This is a really great topic and I agree, in spirit, with the OP that good game design allows for the possibilities of "comebacks".
Honestly, if any game, be it football, soccer, hockey, baseball, or chess were determined in the first 5 minutes then the rest of the game would be pointless.
Sometimes demigod does feel that way. In part, because it is a wargame. In other games, advantages aren't designed to accumulate over time. For instance, in football, if you get a touchdown, you don't get awarded extra players on the field or an additional timeout. On the other hand, most wargames, and even real war, advantages do accumulate over time. Killing the other guy's stuff or taking his flag position is the whole point. As the game goes on you maximize your interests, position, and advantage in order minimize your oppponents and slowly take away his strategic and tactical options.
So on one hand you have to provide for comebacks and but on the other hand you have to acknowlege that leveraging and accumulating advantage is the whole point of a strategy game.
Warcraft 3 handled this mechanic partly by having tiered upkeep. Basically your gold accumulation had a margin of diminishing returns the larger your army. However, if you got wiped out your army "food" level was then again small and your gold income increased. This allowed you to replenish your army faster than the side that may have had advantage from your last battle. There was a window where the stronger side had to press it's advantage before the weaker side could resume it's strength via enhanced gold generation.
Additionally, comebacks in WC3 could be made if a losing side were able to "sucker" a stronger opponent or team of opponents into a well designed base that offered little escape. An impetuous foe could be lured into a trap and at the end of it they would lose their huge army despite just having bested yours on the open field.
I'm sure there are other examples.
Demigod does have the possibility for comebacks but it is dependent on the warscore, the map you are playing on, the attitude of your team mates, and your ability to coordinate.
Some maps are better for come backs and tide changers than others. For instance, I have found "Prison" is very unforgiving. The stronger team, if played right, can farm the weaker team for gold and leverage that into great items while holding the flags and getting a better warscore. Because it's easy to move around, they pretty much dominate the entire map at all times.
On the other hand, Cataract is more prone to back door flag caps, side attacks to the citadel and hit and run harrassment. You can be a weaker hero, but if you have enough speed, you can wreak havoc w/ flag capping and portal ninja techniques until your team "catches" up on levels and items.
Another aspect of turning the tide are the reinforcements. Highly upgraded reinforcements make a big difference mid and end game. They are harder to take down w/ aoe and they will go thru your opponents reinforcements and buildings faster. This allows your reinforcements to "build up" at the front lines of the battle. Mathematically, even small advantages in dps and hp's will result in your reinforcements outnumbering your opponent at the point of contact.
In order to come back from behind you have to recognize your weaknesses, recognize theirs, and coordinate. Anyone on ventrilo or teamspeak has a huge advantage in this game because timing is everything. Double backdoor portal capping on cataract w/ flag locks while giants are up on both sides will turn the tide quite quickly. Another thing you can do is to try to coordinate your efforts to avoid their strong heroes and team up and hunt their weak heroes. But you have to have a willing team and that takes typing if you are not on vent.
I've noticed that it's hit and miss when you are in a pug. If you call out directions one of two things happen. You either get the "shut up noob" response, which means your team mates usually don't really want to even try to coordinate. That's why you are probably behind to begin with. Or you get cooperation, and more often than not you can actually pull some bad games out of the fire. I'd say most of the time you get the "shut up noob" response because most people think whatever they are doing at the time, whether it is really helping with the overall goals of winning the game or not, is the right thing to do. Even if that means farming reinforcements and not stopping to cap flags, etc.
The biggest failure in design of Demigod is how much advantage you can gain, and keep, by killing Demigods themselves. In a tight game, with good players on both sides, it's not as much of a problem. However, if you have someone who's bad on your team who has died ten times where everyone else has died only once or twice, that player is feeding your opponents gold and some seriously good items or cit upgrades. Now, those heroes can run the map and start farming you because even though you might be equal skilled they are geared and you are not. I'm not sure what should be done to address this but I'd like GPG to provide some mechanic to not allow one bad player basically submarine their team irreversably.
