Hall of Doh!

[vfb]

I hereby nominate myself to the Hall of Doh!, for suiciding a Scout with a load of reserve gems and a clam.

Here's the routine: click the province my army is in (with the scout), hit 'a', select Storm Castle. Forget to de-select the scout. And he's still scripted to Retreat from way back when he was actually a Scout, and not a Bearer of Precious Reserve Gems and a Clam. And I've got no province to retreat to, because I sailed/flew to the castle.

Doh!

[Digress]

What to choose as my first contribution ?

So many mistakes, so many of them repeated ...

[Duncan_Frost]

Casting Black Death on my capital is up near the top. Wishing for death by accident is another.

[cupido2]

My succubus, outfitted with neat gear (if seduction fails), successfully seduced an enemy commander and returned with him to my capitol. Alas my capitol was underwater... both drowned. Duh! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Sombre]

Attacked an army sieging my cap with my huge stack of mages. Forgot to actually move any troops with them. A few arrows later,....

[DonCorazon]

Fully kitted out Ulmish hero accompanying a huge army is accidentally the only one scripted to attack right away.

Charges out in front of my entire army into the loving arms of a bunch of Shinuyama trolls and is immediately ground into Ulmburger in front of my horrified troops. I imagined they received a -5 morale for witnessing this event

[Dedas]

...or it fills their hearts with rage! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif

Hopefully that is a good thing.

[OoohSnap]

Attacking an army with a big communion of MA Marignon, scripted to rain fire on the enemy...

Battle starts... What the?! Why aren't they casting fire spells? Oh rite... Those enemies are Abysian http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif

Result: A lot of Royal Guards and Mages dying of exaustion http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif

[Baalz]

Teleport a dozen penetration boosted astral mages onto a group of mostly non-GOR'ed tartarians for some enslave mind spam figuring they'll quickly start fighting each other while my mages keep plugging away. Was short on boosters so I got everybody up to S3 and scripted the first guy to cast light of the northern star....then didn't give him any pearls. Result: 6 paralyzed tarts while the rest strolled over and squished all the astral mages I had. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[moderation]

cupido2 said:
My succubus, outfitted with neat gear (if seduction fails), successfully seduced an enemy commander and returned with him to my capitol. Alas my capitol was underwater... both drowned. Duh! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif



Ouch. You would think the game would warn you about this. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Injured.gif

[Foodstamp]

Recently in an MP game I somehow forgot to click end turn when I finished my orders. I had several flying raiding armies that were bouncing province to province. During my stale turn all my raiding armies were wiped and the all the provinces I raided flipped to the enemy. It was a pretty devastating stale turn to say the least :/.

[DonCorazon]

Got another one for the Hall of Doh! This really hurt.

Had a HUGE sacred dual-blessing Eriu army - all 2/3 star vets from wars with Ermor chaff. They were hiding out deep in enemy territory, ready to spring the final attack, when their commander, my prophet, got mind hunted. Commander dies, and troops have nowhere to go since they are stealthed in enemy lands.

Entire army that took whole game to build - > up in smoke.

That was my first and most unforgettable lesson on the importance of:
1. astral defense
2. magic resistance
3. multiple commanders

[Wauthan]

DonCorazon said:Entire army that took whole game to build - > up in smoke.



A toast for the leaderless fallen. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/beerglass.gif

One of my own greatest doh! moments was a similar lesson to pay more attention to the composition of my army. Was late game and the make-or-break moment. My HUGE army of undead and golems was spearheading the final push against Abysia.

The bastard had found the Crater.

Lesson learned: Never use an army composed entirely out of mindless units and a few mortal commanders.

[JZ]

Not my fault, still.
Searching for sites, finds abandoned laboratory.
On the same turn unlucky event - laboratory burnt down. Doh.

[Loren]

cupido2 said:
My succubus, outfitted with neat gear (if seduction fails), successfully seduced an enemy commander and returned with him to my capitol. Alas my capitol was underwater... both drowned. Duh! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif



Hey, that could actually be useful. Give her water breathing and you don't end up with an expensive but rather useless troop.

[veto]

Todays lesson for me...
Doh! is
When your last try to break the siege of your capitol (trn 21 early era. enemy is Tien-Chi. a lot of infantry (near 250, 11 mages or so, near 10 elefants... my troops are last 6 niefel jarls with abductor and Son of Niefel (pretender:)and some other troops.)
Our forces were ready for the las fight (well I seem to have some problems with art of placement but I try to learn it)
Nevertheless. Pretender.. chill 30(or so) during prepares my most and last hope to win this battle says "stoneskin"
Fin. I've killed him.
He frosted himself till death(
Doh!!!

[Sawyer]

This is apparently a fairly common mistake, actually.

My biggest D'oh! was spending the better part of 10 turns acquiring the materials for making some artifact-level gear for Taurotyrannos (the Pangaean blood minotaur hero, I think that's what his name was,)along with a Black Heart to make the most powerful assassin known to half-mankind, sending him into a province and having him seize upon a generic commander...
Only to have him cast tangle vines incessantly because I forgot to script him. And watch him die. And watch the commander get ahold of the Manreaper and all sorts of other nifty stuff.
D'oh!

[Cerlin]

Just did this one in a practice game of mine...

I have two Sidhe lords rampaging some indie Water provinces then I though "wow I should site search these provinces!" I then Cloud Trapese a Lucky Tuatha Sorceress to one of these provinces.... Without waterbreathing. She Is dead and I lose her awesome picks too... <doh!!!>

[Taqwus]

I've made the mistake of bringing a Druid along my Abysians. Unscripted. Who promptly cast Protection -- area Barkskin -- which lowers fire resistance...

[SsSam]

Had a mage with two globals cast manifistation.
The angel came ....for my mage. ooops.

[Cor2]

In a sp game, very late in, I teleported my pretender (oracle S11) into a huge enemy army. Cast master enslave. All went well, caputure almost the entire army. between turns my pretender was attacked by a ninja assassin and killed with posion shirkens. Doh! Enslaver of entire armies killed by a lowly assassin.

[mathusalem]

I lost an Oracle too after a Master Enslave, when he hadn't any gems for vortex of returning

[Renojustin]

I'd built up about 20 C'tis Masters of the Dead, and was smashing armies left and right with pure skellyspam, overwhelming even large amounts of priests.

One turn, my infantry screen had been routed and I didn't realize it.

About three volleys of arrows into the next fight and the mighty Skellyspam Force 20 was no more. Lost the game shortly thereafter!

[Twan]

Endgame in a VP victory game. An ennemy is near victory. I teleport a team of mages on one of the last VPs he don't have, near one of his big armies. Luckily the province happen to have a lab. I play Arco and have several S4 astrologers with leadership items ready to gateway armies. I send them. Then I search something to do with my team of mages already on the province. As Man has turned AI and randomly cast seeking arrows on my provinces I have the clever idea to... cast an astral dome. Two of my gateways spells are blocked, battle and VP are lost, and game the turn after.

[cleveland]

D3 Lamia Queen with a Skull Staff (boosting her to D4) & 4 Death gems. She's scripted for Darkness & leading an undead hoard.

I’m curious to know what her second shape (snake form, i.e. handless) stats are, so I change her shape...looks good...change her back. I order the attack.


COMBAT!

Lamia Queen: "BARKSKIN!...EAGLE EYES!...ETC!"

Undead Hoard: *Hacked*...*Slashed*...

Me: "D3?!? What the fudge^ happened to the Skull Staff?!? ...oh...Doh!"


^Extensive portions of this monologue have been edited for content.

[Edi]

That there province is just independents. Indies, shmindies, we'll kill'em all and let the head honcho sort'em out!

Battle Report (http://koti.welho.com/ehalttun/Dom3/Pics/ulm_indies3_small.jpg)
Ulmish force (http://koti.welho.com/ehalttun/Dom3/Pics/ulm_indies1_small.jpg)
Independent force (http://koti.welho.com/ehalttun/Dom3/Pics/ulm_indies2_small.jpg)

The battle repost should say it all. Two of my three hall of fame mages died and if not for them, I'd have had absolutely nothing left. Bloody troglodyte events...

Kaljamaha had another nice one, he's playing the new LA Abysia and one of his slayers is clearing an indie province. Kills all commanders and we're talking about the final attempt to ensure there are no more commanders left, when the indies get the Celebrant of the Faith event. High priest casts holy avenger, slayer (hall of fame, naturally) takes a
swipe, misses and is annihilated by the smiting power of an independent heathen god. That was in a game where nothing he did turned out right anyway while I was just basically rolling along and tripping over Doom Clouds, Underworlds and other extra bonuses every other turn.


Finally, this one is not really Hall of Doh material as such, but I might as well post it here to save making another post.

Ooh, I bet that hurt... (http://koti.welho.com/ehalttun/Dom3/Pics/pod_magmabolt_aaiee_small.jpg)

[Zeldor]

I got a lesson to be careful with equipment http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Equiped my Tartarian Cyclops with standard SC stuff that included Boots of Quickness. He wennt to do his job, conquered something easily, then surprise - he got a meeting with Arch Devil. He lost, so I check the battle report. And something is wrong - why he is suddenly in front and self-buffs there? I check the equipment - Sandals of the Crane! Blinking Tartarian!

That was the most stupid battle I have EVER seen. My Cyclops is superior in strength and should win that without huge problem. But Arch Devil regenerates. My Cyclops hits him, tries to make final blow - but nah, he gets blinked somewhere far and walks to Devil. Arch Devil flies to him, they fight couple round, then my Tartarian blinks somewhere again. And they do it for over 30 turns. So my Cyclops run out of most of HP and decided to retreat. But it isn't so easy - he needs to get till the end of battlefield. He walks, just 1 more tile... but no! he gets blinked somewhere far and hast to start again. It took him about 30 turns! to rout!

[Tyrant]

Built an Amulet of the Fish to send my big ole high power Kraken god off to slay on the land. Unfortunatly...i forgot to put it on first- DOH!

[Foodstamp]

Then how did you leave the water? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Saulot]

He likely teleported. Considering the 'high power'.

[Tyrant]

yep- Holy Calamari Batman! Is that a 300 ton suffocating squid falling from the sky?

[Endoperez]

Tyrant said:
yep- Holy Calamari Batman! Is that a 300 ton suffocating squid falling from the sky?



I told you to stop eating the purple fish, Auluudh! You're 524 years too young for that! You are going to go to your cave now and will stay there until Polypal Mothers send for you, understand? Pfft, squid-filled stars from above the surface of the surface? The spawn these days...

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif Poor aboleths, they never saw it coming. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif

[Zenzei]

I was just testing Kailasa in SP and moving around my ring of wizardy in order to cast some ritual spells. As a result of slightly careless mouse clicking I ended up giving it to that super commander named "Throw Away" who even happens to have infinite item slots. Doh'ness ensued.

[moderation]

Saulot said:
He likely teleported. Considering the 'high power'.



An astral Kraken? Sounds like a good target for Magic Duel.

[Forrest]

You want duh?

I am in the middle of the ocean. Atlantis or one of the stupid water nations. No magic on my imprisoned pretender. Turn two a earthquake takes out my lab and I have no mage to rebuild.

Game over.

[Sombre]

An imprisoned pretender with no magic? Your scales must be [censored] hot.

[Wrana]

Well, with such hot scales you probably could make enough troops to take somebody's province with lab... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Or buy Dagan the Renegade Sage's services.

[Zenzei]

While in theory that's possible it will still take several turns to find and conquer such a province and it's highly unlikely Dagan will be as an available merc when you need him for this kind of job. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Sombre]

There are plenty of magic using mercs though.

[Zeldor]

And you have plenty of money when you are not recruiting mages http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Edratman2]

I'm voting for Twan.

Mine involved teleporting a bunch of mages and a fully equipped rainbow crone to my main army deep in enemy territory. Than as my last action before "end turn", I read the messages again, saw that the main army was starving and had them move into a farm province instead of staying put as intended. Damn fliers attacked, then "Quit without saving", "Start New Game".

[Forrest]

You think a no magic access under water is easy to over come?

Give it a try. Play Atlantis and don't buy a mage till you capture a under water lab or bring a land mage into the water. See how many turns it takes. Easier said than done.

[lch]

Sombre said:
There are plenty of magic using mercs though.


That Starspawn guy might be the only usable merc in the case described. Otherwise it's a bit of a chicken and-egg-problem: You'll need to outfit a mage with underwater breathing items to build a laboratory underwater. For that, you'll need a laboratory and research and the right magic paths. So your aquatic nation has to learn how to get mages with lungs real quick if they want to see any magic.

[IndyPendant]

MP game deep in late game, the sort of stage where dozens of mages accompany armies and gems are downed like candy to power massive battle spells.

1) Attack an opponent's capital with my most powerful mage-buffed army. Win and start sieging. Forget to transfer to my battlecasters the 60 or so extra gems I had brought along on stealthed units for just that purpose. Watch many of my most powerful mages and army units slaughtered when my opponent sallies forth.

2) Get counterattacked, and now playing against two opponents. Send out one particular caster to support the defenses. He gets killed. The global he had cast previously goes poof.

3) Opponent is sieging my castle. Bring leaders and units from many directions to oust him. Forget to set the heavy spellcasters on "Move and Patrol". Army gets slaughtered while the heavies sit in the castle playing with their purdy gems.

All in the same game. All within five turns of each other.

[OMAC]

Dom 3 was my first taste of Dominions, and being a newb, I started building fortresses everywhere. Manual? I don't need no steenkin' manual!

Cue resources reaching all-new lows. Cue my bewilderment as my Ulmite army production grinds to a clanging halt.

That being said, I was the safest damned nation on the map, and I don't care what you say. *folds arms*

[hunt11]

my favorite doh moment was when i sent my god out and the province it was in suffered a random event which killed my god, shortly after that i quit the game and tried again

[Wauthan]

IndyPendant said: All in the same game. All within five turns of each other.



Yeah, in this game it's always the little things that gets you in the end. It's almost like a planned feature that a small nation can stand up to a more powerful foe through superior micromanagent. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[Wrana]

Well, like a life itself... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Edratman2]

I had a new one on Saturday.


For the first time in about a hundred games I decided to blindly attack a province on the opening turn with my starting army because I'm playing my own mod with a decent starter set. Managed to pick a province with 3 zillion knights and get thumped. At the same time, probably because I went with bad scales, got a barbarian invasion attack (only 2 zillion barbarians) on my capital. All I could do was read my messages and look a total military force of a mage (gotta have a mage, don't want to lose your lab to an earthquake in the first turn), some double blessable sacreds (if I had someone to bless them)and a scout in an adjacent province.

I came up with a fairly clever solution; "start new game".

[Szumo]

You could have prophetized that mage http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Edratman2]

Szumo said:
You could have prophetized that mage http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Didn't think of that. Was too busy going "DOH"! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Endoperez]

This wasn't a real Doh, but I don't know where else to post this.


I was testing how well Luck scale is, once again. I start a game, choose a random nation, put in Oracle, full luck and turmoil, go on... Well, my test was at the "turn 50" phase. I has chosen Silent Seas, so the AI had found me, conquered provinces around me and was trying to get through the wall of PD 95 and 400 militia and other random units. Now, I was wondering why I get so many of this one spesific event. It's not even good - cursed units, got some witch's gems, blablabla... Then I realized it's not that event. It's the other event. The Baleful Star event.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

The AI is spamming Baleful Star at my capital! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

[Wrana]

My personal favorite is, of course, attacking with 2 armies and forgetting to change "sneak" into "move" for one of them... Unfortunately, hadn't got anything like this in current MPs... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif
Well, now remember one! Got an agreement with other player than I'll make him Dwarven Hammer... got gems, etc. And found out that last turn I've sent the only E3 mage in laboratory to bash some independents! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Zeldor]

Yeah, finding useful mages in strange places far from lab when you need to summon/forge smth NOW happens quite often. Too often.

I also forget about trades. But got lucky on it once, other player sent me gems, I forgot about it. But then he declared war on me so I didn't feel like sending that gems later http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Herode]

Wrana said:
My personal favorite is, of course, attacking with 2 armies and forgetting to change "sneak" into "move" for one of them... Unfortunately, hadn't got anything like this in current MPs... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif


I had one of these on the King of the Island game. I was playing C'tis (without much efficiency I confess...) and was planning to attack Machaka. I move several stealth armies (mainly shades & shadows) on the provinces I wanted to seize and where my scouts reported no or very few DP... and I forgot to make them move instead of sneak. The turn after, I attacked at least. but the time was over : the main province and 2 other had received armies, the main province had also a beatiful fort built, just under my nose http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Of course, bad times were only to begin since Machaka was one of the power nations of the game, while I was one of the poorest ones http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif

[DonCorazon]

how about all those times you turn up the tax on turn 1 and then forget to turn it down?

in one of my first MP games it wasn't until around turn 40 when a spy arrived in my capital and was caught that i realized i had huge unrest and that was what had caused my queue to stop producing. doh!!!

the player who sent the spy, saw the unrest in my capital and asked me after he was defeated if i was at war with someone (assuming someone else must have been sending spies to my capital and that person might have made a good ally).

i had to confess no -i created all that unrest by myself.

[Sombre]

[11:58] TinyTurtle: Oh. little green numbers above your soldiers = bad?
[11:58] Sombre: Poison.
[11:58] TinyTurtle: haha, oops.
[11:58] Sombre: Damage inflicted by poison.
[11:58] TinyTurtle: so I had this Hydra running around with my Pythium dudes, and I was all "wow, it's healing them, i had no idea it would do that"
[11:58] Sombre: lol
[11:58] TinyTurtle: so for the next couple of battles I was extra careful to keep it in the group.
[11:58] Sombre: That's awesome.
[11:58] Sombre: Your group is probably hideously afflicted.
[11:58] Aldante_Fax: That's wonderful
[11:59] TinyTurtle: oh god
[11:59] TinyTurtle: I'm looking through them
[11:59] Sombre: I have to post that on the other board.
[11:59] Sombre: That's classic.

[MaxWilson]

DonCorazon said:
Got another one for the Hall of Doh! This really hurt.

Had a HUGE sacred dual-blessing Eriu army - all 2/3 star vets from wars with Ermor chaff. They were hiding out deep in enemy territory, ready to spring the final attack, when their commander, my prophet, got mind hunted. Commander dies, and troops have nowhere to go since they are stealthed in enemy lands.

Entire army that took whole game to build - > up in smoke.

That was my first and most unforgettable lesson on the importance of:
1. astral defense
2. magic resistance
3. multiple commanders



I'm pretty sure the troops would have died anyway even if you had had a second commander stealthed in the same province.

-Max

[MaxWilson]

@Sombre,

Wow, that's hilarious. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[lch]

MaxWilson said:
I'm pretty sure the troops would have died anyway even if you had had a second commander stealthed in the same province.


Dunno if you're the actual enemy in whose lands he was hiding, but I think he referred to the fact that an army without any commanders among them flee instantly if involved in a battle without fighting. And if they do it while being surrounded in enemy territory, then they all die during the retreat attempt.

[thejeff]

Right. But they still would have died, only the ones without a commander would unstealth, attack and retreat to die.

You'd think stealthy troops would have the common sense to stay hidden even without a commander. But I don't think the stealth/patrolling mechanism allows it.

[sansanjuan]

D10 crone pretender with twiceborn waltzes out of my Dominion alone, no bodyguards... Ritual summoned Earth Elemental turns her into a mud pie. No more blender drinks when taking Dom turns...


-SSJ

[moderation]

Sombre said:
[11:58] TinyTurtle: Oh. little green numbers above your soldiers = bad? [...]




Heee-larious! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/stupid.gif

[DonCorazon]

thejeff said:
Right. But they still would have died, only the ones without a commander would unstealth, attack and retreat to die.

You'd think stealthy troops would have the common sense to stay hidden even without a commander. But I don't think the stealth/patrolling mechanism allows it.



The commander died and the troops just vanished. There was no battle.

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

So, I'd gotten my dom 6 F6N4 lord of the desert sun ruling Machaka in singleplayer. I had him nicely equipped for trouncing the AI. I had Gift of Health, Eternal Pyre, and Mother Oak up (cast by him, of course), and was producing more fire gems through fever fetishes. I had him equipped with a weapon, some heavy Elemental resist armor, 9 reinvig, and a ring of regeneration. Four hundred hitpoints or so. Scripted to cast personal regeneration, fire shield, some other buff. So this guy was regenning had four hundred or so hp with some ridiculous regen. How could I lose him? Against independent troglodytes of course. I thought indeps couldn't be any possible threat, so I forgot to check the dominion scales before moving in.

And I was wondering why my regen was only eight hitpoints...

[lch]

<quantum_mechani> hey, what the heck happened to the NAP?
<Coolswa> Giants love magic gems
<Coolswa> one of you three gave me some coinage
<Coolswa> ill leave it to you three to figure out who
<quantum_mechani> wow, i have never actually had anyone break a nap before, illegally
<Coolswa> uh, was i supposed to have said something
<quantum_mechani> well normally you give warning of X turns
<quantum_mechani> since the terms were vague, i assume at least 1
<quantum_mechani> well, otherwise it's meaningless
<Coolswa> <Coolswa> hinnom nap few turns?
<Coolswa> to be fair it was a few turns
<Coolswa> im the next alexander baby
<Coolswa> But you know quantum
<Coolswa> i would love blood slaves
<Coolswa> hint hint
<Coolswa> maybe some shinies

I like those guys already...

[Thelvyn]

I love this post thread... and in that spirit I took a little theme screen-shot..

this is someone you just gotta say "DOOOOH!!" when you meet in them in the Arena Death Match

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/136/hallofdohdeathmatchez4.th.png (http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hallofdohdeathmatchez4.png)


-Thel

[Zeldor]

My Treelord did win fight with him.

[Loren]

Thelvyn said:
I love this post thread... and in that spirit I took a little theme screen-shot..

this is someone you just gotta say "DOOOOH!!" when you meet in them in the Arena Death Match

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/136/hallofdohdeathmatchez4.th.png (http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hallofdohdeathmatchez4.png)


-Thel



How did you manage to get him?

[vfb]

Anyone else notice that barkskin amulets and fever fetishes look somewhat similar?

Doh.

Time to redo my turn from the start. :(

[Nikelaos]

Thelvyn said:
I love this post thread... and in that spirit I took a little theme screen-shot..

this is someone you just gotta say "DOOOOH!!" when you meet in them in the Arena Death Match

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/136/hallofdohdeathmatchez4.th.png (http://img145.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hallofdohdeathmatchez4.png)


-Thel



How did you manage to get him?

you can wish for a doom horror however after some time they tend to just leave.

Now if only there was a fully geared up cyclops in the arena with our doom horror, that would be fully DOH and the reason pretenders shouldn't go to the arena.

[Kheldron]

I once recruited a water mage mercenary and started to empower him from scratch up to blood 3 to summon the ice devils...then forgot to bid on him when he was finally ready !
As no one had tried to bid on him, he was lost forever

[Illuminated One]

In my first game I had a imprisoned rainbow alchemist with low dominion and scales and incredible high magic (like 9 Astral and 4 in every other path without items) to try all the cools spells I couldn't try in the demo. He had a staff of elements, a ring of wizardry, a ring of sorcery, some armor, a bottle of life and cast twiceborn.

One day I wanted to bring him back to my capital, but why walk when can teleport, call horrors and return?

I gave him three pearls some blood slaves and scripted him like this:
Power of the spheres (to get +1 Blood to reduce fatigue)
Call Horror
Call Horror
Return

When I opened the messages on the next turn I saw that he died.
I watched the battle and saw that everything worked like it should until he should have cast return. Instead he just cast damage spells.
I opened his description and saw that he had only one pearl left. Apparently he had used a pearl that was intended for the returning to reduce a riducolous fatigue of about 10 and trapped himself in a province with enemy dominion, a large enemy army and two horrors...

[DonCorazon]

I record this one for posterity as a reminder to check your fort admin scores before laying down a fort -

I built a fort adjacent to a province where I had set up a lab and temple to recruit indie mages. No big deal.

Unfortunately, this province had another adjacent fort, the combination of which sent my resources in the indie recruiting zone down to zero.

So its either forget about the indie mages and the 900 gold invested in recruiting infrastructure, or tear down the 1200 gp / 5 turns to make walls Mr. Gorbachev.

Doh!!!!!

[vfb]

Hey, just build another fort on the indy mages! You can never have enough forts :).

[DonCorazon]

Good point though in this case it might be throwing good money after bad since the indies in question were simple shamans to get me N1 access, and it would be cheaper to build a temple and lab (900) on another province than pony up for another fort. Although once i have more money it could make sense to throw a fort on their just for recruiting more national mages.

[vfb]

Yep, the only reason not to throw up another fort would be if (A) it would prevent you from recruiting more capitol-only units (if one of the 2 existing provinces is your capitol) or (B) if it's a lab on the front lines where you need to sit a bunch of mages who are there for defense, but you'd like to have them research instead of patrol.

Oh yeah, (C): If you haven't got the cash! :)

[vfb]

My most recent and most tragic entry into the HoD:

Dr Doom, the death turkey, had cast Burden of Time, and then after empowering, Utterdark too. Wait a sec, why am I wasting this Starshine Cap on him when he's just summoning some longdead horse! If I give it to this other guy, he can cast Send Lesser Horror, and I might get a free upgrade to a real Horror, since AC is up.

Yeah, that's a good idea!

Well, it would have been if Dr Doom had S2, but he was only S1. And a horrible Horror objected to his little summoning spell, and Dr Doom could not follow his returning script, so he just raised a few skeletons. And that was the end of Dr Doom.

DOH!

[vfb]

Oh, I wish there was an icon that appeared on units that have cast a Dome somewhere. Even when I've renamed them (something hopefully inconspicuous like "Dominic" or "Domex" or "Domar" to avoid assassination), I accidentally send them off to die a horrible death in battle, and lose my Domes. Doh!

[chrispedersen]

Backwards. Emod. I get asked what my names mean all the time = )

[DakaSha]

in my game just now against a friend i set my taxes to 160 in the first turn and left them there for 10... until i started wondering why i was making no money despite twice the provinces and order 3.

about 6k dead citizens...*sigh*

[Dragar]

i've done that so many times...

[DakaSha]

yeh im sure many have.. its not my first time either.

i think its the most "d'oh" move in dominions :P

[Calahan]

Attacking blind on turn one with your Pretender will always be firmly rooted in the "Doh #1" spot for me.

[vfb]

I dunno about that ... off the top of my head, I'd consider it with indy-5s and a Dom-10 pathless Kraken. Or maybe in EA with a Dom-10 E9 cyclops.

[Calahan]

I just don't see how the benefits could possibly ever outweigh the risks.

Positives - Slightly accelerated start that may net you an extra 2-3 provinces after one year.

Negatives - Dead Pretender, and game over (with regards any chance of actually winning).

That is just not a level scale in my books. To me it's the worst possible version of "Win or Bust". As it's not "Win or Bust" at all. It's "Be a bit better off or Bust, which is just a purely crazy gamble in my books.

Never forget that there are countless nasty Indies lying in wait on land, and the water has wailing ladies. And those will kill a Kraken easily from tests I did with a game I took a Dom10 Kraken in.

For me at least, there is not a single Pretender build that I'd attack blind with. The risk reward is just nowhere near viable enough.

[Edi]

I dunno about that ... off the top of my head, I'd consider it with indy-5s and a Dom-10 pathless Kraken. Or maybe in EA with a Dom-10 E9 cyclops.
With indies at 5, that's doable. Put indies at 7 and it's not viable unless your pretender is immortal and you have dominion.

[llamabeast]

I almost always attack blind!

[chrispedersen]

I dunno about that ... off the top of my head, I'd consider it with indy-5s and a Dom-10 pathless Kraken. Or maybe in EA with a Dom-10 E9 cyclops.
With indies at 5, that's doable. Put indies at 7 and it's not viable unless your pretender is immortal and you have dominion.

Turn 1 most of the time you *don't* have dominion. Usually just candles in your capital... So even with immortals its a bad idea.

I'll do it with a pathless wyrm. Very rarely elsewise.

[Zeldor]

You never have dominion. Natural dom spread is at the end. Only way you could change dom before battle would be preaching/sacrificing. And you'd need really big luck to get dom spread into prov you are attacking.