The Great Game is probably in top 3 forgotten mechanics in Warhammer 3. Why do I care? Well, I think it should make sense and 2025 is probably the year when CA will want to ''finish'' Monogods in general, so upcoming Slaanesh DLC may be just the right time.

I have a suspicion that this mechanic is completely random.

IMO Great Game should be based on simple mathematical formula, like:

Khorne vs Slaanesh vs Nurgle vs Tzeentch obviously

so: ''global number of Khorne aligned factions'' x ''number of their armies'' x ''number of cults'' x ''number of settlements'' x ''global corruption'' = final numerical result

or something like that (for sure it could be better!)

If Nurgle would be currently number 1 (winning great game) and I, playing as Tzeentch, would kill Tamurkhan and take his settlement, the mechanic should reflect that. Killing the strongest champions should have global consequences, so Nurgle should lose ascendancy... (how to reflect that in formula?)

What do you think? Game is calculating relative faction strenghts anyway...

I totally agree! MAybe CA could use a reworked version of the Vampire Coast Infamy Race for the Great Game. But yeah right now it just seems completely random. In one of my Tamurkhan campaigns I got the message that Epidemius was destroyed but at the same time Nurgle also won the great game...

Yes, I like these ideas. 

It might be even simpler if it was literally just a corruption number. Imagine a "World Corruption Bar" which is however many settlements there are in the game times 100. So if there's like 900 settlements in Immortal Empires (too lazy to look up exact number) then the bar shows 0-90,000 corruption. And on this bar there's a blue arrow for Tzeentch, a red arrow for Khorne, etc., which shows how much corruption they have on the whole map. And obviously the arrow farthest along on the bar is the God in the Ascendancy. It would be cool if the Ascendant God would get a ton of diplo minuses with other gods to simulate the others teaming up on the one in the lead. But bonuses to cults and manifestations.

Now you got me going. Let's expand on this:

1. A God's global corruption value via this bar gives the Daemons factions "Power", which is a resource used to create cults and use Manifestations.

2. The WoC faction that creates the most corruption for their God gets bonuses in the form of gifts, etc. Maybe there's like a sub-menu which ranks all the different WoC lords in the game, Sigvald can compete with Azazel; the highest person on Slaanesh's sub-menu gets Slaanesh bonuses. And if you have the most corruption contribution for all four Gods in their sub-menus, you get to become Everchosen?

3. Anyway, corruption contribution from WoC factions should generate Favour as a resource, and it should be separate from the main income, which should be gold or whatever. And you spend Favour on gifts, special buildings, tech, recruiting, etc.

Just sucks that the changeling does not contribute to this in any way as the ai, he just does nothing.

Thank you all! I was hoping for few more replies, but that will do.

@Celery#7483  as far as I know it doesn't work. People have been reporting that you may eliminate other gods factions completely and still they will gain ascendancy. 

@Phenex77#4577 I think that Changeling does something, but is probably set to passive. It's up to CA to ''fix'' him, he could at least spread cults and corruption.

@Captain_Rex#1635  totally agreed. It should be reflected in formula.

@HighestandCo#9562  IMO corruption value should be one of many factors, not the most important one. I completely agree on diplomacy maluses as it makes perfect sense. I also agree that WoC should play a role!

The Great Game should be a transparent mechanic and player should feel that he can influence it (so little to no randomness). I'll see if anyone else has any ideas or other thoughts and I'll post also in campaign section, so hopefully CA will see this thread and we may have a chance.

I posted the original post with some changes in the Campaign section, I'd appreciate upvotes and thoughts there as well. Upcoming DLC is - I feel - our best  chance for a better, more satisfying system.

I like the idea but there is IMO one major problem: It may lead to snowballing. Since the strongest gets bonuses then it will only get stronger and keep being on the top.

That's why CA's current implemenation is nice because on top of who has the most corruption they introduced some RNG.

So your idea + RNG would be even better.

But then it brings a 2nd issue: Is your idea just bloating the mechanic ? The God who has the most armies is probably already the one with the highest corruption. So is it necessary to double down in the formula ?

As a side note: Winning the Great Game should also come with important diplomacy maluses with other gods to show that they are progressively tryinh to take you down.

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MalalTheRenegade#5644 wrote:

I like the idea but there is IMO one major problem: It may lead to snowballing. Since the strongest gets bonuses then it will only get stronger and keep being on the top.

That's why CA's current implemenation is nice because on top of who has the most corruption they introduced some RNG.

So your idea + RNG would be even better.

But then it brings a 2nd issue: Is your idea just bloating the mechanic ? The God who has the most armies is probably already the one with the highest corruption. So is it necessary to double down in the formula ?

As a side note: Winning the Great Game should also come with important diplomacy maluses with other gods to show that they are progressively tryinh to take you down.

If I'm not mistaken those bonuses currently only affect chaos manifestations, right? Hardly OP stuff, more like little extra.

Current CA implementation is completely broken and artificial as far as I know. You can kill all Tzeentch factions and Tzeentch could be winning. Doesn't matter at all. I agree that nobody should stay on the top forever, but I don't want a fake mechanic.

So a transparent formula + ''kill the current winner'' mechanics (like growing diplo maluses AND passively taking away points after winning for too long + potential RNG) or even hard cap (like you can't stay on top after 10 turns of constant winning).

How is my idea bloating mechanic? Corruption isn't the best or only factor of strenght. Level 50 Tamurkhan army is far scarier than 3 minor Khorne factions with big corruption. The Great Game should take armies number & strenght into calculation (as the game already does in diplomacy screen).

So no bloating. Right now we have a ''fake'' mechanic that is supposedly based on corruption, but pure RNG in reality. I propose a real mathematical formula, that is transparent AND makes sense.

Good in theory, probably messy to implement in practice.

They also forgot about the souls race to be fair (I am not proposing its restoration btw!)

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Ingr8#8085 wrote:

They also forgot about the souls race to be fair (I am not proposing its restoration btw!)

Because we don't need it. RoC was like 95% bad design all around (the only good was really Ostankya's start there compared to IE). It was the right decision to let it die.

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Ingr8#8085 wrote:
They also forgot about the souls race to be fair (I am not proposing its restoration btw!)

I do want CA to return to it. I like more focused maps.

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TheWattman#7460 wrote:

Good in theory, probably messy to implement in practice.

How is that messy? As I said:

1. game is already calculating faction strenght

2. game was/is at least trying to calculate corruption

3. transparent formula is WAY better than a ''fake'' mechanic that you can't really influence

So it would like like that: 5 (let's say that's the number of Khorne factions in game) x 16 (number of their armies) x 4 cults x 13 settlements x 10 (global khorne corruption score) x relative strenght of the most powerful Khorne Lord (let's say Skarbrand, 10/10) = 416 000 is the final Khorne score. Or to make it easier let's just add instead of multiplying, so final score is 58, Khorne is the best

Suddenly Kairos appears and kills Skarbrand and takes one of his settlements, so Khorne loses -1 point for settlement loss, - 10 points because Skarbrand is no longer, - 1 point because one less army AND - 20 points on top of that because Skarbrand was the best Khorne Lord. So Khorne loses the Great Game now, being left with mere 26 points (58-32=26), Tzeentch becomes winner etc etc. 

What if Kairos never loses a battle? Well, all Tzeentch factions will have growing diplo maluses with other chaos factions worldwide and there should be a hard cap after 10 or 15 turns max. We could also add a system that keeps subtracting points after you or AI keep winning for too long.

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Sagez#6761 wrote:
So it would like like that: 5 (let's say that's the number of Khorne factions in game) x 16 (number of their armies) x 4 cults x 13 settlements x 10 (global khorne corruption score) x relative strenght of the most powerful Khorne Lord (let's say Skarbrand, 10/10) = 416 000 is the final Khorne score. Or to make it easier let's just add instead of multiplying, so final score is 58, Khorne is the best

Why is this better than just using amount of corruption?

I think it would be awesome if it's based on corruption that give you acendency points that you could spend on boons instead of manifestations

Give a hero a result of level him up etc, whatever is thematic to the faction, but you can only do so if you're on top so it stays a race

Maybe something should happen as well if you're at the bottom but not sure what

At the moment Tzeentch with his auto spreading cults has a huge advantage which is an issue

in both my Tzeentch camps I got to 100+ cults and 10K ish corruption total

But giving other gods ways to spread theirs should work

=> Nurgle chance to spread when city is infected by plague, can infect any city with a cult, more corruption when a city has a plague

=> Khorne, chance to spread whenever a battle is fought in a region/ province

=> Slanesh, chance to spread if faction is a vassal or certain amount of relations bonusses are met, more cults increase relationship bonusses with said faction leading to possible vassal eventually

Staying on top of the great game causes other chaos aligned factions to have negative relationships towards you too keep it interesting and dynamic

It's current form feels unimpactfull and quite boring

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Passthechips#4366 wrote:

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Sagez#6761 wrote:
So it would like like that: 5 (let's say that's the number of Khorne factions in game) x 16 (number of their armies) x 4 cults x 13 settlements x 10 (global khorne corruption score) x relative strenght of the most powerful Khorne Lord (let's say Skarbrand, 10/10) = 416 000 is the final Khorne score. Or to make it easier let's just add instead of multiplying, so final score is 58, Khorne is the best

Why is this better than just using amount of corruption?

What makes you think that corruption should be the only thing that matters?

All good, but current Great Game system has at least three problems:

1. it's - as far as I know and as people confirm - fake and not transparent enough

2. players can't influence it in a meaningful way (more like wait until you're winning)

3. It doesn't matter that there are powerful Chaos champions fighting each other. Game just doesn't recognize that. If I kill Valkia as Sigvald, it should matter more than killing some random orcs.

My proposition is imo way better than corruption. If you'll kill the strongest champion, their God will temporarily lose and that's cool and rewarding. Total war, heh.