Boot Camp - Finished - Soyweiser/Jotunheim wins!

[Valerius]

No problem; the hosting time has been set to 4:46 GMT Tuesday.

[Valerius]

I've been postponing hosting so that C'tis doesn't stale. Pjoo hasn't logged in since Dec. 13 but he also hasn't been staling so he may be away for the holidays.

[durecellrabbit]

Ok. Thanks for giving me the Christmas break.

[DragonRider]

Zwago shivered in the frozen darkness. How long had it been? Months? Years? It was impossible to know; time had no meaning in this wretched place. No sun or moon ever ascended over the bleak horizon.

What he did know was that he was alone. He knew no word that described the feeling, but the half-numb ache in the lumps of scar tissue by his left and right shoulders were a constant reminder that it was there. It was worse than the hunger; the hard, rancid flesh of the occasional unwary Frost Fiend was barely able to sustain him. Worse, even, than the cold, so very far from the balmy jungles and volcanic isles of their youth. His youth.


The crunch of the snow under his talons echoed across the tundra as the trail of footprints behind him stretched closer and closer towards infinity...


At last he could take no more. He collapsed with a dull thud into a snowbank, unable or unwilling to take even one more step. The beating of his heart grew slower and slower as he welcomed death with silent revelry.

Suddenly, he saw something shimmer in the corner of his eye. No, not a light, but a sort of ripple in the air, almost imperceptible against the monotonous expanse of the lifeless realm. He recognized it instinctively: it was a planar rift. It could take him home! Filled with a sudden burst of energy, he jumped up and leapt through the veil before the opportunity was lost. Almost immediately he felt the heavy warmth flow over him. Home...


"? Zwago the Zmey drowned in Utterdeep."

[Valerius]

Thanks for the update on Zwago. :) Doesn't seem right that he survived all that only to return to a water province and drown.

Also, we had an unfortunate stale last turn as I didn't see Soyweiser's postponement request until too late. Sorry about that; I know you two have a tough fight going on.

[durecellrabbit]

I'm having PC trouble again. Something is making a burning smell which I think is my PSU. I've ordered a new one which I hope will arrive on Tuesday. I've done this turn but if I don't get my part I might have trouble getting next turn done. I'll be able to get on the forums elsewhere if that happens.

[Valerius]

Ok, I'll keep an eye on things to make sure your turn is in. The current turn hasn't hosted yet since when it was having problems the llamaserver set the next hosting time for 4:55 GMT Thursday and we still have a couple of turns outstanding.

[durecellrabbit]

My new PSU didn't come but I have managed to grab my installer off my HDD and get the game running on a older machine. So I shouldn't have any trouble there.

[DragonRider]

Do we know that Soyweiser is okay for this turn? He hasn't posted in the thread since his stale last turn. I'd hate to see him miss two in a row.

[Valerius]

Yeah, I was getting kind of concerned that your turns weren't in so I just postponed hosting by 24 hours. It looks like the llamaserver is having problems and so it had already added another 24 hours to hosting as well.

But I notice Soyweiser hasn't logged in since the 7th. Hopefully that stale wasn't too disheartening - I know you two have a fierce fight going.

[DragonRider]

Yeah, it was a pretty bad time for it. He lost a whole tribe of Unfrozen in a fight that I'm 90% sure he would have won if the other half of his army was there. I did lose almost all of my knights, though.

[Soyweiser]

I'm alive, busy as hell. And kinda confused with the whole patch situation atm.

Got some wierd warnings from the bootcamp page on the server info page.

But the new patches are not out jet right?

[Valerius]

Good to have you back!

Yeah, you can ignore the messages about a patch being released. Llamabeast accidentally sent a turn to the server when testing the new patch and it caused the server to think the patch had been released.

Should I postpone hosting? It will probably add a lot of time as I noticed the server added an extra 48 hours when I tried postponing hosting by 24 hours in another game.

[Soyweiser]

I send in a turn. Not the best ever. But we need to get this game back in gear.

[Groundworm]

Can I have a 24 hour extension? It's been a busy weekend for me, and I didn't realize we were so close to hosting

[Valerius]

Sure, hosting postponed 24 hours.

[Groundworm]

First off, thanks for that extension, Valerius.

I just went to take my latest turn. Downloaded the .trn file as usual, and got a message that I didn't have the correct version of Dominions? Anyone have an idea what that's about?

[CthulhuDreams]

A new patch is out - go download it.

[Groundworm]

Is that the case? Because I haven't had to get the new patch for any of the other games I'm in. If I download the patch, will this make it difficult for me to process turns in my other games?

[Valerius]

If all of your MP games are on the llamaserver then definitely go ahead and download the patch. I think Gandalf has also updated his server. If you are involved in MP games on other servers you'd have to check with the host to see if they've updated.

If you want to play it safe, you can duplicate your Dominions directory before applying the patch to the original Dominions directory. That way if you still need access to the previous version you can just launch Dominions from your duplicate directory.

[Groundworm]

I encountered the same problems with one of my other games just now, so I downloaded the patch. No issues thus far.

Thanks for the advice!

[Soyweiser]

fyi, ctis staled.

[DragonRider]

Y'know, I had that scout probe the fortress in Ene Umrul to make sure exactly that wasn't going to happen. Ironically, if I'd just blindly stormed the place I might have taken it. Oh well. I'll get that chokepoint someday! Just you wait and see!

[Valerius]

fyi, ctis staled.

Yeah, I noticed his turn was missing several hours past the deadline. The llamaserver was having problems and the site hadn't been updated so I tried postponing hosting but once the server was running properly it hosted before processing the postponement command.

But C'tis' current turn still isn't in with just a couple of hours to go until hosting. I'll try to postpone hosting but notice the server is having issues again. Also, Pjoo hasn't logged in in over a month but aside from a couple of stales is still completing his turns. I'll try to contact him through the llamaserver.

[Soyweiser]

Y'know, I had that scout probe the fortress in Ene Umrul to make sure exactly that wasn't going to happen. Ironically, if I'd just blindly stormed the place I might have taken it. Oh well. I'll get that chokepoint someday! Just you wait and see!

Yeah, I assumed you would have just stormed it. (And losing a rare w3 + 2 w boosters was kinda sucky. The first arrow volley hit hard).

I stormed out because I don't know what happens to troops who retreat while inside a castle, and I thought they would just die, just as in a assassination attempt. Also, I don't know what happens when you break siege and attack with another army from a different province at the same time. (1 combat? 2?).

Lets see if you can finally get the castle this turn. :)

[DragonRider]

Units inside a castle can retreat normally, oddly enough. Furthermore, if I storm a castle and you order both a break siege and move forces in from another province, the result would always be your combined forces attacking the besieging army outside the castle. Storming happens after other combat. So if I had tried to storm again this turn, I'd have been smashed by your forces to the north before I got through the walls and probably would have lost.

Which is all the more reason why I should have just rushed in. Even if the stuff inside wasn't bad enough to kill me by itself, I'd have still had to waste two turns trying to move north to intercept the reinforcements and then going back and storming the fortress afterwards (assuming there were even enough survivors for that), and even then I could have gotten bad luck and faced a combined army anyway depending on which province that battle was randomly fought in. It was a really bad call on my part. But then again, most of the ground forces you saw were moving in from other provinces and couldn't have taken part in a siege, so the Niefel Flames might have taken out enough to trigger an auto-rout without them.

But on yet ANOTHER hand, I didn't expect those vampires to show up. Since fliers get a siege bonus, they could have taken down the walls a lot faster than the expected 30 Dark Vines alone would have, so I might have had to give up the fortress anyway (or risk getting trapped in it without being able to repair the walls fast enough).

[Soyweiser]

One thing I always wondered about, Dragonrider, did I ever succeed in shutting down your cap castles with the remote unrest spells?

(Putting up the domes worked btw, lost a summoned mage due to that trick).

[DragonRider]

Only one city ever got to over unrest (and even then only for a turn or two), and it wasn't the capital. I mostly just lost a bunch of gold due to tax cuts. It was more annoying than crippling. The disease demons hurt me more per slave spent, at least until I figured out that one knight on Guard Commander was plenty to shut them down.

I actually assumed that the fire domes would be pointless since it had absolutely no chance of killing a Skratti or Gygja, but it wasn't like I was short on fire gems, so I figured I might as well. What mage was it, out of curiosity? The only one I can think of with the paths for Rain of Toads is a Lamia Queen, but the second shape would have saved her.

[Soyweiser]

Only one city ever got to over unrest (and even then only for a turn or two), and it wasn't the capital. I mostly just lost a bunch of gold due to tax cuts. It was more annoying than crippling. The disease demons hurt me more per slave spent, at least until I figured out that one knight on Guard Commander was plenty to shut them down.

I actually assumed that the fire domes would be pointless since it had absolutely no chance of killing a Skratti or Gygja, but it wasn't like I was short on fire gems, so I figured I might as well. What mage was it, out of curiosity? The only one I can think of with the paths for Rain of Toads is a Lamia Queen, but the second shape would have saved her.

It wasn't rain of toads, was another unrest causing spell, by a Naiad. So that was a 30 gem ****up :). Also having even a few rain of toads bouncing off a dome was just to costly in slaves. (And one of the gygja's lost an arm).

Those knights great! 19 def right? Very nice. But of course, if you put a knight on every mage and commander, it just adds 3 upkeep to all your commanders.

[DragonRider]

19 defense would be a lot more impressive if A) you had ever given me anything to fight except 20-something attack, quickened, three-weapon Skrattis and B) weren't casting Darkness in every fight against anything else. Having Jotunheim as an opponent really isn't playing into any of Marignon's apparent strengths. And the only other opponent I ever had was all fire immune, which was sad. My original strategy was going to be all Flaming Arrow'd crossbowmen and fire evocations, and I only ever got off like one Flaming Arrow volley in the entire game. Under darkness, with half of the archers being eaten by vampires. It's a miracle I've made it so far. Or rather it's mostly because of my unfairly excellent starting position that I've made it so far (seriously, it was ridiculous).

[DragonRider]

What the hell?

"The Judge has cast Mind Hunt. A hostile mage discovered The Judge's astral cord and severed it. The Judge became feeble minded and will probably never recover."

He, in fact, recovered instantaneously, but how did that happen? There are no astral mages in that army! Doesn't that only happen if there's an astral mage in the target province? Did you have a stealthed Vaetti Hag there? Why would you even bother to do that?

[Soyweiser]

http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Vaetti_Hag
S random, Stealth.

There are some sneaking around.

[DragonRider]

So in 64 turns I never once cast Mind Hunt, or even seriously consider casting Mind Hunt, but you still just so happen to have scattered Vaetti Hags around at random on the off-chance that I get bored and try casting it one time on a whim? It used to be my crazy schemes would at least appear to work for a few turns before they backfired.

[Soyweiser]

I expected mind hunts ages ago. Also, allow me to point at Bandar. He could also mind hunt. (The hags also carry spare equipment). They only cost 55 gp, I have magic 3. So I have a lot of hags.

I also seriously hate my old prophet right now. 111 slaves + equipment, all down the drain... Bye bye SC...

[DragonRider]

Oh, it's not like you don't have at least a dozen statistically identical Skratti flying around. I was honestly pretty surprised you were even bothering with Heliophagi when you can recruit similarly-sized thugs for 250 gold a pop and slap Winged Shoes on them with all the air gems I know you have. And they can cast Quickness. It seems like there'd be something more interesting you could be spending those slaves on.

[Soyweiser]

Skrattir don't have high death, fire, or blood 5. Also, Heliophagi fly, so I don't need to spend A gems on them. While I do have a few gems, I did throw away way to many gems by foolishly using skrattir. (And getting them killed for almost no gain...). The demons are actually better in stats than Skrattir in wolf form. And no upkeep! Skrattir are 15+ gold upkeep each turn. And the last bonus, a demon unique could defeat a Kindly One in single combat.

It is also a denial strategy. So other nations cannot get the unique blood summons to use against me.

[Soyweiser]

FUUUUCCKKKKKKK....

Thanks dragonrider... This is one turn full of hurt... Four hammers destroyed, a lot of my magical diversity ruined. Nice one...

[Soyweiser]

And who has the chalice? I know it is forged, but I wonder who got it. It isn't me.

[DragonRider]

Yup, after years of stalemates, our war has finally reached the only possible conclusion: full scale nuclear and biological warfare. Soon the entire eastern continent will be an uninhabitable, smoking, disease-ridden crater and we'll both lose all our troops to upkeep.

The fact that you, as a blood nation, are far better-prepared to weather such a post-apocalyptic scenario than I has not escaped my notice, but I'm running out of ideas over here. (I was a little disappointed that you had a dome up...I was curious about whether two spells would have obliterated approximately 75% or 100% of your mages, based on the description.)

I always assumed you had the Chalice. When I finally poked my nose into Construction 8 (very late; I was waylaid by a lot of other necessities), basically everything was predictably gone and I assumed that you probably had all of it, since at the time you'd shown absolutely no evidence of having done any evocation, conjuration, or blood research but a great deal of evidence of using magically-equipped thugs. Bandar Log can forge it natively and spent most of the game not at war with anybody, so they seem like the most likely culprits.

Also, I think it's totally awesome how entering the arena death match resulted in my awesome and moderately expensive Serpent Kris/Lucky Coin combo being lost to the void forever and replaced with a piece of junk two-handed trident with no special attributes apart from being unremovable. I thought CBM replaced that thing with a helmet or something. EDIT: Actually the equipment just got moved to my lab. But that Ember Lord is still pretty much ruined.

[Soyweiser]

I always assumed shin had it. He was the first to reach con 8. If I'm right. (I saw the winter bringer on one of his commanders).

I was actually rather late at con 8, wanted blood 9 first. (Claws and Blood vengeance, I actually reached that con level just as you were invading me :)).

And if the lands are dead and devoid of life even a blood nation is dead :). Unrest also kinda sucks.

What makes the suffering even worse. I had loads of fire resist stuff just laying around in the lab. And you hit the prov which had the weakest mages... And no troops to soak up the random attacks.

Ah well :). Enough items laying around. But it still hurt a lot. :)

[DragonRider]

Really? Damn, maybe I should have gone for construction earlier after all. At the time I assumed there was basically no chance you hadn't rushed straight down the construction line, so I didn't bother and went for moderately useful utility spells first. It didn't occur to me that you would go for blood first...I assumed one would typically do blood research later on after you've already built up a ton of slaves researching other stuff. I guess I can't say that it didn't pay off, though.

And I know from experience that blood hunting in lowish-population isn't that bad. I'm playing Helheim in my other game and pairs of sucky B1 Vanjarls with rods still seem to get an average of maybe ten slaves per turn in 2000-3500 population provinces. I've never played a real blood nation though, so maybe that isn't very impressive.

I had been waiting for a good opportunity to nuke that province for a long time. I almost went for a regular Fires from Afar hit a long time ago, but since the base damage was only 10 I was worried that the element of randomness would make it not get enough kills, and I knew it was probably going to be a one-shot deal (obviously you're going to fill the place with wolves or someting now), so I decided to wait for Flames from the Sky. Then again, I could have afforded a lot more Fires from Afar casts in one turn, so maybe it still would have been a better bet. Hard to say, since I've never actually seen either cast before.

[durecellrabbit]

I don't have any chalice.

Sorry for being so late with last turn.

[Soyweiser]

I don't have any chalice.


Glares at Shin.


Sorry for being so late with last turn.

No worries. Happy that you are still with us. :)

[Groundworm]

I don't have any chalice.


Glares at Shin.

Yes? May I help you? :)

And yes, I do have the chalice. I was quite surprised that no one had taken it by the time I got up to con 8.

[Soyweiser]

I don't have any chalice.


Glares at Shin.

Yes? May I help you? :)

And yes, I do have the chalice. I was quite surprised that no one had taken it by the time I got up to con 8.

So my earlier guess was correct. And as you already had the Tree up for a gazzilion turns I assume you have a lot of tarts right now.

I was surprised that there was still something left too! I think I was second. All the nice high death items where already gone. (Except 2 :) ). And I also forged the gift of kurgi. Lost it the turn after I used it to a horror attack. Bye bye bloodslaves...

[DragonRider]

Speaking of Tartarians, I've had Gift of Health up for most of the game, but if I still had every death gem I'd ever collected, I'm STILL not sure it would be enough to summon and equip a single mage with high enough paths to cast Tartarian Gate. My death gem income was zero for about thirty turns, and then like 2-3 for dozens of turns thereafter. It's been a little bit frustrating.

[Soyweiser]

durecellrabbit, could you tell me what happenend? I lost 3 commanders according to the report, but my battle replay shows I lost nobody. I'm esp interested in what my units attacked first. And what killed my thugs.

DragonRider: I get it, you can create volcanoes. You can stop now, okey? :).

[durecellrabbit]

I have the same report/replay. You can just check your guys to see which one is right :p.

I don't think you attacked me with thugs.

[Soyweiser]

The battle outside the castle, that one. They report say I lost 3 of my skrattir thugs, the replay says I lost none. So I was wondering what happend, as my replay is wrong. (Happens a lot vs you durecellrabbit ;)).

[durecellrabbit]

I only fought some werewolves and got killed 3 in a report and none in the replay.

[Soyweiser]

I only fought some werewolves and got killed 3 in a report and none in the replay.

Damn... same here, I wanted to know why they died. Soul slay spam probably.

[DragonRider]

You should have been able to see it if it was Soul Slays. They'd be dying one by one with damage numbers and everything.

How does the replay end? What does it show happening?

[Soyweiser]

You should have been able to see it if it was Soul Slays. They'd be dying one by one with damage numbers and everything.

How does the replay end? What does it show happening?

In the replay none of my units die. But it is a know bug that the replay doesn't always match the actual battle at the server. So I was hoping DR had seen the actual battle. But he also had the other replay.

Usually it is a difference in mods that causes replay bugs. But I think using linux vs windows can also cause changes.

[DragonRider]

Just a heads up: my entire town lost power last night, and it's still out today (we have a generator and the internet is working for the time being though, thankfully). Odds are extremely low that it'll affect this game, but it wouldn't be the first time our town was without power for days, so if I suddenly drop off the face of the earth I'd appreciate it if we could delay the turn.

But, again, it probably won't come to that. I'll post again when things are normal.

[Valerius]

No problem. I've been proactive with postponing hosting if I see turns are missing but I'll pay extra attention to make sure your turn is in.

[DragonRider]

The power did wind up coming back on, so I should be fine now.

[Soyweiser]

Damn, I don't think I can finish the planning and scripting of this turn before the deadline. (It does take a lot of time when you are trying to create new devious tricks). Could I get a 12 hour extension? That would be great.

[Valerius]

Sure, hosting postponed by 12 hours.

[Soyweiser]

Turn done. :)

[Groundworm]

Mine, unfortunately, is not. Rough work schedule, sorry. Could I request an additional 12 hour postponement? Thanks.

[Valerius]

No problem, hosting postponed by 12 hours.

[DragonRider]

Well, that was probably the stupidest thing I've done this game so far. When massing troops at Ene Umrul, I neglected to account for the fact that Fire Snakes need to eat, resulting in mass starvation and disease. So invasion #3 has been thwarted without even making contact with the enemy.

I think that since Summer Lions have "need not eat", I falsely assumed that this was a general rule for all magic beings. Looks like nope!

[Soyweiser]

You know, I always had that problem with fire snakes two. They kinda suck because of that. (And somehow, they always seem to cost a lot of supplies...)

[Soyweiser]

Ps: that move confused the [stars] out of me.

I went from: "ow [stars] ow [stars]" to "huh? whot?".

[DragonRider]

Wow, those devils are very persuasive. "Dude, you should totally attack the biggest, most brutally powerful thing in this army. No really, it'll be great. I'll be right behind you."

[Soyweiser]

Yeah apparently snakes are very gullible. Who knew.

Sadly their masters are not.

[Soyweiser]

Anybody lose somebody important because of the AC?

[Soyweiser]

And once again the battle reports don't match the replays. Lost 7 skrattir. Replay says I lost none.

[DragonRider]

Anybody lose somebody important because of the AC?
No. But three perfectly useless research mages with Lightless Lanterns were eaten, which is odd because I've had dozens of the suckers working around the clock for like fifty turns and have seen precisely one horror attack prior to this point. Does Astral Corruption increase the odds of that happening?

Also, my Gift of Health was forced out on the very turn on which I experimentally summoned my first Tartarian. FML.

[Groundworm]

Astral Corruption? Jotunheim, you dare bring this blight upon the world?

The Bakemono cannot abide this. You have negated our ability to use magic, and we regard this as an act of war. Our NAP is hereby abolished, and we are making preparations to attack you and rid the world of the abomination you have created.

As you have, up until now, been an honorable neighbor, we shall not attack you blindly. We grant a one-turn reprieve, and you can expect attacks starting on the following turn.

[Groundworm]

Apologies, but I'll definitely not be able to get my turn in tonight, and the timer will lapse before I wake up. May I be granted a 24 hour extension? I should have my turn in before that, but better safe than sorry.

[Valerius]

Of course; hosting postponed until 16:30 GMT Saturday.

[Soyweiser]

We haven't stopped magic totally, we just made it a bit more, risky. We hope this finally ends the endless amounts of volcanoes popping up in our lands. And as peace with Marignon was out of the question, this is the only course of action we have left. As the foul wizards of Marignon made our lands devoid of life, we shall do the same with the astral realm.

We are saddened by your actions. And will try to dispatch your people in the most humane way possible.

[Pjoo]

I heard Shin had a bad turn? Is this true? *trollface*

By any chance, with the recent war declaration on Jotunheim, will you be leaving lands of C'tis alone? I don't think you are really getting much benefit from the land, what with the swamps and all.
We'll settle for all the provinces that have belief in the FAMOUS Sphinx.

[Soyweiser]

242 Kills? What did you do Shin? Piss him off?

[Groundworm]

It's a sphinx... kinda hard to piss off. It just sat there and made earthquakes. That ended badly, unfortunately.

Not to fear, I've got the lizard situation under control, I think.

I may not be able to make my turn by the deadline again (sorry), will try to take it tomorrow. Valerius, if it's getting down to the wire, could you grant a 12 hour extension? Thanks!

[Valerius]

I may not be able to make my turn by the deadline again (sorry), will try to take it tomorrow. Valerius, if it's getting down to the wire, could you grant a 12 hour extension? Thanks!

Sure, no problem. But I won't be able to check the server as hosting gets near so I'm going to play it safe and already postpone 12 hours. Probably a good idea anyway since there's two other turns still outstanding as well.

[Soyweiser]

We have a message for all the inhabitants of Bootcamp. We have decided that Loki is the only true god. And as we have first withdrawn the ability to do magic in the world, we will now withdraw the life. Days will become weeks, and weeks months. And in a year, only Loki, and his most trusted advisors will left be alive, to repopulate the world.

Return the dead gods to their prisons, hand over the artefacts, banish the elemental royalty, and we might let your pretenders live.

[Soyweiser]

Durecellrabbit, thanks for the game btw. Do you want tips on how to improve your game? I missed a lot of tactics that I actually expected you to use against me.

[durecellrabbit]

I'm dead so do I need to send in this turn or do something else because the email asked for turn from me? Thanks for the game everyone.

[Valerius]

Thanks for playing durecellrabbit and for fighting until the end. Please send in your last turn as the server is expecting it and otherwise won't host until the deadline arrives.

[DragonRider]

Hunter of Heroes? Barely more dangerous than a regular Horror apart from more health, a few more attacks, and one MR-negates instant-death attack; no threat at all to a well-equipped supercombatant without a ton of luck. Eater of Dreams? Same deal. Abomination of Desolation? Even less dangerous than the other two, without even getting the instant-death attack. Maker of Ruins? 180 armor-negating damage per round split across four weapons with 20 attack skill.

A hundred and eighty.

One of these things is not like the others!

I guess maybe I shouldn't talk down Eater of Dreams so much, since that might not have gone quite as badly if he hadn't gnawed off the Ember Lord's shield-bearing arm with a fluke hit a few turns ago.

Also, the very last Phoenix Pyre explosion? The one that went off after his fatigue was above 100 and couldn't save his life? It blinded the Maker of Ruins. SIGH.

[Soyweiser]

The Maker of Ruins also attacked me when I put BoT up. Instakilled the vamp lord. Luckily, that doesn't stop the global.

[Pjoo]

Somehow I feel less good about slaughering Shinus with Earthquake than I did a week ago...

[Groundworm]

No, Pjoo, the slaughtering with the earthquake was fine. I had it coming for attacking you. :)

The business with the horrors does sound disturbing. But I want to discuss a topic that hits a little closer to home: Skrattis. Those things are insanely powerful. One of my fairly well-equipped tartarians went up against 2 similarly-equipped Skrattis and got absolutely torn apart in a single round. I'm talking 28 prot 20 defense, and he got ripped to pieces.

I'm wondering if it's reasonable that the tartarian that cost me 12 death gems to summon, 15 nature gems to Gift of Reason, and a few turns drinking from the Chalice should be such easy prey for cap-only recruitables, which can be bought 1/turn for a measly 250 gold. Oh, and I'm fairly convinced that the second Skratti was an afterthought- one could have finished my tartarian just as easily.

[DragonRider]

27 gems plus equipment. Pffffft. My 50-gem Kings of Elemental Fire never did much better. 60-gem Conjuration 9 Ember Lords can beat them though! I never get the chance to put this into practice long-term because they'd just get banished to Kokytos instantly from most of the way across the battlefield with perfect precision and no save, but they can do it!

Back in the good old days I used to be able to take them out with mage shenanigans. Teleport squads of 4-5 fire/air mages at them and then Incinerate/Orb Lightning them to death. Boy was that ever satisfying. Those days ended when they just started equipping for 100% fire/lightning resistance, though. Lost a couple of good Harbingers that way.

Sometimes I wonder if swarms of smaller elite units would be a better bet, but quickened AoE attacks kind of reduce the viability of that a lot. I did totally see a Skratti laid low by a small squad of Bandar Log's tiger riders once, but that may have been a fluke. Royal Guards have never done nearly as well, in any case.

Their innate magic resistance is kind of lowish as far as supercombatants go (it drops to 14 in werewolf form when 17-18 or so seems to be a healthy baseline for most stuff), but that plus equipment is still a lot to overcome when they're in moderate numbers or supported by an army. An Amulet of Antimagic alone puts them at a 94% resist chance without penetration, and Gygjas have no trouble forging Rainbow Armor to bring that up to 97%.

At the end of the day, though, ambidexterity + auxiliary bite attack + high strength + Quicken Self is such a brutally powerful offensive setup even with lousy weapons that their defenses hardly ever even come into play.

[Soyweiser]

A skrattir with the stone sword. Moved in to kill the SC's. Second Skrattir was there to ensure survival if you moved multiple SC's in. For 65 egems, I wouldn't think it that unfair.

Funny thing, while my skrattir killed the wendigo and the SC. I lost one to barbarians... 250 gold + 30 gems... They just don't do that well vs heavy hitting armies. Vine men no problem. Knights... you die.

The skrattir are also heavily nerfed in cbm 1.8+

[Soyweiser]

Woops, don't know if I can play the turn in the next few hours, could I get a 12 hr extension?

[Valerius]

Sure, hosting postponed 12 hours.

[DragonRider]

Well, I think that's probably just about game right there. Jotunheim is officially impenetrable even split between two immensely distant fronts. He's got well beyond a critical mass of vampires and will only get stronger the more he turtles. I don't even have meaningful access to my own national mages anymore thanks to Burden of Time (it might not yet be impossible to take it down (again), but I've lost so much over the past couple dozen turns while inflicting close to zero damage against Jotunheim that it'd surely be impossible for me to catch up anyway). I'm way at the top of the charts in gold and gem income and I still feel totally unable to make any further progress.

The sad thing is that my brilliant and/or suicidal plan to make a decapitation airstrike against the capital with my sky pirate army never had a chance because it got intercepted with incoming troops before it got to move, resulting in being crushed with Jotunheim's full force this turn (I hadn't even allocated any gems yet, so I could save them for next turn). Which is really unfortunate, because other than that the enemy did basically what I was hoping they'd do, namely move army AWAY from the capital instead of towards it, making it impossible for non-flying troops to get there in time to break the siege (I wasn't even attempting to storm Black Alps with any seriousness). Though to be honest the vampire army might have beaten me even with zero support from anything else at this point.

Speaking of which...if I HAD managed to get that entire army to Recenna unopposed, and had been ready to storm it immediately, and all those vampires flew in to defend it the turn after...would I have had to fight them TWICE, once outside the walls and again inside? Or would they not be able to come back to life? I don't really know how immortality works in that circumstance. If it's the former I'd have surely had no chance anyway. Probably something I should have found out about beforehand, but I'm pretty much out of material over here anyway.

[Valerius]

So, does everyone agree that Jotun has won?

[DragonRider]

I actually kind of take it back. I have at least one thing left I have to try. Something I wrote off as pointless a long time ago but which might actually be workable via methods that I came up with after making that post. It's just really frustrating smashing your face against the brick wall of a hard turtle strategy over and over and making very little progress. Especially when Burden of Time is up after being dispelled once and your youngest national mage of note is age 45 out of 46.

The thing is that I almost never get retaliated against no matter how utterly my attacks fail. Jotunheim's got very little besides vampires in the area (hundreds and hundreds of vampires with over a dozen lords, mind you), which means he's totally unwilling to use them against my dominion. So my loss condition, basically, is to get strung along for eternity with loss after loss until some point in the distant future when Jotunheim's blood economy has carried them so far that they actually have something to invade with (possibly after controlling every part of the world except mine). So if Jotunheim wins it'll certainly have to be through a surrender rather than true conquest, but I don't really know when it's appropriate to give up.

Being left completely alone gives you lots of time to try different stuff, but there has to be a limit to what I can hope to accomplish somewhere. I just don't have the experience to see where I should draw the line.

[Pjoo]

So, does everyone agree that Jotun has won?

I still have a chance, don't I? :(

Well, anyways, I am having fun time holding on to my 3 castles, 2 of them under siege, spamming arouse hunger on the one without lab, etc. Turns take around 3min each. Don't see myself dying off anytime soon either, my "NAP" with Jotunheim and Shinuyamanese unwillingness to come take more earthquakes in the face seems to have reduced intrest in me. Now if I just can get rid of these temples...

If you get the other three to agree on a winner, I'll agree with that too then. I can't do anything, neither do I have scouts or anything else to figure out how the war is going.

[Groundworm]

I personall have no problem declaring Jotunheim the winner. It's possible that Marignon and I may gave made a dent in his empire, but not much of one. He also grows stronger while Marignon's forces wither and die and I have... vine men.

That being said, if we don't close the game, may I have a 24 hour extension on this turn? Thanks.

[Valerius]

Sure, hosting postponed 24 hours.

I guess we'll continue a bit longer to give DragonRider a chance to try his idea? If that doesn't work out and he concedes then it would be unanimous (and I assume Soyweiser would also go along with the decision ;)).

[Soyweiser]

Well, I do think you guys overestimate my troops atm. But I do have around 10 vamp lords, and 300 normal vampires. A lot of skrattir, some heliophagi. Of course BoT is reducing the amount of slaves I get each turn. I did lose most of my army vs shin. But I also stopped his.

But totally do not know your positions. Currently I'm just fighting defensive, anything under my dom is mine. And vamps keep it that way.

But I can wait it out, just sit there and let all mages die, and summon troops with empowered vamps to crush what little remains. And lords can always just summon one vamp each turn.

[DragonRider]

In order for me to take your capital (which is more or less the only way to stop the madness with the vampires), I need an army that can survive against 300 vampires and a dozen vampire lords at least four times in a row without reinforcements, plus dealing with whatever the Skratti might throw at me, and recent evidence suggests that I can't even come up with a force that can survive against them ONCE. I can't use SCs or they get banished, I can't use hordes of troops or they get Niefel Flamed (on top of whatever the vampire lords decide to do to them), I can't use communions because Burden of Time makes it impossible to keep more than a dozen or so mages alive at once (and most of that number wouldn't even survive the march). And you have more and more vampires every turn, probably. It's a pretty discouraging position to be in. Especially since I have absolutely no idea how many death gems you have, and therefore how many times you can recast Burden of Time even if I manage to dispel it again.

I'm not close to LOSING, since you don't have anything even vaguely capable of taking a fortress outside of your dominion (which has been true at basically every stage of the game since it started), but unless I can come up with a magic bullet to deal with those vampires it's mathematically impossible for me to ever win, so I have to figure you'd be able to beat me eventually, somehow. And it wouldn't be terribly fun playing for months and months with nothing happening waiting for that shoe to drop. So I'm pretty much at a loss for what to do, except for one or two remaining plans (which I don't have all that much confidence in, really, but I'd just be playing into your hands if I gave up early).

[Groundworm]

Apologies, but I've been stuck working long hours these past few days. Could I have a 24 hour extension, please?

[Valerius]

Sure, hosting postponed 24 hours.

[Groundworm]

I think we should reconsider ending the game and declaring Jotunheim the winner. For real this time. My army is a shambles and what few mages remain to me are slowly withering. I have little income, and I can't spend the gems I have because I need my mages leading my vine men into combat. In short, I have no real way of offering any further resistance. All the while, Jotunheim keeps summoning more and more vampires to replenish his armies on my border.

I feel like I've fought as well as I can, but I don't really have anything more to offer up.

[Soyweiser]

I thought DragonRider still had one master plan he wanted to pull off. And I don't think he will go down without another fight.

To be honest, I was getting a bit burned out at this game. (Happend before, and the results of those turns speak for themselves). But I have thought up a few new tricks to pull of. Nothing major. But some ways to put the pressure back on Dragonrider.

And yeah, I don't think you are that much of a thread atm groundworm. Sure I do not have a huge army at that side. (The one you fought was largely decimated, and AC has prevented me from summoning more troops as chaff. But your army is also wrecked. And I think I can beat the one you are sending in now.

[DragonRider]

Well, I just dispelled Burden of Time and blocked the recast, so obviously I'm less inclined to give in now than I was before. Hell, even if my latest master-plan fails utterly (which past experience suggests it probably will), my gold and gem economies are both so strong right now that just playing the long game and flat-out out-summoning Jotunheim might even be an option if the current status quo persists. I'd rather it not come to that, of course, given that Jotunheim's blood economy means that their position on the gem scoreboard is better than it looks, but until there's an actual threat of invasion it may not be impossible for me to just outproduce them over a long enough period of time.

Even in a worst-case scenario where Jotunheim totally conquers Shinuyama with me still not being able to crack the border, vampires can't defend that front NEARLY as well as they can the one I'm currently pushed up against, so that still might not be worthy of declaring an immediate game over. So I really don't have nearly as much incentive to surrender as I felt like I did a little while ago.

[Soyweiser]

I assumed as much. :)

Wow, we have been fighting the whole game have we...

[DragonRider]

Hm. I'm beginning to suspect that the function of Wind Ride is not, as the in-game description suggests, to teleport a hapless enemy commander halfway across the continent to a pre-established murder-factory of your own design. Disappointing. Actually I've cast it three times now and I'm still not entirely sure what it does.

[Valerius]

At the very least the description is misleading. I was always under the impression this spell was bugged but then seem to recall something about it being fixed. Regardless, I ran a score of tests and (assuming the target was actually affected and didn't just fall to the ground as they sometimes do) in each case the target only moved one province. So you could use it to set a trap (anticipating where they'll land) or remove a commander from a battle but it won't just transport them to your caster's province (unless of course you're only one province away).

Edit: it is worth mentioning that when the commanders fall to the ground they take damage. Not sure how much, but 11 HP, 0 prot dryads were consistently dying in my tests.

[Pjoo]

Im gonna come back from this you'll see!

Shinuyama temples razed: 7

Someone has serious case of underestmating Pjoo :D

[Groundworm]

It's not so much a case of underestimating you as much as I had nothing with which to destroy your pretender combined with the need to attempt to defeat Jotunheim. My war against Jotunheim was quite unsuccessful, and now I basically have nothing.

I guess soon my lands will be covered with giants and lizards, more's the pity.

[Soyweiser]

**** staled, sorry. I knew there was something I still had to do before going to sleep.

[Valerius]

*%$&! Sorry abut that. I've obviously been keeping an eye on on things and postponing hosting if needed but I completely lost track of this one.

I'm going to go ahead and change the hosting interval to 96 hours. I don't want to set it to too long an interval and have the game never end but you've played almost 100 turns and it's been a while since we actually had all turns in within 72 hours.

[Pjoo]

*%$&! Sorry abut that. I've obviously been keeping an eye on on things and postponing hosting if needed but I completely lost track of this one.

I'm going to go ahead and change the hosting interval to 96 hours. I don't want to set it to too long an interval and have the game never end but you've played almost 100 turns and it's been a while since we actually had all turns in within 72 hours.

Maybe also increase the reminder time? Can't be really checking the mail every 12 hours, 24 would be more useful?

[Valerius]

Maybe also increase the reminder time? Can't be really checking the mail every 12 hours, 24 would be more useful?

That's a good idea; reminders will now be sent 24 hours before hosting.

[Soyweiser]

I'm away this weekend, so I will not be able to play the next turn until Tuesday. Will still try to do turn 100 in time.

[DragonRider]

I'm probably going to need this turn delayed by at least a few days, if possible. I'm having some serious computer issues that probably need to be solved by reformatting, the data I need backed up is catastrophically disorganized, and I have some time-sensitive work I need to get done on the computer to boot, so dealing with all of that is going to be an ordeal for a little while.

[Valerius]

Ok, no problem. I see your current turn is in so once the game hosts I'll put a delay on the next turn and extend it further if needed. Good luck fixing the computer.

[Valerius]

Marignon's turn is missing so I sent DragonRider a PM to see how things are going with his computer and whether he's still interested in the game. Unfortunately he staled last turn. I extended hosting a couple of times because he was having computer problems but I missed checking before the last scheduled hosting time and he staled. Sorry about that. :(

[Valerius]

Also, if you haven't already downloaded llamabeast's correct version of CBM 1.6 (found here (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=47550)) please do so.

[Soyweiser]

Any updates on the status of DragonRider?

[Valerius]

I haven't heard anything. This is a holiday weekend in the U.S. so that could account for it but he was also having computer problems and hasn't logged in for over a week. I'll postpone hosting again but I think if we don't hear anything by midweek we'll need to decide how to proceed. The last time we discussed this it seemed like DragonRider wanted to continue and everyone else was fine with either continuing or calling it a game. We could look for a sub but based on the score charts it looks like Jotun's position has only gotten stronger since then so it seems quite reasonable to declare Soyweiser the winner.

[Groundworm]

At this point I am only a dried husk of an empire with no real motivation other than to cling to life. The real battle has been between Marignon and Jotunheim. At this point it's been over 2 weeks since we've heard from DragonRider, which I think is a reasonable length of time to wait. I would be fine with handing victory to Jotunheim.

I don't mean this with malice- DragonRider put up an excellent fight against Soyweiser; better than I could have done, I'll wager.

[Valerius]

Ok, I haven't heard from DragonRider so I think we need to decide how to proceed.

We can either look for a sub or end the game.

Based on the graphs it looks to me like Soyweiser has the game won. I suppose if everyone allied against him there might still be a chance to stop him but perhaps not even then. Groundworm has already mentioned he's fine with ending it. Pjoo, are you also ok with this decision?

[Soyweiser]

Personally, I would not be a big fan of a sub. As this game is starting to get towards the end both in stuff that can still be done, and my personal motivation.

Sadly I do not know the position of Marignon all that good. Sure he has most of the elemental royalty, and some other SC. But my skrattir can send those to hell in a heartbeat. And the past few turns I have been increasing my blood slave income even more, it depends on the turn, but each turn I have enough slaves to summon devils+imps and a vamp lord. With slaves to spare. I think I would eventually destroy Marignon, but it will take many many turns. As I would either need very large and vulnerable armies. (As I still cannot beat a large Marignon army without nasty tricks). Or, a lot of time to allow my dominion to push into mars lands. (And I would need to assassinate his inquisitor priests).

In my own lands I have enough vamps and vamp lords to withstand any invasion. I just need to prevent mar from getting a foothold. (which he got before, and that cost me some dominion, and thus lands).

And of course Astral Corruption could be dispelled, but that would just force me to put it up a few turns later.

[Valerius]

After the incredible fight you and DragonRider have had (What is, 60 turns? Maybe more?) it does seem a shame to have a sub step in. And the game is now far enough along that it is probably starting to become a burden, rather than being fun.

We haven't heard from Pjoo, so I'll PM him. Assuming he agrees, let's end the game.

[Valerius]

I heard back from Pjoo and he's also ok with ending the game. Congratulations, Soyweiser!

As an observer, it really seemed like Soyweiser and DragonRider had a superb, evenly matched, fight that went on for most of the game. Soyweiser, did you still plan on writing an AAR? I'd be interested in hearing some more on how this war went. And hopefully DragonRider will stop by at some point and give us his side of the tale.

I also want to thank Pjoo again for stepping in as a sub.

I hope everyone enjoyed the game.

Edit: I also really enjoyed some of the posts in this thread. DragonRider's comments on Zwago the Zmey's Krazy Kokytos Adventure were hilarious.

[Soyweiser]

Thanks for hosting Valerius. I'll try to do some sort of AAR. But it is going to be a lot of work. So it will be long term stuff. If I do not finish it, feel free to remind me :).

[Groundworm]

Good game, everyone. And much thanks again to Valerius, who has been an excellent and accommodating host.

[DragonRider]

Oh man. I'm really sorry I disappeared for so long. It's kind of a long story...the short version is that my computer was crippled and I needed to reformat, but it turned out that somebody misplaced or threw out my Windows XP disk for some unthinkable reason. Cue days spent frantically searching for it, giving up, paying far too much for a new one online (from some tiny outlet, because XP hasn't been manufactured for years), it takes forever to get delivered, I wind up so far behind in my work that I need to spend all my time catching up with that for a while, and a bunch of other obligations crop up on top of it.

Maybe it's for the best. To be honest I don't think I had much of a chance at this point. My original plan, such as it was, was to take the six or so death mages I had acquired through various means, give them all Communion Matrices and as much penetration gear as I could fit on them, and spam Control the Dead like crazy in hopes of getting rid of those vampires permanently.

The problem with this was twofold...one, it would have been trivial for Jotunheim to cast Antimagic and render my success chance negligible, and two, forging all the equipment and summoning all the troops I needed was taking FOREVER because of all the extra precautions I needed to take due to Astral Corruption. A bunch of key tasks could only be safely performed by a single mage, who could only cast every other turn because I kept getting forced to cast Returning and then trek out to another province so I could cast it again. By the time I was finally nearing completion on all of this, Jotunheim had whipped up who knows how many hundreds of Devils, who benefited from Darkness, were immune to fire, and who obviously wouldn't be affected by Control the Dead. I had a couple of side plans, but I don't think my odds of winning the upcoming battle were very high even with Demon Cleansing up, especially given how disastrous all the previous ones were.

In the end it was the combination of Darkness and Claws of Kokytos that got me. No troop type that I could mass could match either Vampires or Devils under Darkness. I couldn't just send in over a dozen darksight Ember Lords in to hack them apart because no matter how many I had they could all be trivially banished inside of two rounds due to the irresistible Claws of Kokytos cast by recruit-anywhere mages. The bulk of my own mages, in addition to not being able to hit the broad side of a barn under darkness, were one-trick ponies whose fire magic and MR-negates astral magic were easily countered (Jotunheim never even needed to bother casting Warriors of Muspelheim, which I know he could have on at least one summoned demon). For all my advantages in gold and gems, there didn't seem to be anything I could spend them on to solve those two key problems. I spent most of the latter half of the game searching for some magic bullet that would hopefully negate my biggest current problem (Warriors of Niefelheim for frost evocations, Storm and extra fire magic for vampire suicide waves, elaborate Control the Dead shenanigans for a committed battle against vampires, etc.), but by the time one was prepared Jotunheim had always come up with something worse, all while his territory and blood economy kept growing due to gains from weaker nations. I needed a shift in momentum to get anything done and every attempt to turn things around failed.

My only real regret is that I was curious as to how much damage a dozen or so Rocs could do. They seemed like the most useful air-gem sink I had (it was going to be Draconians until I remembered oops they're cold-blooded) and I had no shortage of them due to having used Gale Gate to prevent the recast of Burden of Time, and I kept trying to decide what they could best be used on. I was thinking about either doing a sickening amount of raiding (map move 5!) or sending them to battle, having them fly through the storm and all spam Shockwave in hopes of thinning out the enemy lines. I doubt either would have really saved the day, since they couldn't beat a blood hunter (the only kind of raiding that would have really mattered) and the defense penalty on Darkness would have probably gotten them swarmed and eaten before they could cast many spells, but it would have been interesting to see nonetheless (if only there had been a summonable, flying, air-immune troop more cost-effective than worthless Spring Hawks to serve as bodyguards for them the kamikaze wave idea might have worked, but I lost all my royalty-summoned air elementals when they proved unable to retreat from my last disaster).

[Soyweiser]

While I plan to react with a bigger post than this, I want to clear one thing up. Returning also works when you are in your cap province.