Something to add was in MoM, it showed the wizard actually burst into the room of enemy wizards and banish them personally.   I always tought this was awesome (when I first played the game it was pretty awesome as far as cut-scenes were concerned on a PC game in terms of graphics too)

(and later in life I discovered I got to see that one wizard woman's boobs when I killed her.  Oh the delights we had before ESRB ).

Expanding on that into a whole fight would be cool.

My definition of a duel is where both men agree to fight at a specific time at a specific place so if the player didn’t think he had a fair chance at beating his opponent he would simply decline the duel. If the player accepted the duel and realized he was out matched immediately he could attempt to flee the duel. As you’ll notice in my original post the duels wouldn’t necessarily have to be to the death they could just be till concession / knock out. If I had to guess I would say the hardest part of implementing such an idea would be the cinematic battles themselves rather than balancing magic, abilities, stats, and equipment. 

Please refer to the last paragraph of my original post. I'm starting to get the distinct impression that perhaps some people didn't all that thoroughly read my original post . 

*edit* A usage I neglected in my OP is that a dueling system as described above would also be good wholesome fun in my opinion. 

With a little bit of imagination I don't think it is hard to imagine how non-fatal duels could fit in to gameplay. Here are a few I was thinking about when I made my OP.

1. Fun: (duh) a player might want to fight someone without losing the game. 

2. Resources: This is a bit more advanced but lets say in a multiplayer game with 8 people  (two teams of four) Team 1 finds an Earth shard / Dragon / rarity and two team mates really want it rather than rolling dice or first come first server they could have a non-fatal duel to see who would get it. 

3. Morale: non-fatal duels between allies / neutral governments could boost morale for the military and civilian populations for both sides similar to the Olympics. 

4. Prizes: The player(s) could offer rewards for winners of a non-fatal duel this one relates to fun but could also be a part of diplomacy. 

5. Information: It sounds like it might be difficult to find out what path an opposing Channeler is taking if you had a non-fatal duel you could get a pretty good idea of what type of a Channeler they were.

6. Free form: Which is basically where two or more players would agree to some condition dependent on wether they win/lose a duel and then follow through on the agreement. 

Number 6 was originally my basis for having non-fatal duels and could be applied to a near infinite number of situations. My imagination tends to get overwhelmed with the endless possibilities that could be self-imposed by players and assumed concrete elaboration was unnecessary. Of course having the system mainly free form would also introduce the possibility of treachery with dishonest players which I find intriguing  . 

I personally think there is a difference between a duel and a duel to the death. Of course I typically go by the M-W definitions of a word, notice in M-W's definition death doesn't specifically enter into the equation but it isn't necessarily excluded either. 

Main Entry: duel

Pronunciation:ˈ dü-əl also ˈdyü-

Function: noun

Etymology: Middle English, from Medieval Latin duellum, from Old Latin, war

Date: 15th century

It was an african wizard.  She didn't wear a shirt.

This thread has stayed in the back of my mind and kept making me remember all sorts of non-fatal dueling stuff, like those old German fencing clubs where you weren't really cool until you had a nice scar across your face somewhere. Making duels a class of quests seems brilliant to me, and I'd also like to see some integration with full battle mechanics so that under the right circumstances, opposing forces could choose to let their champions duel for the prize and all the regular troops get to live (or perhaps units on the losing side could be enslaved instead of killed).

I guess one reason I'm liking the duel notion more and more is that I *really* hope this game can have some 'honor mechanics' that both help to futz up any blunt military-maximizing strategies and, more importantly, add to the immersion factor.

Another important thing to consider when talking about duels is, are they balanced? Can they be balanced? From the information we have now, one of the most major decisions a player will make throughout the game is to maintain a powerful channeler or to spread out that power throughout your empire. Now, obviously a player who chooses to maintain a powerful channeler is going to have a significant advantage over a player who spreads out in a duel. So basically it boils down to this: can duels be implemented in such away that they just become yet another way for the player to achieve certain goals, yet not necessarily better or more necessary than any other way to achieve those same goals? If the answer is no, then duels should not be in the game unless there is some opposing feature that people who choose to spread out their channeler's power can take advantage of. If the answer is yes, then duels would be an interesting and engaging feature that I think I'd enjoy.

Honor mechanics would be nice, but I'm skeptical about applying it to duels. For example if a battle begins in which you have a significant advantage, and the opposing channeler (who is just as powerful as your own) challenges you to a dual to determine the fate of the armies, there should be no loss of honor in declining. My reticence is basically due to the fact that honor is often construed as stupidity - the need to accept any challenge posed to you. I really like the idea of an honor system, I'm just skeptical about applying it to duels specifically.

On the other hand I like landisaurus's idea of how honor could be used:

This would be very neat. It would reward you for not being a complete opportunist. I'm sure there will already be a diplomacy mechanic that would make other nations wary of your agreements if you make a habit of betraying your allies and such, but I'd like to see that incorporated into a more comprehensive honor system. One of the many potential benefits of being honorable is the example landisaurus gave in the above quote. Being dishonorable has its advantages, too - it allows you to be a complete opportunist at every turn, always doing what is best for you at any given time. 

Going even farther, honor could be another type of alignment - resulting in 2 to 3 alignments, depending on whether Human vs. Fallen is the same as Good vs. Evil, which I hope isn't the case (so Good vs. Evil, Human vs. Fallen, Honorable vs. Dishonorable). Humans (Fallen) would be more likely to deal with other Humans (Fallen), Good (Evil) factions would be more likely to deal with other Good (Evil) factions, and Honorable (Dishonorable) factions would be more likely to deal with Honorable (Dishonorable) factions. Or, Dishonorable factions might even prefer dealing with Honorable ones (less likely to be stabbed in the back). Betraying or stabbing a dishonorable faction in the back should also not result in as high a loss of honor, though. 

These could result in some pretty interesting alliances. The most cohesive ones would obviously be when all members match in all 3 categories, but it might not be so rare to see Evil and Honorable Humans and Fallen teaming up, or Good Humans teaming up despite their different attitudes toward honor. Likewise it would probably result in several significant groups instead of the usual 2 powerful alliances plus a handful of loners.

Oh yes. That was probably my single biggest gripe about GalCiv2. Those damn AI constructors building space stations near my planets . Frankly I'd like to see even more than just "get off my land or else." For one, you can propose something, you should also be able to propose its opposite - essentially allowing you to threaten other players more creatively. I'd also like to see a "Demilitarize our border or else," "Cancel your alliance with Player X, or our alliance is over," and even options for temporary or specific right of passage through territory. 

For example, pretend there are 3 players, A, B and C in a row (so B is in the middle). Players A and B are at war. Player C wants to declare war on Player A. Player C asks Player B to allow army X to enter Player C's territory in order to attack Player A without having to go all the way around. Player B would be much more willing to risk allowing a foreign military into its territory if the agreement is only for certain specific, identified armies. Heck even the route could be specified in the agreement! And if Player C deviates from the route, Player B will open a diplomatic channel and ask what the heck is going on. If Player C doesn't move its army back to the agreed upon route, the agreement will be broken and Player C will lose honor.

Yeah I don't think the champion idea would work very well. For one, it's most likely that the channeler who spread out his power would be able to muster a stronger champion than the channeler who kept all his power to himself - so that would just reverse the problem. And if the champion had to fight the other channeler he'd probably have even less of a chance than his channeler master. 

And honestly I don't see the balancing being a problem in fatal duels. Channelers who spread out their essence could just refuse duels, problem solved. The problem would be in the non-fatal duels that you suggested could be used to attain certain goodies (your examples were resources, morale, prizes, information, player/AI-determined terms, plus whatever anyone else's imaginations can come up with). An even bigger problem to balance would be if dueling is ever incorporated into quests. 

No, my concern is that channelers who spread out their essence could be essentially (no pun intended ) locked out of potentially very rewarding duels, or even worse, they would be severely disadvantaged in any diplomatic or quest-related content that might involve duels. It would be a bigger problem in the quest system, because it would make essence-retaining channelers better at questing.

Keep in mind that I'm only opposed to that if there isn't some equally significant factor that channelers who spread out their essence can take advantage of that channelers who keep their essence cannot, at least not to the same extent. 

Plab B isn't bad. I really don't like Plan A, though, and Plan C is pretty vague . My only problem with B is that it doesn't really make much sense. If a super powerful channeler duels a weakling channeler (because he spread his essence out), the weakling one should have no chance whatsoever. 

I mean, if superman were challenged by some regular dude to a fencing match with something important at stake, it would be absolutely moronic for superman to agree not to use his powers to win. It just rubs me the wrong way. The only way I can see myself liking an implementation like Plan B is if it really is more like a game of chess than an actual duel; a game of intelligence and strategy which doesn't depend on power. Making this fun but fairly quick might be rather difficult, though..

Overall that could work out pretty nicely. One thing I'd like to point out is that this is first and foremost a 4X game. Put in any sort of time limit (especially one as short as 10 seconds) and there will be an uprising. Many people who play 4X games and TBS games in general don't like feeling rushed, and will be up in arms against any feature that could be construed as requiring twitch reactions. So there would have to be some other way to keep duels short.

man, this is getting to sound much more complex than I originally imagined.  

My comment is just that the problem is that if you focus your essence or whatever at becoming a good duelist, either A:and can back out of the fights and other players will always back out of the duel because you have an advantage, or B: you can't back out of the duels, then it will be extremely cheap to do anything other than focus on dueling, since other players will force you into them anyway.