EA Hellscapes(Play!)

[PsiSoldier]

i'm not sure what you could do w/ it down... the brute fact is that you need a ton of _something_ in order to counter all the candles. I think I'd have been dumping all of your vast pearl income into juggernauts, and that's not too affected by AC as the casters can all be casting returning.

but even with juggernauts, the wave was just too far advanced - and I'm generally adding 5-7 more temple checks a turn.

Raiding can lower my bloodhunting, but not sufficiently. I'm about to start using all my Gem store (1300 or so) to convert to astrals in order to wish for more Blood... so that'll be a steady 200 blood every 2 turns income.

I'd never take a 4 starting dominion either; I'm guessing neither will Executor from now on. :p Some builds I can live w/ a 6, but that's the absolute minimum for me (except some Mictlan strats).

I could forge a lot of Stone Idols and cast a a whole lot of telastic animations but with horrors attacking the ones that forge or cast its not easy to do.

I'm about to try something else and hopefully take some of your forts and temples away from you without even having to fight for them.

You can wish for Blood slaves and all but the one doing the wishing had better be able to take on Doom horrors and makers of ruins. The Makers of Ruins can one hit kill even Abominations.

Ive had no problem killing them but we will see if you can say the same.

[archaeolept]

Ive had no problem killing them but we will see if you can say the same.
I think I can take care of myself, thanks ;)
______________________________

as we approach the final curtain...

I enjoyed the game, even though the map turned out to be pretty f*cked - especially for all those in the upper right corner. The war with Mictlan and Formoria was quite grueling; also, in large part due to how constricted the map was.

It was a pleasure dealing with both of you guys. You two played well; all that is needed is a bit more practice and thus knowledge especially of end-game tricks. Psi executed a perfect R'lyeh Turtle>clam hoard>wish strategy, but was likely not aggressive enough with his gem dominance in the end game.

Still, a good fight, and I _almost_ feel bad at stealing the win ;p

I'd say Hinnom still needs a bit of nerf, if just to its ability to dominion push; although, if people had been paying attention, and started to counter the dominion when it first started making its appearance, the end result would have been much delayed at least.

GG all.

ps - in my experience, the "metagame" wishes, like dominion and territory, are understandably a bit weak; otherwise they'd allow really easy strats. Wishing for Gems, or special SC's, or even a crucial item, seem to be the best uses of it. That territory wish mostly just flipped a few useless Niefl provinces to R'lyeh.

[Executor]

"Still, a good fight, and I _almost_ feel bad at stealing the win ;p"

Nah, I don't get upset no more bout that after having two games that I was about to win crash, especialy when you have a 150+clam factory and 2 wishes a turn.

[archaeolept]

^^just to be clear to anyone reading this, it's not me that has the clam factory - i don't even have 1 clam :p

[PsiSoldier]

Yeah this game is over. Wishing for provinces is completely worthless and I'll be out from dominion kill in a turn or two anyways.

Good game Arch.

And I never had even close to 150 clams btw.. Maybe 70 at the highest point until horrors killed my clam holders and I could not make any more. It was only the Arcane Nexus that allowed me to cast 1 wish every turn by adding to my clams

If I had had it to do over again knowing what I know now the entire world would have been decimated by multiple Armageddons 30+ turns ago and the outcome would likely not have been anything close to this.

[Executor]

So should we declare this game finished if there's no point in playing anymore. I'm real busy with new year, especialy these few days and don't really have time for much MP games.


Oh, by the way Psi, if you wanna see what a very late stage game looks like, search up the game Tigerstripes, I have posted my turn there, MA C'tis.
Actually here's the link>

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39146&highlight=Tigerstripes

It may be interesting to see what a 150 clam factory with multiple tartarians, wishes and golems a turn looks like.

[archaeolept]

just send in this turn and the next, and it'll all be over.

I can personally guarantee that it won't take you much time to do :)

edit: Psi, I'm not sure what you mean by casting armageddons as a strat - those equally affect you; in fact, perhaps more so, as, for instance, all my mages have more hp's than your slave mages... Armageddon, in my experience, is more like a last hurrah than anything usually especially useful. Your one cast killed 25 of my "military units" - probably some human militia and LI somewhere...

[PsiSoldier]

It would not have affected me to cast Armageddon. I didnt have any gold anyways for a long time and it would have wiped out your ability to build temples and forts as well as your blood income You would have been decimated in that area and it would not have had any real affect on me. Plus AC would have never been cast.

I think you seem to have missed the fact that Armageddon kills somewhere around 1/3 of your population per cast as well as killing a few military units. Killing the military units is only a side effect its the population kill that you want.

[archaeolept]

25%... sure, it would have destroyed income and blood income after a bunch of castings, but it would have meant all out war and you wouldn't have had your wished for SC's... Armageddons have their drawbacks too, is all, and it is difficult to predict counterfactually the end result of different strats :)

[PsiSoldier]

So should we declare this game finished if there's no point in playing anymore. I'm real busy with new year, especialy these few days and don't really have time for much MP games.


Oh, by the way Psi, if you wanna see what a very late stage game looks like, search up the game Tigerstripes, I have posted my turn there, MA C'tis.
Actually here's the link>

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=39146&highlight=Tigerstripes

It may be interesting to see what a 150 clam factory with multiple tartarians, wishes and golems a turn looks like.


I'm thinking about trying to start a game where it will be possible for nearly everyone in the game to get to the late stage just for something different. It would be a map with over 100 Provinces per player. Maybe 1500 province's with 10 or 12 players or so or whatever depending on how many people wanted to join. Obviously the game would be won through Victory points as it would be insane to try and capture 1000 province's. But it could possibly allow several people to reach Late game and have a Royal Rumble Late game magic style. I'm actually thinking about playing as Jomon even if I do that. While Jomon might suck they do have a fair variety of Magic paths on their mage's and could be competitive if they are not faced with an early war.

[Executor]

So I guess congratulations are in order, but I do consider this a very crapy way to win, or lose.

Psi: 100 provinces per player is too much, maybe 30-40 if you want a really big game. You could place some special sites or give items to players like in artifacts game, maybe use that mod for a special National hero you start with, Epic hero mod I think.

[archaeolept]

hey, i killed off any of psi's SC's he sent at me - so I don't feel too bad myself for the win :)
(6 wraithlords, 2 tarts, 1 chayot, 1 golem, 1 djinn, 1 rudra)

the game's called Dominions for a reason... it is a mistake to ignore it.

anyways, gg - i'm glad it's over, gives me some time back ;p
I was surprised how quickly the dominion fell, though.

[Executor]

Yeah me too, I can focus on more important games now.

"the game's called Dominions for a reason... you don't want to ignore it."

Yeah I know it's just that your dominion went x10 in about 6 turns or so, that's just too much.

I do think Hinnom is still overpowered.

[Executor]

Could you post your last turn perhaps.

[archaeolept]

Hinnom is overpowered still, though it took a very nice hit with the patch.

the issue in this game was that the Melquarts have a blood hunt/blood sacrifice bonus of 3, making hinnom almost as good as mictlan for pushing dominion. I'd suggest lowering that to a 1.

Hinnom really does lack magic path combos, which hurt quite a bit, does tend to kill its pop, and has very inefficient blood hunting.

I think it was closer to 20 turns that I started pushing dominion, against Lanka. When that fell, the wave really ramped up. Still, a concerted effort at that time would likely have worked.

With a dominion of 4, and only 1 temple I think, your dom didn't even put up a fight - so I too was surprised at the speed of the progress.

[mighty_scoop]

Uh ... i missed that the game is already over ... so congratulation to archaeolept ... a domkill victory ... awesome ... never thought that something like that is possible ;-).

Btw ... looks like your win was the perfect proof of authority for my attack war declaration ... nevertheless you were to good

[K]

end to kill its pop, and has very inefficient blood hunting.

I think it was closer to 20 turns that I started pushing dominion, against Lanka. When that fell, the wave really ramped up. Still, a concerted effort at that time would likely have worked.


I've been meaning to add "Nicely done!"

In case anyone was watching, Lanka was on the edge of collapse for most of the game from both a military and Dominion front. At one point I spent about 6 turns with only one candle in my main province and all of my mages Preaching like mad. Nailing Abysia and the arrival of my god ended that, but if a someone had joined Pangaea and Abysia in the attacks/domkill I would have been done for much earlier.

[archaeolept]

yah, i was pretty astounded at how harsh conditions were for you guys up in that corner - what dominion did you take, K?

I started the dominion push as a low effort way to take out the lankan remnants, but it was clear there was so little resistance to the dominion flood...I just stayed w/ it

otoh, at the end there, it looked like I had enough SCs built up that I had the military might to have made a go of it anyways. But the dominion push was a lot easier :)

If someone really does want to see my empire, i can email the 2nd last turn to them (where there were exciting fights).

[Executor]

I really doubt you had more SC than me. :)
Every Jarl was a SC.
A whole lot of good that did.

[archaeolept]

well, they need to be kitted somewhat to qualify...

including unkitted baalz/melquarts, I had over 40 of those, and maybe 15 other SCs - demon lords, grigori, heliophagi, an air queen, my Teleporting Giant Mummy SC killer... Enough to make a difference :)

The Grigori aren't half bad :p