Sharivar - LA game 4 bussy ppl. Complete. Wraithlord wins.

[Dimaz]

Please add 3 hours for this turn.

[WraithLord]

done :)

[Meglobob]

Can we put hosting to Sun evening?

[WraithLord]

Hosting postponed for Sharivar1 by 17 hours. The game will now host at 00:35 GMT on Sunday August 1st.

[Meglobob]

Hosting postponed for Sharivar1 by 17 hours. The game will now host at 00:35 GMT on Sunday August 1st.

Can't you make it Sun evening 2000 GMT'ish?

[WraithLord]

sure

[Meglobob]

sure

Its now Sat again for some wierd reason? Llamaserver problems?

[WraithLord]

Fixed. I hope.
Server message: "Hosting postponed for Sharivar1 by 24 hours. The game will now host at 19:35 GMT on Sunday August 1st."

[Festin]

I'm sorry for inconvenience, but I will be out of town starting somewhere in the middle of the next week. This will probably be for a long time, and I do not know when I will be able to send turns again. Potentially, I can be offline for quite a long time. I do not think it is a good idea to postpone hosting for a month (or more, I do not really know right now).
So, maybe we should find a sub?

[WraithLord]

Can you plz post in the sub thread or try to find a sub in another way?- One can learn a lot about TC mechanics by jumping directly to end game so this should give you good odds of finding a sub.

[thejeff]

What just happened?

And what do we do now?

I'm off for the weekend (camping w/ no internet) but I'm new here and don't have much stake. Whatever you guys come up with is fine by me.

[WraithLord]

This is a most unexpected move :eek:

However, what's done is done and now that it's done I think we have two simple choices:
- Cont. playing
- given that the game is more than one year old - call off the game.

We're reduced to three active players so lets hear what you and Dimaz think before we decide how to move forward.

[WraithLord]

Got word from Dimaz. He votes for cont. the game.
I vote the same.

thejeff, I hope you're in the mood to follow this through :)

[WraithLord]

At player's request: Hosting postponed for Sharivar1 by 12 hours. The game will now host at 07:15 GMT on Thursday September 16th.

[Dimaz]

Wtf? I had no storm in one of the battles despite having Staff of Storm on one of the mages.

[WraithLord]

I still didn't see the turn. Care to explain what are you talking about?

[Dimaz]

I think I explained it clearly. I teleported 2 commanders on one of Pan's provs, one of them was wielding SoS. However, storm wasn't there when battle started, so he died horribly to harpies. The second one managed to capture the province anyway.

[WraithLord]

I wonder if there's something like this in the bug list. If not, it's worth reporting that.

[Dimaz]

Well, I tried to dig the issue some more, here's the log part regarding it:

item Staff of Storms casting autospell Storm (cr0)
Autospell is Storm
castspell: cnr744 spl288 (Storm) vis0 x6 y24 spldmg1
vis 0 xvis -1
blastsqr: unr17146 x6 y24 aoe0 dmg1 eff81 spc1073741824 as10247 al9
affectvic vic17146 hv0
hitunit 17146 17146 dmg1 spec1073741824 ba2
Enchantment
*** Warning: out of ench
hitunit: out of ench
setupsquads end (check=241433822)

It tells us about some mysterious "out of ench", which most likely means there is some limit to simultaneous enchantments. However, as we both know Pan made a good job of capturing most of our scouts with his insane PD, so we both moved to using dozens of stone spheres to have scouting info. And, this scouting is actually considered as enchantment by dom3 engine (I think so because it gives anchntment icon during the battle in scouted province). So, most probably, if we continue to use the stone spheres as we do now, we can throw the game as it clearly makes no sense to fight against 10000 Ermorian armies without BF enchantments (of course absence of Rigor Mortis and Darkness is nice and all that, but still it makes no sense to me).

[WraithLord]

Interesting theory. How many astral window's were present in that battle?

Even if what you say is true. Does it make sense that one or two stone sphere would prevent BF ench?

Consider that I fought pan for a long time and he cast BF ench. all the time. Sometimes there were lot's of stone sphere watching (don't know why, but there they were anyhow).

Don't rush to conclusions that all BF ench. are now impossible due to stone spheres. esp. when there's evidence to the contrary. More likely you hit a corner case, one that needs further investigation.

Now to share my pain: in recent battle my mages absolutely refused to cast my scripted spells and instead blew their gems on stupid stuff. How come?- They had the levels (and beyond), plenty of gems, no fatigue and a serious 1k+ killer army facing them - so definitely a threat.

[Dimaz]

1) I mean ALL stone sphere scrying adds together, for all provinces. Of course it makes no sense in context of one battle, sometimes there were 10 or so enchantments in one battle and there was no problem.
2) I also have a feeling that Relief wasn't cast in another battle, but I need to check it one more time, and I can't do it now.

[WraithLord]

I understand your suspicion. However in said battle, this last turn, my mages and Pan's cast plenty of BF ench. AoG, AoL, WotF & relief.

2 strange things that I did notice:
- relief was cast by both sides but I didn't see it's icon and it didn't seem to take effect
- Mages didn't cast what I ordered, ex. instead of Fog warriors I got arrow fend etc.

Perhaps, there's a different limit: how many BF there are per turn per all the battles. Maybe your battle was towards the end of the Q.

[Dimaz]

AoG, AoL and Fog Warriors are NOT enchntments (no icon), they're one-time spells. On the other hand Relief is, and what you observed is very similar to my case (in debug log, cast was successful, but the spell wasn't in effect after that).

[thejeff]

I think I saw a lack of Life After Death in one of mine. I didn't check the debug log though. I can do that later, see if it's the same thing.

And I'd wondered where all those Astral Windows were coming from. :)
Can you turn them off? Or at least some of them. Scrying on Pan should be less critical now.

[WraithLord]

If the stone spheres cause the problem (and it's a fairly big if) then it stands to reason we all lose from this.

Ermor needs those BF ench. as well. 1k armies of undead chaff don't stand a chance to even a single SC.

Besides, how can we say what is worse, not having relief or rigor mortis up or not knowing when and where you're gonna be hit.

I actually prefer full intel to having relief, rigor mortis and darkness.
Edit: that said, I'll accept results of voting. but to make simple and possible to follow we either agree to use spheres or ban them altoghether.

[Dimaz]

I think first we should try to understand if 1) other bf enchantments are working or not 2) if not, is it connected to stone sphere use. If the problem is indeed due to stone spheres, we should probably figure out the maximum number of allowed enchantments, somehow decide how many stone spheres can be used in the game and divide this number equally between remaining players.
Edit:
Ok, I looked through the log for another battle and found similar messages for LotNS and Relief. So the problem is here indeed and my point 1) is confirmed.
Also, FYI, I used 23 SS this turn.

[thejeff]

Well, T'ien Ch'i has no spheres, so it's obviously to my advantage to drop them to allow BF spells to work. :)

We could do a trial run. Don't use them for a turn and see if the enchantments work?

Either that or someone can try to duplicate the problem in an SP test game. See if you can figure out what the actual limits are. I'm not going to have time for that in the next couple of days though.

I'm not sure I've actually seen the issue. I definitely had BF enchantments the turn before last. Life after Death didn't seem to work, but it showed up as normal in the debug log. Relief did work.
None were used this past turn.

[WraithLord]

I didn't forge that many spheres. If indeed the spheres cause the problem then perhaps the excess lies with Gath :)

Hey, if all this is true then you've found a new way to, if not entirely cheat then at least, manipulate the game so one can turn on and off BF ench. at his will. If true, should be added to house rules.

[Dimaz]

I'll send the turn to IW as Edi suggested. Maybe we should pause the game while they're looking into it, or try to test in SP as thejeff suggested (unfortunately I'm not sure if I have enough time to do it before the next hosting as the weekend is going to be busy this time).

[WraithLord]

Dimaz, thank you for handling this so seriously!

If you want we can pause the game. Since you took ownership on the problem I leave it for you to decide, unless thejeff objects that is.

Please tell as soon as possible.

[Dimaz]

I just posted the turn to IW, can you pause the game while we're waiting for their answer? I'll try to test the problem on weekend if I have time, but so far I don't know what to do in this turn (as it definitely makes no sense to spend gems on enchantments if they're not working).

[WraithLord]

Added 72h. I'll add more if needed.

[WraithLord]

I've delayed the host again. However I don't want to do that indeterminably for fear that the game would get stuck/wither on account of this technicality.

We don't have an ETA on a resolution and besides what is the expectation, to get a patch now?- doesn't sound likely...

I suggest we put a deadline on the waiting - this weekend. After the deadline we cont. the game. Makes sense?

[WraithLord]

I take your silence as a yes :)

So next host is scheduled for 08:15 GMT on Friday October 1st

[WraithLord]

48h extension granted at players request, after that we're back on track.

[WraithLord]

24h extension...

[WraithLord]

Remaining players have agreed to concede the game to LA Ermor.

Thank you to all the players who took part in the game.
Thank you thejeff for doing a great work as TC sub.

Kudos to my main rival this game: Dimaz. You did an outstanding job and exhibited great proficiency in managing Gath. Next time I'll do everything it takes to avoid getting into a war with you :)

I saved my turns if anyone is interested in taking a look.

Short AAR:

My build was awake rainbow master lich, drain 2, d3, l3.
luck 3 was so-so in practice, not sure I'd take it again in similar circumstances.

Early game:
Got attacked by Pythium and this was actually the closest I came to being defeated. Managed to pull through and conquer Pyth and then expanded to end up with a well sized kingdom

Mid game:
Got into the first war with Gath. All the while Pan was forging a huge empire in the north. My hands were tied as Pan got very big and put up some dominant globals.

End game:
Together with TC, and for a shorter time Gath, faced Pan's armies. Some drama in the globals section saw Gath casting UD thus hurting Pan big time. At some point Pan went AI and left were TC, Gath & Ermor. After I don't remember how many turns of war against Gath game was conceded to Ermor.

Below are last turn stats from server:
Provinces
Nation Provinces
Ermor 68
T'ien Ch'i 26
Gath 45

Nation Forts
Ermor 44
T'ien Ch'i 7
Gath 13


Income
Nation Income
Ermor 877
T'ien Ch'i 1755
Gath 3751

Gem Income
Nation Gem Income
Ermor 221
T'ien Ch'i 57
Gath 143
Note, I think AN income is not calculated here.

Nation Research
Ermor 32000
T'ien Ch'i 32000
Gath 32000

Dominion
Nation Dominion
Ermor 1138
T'ien Ch'i 279
Gath 698

Army Size
Nation Army Size
Ermor 32000
T'ien Ch'i 2204
Gath 2614
Note: I think there's a bug in the score stats. Ermor armies were way beyond 32k with with all those provinces and temples at dom 10 and soulgate.

Victory Points
Nation Victory Points
Ermor 5
T'ien Ch'i 2
Gath 3

[Kuritza]

I think I promised to return to this thread and say 'told ya' when Ermor wins, or apologize and agree that LA Ermor is not overpowered if it doesn't.
Well, here I am.

Told ya!

[WraithLord]

HoF statistics clearly support your claim.

Strangely enough Ermor didn't seem so strong in early game when it couldn't recruit mages and all it's undead armies were insta banished by Pythium.

I suspect that secret of Ermor's power is more subtle. It may have more to do with Psychology than with raw power.
Perhaps the cost-reward ratio of attacking Ermor makes it an unattractive target. Perhaps it's something else.

I don't know. I do know that MM is hvy and that I am content to settle for this one time MP experience with this unique and interesting nation.

[thejeff]

Congratulations.

I came in late and didn't really get to do much other than try to hold off Pan's hordes, but it was still a good game.

If Pan hadn't lost its leader mysteriously, things might have been different. Certainly more prolonged. Ermor didn't seem to have a clear advantage over Pan until then.

As for the bug in the stats, I'd noticed awhile back that Ermor's army size graph had maxed out. Oddly it's the same number that the research charts top out at. It may just be a cap on the display value. Not really significant, I suppose. Once you've got more the 32K troops does it really matter how many more?

[WraithLord]

thanks.

I'd have lost 2k strong armies to Pan and the score graphs army size didn't even budge.

does it matter?- I guess not. Those armies were getting too big to handle. And I couldn't really use them for big fights b/c they die like flies and then the whole army routs. I had to build real elite armies with just enough chaff to absorb the initial shock. So my main weapons were the summoned mages, thug lictors, Tarts, banes, lictors and ghosts, oh and my master enslaver master lich ;)