Domains at War

Would anyone else be interested in playing a few rounds of Domains at War? I've had a few very limited experiences with Battles in my games and as practice, and I haven't touched Campaigns. I'd love to work with someone to set up some scenarios and then play them out to get a feel for the game more, so that I don't start an RPG and realize about five months in that on closer inspection, nothing in the setting really quite works the way I'd like it to. (E.g. "I wanted to have it be fluff that a nation worked like THIS, but the way iniative works, that's actually either terrible and impossible or, if I houserule it in, wildly overpowered. Also, I accidentally made an island nation with no navy because I didn't realize you have to budget for that seperately.")

If I recall correctly, D@W is such that you don't need to make any decisions while it isn't your turn, so it'd work fairly well for play-by-post, just taking a screencap of the battle after each turn. I've got a semi-workable setup on Roll20 now, too.

Ideally, I'd like to get a point where I feel really comfortable houseruling D@W and expanding it a bit, but I don't want to start that until I'm out of the stage where I'm still ending each battle with "and here's a list of things we were confused about that have answers in the rulebook that we just missed"

I'd be very interested in this, as I'm in a similar situation as you.

A play-by-email/post via Roll20 would probably work pretty well, all things considered; independent dice rolling logs, plenty of ways to mark units, etc.

Off the top of my head, the only things I can think of that are out-of-band is the withdraw of loose units to reduce damage, and reaction attacks?

And Heroic Forays. Why would the other two present problems? The attacker would simply need to announce/email, then wait for the non-phasing player to respond, no? I've only toyed with Roll20, so maybe I'm missing something.

 

EDIT: Wait... There is no equivalent of Heroic Forays in Battles, is there? Needless to say, I've only run battles with units, and the system in Campaigns.

Sure. It's not necessarily a problem, just an extra wait step inbetween turns for feedback.

Play-by-post wise, I think formatting it like old wargame orders or chess moves would be interesting, one could state what they did in the Roll20 interface then announce end-of-turn or attention-required.

  • Orc Infantry A
    • Charge; Hex D5 > Hex E7
      • Attack, Human Light Cav B; hit (18), 1 damage

ATTN: Human Light Cav B; May WIthdraw

or whatever. Just a touch of structure would go a long way, and would eliminate any surprises in not noticing something changed in the battlefield if you're looking at day+ delays between action. It helped way back when I was toying around with it early on in kickstarter:

http://crowbarandbrick.blogspot.com/2013/05/autarchs-domains-at-war-battle.html

Multiple commanders working would be interesting to see too, or, given the freedom of an electronic interface, a multi-force battle, 3 or more unaligned armies.

 

I like the way you think! Plus, a three-way game would let both of us play with susan_brindle, and work out how that would be handled.

EDIT: OH GOOD LORD! I just re-read this and realised how far down my own throat I just jammed my foot! I am so sorry if I offended anyone! I've edited the above for clarity.

The defender can also usually choose the path of a retreat of a unit that fails morale.

I’m interested in this (for much the same reasons as Susan, namely that my intuition for DaW:B is not yet strong enough to houserule with confidence or run without piledrivers). I’ve been thinking about writing a DaW:B server for a while now; maybe I’ll work on that over the holidays.

Cool! Would you be more interested in doing one of the two premade battles or setting up something custom? I'm happy to play with as many people as possible, although as in all things, at some point logistics become an issue ;P

 

I'd be very, very grateful if one of our tech-wizards set about designing a terrain randomizer.

 

 

The existing scenarios probably have a lower barrier to entry than perhaps trying to work up something custom at the start.

Terrain generation with a textual output wouldn't be too hard; graphical output or placing it automatically in Roll20 would be a bit more challenging.

[quote="jedavis"] I've been thinking about writing a DaW:B server for a while now; maybe I'll work on that over the holidays. [/quote]

That sounds interesting. As a standalone process, or piggybacking on something existing? (Roll20 APIs, etc)

Hmm… I was planning to go full gameserver with an independent client and a protocol suitable to play by AIs (and King of the Hill DaW tournaments / teaching neural networks to crush my poor players), but roll20 API is also a good idea. I should probably learn javascript anyway…

I'd love to run through the basic scenarios again...but I might change my mind part way through, depending on how long they take in this format. I'm guessing we'd all like to eventually test something a bit more representative of where we'd like to take it, no?

"I can na' change the laws o' physics, Cap'n!"

                                                         - Scotty

Nice.

 

Well, the one example scenario is very basic, but the epic one actually makes use of almost all the rules, since it includes heroes with items and a wizard. The only thing it doesn't have is nonhuman units. Obviously at some point then we have to have the battle of the Necromancer Prince vs the Free Monster Alliance to test all the monstrous units, with particular emphasis on how high-undead armies can work.

 

I'll rig up the basic battles in Roll20 over the next couple days.

Sounds interesting!

I always thought that Roll20 would be a good way of playing D@W:B. I played a few games of the most basic scenario but wouldnt mind playing that one again, still have not figured out how to win against the beastmen...

[quote="jedavis"] Hmm... I was planning to go full gameserver with an independent client and a protocol suitable to play by AIs (and King of the Hill DaW tournaments / teaching neural networks to crush my poor players), but roll20 API is also a good idea. I should probably learn javascript anyway... [/quote]

Gracious. Far be it from me to limit your scope, though. :)

 

If you’re just looking for a webpage with a 6-mile hex terrain dropdown, a generate button, and output of a set of terrain features that need placed on a map, I should be able to get that put together by saturday evening (very conservatively) depending on how my holiday travel goes.

Ed: Well I Scotty’s Law’d that one pretty hard (“Always tell the captain it’s going to take 50% longer than you think it’s actually going to take”). It’s up at http://jedavis.me:5000/terrain/

Alright, go ahead and join the game officially.

https://app.roll20.net/join/475292/RfBhpw

The current map should be the setup for the epic battle, as that's what I found out I already had all the resources for almost preloaded. If guys would like to try the smaller battle first, that'll be pretty quick to whip up. You'll notice that I used the little colored dots roll20 has to mark divisions, so you know which archers belong in Menna's Joint and which ones are the Autarch's. The little icons represent the heroes and unnamed lieutenants; feel free to alter them as you see fit. The way they are is just leftovers from the first time we did this.

I've placed one half of the map in Fog of War, under the assumption that I'm going to play the barbarian side, because as mapmaker I get first dibs. Whoever wants to pick up the other side is welcome to.

 

EDIT: oops I forgot there's a terrain stage of setup! I guess just whoever wants to, draw some terrain on the map.

any chance of regular updates/screenshots being posted somewhere for people who just want to lurk and observe?  It might also be possible to just follow that link and peek, but I wasn't sure.

You can peek! I'll also be taking screenshots regularly once we get started.