YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]

[Psycho]

Ermor has staled for the fifth or sixth time so far. Maybe finding a replacement player is not a bad idea? During the short period while Ermor was subbed there was at least some activity in the graphs. In the last 20 turns, he's just been sitting on his 8 provinces doing nothing, when not staling.

[rdonj]

I do not feel completely comfortable with looking for a replacement player. When I've reminded ermor about hosting times and stales they've expressed a desire to continue playing. That makes it a very difficult choice for me as an admin to remove the player against their will. If the player had expressed any disinterest to me in playing I would have no problem with it.

[Kheldron]

Ok, end of the road for Marverni. After a nice last battle I lost all I had left. No province left and no army, my opponent can storm an empty fort now.
I was basically dead since turn 5 when I stupidly lost my pretender but it's been fun nonetheless :)
See you all.

[WraithLord]

OP updated.

Thank you for the game Kheldron.
C U in future games :)

[WingedDog]

Thank you for playing till the end. Very much appreciated. :)

[rdonj]

I noticed the hosting reminder was set to 6 hours after the llamaserver was fixed, I've set it back to 10 hours.

[Lingchih]

Hosting reminder? A once a week game needs a hosting reminder?

Heh, OK>

[Squirrelloid]

Hosting reminder? A once a week game needs a hosting reminder?

Heh, OK>

Just in case you totally forgot that it was actually hosting that week.

[WingedDog]

Perhaps reminder should be 24-36 hours before hosting instead of 10?

[Psycho]

Is sending items/gold/gems to another player without any followup message considered diplomacy?

[Aethyr]

Wow. I never even considered this as a possibility.

[Squirrelloid]

Is sending items/gold/gems to another player without any followup message considered diplomacy?

Um, yes?

[TwoBits]

Yeah, I'd say that's verboten. Whether you're trying to influence another player (the understood message being "be nice, and maybe you'll get more free stuff!"), or are facing elimination and just want to spite your conqueror.

And if it's the later case, seeing as how this is an anonymous, every man/woman/child for him/herself game, what would be the point, except mere vindictiveness (which in a regular MP game, I'd totally be for :D )?

[WraithLord]

Yes. That would be considered diplomacy.

A attacks B. B sens A gems. Maybe A would cease his attack?- worth a try at the price of few gems.

A & B are neighbors. B sends A gems. Maybe A would think- wow, B is cool, of course I won't attack him. Oh wait a sec. Didn't C just attack B. Well I'll show this C not to mess with generous B.

etc.

As I see it. ND in RAND == Complete radio silence. No meta gaming, no msgs, no gold nor gems nor any transferable goods or favors.

[militarist]

I don't play YARG2, but we are just about to start another NO DIPLO one, so i'll join discussion.
No meta-gaming? It's interesting. I don't think it's possible to avoid metagaming completely. When you attack enemy province you not always want war. And you can show it just by stopping crusade and withdrawing armies instead of taking another province. Is some situations it will be a very clear sign. And such "non-verbal language" is extremely hard to avoid and prevent. But is it really game-ruining? And with a good imagination you can find ways to deliver a message in some cases,mostly when enemy has all reasons to look for such signs (both nations have good armies, and aggressor had more need for that province(it neighbors his capital), or just the province is valuable for both but aggressor just is obviously stronger in all charts, so when he attacks and withdraws it's am obvious message "i just need this province because it's 20k+ and I like that damn adepts of silver order I can hire here .").

To make RAND completely RAND you should have a rule - if you took enemy province you should fight him till death. I'm not sure it's good idea though.

[WraithLord]

militarist, that's a good observation. I was referring to out-of-band meta gaming. Meaning using communication channels outside of this game to influence it by meta gaming (like, expose your identity, threaten to retaliate in a different game, whatever).

I think that in game "signs" are not meta gaming and are ok. So if someone attacks you and just takes a few provinces and you don't want to attack back - fine. It's your risk that the aggressor would come back for more. Do with it as you will but it will always stay at the realm of guesswork and would never be comparable to a NAP.

I personally find it way more acceptable in no-diplo game than giving gems or gold. When someone gives you gold you don't have to guess much. Obviously he wants to carry favor. That's even "stronger" diplo than a "hello there neighbor" message.

[Lingchih]

Is sending items/gold/gems to another player without any followup message considered diplomacy?

Of course giving nice gifts would be dis-allowed. But I would think spam-sending crap to fill up his slots would just be a war tactic.

[WingedDog]

Quote from the OP:

Disallowed exploits: copying Bogus' orders and overfilling enemy lab to prevent his own forge.



I think we just need to forget there is 'send messages' button in this game.

[Calahan]

Is sending items/gold/gems to another player without any followup message considered diplomacy?
Lol, when I first read this I was looking for the joke or twisty punch-line. But then read the later thread posts and noticed people were debating it! So realised it must have been intended as a proper question :shock:

I'd say there's absolutely no way anything can be sent in a RAND game. Be it a message, gold, items, anything. As all of these are at least against the spirit of the rules (or just flat out against the rules IMO)

But sending gold could be turned into a basic-code way to communicate. How about sending the following gold amounts to your neighbour on the same turn in separate instalments :)

16
5
1
3
5

or maybe

14
1
16


I do regularly use the send items option in RAND games though. (actually during all game types). As sending items, and then cancelling them, is the only sure way to re-arrange un-removable items in your lab. I'm mainly pointing this out for the benefit of those who didn't know about this work-around for organising your lab screen :)

[Psycho]

@Calahan:
4
5
1
12

But seriously, it was a proper question. I also thought no, but I wanted to check if everyone else thinks the same way. And most specifically what admins think. Sending peace offers and crypted messages is not the only use of sending gems/gold/items. I had some different things in mind, but I am not going to give you ideas. So, to conclude - sending anything is strictly forbidden, for whatever reason it may be (except overfilling enemy's lab, of course, that's a valid tactic).

[WraithLord]

... So, to conclude - sending anything is strictly forbidden, for whatever reason it may be

yes and

(except overfilling enemy's lab, of course, that's a valid tactic). Not in this game :)

See WingedDog quote from the OP.
I'm slowly compiling a list of cheesy or MM intensive "tricks" for the purpose of disallowing them.
The spirit of the game IMHO is to have fun, iffy tactics that also add MM make the game slide closer to the "chore" pole rather than to the "fun" pole.

[Psycho]

LOL, guess I should have put a smiley in there ;)

[WraithLord]

hehe, when not hearing nor seeing who you're talking to one smile(y) can make all the difference :D

Do you know the statistics re. airplane crashes due to stupid communication glitches?- you'd be surprised...

[WraithLord]

so, who was Yomi?

[Dimaz]

Me. Funny story of rise and fall. My shortest game so far :)

[Psycho]

I made some estimations about the threat levels of players for each nation after the first and second year of the game. They were based on graphs and what I was able to conclude about each nation's strategies. Yomi was ranked very high - among the top 5.

[WraithLord]

Dimaz, I know first hand how good a player you are - Damn but this game has some tough competition.

Thank you for the game. I personally would really love it if you could find the time to write a short AAR and post it when the game's over.

[WingedDog]

Thank you for staying till the end, I hope future games would be more lucky for you. :)

[Stagger Lee]

Happy 4th of July, and good game all. I was Niefl, and botched it pretty good. I'll get the hang of this yet! :)

[WingedDog]

Thanks for the game, don't forget to send your last turn, game still needs it.;)

[Stagger Lee]

Thanks for the game, don't forget to send your last turn, game still needs it.;)

Done! Good luck to the players still in it, and thanks rdonj! :cool:

[WraithLord]

Thanks for playing Stagger Lee. See you in future games.

Oh, the drama, Neifel the all mighty has fallen.

[Psycho]

And what about Oceania, will he reveal his identity to us?

[Calahan]

And what about Oceania, will he reveal his identity to us?
I personally would at least like to hear that the Oceania player contacted the admin, rdonj, before going AI. A bad show IMO if not.

As avoiding players going AI at any stage was (I thought) one of the aims of this particular series of games. Especially if they still had a fort(s) and troops left.


Edit: Thanks to those who stayed and fought until the end (Kheldron, Dimaz, Stagger Lee). It really does make a big difference to games when players fight until the last man instead of just bailing the moment the omens for survival start looking bad.

[Psycho]

Well, lets be fair, Kheldron essentially suicided himself, and Oceania did lose his capital and probably just has a fort filled with some chaff. I am very satisfied with players' effort, certainly nobody bailed out so far.

[WraithLord]

Oh man, Oceania went AI?- Was it this turn?

If indeed it was as Psycho described it then it sounds as though it didn't really have impact on the game either way and looks like the player stuck to the end (of his resources and ability to make a difference). I probably would have preferred him not to go AI anyway but I can understand and accept his decision.

Another thing, How do you know all this stuff?- Other players may start adding things up to make an educated guess re. your ID. Best avoid such telling remarks :)

[rdonj]

Oceania was Graeme Dice. He did contact me before going AI and my understanding was that, basically, he had nothing left. He also isn't around right now and would have needed to get a sub or stale for a few turns, so going AI seemed to be a reasonable solution overall.

[Graeme Dice]

Yep, I made a last ditch attempt to throw my remaining amber clan mages, and all of my nature and water gems at my enemies, but couldn't make a dent in them, and had only an empty non-capital fort with a single telestic animate and my pretender, so I went AI.

[Psycho]

Come on WL, give me some credit, I didn't say anything that cannot be read directly from the graphs. Here, I will elaborate:

Kheldron's suicide - We can see that Marveri lost all provinces and was left only with his capital. Then on one turn he loses all his army, but not the castle. This means that he tried to break the siege in a suicidal attempt. He then goes AI and writes on the forum about his fort being empty and then Fomoria takes it.

Oceania - His army graph rose very quickly over the course of three turns, which means he recruited/summoned a bunch of chaff. On the last turn he lost one of his two forts and 2/3 of his army. Most importantly, his gem income dropped below 6, which means he lost the capital.

[Kheldron]

That was no suicide. In fact he had been sieging my castle for some time but I decided I had a chance of breaking it with gifts from heaven spam and such.
He had some losses but not enough :(

[WraithLord]

ok Psycho, good points. This is a fine line however and that is what I was trying to say. Even an acrobat can at some point slip :)

Thank you for the game Graeme Dice. Hope to see you with us next time around.

[yandav]

Well, I guess I'm going to be known as the guy who got crushed by ulm playing lanka (n°1 in the Hall of Shame) :o
Good luck to all of you!

[WingedDog]

Wait, isn't it a bit early to tell goodbye? According to scoregraphs you still have a fort left, your research graph doesn't fall, so there are plenty of mages inside.
I know I can't make you change your decision if it is made, but I (and I think many others) would appreciate if you stay in our unperfect world for a little longer for the balance sake, as your actions may affect it's future. You would certainly make better scripting for those mages then AI.
Anyway thanks for playing, better luck in future games. :)

[WingedDog]

Ermor, please have some respect to other players.

[rdonj]

*has a word or two with ermor*

[WraithLord]

Dear Ermor player, please stop staling like that. You see, I can't think of any good reason one might stale like that. If you're busy with RL or suddenly find that you don't like dominions then just say the word and we will look for a sub. If you need extra time you know the game policy for giving generous extensions so all you need to do is ask.

Staling like that is disrespectful to the other players. I'm sure I don't need to spell out why. We're a small and friendly community and quite tolerant but I think you're pushing it. Besides the other players feelings you may want to consider what image of your self you want to impress.

So please make up your mind, either play the game with us or find a sub. If you don't, I reckon that decision will be made for you.

[rdonj]

Okay guys. I've sent ermor's player a message to the effect that if he stales again he's going to be removed from the game, no questions asked. If he does, please feel free to remind me of this so the game can get back on course. Also I've set the reminder emails back to 20 hours reminder, to hopefully help make it easier for him to realize a turn is due. After that, it is on him to make sure his turns are in on time.

[WingedDog]

Thanks rdonj. Ermor player had already sent his turn. I just hope it isn't AI turning order...

[Psycho]

I think Ermor is a pretty cool guy. eh stales every other turn and doesnt afraid of anything. :smirk:

[Squirrelloid]

ok, seriously, that meme is lame. And I'm already feeling snarky about this game. (Cursed anonymity, you stop me from making fun of some players).

[Psycho]

Oh yes, it's hella lame. I was mostly amused how nobody got it at first and was irritated by what they thought was the guy's bad English.

[Kheldron]

Huh? I fail to see anything beyond that.
English is not my first language but still, please enlighten me

[Squirrelloid]

There's nothing beyond that. Its bad english, which is only supposed to be funny because people re-use it everywhere with the subject changed. It was probably written by someone whose first language *is* english as a parody of bad english speaking/typing.

[Psycho]

It is supposed to be funny because of bad English and the stupidity of the comment. I believe it started by a bad English speaker and was parodied afterwards. The thing is that someone used the meme repeatedly in the other forum and nobody got the joke, but instead started bi*ching about the guy's bad English.

[Lingchih]

Somebody died, I think. Lanka maybe. Hard to tell. The game is so slow, I can only focus maybe a third of my brain cells on it.

[Calahan]

It was Lanka that was defeated this turn, but they were already AI, so there is no new player identity to reveal.

(Lanka was played by 'yandav'. This saves Wraithlord the time seaching the thread for his name and turning AI post when it comes to updating the OP)

[WraithLord]

WL thanks thy generous help *bow*

Lingchih, I hope it's not the brainstem that's running helm ;)

[Psycho]

Will somebody put Lingchic out of his misery, so he can stop bi*ching about hosting times.

[Squirrelloid]

Ling has a point. I got the last turn at 7pm local time Wednesday. Its not going to host until 7pm local time Sunday. Its only turn 46, and there haven't been any extensions. 4 days base time is totally ridiculous. We should be on 48h barring extensions, not 96.

[WraithLord]

Here we go again...

Host schedule was made clear from the get go. There's no right or wrong here, each has different preferences but this is what everyone signed for. If you don't like slow paced games then don't join them. If you join then don't b*itch all the time, or b*itch all you want if it makes you feel good but the host policy will stay the same.

BTW, this b*itching sounds much like going to a meat only restaurant and complaining about the salads or lack of ;)

[Squirrelloid]

eh, its not the hosting time that's necessarily the problem, its that someone is always waiting till the last minute. Hosting time is supposed to be maximum time between turns, not minimum.

I thought no diplo was supposed to remove this problem...

[WraithLord]

Yes. Good point. But what can be done about it?- Some ppl just make it a habit to wait until the last min.

[Lingchih]

Will somebody put Lingchic out of his misery, so he can stop bi*ching about hosting times.

Thanks for all the support.

Actually, I just post those little time rants as a "bump", whenever this thread seems to be about to fall off the first page of posts. It's more interesting than just posting "bump", and it gets people all mad and stuff for a little while.

[Lingchih]

Hmm. OK. For the sake of being PC, Bump.

[GameExtremist]

Well Vanheim has been crushed, our army is in tatters and the enemy sieges our cap.

I've set to AI.

Cheers for the game, was slow but enjoyable. : )

[WraithLord]

Thank you for the game GameExtremist. I'm glad you found it enjoyable.

[WingedDog]

Caelum is dead, who was he?

[Psycho]

Lingchih probably. Good job holding out for so long Caelum.

[rdonj]

Yep, Lingchih was Caelum.

[WraithLord]

I suspected with near certainty that it was Lingchih playing Caelum.

He did very well, given that Baalz guidelines don't work well for the game settings.
GG Lingchih, thanks for playing!

[Calahan]

Good game Lingchih. And many thanks for sticking it out until the end, even though the schedule was far from your favourite.

Hope you can be enticed back at some point in the future for another Dominions game :) and that this game wasn't part of your farewell package of games :(

*When* ;) you do come back though Lingchih, think you need to start relying a bit less on those Baalz guides. As IIRC Dawn Rand was another Baalz guide you followed that didn't go too well :hurt: Sometimes it can be just the way the cards fall, but other times the stuff in the tin just doesn't do what it says on the label.


He did very well, given that Baalz (EA Caelum) guidelines don't work well (fullstop).

I've corrected your post for you Wraithlord :D

That guide has zero for four utter failures now from the games I've been in and seen it tried. Maybe Baalz can pull it off, but it seems that for every other player, the strategy has some seriously fatal shortcomings.

[WingedDog]

Wow the strategy he used was in Baalz guide? I thought it was an original design of Caelum's player and watched his scoregraphs very closely from the very beginning of the game to see how it would pull off. I just love original strategies.:)
Anyway thanks for the game you did a really good job holding up for so long. (As well as the other couple of players still in the game, hats off to all of you.)

[WraithLord]

...


He did very well, given that Baalz (EA Caelum) guidelines don't work well (fullstop).

I've corrected your post for you Wraithlord :D

I stand corrected :lol


That guide has zero for four utter failures now from the games I've been in and seen it tried. Maybe Baalz can pull it off, but it seems that for every other player, the strategy has some seriously fatal shortcomings.
Yes. it doesn't seem to work. I've seen MP evidence as well. I am tempted, yet don't want, to go into possible reasons until the game ends - one of the reasons being not wanting to derail the game thread OT.

[rdonj]

A notice: A player has received gems from a defeated opponent who set themself AI. You really shouldn't do that in this game, it is no diplo and that's a tacitly diplo move. The player who received the gems has said that he'll be returning the gems to the AI, so let's have a hand for his good spirit of conduct.

[WingedDog]

Lingchih
Please don't forget to send your last turn, game still needs it.

[Lingchih]

I at least got the satisfaction of watching Abysia and Arco annihilate each other trying to take my cap.

And yeah, Baalz guide was a waste with the game settings. I had a good early game, but was severely hampered later on.

Have fun guys.

And, to Calahan. This was not one of my "last three" games. I am still doing well in those. I had written this one off a long time ago.

[Lingchih]

Short After action report. Used Baalz' guide to build up Eagle Kings. They quite effectively raided and took indies early. Arco took offense to me taking a prov that was rightfully mine. He attacked me. I responded by raiding the bejesus out of him. Was going effectively well, until Aby decided that he wanted a piece of me.
With two enemies, I pulled back and held in my cap. And, I held a long time, for those of you who set AI so quickly. Last 15 turns were just hold and preach.

Oh, and for those of you trying to make sense of my defense, I had several luck events that boosted dom in my cap. I would probably have died turns earlier without them.

[Squirrelloid]

Baalz Caelum guide worked fine for me in a game, admittedly it was a n00b game and one of the first ones I joined. But that shouldn't effect expansion performance against indies. Now, once its time to go to war against other players, you might want to switch things up. Not only does EK thuggery not fare especially well against some nations (without some gear upgrades at least), but if you ran Baalz's opening than everyone knows what you're doing. At which point they know how to counter you.

Really, that's the major flaw of the Baalz guide - the opening is so distinctive that you simply can't stick with the guide or people will be able to counter you from battle 1 of the war.

[Lingchih]

It was really the research setting that did me in, with using Baalz strat. It took too long to get the eagle kings going, by which time my nieghbors were building up strong forces.

Dumb strat to use on difficult research. Oh well, had some fun anyways.

[Psycho]

Can we force host when we end up waiting only on Ermor. He's going to stale anyway

[rdonj]

Ermor IS being subbed right now, and I'm pretty sure that was just a minor hiccup.

[Psycho]

OK then, I wasn't aware of that. He staled last turn and it looked like he was going to stale another one, so I thought I should nag some more about him.

[rdonj]

I understand, the previous ermor player used up quite a lot of goodwill with all those stales. But the current sub is playing as a favor to me, so let's try to remember he's new and give him the benefit of a doubt :)

[PriestyMan]

so you can tell us who the previous player was now can't you?

[Psycho]

so you can tell us who the previous player was now can't you?

For some well-deserved public bashing? ;)

[rdonj]

Sorry, you'll have to wait until ermor is eliminated!

[PriestyMan]

In Yarg1, when Ossa was subbed out of the game, you revealed his name, since the sub was unknown. thus i think you ought to tell us ermor since the precedent was set already

[rdonj]

Well, alright, I guess since it's unlikely the original player is going to come back now, that was Alpine Joe. As if you all didn't know that already :P

[Psycho]

For me, at least, that's a surprise. I was in another game with him - a fast paced one, which had about 12 hour turnaround time while he was still alive. He didn't stale there and he actually actively played the game, rather than sitting on starting 8 provs for 50 turns.

[Squirrelloid]

For me, at least, that's a surprise. I was in another game with him - a fast paced one, which had about 12 hour turnaround time while he was still alive. He didn't stale there and he actually actively played the game, rather than sitting on starting 8 provs for 50 turns.

Alpine Joe has this tendency to mysteriously disappear and stale in all his games for a number of turns. Although usually he comes back if he hasn't been subbed out.

While he's active, he plays all his turns. But its the disappearing without a word and staling for turns on end that makes playing with him kind of annoying.

[rdonj]

Yeah... alpine joe stales a lot, and is kind of notorious for it.

[rdonj]

Guys - I'm going to be unavailable from september 21st until october 19th or so. So if you'll need any extensions or subs around this time, see if you can't get to me about this beforehand so I can take care of them before I'm gone.

[Squirrelloid]

Or just don't ask for an extension between those dates. Because its not going to happen. =)

[Dimaz]

I can sub the admin position temporary as I'm out of the game already.

[rdonj]

Thanks Dimaz. I will give you the password when the date nears.

[Calahan]

Hinnom were turned AI last turn (turn 54). And Hinnom was played by...........?

(rdonj enters from left of stage)

[WraithLord]

And so it has come to pass that the descendants of the vile fallen angels, who rose so quickly to dominance and threatened to subjugate all, have withered away. Soon, the Nephilim would be no more than a vague memory of a half forgotten nightmare.

GG Hinom player whomever you may be. Thanks for playing!

[rdonj]

Hinnom was played by Danbo.

And I've already received a message from staling abysia to assure me that was a fluke.

[WraithLord]

OP updated. We've hit the 2/3 mark. soon the semi-finals :)

[Squirrelloid]

Having just lost anything possibly relevant, I'll be setting AI this turn. Thank god, took you fricking long enough to kill me.

I was Agartha. I should have been dead more than 30 turns ago (seriously, Agartha lasting to turn 55 in a RAND game, much less outlasting Niefl, Lanka, and Hinnom? Crazy). More snarking will have to wait until the guilty can be publicly chastised.

[WingedDog]

Squirrelloid
You did good job there holding your capital for so long and certanly shown us a great example of warrior spirit. I, for one, looking forward for your AAR. Better luck in future games!
My respect to all struggling till the end!

[rdonj]

I've just postponed the game by 24 hours, which will likely be my last act as admin until late october, unless someone is eliminated sometime between now and the 21st. Dimaz is now handling timer requests, so please send your messages to him. Until I get back, eliminated players will have to announce their own identities in the game thread, or let Wraithlord know in some fashion who you were playing.

Just to make sure that everyone receives this message I will be emailing a copy to all of you with the handy llamaserver messaging ability. I just wanted to have a copy here for public record.

[WingedDog]

between now and the 21st.

You must have meant 21st October. ;)
Anyway thanks a lot to you for your admining job, and to Dimaz for subing you.:up:

[Dimaz]

Ok, I confirm that I've received the admin password and ready for admin duties.

[Calahan]

Thanks for all the selfless admin work you did for us rdonj. It is greatly appreciated by everyone here, and hope you have a ton of fun on your holiday (guessing it's a holiday or something similar. At least something fun I hope)

Thanks to Dimaz as well for kindly volunteering to take-over as admin. Hope rdonj has told you already that I'll be pestering you the moment anyone starts staling ;)

[rdonj]

Oh! I may have forgotten to mention something of that sort. My mistake... *looks innocent*

Thanks is welcome :) I am going to be having something a bit like a holiday, yes. But with more stress!

[Calahan]

I wonder if we can catch rdonj in time to tell us all who played Pangaea?! (who were eliminated this turn, turn 58). Or the Pangaea player could just kindly reveal himself instead :)

[rdonj]

I'm still here for 2 more days. Pangaea was lumenplacidum, with a temporary subbing by ferrosol.

[WraithLord]

OP updated.
For your convenience here's the active players list:

Clahan
WraithLord
WingedDog
Isokron
Slobby
Alpine Joe
TwoBits
Frozen Lama
Agusti
Don Pablo
Psycho
ghoul31
Rytek
Aethyr
Stagger

GL all, hope you're enjoying the game :)

[Calahan]

@ Wraith - A tiny correction for your list. Alpine Joe got the boot several turns ago for being a compulsive staler. An unknown friend of rdonj 'doing him a favour' took his place.

Also, in the OP you've missed out which nation Lumen actually played (but included all the other data :))
14. LumenPlacidum, with a temporary subbing by ferrosol, defeated on turn 58

[WraithLord]

Fixed.

[WingedDog]

Just noticed Pangaea didn't send it's last turn-file.

ferrosol, lumenplacidum
Would you please send it?

[Dimaz]

One of the remaining players asked me to sub him for a few turns while he's moving to a new location. Personally I have no problem with this and I also I think it's not against the rules as I don't know who the other players are, but theoretically it can interfere with my admin duties. So, if anyone has any objections, please say it here during the next few days.

[WraithLord]

No objections.

Who played Van BTW?

[Calahan]

Who played Van BTW?
It's amazing how the source of so many answers can come from the work of your own hands :)
21. GameExtremist, Leader of Vanheim, defeated on turn 50
(Vanheim were not defeated turn 50, they just went AI on that turn.)

[WraithLord]

:lol

Imagine what my minions feel when I make even dumber mistakes in the game? ;)

"Oh, but why did our lord order us to march into certain death! Curse him for managing the empire only when he's bone tired, distacted and at times half drunk."

[Dimaz]

Hosting postponed by 6 hours.

[Dimaz]

Another delay by 48h.

[Zeldor]

the Ermor sub asked me to mention that TC staled last turn :)

[Dimaz]

Thanks, I already know it. )

[rdonj]

Looks like nothing blew up while I was gone! I'm impressed, I was sort of expecting to come back to all sorts of chaos. Anyway, I'm ready to resume adminly duties.

[WingedDog]

Welcome back, rdonj, hope you enjoyed your vacation. :)

Dimaz managed to handle admin duties very well (our gratitude to him for that). Nothing considerable happened in your absence, the world is still unconquered.

[rdonj]

Thanks WingedDog :). The vacation was very nice, I had a great time. I'll have to do that again sometime.

[WraithLord]

Welcome back.

So where did you vacate?- At the lands of Pangaea, the lush jungles of Mictlan or the cold icebergs of Vanheim? ;)

[rdonj]

Hmm... actually it was more like c'tis. I spent some time learning more about necromancy even. And loup-garous.

[WraithLord]

Werewolves in Egypt? :eek:

[rdonj]

Mm... I guess it would have made more sense if I said machaka. I was thinking of the cursing abilities of the lizard shamans when I said that. But I was down in new orleans for a bit and we visited a voodoo museum. For some reason I can't fathom, voodoo is apparently a major tourist attraction in new orleans.

[rdonj]

Okay... I know we've had a few delays over this turn, but I'm going to have to add a big extension onto the clock. A player is having technical issues and would otherwise be forced to stale. So I'll be adding a 96 hour delay on this turn. Please try to get your turns in in a timely manner anyway, so that if the technical situation is fixed before then you don't all have as big of a wait on your hands.

[WingedDog]

Thanks for informing us, rdonj!

[WingedDog]

I noticed Helheim gone AI this turn. Would you give us the name of last viking of this world?

[rdonj]

Helheim was played by ghoul31.

[Calahan]

Thanks for playing Ghoul31, and for sticking it out until the end.

[PriestyMan]

well he went AI so by definition he didnt stick it out till the end. but thanks for playing at least

[WingedDog]

Well, he has no forts left and few to none commanders, so technically he stayed to the point there's no much difference who controls the nation, whether it is a human or an AI.
On the other hand his in-game behavior looked for me strange by very least. But I guess he had his motives, will be waiting for his AAR (if there ever going to be one).

[ghoul31]

I attacked Mictlan, and was winning the war. But he had like death 3 and sloth 3 or something like that. And he was blood hunting on all his provinces. So I got like 0 income from the provinces I took. If I had known that, I never would have bothered to attack him.

Then Fomoria attacks me from behind, Takes my capital, and all my high income provinces before I have a chance to do anything.

So faced with a 2 front war, and no income, I didn't have a chance.

[Calahan]

So who was the leader of Sauromatia then? (as they were set AI this turn)

[rdonj]

Sauromatia was played by rytek.

[WraithLord]

OP updated.

We're down to 50% of starting players and nearing money time :)

My thanks to all the players who fought hard and true. I don't think anyone just threw the towel even when facing some long odds.

This game advanced slowly but surely towards resolution. hmm, interesting.

[WingedDog]

rytek
Thank you very much for your input in the game. You've done a lot by not giving up till the end, very much appreciated!:up:

[Rytek]

rytek
Thank you very much for your input in the game. You've done a lot by not giving up till the end, very much appreciated!:up:

A poor performance on my part actually. I collapsed stupendously vs my opponent. He had an excellently timed and executed attack. Most of my assets were tied up blitzkrieging Vanheim when his initial rush came. But I recovered very poorly against it and walked head long in to many of his traps as I stubbornly refused to play defensively.

[WingedDog]

Strange thing - C'tis is out and yet nobody asked who was playing it.
Well, I'm going to be first then. :)

[WraithLord]

Yes. rdonj, please divulge who was the valiant player who led Ctis. Same Ctis IIRC that rose so swiftly to great heights of power and influence only to tragically fall after an unrelenting struggle that lasted many years.

All that was evident from the score graphs. I'd truly love to hear his AAR when the game's over.

[Calahan]

I also wouldn't mind knowing who the C'tis player was.... oh wait, it was me :)

Here's a general AAR for my campaign. Not as exciting as the scoregraphs might suggest.


Turns 1-20.

I won't say where I started, but will say it wasn't the best of spots. Expansion probably went too well, or maybe more accurately, I was surprised by how slow everyone else expanded (since I didn't think my expansion was that fast). This was also the first game I had played from the start for around a year, and as such I got caught a little ring-rusty with some do's and don'ts of the early game. With one of the don'ts being...

"Don't tempt Hinnom by putting fort shaped carrots on your border, as their forts are so expensive that they are mostly always going to look to capture their second fort rather than building their own."

So Hinnom caught me a little by surprise when they attacked. I knew they were a threat, but thought my large empire would dissuade them from attacking. But it was probably my large empire that actually attracted them. That, and my amusingly shaped carrots :) Somewhat unsurprising was the other 3-4 jackals who ganged me immediately after Hinnom struck to grab various chunks of my empire.

The war with Hinnom started just about as badly as possible for me, as a drunken scripting error saw my forces correctly abandon my distant carrot in order to re-group, but somehow my Pretender failed to get the memo, as he stayed behind on his own to get slaughtered. And this bad start soon got much worse when I discovered that I had no viable defence against their trampling chariots. Since some of the usual trampling counters like tangle vines or sleep or smite etc, all failed in tests because they always tended to target the Dawn Guards who have more HP, and were able to fit two in a square due to being size 3. I only had one fight with Hinnom in open field, in which I threw half my mages and just about every troop I had (150 ish) at their small-ish army of Tramplers and Dawn Guards, and I was simply trampled to death having inflicted only minimum loses. Since the Dawn Guards were more than happy to be tangled or put to sleep if it meant the Chariots had free reign to do their thing. After this encounter I knew my campaign in this game was going to be a short one :)


I have also reserved a special message for the Pangaea player(s) in this game. I'm not sure who was playing Pangaea at the various times, but I have split them up in-game wise based on the two attacks against me (of course it could easily be the same player both times). The player who decided to attack me first of all takes the award for being the stupidest player I have ever played with. As that player joined the ganging against me, and also decided the best thing to do was to simply sit on my 2nd fort with their army for 15+ turns, which achieved absolutely nothing apart from giving Hinnom an easy ride by preventing me from counter-attacking them, and ruining Pan's own chances by deluding themselves into thinking they were actually doing something. Oh, and a general strategic hint (for all players), when arguably the most powerful nation of the age rushes one of the weakest, you don't make the powerful nation's life easy by gangbanging the weak guy. As all that happens then is the powerful guy wins their war quicker, meaning they turn on the next weak guy quicker. Which is usually on of those who joined the ganging (so in effect, joining a strong nation in a ganging as a weak nation simply tends to hasten your own end). And the only reason that didn't happen in this game is that the weak guy unexpectedly managed to hold for a long time. (which is certainly not the norm)


Turns 20-50

Can't remember how many cap storms I survived against Hinnom during this time, think it was 3 or 4. But then Hinnom's world got rocked by a fish I can't name right now, but their intervention allowed me to eventually break the siege of my cap and start reclaiming provinces. Also during this time, "Stupid Pan Player the 1st" had finally decided to storm my second fort, failed, and at a cost of them losing their God, global, and a load of troops. I lost a lot of troops as well, but my game was already over, whereas Pan still had some chances if "stupid Pan Player the 1st" hadn't been such a strategic moron.

I guess my own personal highlight came somewhere around this time, as I actually managed to re-take enough provinces to overtake my Hinnom nemesis on most of the scoregraphs :) And for a few turns I thought I would be able to rebuild at least enough to ensure I put up a decent fight for when the big un-named Hinnom eating fish inevitability came knocking on my door. But that wasn't to be, as at this moment "Stupid Pangaea Player the 2nd" decided to enter stage left.

So picture the scene. Circling overhead you have a big nasty fish that eats Hinnom's for breakfast, while below trying to hide and build barricades on the sea floor are two battered and bruised little fish, one who has been crippled fighting giants, the other crippled by their own stupidity. So what does "Stupid Pangaea Player the 2nd" (who by the way is now the second stupidest player I have ever played with) decide to do? I know, lets have a little fish fight shall we. That must surely be a good idea!!! So back came Pan again with full force, and unsurprisingly (since I had no troops left) they managed to take the lands I had reclaimed from Hinnom, and take the fort they were so obsessed with. With the end result being that I was soon back to being locked in my capital.

Again not sure how many cap storms I survived against Pangaea (you'd be surprised how hard it is to keep count of these thing once they approach double figures) but IIRC one was a complete disaster for them as I lost literally nothing, with them losing fair chunks of personal. So this continued for a few turns until the greatest non-surprise in Dominions history happened, which is that the Hinnom eating fish decided to expand it's palate range by devouring Pangaea. Something which took next to no time to achieve, since the stupid Pangaea rulers had spent all game wasting the time and resource of their empire on profitless endeavours.


Turns 50 - The End

I probably can't say too much now, since anything I do say might impact nations still in the game. Although in truth there isn't actually that much to say. I somehow managed to survive another load of capital storms with a rag tag force lead by my resurrected but crippled God (probably pushing the total number of cap storms into double figures. Which is easily a record for me). Until, finally, one of my besiegers managed to take advantage of one of several gaping, and un-pluggable holes in my defence, to at last put me put of my misery :)

So ends the campaign of the lizards



Best of luck with the rest of the game everyone. Probably one of my worst performances ever, compounded by my own early scripting error (apologies to danbo for spoiling what could/should have been a more competitive war had my God been alive). But sometimes there's not that much you can do when gangbanged early, especially when one of the nations banging is arguably the strongest of the age, with your own nation being one of the weakest (especially so under hard research)

Also, a final note on fighting to the end. This is the first game where I have ever had to do it myself over a long period (the only other time I was fighting a master in proficiency, who made sure I didn't resist for long), and I really can't see why so many people complain and/or bail instead of fighting it out until the last. Time wise, all that was required was one half hour chunk to arrange fort defences, and then afterwards turns usually took less than 5 minutes, as all there was to do was summon a few troops and forge an item or two. If you only consider something fun if you are winning, then it certainly wasn't fun, but it was satisfying to repel my attackers so often. I've always hated players who turn AI and/or bail, but that feeling has only been increased after this game, since I now know for sure that once you are locked in your forts, turns take less than five minutes. But I guess those who like bailing consider spending five minutes every few days, to help other players enjoy the game more, is something that is beneath them. Who gives a crap about other players enjoyment after all.

[PriestyMan]

Now we get to see the vets begin to fall........ Mwahahaha

[WraithLord]

Thank you for the game Calahan.

Thanks for the AAR as well! I really respect your power to withstand all that shxtstorm for so long. in my book this is good performance :up:

I don't want to slide into a topic that might divulge information but I want to make a comment re. your opinion of the Pan player/s. I had similar situations in other RAND games (although not that annoying I admit), I always tried to give the other player a possible good reason for behavior that seems irrational. Two examples of things that did happen to me:
- Being attacked by a nation, send that attacker reeling, then being attacked by same nation after a few turns ( I couldn't fight back since I was engage in another front). I mean wtf, you attacked me once, saw my mettle, nothing has changed - you'll only lose time and material by attacking a strong nation led by a player that you now know can fight back.
- Being neighbor to super bless nation together with another weak nation. Other weak nation attacks me, I fight him for ~12 turns and nearly kill him when the obvious happens, the bless nation kills us both :)

go figure, this is what happens when communication is forbidden :D

[rdonj]

C'tis may have been vanquished, but it shall never be defeated. The tales of its valor and remarkable will to survive will live forever in song and poetry. Men will boast to impressionable tavern wenches that they were there to witness the fall of the unassailable kingdom of C'tis :P

[WingedDog]

Thanks for the game and AAR, Cal. Though your nation was very tiny - it's influence on the course of events was huge. The world map might have looked very different way by now if it wasn't for you.

Damn, so far I didn't guess a single player correctly. Surprise every time!

[rdonj]

For the record, while christmas breaks are pretty traditional around here, I've gotten no requests to extend the timer, and have no plans of doing so unless an extension is requested. Given the 120 hosting time, that may be sufficient anyway. But as always, extension requests will be granted.

[WraithLord]

Guys, observing the nations still playing and those that are doing well I notice that, contrary to what one would expect of hard research settings, many of them or not bless or rush nations.

I think the hard research settings made for a more interesting game in which the shifting curve from sticks & stones to nuclear weapons was notably more moderate than in your average game.

I'd like to hear your feedback, now, or if you want to share or state specific details then when the game ends.

BTW, I know that players who didn't made the strategy adjustments to deal with that were screwex so let's not bring that angle back again :)

[Squirrelloid]

As a dead player, i think hard research really hurt my ability to do anything, and survived as long as i did only through the incompetence of the nearby bless nation (who is still alive, and thus the guilty cannot be excoriated. I hear he should have known better).

In fact, the death of a number of traditional power bless nations rather than their dominance is almost certainly due to player incompetence or inexperience. Example: Lanka dying to Ulm reeks of incompetence.

I mean, Agartha (me) was not the first dead nation by a long shot. Someone screwed up if that was the case, hard research or no, but hard research stopped me from turning that oversight into a position from which i could do something.

[WraithLord]

And how would you explain the same phenomena in first YARG, that was even won by non bless nation?

I'm looking for feedback so I could decide on the settings for the sequel. I'm not hell bent on hard research but it's certainly different than your run the mill game.

Perhaps the players, dead or alive, would be kind enough to say yes or no (or elaborate if they want to) so that I can get that feedback.

As for your position, in retrospect, was your build optimal or do you think you could plan or do things differently and do better?

I know that both in this game and the previous I made grievous errors that severely hurt me. That said, in previous game I had the non bless Bogarus and got as far as staying alive until endgame.

[Squirrelloid]

So, non-bless nations tend to have stronger late games, its true, which means if a few survive the early game, one of them is likely to win. (There are exceptions of course - Lanka and Mictlan both have strong mid and late games).

I have no idea what even happened in the first YARG game, so i can't comment.

Also keep in mind that there are non-bless nations that have good early games. Sauromatia in EA, for example. Bogarus has an amazing early game, so making it to late game with them isn't surprising.

Regarding my position: I was EA Agartha. There was nothing plausibly useful i could do except hope i could gain a sufficient research advantage while i still had material left to do something. That i survived as long as i did was a miracle, especially given my neighbors. But it took so long to research essential spells that I just ran out of material before I could do anything.

TBH, i had planned on being dead by turn 20. It was kind of shocking when that failed to happen. But i pushed my research as hard as i could in the time i had, it just wasn't soon enough.

My recommendation? Don't include (non-LA) agartha in RAND games. Ever. They're simply so bad that they're unplayable when you can't conduct diplomacy.

[don_Pablo]

Eden (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=44658) was won by AdmiralZhao with EA Agartha. :rolleyes:
And he left competitors far behind almost at the very beginning of the game, if my memory serves me right.

[TheConway]

Bogarus has an amazing early game? First I've heard, from ANYONE.

[PriestyMan]

Bogarus has an amazing early game, so making it to late game with them isn't surprising.

i'm really hoping that you are joking here

[Squirrelloid]

Eden (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=44658) was won by AdmiralZhao with EA Agartha. :rolleyes:
And he left competitors far behind almost at the very beginning of the game, if my memory serves me right.

Ok, there are like 2 notable players in that game beside Admiral Zhao, so basically he beat up on n00bs and bad players. Go him. Admiral Zhao is a top notch player, and Baalz has also handicapped himself with Pangaea.

I'll also note that said game is not a RAND game, which makes a huge difference for weaker nations. Its pretty obvious from the thread that he was making ample use of diplomacy as well, since he apparently had NAPs with most of his neighbors.

The rich settings may also make Agartha more viable, but I'm not sure.

Basically, you can't point to that game as an example of anything, much less a RAND game.

[Squirrelloid]

Bogarus has an amazing early game, so making it to late game with them isn't surprising.

i'm really hoping that you are joking here

(1) CBM cavalry for them is amazing
(2) TS rush/spam is trivially accomplished.

The only weak thing about them is infantry, and no one compels you to hire them. They have incredible research tempo out of the gates, which should give them an early research lead *without* an awake pretender. Combine that with some of the better mages in LA and if you can't turn that into something awesome then you're just bad.

[WingedDog]

What's wrong with EA Agartha? I'm not joking or mocking, I just never played them and I'm not much into theory.

Squirrelloid
You could really provide us your AAR, Caelum and C'tis already did. I doubt your story would affect the game at this stage. I wonder what was your build and what you were planning to do in the game.

WraithLord
My vote is for difficult research in further YARG games. I play the second game and I really enjoy this setting.

[WraithLord]

Yes Squirrelloid, you could share your build + AAR with us and we could do a theoretic exercise in seeing if it could have been better optimized for this game.
Also, what is "TS" for Bogarus.
I disagree that they have amazing early game. They have good research yes and nice cavalry but an early rush from a bless nation can kill Bogarus. I'm not just being theoretic here, I'm talking from personal experience both as Bogarus player and neighbor to Bogarus. In a RAND type game I wouldn't recommend taking it w/o awake SC pretender - well unless you have a death wish that is.

WingedDog, I feel the same. I'm glad you like the settings. So far we have:
Hard research: 2
Normal research: 1

Another advantage of this settings is that it helps push further in the direction that CBM is leading: i.e. get more mileage out of earlier spells/items/summons.
Did previous YARG game end with tartrians all over the place?- Lo and behold - It certainly did not! and that with an earlier CBM. The more I think about this the more I like the setting.

[WingedDog]

WraithLord
I don't know, my personal choice for Bogarus is a great sage. With early research boost and proper magic schools they can deflect any rush, or even rush someone themselves. Then total arcane domination in the midgame, as noone even close to their research level.

[WraithLord]

Yes Squirrelloid, you could share your build + AAR with us and we could do a theoretic exercise in seeing if it could have been better optimized for this game.
Also, what is "TS" for Bogarus.
Edit, Oh Thunderstrike - it's nice but if that's your one trick pony then a good opponent will make you pay dearly.

I disagree that they have amazing early game. They have good research yes and nice cavalry but an early rush from a bless nation can kill Bogarus. I'm not just being theoretic here, I'm talking from personal experience both as Bogarus player and neighbor to Bogarus. In a RAND type game I wouldn't recommend taking it w/o awake SC pretender - well unless you have a death wish that is.

WingedDog, I feel the same. I'm glad you like the settings. So far we have:
Hard research: 2
Normal research: 1

Another advantage of this settings is that it helps push further in the direction that CBM is leading: i.e. get more mileage out of earlier spells/items/summons.
Did previous YARG game end with tartrians all over the place?- Lo and behold - It certainly did not! and that with an earlier CBM. The more I think about this the more I like the setting.

[WraithLord]

WraithLord
I don't know, my personal choice for Bogarus is a great sage. With early research boost and proper magic schools they can deflect any rush, or even rush someone themselves. Then total arcane domination in the midgame, as noone even close to their research level.

Sounds good in theory. When preparing for first YARG I had tested a similar build but, as you well know ;), opted for awake Wyrm. I'm really interested in concrete evidence how this great sage build for Bogarus works in MP games. As it stands I'm a bit wary of it.

[Executor]

Mind if I pop in and say aye to hard research? :) I loved YARG 1, while I was in it, plan to be in YARG 3.
And I'd say Bogarus is an all well rounded up nations that dominates all spheres and game phases.

[WraithLord]

Thanks Executor. Naturally players from previous YARG can vote as well.

And *all* who stumble upon this can opine. I'm really interested in listening to the feedback. Including those who, like Squirrelloid, don't like the setting.

[rdonj]

A 72 hour delay has been added to the timer to accomodate for new years. So I don't want to hear any excuses about your drunkenness detracting from your play this next turn, you hear?

[Calahan]

Did previous YARG game end with tartrians all over the place?- Lo and behold - It certainly did not! and that with an earlier CBM.
Just a quickie to say that IIRC, YARG1 was originally going to be CBM, but was then changed to vanilla during sign-ups for Ano, as he wouldn't play if it was CBM. I found this switch a little annoying personally, and this was compounded when Ano left the game just a dozen turns in, while marking his goodbye by inadvertently (due to llamaserver logs) revealing both his nation (unavoidable after he posted to say he was leaving) and also stupidly naming the player who was replacing him at the same time. Which gave everyone else the one thing they should never have in a RAND game, which is a confirmed matching nation+player ID for an active nation.

General FYI - Subs in RAND games on the llamaserver MUST remain anonymous from everyone but the admin, and anyone wishing to leave a llamaserver RAND game must do so only through the admin, and must certainly never post in the thread about leaving the game. (although as long as players don't know who is replacing those subbing-out, they only get one piece of the player+nation ID. But even that is one piece too many IMO)

Maybe this is obvious in hindsight, but Ano is certainly an intelligent enough person (from what I know of him) to not need telling any of this. This was my first ever game with Ano, after hearing many good things, but must say it didn't leave he with a good impression of him at all.


Anyway, enough mini-ranting. Despite my poor showing in this game (poor by my own standards), and my struggle in YARG1, I still think hard research is a good setting for this game. Only thing I might suggest is that for YARG 3 it could be worth using Burns's mod that reduces the research level of some useful early spells, which he made to assist weak nation survive early rushes in games with hard/v.hard research settings.

Not sure this mod has ever been used in a MP game yet (or at least none that I know of), but in theory giving weak nations quicker access to essential survival spells should be a good thing. I know my demise against Hinnom in this game might have gone differently had I been able to research certain spells while I still had a feasible position to back them up with. But as it was the spells only arrived in time to help defend by capital, rather than any realistic chance of turning the war around. (although in my case, other factors played a bigger part than the research level, but the hard research setting was a factor none-the-less)

[TwoBits]

I'm still playing, so I'll keep my comments simple for now. In a game with hard research and/or level-9 indies, I think the roster of available nations should be trimmed (and not just of EA Agartha).

And I'll comment further (AAR and all) when I'm done in this one.

[WraithLord]

:doh:

Calahan, Thanks for the correction re. YARG & CBM :)

[Squirrelloid]

So, i've run economic builds with sleeping pretenders as *marveni* and *bandar log* and foiled or deterred rushes. Its all about choosing your early research appropriately and knowing how to counter bless rushes with magic. Earth meld is great for nations with earth magic (so long as their native precision is high enough to hit the broad side of a barn), Fire Prison and its lesser cousin work great for fire nations, etc... Basically, hard research shafts some nations against early bless rushes. (this won't necessarily lead to a bless rusher winning the game, but it can cause a player to lose the game because they can't accomplish sufficient research early enough). Most early rush foiling spells are level 2, and hard research makes it take 60% more RPs to reach level 2 in a school. That's a substantial difference.

So, its been awhile since i was in YARG2, so there are things I don't remember. Lets talk about Agartha first.

(1) their troops are bad. Really bad. Incomprehensively bad. Lets start with size 3, ie, outnumbered in every fight because they can only stick 2 in a square. And unlike most size 3 units (even monkey's bandar), they don't even have any real stat advantages except excess hp. In fact, their stats are pretty awful. So they just die in droves - even the 'elite' cavern guard unit.
(2) Their sacreds are worse. Base encumbrance 4 (before armor!), size 4, lackluster stats at best, and weak armor. The typical giant bless is probably the best thing on them, but its not very good on them. Now, on a unit basis they're better than the average troops, but on a cost basis? Much worse, and they require an investment in a bless which Agartha can't afford. Sure, they're recruit anywhere, it doesn't help. (Seal Guard at least have decent armor, but they're cap only and require like *50* resources, making them impossible to mass since taking production scales and a bless is impossible, because you need other things. Also, they still aren't that good.)
(3) Oracles are inefficient with respect to other nation's mages, make terrible thugs (though you pay for their enhanced stats), and are cap only. They have base 5 encumbrance, and no starting armor, so to thug them you basically need full gear, and even then they can basically only thug PD or indies. And of course thugging them requires a bless. So you have really expensive researchers, battlecasters, and ritual casters, because we aren't going to thug them (not cost effective, would be better off using banelords or something).

Next we consider their magic paths. E3X1 + 110%EX where X is W, F, or D. This is actually kind of crappy.

-no cross-path combinations except with E. This means, among other things, you need a pretender to carry F+D for fiery skulls (despite having F+D nationally!). You also have a hard time getting to F4 for the helm, or D4 for the skullface. You can't tart-farm notably well. (Have to bootstrap like a non-D nation).
-No good way to D4 means no good way to cast Darkness, which might make their troops *almost* useful. (Seriously, Agartha should be able to cast darkness early and often. Instead its a struggle to even get a caster to be able to do so.) Lack of W+D combination means you can't use Streams from Hades to expedite this.
-Precision of ~7, which is terrible. Yet most of the good spells they can cast are combat evocations which require aim. (Bladewind and Magma Eruption are some of your most useful). No native N or A magic for targetting help (and N on indie mages doesn't help...).

Despite all that, Oracles are the only thing arguably good about the nation, but they aren't really that good, especially not comparatively. Also, given they're the only thing agartha has going for it, they're stupidly overpriced. Other nations with better troops have much more affordable cap only mages with equal or better magic paths. Lanka's Raksharaja is stupid efficient, as is TC's cap-only mages. If you kept everything else the same about Agartha, the Oracles should cost ~275g apiece at a maximum, and they still wouldn't be winning the efficiency award (that would be EA TC).

(4) Recruit anywhere mage is mostly useless. E1+100%EFWD. Sure, its sacred, but its average for a sacred 2 path mage, not very useful in combat (E+F randoms can be made combat useful with earth boots, but that's quite a heavy gem investment if you're going to be doing that in numbers that matter. W1s will eventually be useful, but its a long time coming, and frozen heart isn't that useful after midgame.)

So, your magic is pretty bad. Your troops are worse. You can no longer effectively mass Umbrals anymore because they require 3d instead of 1d (a +200% increase in cost, which is huge), which was the only thing the nation had going for it. You don't tart rush better than anyone else, in fact, worse than many because you can't natively forge the chalice or cast GoH. You can't dragonmaster into massed cave drakes or similar. In fact, there are no good E summons for you.

Which brings us to your pretender. Your nation has weak troops and a really weak early game, so you might want an awake SC. But your cap only mages are fricking expensive, so you really need good scales. You also desperately need Mg1 or better yet Mg3 so your research isn't useless, since you have to hang your entire game on the performance of your cap-only mages. To get any use out of 50% of your recruit anywhere mages, you're going to need to mass produce earth boots (among other things), so a Forge Lord is also a good idea. And have i mentioned how bad your magic diversity is? You basically have to treat your nation like you only have E magic natively because you don't get any of the useful crosspath combinations, and your non-E is pretty weak. (And if you wanted a bless, well, good luck with that).

Hmm... this was longer than i intended. AAR in next post.

Edit: oh yeah, for those who don't know, everything but trogs is cold blooded.

[Squirrelloid]

AAR:
I ran a forge lord pretender. I don't remember if he was awake or asleep, but i think he was asleep. Hung my early expansion on troglodytes, because they're the only unit you have which can actually kill indies efficiently.

Discovered my neighbors were Arco (ok), Mictlan (ouch), and Nieflheim (double ouch). Resign myself to an early death.

I'm pushing construction as hard as i can while site searching manually from turn ~4 with a D2E3 oracle. My pretender wakes up and starts spitting out hammers and then skull mentors. I build a second fort.

Turn 20 passes and no one has attacked me. I boggle at Nieflheim and Mictlan and keep researching. I think i'm pushing Evocation now, but it might have been conjuration.

Turn 33: Mictlan finally attacks. My second fort gets overrun and he rampages through my lands despite my research advantage. I huddle in my capital and finish some last minute research before emerging, then tearing my walls down so i can keep researching while defending from his army while it returns. (Need all my mages)

Virtually annihilate Mictlan's army when it tries to retake my capital.

I've got Evo 6 and Ench 6 and Conj 5 at this point for sure, I'm running down Alteration for Darkness, having a D3 Oracle by sheer luck. I'm burning most of my gems on summons.

I annihilate a second Mictlan army. Do some counter pushing to try to get some gem and gold income.

Laugh when Lanka and Niefl die before I do.

On the turn i finish Alt 6 a Mictlan assassin with B2 (the first i've seen it) gets lucky and picks off my D3 Oracle.

At some point here Mictlan gets jumped by Helheim, and deals with them while continuing to send massive armies my way.

I think I repel one more major Mictlan army, and then die to the next one: having literally spent every last gem on summons to keep me alive.

Summons used: statues, claymen, cave drakes, fire drakes, umbrals. Basically anything that might hold the line long enough for me to drop bladewinds and magma eruptions on jag warriors.

Each Mictlan army I remember was like 200 jags + beast bats + etc..., often with Onaqui and Mictlan Priests carting blood slaves. There was an Arch Demon eventually.

If Mictlan had attacked me on turn ~12 (or earlier) like they should have, i wouldn't have had the research or material to do anything.

[WraithLord]

( Damn, a man can't edit his posts anymore :rolleyes: )

:doh:

Calahan, Thanks for the correction re. YARG & CBM :)

Edit, that makes the observation re. non-tart endgame even stronger. It stands to reason that it's directly tied to the hard research settings.

I guess we could trim the nation list a bit. The problem with this approach is where you draw the line. If you remove EA Aga. then later ppl will complain about XYZ and later about this nation and later about that. I'm not sure I want to go that path.

And if my count is right we have:
Hard research: 4
Normal research: 1

[Squirrelloid]

I guess we could trim the nation list a bit. The problem with this approach is where you draw the line. If you remove EA Aga. then later ppl will complain about XYZ and later about this nation and later about that. I'm not sure I want to go that path.

No other nation is in the ballpark of badness that is (EA/MA) Agartha except maybe MA Ulm. And I have to stress maybe.

[WraithLord]

Your analysis of Agartha contains some good points for improvement for CBM. Did you try to give such suggestions to QM?
Two notable improvements:
- Since Agas troops suck make their mages, including Oracle, cheaper. For the oracle an alternative would be to keep the price but give him more picks in D/S/E.
- Give access to national variant of darkness spell lower in the research tree
- Give them low level summon spell for a beefy cannon fodder.

Your build is reasonable but I wonder whether you'd have been better served with an awake naked dom10 Wyrm with solid scales. Then all your income goes to castles and mages.

BTW, I had the bad luck to get EA Aga. in Pasha RAND and then MA Machaka in the sequel. Getting a lousy nation in a RAND game sucks alright but I'm still reluctant to ban nations. I do hope CBM would give some love to EA Agartha and MA Machacka b/c both sure need that. MA Machaka actually got worse as CBM progressed :(

[Isokron]

I must say that I have liked the slow research speeds in the yarg games. Although what I would like even more is slower end game research. Say that you start with normal research cost(40) and then progresses as
c(n) = c(n-1) * 2
instead of
c(n) = c(n-1) + c(n-2)
as it is in standard dominion. I am no modder though so I have no idea if this is possible to implement.

Edit: Well doubling might be a bit to much ending up with a l9 cost of 10240, using something like 1.9 instead one would end up on about 6800 for l9.

[Slobby]

:up: hard research
:down: trimming out 'weaker' nations...it's part of the fun!

[Aethyr]

:up: hard research
:down: trimming out 'weaker' nations...it's part of the fun!

Ditto.

[TwoBits]

Unless you're stuck with one of the "weaker" nations, that is.

I would suggest, instead of trimming the 3-4 'worst' nations, have some way of selecting the top 12 or so 'good' nations. The list doesn't have to be accurate (whatever that means in something so subjective as a list of 'top' nations), but should at least contain no outright stinkers.

It would mean a smaller YARG3, but if it filled up quickly, just start another game (YARG3A and YARG3B).

[Squirrelloid]

Your analysis of Agartha contains some good points for improvement for CBM. Did you try to give such suggestions to QM?
Two notable improvements:
- Since Agas troops suck make their mages, including Oracle, cheaper. For the oracle an alternative would be to keep the price but give him more picks in D/S/E.
- Give access to national variant of darkness spell lower in the research tree
- Give them low level summon spell for a beefy cannon fodder.

I did better than that, I made my own balance mod (which I will theoretically get back to once i figure out how to merge it with CBM 1.7 effectively). As far as I know, QM did not really use it for ideas.

I improved Oracles and their national troops (although the troops are still probably bad, they just might actually be playable). The Oracle improvement made casting darkness easier, among other things.


Your build is reasonable but I wonder whether you'd have been better served with an awake naked dom10 Wyrm with solid scales. Then all your income goes to castles and mages.


A dom10 wyrm would have been no more than a speedbump for Mictlan, and i'd have been much less advanced in research (no cheap skull mentors) and would have crumbled much quicker. I don't think even a pile more national recruit anywhere mages would have made up the difference (a skull mentor is worth ~2 non-cap mages for agartha even with Mg1, and you have to pay upkeep on the mages).

[WraithLord]

Hard research: 7
Normal research: 1

I think we will keep all the nations for next YARG, which would be MA ( we already had LA and EA). I share the sentiment that it's part of the fun. It's like lottery and you don't know what you'll get and that's part of the excitment. If you happen to get the worst nation, well that sucks but you do the best you can with it, experiment if you like, and hope to have better luck in the next game :)

It happened to me twice already and it didn't change my opinion re. the fun factor of having a full nation roster. As I see that quite a number of players feel the same way I currently plan to have a full nation roster for next YARG.

Squirrelloid, Wyrn would give you awesome expansion and income for lots of armies. indie, or merc. if you like. then other nations would think twice before attacking you. Or so one would hope...

[Squirrelloid]

Squirrelloid, Wyrn would give you awesome expansion and income for lots of armies. indie, or merc. if you like. then other nations would think twice before attacking you. Or so one would hope...

If I was Mictlan, a Wyrm wouldn't do much to deter me. Jags just eat it. And i'm not sure it would have improved my expansion all that much since i had constrained paths to travel down, and at least know Mictlan's capital wasn't *that* far from where my southern border reached after initial expansion. I imagine Arco and Niefl's capitals were also vaguely proximal to my original post-expansion borders.

Really, Mictlan isn't going to look at provinces or income, its going to look at unit roster (or at least it should). If jags eat your unit roster, expect mictlan to attack you.

[Slobby]

While it doesn't really apply to this version of YARG the pd20 autocast darkness for EA/MA agartha in cbm1.7 is pretty huge. With that version of cbm I'd probably go O3S1H3D3L3M1 (nuke the enemy supply :)) high dom and awake pretender with a combo of A2 (wind guide) & D3(4 if it can be afforded) for sure for EA agartha.

Assuming we play cbm1.7 or the next version in the next YARG installment I don't think EA/MA agartha are in that rough a spot.

[Squirrelloid]

I'll point out autocast darkness isn't actually that great on PD because it doesn't let you use it offensively, and you have to buy 20PD. It just means that blood nations and undead-based nations still laugh at you on offense, and other nations might need to be a little more careful (or get into blood, which was a good idea anyway).

Rather than choosing when you use darkness, PD-provided darkness means the enemy gets to choose when and with what they fight in darkness with. That's a substantial difference.

(I did not think the PD-darkness was a major buff or even all that useful, tbh).

[Slobby]

I'll point out autocast darkness isn't actually that great on PD because it doesn't let you use it offensively, and you have to buy 20PD. It just means that blood nations and undead-based nations still laugh at you on offense, and other nations might need to be a little more careful (or get into blood, which was a good idea anyway).

Rather than choosing when you use darkness, PD-provided darkness means the enemy gets to choose when and with what they fight in darkness with. That's a substantial difference.

(I did not think the PD-darkness was a major buff or even all that useful, tbh).

Ah but then I think the saying 'the best offense is a good defense' comes into play. With H3D3 scales supply in your domain is atrocious but of course is irrelevant for EA Ag. And lets be honest EA Ag isn't a high tempo nation but a turtle nation. Having that dominion with strategic pd20 provinces that are garrisioned by decent sized armies backed with mages potentially buy time. Time that is needed to get to alt 6. Once you get alt 6 underway then it's time to take to the offense. I would actually go crazy hard alt like pan and even moreso pushing for alt 9 asap.

But really an alt 6 spell, that's to be casted by D4 mages that you don't naturally have, that make other nations on par with Agartha's pile of crap, that you don't need D gems to funnel into, that costs only 210g. That's a boon.

Of course blood/ud nations don't care but the pd 20 helps EA ag in the early game, which is where it counts and where large amounts of ud/demons shouldn't be encoutered.

If anything being thug raided in the early/mid would be the problem. But that's a problem for most nations anyway. :)

[Squirrelloid]

I'll point out autocast darkness isn't actually that great on PD because it doesn't let you use it offensively, and you have to buy 20PD. It just means that blood nations and undead-based nations still laugh at you on offense, and other nations might need to be a little more careful (or get into blood, which was a good idea anyway).

Rather than choosing when you use darkness, PD-provided darkness means the enemy gets to choose when and with what they fight in darkness with. That's a substantial difference.

(I did not think the PD-darkness was a major buff or even all that useful, tbh).

Ah but then I think the saying 'the best offense is a good defense' comes into play. With H3D3 scales supply in your domain is atrocious but of course is irrelevant for EA Ag. And lets be honest EA Ag isn't a high tempo nation but a turtle nation. Having that dominion with strategic pd20 provinces that are garrisioned by decent sized armies backed with mages potentially buy time. Time that is needed to get to alt 6. Once you get alt 6 underway then it's time to take to the offense. I would actually go crazy hard alt like pan and even moreso pushing for alt 9 asap.

But really an alt 6 spell, that's to be casted by D4 mages that you don't naturally have, that make other nations on par with Agartha's pile of crap, that you don't need D gems to funnel into, that costs only 210g. That's a boon.

Of course blood/ud nations don't care but the pd 20 helps EA ag in the early game, which is where it counts and where large amounts of ud/demons shouldn't be encoutered.

If anything being thug raided in the early/mid would be the problem. But that's a problem for most nations anyway. :)

210g *per province*. That gets expensive quickly.

Even with darkness, i'm pretty sure pale one militia loses to regular militia, but i'd have to run the numbers again to be sure, and with similar fates for other agarthan units against comparable indies. (Agarthan military is so bad that even darkness doesn't do more than *almost* level the playing field).

And straight rushing alteration doesn't work out so well for you since Evocation is where most of your good combat spells are. (And you're going to want umbrals, even at the awful price of 3d, so conjuration is also a priority).

I'm reasonably convinced a construction rush for skull mentors and lanterns is entirely the right play and gets you most research faster ultimately, especially since you'll also need the earth boots to make your non-cap mages useful at all.

Finally, you have that backwards. Its 'the best defense is a good offense'. (Mel, the cook on Alice. Also some more notable people, but that reference is funnier).

[TheConway]

Despite what seems to be a rather unneeded level of *****iness from squirrelloid about this game and Agartha in general, I think he's right that darkness at pd 20 is essentially nothing. There is simply no way Agartha can be considered anything remotely resembling decent until/unless they A- get some *significant* stat boosts on their troops, and B- something is done to make Oracles not be the worst "nation's best" mages in the game.

[Slobby]

I fail to see how having access to a spell in alt 6 in turn 1 that pretty much halves the att and def stats of most of the units in the game is not a boon.

[TheConway]

No one is saying it isn't, just that its pretty much insignificant since even under darkness Agartha's troops aren't very good, and getting the darkness is extremely difficult to force while also being very expensive.

[WingedDog]

It's time to reveal us personality of the brave King of Monkeys, who doesn't know the meaning of the word 'yield'. He fought with grace and valor, so let him reincarnate in another game with more luck on his side.
Kudos.

[TwoBits]

Turn 79. I'm absolutely flabbergasted I lasted that long.

Short AAR: Kailasa + Indies 9 + Difficult Research = Why me, God? ;)

WingedDog, thanks for the Kudos. But I'd have to say, Kailasa is even worse than Agartha under these conditions.

Well, at least for the vast majority of this game, doing my turns was supremely easy :D

[WraithLord]

Thank you for the game TB.

Why were the settings so difficult for you?- Uber bless or awake SC would have made your expansion a breeze and for mid late game you have astral power to carry the day.

Admittedly, I never played Kailasa in MP, but in SP expansion is very easy at indies 9. I just use some decoys to avoid archers and that's it more or less.

Would you like to share more details re. your build?

[WraithLord]

OP updated.
Are we down to 10 players?- Or is it 9?

I cropped the list and here's what I came with:
3. WraithLord
4. WingedDog
5. Isokron
6. Slobby
10. Frozen Lama
11. Agusti
12. Don Pablo
15. Psycho
22. Aethyr

Did I miss one?

Anyway, cheers to all the players and to the last ten or nine or whatever that are left standing :)

[WingedDog]

WraithLord
You have missed mysterious Ermor player subbing Alpine Joe.

TwoBits
Yes, please, share you build and game plans with us.

[TwoBits]

Wow, this game started so long ago, I don't really remember the thought process that led me to (perhaps absurdly) take Kailasa with great scales.

I vaguely recall being frustrated in testing with Kailasa's zero protection/no real shield/need magic leadership sacreds. So I must not have hit on the right combination of bless and/or tactics that WraithLord found.

In retrospect, an awake SC pretender probably would have been better (it worked reasonably well for me in YARG1). Maybe I just wanted to try something different?

In any event, while Kailasa does have strong magic potential, the difficult research made it hard to access.

[rdonj]

Extra long delays this turn... a couple of players have been having life issues preventing them from doing their turns, and I've just added another delay for such reasons. Please be patient and await your turns. They're coming :)

[rdonj]

Attention players: Ulm's player is having to bow out of the game due to time restraints. Delays may occur as a result of searching for a substitute to replace their glorious leader. We are sad to see him/her/it go, and hope he/she/it good luck in their present and future endeavors.

[rdonj]

48 hours added to the clock for the sub to familiarize themself with the position. Please welcome the new player, _, aboard. Additional delays may be given should the new player request them, of course, and are not necessarily unlikely given how late in the game it is.

[rdonj]

As Abysia has been defeated this turn, his identity will be revealed. Abysia was played by Aethyr. Thank you for playing, and sticking it out until the end :)

[Aethyr]

Thanks rdonj, I enjoyed the game.

[WraithLord]

Thank you Aethyr for the game!

OP updated. We're down to 9, who'll fall next off the boat???

Updated list:
Alpine Joe sub
WraithLord
WingedDog
Isokron
Slobby
Frozen Lama
Agusti
Don Pablo
Psycho

[WraithLord]

And who is the brave soul who ruled Mictlan?

[PriestyMan]

Mictlan has fallen at last. After many turns of holding up the walls of our forts we have finally succumbed.

we gain peace in knowing we killed many men in the defense of our cap incuding the great evil giant Balor

[WraithLord]

Would you care to give us a short recount of your heroic deeds?- Such that won't infringe on the anonymity of the remaining players?

Good game. Thanks for playing.

[PriestyMan]

Well i started out pretty good, started next to agartha, which as anyone knows, when you start next to them, you attack them, no matter who you are, you just do because they are agartha. But being a W9S9B4blessed mictlan made that easier. i broke their back easy enough, but took much to long to close the deal i'm afraid. then i got attacked by a really really bizzare Helheim. I dont think i ever would have thought someone would make masses of thugs equipped with 2h baneblades and champion skulls. while this wasnt particularly scary, helheim was much bigger than me and could wreck my economy. it was sorta touch and go, but then formoria decided to kill Helheim from the other side. There really wasnt any way my war-torn nation could hope to fight formoria's onslaught, so i decided to turtle in my forts and make it hard for him. by using cross-breeding and a couple hundred vampires, i held out for many many turns tying down a huge amount of troops. eventually formoria brought in around 900 men plus gate cleavers and stormed my fort. I did a decent amount of damage, like i said, killed Balor, but it wasnt enough to break formoria's morale.

[Squirrelloid]

Well i started out pretty good, started next to agartha, which as anyone knows, when you start next to them, you attack them, no matter who you are, you just do because they are agartha. But being a W9S9B4blessed mictlan made that easier. i broke their back easy enough, but took much to long to close the deal i'm afraid. then i got attacked by a really really bizzare Helheim. I dont think i ever would have thought someone would make masses of thugs equipped with 2h baneblades and champion skulls. while this wasnt particularly scary, helheim was much bigger than me and could wreck my economy. it was sorta touch and go, but then formoria decided to kill Helheim from the other side. There really wasnt any way my war-torn nation could hope to fight formoria's onslaught, so i decided to turtle in my forts and make it hard for him. by using cross-breeding and a couple hundred vampires, i held out for many many turns tying down a huge amount of troops. eventually formoria brought in around 900 men plus gate cleavers and stormed my fort. I did a decent amount of damage, like i said, killed Balor, but it wasnt enough to break formoria's morale.

Broke my back easy enough? How many hundred jag warriors did i kill? Seriously, I probably drained enough resources from you that you were unable to recover.

Turn 33 was way too late to attack. I was expecting to be dead by turn 20. I didn't even get attacked until well after that.

[WraithLord]

CBM 1.8 contains some improvements to Agartha. Possibly it will become more competitive and will no longer occupy the "must be attacked" slot.

[PriestyMan]

Well i started out pretty good, started next to agartha, which as anyone knows, when you start next to them, you attack them, no matter who you are, you just do because they are agartha. But being a W9S9B4blessed mictlan made that easier. i broke their back easy enough, but took much to long to close the deal i'm afraid. then i got attacked by a really really bizzare Helheim. I dont think i ever would have thought someone would make masses of thugs equipped with 2h baneblades and champion skulls. while this wasnt particularly scary, helheim was much bigger than me and could wreck my economy. it was sorta touch and go, but then formoria decided to kill Helheim from the other side. There really wasnt any way my war-torn nation could hope to fight formoria's onslaught, so i decided to turtle in my forts and make it hard for him. by using cross-breeding and a couple hundred vampires, i held out for many many turns tying down a huge amount of troops. eventually formoria brought in around 900 men plus gate cleavers and stormed my fort. I did a decent amount of damage, like i said, killed Balor, but it wasnt enough to break formoria's morale.

Broke my back easy enough? How many hundred jag warriors did i kill? Seriously, I probably drained enough resources from you that you were unable to recover.

Turn 33 was way too late to attack. I was expecting to be dead by turn 20. I didn't even get attacked until well after that.

just loaded up my turn 33. at that point i owned everything but you cap, so i'm pretty sure that means i attacked before that turn.

[Squirrelloid]

Well i started out pretty good, started next to agartha, which as anyone knows, when you start next to them, you attack them, no matter who you are, you just do because they are agartha. But being a W9S9B4blessed mictlan made that easier. i broke their back easy enough, but took much to long to close the deal i'm afraid. then i got attacked by a really really bizzare Helheim. I dont think i ever would have thought someone would make masses of thugs equipped with 2h baneblades and champion skulls. while this wasnt particularly scary, helheim was much bigger than me and could wreck my economy. it was sorta touch and go, but then formoria decided to kill Helheim from the other side. There really wasnt any way my war-torn nation could hope to fight formoria's onslaught, so i decided to turtle in my forts and make it hard for him. by using cross-breeding and a couple hundred vampires, i held out for many many turns tying down a huge amount of troops. eventually formoria brought in around 900 men plus gate cleavers and stormed my fort. I did a decent amount of damage, like i said, killed Balor, but it wasnt enough to break formoria's morale.

Broke my back easy enough? How many hundred jag warriors did i kill? Seriously, I probably drained enough resources from you that you were unable to recover.

Turn 33 was way too late to attack. I was expecting to be dead by turn 20. I didn't even get attacked until well after that.

just loaded up my turn 33. at that point i owned everything but you cap, so i'm pretty sure that means i attacked before that turn.

Huh, i recalled turn 33. Well, it was pretty late. Maybe turn 28. It was much later than i wouldve attacked in your shoes.

[WraithLord]

Another titan has fallen. Come forward please, you who have led mighty Atlantis thus far.

[Isokron]

Yes Atlantis has finally fallen. I started the game with an awake Wyrm with some extra magic to try to get some fast expansion as well as some later magic diversity. This sort of worked ok to begin with and I think I had an early lead in territory. When I ran into Rlyeh I thought I should try to attack him early before he got too much scary research for his Aboleths but unfortunately he was able to repel my attack and things looked grim. Then he and Oceania got into a war and I stood by on the sidelines thinking I would be able to kill of the victor. Unfortunately Oceania then suddenly collapsed before I was ready and my somewhat rushed attack again failed.

After that me and Rlyeh waged a more or less continuous war back and forth but as I had feared I couldn't really come up with an effective answer to his troops. This was of course not helped by my wyrm getting mindhunted and killed just as it was on its way back to base to start using those expensive paths I had bought for it. Well I mostly tried to use thugged out Basalt kings but I could never get enough of them and in the end Rlyeh just run me over.

Good game and well played whoever is Rlyeh, and good luck to all remaining players.

[WraithLord]

GG Isokron. Thank you for playing.
Oh and until this one is over you're still the reigning YARG champion :)

[WraithLord]

Short update (to spark some interest in an otherwise quiet game) per turn 94:

Provinces
Nation Provinces
Arcoscephale 31
Ermor 9
Ulm 35
Tir na n'Og 29
Fomoria 60
R'lyeh 45

Forts
Nation Forts
Arcoscephale 12
Ermor 7
Ulm 13
T'ien Ch'i 45
Tir na n'Og 4
Fomoria 20
R'lyeh 21

Income
Nation Income
Arcoscephale 4273
Ermor 1700
Ulm 2367
T'ien Ch'i 5939
Tir na n'Og 3179
Fomoria 4741
R'lyeh 5570

Gem Income
Nation Gem Income
Arcoscephale 106
Ermor 45
Ulm 102
T'ien Ch'i 235
Tir na n'Og 73
Fomoria 128
R'lyeh 120

Nation Victory Points
Arcoscephale 3
Ermor 1
Ulm 4
T'ien Ch'i 6
Tir na n'Og 2
Fomoria 5
R'lyeh 3

GG so far, I hope the remaining players are having fun.

[don_Pablo]

You have omitted TC in the Provinces Ranking

[WraithLord]

Oops, sorry about that:
Provinces
Nation Provinces
T'ien Ch'i 80

Good to know that at least one person checks this thread :D

[rdonj]

It's hard to say too much without feeling like you might be crossing a line... even for me. So that probably explains why most people aren't saying much. It's too easy to say something that could be construed as being in poor taste as far as the rules of the game are concerned. That's the only problem with this sort of game, the near total communications blackout with your fellow players. I imagine that must be especially hard in a game like this one, that has lasted for a very long time and seems to be coming to a head.

[WraithLord]

you're right of course.
Do you reckon that posting a (perfectly publicly available)short update every once in a while is ok?- If only to bump the game thread so we know it's alive :)

[rdonj]

Somewhat. The problem is it still looks halfway like diplomacy. Of course, there's the chance that you could use it that way ;). But I know that you wouldn't, wraithlord. In any case I think what you've done is fine, but it's just really difficult to talk about this game. It's a bit sad, that's part of the fun part of the game for me, talking to other people about what's happening. But eh, what can you do. Anyway go ahead and make postings like what you've done. I can't condemn it and you're right, it's certainly publically available. Anyway, the game is certainly in interesting territory right now. I'm anticipating a possible ending now, and I'm still not sure what's going to happen. I'be b een sadly a bit out of touch with the players lately due to various events going on in my life right now, which I most certainly regret, but I realize there's not a lot I can do about that. It's just sad the game thread is suffering as a result.

[WraithLord]

Yes. I see your point.
I think just to be safe I'll refrain from any such posting here. Indeed sad for game thread but better safe than sorry. Anyone interested can just check the score tables for the game.

It's a shame that such interesting games with lots going on are so quiet so all the heroic deeds end up unknown and forgotten.

[rdonj]

It would appear that TNN has gone AWOL and went AI last turn. They're a pretty big nation, and I really don't think that an AI of that size is acceptable for this game. I'm going to go ahead and see if I can't find a sub/convince the original player to come back and do a rollback. If I can't find one though, we'll have to consider whether we want the game to continue or not in light of TNN's abdication and subsequent damage to the balance of power.

[WraithLord]

:(

How can we consider what we want to do?- It looks like a catch 22. We can't deliberate this in any way w/o compromising our ID. Perhaps a private voting of remaining players would work?

[rdonj]

Yeah, we'd need a private vote with everyone tellibng me what thyey want,and I can release the results publically.

As an aside, TC has declared that it's not interested in seeing a rollback either. This being the case, it would seem that a vote as to whether or not to continue the game should take place now regardless of whether I can convince anyone to keep TNN in the game or not.

[WraithLord]

Evidently we decided to cont.
May we know who was TNN player who went AI?

[rdonj]

Actually no, the game is officially over. I was just waiting back to hear from everyone still. Today I heard from fomoria, who a few other people's votes were contingent upon, and the consensus seems to be that TC was going to win soon and there was no point in going through the effort of finding a sub to continue the game. Good game everyone. Congratulations TC on your victory!

Here's my player list:

1. Yomi - Dimaz
2. C'tis - Calahan
3. R'lyeh - WraithLord
4. Ulm - WingedDog
5. Atlantis - Isokron
6. Fomoria - Slobby
7. Ermor - Alpine Joe (temp subbed by vfb) (subbed by valerius)
8. Kailasa - TwoBits
9. Agartha - Squirrelloid
10. Mictlan - Frozen Lama
11. Tir na n'Og - Agusti
12. Arcoscephale - Don Pablo
13. Hinnom - Danbo
14. Pangaea - LumenPlacidum (temp subbed by Ferrosol)
15. T'ien Ch'i - Psycho (subbed by dimaz)
16. Lanka - yandav
17. Oceania - Graeme Dice
18. Helheim - ghoul31
19. Sauromatia - Rytek
20. Caelum - Lingchih
21. Vanheim - GameExtremist
22. Abysia - Aethyr
23. Niefelheim - Stagger Lee
24. Marverni - Kheldron

Apologies to any subs who aren't listed there, I lost my player list for a while and wasn't able to update it for a time. So if you're not listed, please speak up so we know you were there :)

[Calahan]

Evidently we decided to cont.
May we know who was TNN player who went AI?
Doesn't everyone already know? Since the TNN player revealed his identity before the game even started. (or at least he did to those paying attention)


And mainly posting to congratulate the TNN player on the most pointless ever existence in a MP game of Dominions, as your presence in this game was the most utterly pointless waste of time I have ever witnessed in my 3+ years of playing MP games. You really should get an award for it I reckon, as it truly was masterful the way you managed to do nothing at all the entire game.

I do not understand why people even bother playing MP games if they have no intention what-so-ever of interacting with the other nations in the game. If you want to play a sandbox game, then go fire up Sim City or Sim People or whatever. If you are just happy to survive, then go play some Tower Defence game. But most of all keep out of MP games, as your "sit there and do nothing" approach for 80+ turns isn't wanted by anyone (who enjoys playing good MP games).

------
Edit - Ah, rdonj jumped me it seems with the final list. Congrats to TC on the win.

[WraithLord]

Wow. Finally. Hurray :D

Congratulation to Psycho and Dimaz. You played awesome and fully deserve this victory in one of the most epic games I have ever been part of.

Slobby, you did great too. If you wanted a good chance to win you should have fought TC though :)

As for me, Isokron neutered me most of the game and made sure I won't be a deciding factor in the end game. Well done Isokron, you fought like a ninja from hell :up:
I really struggled with the mechanics of EA R'lyeh and how to make it work so the made the game extra fun for me.

And most important a big thank you to rdonj who did a superb job admining the game.

[WraithLord]

Yes. I might phrase it less harshly but I basically have to agree with Calahan.

I was practically warring non-stop from day 1, even when it was obvious that TC would win. I really can't fathom why some nations just decided to do nothing at some point.
All the time I was thinking, why are they doing nothing?- What's the point?
I'm more tolerant to this behavior but I'm really puzzled as to why it exists.

[Dimaz]

Wow. Suddenly.
I'll write something tonight, it was pretty interesting game for me so it deserves some AAR :)

[don_Pablo]

As for me I was surprised when Fomoria attacked me (Arco).
I was going to attack TC when found myself at another war.

[Dimaz]

And you don't know how I was surprised when both nations I was sort of afraid of attacked someone else on the same turn. That was the turn when I declared TC as the winner to my wife :)

[WraithLord]

Yes. for me it was like that.

A. Finish game long war with Atlantis.
B. Lick my wounds a bit. look around. TC is winning but surely Fomoria would attack it since he can also be in good position to win.
C. The turns go by. Ok, deep breath. Any second now Fomoria would attack TC. For sure Arco + TNN would join in and by then I'd have enough AotF and summons to exercise power on land and join as well.
D. In the meantime I'll put some minor effort to take Ermor. I can't sit idly by. right?- too boring :)
E. Fomoria attack Arco. What???- And I was thinking - congrats TC. Fomoria's decision just won you the game :D

[Slobby]

Yes. for me it was like that.

A. Finish game long war with Atlantis.
B. Lick my wounds a bit. look around. TC is winning but surely Fomoria would attack it since he can also be in good position to win.
C. The turns go by. Ok, deep breath. Any second now Fomoria would attack TC. For sure Arco + TNN would join in and by then I'd have enough AotF and summons to exercise power on land and join as well.
D. In the meantime I'll put some minor effort to take Ermor. I can't sit idly by. right?- too boring :)
E. Fomoria attack Arco. What???- And I was thinking - congrats TC. Fomoria's decision just won you the game :D

Heh I find all this Fomoria hands the game over to TC talk quite funny. I'll do a more in depth as to my choices in a follow up post/wrap of the game, but for now just going to concentrate on the Fomoria gave TC the win talk.

Point C of WL I'll take a stab at first - namely because with a no diplo game there is no guarantee that a team gank would occur, mostly because you don't know what the other players are thinking/doing. If I had gone after TC there was just as good a chance that they would come after me as TC, seeing how TC was the big bad wolf in this game and not I. Also you'd have to count on every player playing to win.

As both WL and Cal pointed out already the player behind TNN didn't do jack, and I found it funny that the turn after I attacked TNN the player went AI.

Also if anyone had an awesome chance to stuff TC from gobbling Ulm it was Rlyeh and not I, but you just sat in your beachhead right next to Mictlan with your big army, threatening me. I could also point out that Arco could have scored some of Ulm's caps as well, but that didn't materialize either.

Furthermore regarding TC they actually won when WingedDog bowed out and Ulm was subbed. The sub that came in played worse than the AI. I watched many a battle between Ulm and TC and got a measure of what each was about. WingedDog's defense was pretty awesome. Watching the subs defense well...I was pretty disgusted by it. Especially the defense of Ulm proper when it didn't even look like the Ulm sub scripted the army.

I knew then that TC had the game unless I could steal caps faster than TC could. And so I made up my plans and embarked on a 4 line/front assault on Arco/TNN with the plan to either get my fifth from Ulm or Arco. But that didn't go as planned on the southern front. Nice job Arco :).

[rdonj]

Oh. I do know who the sub for Ulm was actually, but after a scathing post like that I am not so sure I should reveal who the player was unless they want themself to be known. But the sub did tell me they didn't really have time for this game, and wanted to pass it on to someone with more time on their hands. My sub search didn't get any bites though, so they decided to play on despite not being able to devote a proper amount of time to the turns.

[Slobby]

Oh. I do know who the sub for Ulm was actually, but after a scathing post like that I am not so sure I should reveal who the player was unless they want themself to be known. But the sub did tell me they didn't really have time for this game, and wanted to pass it on to someone with more time on their hands. My sub search didn't get any bites though, so they decided to play on despite not being able to devote a proper amount of time to the turns.

Haha was it scathing? I suppose so, but that's honestly how I felt at the time. :)

No worries on the reveal. It doesn't matter to me, all I know is that the player wasn't putting in what WingedDog put in, and that's all that's important.

Also I know you did try to find a sub and there were no takers. It is what it is.

Oh and also gratz to Psycho/Dimaz they played a good game. :)

[Psycho]

So, this one is finally over. I was TC until turn 60-ish and here is the AAR for that period. Dimaz will give the rest. I was pretty disappointed when I got TC, since I didn't like the nation at the time - all paths, but low levels in everything. But then I discovered how insanely powerful W5Es are and TC is now easily my second favourite nation (right after Kailasa).

Build: Dormant Lady of Fortune W9S5N4, scales are the standard Order 3, Sloth 3, Heat 1, Misfortune 2, Magic 1. First research goal was constr4 to equip my SC pretender after she wakes up, as well as some alt and ench for buffs. Together with nice blessed sacreds this meant an easy early game. After that I went for enchantment, since all important buffs for my sacreds were there - antimagic, elemental wards and arrow fend. Finally, rush to constr8 and pick up golems along the way. I aslo planned conj6 for celestial soldiers before that, but realized that I don't need them.

Expansion didn't go that great. Apparently my part of the map was crowded, since by turn 9 I ran into 5 (yes, five) neighbors and had nowhere more to expand. Also I ran into two neighbors with my two expansion armies on an early winter turn and lost practically all my army due to a bug with W5Es. I'll write more about the bug on the general forum - it is one reproducible cause of incorrect battle replays.

Fortunately, one of the neighbors was Kailasa with no bless and excellent scales, imprisoned oracle pretender (the only possible choice for those scales), recruiting tons of bandars and atavis. Kailasa without bless? Well, he asked for it. Of course, I rushed him. I quickly reduced him to his capital, but that is where the problem occured. Namely, his army size was 3-4 times larger than mine, so there was no way I could breach those castle walls and he refused to come out and play. I tried to lure his army out a few times, but unsuccessfully. He remained bunkered in the capital for the next 50-ish turns. Oh, I should also say that right after my pretender awoke, in the first two turns I got an elemental stuff and a ring of wizardry from random events. Can you imagine what kind of boost that is for TC.

On my south border Hinnom was growing insanely, gobbling up Ctis who overexpanded. At first, I though that Ctis would make a comeback or at least slow Hinnom down, because I profiled him as a better player than Hinnom, but this didn't happen. So, I had to attack a stronger opponent while having Kailasa with an army at least three times as large as my own sitting behind. I thought that others would join in once they see someone is making the first move against Hinnom - namely TNN and Pangaea, both of whom were in no wars and had borders with Hinnom. Boy, was I wrong. Thankfully, Ctis was doing some uber defence of his capital, crushing Hinnom's storming force three of four times, which really helped my cause. First year of the war I was probing him - took some territories, waiting for him to retaliate into traps I set for him. And also for others to join in. Nothing of this happened, so second year I went in with all my forces, save some token force on Kailasa capital. And I must say, I was disappointed with Pangaea especially at this point. Because, Hinnom had three armies, one of them on Ctis capital and the other two pinned by me in his castles, as well as all his SCs. Pangaea had a streak of provinces guarded by nothing other than pd on his border. The war with Hinnom was where W5Es buffed by masters really shined. Hinnom thugs/SCs were helpless against them. Imagine a Melqart or a Hinnom hero fully equipped with a frost/fire brand, vine shield and the rest of the standard equipment losing to a group of 20 sacreds, killing maybe one of them. All resistances, defence of 20, 16MR for those vine shields and astral shields and two short swords with water bless to go past luck and defence. Again, I quickly took the provinces, but the capital was the problem - three SCs fully equipped, one of them prophet and sphinx pretender.

Around that time Pangaea went full out on Ctis leaving his lands undefended and I reached constr8. Flying ship + flying mages = my troops on his capital instantly and without warning. And again Ctis helped me by destroying the force storming his capital. Djinn took the Hinnom capital on his own (those 30 att and 30 def are unbeatable, I love djinn). I was quickly done with Pangaea and proceeded towards Ctis. I felt bad about having to attack Calahan after all the help I got from him and the great game he played even though he knew he couldn't win since like turn 15.

Ulm was playing a superb game to my east, killed a very good opponent (Sauro), who I thought would last much longer. Again, as with Hinnom, I knew I must react in time. So, while I was attacking Pangaea and finishing Hinnom, I prepared the attack force for Ulm. I knew his bane and gargoyle thugs stood no chance against W5Es properly buffed. I also made some SCs of my own - golems and summoned lots of troops to breach castle walls. I tried to attack while his thugs were still busy north with Sauro, but he had more of them than I thought and he was ready for my attack. Still the attack was successful and his capital was under siege and about to be stormed by my more numerous and superior forces. The only problem were iron adepts he had and they were the only thing that saved him at the start of the war.

This is the moment when real life kicked in, I moved to Switzerland and had to find a sub. I hated having to quit the game, especially since I knew I was winning. Fortunately, Dimaz was out of the game early and at least I gave my nation into capable hands. So, he got handed this very hard late game position and did a great job with it. Anyone who subbed knows how hard it is to take over a nation in late game. He was in war with Ulm, nation about roughly the same in power as him, led by an excellent player and also Kailasa and Ctis left to mop up. And with my flawed plan about how to attack Ulm's capital. Namely, I thought that magic duel would target the highest astral mage in the army. So, I thought that sending the pretender along with the army, would make all Ulm's iron adepts try to magic duel the pretender, instead of the masters buffing the W5Es. I was wrong. That battle on Ulm's capital was the weirdest thing I ever saw - another case of bad replay. In the replay, iron adepts aren't very successful, the buffs go off and the whole Ulm's army is slaughtered with maybe 2-3 W5Es dying on TC side. In the battle report, however, Ulm loses 3 units and the whole TC army is dead, except the pretender. Crazy.

This was a really great game for me with many good opponents (Sauro, Ctis, Ulm just to name a few). Unfortunately, most of them killed each other and just as I attacked the best I had to leave the game. Winged Dog, I would love to fight you in another game. Thanks also WL for organizing and for playing a good game with Rlyeh. Would you share how you did your early expansion with aboleths. When I saw the HoF early on, I tried some tests with them, but they seemed to lack the killing power. And, of course, thanks rdonj our admin. When I left the game, I sent you a PM about my guesses for the remaining players. Do you still have it, I am interested how many I got right.

[WraithLord]

Slobby, my beach head was my first land province in the whole game.
Atlantis offed my pretender so I had a lot of catching up to do in order to get to end game level. I was nowhere near being in shape to attack any land nation, let alone TC.

Thanks for the explanation. You played as you saw fit and don't need to "defend" your decisions. I still think you should have gone at TC. For the simple reason that you had the best chance to win after him.

[rdonj]

I wish I did have it, but no :( I had to clear my messages since that pm. Maybe you still have it? I remember responding to it, and may have left the quotes in.

[WingedDog]

The game has ended already? A bit unexpected.
My congratulations to Psycho and Dimaz, hope you did like our battles and mindgames as I did (but I think you did enjoy them even more since you actually won ;)).
It was certanelly the most interesting game I ever participated thanks to the players, the ballance Cal brought to the game and to rdonj, who is a perfect adminisrator.

Today I'm on a construction site, so I will have time to write an AAR only tomorrow or on Saturday.

[Calahan]

As both WL and Cal pointed out already the player behind TNN didn't do jack, and I found it funny that the turn after I attacked TNN the player went AI.
:lol Didn't know about this extra "someone attacked him" part of why he bailed, but it does make TNN's existence even funnier.

As TNN in this game was like a mirage. As I'm sure some players looked at TNN throughout the game and thought "Hhhhmmm, they could be a slightly tricky foe due to their mass raiding, and they could certainly have a say in who wins this game". But then when Slobby decided to be the first to actually touch the mirage, POOF!!! they immediately went up in smoke, as TNN didn't actually exist :shock: Superb stuff :)

----------------
Nice write-up Psycho :up:
On my south border Hinnom was growing insanely, gobbling up Ctis who overexpanded. At first, I though that Ctis would make a comeback or at least slow Hinnom down, because I profiled him as a better player than Hinnom, but this didn't happen.
Yeah, on reflection I certainly over-expanded. Although oddly I still think that it was more that my expansion rate was normal, and everyone else's was just slowed due to the Indy 9, so this just made mine look over-ambitious :) One thing I do need to change with my play in Indy 9 games is to realise just how much they slow others down (as tbh they rarely have much effect my expansion rate). Lessons learnt for next time though ;)

And I had intended a comeback against Hinnom, but 3 crucial factors prevented me.

1 - Couldn't find an answer to those Hinnom Chariots, as tangle vine casters would always target the Hinnom infantry (mainly as they can pack 2 in a square. They have to be made at least size 4 IMO, but that's another story)
2 - Some snipers (TNN, Pangaea, nation North of TNN) took away my income base by grabbing half a dozen provinces off me the turn after Hinnom attacked.
3 - Most crucially of all, the retarded Pangaea player who not only decided he wasn't ever going to attack Hinnom, but also made sure I wasn't able to counter-attack either by sitting on my second fort with his main (only) army for 10-15 turns. As Hinnom could only pin one of my forts down with what he had in the area, and so what he desperately needed more than anything else for a comfortable victory over me was someone else to pin my other fort down. And lo and behold, fortune favoured him by having a lifetime member of the "I love Hinnom" fan club right next to him in the forest sitting in the Sacred Grove.

Thankfully, Ctis was doing some uber defence of his capital, crushing Hinnom's storming force three of four times, which really helped my cause.

I was more than happy to help your cause against Hinnom (and help myself of course by surviving), since you were the only player who showed any brains in attacking them. As by that stage "Complete destruction of Hinnom" was my only aim in the game. And then again "likewise all the above" with Pangaea when they came back for their second helping of Lizard. (why they attacked me again after I beat them off the first time I have no idea. As it was blindingly obvious what would happen if they did. ie. TC would kill us both easily. Oh yeah that's right I do know why, it's because the Pangaea player(s) were useless retards, that's why)

I felt bad about having to attack Calahan after all the help I got from him and the great game he played even though he knew he couldn't win since like turn 15.

And you certainly shouldn't feel bad in any way about attacking me after the Hinnom/Pangaea dust had settled. As there's no place in this game for "lets all join hands and live in peace". Attacking me got you another cap for very little pain, and it would have been a bad mistake IMO for you to have done anything else, especially considering you had decent forces in the area anyway. (and I wouldn't have expected anything else either)

-----------------
Today I'm on a construction site...
...constructing evil plans ;)

[Valerius]

Congratulations to Dimaz and Psycho on the win. Also, thanks to rdonj for admining.

When I subbed in Ermor was one of the smaller nations but with game leading research (pretender was an F2E3S3 forge lord with Order 3, Productivity 1, Growth 3, Misfortune 1, Magic 1). Two of my land neighbors were Fomoria and Ulm and attacking them didn't seem like a good idea. I was planning on attacking Pan but TC beat me to it before I felt I was ready (in retrospect I think I was being overly cautious). I could perhaps still have jumped in, though I'm guessing TC would have perceived this as poaching and proceeded to attack me. Unfortunately, this meant I now had three much larger neighbors and I wasn't sure where to go from there (I never seriously considered going into the water where Atlantis and R'lyeh were busy fighting it out).

This was my first time participating in a RAND game and my thoughts at that point were to not suicide myself against a far stronger nation, try to weaken the strong nations, and try to increase my nation's power (though my chances of winning were of course virtually non-existent). The best I could come up with was to help Arco/TNN if/when they were attacked (I was assuming it would be Fomoria since TC and Ulm were occupied). But then the same turn Fomoria made his move R'lyeh attacked me. In any case, once the TC/Ulm war was no longer a stalemate I should have scrapped the original plan and attacked TC.

I've really gotten used to the EDM summons and missed having them (iirc the mod hadn't yet been released when this game started). When a global spot opened up and I was able to grab earth blood deep well I really wished I had some EDM summons to spend it on. As it was I did my best to get some tarts with my weak D and N income.

Btw, at one point I wished for the Chalice and had it for about a dozen turns before it was wished away. I immediately wished it back but lost it again the next turn. At that point I would have had to alchemize my remaining gems in order to try again and I probably still would have lost it so that marked the end of my healing tart afflictions. I'm curious who I wished it from originally and if that was the same person I went back and forth with a bit later.

[Dimaz]

Well, first of all, thanks to our admin rdonj and game organizer WraithLord for very interesting game. Also I want to say in the beginning that it’s clearly Psycho and not me who deserves main part of the victory. In fact, I lost in this game almost a year ago :)
Some words about that first part. I got Yomi (another thug nation after Gath in YARG1) and my planned strategy combined Baalz’s size-1 goblies and Dai Oni thugs. Expansion went pretty good (those goblins are great at it) but the start position was in the middle of mountains and caves so even with one of the top province count I was in the middle by the gold income. It hit me immediately as there was not enough gold to hire both Dai Onis and goblies. And their strength is in numbers, as you know.
My neighbors were Lanka, Ulm, Sau and Vans and the Van was in the map “corner” so it was pretty obvious that we started to fight (I don’t remember who attacked but it doesn’t matter). Soon I discovered that in tests my goblins fail to kill his infantry in reasonable numbers so I started sneaking all around and taking the undefended provs while researching const and buffs for Dai Onis. One turn IIRC I had all the Van lands except the castles. But I had no means to kill his army yet. After some time when research was finished I started adding Dai Onis to goblin groups and had pretty good chances to finally deal with Van but at this time Sau attacked with lots of archers and Witch Kings. I wasn’t prepared for it and after some battles lost pretty quickly.
Then, after long time, I was contacted by Psycho who asked if I can sub his TC who had a leading position. I looked at the turn and decided to help. TC position was really strong; he had some unfinished business in the west (monkeys and Ctis) and a war with second big power in the east (Ulm). The only thing that surprised me was that he didn’t have lanterns with fire global up and has been researching with his cap mages and fighting with ordinary ones.
First of all I started forging lanterns with everyone who had F so there was some drop in research graph after switching the players, but after that I moved lots of the (now free) mages to the Ulm cap that was sieged before I joined. On the west front, after some unsuccessful attempt to storm Ctis, I was able to finally do it. Also, monkeys were able to break my sieging forces and moved to my neighboring castle and tried to storm, but I ported some EA guys there so he received 3 or 4 RoS on the first turn and the storm failed, after that it wasn’t that hard to take them too.
So the west front was secured, I hit my target of 1000 RP/turn and had the strangest situation never encountered before in Dom: I had too much money. All the research was done with cheap sacred mages with lanterns, but it was hard for me to find those mages any other task – 2W and WS can do some tasks in battle, but D, WN, WA – well, I think it’s possible to use them with success, but I don’t know how – in late game. So I completely stopped buying anything except Celestial masters, W5Es and some indy mages (iron adepts mainly). So I had several thousands free each turn. I started castling like crazy and in the end I think all the lands I had originally were castled almost completely.
OK, so the west front was secured, but what about Ulm? I tried to storm his cap (that was already sieged) but failed, and I don’t even know why: replay bug. I lost ton of cap-only mages, fortunately the pretender survived. Another Ulm castle, Fever Fens, was also sieged and it was in the middle before my cap and Ulm’s; I concentrated all the remains there.
Ulm decided to counterstrike and used flying banes to capture lots of (not castled yet) lands, I started to use golems to hunt them, but it was a trap – one turn he killed 3 or 4 golems with duelers there. After that I started to act more cautiously so part of TC lands were under Ulm rule for some time. Also I started hiring Ds to put with PD everywhere to spam DtD on banes but it wasn’t that effective.
However, at that time we had AC in play which I think also influenced our war. I had S mages with all the important combinations so I was forging gear for bane thugs/golems without fear of losing the hammers and the forger; also as I had Iron adepts I started MHing those banes so he had to retreat eventually. Somewhere at that time I tried to storm Fever Fens but he had very strong force there so I lost again.
Now we are approaching the final part. I had the chalice from the beginning so the obvious route was to go for tarts; VH research made it not that easy, but still after some time I got the con9. Also I had the ench site near cap where I summoned several Liches; it was during AC period so some of them entered the neverending death cycle (I saw it first time, when horrors attacked them several times – one during forge/cast phase and another one during horror attack phase) and several permadied in Fever Fens storm (I think it has something to do with turn resolution sequence as I always had my dom there but during the battle it was Ulm’s). Anyway 2 Liches started to summon Tarts each turn; while Ulm prepared another raiding party, now with Harvesters of Sorrow. Somehow I managed to deal with them and it was the time when the Ulm ownership switched. New player made several mistakes and lost many valuable items and commanders on me, after which I stormed the Fever Fens again. I have to say that I wasn’t prepared for 6 RoS during turn 1 so my battle plan failed almost completely; however I had 6 or so fully geared tarts and several banes there and 2 Liches somehow survived so one of the main part – 4*Undwad mastery with all pen boosters – still worked so in the end Fevers Fens became mine. After that I ignored the Ulm army in the next castle and move to the cap, taking it without much effort. Now I had all the roads to Ulm lands open, I moved there and the turns became like 1) equip 2 new tarts 2) send teleporting ones 3) send moving ones 4) forge equip for 2 tarts and Gate cleavers 5) repeat. That’s how it ended.
Also someone tried to wish away the chalice from me (2 times) but I got it back pretty soon both times. And in the end I was wishing for gems every turn and captured Conj site from Ulm so even more tarts.
In fact I was somewhat afraid of Rlyeh because he had easy access to some of my caps and of Fomoria for the same reason. But they played as they played and TC won. I’m not sure they had the chances anyway; I had pretty strong Tart force, many Iron and silver adepts and other stuff. I’ll attach the trn file to this post.

[WraithLord]

"Would you share how you did your early expansion with aboleths. When I saw the HoF early on, I tried some tests with them, but they seemed to lack the killing power."

Sure, though in retrospect I'm not sure I'm all that happy with my build or strat.
I took a rbw research pretender with aim of getting some crucial alt. spells ASAP.
Once I had those the mind lords became semi SCs, they could quite dependably clear indie provinces of any given size.
They started failing against Atlantis fully equipped Basalt Kings. This was where I started a desperate search for the right counter, after many failure I found one. Water Elementals.

This game convinced me that R'lyeh needs an awake SC. No getting cute about it.

Guys, any interest in a YARG3?

[rdonj]

Thanks for subbing Valerius :) I think I got the better end of the deal, no one likes dealing with fish men!

[WraithLord]

EA R'lyeh needs massive amount of AotF to be effective on land. I was tied too long in the war with Atlantis to be able to do anything about the land.

I really enjoyed the game and want to thank you all for participating.

[WingedDog]

2 Psycho/Dimaz

That battle on Ulm's capital was the weirdest thing I ever saw - another case of bad replay. In the replay, iron adepts aren't very successful, the buffs go off and the whole Ulm's army is slaughtered with maybe 2-3 W5Es dying on TC side. In the battle report, however, Ulm loses 3 units and the whole TC army is dead, except the pretender. Crazy.


I tried to storm his cap (that was already sieged) but failed, and I don’t even know why: replay bug.


Considering that famous Ulm capital storm. Imagine me: I knew about all sieging troops and mages, I knew the spells you are going to cast and in what order, I knew about the items you are going to bring to that storm (Ankh particularly). I scaled and set up the perfect defense against it, which displayed to me 100% destruction of Tien Chi forces in every single test. Now I load my turn and watch you breach my walls killing my front line, making my second line rout leaving my mages uncovered and slain after, and in the end finishing off my pretender... Ten minutes and two bundles of valocordin later I find courage to continue watching... and... I see in the battle report: Ulm wins Tien Chi loose!!! PHEW, STUPID REPLAY BUG! DONT YOU EVER SCARE ME LIKE THIS AGAIN!!!


(I think it has something to do with turn resolution sequence as I always had my dom there but during the battle it was Ulm’s


The secret of this trick I reveal with pleasure: dominion from preaching spreads before the battle, while dominion from temples/prophets/pretenders - after the battle. And I was preaching with about 12 priests of different level out there.

[Psycho]

Considering that famous Ulm capital storm. Imagine me: I knew about all sieging troops and mages, I knew the spells you are going to cast and in what order, I knew about the items you are going to bring to that storm (Ankh particularly). I scaled and set up the perfect defense against it, which displayed to me 100% destruction of Tien Chi forces in every single test. Now I load my turn and watch you breach my walls killing my front line, making my second line rout leaving my mages uncovered and slain after, and in the end finishing off my pretender... Ten minutes and two bundles of valocordin later I find courage to continue watching... and... I see in the battle report: Ulm wins Tien Chi loose!!! PHEW, STUPID REPLAY BUG! DONT YOU EVER SCARE ME LIKE THIS AGAIN!!!


Hehe, I loled at this. But seriously, I don't know about your tests, but like you said ankh was in play, phoenix pyre as well, and also there were redundant casters for all crucial buffs. I would love to see what actually happened there. In retrospect, we should have tested, then we'd know that magic duel targeting is random and probably just send pretender to try and take out a few iron adepts. But that was the time when the transfer of command occurred - bad timing for TC.

Edit: Oh and also, you shouldn't have known what army was there, but unfortunately the golem that was supposed to clear pd got a crippled affliction while doing it as well as one of your pd guys. So he was chasing this last pd member for about 20 turns and eventually died due to time limit. Now that battle was retarded.

[Slobby]

Wrap up time :)

To say that I was non plussed about getting Fomoria is an understatement. After getting Jot in the last YARG and going E9N6 for the first time I didn't care to be at the helm of another giant race where E9N6 is supposedly a no brainer. And so with trepidation I went with an imprisioned Divine Serpent E9N6 T1L3M1. In hind sight a minor bless from a rainbow would have been better.

My opening was non stellar, I actually failed to attach turn 5 I think and staled. That said I then had Marv's PoD on my cap, but took it out with ease with N. Champs. I then decided to counter with everything I had and eventually ground out Marv with the use of sailing/call of the winds. So all of a sudden my opening situation actually looked pretty good I had a good chunk of territory, a second cap, and some astral.

I then looked around at my neighbors. TC was in the south east and seemed to be as strong as me. TNN to the north - definately not someone I wanted to fight due to glamour raids, and our affinity to Air magic (a feeling which stuck with me most of the game). Ermor to the East - many a times I thought of going after them, but all plans that I came up with posed the possibility of costing too much for little gain. That left Helheim to the west, again a glamour air nation, and ideally not something I wanted to deal with.

In time Helheim went after Mictlan and so I decided on a multi approach attack, using my sailing kings, and the few W kings that I had who I kitted out to be SCs. The attack went great. Some raids but all in all Hel decided on trying to cripple Mictlan.

So with Hel out and my TNN/Ermor/TC neighbors being the same I then went after Mictlan, which went great until I started sieging his cap. Mictlan had over a hundred vamps and strong dominion and so I couldn't dent his walls and was getting attacked by vamps every turn. To minimize the losses I had to cast gem rec battlefield spells, and so as the useless siege went on I was spending gems for no gains. For awhile I actually thought of withdrawing to think of something else, but then buckled down and analyzed what I had to work with that could possibly end in my victory. I tried fighting dominion for awhile but that didn't work. Mictlan also had the habit of sending the vamps out to raid and then sneak them back into the cap, which allowed me to start penetrating his walls, so I tried timing a crumble, but that didn't work. My last resort was...siege monkeys <3! At least that's what I decided to call the pale ones that I recruited en mass. And as soon as the monkeys started showing up leprosy spam began. The monkeys did the trick and I was able to breach the walls and take the cap, but the cost to the Fomorian war effort was pretty heavy. Gem stocks were low and my large stack in the west was riddled with diseases and dying.

For a time I was elated! I was tied in terms of caps with TC and Ulm and the TC/Ulm war was stalemated! If that stalemate continued I could pick away at my neighbors and secure the win. I had eyes on everyone, thinking of my next step, but then Ulm was subbed and the flood waters broke.

An aside on my views of TC. I watched many a battle from when they fought Hinnom, Kailasa, and Ulm. It became more and more apparent as I viewed them that I was behind in terms of power. I had some unmarked champ thugs, and just a smattering of SC W-Kings most of the game. My luck on the kings generally resulted in getting the A4D2 variety or the A3D3 variety and so my attack forces pretty much relied on moving large stacks around backed up with Air buffs. I felt that tactic against TC would fail as they had Air as well and a whole lot of other paths which I pretty much lacked, so win on the battle spell front. Then when TC started sporting his djinn and bane lords and tarts I was out classed on the thug/SC approach as well. Finally TC had a huge income and just put forts up everywhere...not great for a quick attack approach, especially since TC had astral as well and so could gate troops to wherever I attacked. Credit to Psycho/Dimaz as they set my tempo! I would watch what TC had and thought holy **** I'm behind! I need to catch up! I set up two tart factories, multiple morrigan factories, a gargoyle factory, played around with hidden in snow, demi liches, fairy queens, troll kings, etc...spend spend spend!

All of this was going on after Mictlan and before Ulm was subbed out. I started planning on an invasion of Arco. Many an hour I sat there planning. :D Taking stock all the troops, mages, spells, I had access to, planning attack vectors, etc. Truly that was the most fun I had in this game.

But then the Ulm defense broke and all of a sudden I had to think of something...quick. I contemplated taking Lanka or Van from Ulm, but 1. My western forces were still plague ridden, and 2. I had that Rlyeh beach head to worry about...worst case scenario I go after either and Rlyeh goes in and takes Mictlan, cutting supply and wiping out my west. I then thought, well I know I'm not the only one scouting out TC/Ulm. Probably Rlyeh is too and that beach head is going to go and grab Lanka!

So I turned back to my original plan to take Arco and then included a staggered attack on TNN, of course modifying my forces to account for the 4 way attack on 2 medium sized powers. Finally it was time I had sights on being on Caelum and Arco in two turns. Niefelheim in 3 turns and TNN in 4 turns, with the plan to then blitz Abysia or Van for the fifth and the win.

Seeing how both TNN and Arco lacked domes on their caps and had the majority of their forces parked there my idea was murdering winters/leprosy on TNN caps and flames from the skies/leprosy on Arco's cap. So essentially nuke what they had and go in. TNN no problem as they went AI after that. Arco thought the same thing as me and nuked my Arco force with FftS's. The Caelum force broke through but with the Arco division wiped out there was no more point...TC had won.

[Slobby]

:lol Didn't know about this extra "someone attacked him" part of why he bailed, but it does make TNN's existence even funnier.

As TNN in this game was like a mirage. As I'm sure some players looked at TNN throughout the game and thought "Hhhhmmm, they could be a slightly tricky foe due to their mass raiding, and they could certainly have a say in who wins this game". But then when Slobby decided to be the first to actually touch the mirage, POOF!!! they immediately went up in smoke, as TNN didn't actually exist :shock: Superb stuff :)


Lol especially when I think of TNN as a smoke in mirrors/mirage/ghost nation, here one moment and gone the next!

Truly the player thematically played the nation in the end!!! lol!

[Dimaz]

I have to say I added some small bits to Arco defense (several more MHs on the Fomoria raiders), not sure if they made any difference.

[WraithLord]

Guys, I'm planning to organize the sequel YARG3 as soon as DHG is up and running.

I was thinking MA with CBM 1.84 and perhaps ENP1.

As always, former YARG players have first priority for sign up so let me know if you're interested.

[WraithLord]

ok. Some things are in motion so I prefer to start YARG3 in a month or so.
There's CBM 1.9 in the oven, possible fix from IW to a recently found bug and some personal matters that will keep me busy.

Anyone gave thought to ENP1/2 in the game. Good?- Bad?- Ugly?