Hi everyone, I would like to spur a discussion about my fevourite map Mesopotamia, its galring problems and possible solutions that could be taken by the Supremacy team to make it a more enjoyable experience. During the course of this post I'll refer to events occurred or occuring in my most recent, and still in progress, game, but they could be applied to almost every Mesopotamia game I've encountered.
The obvious problem for this map comes also from its fascinating characteristic, all players reaching toward those refineries and at the same time searching for the support of other players and preparing for a backstab to and from them. This would be all well and good if it wasn't for the fact that when the AI takes over one gets stuck with the same wars forever. This is also a not so simple matter that can be resolved with a give ROW or SM and wait.
The reason as to why it isn't so simple is that to be effective and gain an edge over the others in this map you have to constantly conquer and push forward, especially considering the limited amount of capitals available, in turn lower your popularity. I am currently the top player of my match, I have given share map to every AI and I am still the most dreaded nation, while stuck into three wars that are each a point of my argument for change, plus an additional one.
We are currently at day 32
1 - of my current wars my first one that came to be comes from the late start issue. A player near me, whith whom I tried to establish diplomatic relationships, conquers 2 provinces the first day then goes afk from day 3 (AI takes over at day 6) and come back at day 9 with still its full army. With my allies we manage to establish a good relationship with him but he waltz in and steal The capital of the garrison while everyone else in the sector had low morale troops and a fewer number due to facing the Ottomans and the Garrison. Nobody else was okay with this opportunistic behaviour and we decleared war, took it down, and... AI war since day 15.
I can see that abiding ones time is an available strategy, but one person can't beware 40 players all the time, if a player goes AFk he should be allowed to comeback anytime he wants to make opportunistic and unsportsmanlike moves (this comes back into point 3)
2 - After having settled the conquest of the sector against the NPC there had been some attrition between me and my ally against two other player of the adjacent sector, after espionage work to asses the situation a war broke out, we strategized, we fought, we took them down, and... AI war... that isn't Ai war anymore, since one of the players decided to come back to the game after having said that he would archive the game upon defeat. (Luckily the other player afk early on and at that point I had yet to declear war on him)
From my interaction in this match with this player I can expect that I won't be able to get out of this war for the rest of the game, and he will might come back time and time again to stab me in the back, since I can't conquer his starting provinces and he can simply keep making more troops there until he decides to attack again. This forces me to constantly keep an increasing portion of my troops stuck there and prevents me from wholly playing the actual game both in term of resources and war malus
3 - Similar to case one but much more annoying. A player that conquered 3 provinces up to day 5, stopped having activity on the journal from day 7 and was taken over by AI on day 11. This player of course had made alliances with other players at the beginning of the game and used those ROW when he reconneted at day 29 to go through one of those old allies to attack a garrison that I was holding. The most absurd thing is that he went afk after that single suicidal attack.
Now I have an additional AI war completely uncalledd for, since in those first 8 days I never had any contact with that player. The fact that a player, that has quit for such a long time, is allowed to do these actions to mess up the game for others shouldn't be allowed.
4 - This is a war that happened related to the second point but I manged to end it by writing off-match to the player. At the start of the game a player traded SM with everyone on his side of the map, when he went afk we all had ROW. At the start of the war of the second point his strip of land was between the two coalitions and both our coalitions had ROW. I woke up one day seeing that I was at war with him.
I don't know if it was due to too much militar presence was or I misplayed around the game mechanics, the point is that I ended up in a war with another AI that would have still be going until now even if me and my ally managed to conquer all its territories long ago (excepet for those starting provinces). I don't complain about the fact that it started without my intention but, If the other player wasn't a nice chap and didn't log in again to make peace at my request, I would now be at 4 concurrent wars thanks to that person of point 3.
Looking at the grand scheme of things for a Mesopotamia map:
- It is unlikely that a player doesn't end up in at least one war with someone of its starting quadrant, sometimes more.
- there is usually at least one emergin player from each quadrant, and sometimes a few allied to one another.
- adding in the jerks that log in a fortnight later to just mess around
Taking that into account: just to reach the middle strip of land you are at least at war with three countries, if you are playing for the win, and you have still more war to wage, even if it is only against Ottomans or Garrisons, but more likely against other active players. If you are just tagging along to the strongest in your quadrant and you are content with just a few provinces maybe you are at war with only one or two.
I understand that AI can't grant peace immediately, otherwise a lucky player in a quadrant full of inactive with just a few conquest each could grow incredibly big while in other quadrants other players are fighting each other, delaying their growth. It is also unreasonable to be subject to arrassing attacks from defeated players with a grudge or AFKs with... I don't know what.
PROPOSITION:
- Set a limit of time since the last engagement, and the change by a player of the diplomatic relationship to either Peace, ROW or SM, at which point the AI will grant at least an end to hostilities (I don't remember if the ceasefire still gives the maluses). This can also be based on the additional condition that the AI is forced to the starting provinces or it doesn't border any province of the player in question (in this case though it also shouldn't be allowed to go through other countries to attack him/her). I think that 10 days should make for a nice time limit to a war relationship, in this way diplomacy will still be very alive since if a player start taking down inactive 10 days without conquering anything, inactives don't usually have much to offer, will simply leave them behind. There would still be a need for strategic decision on regard to which war engage in and which war to avoid
- Players that have been taken over by the AI for more than 10 days should be allowed to come back only to read journals or watch the map, they shouldn't be allowed to move their troops and distrupt the game for the others. This is very important since there are always so many potential threats given that it is a 40 players map.
If you read through here congrats
and let me know what you think about these issues, the solutions I proposed and solutions that you think might be more adequate.
