"A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...

[Corwin]

Oops, I mean I am canceling 5 turns NAP with Vans of course, that existed between Pythium and Vanheim. :doh: I am very sorry sorry for the confusion.

[Executor]

Heheh, this game is finally getting interesting!

Yes, the mighty empire of Ermor has indeed invaded Ulm this turn, we have no intension of withdrawing nor would we consider such an action.

Corwin, you speak as if I've lost the war already and this is just the first turn, he did catch me by surprise.
So far I see no real damage done, other than losing a few forts under construction, and some temples. But I can't judge anything yet, Vanheim does seem strong, although I think you waited too long to attack me Dimaz.

As for TC, well Pythium plans to attack you since he doesn't wish to interfere into the little Ermor/Van dispute, and allow either me or Van to get ahead of him after the war is over, logically he'll attack you as Jotun's a little big.

As for Jotun, he'll either attack you too once Pyth starts, or Bandar, as it's unlikely he'll try t take Pyth by himself now.

Edit: well maybe I was wrong...

[Dimaz]

Executor, I too think I waited for too long, however I needed all those guys to finish Pan quickly and attacking with only couple of raiders was meaningless.

[Corwin]

Heheh, this game is finally getting interesting!

Yes, the mighty empire of Ermor has indeed invaded Ulm this turn, we have no intension of withdrawing nor would we consider such an action.

Corwin, you speak as if I've lost the war already and this is just the first turn, he did catch me by surprise.
So far I see no real damage done, other than losing a few forts under construction, and some temples. But I can't judge anything yet, Vanheim does seem strong, although I think you waited too long to attack me Dimaz.

As for TC, well Pythium plans to attack you since he doesn't wish to interfere into the little Ermor/Van dispute, and allow either me or Van to get ahead of him after the war is over, logically he'll attack you as Jotun's a little big.

As for Jotun, he'll either attack you too once Pyth starts, or Bandar, as it's unlikely he'll try t take Pyth by himself now.

Edit: well maybe I was wrong...

Yes, you are, but it is my own fault for using a wrong nation name. :o I am, in fact, willing to interfere in your Ermor/Van war. The fact that Van has attacked Ermor when Ermor is already in war with Ulm has made a decision of NAP cancellation easier for me.

Again, sorry for the confusion.

My NAP with TC remains in place of course.

And yes, Vans are strong, I've been watching them rolling over Pangeya with almost no losses.

As for Jotunheim - I don't have a border with them. My only remaining neighbors are Tien Chi and Van.

[Dimaz]

Well, I certainly wasn't aware about Ermor-Ulm war as it started the same turn as my attack. In fact I was sure Ermor was collecting forces to attack me in case I attack Pythium so I decided to make first strike myself.

[Executor]

Yup, I waited until the sea was down, wanted to attack Bandar at first, but I have a NAP 6 with them, I see no point in pressing that cause any more.

Didn't plan to attack you for a little while more, 10 turns at least, however as I had no standing NAP with you, I chose to look to my defenses and fortify against your raiders, which worked good I might add.

I most likely wouldn't have interfered if you chose to attack Pyth, I rarely go 2 against 1, however if someone joins, I have no problem with that. Ive been in to many ganking to act in such a manner myself, and is more fun to fight solo.

[Corwin]

Due to all major developements this turn I've recieved a request from another player to delay hosting by 24 hours. The new hosting time for current turn is on Wednesday, at 5AM (PST).

[Executor]

Third 24h delay on this turn, the's something sinister going on...

[Corwin]

Third 24h delay on this turn, the's something sinister going on...

:)

Indeed. Winter is coming... ;)

[DrPraetorious]

I'll cast Illwinter, but you all have to promise to send me Thank You notes and otherwise not be bothered by it.

[Corwin]

LOL! That's a good one DrPraetorious. :up:

Indeed, that would be very thematic... :)

I'll cast Illwinter, but you all have to promise to send me Thank You notes and otherwise not be bothered by it.

[Lingchih]

Lame. Let's get it on and finish this thing.

[Executor]

Karate style...

[Corwin]

Nation of Pythium is looking to acquire some death gems, to subsidize our extremely low death income. We can pay any other gem types, or our mages could forge valuable items for you in return.

We are also interested in bloodslaves.

[Lingchih]

The nation of Tien Chi is also looking for D gems. We can pay in E gems (and quite handsomely).

[Dimaz]

The nation of Tien Chi decided to join forces with Pythium and attack Vanheim in 3 turns. Clearly if anyone besides Pythium is interested in winning this game it's time to start fighting with them as Vanheim alone has little chances against this alliance. I can help with various magic items and blood slaves.

[Aethyr]

I would like a 24 hour extension for the current turn. Thanks

[Aethyr]

Ignore my last message--I'm good to go.

[Lingchih]

The nation of Tien Chi decided to join forces with Pythium and attack Vanheim in 3 turns. Clearly if anyone besides Pythium is interested in winning this game it's time to start fighting with them as Vanheim alone has little chances against this alliance. I can help with various magic items and blood slaves.

Hey, I don't like a gank, and I don't like to do a gank. Sorry, but to get anywhere in this game, I need to take a cap.

[Dimaz]

Then help me and attack Pythium instead. He's clearly stronger, and you can get most of his lands and a cap in the east when we win.

[Lingchih]

Then help me and attack Pythium instead. He's clearly stronger, and you can get most of his lands and a cap in the east when we win.

That situation is complicated. The situation with you is less complicated.

[DrPraetorious]

Sorry for the stale :(.

I did my turn just before the deadline and then went back to sleep - not realizing I'd sent in the wrong .2h file :(!

I'm still playing!

[Dimaz]

Lingchih, the only complication I see is that I'm not from your *company* and decided to play in my own interests and not how you wanted me to play. I know that Jotun wants to attack me too; that was the final point that actually solved the puzzle for me. You two wanted to use me to draw Pyth's forces while you strike him in the back, however I was preparing for another war during Pan's last days so wasn't that interested in assisting you in your plan. If you contacted me a bit earlier, I'd probably decided to help you, but it was too late. And you decided to make the #1 even stronger after that, how nice.

[DrPraetorious]

Lingchih, the only complication I see is that I'm not from your *company* and decided to play in my own interests and not how you wanted me to play. I know that Jotun wants to attack me too; that was the final point that actually solved the puzzle for me. You two wanted to use me to draw Pyth's forces while you strike him in the back, however I was preparing for another war during Pan's last days so wasn't that interested in assisting you in your plan. If you contacted me a bit earlier, I'd probably decided to help you, but it was too late. And you decided to make the #1 even stronger after that, how nice.

Eh, what? I can't even reach you! Or Pythium, for that matter. Everyone may be allied against you, but it's not some kind of plot; you had a few enemies and then you made a bunch more the old-fashioned way.

[Lingchih]

Lingchih, the only complication I see is that I'm not from your *company* and decided to play in my own interests and not how you wanted me to play. I know that Jotun wants to attack me too; that was the final point that actually solved the puzzle for me. You two wanted to use me to draw Pyth's forces while you strike him in the back, however I was preparing for another war during Pan's last days so wasn't that interested in assisting you in your plan. If you contacted me a bit earlier, I'd probably decided to help you, but it was too late. And you decided to make the #1 even stronger after that, how nice.

I don't have a "company". I have long NAPs with both Jotun and Pyth. I didn't have a long NAP with you. I had planned to attack you long before your ill-conceived attack on Ermor. Don't know what you were thinking there. Pan was a friend, and you killed him. Of course I would want to avenge him, and take some land and maybe a cap in the process.

My advice to you would be to make peace with Ermor, and then it's less of full-on gankfest, and just 2 vs 1.

And oh, did you break the NAP early with Pyth? I thought it was a five turn, but I see you siegeing a castle of his. If you did, then I cannot trust you, and our NAP may end early.

[Dimaz]

Really? Then why Ermor says you asked him to give a passage to me? And your Everyone may be allied against you, but it's not some kind of plot; you had a few enemies and then you made a bunch more the old-fashioned way. is simply incorrect:
1) Not everyone allied against me, I have peace with Ermor at least as he has some sense.
2) I made only 1 enemy old-fashioned way: Pythium. I had peace with everyone when I attacked Ermor, after that Corwin logically declared war on me (which was predictable) AND TC illogically declared war on me. I had to make peace with Ermor as he seems to *really* dislike gank, not as Lingchih. So both your statements are incorrect: I didn't have a few enemies, and the only one I made old-fashioned way was Pythium which was perfectly OK for me. And TC and Jotun's actions say for themselves.
3) I don't think it's a plot against me, I'm not that good player. You just give your relation higher priority than in-game interests. That's why I try to reduce diplomacy to a necessary minimum: otherwise it creates unfair game situations.
I don't want to return to that topic anymore because I don't want another drama thread (sorry Corwin for these 2 posts).

[Lingchih]

To be fair, Corwin doesn't like a Gank either. He hated how Baalz went out early. I, on the other hand, have been ganked so many times I can't even remember them all. So, I will gank back. I'm glad you made peace with Ermor... it should make the battle more even. I really have nothing against you Dimaz. I pledged to Pan that I would avenge him, and I am now attempting to do so.

Hostilities start on turn 53. I will not break early.

[Dimaz]

Lingchih, as I said no more drama, just couple of facts.
1) I had no NAP with you as we had no borders for most of the game.
2) My attack on Ermor was well planned and beneficial to my game position, without your sudden interference.
3) I have no friends when in game. So Pan wasn't a friend, and I killed him because 1) it was easy 2) I needed N gems.
4) Now you say it yourself, you want to avenge him. Not to win the game. Avenge Pan. I hope everyone who can read will read it. Thanks.
5) I made alliance with Ermor as soon as I became aware of your plans. He doesn't belong to your *company*, so it wasn't a problem.
6) Pyth patrolled one of my vans who managed to kill his patrollers. I don't think this can count as nap violation as we hadn't a point about disallowing stealthy armies on each other territory.

[Lingchih]

Lingchih, as I said no more drama, just couple of facts.
1) I had no NAP with you as we had no borders for most of the game.
2) My attack on Ermor was well planned and beneficial to my game position, without your sudden interference.
3) I have no friends when in game. So Pan wasn't a friend, and I killed him because 1) it was easy 2) I needed N gems.
4) Now you say it yourself, you want to avenge him. Not to win the game. Avenge Pan. I hope everyone who can read will read it. Thanks.
5) I made alliance with Ermor as soon as I became aware of your plans. He doesn't belong to your *company*, so it wasn't a problem.
6) Pyth patrolled one of my vans who managed to kill his patrollers. I don't think this can count as nap violation as we hadn't a point about disallowing stealthy armies on each other territory.

I don't want to get into a pissing match with you Dimaz. Let's just fight, come turn 53.

[DrPraetorious]

Lingchih, as I said no more drama, just couple of facts.
5) I made alliance with Ermor as soon as I became aware of your plans. He doesn't belong to your *company*, so it wasn't a problem.


HA HA HA! Fool! Executor/Ermor is actually the *leader* of the grand coalition and massive conspiracy meant to destroy you.

He will betray your NAP at the earliest possible instant, utterly vaporizing you on behalf of his master and sovereign, Lingchih.

[Dimaz]

Metagaming is a bad habit. I didn't say a word about coalitions or such. Just that some players tend to help each other more than in-game situation requires. Just keep in mind that "avenging" for one player can be "breaking the fun of game" for another. And your answers just show that I hit the point, to anyone who can read.

[Corwin]

6) Pyth patrolled one of my vans who managed to kill his patrollers. I don't think this can count as nap violation as we hadn't a point about disallowing stealthy armies on each other territory.

Speaking of which, on ganking/diplomacy unrelated note - that sneaking van had cost me a lot of money and killed 40 or so longbowman this turn, not to mention he is now besieging one of my high income castles. Also that van could easily and safely retreat after being caught, if he would be been scripted to do it, being in the border province. But he didn't, despite the fact that you were aware (or should be) that my castle was heavily patrolled (bunch of your spies were caught there recently).

I feel it is pushing our NAP agreement a bit too far. I will not call it a direct violation, and I will not ask for money compensation (which would be significant) but I reserve the right to get that van if I can. Fair?

[Dimaz]

Hm, but using stealthy vans is my only chance in the upcoming war. I hope you understand that I have to put some of them in the position before war starts to make a decent surprise attack. He clearly wasn't supposed to be found that early, and I switched him to hide instead of siege immediately after I saw the turn. Of course you have the right to do anything you want on your own territory, including massive MH.
I regret the damage caused by him, but still I think my actions were within the agreement. If you feel otherwise, I'm ready to give the compensation.

[Corwin]

Hm, but using stealthy vans is my only chance in the upcoming war. I hope you understand that I have to put some of them in the position before war starts to make a decent surprise attack. He clearly wasn't supposed to be found that early, and I switched him to hide instead of siege immediately after I saw the turn. Of course you have the right to do anything you want on your own territory, including massive MH.
I regret the damage caused by him, but still I think my actions were within the agreement. If you feel otherwise, I'm ready to give the compensation.

Sure, I understand Dimaz. I have no problem with stealth armies in general, my only issue was with not having him scripted on retreat when approaching border castle with strong patrols.

It's not a big deal. I intend to try to mindhunt that van. But if you are attached to him I can let him live, in return for the compensation to cover price of the killed archers and lost one turn of income from that castle.

Although personally if I would be in your shoes I would rather risk him having killed in mindhunt(there is a chance that he may escape although not very high). IIRC that van has no misc slots available due to using cursed blood items and no has MR boosting items, so he would be mindhunted anyway sooner or later, if you intend to use him as a raider/assasin. That's why I was going to try to kill him rather then ask for compensation - I figured out it would be less expensive and preferable option for you, and I didn't want to push you into paying for something that technically does not violate letter of our NAP.

[Dimaz]

I'm not attached, so you're free to play with him :)

[Lingchih]

6) Pyth patrolled one of my vans who managed to kill his patrollers. I don't think this can count as nap violation as we hadn't a point about disallowing stealthy armies on each other territory.

Speaking of which, on ganking/diplomacy unrelated note - that sneaking van had cost me a lot of money and killed 40 or so longbowman this turn, not to mention he is now besieging one of my high income castles. Also that van could easily and safely retreat after being caught, if he would be been scripted to do it, being in the border province. But he didn't, despite the fact that you were aware (or should be) that my castle was heavily patrolled (bunch of your spies were caught there recently).

I feel it is pushing our NAP agreement a bit too far. I will not call it a direct violation, and I will not ask for money compensation (which would be significant) but I reserve the right to get that van if I can. Fair?

On a similar note, caught a Vanadrott equipped thug sneaking into one of my heavily patrolled provs. I drove him off, but lost a few hundred gold worth of units. I would say this is definitely pushing the limits of an NAP agreement, and have never seen it done to me before. He was not scripted to retreat, and so I see that as an attack. But since the NAP is almost over, I'll let it pass I guess.

[Dimaz]

Sorry. I regret the damage caused by him. Again, if you feel I have to give you compensation for this incident, just ask. About not seeing it before, well, I've definitely seen such things. I recommend clearing such points during NAP negotiation when dealing with stealth-heavy nations like Pangaea or Vanheim.

[Dimaz]

Also, if anybody is interested (for this or future games), here's my default policy regarding stealth during NAPs (of course it applies to both sides):
Moving stealthy commanders and armies is allowed.
Stealth preaching is allowed.
Bane venom is not allowed.
Spy sabotage is not allowed.
Attacking province taken by indies during random event is not allowed.
Patroling is allowed.
Maybe there are some more, but these are what comes to my mind immediately. So if you want to change some of them for your NAP, please state it directly.
In my case, when I was in similar situation (ending the NAP with Vanheim), I either didn't patrol at all or patrolled with forces enough to kill the assumed targets (adding some mage support if necessary).
But, as I said, I'm sorry for your losses. That wasn't my plan definitely.

[Meursy]

(apologies for jumping in out of nowhere)

So patrolling is allowed? Like, in your own territory?

That's considerate :D

[Dimaz]

That was meant as a kind of joke :)

[Aethyr]

Ermor vs. Ulm = ouch. :hurt:

[Dimaz]

Corwin, please add 12 h for this turn :)

[Executor]

Ermor vs. Ulm = ouch. :hurt:

:) Aethyr, I look forward to turning your dominion into mine.

Corwin, I thought you staled you cheeky bastard.:)

Dimaz, I apologize for attack you with my spies, I know those are worthy foes.

Dr.P, you've sure got a lot of devils and such.

Iainuki, are you still here, show some signs of life?

Linch, I've got nothing to say to you sadly... :(

[Lingchih]

Ermor vs. Ulm = ouch. :hurt:

:) Aethyr, I look forward to turning your dominion into mine.

Corwin, I thought you staled you cheeky bastard.:)

Dimaz, I apologize for attack you with my spies, I know those are worthy foes.

Dr.P, you've sure got a lot of devils and such.

Iainuki, are you still here, show some signs of life?

Linch, I've got nothing to say to you sadly... :(

We may meet eventually Executor. It's a small world.

[Corwin]

Corwin, please add 12 h for this turn :)

Sure, done.

[Corwin]

Ermor vs. Ulm = ouch. :hurt:

:) Aethyr, I look forward to turning your dominion into mine.

Corwin, I thought you staled you cheeky bastard.:)



Heh. I almost did. :)

[Aethyr]

Ermor vs. Ulm = ouch. :hurt:

:) Aethyr, I look forward to turning your dominion into mine.


Absolutely unavoidable at this point due to my poor desing choices and your brutal effeciency. I'm not throwing in the towel, just acknowledging the inevitable. That said, I shall devote myself to being a thorn in your side for as long as possible. :)

[Executor]

I know you shall Aethyr, I look forward to it. :)

[Executor]

Tartarians, Harbingers, Angels of Fury, Wendigos, Elemental Royalty, Cyclops, Ember Lords, Great Krakens, Horrors...
What else have you got there Pythium?

[Lingchih]

Tartarians, Harbingers, Angels of Fury, Wendigos, Elemental Royalty, Cyclops, Ember Lords, Great Krakens, Horrors...
What else have you got there Pythium?

What? No Grendelkins? One's stable is just not complete without a few Grendelkin.

[Dimaz]

I agree, very nice collection. To deal with all the mess I ask for 24h extension :)

[Corwin]

Tartarians, Harbingers, Angels of Fury, Wendigos, Elemental Royalty, Cyclops, Ember Lords, Great Krakens, Horrors...
What else have you got there Pythium?

:)

Few other things that I am currently holding back, to defend against other aces Vanheim is likely to have up their sleeves... ;)

Although to be fair some of the things you have mentioned I only have in a single quantity. But I like diversity.

I have to say you have a good spy network, Lord of Death. ;)

That was an intense turn. Me and Van had about 40 battles all over the map. But as a net result I got a grant total of one province. And Van has besieged and demolished walls of my castle. :envy:

This is going to be an interesting war...

[Corwin]

I agree, very nice collection. To deal with all the mess I ask for 24h extension :)

All right.

[Executor]

Few other things that I am currently holding back, to defend against other aces Vanheim is likely to have up their sleeves... ;)


Yeah, I saw Asynjas too, and shall I say some interesting summons that make me suspect a special site or two... Hm, and how 'bout that Seraph...

[Corwin]

Since several current players have not been in the game from the beginning, and since we are on turn 54 already, here is a quick reminder about this SoIaF game rules:

We have 3 banned spells in our game - Forge, Arcane Nexus and Astral Corruption.

[Dimaz]

Well, that was a nice battle. Probably with the forces from TC front I had a chance..

[Corwin]

Well, that was a nice battle. Probably with the forces from TC front I had a chance..

Yes, good battle. I had much higher casualties that I've expected. Plus my huge communion was wiped out.

I made one big mistake in this battle - I forgot that Gaya's Blessing does not stack with Storm Warriors. :mad: So I only had 50% lighting resistance when I casted Wrathful Skies, instead of 100% as I've planned.

Even thought your army had 75% lighting vulnerability, as I've expected, due to your casting Army of Lead, and I had 50% lighting resistance from Gaya Blessing, in addition to my battlefield-wise Luck and "Life after death", I think wrathful skies still has hurt me more then it hurt you, because most of your army were high-hp regenerating sea trolls and storm demons.

In any case it has certainly resulted in higher casualties on both sides, including our commanders.

Yes, I think with your troops from TC front you would had a decent chance of victory in this battle. But then again if my main army had attacked last turn as expected, rather than sit in my castle due to wrong moving orders, there is 50% chance that it would only had to fight half of your combined army last turn. In that scenario I would just go after your capital while letting you to besiege/storm my border castle, which would likely force you to abandon its siege and rush back to defend your capital.

Anyway, good battle. Well fought Dimaz.

[Lingchih]

Damn!@ Dimaz. You kicked my butt. Serious humiliation there. As a lone caveat, I was not expecting a counterattack on my siege. I was lazy and was waiting to set them up for a storming battle. I had even sent my Grendelkins out raiding, when they should have stayed put. My defense looked like something the AI might have come up with :)

The only good thing to come out of it was that now I have some income again. That damn army was sucking me dry of gold. I won't underestimate your aggressiveness again.

And yes, your battle with Pythium was excellent. I was convinced you had it won, even after you cast army of gold and made everyone susceptible to lightning. I think that one came down to you not having any SCs, and Pythium had several, and plenty of undead summoning to fill out the chaff ranks. Still, you cost Pyth an entire communion squad. Well done against me for sure, but against Pyth as well.

[Corwin]

And yes, your battle with Pythium was excellent. I was convinced you had it won, even after you cast army of gold and made everyone susceptible to lightning. I think that one came down to you not having any SCs, and Pythium had several, and plenty of undead summoning to fill out the chaff ranks.

Actually Vans had SCs in that battle. I've counted at least 3 fully equiped Sea Kings. There were just difficult to see among horde of mistformed sea trolls. I've killed ay least one of them in a duel with my own SC.

[Lingchih]

And yes, your battle with Pythium was excellent. I was convinced you had it won, even after you cast army of gold and made everyone susceptible to lightning. I think that one came down to you not having any SCs, and Pythium had several, and plenty of undead summoning to fill out the chaff ranks.

Actually Vans had SCs in that battle. I've counted at least 3 fully equiped Sea Kings. There were just difficult to see among horde of mistformed sea trolls. I've killed ay least one of them in a duel with my own SC.

Yeah, I saw them. Sea Kings are thugs, not SCs.

[Corwin]

And yes, your battle with Pythium was excellent. I was convinced you had it won, even after you cast army of gold and made everyone susceptible to lightning. I think that one came down to you not having any SCs, and Pythium had several, and plenty of undead summoning to fill out the chaff ranks.

Actually Vans had SCs in that battle. I've counted at least 3 fully equiped Sea Kings. There were just difficult to see among horde of mistformed sea trolls. I've killed ay least one of them in a duel with my own SC.

Yeah, I saw them. Sea Kings are thugs, not SCs.

I think there are kindof on the border between SC/thug, but properly equiped they are more in the SC territory. They are certainly much stronger than your average thug. To illustrate my point - one of these Van's Sea King just killed my well equiped SC in 1 vs 1 duel in another battle this turn.

[Lingchih]

I'm probably going to need a 24 hour extension on this turn, please. Work is crazy busy, and in the evenings I'm trying to watch the World Series, since my Texas Rangers are in it. And, Van just kicked my butt. So, I need to do some work. I'm about 1/3 done with this turn, but Friday night I will be able to devote my full thought to the game.

Thanks,
Ling

[Corwin]

I'm probably going to need a 24 hour extension on this turn, please. Work is crazy busy, and in the evenings I'm trying to watch the World Series, since my Texas Rangers are in it. And, Van just kicked my butt. So, I need to do some work. I'm about 1/3 done with this turn, but Friday night I will be able to devote my full thought to the game.

Thanks,
Ling

All right.

[Dimaz]

Corwin, in retrospect, perhaps with just arrowfend, thunder wards and fog warriors (and some fire fends probably) the battle could've ended better for me, as you cleverly exploited my Army of Gold and the main damage sources on your side were thunderstrikes that wiped trolls faster than they regenerated. With all the damage from your community and archers absorbed by regenerating trolls... Anyway, it's lost now. I was also surprised with my Sea King success underwater, btw, however I agree that Sea Kings properly equipped are more on the SC side.
Lingchih, I tested the battle in my tester prog, and Grendelkins were of litle help to you there. In my test with full TC army under Army of gold + Fog warrioirs I lost about 20 skinshifters. Now it doesn't matter however as the northern battle was more important.

[Lingchih]

Yeah, I trust your tests. Grendlkin are generally not much but undefended Prov raiders. I guess I'll have to send my mages. It's a shame... they were busy.

Corwin, in retrospect, perhaps with just arrowfend, thunder wards and fog warriors (and some fire fends probably) the battle could've ended better for me, as you cleverly exploited my Army of Gold and the main damage sources on your side were thunderstrikes that wiped trolls faster than they regenerated. With all the damage from your community and archers absorbed by regenerating trolls... Anyway, it's lost now. I was also surprised with my Sea King success underwater, btw, however I agree that Sea Kings properly equipped are more on the SC side.
Lingchih, I tested the battle in my tester prog, and Grendelkins were of litle help to you there. In my test with full TC army under Army of gold + Fog warrioirs I lost about 20 skinshifters. Now it doesn't matter however as the northern battle was more important.

[Executor]

Well this turn was fun to watch, although Corwin I expected a little more from you in all fairness, that army would have lost against me.

I think mass protection would had been far better for you Dimaz, not sure army of gold was a good move against an air nation.

Lingchih, you just got ***** slapped man. Grendelkin are not worth summoning IMO.

[Meursy]

*hopes somebody is keeping a turn file they'll post at some later stage* !

[Executor]

Since several current players have not been in the game from the beginning, and since we are on turn 54 already, here is a quick reminder about this SoIaF game rules:

We have 3 banned spells in our game - Forge, Arcane Nexus and Astral Corruption.

As to Bogus orders, Bogus himself can be used right?

[Corwin]

Well this turn was fun to watch, although Corwin I expected a little more from you in all fairness, that army would have lost against me.



Against you I would have used a different army. ;)

Also you should take into consideration that 90% of that army was a reminder from the days when this world was younger - it is what I have used to crash Agartha and C'tis, I've brought it all the way across the map from the east. Naturally by the endgame it is seriously outdated, but I needed to do something with all these tons of archers and principles. So I've used it as a chaff, to slow down Van's troops while my mages would do heavy lifting. Couldn't really do much else with it, since I knew I would be fighting against army of gold+storm+arrowfend+fog warriors.

At the end it've worked well enough. Van had much better soldiers but it were mages + artifacts/items/SCs that have carried a day.

[Corwin]

Since several current players have not been in the game from the beginning, and since we are on turn 54 already, here is a quick reminder about this SoIaF game rules:

We have 3 banned spells in our game - Forge, Arcane Nexus and Astral Corruption.

As to Bogus orders, Bogus himself can be used right?

Yeap, I don't see why not.

[Dimaz]

My CPU cooler chassis broke down yesterday and it seems that CPU was burned immediately as I played Mass Effect at the moment with CPU temp already at 90C, so currently I can't make the turn. Maybe I'll be able to replace it tomorrow, but I'm not completely sure. You can try to find a sub or wait, it's not going to take that long.

[Corwin]

My CPU cooler chassis broke down yesterday and it seems that CPU was burned immediately as I played Mass Effect at the moment with CPU temp already at 90C, so currently I can't make the turn. Maybe I'll be able to replace it tomorrow, but I'm not completely sure. You can try to find a sub or wait, it's not going to take that long.


No problem, I'll postpone the hosting by another 24 hours. (so it will be set to host of Sunday). Let me know if you'll need more time to fix your hardware problem.

[Lingchih]

Yeah, it would be a shame for Dimaz to have to sub out now. Let's see if we can wait and he gets his computer working again.

[Dimaz]

OK, I replaced the CPU and cooler chassis, so I'll try to do the turn in time.

[Dimaz]

Sorry, but probably I'll need additional 12h as tomorrow I'll be busy until the evening...

[Corwin]

Sorry, but probably I'll need additional 12h as tomorrow I'll be busy until the evening...


All right.

[Lingchih]

That was probably a foolish move, Dimaz. Moving into my heartlands. You did kill a Grendelkin (dunno if you picked up anything good off of him), but still foolish.

[Dimaz]

It's fun to hear it from you :) After you decided to aid Pythium in this war, any "foolish" argument from you sounds to me, well, foolish. Sorry.
Hint: I've lost already and I'm not going to sit in my castles for the rest of the game or send venom charms everywhere or some other stupid thing.

[Lingchih]

It's fun to hear it from you :) After you decided to aid Pythium in this war, any "foolish" argument from you sounds to me, well, foolish. Sorry.
Hint: I've lost already and I'm not going to sit in my castles for the rest of the game or send venom charms everywhere or some other stupid thing.

Sure, I understand. Go out fighting. It's what I would do as well.
Actually, you'll probably take that castle you're sieging. I wasn't expecting a counterattack siege/storm, and I've only got little guys and a few troops in there. And, since I stupidly Domed it, I can't send any reinforcements in.

And, your graphs actually went up a bit. I don't think you are losing too badly. You've certainly cost me a lot of forces and money.

[Lingchih]

Nice job taking out that castle Dimaz. I hope I made it a little harder than you thought, but you lost little.

Whatever shall I do now? I've lost all those mages, and that nice army. Surely I am done for now.

Ling of Pan

18 hours left folks. Let's get this one in on time. The holidays are coming up, with lots of delays.

[Corwin]

Nice job taking out that castle Dimaz. I hope I made it a little harder than you thought, but you lost little.

Whatever shall I do now? I've lost all those mages, and that nice army. Surely I am done for now.

Ling of Pan

18 hours left folks. Let's get this one in on time. The holidays are coming up, with lots of delays.

I have to say that the whole campaign on the Vanheim/TC front has not been going very well for TC. Considering that they only have to face a small portion of Van forces, frankly I have expected ex-Pangeya territory to be conquered by TC forces by now. Instead Vans are on tactical offensive there, have won few large battles, and TC just lost their own castle. TC will almost certainly win this war eventually, but Van's southern expedition force has proven to be much harder challenge for TC then expected.

[Lingchih]

Nice job taking out that castle Dimaz. I hope I made it a little harder than you thought, but you lost little.

Whatever shall I do now? I've lost all those mages, and that nice army. Surely I am done for now.

Ling of Pan

18 hours left folks. Let's get this one in on time. The holidays are coming up, with lots of delays.

I have to say that the whole campaign on the Vanheim/TC front has not been going very well for TC. Considering that they only have to face a small portion of Van forces, frankly I have expected ex-Pangeya territory to be conquered by TC forces by now. Instead Vans are on tactical offensive there, have won few large battles, and TC just lost their own castle. TC will almost certainly win this war eventually, but Van's southern expedition force has proven to be much harder challenge for TC then expected.

Meh. Yeah, He's taken a castle, and raided me a bit. Honestly, I expected most of his forces to go for you. It appears he is going for my cap now. If he takes it, then yes, the rest of you rip me apart. You can even forgo the NAPs. I doubt he takes my cap though. He'll probably just keep raiding, which I can deal with.

If he dies trying to take my cap, then all those provs (and that castle) will be re-taken within a few turns. He just has a single expeditionary force going for my cap. Looks like a revenge force.

You forgot to mention that I also have the ex-Pan cap under siege, and he seems to be doing little to defend it.

[Corwin]

Nice job taking out that castle Dimaz. I hope I made it a little harder than you thought, but you lost little.

Whatever shall I do now? I've lost all those mages, and that nice army. Surely I am done for now.

Ling of Pan

18 hours left folks. Let's get this one in on time. The holidays are coming up, with lots of delays.

I have to say that the whole campaign on the Vanheim/TC front has not been going very well for TC. Considering that they only have to face a small portion of Van forces, frankly I have expected ex-Pangeya territory to be conquered by TC forces by now. Instead Vans are on tactical offensive there, have won few large battles, and TC just lost their own castle. TC will almost certainly win this war eventually, but Van's southern expedition force has proven to be much harder challenge for TC then expected.

Meh. Yeah, He's taken a castle, and raided me a bit. Honestly, I expected most of his forces to go for you.

Indeed, most of his forces did. More then 80% of his total forces I would say, including even all those from the northern ex-Pangeya territory. For the first 3-4 turns of this war there were anywhere from 20 to 40 battles each turn between my troops and those of Van.

By now I've killed and mindhunted large part of his raiders and won all major army battles, although several times it was a close call. All and all the Vans have fought back hard - so far the war has costed me at least half dozen of good SCs in additions to 20-30 mages and a lot of troops. (And BTW two of my well-equiped SCs died fighing his damned seakings. :mad: "Non-SC" my ***... >;) )

Nevertheless despite heavy losses I've suceeded in breaking the back of Van's military machine and have managed to break through to his capital. Last turn I gave orders the battered remains of my main army to storm Vans capital. Haven't checked the recently hosted turn yet.

[Dimaz]

Corwin, you lost another tart (somehow he again was lacking LR) and took the cap. My Sea King performance surprised me too as I said.
Other than that, in general, perhaps the better strategy for me was to take more defensive approach and try to deal with your raiders first without raiding as much myself. With Vans invisible for your scouts all over the place, it might've been harder for you to take all my lands so fast. And with Van thugs support I had better chances in big battles.
Lingchih, I tried to fight with Pythium while there was at least some reason in it. Now I absolutely cannot do anything there, so prepare yourself.
BTW the original plan was to gateway everythin to cap from the captured castle to make final stand there. However I somehow messed with forging so there was no crystal coin available.

[Lingchih]

A note to all those who think TC appears weak. Yes, Van raided the hell out of us. But several of those raiders are dead now (and got some nice booty off of them as well). Yes, my cap is under siege, but there are strong forces to defend it. It appears that Van has thrown everything he has at me, (including his Crone pretender, who has transported nearby, well out of her dom, I might add). It took me six hours to do this last turn (totally sober, btw). If it takes as long to do the next ones, I will be fine with it, as long as it drives Van out of my lands.

[Aethyr]

Ling, I'm glad to see you handing in there. I've never thought that TC as weak, just a nation requring a more deft hand in order to excel.

[Dimaz]

I'm glad you finally decided to give some resistance :) Of course my forces on your cap are not enough...

[Executor]

Damn Aethyr, you did some hurting this turn...
Those Asynjas were scripted rather badly I might say given that I 'took into consideration' you might attack me there. A foolish way to lose that one to fire drakes no doubt.

Would Pythium please stop mind hunting our scouts? How are we to watch the war? We have lost 3 just this turn!

[Corwin]

Damn Aethyr, you did some hurting this turn...
Those Asynjas were scripted rather badly I might say given that I 'took into consideration' you might attack me there. A foolish way to lose that one to fire drakes no doubt.

Would Pythium please stop mind hunting our scouts? How are we to watch the war? We have lost 3 just this turn!

Sorry. I don't care much about scouts at this point, I am mindhunting remaining Vans raiders. Your damned scouts keep getting in the way. ;)

Perhaps you should consider using Stone Spheres. That's what I've been using to watch your war with Ulm for the last 10 turns or so - 6 stone spheres stored away in a small far away castle. Too many of my scouts die on various nations patrols before I can get them to the opposite corner of the map where you and Ulm have been fighting.

And by the way - I would like to express my gratitude to both Ulm and Ermor, as well as TC and Van in the south, for some large battles - both for entertainment and intel purposes as well as for the steady income of death gems from my ravens sent to your battlefields. It's an important addition to my meager natural death income.

And to whoever casted bunch of plague spells on my high-pop provinces this turn (Was it you Van? Or was it Ermor?) - the avalanche of free death gems I'll get from each of the affected provinces this turn are much more important for my empire then money at this point. So please be my guest and continue this spell barrage - I can always use more tartarians. :smirk:

[Executor]

Well heck, now I feel ashamed! I'll have to put up a better show up for you Corwin! I am always glad to entertain.

And that's 60 gold you owe me for just this turn btw, don't make me demand a percentage of the gems from raven feast. (that spell totally sucks btw, I waste more gems that I gain with it)

[Aethyr]

I appreciate the compliment Executor, but I'm beginning to suspect that you're just "playing with your food". :)

[Corwin]

Well heck, now I feel ashamed! I'll have to put up a better show up for you Corwin! I am always glad to entertain.)

No worries, you did well. :) Most of your and Ulm battles that I've seen were quite brutal for Ulm. The few unsuccessefull attempts to storm one of his castles and losing an SC to his army this turn were the only significant setbacks in your military campaign that I've seen so far. Other then that you clearly have an upper hand on battlefields.

Still Ulm, to his credit, has not been a pushover, he is fighing back with resolve and determination.



And that's 60 gold you owe me for just this turn btw, don't make me demand a percentage of the gems from raven feast. (that spell totally sucks btw, I waste more gems that I gain with it)

You are right, Raven Feast did suck in vanilla, rolyally. But I've found it to be very cost efficient with CBM mod we are using. It costs only 1 air gem to cast, and it comes back with 1-5 death gems. It should fetch even more with these recent plague spells casted on my high-pop provinces. (so was it you or Van? :) ) And by this point in the game battles between armies tend to be large and leave a lot of corpses in its wake. All and all that makes Raven Feast a great bargain, especially for an air nation such as myself.

[Dimaz]

Just a bit of warning: in Sharivar game finished recently I fought with Ermor and Pangea and they both patroled heavily in every province, so scouts were killed immediately on the border. So I had to switch to stone spheres completely to see what happens. Ermor had to do the same when he was fighting Pan. So after a while we had tens of spheres used each turn. And at some point battlefield enchantments (storm, firestorm, others with the icon in the corner) just stopped working with debug message "out of ench". I strongly suspect it's due to heavy SS usage (I used 23 spheres that turn) as it stopped the next turn when I used only half of them and they show during battle with the same icon as enchantments.

[Lingchih]

I would agree with Dimaz. I have seen such things break the game before. I would suggest limiting the usage of stone spheres, so we can keep the game legit. We all know how easy it is to "break" the late game in Dominions.

[Lingchih]

And oh, I formally request a switch to 72 hour host. I'm about to start a new job, and my time will be limited. I know 72 hour tends to kill games, but I don't think it will kill this one. We regularly go even longer, on frequent delays.

[Executor]

Well we've been on 72 hours for quite some time, almost every turn seems to be delayed anyway so might as well change it to 72 hours.

Well those mechanical man are bad asses! 5 of them stopped like 50 undead horseman.
Didn't want to risk any SC's going in with that ridiculous teleporting Pretender and Prophet Ulm has, so I just keep sending waves of chaff to take it.

Maybe it was both me And Van :). I take offense to that you know, there are more players in the game I suspect they all have death.

I like to use black death when storming remote forts, you get quite a few hundred soulless to break down the gates.

Stone spheres can only give you so much information about me Corwin...

[Corwin]

Well we've been on 72 hours for quite some time, almost every turn seems to be delayed anyway so might as well change it to 72 hours.


I am ok with switching our game to 72 hours, unless some players have strong obejctions to it. For now I have added 24 hours to the current hosting interval. I can switch it to regular 72h once it will host, if this is the way we will decide to go.


Well those mechanical man are bad asses! 5 of them stopped like 50 undead horseman.
Didn't want to risk any SC's going in with that ridiculous teleporting Pretender and Prophet Ulm has, so I just keep sending waves of chaff to take it.

Maybe it was both me And Van :). I take offense to that you know, there are more players in the game I suspect they all have

Aha, so it was you. :smirk: I've suspected that much. Van tends to use their death gems to cast undead raiders on my armies rather than plague spells on my provinces. And other then you and Van, I only have TC as a neighbor. Who is also fighting Van, and I am sure they would rather use their deathgems to summon more tartarian then cast hostile spells on me.



I like to use black death when storming remote forts, you get quite a few hundred soulless to break down the gates.



Unless of course my little ravens would bring me all these corpses as air gems first. :p



Stone spheres can only give you so much information about me Corwin...

True.
Well, I do have scouts over your territory, despite your patrols. But atm stonespheres are my primary tool when it comes to your war with Ulm since it is too far away from me and until recently TC has been patrolling like there is no tomorrow, in addition to BL and Jotuns patrols that I also had to avoid in order to get to your front with Ulm.

[Corwin]

Corwin, you lost another tart (somehow he again was lacking LR) and took the cap. My Sea King performance surprised me too as I said.
Other than that, in general, perhaps the better strategy for me was to take more defensive approach and try to deal with your raiders first without raiding as much myself. With Vans invisible for your scouts all over the place, it might've been harder for you to take all my lands so fast. And with Van thugs support I had better chances in big battles.


Yap, I agree with you, the strategy you've described would work better against me. I had long time to prepare my nation for your raiders, building castle network covering my entire realm that would allow me to take back the provinces you've raided.In the beginning of the war I was able to keep up with your much more numerous raiders because I was counting on you mostly using your raiders in offensive in my territory, rather then ambushing my own mostly non-stealthy raiders. Also in the beginning of the war many of your raiders didn't have high enough MR to withstand continuous Mindhunting attempts.

Other then raiders I think your large mistake was not committing enough mages to your initial attack. In that great battle in the beginning of the war, that has decided the direction of the entire military campaign that followed it, I was able to win only because of stronger battlefield magic. Your army had *much* better troops then mine (regenerating and mistformed sea trolls and storm demons against mostly archers and principles), and few SCs I had there were not enough to make a difference with such large armies as ours. On the other hand I had many more mages in the field and was able to take advantage of your Army of Gold spell. Still as we both have seen that battle was a close call, and should you pull more mages from your research and thrown them into the battle, you would carry the field on that day, destroying my main and only large army, capturing my key border castle, throwing me back and forcing me into defensive.

That being said I think overall you have fought very well, considering that the odds were against you from the beginning, and the whole war has turned out to be much more costly to me then I have expected.

[Aethyr]

Didn't want to risk any SC's going in with that ridiculous teleporting Pretender and Prophet Ulm has

Excellent turn Executor. I knew that I had gone to well once to often with that pretender.

[Executor]

I wanted to kill him the last time, but those Tartaian bastards have a tendency of getting crazy when they are most needed.
Good thinking on changing the battle orders.
And I hoped Id kill the Asynja too, but that was a long shot, I'll have to deal with that thing another time. :)

So, it looks like you are ready to make your last stand at your capital?

[Lingchih]

How does a level 3 S mage beat a natural 5 S mage in a magic duel? How? Well, so it goes. That was a humiliating battle at my cap Dimaz, mostly because of that one die roll.

[Aethyr]

I wanted to kill him the last time, but those Tartaian bastards have a tendency of getting crazy when they are most needed.
Good thinking on changing the battle orders.
And I hoped Id kill the Asynja too, but that was a long shot, I'll have to deal with that thing another time. :)

So, it looks like you are ready to make your last stand at your capital?

Indeed it seems that few other choices remain, between the mind hunting and teleporting tarts it's just not safe to go out doors anymore. :)

[Corwin]

How does a level 3 S mage beat a natural 5 S mage in a magic duel? How? Well, so it goes. That was a humiliating battle at my cap Dimaz, mostly because of that one die roll.

Actually it happens all the time. It takes +6 difference in levels of astral magic to guarantee 100% win in Magic dual. Losing with +2 diff is unlucky but not rare by any means. It's like losing in a RL game of dice while throwing a regular 6-sided dice and losing to your opponent with 2 or larger difference in has favor, like 1 vs 3+, or 2 vs 4+, et cetera. I am too lazy to calculate the exact probabilities, but in your case I would say you had approximately 1 out of 4 chance of losing that magic duel, and you have drawn an unlucky number.

Sorry about your bad luck Lingchih.

[Dimaz]

Building important battle strategy on the result of single MD success without bottle backup is a very very bad idea. Still I don't see how different result of that md could've changed the battle flow.

[Lingchih]

Building important battle strategy on the result of single MD success without bottle backup is a very very bad idea. Still I don't see how different result of that md could've changed the battle flow.

It wouldn't have changed the battle result, but it might have let my Tart live to fight another day. You also killed another S mage higher than yours in that same battle, also in magic duel. Losing two rolls in the same fight... it seems the god of dominions is against me.

[Lingchih]

OK. Quite a sendoff for my last Dominions game. I had hoped to do better, but Dimaz is obviously a better player. I had hoped for a feeling of "hey, it's Ling's last game. Let him win one for once". But, most any players who might have felt that have quit playing the game, and my allies in this one were not old friends.

Still though, I can't claim that I was wronged. I chose to fight Van, and Van kicked my butt. Kudos to Dimaz. Enjoy holding Vanheim South, while you can. I guess you will be next killed after me.

And, to all the remaining Dominions players, have fun!. It's still a great game.

PS: Pythium, our NAP still holds. Don't go jumping me without a declaration.

[Corwin]

OK. Quite a sendoff for my last Dominions game. I had hoped to do better, but Dimaz is obviously a better player. I had hoped for a feeling of "hey, it's Ling's last game. Let him win one for once". But, most any players who might have felt that have quit playing the game, and my allies in this one were not old friends.

Still though, I can't claim that I was wronged. I chose to fight Van, and Van kicked my butt. Kudos to Dimaz. Enjoy holding Vanheim South, while you can. I guess you will be next killed after me.

And, to all the remaining Dominions players, have fun!. It's still a great game.

PS: Pythium, our NAP still holds. Don't go jumping me without a declaration.

Of course. I always honor my NAPs, have never broken my word in any of my Dom2&3 games over the years.

[Dimaz]

Lingchih, it seems we both had our revenge done this turn :) Now we both have government in exile...
Jotun, our government in exile will fight back.
Corwin, you finally suppressed that resistance group :) I needed one more turn to make it a bit harder for you :(
The best thing about it is that turns require 10 minutes to complete now. What a bliss.

[Executor]

Corwin, I believe you just declared war on me.

[Lingchih]

Lingchih, it seems we both had our revenge done this turn :) Now we both have government in exile...
Jotun, our government in exile will fight back.
Corwin, you finally suppressed that resistance group :) I needed one more turn to make it a bit harder for you :(
The best thing about it is that turns require 10 minutes to complete now. What a bliss.

Amen to that brother. My turns take at most an hour now, not the dreaded six hours.

[Corwin]

Corwin, I believe you just declared war on me.

Nope, I didn't. Check out your PM folder please.

[Executor]

Whaaaat? Gdammit, that wasn't even the province I targeted!

Funny thing, it seems undead won't cast cold resistance on themselves even doe it will fatigue them out, breath of winter I mean, if you drop some anti-cold items on them...

[Lingchih]

Heh. Pick on the little guy, eh? Well, I guess you have seen what picking on the little guy gets you. I'm not so little, after all.

[Lingchih]

And, oh, Dimaz. Welcome to my island sanctuary. I would actually prefer you were not here, but welcome anyway. Us displaced people need to stick together, I guess. We'll call it the Isle of the Refugees.

[Lingchih]

Why are we still sitting after two days? I don't have much to lose, but I'd prefer to keep the game on a steady host. It's almost Thanksgiving now, and I'm sure we will have a delay for that holiday. Let's go, Corwin.

[Lingchih]

That was odd. I loaded the new turn file, left it, and came back later. My screen and color were inverted. I guess I got hacked.

On the game note..., hey, I'm dying you guys. You don't have to hasten it. It's not like I own anything of value.

On a side note... why do I feel that I am the only one posting on this game?

[DrPraetorious]

Can we delay hosting for 24 hrs? I'm a bit swamped with Turkey-day stuff, and have not yet had a chance to more-than-glance at my turn.

[Executor]

That was odd. I loaded the new turn file, left it, and came back later. My screen and color were inverted. I guess I got hacked.


I've heard about that one, QM's new CBM 1.7 ritual spell, thaumaturgy 8, D3S5, 35 S gems, ...
Doe I think it's MR negates.

[DrPraetorious]

Can we switch from 12h notifications to 24h notifications?

These turns are complicated enough that I need more than 12h to do them.

[Corwin]

Can we switch from 12h notifications to 24h notifications?

These turns are complicated enough that I need more than 12h to do them.

Sorry, I've stalled last two turns due to RL health emergency. :( Damnit.

New hosting has been delayed by 24 h as DrPraetorious asked me to do.

Regarding 12h vs 24h - personally I don't have strong preference one way or another. Please vote on it if you do have a preference, we will proceed with the hosting notice interval that will be supported by majority of voters.

Refards,
Corwin

[Lingchih]

Hey, sorry to hear about your emergency Corwin. I didn't even notice you had staled 'til I just had a look.

24 hour notification is fine with me.

And did we really need another Sea of Ice, Iainuki?

[Executor]

Corwin, might I suggest something?

You keep delaying the turn and yet you stailed the last two, this turn you've delayed 24+24+24+4+4+5+24 hours, which I don't mind, but rather than constantly delaying the game and possibly stailing(as you already did), you might want to put the game on hold til you sort what ever stuff you have in RL.
I'm sure Dr.P wouldn't mind either. What you're doing is neither good for us, with constantly waiting for the turn :), nor you, as you end up stailing, so I suggest you delay the game until you're able to continue as I fairly dislike a top nation being killed due to stails or half ars turns.

[Executor]

Oh, yeah, Sea of Ice???

[Corwin]

Corwin, might I suggest something?

You keep delaying the turn and yet you stailed the last two, this turn you've delayed 24+24+24+4+4+5+24 hours, which I don't mind, but rather than constantly delaying the game and possibly stailing(as you already did), you might want to put the game on hold til you sort what ever stuff you have in RL.
I'm sure Dr.P wouldn't mind either. What you're doing is neither good for us, with constantly waiting for the turn :), nor you, as you end up stailing, so I suggest you delay the game until you're able to continue as I fairly dislike a top nation being killed due to stails or half ars turns.

My sincere apologies to all players about recent delays. The last week was unbelievably crazy for me, several RL emergencies happened at the same time. :( I suspect I am going to remember this Thanksgiving for a long time... :mad:

Fortunately it is all in the past now, I took care of it, so there should be no more delays and stalls on my part. Thank you very much for your patience and understanding guys.


Luckily for my nation my 2 recent stalls happened right after I've finally managed to wipe out the last significant Van's army in the north. So although these stalls have certainly hurt my nation and have cost me bunch of lost provinces and recourses, the damage was much less then it would be if I would stall 3-4 turns ago, during the peak of hostilities in the north. (yeah, looking for a silver lining here... ;) )

New turn has hosted. Reminder - we are on the 72h host. Since there were no objections to switching to 24h warning, I am switching hosting notification from 12 to 24 hours, as DrPraetorious requested.


Now I am very curious - what the hell is going on in the south?!? :) I've watched all turns I've stalled as well as the latest one. It looks like the ixiles and crack troops of the Last Legion of Vans continue to tear the bloody path through heart of TC domain, breaking through all defense barriers that TC throws in their path. But meanwhile both Ermor and Jotuns are quetly creeping behind Van back, taking TC's provinces that were recently conquered by Van. (Although I think I've seen Ermor attacking TC directly in one province). Has some kind of diplomatic arrangements been made? Or is this elaborate dancing the result of complex web of NAP pacts? The nation of Pythium would appreciate if one or more of the participants in the complex southern politics would bring the light to what the hell is happening around Van/TC war in the south... :D


As for the recently casted Sea of Ice - although it has dispelled my global, after analyzing current situation I've come to the conclusion that frozen seas benefits Pythium more then it hurts (by making the defense of my realm against possible massive assault a bit easier) And of course it would helps BL a lot if they will come to blows with Ermor once again in the future, which is clearly the reason why it was casted) So thank you Iainuki. :)

[Executor]

Now I am very curious - what the hell is going on in the south?!? :) I've watched all turns I've stalled as well as the latest one. It looks like the ixiles and crack troops of the Last Legion of Vans continue to tear the bloody path through heart of TC domain, breaking through all defense barriers that TC throws in their path. But meanwhile both Ermor and Jotuns are quetly creeping behind Van back, taking TC's provinces that were recently conquered by Van. (Although I think I've seen Ermor attacking TC directly in one province). Has some kind of diplomatic arrangements been made? Or is this elaborate dancing the result of complex web of NAP pacts? The nation of Pythium would appreciate if one or more of the participants in the complex southern politics would bring the light to what the hell is happening around Van/TC war in the south... :D

As for the recently casted Sea of Ice - although it has dispelled my global, after analyzing current situation I've come to the conclusion that frozen seas benefits Pythium more then it hurts (by making the defense of my realm against possible massive assault a bit easier) And of course it would helps BL a lot if they will come to blows with Ermor once again in the future, which is clearly the reason why it was casted) So thank you Iainuki. :)

South, hm, which south? Far east-south? Fat west-south? Deep-South? There have been numerous battle and skirmishes all over the world in the last few months.
Are you interested in the Jotun/Bandar border skirmishes?
The Ermorian invasion of Ulm?
The Jotun invasion of TC?
The Vanheim crusade against TC?
The Vanheim uprising in the new provinces of Pythium?
The hunting down and assimilating of the current and previously owned Vanheim and TC lands by Jotun, Pythium and Ermor?

Hmm, well I guess that was directed at me on more levels. :)
Surely all those undead legions that began their decent to the waters of the world, before they were interrupted, had no intention of invading either Bandar or Pythium.

[Dimaz]

Van is simply fighting everyone now, as we still have The Last Legion and somehow everyone decided that it's time to take our lands. Unfortunately we had to redislocate our new capital from former TC cap.

[Corwin]

[QUOTE=Corwin;764501]

South, hm, which south? Far east-south? Fat west-south? Deep-South? There have been numerous battle and skirmishes all over the world in the last few months.
Are you interested in the Jotun/Bandar border skirmishes?
The Ermorian invasion of Ulm?
The Jotun invasion of TC?
The Vanheim crusade against TC?
The Vanheim uprising in the new provinces of Pythium?
The hunting down and assimilating of the current and previously owned Vanheim and TC lands by Jotun, Pythium and Ermor?



The last one. :) The rest of conflicts you have listed I am aware of.

So has Ermor and/or Jotun officially attacked TC? So far based upon my limited intel in that area you guys seem to be focusing on freshly conquered Vans provinces, what were however until few turns ago owned by TC. Is it so?

[Executor]

The Ermorian Forum has decided to intervene and put a stop to the constant wars and turmoil in the far south-west.
We take it upon ourselves to invest our precious time and resources for this noble effort, and protect the people from the ravaging hordes of skinshifting beasts, trolls, demons summoned by dark rituals, and otherworldly monsters that roam the wilds, as we, of the Ermorian Empire are kind heated.

We know not the intents of the Jotun giants.

[Corwin]

I see... :smirk: An undead humanitarian intervention. How kind of you... :)

Thank you for clarification Executor.

By the way, if anybody have sent me any forum PMs over the last 7 days and I didn't reply to it please resend them, since as I have just discovered my local forum PM was 100% full. I am not sure how this forum's mail system work in such situation - if the PM would bounce back with auto-notification, or of it would just be silently dropped, so I thought I should post it here just in case.

[DrPraetorious]

What is this "Intention" of which you speak? The Jotun know only action!

The Ermorian Forum has decided to intervene and put a stop to the constant wars and turmoil in the far south-west.
We take it upon ourselves to invest our precious time and resources for this noble effort, and protect the people from the ravaging hordes of skinshifting beasts, trolls, demons summoned by dark rituals, and otherworldly monsters that roam the wilds, as we, of the Ermorian Empire are kind heated.

We know not the intents of the Jotun giants.

[Lingchih]

OK, to clear it all up in plain speak for you all. TC is retreating to it's northern swamp castles. They are of little value, and so should allow us a little time to watch to wars going on. I doubt anyone, even Van, would waste resources on them.

Van's Last Legion has proven too much for us in every battle, and so we retreat. Of course, as we retreat, we retreat into areas held by very nasty guys. Tarts and such. I have no chance of winning the game, but I would like to see it play out. As such, TC pledges to sit in it's swamp castles, and watch the game from there. If you attack me there, well, you will get what is coming to you. And, honestly, there's not much reason to attack me up there. Those provs suck.

I will try to hold the old Pan cap, so I can still hold a VP. But that is all.

[Lingchih]

24 hour delay please. I just did my whole turn, and then realized I just deleted it. Oh well, it always goes faster the second time around.

[Lingchih]

Huh. That communion didn't work. Damn, I suck at communions. Sorry Dimaz, I had hoped to give you a better show.

In my defense though, I never use communions. This was my first time trying one.

[Lingchih]

Hey all, I'm sorry. I need a 24 hour delay. I finally got off work, and had a chance to look at the turn, and it will take some time.

Thanks,
Ling

[Corwin]

Hey all, I'm sorry. I need a 24 hour delay. I finally got off work, and had a chance to look at the turn, and it will take some time.

Thanks,
Ling

Sure, no problem. 24 hours have been added to hosting time.

[Lingchih]

OK. Turn in.

Dimaz..., you are headed towards my Tart factory. That could be good or bad for you.

[Executor]

God Damn I hate Tartarians! 25% chance to go insane my ***!
And what, they have like 5 maybe 10 default insane orders? All they seem to do is pillage, fricking high fear feebleminded idiots...

[Dimaz]

DrP, feel the wrath of the Last Legion!

[Corwin]

DrP, feel the wrath of the Last Legion!

Heh. These crack troops of the Last Legion of Van surely kicks major ***. How many large battles have they won so far? With virtually no reinforcements and resupplies.

I think Jotuns have made a serious mistake by following on Vans heels too closely. Should they stay one province behind advancing Van's Legion instead of pursuing them closely, I suspect Van would happily continue their march north toward remaining TC swamp strongholds. But Jotuns were too eager in their pursuit, and that has cost them an entire army, although they have taken a large part of the Legion with them.

[Executor]

Maybe they became as greedy as the Empire of Pythium and sought to plunder across the world as Pythium so boldly does.

[Dimaz]

Corwin, you're mistaken. The loss count for Jotun 1/5 108/113 and for Van 0/13 0/95 0/12. Also, despite recent economical crisis in our Empire, new squad of Sea Trolls led buy their King decided to join out forces this turn. You like Sea Kings Corwin, do you? ;)

[Corwin]

Corwin, you're mistaken. The loss count for Jotun 1/5 108/113 and for Van 0/13 0/95 0/12. Also, despite recent economical crisis in our Empire, new squad of Sea Trolls led buy their King decided to join out forces this turn. You like Sea Kings Corwin, do you? ;)

Ooops, you are right, I was clearly mistaken. 0 losses, hmm? Very impressive.

[Executor]

24 hour delay please.

[Corwin]

24 hour delay please.

Uh oh. I better brace myself for a hell of a firework coming from Ermor next turn. :cold:

Ok, 24 hours added to hosting.

[Lingchih]

Well, the remaining TC swamp castles are just that... swamps. Poor castles, poor income, not very defensible. I am only retreating there cause it's the last place we have to go to. Of course, they are full of Tarts, which can be a blessing or a curse. The swamp castles seemed a good place to keep the Tarts in, since they can't cause much damage there really. And I guess they can defend them, though that Damn Frigging Van's Last Army could probably do some damage even there. It's truly one of the more impressive armies I have seen in my years of playing Dominions.

I guess my best defense is those provs are not worth a crap, so why would anyone want them?

[Executor]

Ahh, almost done with my turn, I think this was the longest turn in Dominions for me actually.

Heh, I've just noticed those azure mages kicking your ars again Corwin, Djin was lucky he almost escaped last turn, but the angel, not so much. :)

[Executor]

Well, seriously, I expected a little more.
I had a feeling you'd try to knock out forts in construction however every airborn thug and SC I have were either occupied or crazy atm.

I'm not sure what happened to that specter either, he was set to sneak, he shouldn't have been attacked.

(sigh) As for that large battle, 50ish mages, a communion of 16 slaves, every possible spell in the game and the AI choses to cast *Just banishment...
If this is how every battle is going to turn out I might as well forfeit as this is bullcrap dude.:mad:

EDIT: This really doesn't make sense to me. It's a communion of 16 slaves, that's +4power, that's 5S5D for every theurg and the spells they cast are banishment and paralyze??? How about enslave mind, soul slay, WITHER BONES?????????

[Lingchih]

Get it together man. You know how Dom works. You get your five casts, and then who knows what the hell they will do.

[Corwin]

Well, seriously, I expected a little more.
I had a feeling you'd try to knock out forts in construction however every airborn thug and SC I have were either occupied or crazy atm.

I'm not sure what happened to that specter either, he was set to sneak, he shouldn't have been attacked.

(sigh) As for that large battle, 50ish mages, a communion of 16 slaves, every possible spell in the game and the AI choses to cast *Just banishment...
If this is how every battle is going to turn out I might as well forfeit as this is bullcrap dude.:mad:

EDIT: This really doesn't make sense to me. It's a communion of 16 slaves, that's +4power, that's 5S5D for every theurg and the spells they cast are banishment and paralyze??? How about enslave mind, soul slay, WITHER BONES?????????

Sorry about AI screwing your planning Executior. I know how frustrating it can be.

About your mages - they did cast quite a few soul slays through the entire battle, didn't they? But even if they would cast many more of it, it would be useless - you can't realistically soulslay MR27 SCs, and I've made sure mine have MR at that level before going to battle with your huge communion. Perhaps that's why they've tried paralyze instead - less mana, slightly higher chances for success, comparable to next to zero chances of soulslay.

Overall I have to agree with Ling - each of us got 5 spell castings to inflict maximum pain on the opponent and set up battle-wise enchantments, after that it's up to AI, which is mediocre at best. If you wanted some wither bones you would have to script them. Not sure why AI haven't used them - perhaps it has decided that it would hurt your much more numerous and weaker undeads, who were in melee and mixed with my own, more then it would hurt me, due to targeting issues, and your darkness spell casted (which gave your mages horrible 2 prec).

Casting darkness in that battle was a mistake I think. Also it seems to me that you have underestimated my attacking army led by pretender and several tartarians - unless I am mistaken you've split your forces and sent large chunk of your army south to attack that BL castle, right? If this is the case, I think if you would keep it together your would very likely win this battle - it was a close call at the end. And all your communion would have survived.

On the positive (for you) side that battle was not an easy or painless victory for me - you've destroyed large part of my army including many powerful undeads, and you have feebleminded my titan pretender. You've also snitched my Djinn from me. That was a good move, if not for that I would have suffered 1/3 of the losses that I've suffered. Well done.

Anyway, this is just a beginning, more intense and larger battles are coming.

[Corwin]

By the way, if it of any consolation, I also have my own gripes with how my turn has been played. My sneaking was also screwed, like your own -I should've got that critical port province that I've cleared with ghost rider strike. Instead it is neutral. And you scout has called a bluff on my scout, regaining control of another province of yours. I should've script him to attack. :(

All in all I may have expected a bit more agressiveness from Ermor. But then again it was my call to declare war, and you only had brief time to react, according to our agreement. You must have chosen to concentrate on logistics and preparing your forces for strong retaliation strike. Well, given that vast majority of your empire is castled, and that you have very few vulnerable privinces, IMHO it is a very valid tactic. I expect you will strike hard at my exposed SCs and troops, not to mention major army engagements that are bound to happen in the next turn or two. And that skyrocjeting army graph of yours keeps growing, despite losing that battle.

This is going to be very brutal and interesting war... :)

[Dimaz]

MR27 can be penetrated with many castings, once I had MR30 pretender who was paralyzed in the first few rounds. The battle was interesting and probably Corwin is right that low precision from darkness played the major role in spell selection due to heavy friendly fire in test castings that are used to get spell scores. But I think it wasn't wise to script WB in first rounds because it has lower range.

[Executor]

I've had battles against dozens of SC's with up to 30 MR which got disintegrated by vampire spaming them.
I'm sure if they had continued casting it they would have eventually done it. Besides, the communion gave a +2 penetration and I was hoping on a numbers game, percentages.

All the soul slays they used were scripted by me I think.

You're probably right about splitting my forces. I should have moved that whole army to the fort, I kinda expected the AI would at least cast a raise something now and than to support me.
With 2x undead chaff I might have actually won it. And the damn tartarian who was supposed to AoL my army was stuck crazy.

In any case I was rather disappointed at the battle results to say the least.
Corwin, the problem with large battles and the 5 spell rule is that the first 2-3 rounds you end up buffing yourself and the troops are still out of range as you *have to place mages behind as to not get killed by attack rear or archers. Quite often so it happens that mages can't cast scripted spells due to range and you have to rely on long range spells, or, in my case now, the AI casting something that can actually kill.

[Lingchih]

Meh.Semantics.

[Lingchih]

Woah! DrP on the rebound. That was truly impressive.

And Corwin, why are you attacking my swamps? I told everyone I was just going to sit there. If you make me mad though, I will go ahead and send out the Tarts. Get your *** out of there.

[Lingchih]

And still Sea of Ice at this time? Guess I'll have to knock it down myself. That sucks.

[Dimaz]

So the story of the Last Legion ends, and I fear it was the last chapter of Vanheim's history. The only thing that still interests me here is if I manage to heal my rainbow crone from that stupid mute before I get crushed. SHe got it on turn 5 from desease that she got from hidden site on the first turn of sitesearch run. So there were no ember lords and other high-path stuff when I needed it..

[Aethyr]

Dimaz, Ulm shall not last long and, in fact, may preceed you into the great beyond. The stories of your last legion have very much intrigued me (I did not get to view any of the battles), so I'm hoping that after the game is finishd (in total) you'll agree to share the files that depict some of these epic battles. :)

[Lingchih]

Heh. One should not anger DrP, Dimaz. That was a true butt-kicking.

My intel is suffering, and I can't see much that is going on these days. But, it appears that Corwin should probably win it. Ermor has the numbers now... he needs to get those battlefield breaking armies into the fray to have a chance.

[Corwin]

So the story of the Last Legion ends, and I fear it was the last chapter of Vanheim's history.

Well, that was quite a story. When I have managed to prevail after brutal struggle with your forces during the invasion of your northern homeland, little I've expected that a small group of exiles in the far away south would refuse to go quietly into the night, and instead would cause so much uproar and chaos in the south, crushing an allied Tien Chi empire in the process, and dealing a stunning blow to Jotun's mighty juggernaut.

But as with all stories, it must end at some point. Empire of Pythium salutes its brave enemies.

[Corwin]

An update from frontlines with Ermor:

The global war with Ermor is heating up. There were two huge battles this turn with Ermor forces, in additions to dozens skirmishes across the realm.

The smaller of these two battles was a clear victory for my forces. In a pitched battle they have destroyed large Ermor's communion and about half thousand undeads, with minimal losses.

However the larger and much more important battle did not go so well for my forces. It was the most important frontline on the war, and Ermor has committed a lot of troops and resources into it, trying to break through my bottleneck castle. I knew the battle was coming, so I have committed many valuable troops and units there as well. Nevertheless, the Ermor has prevailed, they have routed my forces destroying many of them in the process.

Ermor got very lucky during that battle - for some reason my antimagic spell didn't go up as it was supposed to. That resulted in death of few of my SCs, that were going to be critical for this battle, as well as making the rest of my army much more vulnerable to the barrage of neither darts and astral spells from ermor's necromancers. I have no idea why it wasn't cast, but it was not because of ghost riders Ermor casted before the battle - in that skirmish no gems were spent by my forces. With that spell the outcome of the battle would be much better for my troops. Oh well... ;(

Anyway, ironically I have won the battle, technically, thanks to few paralyzed and regenerating SCs who would refuse to die despite being surrounded by the sea of undeads and few SCs. Ermor had to retreat. They have also suffered losses as well, in particular all slaves of their communion were wiped out. Nevertheless I consider the battle to be a clear defeat for the Pythium Empire, my losses were significantly more severe then those of my opponent. Well played Executor.

The only good (for me) outcome of that battle is that the bottleneck border castle still stands and is in my hands.

Doubtless our dark Ermor brethren will be back next turn in even larger numbers, the tidal wave of 3000 undeads is about to crash into that castle again. I am rebuilding and preparing my defenses.

(NOTE: BTW what I see in battle replay for that huge battle does not match the outcome(my survived forces are different from what they should be according to replay). I've seen such problems with Dom3/2 several times in the past in other games. Any ideas what maybe causing it in this particular case and if there is any way to fix it? )

Also Ermor has succeeded in killing two of my fully healed and equipped tartarians outside of these armies engagements.

[Executor]

I need a 2 day delay, haven't even looked at the turn yet.

[Corwin]

I need a 2 day delay, haven't even looked at the turn yet.

Ok, delay has been added.

[DrPraetorious]

I admit, the delay is something of a relief to me, as well.

But we should end this thing in short order, yeah? Mene mene tekel upharsin, and all that.

[Corwin]

Mene mene tekel upharsin, and all that.

:) :up:

[Corwin]

Guys, we may have to put the game on hold for a little while. BL has stalled last two turns, and Ianuki just told me that she will not be able to continue playing do to RL issues. :( She is going to made a post "looking for a sub" for her BL nation on this board. Let's give it 4-5 days, if nobody will come forward we will switch BL to AI. How does it sound to you guys?

[Executor]

That was one mighty fine battle there Corwin, congrats on crushing that large army, I didn't think you'd have the guts to teleport on in front.
The other one went significantly better, doe not as much as I'd hoped. This is the first I've seen 2 ghost riders not trigger battlefield spells.
Regarding AM, I've had a similar thing happen to me too in this battle, one of mine battle globals was not cast either, although much less significant, I blame it on the AI.

Oh btw, nice one with the Pangaean anti MH strategy with all those scouts. Also, it seems a MH killed a some scout named Gem Carrier or something like that, was he carrying anything? :)

In any case, do we play? Do we wait for Bandar? Do we switch AI?
Lay it down for us good sir admin.

[Dimaz]

As Prepo2 that took most of my d3 time is finally over, I can try to sub BL if nobody objects and if you still need a sub.

[Corwin]

As Prepo2 that took most of my d3 time is finally over, I can try to sub BL if nobody objects and if you still need a sub.

I think that would be a great solution Dimaz, thank you. I have no objections personally. I trust that you'll be able to rule that nation independently, without carrying over your Van diplomatic relations. And since Vans are doomed to be gone in the next few turns, and BL are on the other side of the map, I see no possible conflict of interests.
What do you guys think, are you ok with such move?

Unless there are objections from other players, Dimaz could you please contact Ianuki and get her nation password and perhaps last turb file? Once you are ready, send me your email and I'll change BL email address to yours. And thank you for your offer, it would be much better then having to set it to AI.

I'll add more time to the current turn if needed.

[Dimaz]

Maybe you just change the email to mine and request turn resend, I think it's common practice not to pass protect in PBEM?

[Corwin]

That was one mighty fine battle there Corwin, congrats on crushing that large army, I didn't think you'd have the guts to teleport on in front.
The other one went significantly better, doe not as much as I'd hoped. This is the first I've seen 2 ghost riders not trigger battlefield spells.
Regarding AM, I've had a similar thing happen to me too in this battle, one of mine battle globals was not cast either, although much less significant, I blame it on the AI.

Oh btw, nice one with the Pangaean anti MH strategy with all those scouts. Also, it seems a MH killed a some scout named Gem Carrier or something like that, was he carrying anything? :)

In any case, do we play? Do we wait for Bandar? Do we switch AI?
Lay it down for us good sir admin.

Thank you Executor. Yes, I have thought hard about that teleporting move. But at the end I've decided that giving my overall situation, and relatively small and weak northern army and foothold you've already gotten on our northern front, I had to take some risks because I couldn't allow a collapse or even limited breakthrough at that area if our frontlines. It worked well, pitched battle went as I've planned it.
But you have outplayed me in our central front, winning that huge battle despite all resources I've thrown into you there. I underestimated the force of your strike there, and your battlefield tactic was very good.

About gemcarrier - no, sorry, he wasnt carreying anything, but he used to - I just haven't bother to rename him. Recently he was just part of the massive scout forces I am usibg to screen my MH vulnerable targets from MH, as you have correctly guessed.

I guess you and me are about to open 4th Ermor-Pythium front, are we? ;)
Answering your question -looks like we have found a sub for BK - Dimaz, unless there is an objection. As soon as the situation is sorted out new turn will host, hopefully in the next day or so.

[Corwin]

Maybe you just change the email to mine and request turn resend, I think it's common practice not to pass protect in PBEM?

Ok, we could try it. Send me your email in PM pls. I'll wait 24h to let any other players voice any possible objections. If there are none, I'll change email to yours and resend turn. Sounds good?

Just in case, if you could drop by in dom3 IRC (best way to reach Ianuki based upon my experience) and doublw check password thing with her, it would be great.

Again, thanks a lot for your offer Dimaz. It would be a pity to set such relatively small but very potent nation to AI, most of all at such middle-late stage of the game. And the chronicles of Van Last Legion shows how good are you in playing underdog. ;)

[Lingchih]

I object to Dimaz taking over Bandar Log. He had his chance, and he failed.

BTW, I'm out of town and out of any internet access until December 29th.

[Dimaz]

OK then, more free time for me :)

[Dimaz]

I asked Karnoza and he seems willing to help, I PM'd his email to Corwin.

[Corwin]

Ok, I've changed BL email address to Karnoza's, let's see how it will work.

Karnoza - welcome to the Song of Ice and Fire game. Please drop by here when you'll have a chance and write a line or two introducing yourself, if you are ready to take the mantle of leadership of BL nation. And thank you for offering to sub for our game.

[Corwin]

Ok, looks like we are about to host tonight, despite delays due to BL and holidays. New BL owner's turn is in as well as other nations turns. The only missing turn is from Ermor.

Executor, do you think will you be able to make your turn before hosting? Or do you need a bit more time?

[Executor]

Turn in!

The holidays haven't even started here, they last from January 1-14, and on the 15th my exams start and last about a month (two terms squished together), so I might need an extension every once in a while.

[Executor]

God dammit Kurtiza! That was horrifically annoying. Please stay out of my war with Pythium.
Well Corwin, looks like BL saved your ars on the south front this turn. My plans got quite spoiled by BL's little stunt. It was sort of a continues plan, that initial wave was a suicide run.:) It worked well enough I might add, although, once again, the AI failed to cast a spell for me, riggor mortis this time.

Not a bad turn overall. Not quite what I expected but still. I don't think either of us lost anything important this turn. Oh, you beat me to the uniques, I really wanted the Scepter of Corruption.

BTW, that's what, 1,2,3,4,5... 6! fronts for me ATM. :)

Oh, Ulm, that's quite something you've got in your capital, can't wait to take a better look.

[Dimaz]

That's Karnoza not Kuritza. Two very different people.

[Executor]

That's Karnoza not Kuritza. Two very different people.

What did I say? I meant Karnoza, don't even know a Kurtiza...

[karnoza]

Hello everybody. As a newcomer pretender god I'd like to suggest peace to each other alive pretender except Ermor who seems to be fond of undead. :)

[Corwin]

God dammit Kurtiza! That was horrifically annoying. Please stay out of my war with Pythium.
Well Corwin, looks like BL saved your ars on the south front this turn. My plans got quite spoiled by BL's little stunt. It was sort of a continues plan, that initial wave was a suicide run.:) It worked well enough I might add, although, once again, the AI failed to cast a spell for me, riggor mortis this time.


Yeap, I've seen BL going armageddon on your a*ss south of the island. ;) A bit of overkill but nicely done. :) Its a pity all your troops were undead in that battle Executor, your battlefields have always been an important source of death gem income for my nation in this game, delivered by my little ravens... :p

However I am not sure how did it save my *** in the south. Your initial undead wave that you've thrown at me this turn should not have been unaffected by BL actions farther south. And I have wiped out that wave with no real losses on my side, except transformning 100+ of my chaff wolfes into chaff soulless. Which means your important bottleneck castle would have fallen anyway, as it did this turn. Your next wave of undeads, if it will arraive, will be delayed by one turn due to BL raiding island castle this turn, but one turn doesn't really make a difference in that particular local military theater now that I've secured a bottleneck castle on our southern front.


Not a bad turn overall. Not quite what I expected but still. I don't think either of us lost anything important this turn.


Really? Interesting. Because I am pleased with this turn myself. I am on offensive on 4 out of 5 our fronts, and have captured two of your castles this turn.

Of course it leaves our 5th and the most important central front, where situation is very different and where you are on offesive. Frankly I am very surprised that you haven't attacked with larger force there, after you have delivered a heavy blow to my troops there last turn. The troops that you have moved forward this turn are barely able to scratch my castle's walls that are being repaired by my defenders, while you have 4500 undeads sitting next to my besieged castle, according to my scouts. But I am not complaining if you are ok with giving me time that I badly need to regroup and rebuild my defences there that you have managed to shatter last turn.

Nevertheless overall I agree with you, neither of us lost anything important this turn. And both your regenerating SCs have managed to escape after either killing number of my troops, while your 3rd SC has routed my small communion.


Oh, you beat me to the uniques, I really wanted the Scepter of Corruption.

Yeap. :) You have beaten me to the Pocket Lich though.


BTW, that's what, 1,2,3,4,5... 6! fronts for me ATM. :)


Well, I hope to kick you out from the northern continent in the coming turns. If I will succeed in these efforts, it will eleminate 2 of our fronts, making things easier for you. ;)

Of course, should Jotuns decide to jump on me, as I suspect they will sometime soon, or should you manage to achieve a breakthrough on our central front, where you are pilling a tidal wave of 4.5K+ troops against my weakened defences, things could get ugly fast for my nation.

One thing for sure - next few turns are going to be very intense...

P.S. BTW can Dom3 engine handle 4K+ units in one battle?

[Executor]

The army lost in BL's lands was of no importance, I expected as much, doe I hoped he wouldn't rush in blindly, or at least try to invade former Ulms lands.

The raiding Yaksha or whatever that was is what's annoying me. That one turn set back really hurts me, and I almost lost all those mages and a Tart who retreated from the battle cause of it.
You have indeed secured that one fort, yes, however there are still 4-5 forts around that one and an immense army on the border, while you have no back up.
In any case, the suicide run achieved what is was supposed to do, I only lost half a K of useless chaff.

As for the water fort, I can't even count that as a loss, water forts represent nothing to land nations. I had hoped to kill those SC's of yours with my Tartarian, however that Troll King proved more than I could chew. I'm still not sure how he managed to almost kill the Tartarian, he did have very high defense but that shouldn't have mattered that much with the 12 attacks from the gloves, and stone bird I think?

The north does worry me a bit, but I don't think your forces are sufficient to win you that front, hopefully. :)

As for the central front, I do not need the fort to overrun your lands.
Perhaps I should have sent more troops but I couldn't risk my forces retreating due to chaff again. I wanted to be sure your SC's would get dealt with if they decided to make yet another stand.

And I like it this way, if you go in this turn you go in blind, you can't teleport on top of me, I have the first round so I'm rather confident, doe I welcome any attempt to storm, it would be much easier than for me to try and squeeze trough a bottle neck castle gate.

I guess you didn't try to make the Tartarian Chains, :(

So far you are clearly winning and have a much greater lead on me, but perhaps things can still change. ;)

[Corwin]

The army lost in BL's lands was of no importance, I expected as much, doe I hoped he wouldn't rush in blindly, or at least try to invade former Ulms lands.

The raiding Yaksha or whatever that was is what's annoying me. That one turn set back really hurts me, and I almost lost all those mages and a Tart who retreated from the battle cause of it.
You have indeed secured that one fort, yes, however there are still 4-5 forts around that one and an immense army on the border, while you have no back up.
In any case, the suicide run achieved what is was supposed to do, I only lost half a K of useless chaff.

As for the water fort, I can't even count that as a loss, water forts represent nothing to land nations. I had hoped to kill those SC's of yours with my Tartarian, however that Troll King proved more than I could chew. I'm still not sure how he managed to almost kill the Tartarian, he did have very high defense but that shouldn't have mattered that much with the 12 attacks from the gloves, and stone bird I think?

The north does worry me a bit, but I don't think your forces are sufficient to win you that front, hopefully. :)

As for the central front, I do not need the fort to overrun your lands.
Perhaps I should have sent more troops but I couldn't risk my forces retreating due to chaff again. I wanted to be sure your SC's would get dealt with if they decided to make yet another stand.

And I like it this way, if you go in this turn you go in blind, you can't teleport on top of me, I have the first round so I'm rather confident, doe I welcome any attempt to storm, it would be much easier than for me to try and squeeze trough a bottle neck castle gate.

I guess you didn't try to make the Tartarian Chains, :(

So far you are clearly winning and have a much greater lead on me, but perhaps things can still change. ;)

I see. You are right, BL did screw your plans there. But as you said, I have no incoming reinforcements in the south, so one turn delay would not make much difference. And unfortunately 1 turn is not enough for me to break your lightly defended castles there, before your next undead wave would arrive from the south-west.

However I can and will teleport in whatever troops are needed to meet your huge approaching army, as I've been doing there for the last few turns, to replaces losses your continuous attacks have been dealing to my forces there. Without these replacements you would certainly break through on that front by now. And indirectly it contributed to your major victory on our central front last turn, since I've decided back then that my central front with all its artifacts and SCs will hold, and I've diverted some of the resources to the south. The bonecrashing blow from you there last turn has proven that I have underestimated your forces and your tactic on the central military theater.

Man, with total war such as ours it's as much about global strategy and managing various resources between multiple fronts as it is about tactics and troops. :) It can be quite time consuming but it is a lot of fun, especially against great opponent such as yourself. :)

As for our water front - I understand that you are not counting it as real loss. I would probably feel the same in your shoes.
For me however it's a important step to solidify my tentative hold on the water realm, since now I finally control my first underwater castle. (I do not have nature gems to spare to conjure it underwater like you did with dozen of your castles, not since you have overwritten my Oak global long time ago)

I can use this castle as a base for my further UW operations, or as a defensive stronghold should Sea of Ice melts and seas would be crawling once again with your hordes of undeads.

I think your tartarian with all its crazy attack would have a decent chance of killing my Sea King on 1 vs 1 battle. But he was distracted by all my other troops, and my Sea King had support of nearby Water Queen who has joined the battle a bit later, IIRC. Perhaps next time?

About central front - I understand your reasoning, it makes sense. Still I am glad I have one more turn to prepare for the tidal wave of your main army, before it breaches the walls of my castle. Trust me, I would love to make another stand under the castle walls this turn, but I simply didn't have enough troops and SCs available to meet you at the walls, your "loss" there last turn has obliterated or scattered my defenses I couldn't afford another defeat or another Pyrrhic victory, should you've decide to send forward all your legions this turn, as I thought you are very likely to do. So instead I have chosen to let you regain initiative and besiege my castle, while bringing in more troops and resources from across my realm. That tiny army of undead and mortal chaff backed by 5 tartarians and various mages that you have send forward this turn is clearly not enough to break through my nearby eastern army, especially not with all nearby flying and teleporting SCs that I have been scrambling to bring there since your last turn attack, and that will be arriving this turn. Although you are welcome to try. :)

And with castle walls barely scratched, it looks like I will have another turn there to prepare my defenses, before major showdown with your forces. (I only hope that dom3 engine will be able to handle the load of your 4-5K undeads, once you'll decide to send them forth. Will it? )

BTW your most recent communions seem to come in significantly less numbers than they have been showing in the beginning of the war. I can only hope we are approaching the bottom of the almost endless barrel from which you pulled these scary half-hundred strong communions, are we? ;) My own communions have suffered badly as well in our battles but I had less communion mages to begin with. But then again you can rebuild your communions faster since you have managed to castle your entire realm and you have shorter lines of cummunications.

Oh, and btw it was nice move intercepting some of my reinforcements by teleporting your carefully equipped tartarian on the heads of my approaching communion and their troops. Didn't think you had guts to attack it blindly, but you did and you have managed to pull it off. Fortunately no mages were lost, and almost half of them have retreated to the castle where they were heading before attack, but it was very annoying and it will certainly delay some of my reinforcements. Congratulations, well planned and executed. From now on I will make sure to protect all my magical convoys against your protected-vs-all-elements teleporting tartarians.

Oh, and damn you for suddenly deciding to raise PD on all your lands to significant level! :mad: It cost me two provinces and bunch of wolves and principles. Someone has way too much money on his hands... :)


All in all - I agree with you, I do seem to have an upper hand in this war so far. But as you've said it can certainly change and change quickly. Both gains and losses on both sides have been relatively limited so far. And the largest and tides-changing battles are yet to come.

[Lingchih]

Executor obviously does not know how to play Ermor. Heh. ,I guess I saw that when I saw his bless. Good game Corwin, and congrats on the win.

And oh yeah, I am back from holiday. I will play my turns out.

[Corwin]

Executor obviously does not know how to play Ermor. Heh. ,I guess I saw that when I saw his bless. Good game Corwin, and congrats on the win.

And oh yeah, I am back from holiday. I will play my turns out.

Thank you Lingchih. But as for Executor - I think he is doing very well, considering that the odds were against him from the beginning of this war. Since the beginning of hostilities I had lead on him in everything except gold income, number of castles, and armies. Ermor also has to fight 3 nations at once. (And BTW I have been secretely providing cost-free support to BL since the beginning of this game - on a limited scale, about 50 gems worth total of items that BL really needed in their defence against undead invasions, but still it must have helped)

Nevertheless despite all that Executor has managed to inflict significant damage on my forces since the beginning on the war, and he de-facto won our largest battle so far. Not to mention he has killed 4 of 5 my SCs, and I have yet to nail a single one of his. (this is partly due to him mostly using his SCs as part of the huge armies rather then as raiders, and also him being less agressive then me with their depolyment overall, but still). Finally Sea of Ice really screwed Ermor, both on our fronts and on all Ermors fronts against Ulm and BL.

[Lingchih]

Yeah, I could be wrong about Executor. My intel is not great anymore. Still, I haven't seen him use the battlefield breaking thousands that Ermor should use.

[Executor]

Lingchih, I didn't start in this game, I took over around turn 5-10ish. And than again I was absent from about turn 25-35, so I'm not sure what to think of your remarks. I think I did reasonably good.

As for game breaking numbers, that all falls into water once you get stuck at 3 choke provinces such as I did, and can't even use the seas. I can't risk using more than 500 undead per battle to try and breach the fronts. Ermor is kind of a one trick nation, and I didn't get lucky with almost any indie mages.

Well **** me, that was a dreadful turn a? I guess you got some hurting too there Corwin, I assume that didn't go as well as you'd hoped? I got a load of your items and artifacts from the central front. Good thing I set all my units to guard commander or the results might have been far worse for me. And a fairly lousy decision to cast army of lead, but I didn't expect wrathful skies to be honest...

Who escaped btw, only the water queen or did I miss someone else?
I hate those damn things with their crazy regeneration, they are far superior to the rest of the ERoys.

I sure as hell didn't expect that crazy Tartarian landing in the back, also, why did you give an S2 Tartarian the forbidden light?

Heh, and gate stone? I guess you aren't holding back any more, when you bring it, you really bring it huh?
Not sure I can match all of that stuff...

Oh, and that damn mage of mine used up 3S gems for soul drain, not two, so the Tartarian and himself died instead of casting VoR... sigh
At least they took a fair amount of your troops and mages with them. ;)

BTW, did you really have to steel my mercs? You expected I'd storm Ulm didn't you? Luckily I forgot some gems. :p
Not sure what happened to the other mercs doe..?

Well, 11 forts under siege this turn, thank you BL and indipendants, and presumably another one about to fall in the water front...

It seems we'll have to take control over Ulm and Bandar fast, they're on the upraise.
I think I preferred the old, more peaceful BL leader. :)

P.S. Did you like my boxing gang? :) I think they're pretty awesome

[Lingchih]

Yes, Executor, I would knock out BL and Ulm as fast as you can. Gives you a fighting chance. Pyth is going to raid you... no stopping that. I would probably pull back from the eastern continent... you can't do much there now.

[Aethyr]

It seems we'll have to take control over Ulm and Bandar fast, they're on the upraise.
I think I preferred the old, more peaceful BL leader. :)

The proud nation of Ulm shall never fall!

[Corwin]

As for game breaking numbers, that all falls into water once you get stuck at 3 choke provinces such as I did, and can't even use the seas. I can't risk using more than 500 undead per battle to try and breach the fronts. Ermor is kind of a one trick nation, and I didn't get lucky with almost any indie mages.


Why specifically 500? I understand that you are probably concerned that massive casualties among your undead chaff may force your SCs/mages to rout, but I am curious how did you come up with that particular number.


Well **** me, that was a dreadful turn a?


Yes, that was... intense. ;)


I guess you got some hurting too there Corwin, I assume that didn't go as well as you'd hoped? I got a load of your items and artifacts from the central front. Good thing I set all my units to guard commander or the results might have been far worse for me. And a fairly lousy decision to cast army of lead, but I didn't expect wrathful skies to be honest...

Who escaped btw, only the water queen or did I miss someone else?
I hate those damn things with their crazy regeneration, they are far superior to the rest of the ERoys.



No shi*t, I certainly got some hurting. Lost 5 SCs and several battle artifacts in the main battle on our central front. Also lost tons of mages to your tartarian ambush in another battle on the south-east front. At least I've got sob tartarian and his grand thaumaturge lackey who killed so many mages.

Good news - these 5 SCs managed to take a lot of ermor troops and mages with them to their graves. And castle walls still hold strong, while castle defenders keep teleporting in and summoning more SCs&troops. Bad news - all your anti-SC SCs have survived the battle while defeating my ambush team. And I've hoped to catch around 4-5K of your undead troops in my ambush, not 800. More bad news - I was really hoping to catch your two tartarians in that swamp province. But you have vortexed them away, damn you. :mad: In hindsight I should have concentrated on castle defense and its ambush battle rather then trying to do too many things at once.


I sure as hell didn't expect that crazy Tartarian landing in the back, also, why did you give an S2 Tartarian the forbidden light?


Two words - Gate Stone. It was the only possible way for me to forge it without spending a lot of gems on empowering.

Yes, that guy knew how to party. :) Won two battles without taking a single scratch, and has cut off an important supply rout for one turn.

Of course his primary goal was to destroy your entire routed army, should I win the main battle, but alas that was not meant to be.


Heh, and gate stone? I guess you aren't holding back any more, when you bring it, you really bring it huh?


:D Yeah, no holding back. I've decided it is time to fire all secret guns I've been saving for the special occasion. The idea was to deliver Ermor a stunning blow that would take you a while to recover from, and to break you siege on my central castle, restoring the original border.

Instead the results were much more mixed that I have hoped, and I have lost the main battle.


Not sure I can match all of that stuff...


I certainly hope you won't be able to. ;) But you have been very resourceful so far, and this turns you have escaped from one carefully laid ambush and broke through another.


Oh, and that damn mage of mine used up 3S gems for soul drain, not two, so the Tartarian and himself died instead of casting VoR... sigh
At least they took a fair amount of your troops and mages with them. ;)


Ah, that what has happened. Why casting soul drain in the first place? It would unlikely kill anything in 1 or 2 turns while it was in effect.


BTW, did you really have to steel my mercs? You expected I'd storm Ulm didn't you? Luckily I forgot some gems. :p
Not sure what happened to the other mercs doe..?


Yeap, you have guessed correctly. :) After taking a look inside Ulm's capital, courtesy to your scout last turn, I decided that I should try to relieve pressure on Ulm's capital as much as I can, to help their brave defenders. Not sure about your other merces - I've only bid on one team - air mage and his minions. Perhaps you have forgotten to renew your contract for the 2nd team? Or perhaps they just got bloody tired of you - you had these poor lizards sitting in the mud under Ulm capital's walls for like 10 turns now. ;)


Well, 11 forts under siege this turn, thank you BL and indipendants, and presumably another one about to fall in the water front...

It seems we'll have to take control over Ulm and Bandar fast, they're on the upraise.


Way to go Ulm and Bandar! Raise and kick undead menace from your ancients lands while they are preoccupied in the northern continent.


I think I preferred the old, more peaceful BL leader. :)


Heh. :smirk:


P.S. Did you like my boxing gang? :) I think they're pretty awesome

Yes, your boxing team surely has kicked royal as*s. :mad: I've lost more SCs to them this turn that I have lost total SCs since the beginning on our war. Well done.

But let's see how they will fare in round two though. I am adjusting my tactics and equipment... ;)

P.S. And how did you like my forbidden light/medusa wielding crazy tartarian? :) Of course he can't defeat a strong army by himself, but I expect he will be a real bit*ch to kill... ;)

[Lingchih]

Lol. It's really funny. You guys are fighting a war of words, and Dr. P is about to kick all your asses.

I might come back out. It's getting pretty boring just watching battles. Let's see who the highest bidder is on my forces.

[Corwin]

Lol. It's really funny. You guys are fighting a war of words, and Dr. P is about to kick all your asses.



We, we are more like writing mini AARs and trading war stories rather then waging war of words. :) But you may very well be right about Dr. P - his forces are almost completely intact after all, while Ermor and I are bleeding each other dry.

It's funny how such highly magical nations like Ermor and Pythium have successfully managed to destroy most of each other battle mages since the beginning of our war. Ermor's huge scary communions seem to be the thing of the past, at least for the moment, and my own battle mages have been suffering badly. If this trend will continue for few more turns, I expect we will be reduced to mostly fighting with sticks and stones, rather then with advanced magery that we both have in our disposal. ;)

Of course Ermor still must have a large reserve of mages, since their research is still going strong. Not to mention all their mages on summoning duty, since despite huge losses of undead chaff on ermor's various fronts since the beginning of our war, ermor's army charts simply refuse to go down. :(

[DrPraetorious]

I may need an extension in order to organize some armies for to die...

[Lingchih]

I've never seen Ermor win with communions. Ermor wins with huge numbers that break the battlefield. The most I have seen/heard of, in this game, is 5000 troops, which breaks the battlefield, but not badly. Show me a 15,000 troop army, and I'll declare the game over.

[Corwin]

I may need an extension in order to organize some armies for to die...

Ok, let me know once you will know for sure if you will indeed need it, and if so, how long, and I will abjust the timer accordingly.

[Corwin]

Ok, I've added 48h to the current timer, as requested.

Happy New Year everyone!

[Executor]

Heh, good call on the delay, haven't got a clue as to what to do this turn, kept staring at the turn for quite some time now...
This is a very tricky turn you know. I don't fancy you whipping out the gate stone... and the aegis... and forbidden light... aaaaand the boots with the sickle... and all those others of course.:(

BTW, just out of interest, when did you hit const 8? How the heck did you menage to snatch all those uniques? Even blood ones. How did you even branch into blood? I noticed lammia queens, but that's very expensive and not so reliable. Regular commanders? But that takes too much time and effort?

[Corwin]

Heh, good call on the delay, haven't got a clue as to what to do this turn, kept staring at the turn for quite some time now...
This is a very tricky turn you know. I don't fancy you whipping out the gate stone... and the aegis... and forbidden light... aaaaand the boots with the sickle... and all those others of course.:(



Yeah, well, most of that heavy artillery have missed the target, at least during the last turn. I was hoping you will finally try to do something with those two raiding tartarians of yours, rather then just evacuate them.

And now you have some of the unique battlefield artifacts yourself, congratulations! But perhaps I will have a chance win some of them back in the coming turns. ;)


And yes, I agree, this is going to be a tricky turn.


BTW, just out of interest, when did you hit const 8? How the heck did you menage to snatch all those uniques?


Long time ago. Mostly by carefull long-term planning. Con8 has became my primary goal pretty early in the game and I had to sacriface a lot to reach it quickly, considering that I was in the middle of active war with magically-strong Agartha when I switched to this reseach goal.

Still I was clearly not the only one in the race to grab uniques. At least one nation - TC has beaten me to Con8, possibly others but I am not sure. TC has succedded in grabbing some of the best uniques by the time I hit Con8. However I was able to grab quite a few from what was left in the next few turns. Gatestone I only got few turns ago - 6s6e mage is a bi*ch to get.


Even blood ones. How did you even branch into blood? I noticed lammia queens, but that's very expensive and not so reliable. Regular commanders? But that takes too much time and effort?

Yes, it does, so I haven't bothered with regular commanders. I've dedicated some SCs to boring blood hunting duty early on, to kick-start my blood production. (I can share more details after the game if you like ) I was too late to the blood party to grab any of the blood SCs though - Jotuns had them all by then. I've tried one that I thought has the highest chances of being still available but only lost about 100 bloodslaves for my troubles. I did grab some of the blood uniques though, once I had enough bloodslaves to do the forging.

BTW you didn't answer my question about not using more then 500 or so undeads per battle. I am still curious. ;)

[Executor]

Well, so that my armies would still be on the rise even when I have dreadful casualties. It has a nice psychological effect don't you think, for you as well. Like me killing your mages and SC's but your army size not dropping due to the Soulstone and the free spawn. ;)

Although, I've been under a lot of sieges these last few turns and alas those mages of mine don't reanimate under siege so my army size keeps still.

[DrPraetorious]

I apologize for being lame, but I just did another extremely-meh turn.... this is shaping up to be a very interesting fight Ermor + I vs Pythium, but not if I don't have time to do decent turns :(.

[Aethyr]

Hmmm...that breakout went a little better than expected.

[Corwin]

I apologize for being lame, but I just did another extremely-meh turn.... this is shaping up to be a very interesting fight Ermor + I vs Pythium, but not if I don't have time to do decent turns :(.

That's a pity, because, as you've correctly pointed out, you are now in war with my nation, together with Ermor, after your attacks on my territory last turn and this turn. And in terms of number of provinces as well as the size of the army, you are number two nation in the world. I also wouldn't be surprised if you are number one nation in terms of raw magical power on the battlefield, since both me and Ermor have been too damned successful in wiping each other mages during our war. And you certainly has highest quality troops of all nations, with all these blood summons.

You are right, it would be a very interesting fight - me vs you and Ermor, the fight with very uncertain outcome, now that you have joined it. And of course Ulm and BL are also fully engaged in it, fighting Ermor in the south. However I think Ermor needs your full support if your side is to prevail in this war. Executor please correct me if I am wrong but I don't think Ermor can pull it off without you DrPraetorious - by now I have pushed Ermor too far back in terms of provinces, gem income and borders. I have to admit that you joining Ermor now in this war was a very right move for your nation. And I also know you can do awesome turns if you put your mind into it and will have enough time, since you are very experienced player and I am glad we have you in this game.

So what do you suggest we do? Do you feel you will have enough time to do your turns in the future? As I know, I am always willing to grant time extensions to players who need it.

[Dimaz]

My crone finally was healed of her mute status :) Great news for our people. A bit too late, but still...

[DrPraetorious]

This week is going to be tough, as I am traveling and working at the same time. But I don't want other players to lose interest? So I'd prefer not to ask for extensions all the time.

[Executor]

Ahm, I'm still to even look at the turn, I suspect it went rather bad, there were too many risky decisions to make so I ended up doing god knows what :(

I'm up for extension, this late on, with so much mirco (at least on my side) you're more likely to lose interest with faster hosting schedule.

Oh, and yes, you are absolutely correct, I have no chance in hell without Dr.P. You had a to big a lead in gems even before the war, not to mention I'm engaged with BL and Ulm besides you.
I just don't have the resources to fight on so many sides, and the tartarians that keep pillaging my provinces ain't helping. My cap fell victim this turn, so I'm probably down another 2500 gold this turn...:(
I recon this game is probably yours already, but I'll do my best to stop you, oh and don't worry, I know when I'm beat and I won't drag on the game if it comes to that. ;)

[Corwin]

My crone finally was healed of her mute status :) Great news for our people. A bit too late, but still...

Heh. And this act of renewal happens on the first turn of active Jotuns vs Pythium war. So the renewed crone sitting in her castle finds itself in the middle of active war between her old opponents. Which, surporisingly enough, may give Vans some reprieve, since Jotuns and Pythium may be too busy tearing each other appart all around van's castle to afford such distraction. Although TC is likely to come to extract small measure of revenge for their fallen empire.

[Corwin]

This week is going to be tough, as I am traveling and working at the same time. But I don't want other players to lose interest? So I'd prefer not to ask for extensions all the time.

Well, of course it would be good to try to keep these extensions to minimum, now that we are on 72h hosting, but I think it is much better to ask for extension then having to submit rushed turns, since the coming turns may very well be critical to the outcome of this game. Especially for 3 major nations of Ermor, Jotuns and my Pythium, who are currently leaders of this world and require quite a bit of time to do proper turns.

So don't hesitate to ask for extension if you have no other choice DrP. Same goes for other players of course. One note though - it's better to give me a bit of advance notice, since I don't check this board every every few hours - there were several times when I got your guys extension requests at the last possible moment. We were lucky with it in the past that I have seen these last minute notes in time to adjust hosting but it may not turn out so well next time.

[Corwin]

Ahm, I'm still to even look at the turn, I suspect it went rather bad, there were too many risky decisions to make so I ended up doing god knows what :(

I'm up for extension, this late on, with so much mirco (at least on my side) you're more likely to lose interest with faster hosting schedule.

Oh, and yes, you are absolutely correct, I have no chance in hell without Dr.P. You had a to big a lead in gems even before the war, not to mention I'm engaged with BL and Ulm besides you.
I just don't have the resources to fight on so many sides, and the tartarians that keep pillaging my provinces ain't helping. My cap fell victim this turn, so I'm probably down another 2500 gold this turn...:(
I recon this game is probably yours already, but I'll do my best to stop you, oh and don't worry, I know when I'm beat and I won't drag on the game if it comes to that. ;)

I understand, thank you.

Frankly I don't think the game is mine at this point - your and my various fronts and borders have been quite stable for several turns now, despite our massive clashes. This turn you have even repelled my underwater attack on your sea castle, and you are still besieging my central castle with its walls now down and 4k undead troops nearby, while I haven't made any new progress with any of my own three sieges of your castles. And now Jotuns have thrown their considerable and undiminished might on your side of the scales.

My noticeable raise in the current turn in provinces&gems graphs was just me remote-attacking the whole bunch of undefended jotuns provinces with magery. I expect Jotuns will get all of them back and likely more in no time, since unlike myself they have real armies in that area - large ones.

All and all - I think the outcome of this game is very much uncertain at this point. Now that Jotuns are in, the scales once again hang in balance.

[Corwin]

Hmmm...that breakout went a little better than expected.

Well done Ulm. Pythium now officially leaves the south to you and BL, unless I will get some requests from one of your two resurging nations to attack specific Ermor (or Jotun) provinces with ghost riders or by other means, in which case I will do my best to provide such support.

I will keep bidding and competing with Ermor for the merces of course, in part to prevent Ermor from adding them to their partly depleted southern forces, now that they have significant difficulties in bringing fresh reinforcements to the south, thanks to BL's Sea of Ice.

[Lingchih]

Cool game. I wish I was a bit stronger, but still a nice game to watch.

[Aethyr]

Cool game. I wish I was a bit stronger, but still a nice game to watch.

Bah! The warlords of Ulm sneer at such talk and emplore the warriors of TC to stop playing with their consorts and strike! :D

[DrPraetorious]

I need *at least* 24 hrs to complete this turn.

Initial complication - I gave my friend Auburn at a 10 pt spread, so I wanted Oregon to win *and* I have to buy drinks. Not cool.

But on top of that, the former players for Ulm and BL owe me all kinds of wargilt from back in the day and I'm not sure they're willing to pay up? So I need an arbitrary long time to form a larger alliance in favor of my eventual victory. Thanks!
--DrPraetor

[Aethyr]

But on top of that, the former players for Ulm and BL owe me all kinds of wargilt from back in the day and I'm not sure they're willing to pay up?


Not sure what this means Dr.P. I've had Ulm from the beginning, and I'm not aware that I owe you anything. What's up? :confused:

[Corwin]

I need *at least* 24 hrs to complete this turn.



Hmm, I was hoping that with long technical delay already introduced by the glitch in Lama serever we will be able to make this turn on time, but all right, I will add the dealy.

24h added, DrP let me know if you'll need more.

[DrPraetorious]

I'm going to need another 24 hrs (so until Friday, 4AM GMT.)

I'll make absolutely sure to have a decent turn done by that time, 'k?

[Corwin]

I'm going to need another 24 hrs (so until Friday, 4AM GMT.)

I'll make absolutely sure to have a decent turn done by that time, 'k?

All right. :)

[DrPraetorious]

Since we have a much longer than expected delay (to Sunday?), I'm going to use and not turn in a turn today :).

[Lingchih]

Wow, are we still playing this game? I thought it was just on perpetual delay.

[Corwin]

Yes, Lama server has hicked up again. When it happens it seem to reset timer.

[karnoza]

Next turn due: 18:20 GMT on Sunday January 16th
:shock:

[Corwin]

Heads up - the game is about to host! :up:

This turn is going to be the first turn of really global war, now that each and every nation in the realm are fighting each other. The powerful alliance of undeads and giants are now challenges the will of the Pythium Empire. The Ulm and BL are fighting off their freedom against Ermor's oppression. This brutal war has now become even more deadly...

Meanwhile TC continues to fight its own war against Vans who have shattered their empire.

Mental note to myself - in the future I should really try to make my turns in one go. Sure, turns now take a long time, but overall it is clear that I would spend much less time making turn if I do it in one approach, since this way I don't have to recall what the heck I was doing several days ago when I began to work on this turn.

Pretty straight-forward tip, but it really bit me in the butt during this turn when I broke this self-imposed rule. I imagine I've ended up spending at least 50% more time on this turn then I could. I will not repeat it again.

[Executor]

And the central front has been secured, time to move ahead and wipe out those pesky reinforcements you've brought, my 1000 gem legion laughs at them!

Did you have to go ahead and burn the lab? But it does give me pleasure to have your fort taken by your own enslaved minions, muahahahahah!!! :D

[Corwin]

And the central front has been secured, time to move ahead and wipe out those pesky reinforcements you've brought, my 1000 gem legion laughs at them!



Yes, I have decided to execute a limited withdrowal on the central front, you've brought too much stuff there. Naturally you have large logisitical advatage there - that central front of ours is within spitting distance from you capital, while I had to bring my reinforcemtns from across the entire map. Well done Executor - that's the first time I had to withdraw my forces in this game.

Our last two major battles on central front were essentially your tactical victories, regardless of the official battle results (one won, one lost), since both times my losses were heavier than yours. Which eventually have forced me to withdrow rather then risk annihilation of what was left of my forces.

However I believe those battles have cost you dearly as well. And I hope that 3rd time is the charm. ;)

So to your 1000 gem legion - bring it on! :fight:

[Corwin]

New turn is hosting! I am going to try to renew offensive on two of my fronts with Ermor. Let's see how it will go, as well as what's going to happen on a very important central front, where Ermor's infamous 1000 gem legion (aka boxing team) is deployed.

Also I am very curious to see what Jotuns are going to do. That army of theirs with almost every blood unique SC and large horde of high level demon troops is scary... :cold:

[Corwin]

Hmm, looks like there maybe some problem with our new turn. It supposed to host an hour ago. Currently all nations turns have been received by Lamaserver but no new turn has been hosted according to the server.

I wonder if that can be somewhat related to the recent patch? Have you guys upgraded? Personally I haven't upgraded yet, but according to the other thread on this forum it should not cause any problems with turn submission/hosting? It is my understanding that you just need to patch your Dom3 client to be able to look at the new turn from patched server, that's all. Is it correct?

[Executor]

No need to upgrade til the game says so, which I imagine will be this, and by this I mean when it hosts, for you my friend.

There have been hiccups from time to time in the last few days, I presume it should return to normal soon enough.

And btw, I would have also advanced on the central front had you not burned my lab, and of course if half of my SCs weren't gazing at the stars :)

[Corwin]

No need to upgrade til the game says so, which I imagine will be this, and by this I mean when it hosts, for you my friend.

There have been hiccups from time to time in the last few days, I presume it should return to normal soon enough.

And btw, I would have also advanced on the central front had you not burned my lab, and of course if half of my SCs weren't gazing at the stars :)

Ok, sounds good, thank you.

About central front - good, that's why I have burned that lab. ;) Basically for the last few turns I've been doing all I can to slow down your advance on the central front. I desperetely needed time to rebuild my defenses after you have wiped my best 7 SCs and my army, and I was afraid you would push forward before I was ready. BTW if you did push forward I would not be able to stop you, and you would almost certainly overrun all ex-Abyssia territory in few turns with your hordes of undeads that were no longer contained by the bottleneck province and my army protecting it. Which would also lead to my southern army being surrounded and trapped.

You may still be able to pull it off, but at leasy now I had quite a few turns to put together new army to stand againt your forces there.

[Corwin]

Ok, I've sent PM to Lama, describing that our game seem to be temporarily stuck. Hopefully he will be able to look at it soon and will give it a proper kick in the butt. As soon as it will happen we should all get our new turns.

[Corwin]

The problem with Lamaserver is gone, we got new turn. It looks like the issue was due to one of the hosted games crashing Llamabeast server.

I am sure you guys know it already, but just in case - everybody needs to upgrade to 1.26 patch, without it the new turn won't open.

[Aethyr]

Seriously Bandar, I doubt the few remaining provinces of Ulm merit raiding by an Ember Lord :shock:

I'm doing everything I can to push Ermor off the southern continent, what's up?

[Corwin]

Added 40h to the hosting time for the current turn due to player's request.

[DrPraetorious]

Is Llamaserver borked?

It's supposed to host in 45 min but the page hasn't updated in hours, and I'm not getting any ack on the turns I'm sending in...

[Executor]

Probably stuck again being unable to host some one single game which in turn halts the hosting on all the rest. If you sent in the turn you shouldn't stale. Games will probably get delayed by Llama just in case.

The word on the IRC is that Llama will get around to it tomorrow, at least 10h from now so take that time to plan a Very Big attack on Pythium. :)

[Lingchih]

Yeah, it's not accepting my turn either.

[Corwin]

Hmmm. I guess I better add more time to the timer. I will try to add another 30 hours if sever will let me. Please try to get your turns in as soon as you can, server has been finicky lately.

EDIT: Attempt has succeeded.

[Corwin]

The word on the IRC is that Llama will get around to it tomorrow, at least 10h from now so take that time to plan a Very Big attack on Pythium. :)

Yes, please do it. :) Same with Ermor. I am waiting... :mean:

[Lingchih]

Ummm... now the game is gone.

[Corwin]

Ummm... now the game is gone.

Yes, there is a problem with the server. Llamabeast said he will take care of it tomorrow.

[DrPraetorious]

So did the game omni-stale or not?

I'm willing to live with an omni-stale, although it penalizes me I think more than you guys, since my extensive bloodhunting operation doesn't run properly.

[Lingchih]

Actually, I wouldn't mind if the game was just gone. It's become quite tiresome. Who's winning, anyway?

[Corwin]

So did the game omni-stale or not?



I hope not.

[DrPraetorious]

This game will never die!

Eventually, Pythium will start wishing for armagedddons, and I will have ritually murdered the entire population of the southern continent. Thus, I will be running low on demons, Pythium will wear me down with his superior gem income.

[Executor]

I'd wish for armageddon if I had gems!
Heck I'd alchemize all gems to pearls if I had any gems!
I'd alchemize my tartarians to gems if it were possible!

Tho it would be interesting if say a certain blood nation cast AC perhaps?

[Corwin]

This game will never die!

Eventually, Pythium will start wishing for armagedddons, and I will have ritually murdered the entire population of the southern continent. Thus, I will be running low on demons, Pythium will wear me down with his superior gem income.


Heh. No, no Armageddons, I promise. I will live or die by the strength (or lack of) of my armies and tactics, not by any type of global "I won!"-style spells.

To Executor: You are forgetting that AC is prohibited in this game, as well as Burden of Time and Forge of Ancients. BTW if I had any astral gems left each turn I would dispell your bloody GoH. ;) Alas astral is the most in-demand gem type for me, I don't have enough of it as it is.

[Executor]

Blah, where's the fun if I can't go on a suicidal globals rampage...:mad:
At least Armageddon is allowed, muhahahahahah!

EDIT> I spent the first 50 turns saving gems for GoH. I very much doubt if can be dispeled or overcast. :)

Tell me about it, I've been meaning to summon a Golem for about 40 turns now...

[Dimaz]

Nice battle defending that castle Executor, now you have an extra Ember lord :)

[Corwin]

Nice battle defending that castle Executor, now you have an extra Ember lord :)

Brainwashed Ember Lord, which had to be re-equiped and GORed to be of much use. But still... :mad:

Yes, I've underestimated hom much stuff Executor has managed to get to that castle over the last few turns. And I couldn't afford to lose a turn on a scout to peek inside. Aye, good job Executor.

If only my stupid Sea King SC would manage to push to the castle gate, this whole thing may had gone differently... :(

And to add insult to the injury, I've made a stupid mistake on not leaving a single commander on siege duty when ordering storm, damnit.

On a positive note - I've managed to ambush and annihilate two of the Jotun's devil armies, both in a single province. Giants should not split their force like. Too bad their blood SCs have escaped, but still it was an important victory for Pythium - it made the dangerious position of my southern army a bit more stable.


To Executor - so are you planning to just sit on our central front doing nothing? I thought you said you were going to wipe out "my pesky reinforcements", now that you got your bottleneck castle back and rebuild the lab. ;) If you want to achieve a breakthrough you will have to deal with my army there - I am not going to attack you on this front in the near future, since the time is working for me - I have plenty of opportunities to advance on other fronts against you and Jotun, where I do not face such strong opposition. Not to mention I have higher gem income. You, however, will have to come through me, since you can't afford to go around me and leave me in your back.

[Executor]

Nice battle defending that castle Executor, now you have an extra Ember lord :)

Yes! They dare invade us? The mighty Ermor will use Pythiums enslaved minions to punish them for their insolence!

That battle went a little wrong for me actually... :(

Hehehe, sit back? No, no, no.
I've pushed you back on the central front, now the southern front as well. I already made you fall back once in the seas, soon I will do so again.
Which leaves you only with the northern front.
I see your army is still just camping outside although you've broken my gates.
Shame, I rater hoped you'd storm that castle as well.

You've had limited success against me in the past, before Jotun and TC joined. So I think it may be time to throw everything I've got at you, and hopefully TC and Jotun will do the same. I wonder if you can deal with all of us.;)

[DrPraetorious]

Ouch. Well, he's dealing with me fairly well. Admittedly, I screwed up - proper scripting wouldn't have won me those fights, but would've caused him substantial losses, at least :(.