makes army maintenance a joke. (I prefer to state the problem this way as opposed to saying that the maintenance costs are too low, because it keeps the issue of excessive human tech up front). The most easily workable changes I've seen proposed are the human techgroup switches and restrictions on building manufactories.

 

[Dragonheart]

I followed this tread as i´m going to play my first MP-Game today.
It seems to me that your game is finally at the end . Everything lasting for a longer time is getting a bit boring, the more if you are on the looser side for sure. So its time for you to start a new one with some improvements for a more balanced game.
One of you stated that this is a diplomatic game. Thats absolutely rite. Only your diplomatic skills (or to have some friends in the game ) will let you win this game as even you are the most experianced player with the best and greatest military superpower you will have no chance if you are not allied with the rite people. I think that additionaly to houserules which are unevitable to strenghen the AI and prevent that another human player is crippled early in the game, one should also think on the implementation of Victory-Conditions.
So what makes you the game winning? Most VP, biggest size of country,all others are dropping out,if you are obvious invulnerable,if you win the beauty contest , by a vote????

There is a boardgame "Empire in Arms" most of you will know that for sure where each country because of the different strength has different Victory conditions. So if you pick a small country you have to achieve less than a player picking France.
Additional everybody has to make bids for the country he wants to play. The more you bid the worse is your starting position.
If you find a way to bring that system into EU2 this would make MP much more interesting, altough you can never avoid that it´s
won mainly trough diplomatic skill or ploting .
Hopefully i found the correct expressions as my mother language isnt english....but i think my objectives and meaning should be clear anyway. (hopefully )
Cheers Dragonheart

 

[ulver]

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear -
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelly

I must confess I’m slightly disappointed not to se the game finished but as Shelly reminds us all glory is transient. I was certainly a game well worth playing even if it did suffer badly for lack of a top notch English player. An error I hope to personally rectify in the next game.
In many ways I’m quite happy with the way the world turned out. The Spanish Empire remained committed to personal liberty and religious tolerance. Personally I’d like to think that a Spain not expelling the Moors and encouraged freethinking might well have avoided the long decline.

 

[BiB]

Back to the starting ground.

 

[unmerged(3571)]

It would be nice if you guys could finish it, or just let the AI play it out hand-off to get data for handicapping the nations VPs.

As I see it this should be a pretty good example. I think the only nation that really did extraordinarily well relative to the others is the Dutch. Hopefully we can compile some results in another thread or something, it would really help a lot.

 

[Mowers]

Originally posted by satan
It would be nice if you guys could finish it, or just let the AI play it out hand-off to get data for handicapping the nations VPs.

As I see it this should be a pretty good example. I think the only nation that really did extraordinarily well relative to the others is the Dutch. Hopefully we can compile some results in another thread or something, it would really help a lot.

The engine broke, there isnt really all that much point as it wont really bear any relation to what the game is meant to be about.

We had a good game and learnt some lessons for future games.

My suggestions for future games are in the MGC4 thread

Mowers

 

[Prince Eugene]

How did the engine break? What caused it and what are the effects of it?

 

[unmerged(3571)]

Originally posted by Prince Eugene
How did the engine break? What caused it and what are the effects of it?

I think he's just referring to carrying some parts of the game to such an extreme that it causes problems, like too many manufacturies or conscription centers. Some things in the game just generate far too much money to the point that it is virtually meaningless late in the game.

 

[unmerged(9945)]

What is The ETA for MGC 4? I missed out on this one since I was away on vacation when it was about to start and there was no chance of getting in when I returned, so i'm pretty anxious to hear when the next one may be.

EDIT: Nevermind I just found the MGC4 thread all of my questions answered. Seems I'm late yet again , but I did ask to be put on the waiting list for MGC4 a while ago, so maybe there is still hope .

 

[Gezeder]

If you want some Diplomatic Multiplayer action in a Grand Campaign, with lots of players,

You could also check out the No-Player PBEM, would be great to have every country in Europe filled!

http://www.europa-universalis.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=49442

It's great fun, and just starting. (Though you can join/quit/rejoin as you like)

Gezeder

 

[Prince Eugene]

This may have already been mentioned, but who really won the MGC3?

There are 3 that mainly come to mind for me

Damocles - the most powerful continental power
BiB- turning the crap Netherlands into a great colonial empire
Ulver - being the most economically successful

 

[Damocles]

We all won and lost in our own special ways.

 

[Prince Eugene]

Happy Birthday Mowers

(just thought it would be read if I put it in here)

 

[unmerged(11246)]

happy birthday too! i am looking to start a new mega campaigbn with 4 or 5 dedicated players, icq me if you are interested!
ICQ 78506690

 

[unmerged(3571)]

Originally posted by Prince Eugene
This may have already been mentioned, but who really won the MGC3?

There are 3 that mainly come to mind for me

Damocles - the most powerful continental power
BiB- turning the crap Netherlands into a great colonial empire
Ulver - being the most economically successful

I am amazed that there is any doubt about this.

Spain clearly won, hands down.

If you consider who was the most powerful at the end, that was obviously France, but that is virtually automatic. Spain managed to preserve virtually all of his empire and was never really challenged. Bib certainly did very well, but his fate wasn't really in his hands - France had to step up to the plate and try to defeat Spain for any other country in the game to have much of a chance.

 

[Prince Eugene]

I agree with you on Spain. They had the largest army at the end (I think around 1,000,000) that was just scattered around so it wasn't noticed.

 

[unmerged(3571)]

Originally posted by Prince Eugene
I agree with you on Spain. They had the largest army at the end (I think around 1,000,000) that was just scattered around so it wasn't noticed.

Well, that is only a part of it. France was still probably more powerful militarily, and I expect would have won in a war (though that is debatable, I would have liked to see them actually try) - but I don't think France was powerful enough to decisively defeat Spain.

You know my philosophy though - France (and England) must attack Spain early or they have little chance of catching Spain. France in the MGC 3 game played well, but his over-all strategic vision was poor - he should never have let Spain get so entrenched.

Since France wins through a military victory and Spain wins through an econmic one, France has to impose her will on Spain to win, and just doing it at the end isn't sufficient.

 

[Damocles]

Me and Ulver actually spoke about this.

As far as militarily...I think you're out of your mind. France's army was so huge by the end of the game, it was half of the reason no one wanted to play anymore. My manpower was around 800k, Spain's was around 56. (Would rise to 150ish with conscription centers probably). I literally could have kept 2 million troops in the field indefinitely and was in the process of doing such.

The one time me and Ulver actually came to blows, he had to make a concession that he needed me more then I needed him and for the most part, agreed to fall into line diplomatically. He told me (and we made a public treaty to the effect thereof) that he was resigned to France being the arbiter of Europe and found it perfectly acceptable.

With that kind of understanding, the French/Spanish breech was quickly healed and we never have anymore problems. Of course, the game ended 80 years early, so who knows what would have happened.

Just that, towards the end, I was economically self-sustainable and could have easily taken enough provinces in Spain to have forced any peace by driving his stab down and making his colonial Empire revolt away...In fact, Ulver realized this, but said he would fight to the end anyways. (Remember his honor )

On the flip side, I will say that France only reached it's dominating position because Spain was willing to break with Austria and form the same relationship with France instead. For a long while, we were equals. Then towards the end, it was realized that Austria was now too emasculated (and amputated) to be an ally, the Ottomans were impotent, the Russians were implacably hostile, the Dutch were vassals, and the Swedish were literally a French protectorate. The English were virtually nonexistant. It is International Relations 101 that Spain needs a strong land power in Europe to ally with if they want to defy France. Such a possible ally had ceased to exit by the 1720s.

If you base winning a game around accumulating the most ducats, then Spain would win. If you base it around who was the most powerful militarily and with the most diplomatic clout, it was France. Simply put, Spain allied with France until all its other potential allies were decisively defeated one after the other, and only it's enemies and France remained.

Towards the end of the game, I had to actively discourage attacks on Spain, because I liked him as an ally. Especially as long as he was willing to accept French hegemony in Europe which was my stated goal from the outset (even if I grabbed NA along the way).

 

[unmerged(3571)]

Clearly I agree that France was dominant militarily, and clearly Spain was dominant economically. France's ability to build enormous numbers of conscription centers makes them almost unstoppable later in the game (though Russia can make a good try).

The only possible basis for comparison is by VPs. Spain gets them quickly and easily through exploration and economic expansion, but France can get many though military victories and has the added benefit of removing them from Spain at the same time. I know that some consider the VP system flawed, but I really think that most of them don't understand the game. It isn't supposed to be fair!

The game is primarily about diplomatic interaction. France and Spain are guaranteed to be enemies just because that is the only way that France can win. If you ignore VPs the whole game breakes. France is virtually guaranteed to be the most powerful nation at the end if the player is even half-way competent - the only question is whether she can use that power effectively to replace Spain on top of the heap. The third and fourth place powers (such as the Dutch in your game) can hopefully use such conflicts to raise their position on the totem pole, but they are in much tougher positions (not really in control of their own destiny)

If the game is played that way, it actually isn't so broken as people think. Many more wars are usually fought, and countries don't have the money to build the massive number of manufacturies and consciption centers that ruin the game towards the end.

 

[Damocles]

I have played more multiplayer EU then the next three people combined, and I feel that the VP system is bogus and utterly ignore it. As do most people I play with.

It is by no means certain that a half-way competent France will dominate. In fact, that is a fairly ignorant statement, my friend. You should read the Europe divided thread by Eradius. It shows just how badly beaten a France can be by it's neighbours. And Eradius is a very skilled player!

Also, at least in the MGC3, as long as Spain was willing to accept France's dominance why would France /ever/ wage war on him? By the time Spain might have thought about going against France, there was no one left to ally with. Russia's tech sucks as well. Most MP games, I've noticed they don't even reach 41 until the last 20-30 years.

If we went by the VP system, then I would have to aggressively wage war on Spain for no reason whatsoever. Perhaps even take a stance that would have lost me valuable allies much earlier.