Ruby LA CBM Game Running 10/16 Pretenders Left

[Hadrian_II]

Hi Everyone, i am trying to get a new LA Game Started

It would be hosted on llamaserver
(http://www.llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=Red_Ruby)
Age: Late Age
Game Settings: Everything standard, except HoF 15
Map: Alexander
Mods: CBM 1.5 (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=43120)
Players: At least 15, no Rlyeh.
Pace: first 24 turns on 24h quickhost, then 48h quickhost until at least turn 50, after that extension to 72h by majority vote.

Nations:
Atlantis: Frozen Lama
Ermor: Calahan
Gath: Zapmeister
Jomon: Toni_Bubu
Man: Festin
Marignon: Hadrian-II
Mictlan: Strabo
Pangaea: Sil
Ulm: Bluff
Utgard: hEad

Crushed Nations:
Agartha: OoohSnap
Arcoscephale: Dragar
Midgard: Starshine_Monarch
Pythium: Alpine Joe
Tien Chi: secretperson

[Dragar]

I'm confused..

[i am trying to get a new LA Game Started]

[Age: Middle Age]

assuming LA, I'm in with Arco

[Hadrian_II]

Late Age is correct.

I am just not smart enough to copy and paste things.

[Strabo]

If this game is noob-friendly, then im in as Mictlan

[secretperson]

I'd like to join as T'ien Ch'i

[Toni_Bubu]

As above, if newbies are allowed, I'm in as Jomon.

[hEad]

Utgard please

[Festin]

I'll join as Man.

[Frozen Lama]

Atlantis

[coobe]

Patala plz

[OoohSnap]

Agartha please

[Festin]

A small question: I am currently in the middle of another game, that uses older CBM version. Should I have both old and new CBM in my "mods" folder, and will it work without problems?

[Dragar]

yep you have both, and it works fine. i have about 8 versions currently

[Zapmeister]

Gath please

[Sil]

Pangaea please

[Cicadian]

I'll try Jomon. Also is there any chance magic sites could be a little higher? Finding them is a big part of the fun of the game for me :)

[Bluff]

Is Bogarus taken? Couldn't see them yet but I'm prone to blindness when looking for things that aren't there :)

[Bluff]

Ah.. Bogarus isn't taken cause they are USELESS.. can I take Ulm instead? :)

[hEad]

Ah.. Bogarus isn't taken cause they are USELESS.. can I take Ulm instead? :)

pssst Bluff, I'll swap you Utgard for Ulm... interested? Give you some big guns to play with.


Doing my bit to help out the new guy! :D

[Alpine Joe]

I'll take Pythium

[Starshine_Monarch]

Is Midgard taken yet? If not, I'll use them.

[Calahan]

I'll take up the mantel as the enemy of all with Ermor.

[Hadrian_II]

I'll try Jomon. Also is there any chance magic sites could be a little higher? Finding them is a big part of the fun of the game for me :)

Sry, Jomon is already Taken by Toni_Bubu

We have Abysia, Caelum, Ctis and Bogarus still left for the taking

[Hadrian_II]

OK, i created the game on llamaserver, name is Red_Ruby (llamaserver does nut support 4 letter gamenames).

I also found out that Alexander only has 16 land startingprovinces, so we have also full house.

Please upload your pretenders until thursday, so that i can start the game on friday.

[Calahan]

Can I ask which version of the Alexander map we will be using? The one with special sites or the one without?

[Hadrian_II]

The one with the librarys

[OoohSnap]

Is this the correct version of the map?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=37295

If not, do you mind to give me a link?

[Hadrian_II]

Yes it is the correct map.

Added link to gamesite on llamaserver to first post.

[Frozen Lama]

sorry if i'm a noob, but whats with the Chelms pretender that was submitted?

[Dragar]

Chelms = LA Man

[OoohSnap]

One last thing, did you allow Renaming?

[Hadrian_II]

One last thing, did you allow Renaming?

It looks like llamaserver defaults to renaming on, and i did not change the setting.

[secretperson]

I should have my pretender submitted within the next 5 hours

[OoohSnap]

Alright then, good luck and have fun everyone. May the true god arise :p

[Toni_Bubu]

Sorry for the delay, my pretender will be up in t-4 hours.

cheers

[Hadrian_II]

I am too lazy to check who is exactly missing, but i will the game in approx 12 hours, so please upload your pretender, or the game will start without you.

[Calahan]

My awesome powers of observation tell me that 'coobe'/Patala are the missing nation. Rumour is that 'coobe' is the most cursed player on these forums, and sadly, has apparantly never finished a MP game yet due to RL problems :(

[Calahan]

Just a quick thought, if we were to start the game with 15 nations instead of 16, would that give some players a bit of an advantage due to the map being designed as 16 fixed land starts? Since there would be a lot of free Indy provinces to grab where the missing capital was meant to be.

Maybe just advertise for "1 more player required", fair chance someone will jump onboard. (all this is assuming of course that 'coobe' is AWOL again)

[Hadrian_II]

It is one spot missing, and about 4 player adjacent to it so it is no problem.
But i will wait for sometime before i start so that if someone is interested he can join.

[Hadrian_II]

game is on

[Festin]

Umm... I actually don't see it in the list of games.

[Calahan]

Hurray, the llamaserver seems to have deleted us :)

[Hadrian_II]

I asked llamabeast to look into our problem, the only thing we can do now is wait.

[Sil]

I got my turn email yet when I try to play the game it crashes with no error message as soon as I press "Pangaea turn 1". It's definitely not a mod problem. Anyone know what could be causing this?

[secretperson]

I got my turn email yet when I try to play the game it crashes with no error message as soon as I press "Pangaea turn 1". It's definitely not a mod problem. Anyone know what could be causing this?

This most likely means that you do not have the correct map. Download the right map and put it in the right folder and it should work fine. I had this happen to me previously as well.

I believe the map we are using is the Alexander map with libraries. (I just downloaded them all just in case :P)

[secretperson]

I received an e-mail with my first turn and have played it. Upon trying to e-mail it back, i received an error message- A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed: (addresses omitted here) 552-5.2.2 The email account that you tried to reach is over quota.
Strangely enough it lists one of the e-mail addresses for llama's turn account as at gmail(?)

Anyone else having problems?

[secretperson]

Disregard my last post. It seems my turns went through just fine after all.

[OoohSnap]

I received an e-mail with my first turn and have played it. Upon trying to e-mail it back, i received an error message- A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed: (addresses omitted here) 552-5.2.2 The email account that you tried to reach is over quota.
Strangely enough it lists one of the e-mail addresses for llama's turn account as at gmail(?)

Anyone else having problems?

I seem to be having the same problem as you had, Gmail keeps sending me an error message and I can't get my first turn through :(

[Alpine Joe]

I am also having trouble playing the turn, for different reasons. Everytime I try to take an action in the turns, my commanders and fortress layout dissappear and are replaced by a blank version of the map. My other games are working correctly, so I think it might have something to do with this map. i have redownloaded the map, but it does the same thing. I will try to resolve this issue, but if I can't get it I may have to find a sub (really unfortunate since I was really looking forward to playing pythium and my pretender design is eccentric).


Anyone have any ideas?

[Alpine Joe]

Never mind, problem solved.

[OoohSnap]

Guys, I can't send my turn I keep getting an "Unknown Game" error popping up from llamaserver

[Calahan]

Guys, I can't send my turn I keep getting an "Unknown Game" error popping up from llamaserver

OoohSnap, do you have just the following words in the subject heading of the email?

Red_Ruby

[Zapmeister]

Guys, I can't send my turn I keep getting an "Unknown Game" error popping up from llamaserver

OoohSnap, do you have just the following words in the subject heading of the email?

Red_Ruby

The subject only needs to contain the name of the game when submitting a pretender. For a turnfile, any subject will do.

Were the orders you're trying to submit prepared using the turnfile attached to the email that notified you that the game has begun?

[OoohSnap]

My problem was solved, I was using the wrong folder and thus was sending a 2h. file from a Test game I was running as Agartha. Sorry for the delay guys

[Calahan]

Guys, I can't send my turn I keep getting an "Unknown Game" error popping up from llamaserver

OoohSnap, do you have just the following words in the subject heading of the email?

Red_Ruby

The subject only needs to contain the name of the game when submitting a pretender. For a turnfile, any subject will do.


Never knew that. Assumed the llamaserver wouldn't know which turn file belonged to which game without the correct subject heading. The llamaserver truly is a wonderful creation :)

[Hadrian_II]

Ermors Capital is at 30 lets meet there :)

[Calahan]

No it isn't, it's at (130) ;)

[Sil]

Pretty sure it isn't 130, but their spread might be slow :P

Atlantis are you cool with our border as it is?

[Sil]

Duh, I'm Pangaea.

[Sil]

Pangaea Shop of Stuff is now selling Dwarven Hammers, Thistle Maces, Earth Boots, Regen and reinvig trinkets and boots, Skull Mentors and Staffs and some other stuff.

Payment
Option 1: Astral pearls only, 1 pearl for each gem in the item's base cost.(ex. a Skull Mentor would cost 10 pearls)
Option 2: At least 5 pearls and the rest in Nature, Earth or Death gems until we reach the base cost(ex. Dwarven Hammer would cost 5 pearls and 10 E/N/D gems or 6 pearls and 9 gems etc etc)
Option 3: Gem cost +20% rounded down if you are paying with Nature, Earth or Death gems only(ex. Mentor would be 12 E/N/D, Hammer would be 18 E/N/D etc)

Obviously availability will depend on my supply of gems. 50% of payment up front, 50% after delivery.

edit. Feel free to comment on the prices. E/N/D payments can come in a mixture of the three.

[Frozen Lama]

I'm cool with the borders

[OoohSnap]

Agartha is turning to AI, rushed and owned by Tien Chi :(

Good luck and have fun to the rest of the Nations remaining

[mighty_scoop]

Hi there,

Toni Bubu is laying ill in his bed and will not be able to make his turn. Is it possible to postpone this turn for 24h ?

Greetings

[Hadrian_II]

posphoned

[Sil]

Pangaea Shop of Stuff is now selling Dwarven Hammers, Thistle Maces, Earth Boots, Regen and reinvig trinkets and boots, Skull Mentors and Staffs and some other stuff.

Payment
Option 1: Astral pearls only, 1 pearl for each gem in the item's base cost.(ex. a Skull Mentor would cost 10 pearls)
Option 2: At least 5 pearls and the rest in Nature, Earth or Death gems until we reach the base cost(ex. Dwarven Hammer would cost 5 pearls and 10 E/N/D gems or 6 pearls and 9 gems etc etc)
Option 3: Gem cost +20% rounded down if you are paying with Nature, Earth or Death gems only(ex. Mentor would be 12 E/N/D, Hammer would be 18 E/N/D etc)

Obviously availability will depend on my supply of gems. 50% of payment up front, 50% after delivery.

edit. Feel free to comment on the prices. E/N/D payments can come in a mixture of the three.

Bumping to mention that if you make an order then emailing me or messaging me on the forums is the best way to go. Almost forgot who I was supposed to send one to, though I'll be writing things down as well from now on.

[Alpine Joe]

An invasion of our capital and only city by LA ermor's hordes leaves Pythium defeated. I will make one final stand at my capital, then set myself to AI. Good luck all.

[Starshine_Monarch]

Midgard is going to try and find a sub. Bad coincidences have kept me from getting recent turns in on time and I can't expect to play competitively only sending in every other turn. I'd like a 24 hour extension to give me time enough to find one.

[Hadrian_II]

posphoned

[Calahan]

An invasion of our capital and only city by LA ermor's hordes leaves Pythium defeated. I will make one final stand at my capital, then set myself to AI. Good luck all.
You were unlucky Alpine Joe. I had no real intention of attacking you, until that is I had that random cultist creating event next to your capital. Once that happened though, I had a ready made gateway to your capital, which was just too good an opportunity for me to turn down. So a combination of very bad luck and opportunity seizing led to your downfall, which is a tough combo for anyone to accommodate so early in the game.

[Dragar]

Fairly beaten in numerous battles by the giants of Gath and with our northern lands now uner conquest by Atlantis, Arco is shamefully beaten and its ruler beats a hasty retreat from the game as his enemies quickly divide the remainder of his lands

All the best everyone!

[Alpine Joe]

An invasion of our capital and only city by LA ermor's hordes leaves Pythium defeated. I will make one final stand at my capital, then set myself to AI. Good luck all.
You were unlucky Alpine Joe. I had no real intention of attacking you, until that is I had that random cultist creating event next to your capital. Once that happened though, I had a ready made gateway to your capital, which was just too good an opportunity for me to turn down. So a combination of very bad luck and opportunity seizing led to your downfall, which is a tough combo for anyone to accommodate so early in the game.

Yes nice work on deciding when to strike Calahan. Unfortunately for me, I was relying mostly on sacred Hydras for expansion and there are few units worse against LA ermor. Your attack came too fast for me to even recruit blockers for my banishers in S3. Well played. Now if I could just prevent the same thing form happening in Cripple Fight....

[Zapmeister]

As far as I know, Starshine Monarch's attempts to find a sub have been unsuccessful and Midgard has suffered 3 consecutive stales.

Is it time to fire up the AI?

[Sil]

Pangaea is also trading various gems in exchange for astral pearls.

[Festin]

Ermor looks scary.

[Calahan]

Ermor looks scary.
I would normally agree, but LA Ermor's graphs are probably no different to normal looking LA Ermor graphs, and they always look a bit nuts :) Although that's not to say Ermor isn't full of scary undead stuff :D

My current "hats off" goes to Frozen Lama without any doubt. LA Atlantis are a pretty unloved nation, and have been tagged as weak by a lot of players. But that's an outstanding job of getting them blasting out of the blocks I must say Frozen Lama. Good effort all round to you there :up:

[Sil]

Atlantis is doing ok, but they're alone in the water as far as I can tell which, of course, is a major problem in and of itself. I sure am glad to be sandwiched between the corpses and the fish necromancers.

[Hadrian_II]

Ermor can also easily enter the see and is also doing it, mictlan has underwater sacreds and Jomon has also entered the sea.

Also the nations of Pangaea and Vanheim are hereby called to prepare forces to defend against ermor, as they should not grow that much bigger.

[chrispedersen]

Could you change the titles of your threads to running?
Makes finding new games easier!

Thanks!

[Calahan]

Very sorry everyone, but can I please request a 30 hour delay of the current turn. I am away from home all day tomorrow due to a sporting event (this wasn't confirmed until today) and won't be back until Sunday morning, meaning I can't get my turn done until that afternoon (all llamaserver time).

So apologies for the delay, but didn't know for sure I needed it until today, and have to get an early night tonight due to 4am travelling tomorrow.

[Hadrian_II]

posphoned

[Frozen Lama]

So who's in charge of organizing the anti-ermorian alliance?

[Calahan]

So who's in charge of organizing the anti-ermorian alliance?
I am :) please PM me for your orders.


@ Hadrian_II - Thanks for the delay.

[Calahan]

Looks like Midgard got turned AI last turn. Guess Starshine didn't manage to find a sub after all :(

[Hadrian_II]

lets just hope the ai does not like ermor

[Calahan]

lets just hope the ai does not like ermor
- :)

[Toni_Bubu]

Hey everyone,

sorry for those stale turns. I am drowning in work right now and will not be able to submit the next turn in time either. I will not go AI though, and shall be back in the game as soon as possible if my professors let me.

Sorry guys..
Toni

[Hadrian_II]

This is a call to all free nations, ermor has just invaded me and if i dont get help, i will loose the war, and then ermor will become much too big to be fought against.

Also Midgard and Pythium are AI so if you are bordering them, you are bordering ermor.

[Calahan]

Nothing wrong with taking my undead hordes for a little walk is there :)

@ Hadrian_II - Hat's off to you for your good anticipation of my attack.

[Frozen Lama]

Atlantis shall assist in the war. no undead will survive beneath the waves!

[Hadrian_II]

The only nation bordering Ermor except me, the cowardly and treacherous pangaeans are allied with Ermor. They did not even have the decency to respect the nap they had with me.

This world is doomed to be ruled by the undead.

[secretperson]

I'd be happy to assist yet I'm being invaded by Ulm :(

PS. Call of the winds makes me very irritated. Three castings in the same province failed to take out the most basic PD.

[Frozen Lama]

Damn Pangeans, they always were a traitorous lot. best to kill them quickly. We now look to Jomon, and all other nations to assist us.

[Sil]

My apologies Marignon, my lack of experience shows again. For some reason I thought the NAP was meant to last 3 turns not to entail a warning 3 turns prior. Rereading the messages between us shows that I was wrong. I can only blame it on the fact that I've been very distracted from the game lately, well that and all other naps I'd agreed to had a NAP# format which made me think a certain period of time. My apologies again and I promise to make it up to you if we happen to play a different game together.

As to Ermor, I am simply driving my armies to meet them on the shortest possible path. Unfortunately given the mountainous and swampy nature of my territory that path just passes through yours. Again, sorry about the nap breach.

[Hadrian_II]

As to Ermor, I am simply driving my armies to meet them on the shortest possible path. Unfortunately given the mountainous and swampy nature of my territory that path just passes through yours. Again, sorry about the nap breach.

We would recommend that you look on your southern border.

Also the meaning of ermor in a game is, that everyone crushes them, as when one player fears them so much that he becomes their vassal, ermor has nothing to fear.

[Sil]

As to Ermor, I am simply driving my armies to meet them on the shortest possible path. Unfortunately given the mountainous and swampy nature of my territory that path just passes through yours. Again, sorry about the nap breach.

We would recommend that you look on your southern border.

Also the meaning of ermor in a game is, that everyone crushes them, as when one player fears them so much that he becomes their vassal, ermor has nothing to fear.

The tongue in cheek was in poor taste given the circumstances. I'm not all that afraid of Ermor right now, there are other fish in the sea that are considerably more dangerous to me. And they're all nearby it seems.

On an aside: If anyone is interested in water, fire or air gems and can trade pearls at 1 to 1 for them this turn message me or post or something.

[Frozen Lama]

Sorry to say it Sil, if your not afraid of ermor, you really are new to dominions. think of the snowball effect.

[Hadrian_II]

I'm not all that afraid of Ermor right now, there are other fish in the sea that are considerably more dangerous to me. And they're all nearby it seems.

lets just say, that ermor is very close to reaching critical mass

[Zapmeister]

Sorry to say it Sil, if your not afraid of ermor, you really are new to dominions. think of the snowball effect.

I gotta agree with that. Atlantis may look scary on some of the graphs, but Ermor can quickly become unstoppable like no other nation. Because of that, like R'lyeh, it's often banned in LA games.

[Frozen Lama]

Calahan, are you sending viruses to all your neighbors computers or what? ;)
2AI nations next to you, and now Jomon, another neighbor of yours has 4 stales. you really are going to win thanks to all your neighbors quitting :(

[Calahan]

Calahan, are you sending viruses to all your neighbors computers or what? ;)
2AI nations next to you, and now Jomon, another neighbor of yours has 4 stales. you really are going to win thanks to all your neighbors quitting :(
Believe me, that is not something I actually feel good about :( Would always prefer to properly earn any progress I make in games, rather than have it served up on a plate due to AI's and stalers.

I've posted a lot recently about how much I hate nations turning AI in games, and while I still didn't like seeing my neighbours of Pythium and Midgard turn AI in this game, both were pretty valid even in my eyes. Pythium was just a straight kill by Ermor after a lucky event gave me an unexpected opportunity to siege and capture their capital, with matters only made worse by Pythium's only real troops being Hydra's. Midgard/Starshine did look for a sub for several turns before turning AI, but unfortunately didn't manage to find one. Which there's not much you can do about unless you know players who owe you tons of favours.

But I think the Jomon situation can be dealt with, and I think the best thing right now would be to put the game on hold for a while until Toni_Bubu's RL time constraints ease up a bit. Or ask him if he doesn't mind a sub doing a few turns for him until he can get back onboard. Regardless of whether or not Jomon would attack Ermor, it is just bad for the game all round to have a nation sitting there constantly staling. Although I do confess I didn't realise Jomon had staled for four turns, as that really is a bit over the top.

But putting the game on hold is not my call, so....

[Frozen Lama]

Calahan, are you sending viruses to all your neighbors computers or what? ;)
2AI nations next to you, and now Jomon, another neighbor of yours has 4 stales. you really are going to win thanks to all your neighbors quitting :(
Believe me, that is not something I actually feel good about :( Would always prefer to properly earn any progress I make in games, rather than have it served up on a plate due to AI's and stalers.

I've posted a lot recently about how much I hate nations turning AI in games, and while I still didn't like seeing my neighbours of Pythium and Midgard turn AI in this game, both were pretty valid even in my eyes. Pythium was just a straight kill by Ermor after a lucky event gave me an unexpected opportunity to siege and capture their capital, with matters only made worse by Pythium's only real troops being Hydra's. Midgard/Starshine did look for a sub for several turns before turning AI, but unfortunately didn't manage to find one. Which there's not much you can do about unless you know players who owe you tons of favours.

But I think the Jomon situation can be dealt with, and I think the best thing right now would be to put the game on hold for a while until Toni_Bubu's RL time constraints ease up a bit. Or ask him if he doesn't mind a sub doing a few turns for him until he can get back onboard. Regardless of whether or not Jomon would attack Ermor, it is just bad for the game all round to have a nation sitting there constantly staling. Although I do confess I didn't realise Jomon had staled for four turns, as that really is a bit over the top.

But putting the game on hold is not my call, so....

well just to make sure its clear, because i respect you as a player a lot Calahan, I meant that purely as a joke. I figured you'd be ok with it since you're so well known to hate staling.

[Calahan]

No worries Frozen Lama :) Knew there was nothing intended with your post as that's not who you are at all from my experience, and knew it was merely a joke about how Ermor seem to be getting too easy a ride in this game. (which even I have no trouble admitting they are).

Mainly posted to express my concern about the Jomon stales. Still am concerned about them. Five stales in a row is not good on any level, and something really needs to be done about them if this game is to stand any chance of reversing it's increasingly uneven balance.

[Hadrian_II]

player went missing, so we can either hope that he will return, or set jomon to ai

[Calahan]

Pace: first 24 turns on 24h quickhost, then 48h quickhost until at least turn 50, after that extension to 72h by majority vote.

Are we switching to 48 hours soon? The above, taken from the game status page, and announced before the game started, suggests this should already have happened by now given that the game is currently on turn 26.

Herding up all these undead every turn is certainly eating up the turn time, so I would appreciate the extra time at this stage (as was announced at the start). Plus it will mean less stales for Jomon (if that is to be their destiny for the forseeable future)

[Sil]

Yeah, it looks like Jomon will stale for the 5-6th time in 2 hours, so it would be nice to set the host at 48 now or after this turn. On the same topic you have to admire the restraint of Jomon's neighbors. Guy hasn't lost a single province since the stales began. :)

[Hadrian_II]

we are on 48h now

[Zapmeister]

Can we get Jomon turned AI, please?

[Festin]

Damn, I'm surrounded by AIs. It is starting to look like single player :(

[Zapmeister]

Can we get Jomon turned AI, please?

Bump. AIs aren't great, but better than permanent staling.

[Calahan]

I'm happy to help look for a sub for Jomon if there's some direction from the chair to do so.

[Hadrian_II]

if someone has a sub for jomon, please say so and i will set it in.

I also postponed the game for 48 hours to find a sub.

[Hadrian_II]

it seems that a sub is found, tyrant has offered to take over jomon.

[Calahan]

it seems that a sub is found, tyrant has offered to take over jomon.
Excellent news :)

Welcome to the game Tyrant.

[Hadrian_II]

postponed one more day to give tyrant the chance to send his turn in.

[Frozen Lama]

Sorry to say it, but i will be on vacation from the 16th to the 25th of this month. I will attempt to look for a sub, hopefully one will appear even though subs seem rare lately.

[Sil]

Did Ermor stall last turn or am I imagining it? If yes it seems like Calahan is about to stall again.

[Calahan]

Pretty sure I didn't stale :) but you can always check under "Admin options" "Show staling date" on the games status page on the llamaserver.

It will probably be a bit of mad blast turn from Ermor coming up I feel though, since time will be tight between getting home from work and the turn hosting. Should have about 30 minutes I reckon to get a turn done (which is a rush job for LA Ermor!)

[Sil]

Nevermind it just seems like it because you always cut it so close. My turns still take something like an hour even though I don't have a quarter of your micro to deal with.

[LDiCesare]

Hi,
I'm subbing for Frozen Lama but haven't received any turn.
Was the email address changed?

[Hadrian_II]

ok, you are set as sub for atlantis.

[Zapmeister]

Henceforth, Gath wiill be played by DryaUnda.
I have forwarded his email to the administrator.

[Frozen Lama]

I am back from vacation. I can now reassume control of Utgard. Of course, when i was looking for subs, i said that if any of the subs got really attatched to the nations, they could keep it, so if LDiCesare wants to keep it, speak up. otherwise, switch me back please

[Calahan]

I am back from vacation. I can now reassume control of Utgard. Of course, when i was looking for subs, i said that if any of the subs got really attatched to the nations, they could keep it, so if LDiCesare wants to keep it, speak up. otherwise, switch me back please
Welcome back Frozen Lama :)

And I think you've done an awesome job with Atlantis so far, so slightly confused that you want to jump ship to Utgard :p Unless it's all part of some great Anti-Ermor plan :(

[Hadrian_II]

i need your email to be able to switch you back

[Frozen Lama]

Right...... That would be Atlantis... i'm waiting to hear back from LDiCesare, then i will PM you hadrian

[LDiCesare]

Yes, take back Atlantis. I think I didn't waste it.

[Calahan]

Please can I request a 24 hour delay. Already know I won't have enough time to get a turn done between now and the hosting deadline.

[Hadrian_II]

Is this for this turn or for the next? if it was for the last, i am very sorry.

[Calahan]

For the current turn please Hadrian_II. Sent you a PM about it as well.

TIA

[Hadrian_II]

postponed

[chrispedersen]

Ermor looks scary.
I would normally agree, but LA Ermor's graphs are probably no different to normal looking LA Ermor graphs, and they always look a bit nuts :) Although that's not to say Ermor isn't full of scary undead stuff :D

My current "hats off" goes to Frozen Lama without any doubt. LA Atlantis are a pretty unloved nation, and have been tagged as weak by a lot of players. But that's an outstanding job of getting them blasting out of the blocks I must say Frozen Lama. Good effort all round to you there :up:

Frozen Atlantis is a solid, solid nation which I would rate 3rd in power in LA, however that is somewhat dependent on map.

Their underwater leaders with astral/earth do not sleep, making them immune to dreams of R. They have heightened MR for use against Mind hund. And they have astral/earth on the forgiving fathers which allows crystal coins / shields.

Which they desperately need for battlefield spells. But once you pop on a few slave matrixes, lead a communion with a merciful mother - casting banish... yummi!

[Frozen Lama]

thank you chris, although i think 3rd is thinking a little big for atlantis.

in other news, Atlantis is selling nature gems for water, earth, or death gems. pm with offers.

[Calahan]

Sorry everyone, but I'm going to have to kindly ask for another 24 hour delay for this turn.

The micro with Ermor has now got to the stage where if I want to do a decent turn, I need to spend about four hours shuffling my 5-6k of chaff around. Which with a 48 hour schedule basically means having to spend roughly two hours on this game every evening. And finding that sort of free time each day isn't always possible :( Fighting in 4-5 wars also adds to the required thinking time :)

I won't ask to increase the schedule yet, but I would humbly ask for forgiveness in advance if I need to ask for delays more often than not.

[Hadrian_II]

postponed

but if you will need lots of delays, i would think increasing the hosting tim to 72h would be the better solution

[AlgaeNymph]

Henceforth, Gath will be played by DryaUnda.Henceforth, Gath's player will be known as AlgaeNymph. This will only affect forum correspondence.

[Frozen Lama]

so is it the same player with a different forum name?

[AlgaeNymph]

Yep. :) Annette can vouch for me.

[Calahan]

Are there any strong objections to the game moving to a 72 hour schedule? I'm going to need another 24 hour delay for this turn (a change to 72 hours would automatically add an extra 24 hours), and also probably for the next as well due to being out most of Saturday.

I know it's not ideal to switch to a long hosting at such an early stage, but my only other alternative is to start doing half completed turns, which would start draining my enthusiasm very quickly. Or of course to keep asking for delays (but Hadrian_II has already said in that case it's better to switch to 72 hours).

[Hadrian_II]

set the hosting to 72h.

also as i am out of the game, i would be happy to give the game admin duties to a volunteer still in the game :)

[Calahan]

I can take over the admin duties if you like Hadrian_II. (unless there are any other volunteers)

And thank you for switching the hosting to 72 hours. My thanks for that both as the Ermor player in MM hell, and as possibly the new admin. Since as the latter, that's one possibly controversial decision I won't have to make a (potentially biased) call on.

[Calahan]

@ All

Hadrian_II has sent me the password for admin duties, so please PM me directly for any future delay requests (or just post in the thread, since I will normally pick those up as well).

[Frozen Lama]

To the players of Ruby (except Calahan):

I hate to admit it, but i feel that this game is over. Ermor has reached the point where the whole world cannot defeat them. I think we may as well end this game. I personally don't really want to put in the hours and hours of time for a game that i know is over. Of course, if the other players don't agree with me, i will for sure fight on, as hard as ever, but truthfully, its over. I thank all the players who tried to stop ermor, and to the ones who didn't, and especially to those who allied with them (pangea!) you are fools!

obviously, i'd like people to speak up on the matter.

[AlgaeNymph]

I'm still willing to fight Ermor. :)

[Calahan]

@ All - I'm going to need an extra 12 hours for my turn. Had very little free time the past few days, but hope to find the time to get my turn done tomorrow at some point.

Apologies to everyone for the slight delay.

[Frozen Lama]

i know its been delayed already sorry but i will need 12 more hours probably. too tired tonight.

[Calahan]

No problem Frozen Lama. I've extended the hosting 14 hours for you. I added on an extra 2 hours to your request so that the deadline hits while I'm awake. As that way I can spot any last minute delay requests that might come in.

[Frozen Lama]

Aha! i killed 500 undead and i see a little dip in ermor's army graph!

btw, Calahan, is it just me or was the fatiuge damage from rigor mortis setting off the shark attack?

[Calahan]

That was probably my first bad turn of the game. Besides the ~500 I lost to Atlantis, Man killed about ~500 undead as well, which accounts for my army dip (produce about 700 chaff per turn). Seems like the casting AI didn't want to follow my script in the Man fight.

@ Frozen Lama -
Note to self: "Work out what the bloody hell happened with shark attack in that fight with Atlantis." The sharks totally ignored you and just made a beeline for my guys. Not sure if that was the rigor mortis, sharks natural loving of undead (because there's lot of meat on them isn't there :re:), or sharks loving of Atlantians. Maybe LA Atlantis troops have built in shark repelent or something?

[Calahan]

@ All

I've been asked by Frozen Lama to keep an eye on the deadline for him since he is currently away for a few days, and was a bit unsure as to when he was returning. So I am adding 12 hours to the deadline in order to make sure Atlantis/Frozen Lama doesn't stale.

I may be extending the hosting again tomorrow if the deadline starts getting near without Frozen Lama having submitted his turn.

So apologies for the slight delay everyone, but Atlantis really don't want a stale at this stage in proceedings :)

[Frozen Lama]

Time for a comback comrades!

[AlgaeNymph]

Could the admin send me turn 51 please?

[Calahan]

Could the admin send me turn 51 please?
No problem. But for future reference, you can request a turn resend yourself from the game status page on the llamaserver. Look towards the bottom of the page where it says 'Request turn resend'.

[Calahan]

@ All

I'm going to tentatively ask again for a concession to Ermor in this game. It was turn 46 when the last request was made by Frozen Lama. The game is currently on turn 53.

I thought it might be an idea to list what Ermor has achieved against each enemy nation during the past 7 turns that makes a concession now possibly more valid than before.

Man - Turn 46 saw a significant number of Ermor's resources being spent on finishing off the well defended Man strongholds around their capital. Turn 53 sees Man with just a single sieged fort and a few lonely troops, and who are only kept alive so that I can milk the income off their dominion. All the resources that were deployed with Man have been diverted to Jomon and Utgard. Although I did lose 500+ chaff for zero casualties in return when my mage refused to follow his script on a fort storm.

Urgard - On turn 46 I was not even at war with Utgard, and they had a very large collection of dangerous Sacreds. But in the past 7 turns their entire army has been killed (baring a few vamps and Vinemen) and it will take a very big surprise for them not to fall within the next few turns. A nod in the direction of an Ermor sponsored Mictlan for help in one of the Utgard army kills.

Jomon - The past 7 turns has saw Jomon evicted from their watery homes, and raided to death on land. It will take a lot of turns for me to get anywhere near killing Jomon, since I can't touch his mage/priest led armies at the moment. But time is on Ermor's side here since their economy is bleeding badly, and Pan are also sticking their Carrion claws into them pretty well.

Atlantis - I can't claim that Atlantis were too bruised 7 turns ago, but they have certainly been bashed around a fair bit since then. Two separate airs raids has saw me pinch The Aegis off them in one (which will be seen again :)), and a Pretender kill in another. One of their major armies was killed while withdrawing from an unsuccessful siege attempt on my Mari cap. Although I did lose 100+ gems on that one due to a very stupid Dusk Elder. Another big Atlantis army currently sits in the ocean starving for supplies. I also have a very nice new home up Atlantis's (and Gath's) backside, which will soon be turning to my dominion and producing freespawn, hence making reinforcing it a lot easier. Plus I'm expecting some friendly jag warriors to soon be wanting a few words with Atlantis regarding former crimes against them.

Atlantis have managed to completely stop my water raiding though with their global, and they won a noticeable victory a few turns back due to a back-firing shark attack incident.

Gath - Things have only just kicked off against Gath last turn, but that kick-off did involve me killing 150+ sacreds and ~15 mages. In exchange for 400 of my chaff.

Ulm - No progress for either side with Ulm, as fighting hasn't really started yet. Although they have killed about 1000 of my chaff so far, and do possess a nice number of blood uniques. Although am puzzled about their golden shield equipping against mindless undead.


So from my perspective it really has been all Ermor over the past 7 turns. Apart from one fight against Atlantis, and one against Man, I haven't lost a single 'real' battle, and have only made big gains in all areas and graphs. I am far more powerful now than I was 7 turns ago, as my gem income has rocketed, and my battle fronts reduced to a handful.

I will obviously continue if there is no concession, but unless you are killing 1500+ undead chaff per turn (my current spawn rate is about 1300) and taking at least 2-3 forts off me per turn (currently building/capturing about 2 per turn), then you really aren't making any progress.

Ermor will soon have access to all the usual end-game stuff as well due to my rapidly increasing research rate, which will only be multiplied by my huge gem stocks and income (currently have 1000+ gems waiting to be pumped into endgame stuff once I hit the research targets)


I know the above certainly sounds very boastful on my position, but I would like to free up the time being used on this game. So I wanted to list as much detail as much as possible to show that between turns 46 and 53, Ermor really has gone past the point of being stoppable. Even if I started making stupid mistakes every turn, I still doubt if I could be brought down at this stage. I hope not to be making any stupid mistakes by the way if we continue.

I also stopped templing around turn 40, as I wanted to keep the income and blood-hunting parts of my economy nice and healthy. But I started templing again a few turns ago to deal with Ulm's vamps, so you can all expect to have to deal with an insane LA Ermor dom push soon as well.

There was a time in this game when you could have all banded together to bring me down, and that was 20-30 turns ago. But the Ermor-stopping train has long since left the station, so it's an impossible task to try and jump on it now at this late stage.


If you have genuinely new plans to stop me then by all means lets continue. But if it's just more of the same, then this will sadly end up as just a time and effort vacuum for all of us :( So I would kindly ask, and humbly ask, that we call it a day here, as that allows all of us to seek new LA Ermor-free ventures elsewhere :)

[AlgaeNymph]

Gath - Things have only just kicked off against Gath last turn, but that kick-off did involve me killing 150+ sacreds and ~15 mages. In exchange for 400 of my chaff.:shock:

:yield:

(Note to self, move priests closer.)

[Frozen Lama]

My position on this is already know. i now have undead mastery, and my pretenders is back, but it really is over

[Calahan]

Is that an actual surrendering White Flag AlgaeNymph? or just something to add some sparkle to your post :)

There are currently 7 active nations besides Ermor, and the current concession votes are....

Atlantis - Conceeds
Gath - Has either conceeded or is just asking for a bit of mercy. Ermor doesn't do mercy though sorry, only rampent destruction :evil:
Jomon - Yet to Vote
Mictlan - Yet to Vote
Pangaea - Yet to Vote
Ulm - Yet to Vote
Utgard - Yet to Vote

Can people let me know what they think with regards required votes for the concession. Should it be unanimous? majority? votes from nations with fighting forces count double? Only votes from nations opposing Ermor count? Feedback is all good on this :)

Wish there had been some victory conditions stated for this game :) I currently own 5/15 capitals, if that's anything to go by.

[Frozen Lama]

I'd say if Gath and Ulm concede, you can declare it a victory Calahan they are the only nations besides me who are fighting able, excluding pangea who seems content to garuntee ermors victory

[Calahan]

I'm pretty sure Ulm is still being played by 'Bluff'. If so then he's not always the easiest player to get hold of. I'll probably use the llamaserver tomorrow to send a message to everyone informing them that a concession vote is taking place.

Interestingly though, I had an in-game message from Ulm this turn saying "Too many noobs in this game :(", so from that message it doesn't sound like to me that there is too much confidence in Ulm knocking Ermor off their perch.

[Strabo]

Mictlan bows to the Undead Masters... I vote for Ermor

[Sil]

I've thought Calahan was the obvious winner quite a while ago, but enjoyed continuing the game nonetheless. I am fine conceding to him.

I would also like to say that I am sorry if my diplomatic choice upset other players. This was my first MP game that lasted past the 2nd year and I never entered it expecting to win or even survive this long. I enjoyed planning things with Cal doing the Marignon campaign(the unintentional NAP-breaking aspect of which I still very much regret). At the same time I never thought me and Calahan would be the only alliance to form. Judging by how worried people said they were about him I would have expected a joint effort to start off involving at least all my and his neighbors. Maybe it did and was never noticeable, I don't know.

Personally I had great fun in this game and learned heaps about Dom3. I sort of wish that I had done that while not creating so much apparent animosity towards me.

[Bluff]

The sheilds still have nice defence :P
And i had them from when i was fighting Tien chi :D

I could probably make some headway into Ermor initially, I have wanted to see how my 5 Arch Devils go against ermor with inner fire and phonix pyre :) but he's got too many castles and a huge gem income, i'd be kidding myself if i didn't think he'd wipe me out as soon as he concentrated some effort against me. He's pumping out some serious dominion as well.

I'm afraid i think i'm waisting my time playing this game now so i'm going to bow to Ermor too.

Congrats Calahan

Thanks all for the game,

Cheers,

Bluff

[Calahan]

Thanks for the feedback and votes everyone. So unless there are any last minutes objections here, as admin, I'll say that the game has now ended with Ermor being declared the winner.

I will collect up my thoughts for the game when I get chance to highlight where the Ermorian path led to victory, and where it could have been re-routed to defeat. I also have all my turns achieved, so I'll either just post the most recent few, or zip them all together for anyone (mad enough to be) interested in them. Also might be worth while me posting a screenshot of what a typical completed turn for Ermor looked like. As sometimes it was hard to see the actual screen by the end of a turn due to all the movement arrows on it :)

Many thanks to everyone who took the time and effort to play in this game. It turned into a bit of a runaway victory in the end. But hope everyone enjoyed the game, and of course all learnt something from it (and not just simply 'ban LA Ermor'. Since they are far from the best LA nation. But more on that at a later date). And also my thanks go to Hadrian_II for organising the whole thing in the first place.

Will be back with AAR, attachments, thoughts etc. once I get some free time.

[LDiCesare]

From what I had seen when I subbed for Atlantis, Ermor situation already looked strong, and if Atlantis thinks they can't beat Ermor, I doubt anyone could.
Calahan, please post a screenshot of the arrows all over the place !

[Frozen Lama]

I'm assuming that this game is finished, and thus no more turns need to be sent right?

[Calahan]

The llamaserver sent out some turn reminders recently, so I've put the hosting back a few days. The game has finished for all intents and purposes, but I haven't taken it off the llamaserver yet in case there's some 11th hour plee to keep it alive for some reason. As once the game is taken down, it can't be put back up AFAIK.

I'll probably take it off the llamaserver over the weekend if there's no request to keep it going. (some players like to play on in 'finished games' as one player SP games against the AI. Which can be done if all the other nations but theirs are turned AI)

[Calahan]

Ok, this game was probably perceived by most of you as a relatively straightforward win for LA Ermor, which is probably being attributed mainly to the Pangaea alliance above anything else. Which I can not deny did make things a lot easier :) And of course the overriding opinion that LA Ermor are just an overpowered nation to begin with. Which I'm guessing is a view that has only been strengthened by those who played in this game. And you are now more sure than ever that LA Ermor are indeed overpowered, so should be banned from all games (like they usually are). But things are far from being that simple, so now I'd like to give some insights from the victorious undead throne if I can, as to why LA Ermor are not necessarily the powerhouse people perceive them to be.


Firstly Ermor are very vulnerable to an early rush IMO. Their undead troops are not great at all, and are only a threat because of the sheer numbers Ermor can field once their freespawn rate gets going. But the freespawn rate is linked to dominion, and dominion takes time to spread, so they can't field excessive numbers in the early turns. Plus forts are needed to produce the good kind of undead. The Soulless and Longdead are the ultimate definition of chaff, and as units are no match for anything in LA.

What Ermor wants more than anything else in the early game is time. Time to get their dominion spread. Time to kill off supplies (makes invading harder) and population (makes invading less appealing). But all this takes time. Precious time. And a commodity that is of great importance in the first few turns. And one thing to note is that during the first 10 turns or so, Ermor's freespawn rate isn't really higher than other nations regular recruitment rate. So troop for troop, Ermor are just pathetic in the first 10 turns. As such I'm pretty sure that any nation with high protection and/or defence troops can easily roll in and take LA Ermor out within the first 10-15 turns if they went directly for them. And if LA Ermor doesn't have a SC to defend them, then I just don't see how they can survive personally. Plus if the rushing nation has good priests available, then the rush becomes a whole lot easier and quicker all round.

The main reason LA Ermor never gets rushed though is that there is no immediate benefit for the rushing nation, besides that of eliminating Ermor, and bagging a huge death income at the end. But before the end there is a war to fight. As we all know gold rules during expansion, and is in desperately short supply during an early war. But the catch is that you gain no gold from attacking Ermor due to their income killing, pop killing dominion. But if a potential rusher can agree a deal with the other nations then it becomes a no-brainer. As something like 2500gp would probably be enough to see them through until victory. So that's just 50gp per turn for 5 turns from 10 others nations to remove LA Ermor from the game. Plus all Ermor forts have low defence, and mostly only mindless to defend them. So there won't be any prolonged sieges. And Ermor's chaff dies at an incredibly rate when up against just a handful of priests. I don't think supplies are an issue in the early stage either. As there will only be a few provinces that have no supplies, and all armies will be smaller due to it being early game. And diseased troops can still usually fight as good as ever when diseased. The only issue is the morale hit from the starvation. But I don't think that's enough to save Ermor against a rush.


Another common occurrence that I think leads to Ermor's over-powered tag is that neighbours don't always change their mind-set the moment they find out they have LA Ermor as a neighbour. As once you do, you start massing priests. Even if it means not recruiting troops or mages for a few turns. You should immediately build some temples and start recruiting priests. In this game I raided an unbelievable amount of provinces with armies of 80 of the basic Soulless and Longdead that Ermor always have plenty of as it spawns regardless of forts. These undead are basically rubbish and have no killing power, but they can easily overcome 10PD because they don't route, and in a raid usually outnumber the PD 4-1. But just a single H1 Indy priest lurking amongst the PD makes Ermor need another 50+ chaff to raid successfully. And you can add 50+ chaff for each Indy priest that is there. Ermor has a lot of chaff available, but if they need 200-300 troops just to raid, then things can become very difficult very quickly. In this game it was only Marignon that really spammed the Indy priests at me, but I managed to attack them before they hit a critical mass of them.


Another big factor in this game was that I did an awful lot of MM. Which made my life a lot harder 'out-of-game' due to it's time requirements, but a lot easier 'in-game' as a result. Here's some of the things I did..........

- I made a point of keeping every Ghoul I had safe. I don't think I lost a single Ghoul all game, which considering I had about 1500 by the end is no small achievement. I did this because Ghouls are not mindless, so can make attackers life a living hell as a result. Simply because they can repair forts. I always made sure I had several hundred Ghouls on hand to move into any fort in my dominion should any siege threat be evident. As long sieges in Ermor's dominion is a certain fail for any attacker. But this not only required a lot of herding, but also a lot of bulk moving between battle fronts, and positioning my Ghoul stacks to ensure I could cover every fort I had in one move.

- Ermor's freespawn needs to be collected and pooled each turn. Therefore I ensured I had a commander in every province every turn to always collect it. Ermor's commanders spawn just like their troops do. Commanders can be summoned, but that's just a pointless waste of gems after turn 3 or 4. Now I'd imagine that one of the simplest things that an LA Ermor player can do to limit the MM is to only collect freespawn when a commander spawns in a province. And that would be a nice convenient system if the commander spawn wasn't so random. But undead hordes contribute nothing if just left to accumulate in the inner provinces, as it only becomes useful once it reaches the battlefront. So a lot of time each turn was spent ensuring I had a commander moving to every single province to collect the freespawn. I'm sure I was seeing red movement arrows in my sleep at one point :)

- I limited my loses at all times by fine tuning positioning and scripts to allow me to win fights with poor troops. It's very easy for an LA Ermor player to just keep throwing troops at something until they win. Especially against Indy's. As they incorrectly take the mindset of "I have loads of chaff, so who cares if I loses a few hundred. Therefore I'll just keep mindlessly throwing it at whatever is in my way until I win". Ermor does have a lot of chaff once they get going, but having 4000 chaff on hand is always better than having 3000. Especially if that extra 1000 is what you need to win you the next campaign. I think it's very easy for a LA Ermor player to waste their chaff needlessly by doing just basic scripting for battles, and opting for the "I don't care how much chaff I lose during the process, just as long as I win the fight" approach.

- I also safe guarded all the best freespawn until I needed it the most. This meant I suffered very few loses all game (relatively speaking) amongst the good stuff like Horsemen, Sacred Cav, and Black Shielded Infantry (which is what I called them), as I very rarely used any of these guys during expansion or raiding. This allowed me to acquire a nice base of good undead that I could call on should I need it. I had a serious amount of these guys by the end, and the Horsemen along could have taken out a lot of armies with their first strikes if things had got tricky.

- I managed my dominion very carefully, and made a very big point about not killing off Pythium, Agartha and Man for as long as possible. As this allowed me to keep my income healthy throughout the entire game. I even had one turn as the income leader :) It would have been very easy for me to kill off Pythium and Agartha long before I did (well Ulm killed Agartha in the end). But killing them would only have meant my dominion spreading and my income rapidly dropping. Which would have slowed down my rate of everything.

- I also chose what I think is a very good Pretender for LA Ermor under CBM. The Lord of the Gates. It has no base cost, and a starting dominion of 4. Paths are expensive at 50, but Ermor's scales give them a lot of points to use. But the main things it has going for it are that it can be an SC with just minimum gear or research (the Divine Flail it starts with causes some serious fear stacking), so helps against the danger of an early rush I've already mentioned. And under CBM it also freespawns shades, which are a great early unit for taking out high protection units (AN attack) and can later be used very effectively under the command of Dusk Elders for either stealthy raiding, sneak attacks on enemy capitals, or sneaking in to reinforce besieged forts. Although I actually had very little use out of my shade armies in the end. As I kept them back for special case usage, but very few special cases came up. Although the shades did come in handy for making surprise first strikes against Mari and Pythium, and I used them for reinforcing the Mari capital when Atlantis had it under siege. At various stages I also had large shade armies led by D4 mage(s) (so Rigor Mortis and/or Darkness) camped out in hiding next to both the Atlantis and Utgard capitals. I attacked neither in the end, but the option to do so was always very nice to have on hand :)


Besides all the things I personally did to help LA Ermor to victory, I think there were three big things largely out of my control that contributed to the win.

1 - The NAP / Alliance with Pangaea

There's little doubt that this had a big affect on the game. And while there is always going to be a back-lash against any nation(s) "dealing with the devil", I think Pan's decision to NAP with me was possibly a good one from their perspective at the time, but also a definite gamble. As it relied heavily on other nations taking out Ermor, with Pan getting more powerful as the ones not expending their resources in that effort. Not such a crazy theory, as Ermor are always ganged-up on at some stage, and Ermor did have some real nasty undead killing nations around them in the form of Marignon (H3's and Holy Pyre), Jomon (High level water mages) and Atlantis (High Water / Death mages. DV troops). Pan were a danger to Ermor, but not as great as the three I just mentioned.

I think the biggest decision by Pan was not the NAP with Ermor, but their decision to help Ermor in taking out Marignon. As this allowed me to kill probably my most dangerous neighbour before the ganging against me could properly start. But then again from Pan's point of view, tagging with me against Marignon was their easiest path to furthering their prospects. As fights elsewhere would have all been 1-on-1 against possibly tougher foes.


2 - Marignon not Rushing Me.

"Oh ****" was my general reaction to discovering Marignon was one of my closest neighbours. As LA Ermor are incredibly vulnerable early on, and the most powerful undead killing weapon in the early stages is without doubt H3 priests. So I had no idea what I was going to do if Marignon had attacked me inside the first 10 turns. It only took one run-in with a Mari expansion army for me to realise my days would be numbered in a melee contest. 80 Undead v 10 Red Guards. Result was 80 - 0 to the Red Guards without even a scratch IIRC. My only hope would have been my SC God, but having just one survival option available doesn't usually get you very far. But of course there are requirements needed elsewhere to be able to rush LA Ermor, which I have mentioned already.

But by the time the war with Marignon did start, I had already established myself a solid mage and freespawn base, plus found an ally against them, plus had agreed an NAP with another big Atlantis shaped danger, plus Jomon were staling to death. So in the end what should have been a near death struggle against my nemesis, actually turned into a very one sided war that I was dictating the course of. I also managed to avoid any big fights until I had Rigor Mortis researched, when it was "straight to the capital" time.


3 - The Excessive Jomon Stales

I knew Jomon could be a threat to me, but I didn't think they would pose any more danger than most other nations. But the undead killing armies that Jomon did manage to field later on showed me that I was way off regarding their perceived threat level to me.

Once Jomon were back in the game after their roughly (I think) 10 consecutive stales, and I managed to see the composition of the Jomon armies, I ran some tests on how I would defeat them. But all the tests failed. I spent hours trying to bust the Jomon armies with my undead, but I couldn't even get close to winning. As dozens of W3 mages (or W4 with bracelet) just annihilated my armies with Cleansing Water spam every time. As the low fatigue, scaling effect, and high pathed mages casting it all combined in the CW spell to allow every mage to cast at least 10 CW's per battle, killing ~20 undead per casting. And an E4 bless and some of the W3 having E2/3 for Earth Power meant even more castings per mage. I threw thousands of undead at those Jomon armies in testing, and even with Darkness and Rigor Mortis up I always lost heavily. As there was just no way my troops could get to the mages before the mages annihilated them. And this is before taking into account the Jomon troops and Priests that they had. The only thing I had native (ie. not summoned, not usual LA Ermor stuff) to Ermor that stood a chance was my Lord of the Gates, but I would have to have been getting pretty desperate to risk him going solo against those Jomon armies.

But the main problem, with regards this game, is that those Jomon armies appeared 10-15 turns after they should have done, and this was probably entirely because they were left to stale for so long before the situation was addressed. And once a sub was found in the more than capable form of Psycho (I believe), I had already taken out Marignon, and was getting pretty close to being unstoppable. Plus my research had reached acceptable levels, which amongst other things allowed me to start diversifying my armies should the need arise, so I had a lot more options for tackling Jomon if I had to. And of course Pan were in on that action as well.

So if the Jomon-Ermor war had been brought forward 10-15 turns, then the whole nature of this game would have been very different indeed. I'd actually go as far as saying that this was the biggest contributing factor to the relative ease of my win, and not the Pangaea alliance. As it transpired against Jomon, like it did against Marignon, that I never had to fight against any army I didn't want to, and managed to dictate the direction of the war, and where and when the battles were happening. Plus of course I had long since reached critical mass,.so it was unlikely that I would have ever struggled to find resources to throw at them.


I think I've covered the general points for how and why I won in the above. There were lots of other smaller factors as well such as....

- Finding Sorceress Indy's.
- Pythium's suicide of their God against me and then turning AI (not the other way around). The Pythium AI actually built 3 forts 2 temples 1 lab, and amassed a decent sized army under the control of the AI. So while I took their capital early in the war, they had more than just a few resources on hand to continue a tough fight had they been human controlled.
- Getting Etimmu (Hero) and making him my prophet. Again another unused resource, which I kept back for emergencies that never happened.
- Ambushing a group of Atlantis thugs (which netted me the, ultimately unused, Aegis shield).
- Another ambush on the Atlantis God.
- Sneaking my God and Shade army into the Mari cap to prevent Atlantis from taking it (and thereby tying up a very big Atlantis army).
- Pulling off a neat sailing trick against Atlantis that allowed me to raid, and become established in most of their undefended rear provinces.
- Researching Rigor Mortis pretty early on, and before anything else (like Darkness).
- Making sure that my first usage of Rigor Mortis against anyone was in a very big fight (as it's an even bigger killer if it comes as a surprise)
- Giving Mictlan lots and lots of money to keep them in the game, and thereby cause a headache to both Atlantis and Utgard.


My play was far from perfect though....

- Stupidly didn't switch to forging Skull Mentors as soon as I hit Con4.
- Stupidly didn't kill my prophet off the moment Etimmu appeared.
- Letting my enemies have control of important, magic diversifying merc mages for too long.
- Cloud Trapezing one of the above said merc mages, Obscuro, to his death to avoid my enemies getting him (once I had Indy access to Air). Which was a very clever idea apart from the bastard actually managing to win his suicide Air-drop, and Atlantis out-bidding me when I tried to get him back. Note to self, script 'Attack' next time to stop him summoning Air Elementals,.
- Not testing Shark Attack before using it :doh:
- All too often forgetting to leave a unit in my water provinces to get the free intel on the attacking army from the battle replay.
- Finishing my non-Death site searching long before my Death searching. LA Ermor has no excuse for not getting their Death sites searched very quickly.
- Losing a huge fort storm 500 - 0 against Man because I had most of my units set to 'Guard Commander' (intended), and the AI deciding that I didn't need to cast Rigor Mortis to win. (definitely unintended)
- Making the exact same mistake again two turns later because the AI apparently still decided I didn't need to cast Rigor Mortis to win.
- Not ambushing the Atlantis Pretender 10 turns before I did.
- Not making enough Hammers with my God before he went site searching.
- Not blood hunting with scouts early enough.


I've attached my last few turn files and .2h files. Plus a screen shot of one of the more MM intensive turns when I had the most wars on the go (basically a screen of red arrows).

Many thanks for playing everyone. I enjoyed it for several reasons, not least because I think every player should play LA Ermor at least once during their MP career, and now that I've done that, I won't ever have to do it again. Hurray!!! :)

[Hadrian_II]

2 - Marignon not Rushing Me.

"Oh ****" was my general reaction to discovering Marignon was one of my closest neighbours. As LA Ermor are incredibly vulnerable early on, and the most powerful undead killing weapon in the early stages is without doubt H3 priests. So I had no idea what I was going to do if Marignon had attacked me inside the first 10 turns. It only took one run-in with a Mari expansion army for me to realise my days would be numbered in a melee contest. 80 Undead v 10 Red Guards. Result was 80 - 0 to the Red Guards without even a scratch IIRC. My only hope would have been my SC God, but having just one survival option available doesn't usually get you very far. But of course there are requirements needed elsewhere to be able to rush LA Ermor, which I have mentioned already.

But by the time the war with Marignon did start, I had already established myself a solid mage and freespawn base, plus found an ally against them, plus had agreed an NAP with another big Atlantis shaped danger, plus Jomon were staling to death. So in the end what should have been a near death struggle against my nemesis, actually turned into a very one sided war that I was dictating the course of. I also managed to avoid any big fights until I had Rigor Mortis researched, when it was "straight to the capital" time.

I decided that getting indies first would be better for me in the long run, than just to rush in into ermor. (As i think it would be no problem to defeat ermor with marignon even). Also i was spamming priests, and so was prepared very well for a war against ermor. But as soon as the war started, pangea backstabbed me, so i knew, either i would fight ermor, to make pangaea get my empire, or i would fight pangaea and make ermor win the game, i decided to do the later.

The thing i learned in this game, is that you either ban ermor or ban noobs from the game, as ermor needs special treatment, and no non noob/braindead player would ever ally with them.

[Executor]

Congrats on the win, I think it's wonderful when players post their final turns. It gives you so much insight into their play style for any future games ;)

Oh, nice AAR BTW.

[Calahan]

...I think it's wonderful when players post their final turns. It gives you so much insight into their play style for any future games ;)
I'll definitely have to stop doing that then :p