Kings of Drama - Keeping up the proud tradition

[Juffos]

Kings of Drama, come for the game, stay for the drama!
hopefully not this tim-ONE CASUALTY ALREADY, REQUEST DENIED

Era: MA
Players: 16
Map: Crown5 (modified Riverlands) (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=9966&d=1271861434)
Mods: newest CBM (http://www.mediafire.com/?adyxdt2l566i6qn) S&S (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6545&d=1218103230)
Host: Llamaserver

Indies: 5
HoF: 15
Research: standard
Sites: 60
Victory: hold 6 capitols (forts) for 3 turns (not Ashdod)
Hosting: 24h quickhost, 36+h when requested
Ashdod: allowed
Diplomacy: see above
Graphs: on
Everything else: standard


Players of all skill levels are welcome, as long as you play for fun, are a stubborn fighter and determined to win.

ALL extension requests and possible diplomancy etc should be made through IRC (Juffos @ qnet, ircnet & gamesurge), I'm not that active on the forums.

Browser IRC Client (http://wbe02.mibbit.com/?server=irc.gamesurge.net&channel=%23dominions&noServerTab=false&noticesToActiveTab=false) (thanks Verjigorm)

Abysia - NooBliss
Agartha - Stagger Lee
Ashdod - ghoul31
Bandar Log - Debaser8
C'tis - Ossa
Caelum - Pjoo
Ermor - Executor
Jotunheim - Awund
Man - AngelSong
Mictlan - Quitti
Oceania - Frozenlama
Pangaea - mscfish
Pythium - Verjigorm
Shinuyama - Herrmeister
T'ien Ch'i - Corinthian
Ulm - Juffos (game admin)

Note that not all players can be contacted through Shrapnel games forums - some are from the dom3mods board.

[Quitti]

I'll hop in as Mictlan.

For victory, I'd recommend take&hold 1/3 of the caps, ie 5 caps for 3 turns with 15 players.

edit: Anyone wanting to contact me diplo-wise should use IRC also.

[ghoul31]

ashdod

[Ossa]

Could we add the endgame diversity mod?

And I'd like to join with Ctis.

[Juffos]

Could we add the endgame diversity mod?

And I'd like to join with Ctis.

As far as I know, the newest CBM (1.71) includes EDM, armor revamp mod and the arena boost mod.

[Executor]

Ermor

[Herrmeister]

I'll join in as Shinuyama.

[mscfish]

I'd like to join as Pangaea.

[Awund]

I'd like to play as Jotunheim.

[Debaser8]

Bandar-MFing-Log
And I suggest 4 capitals as the victory condition rather than 5.

[Pjoo]

I could take mammoths... I mean Caelum! Damn Quitti stole my Aztecs!

[NooBliss]

I'd like to sign in as Aby please.

[Verjigorm]

I would say 1/3N+1 of capitols sounds good (N being the number of nations), but I would like them to be held for 10 turns. 3 turns is barely long enough to storm a castle.

[Awund]

I would say 1/3N+1 of capitols sounds good (N being the number of nations), but I would like them to be held for 10 turns. 3 turns is barely long enough to storm a castle.

Does it count when someone is besieging your castle?

[Zeldor]

No, you need to control it whole. So VP goes to someone that is inside fort.

[AngelSong]

By Avalon's name,I choose MAN.

[Quitti]

10 turns of cap holding is definitely too long. The whole point of the victory condition is to eliminate the endgame grind of the last 10-15 turns where everything is already clear. If a nation can hold all of those capitals for 3 turns, there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. Hint: You don't want to wait until someone has all the caps before starting to work against them.

[Verjigorm]

10 turns of cap holding is definitely too long. The whole point of the victory condition is to eliminate the endgame grind of the last 10-15 turns where everything is already clear. If a nation can hold all of those capitals for 3 turns, there's absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. Hint: You don't want to wait until someone has all the caps before starting to work against them.

I don't really care--either way is fine with me, and I like the use of the modified Riverlands map that we used on Countdown. It's an attractive and interesting map--lots of lovely borders and bridges.

On another note, I will not be around much this weekend, and while I don't think it will be a problem since we just now called for Pretenders up (mine is uploaded already btw), I will not be able to submit a turn until Sunday evening (Central time GMT-6) at the earliest.

[mscfish]

The S&S mod is too ugly.
:(

[Awund]

I still need to create my pretender, but I won't be able to do so before Sunday afternoon.

[Executor]

Why is streams and standards being used btw? It's a rather crappy mod (no disrespect to the creator) and completely useless, further more it just screws with the score graphs.

[Quitti]

I find it clearer than the vanilla flags - true it's quite different style, but still.

You can create empty s&s mod file if you want to see the vanilla graphics in a game where s&s is used. This though means that if you'll ever join kingmaker or other multi-age game, you should copy the original mod files back.

[NooBliss]

I'd rather have vanilla flags, pretty please. Streams&Standarts are necessary for multi-age games, I suppose, but in a single-age game vanilla flags are actually easier to identify.

[Executor]

That's not true even for multi age, S&S is horrific in mutli age games as some of the nations have the exact same banner. I've had that problem once

And yes I know Quitti, I plan to do exactly that. Thanks.

[Juffos]

Oh, I thought nobody would mind. Sorry.

[Verjigorm]

Looks like we're waiting on Oceania (Frozenllama) to submit pretender?

[PriestyMan]

oh **** sorry guys totally spaced. get it in tonight

Edit: sent

[PriestyMan]

I submit that ashdod cheating is a valid balance tweak :)

[Quitti]

Indeed. At least the game knows which nation is overpowered.

[Pjoo]

Ashdod is cheating
Ashdod is too powerful considering the current Dominions 3 rules. This might be caused by cheating or by using when designing the nation. The nation's God has been reduced in power.

Everything seems fine to me.

[Quitti]

So I reckon we go on since no-one cares if Ashdod's god has been reduced in power. All in favor yell "AYE".

[Corinthian]

To be fair. Ashdod is only dangerous with a good bless. If you subtract the bless then ashdod will be reduced to a kitten.
It's not like he have good scales or anything.

[Executor]

Have both Pretenders magic and bless been reduced in power, or just magic paths, now that's the question...

[nozshand]

Its actually a good thing now that the Ashdod god has lost his power, rumor has the god slaved one of the greatest champion of Ashdod whose strength almost matched the god himself before the god went dormant, now the champion will be freed and rise from beneath.

The champion is fueled with rages so unless you all want to die, expel him from the game now mortals

[Verjigorm]

So... are we going to play with gimped Ashdod or are we going to reset and have him re-upload?

[PriestyMan]

Ashdod has submitted his turn so i assume he is ok with just playing. so..... GET ON WITH IT!!!! :)

[Corinthian]

Ahh. Truly we are the Kings of Drama.

[Juffos]

Since the Ashdod player doesn't seem to mind, having sent his turn in, we will proceed.

[Awund]

I will be away from a computer with dom3 on it this weekend, starting Friday around noon. I'll be back Sunday evening very late. Could I get an 48 hour extension for the turn starting on Friday morning (so it would end on Monday morning) or do I have to search a sub for the weekend? I'd hate to stall so early in a game.

[PriestyMan]

ALL extension requests and possible diplomancy etc should be made through IRC (Juffos @ qnet, ircnet & gamesurge), I'm not that active on the forums.


read here. i suggest you get on irc

[Awund]

Right, I forgot about that. I'll make sure to ask on irc tomorrow.

[Verjigorm]

ALL extension requests and possible diplomancy etc should be made through IRC (Juffos @ qnet, ircnet & gamesurge), I'm not that active on the forums.


read here. i suggest you get on irc

Try this link...

http://wbe02.mibbit.com/?server=irc.gamesurge.net&channel=%23dominions&noServerTab=false&noticesToActiveTab=false

[Juffos]

Seemed like Oceania wouldn't be able to submit turn in time, hosting postponed due to another request too.

[PriestyMan]

i got this. lol. but thanks anyways

[ghoul31]

We need to start the game over.The computer took away my bless

[Debaser8]

You made a druid pretender in 1.6 and used in 1.7?

[Quitti]

Ghoul31: meh. No.

[Debaser8]

I believe, based on a quick test, Ghoul's pretender was stripped of all paths. On that basis I think we should restart.

[mscfish]

Personally,I dont think it is funny to play with a nation(ashdod here) which is punished because of the careless design.
If we want to restart the game,I think it should be do as quickly as possible.

[Executor]

Good game title Juffos...

[PriestyMan]

ashdod doesnt need a bless. i think this is a great way to balance a very OP nation. besides, its turn 3 already.

[Verjigorm]

...and the drama begins. ;)

[Awund]

Thanks for the extension, it's appreciated. It's a very bad situation for Ashdod to be left with a god without any magic, on the other hand it was posted in this topic before the first turn. I don't care whether we restart or not, but if we do we have to do it soon.

[NooBliss]

No restart please. I object.

[Quitti]

its turn 3 already.

Actually 4. Also, about half of the players have already submitted that too.

While I could live with a restart, this should teach people to actually pay attention to their failings in case we don't restart. But Ashdod would probably just go AI for the heck of it and cause more drama. That being seid, I'd still prefer no restart.

[mscfish]

It's not good to play with ai in a so early game

:(

[Verjigorm]

Seriously, though, what would you expect? It would be a serious flaw if the cheat prevention let you keep the blessing because you could just cheat up a 10F10W10A10E10S10D10N10B Bless and let the cheat-o-mat kill your dude then waste everyone.

[ghoul31]

The druid costs 10 more points in cbm 1.7 that seems to have been the problem.

[PriestyMan]

Onward i say!

[Stagger Lee]

:popcorn:

[Verjigorm]

I would have to approve of the restart, much though I dislike the idea. One option would leave Ashdod essentially crippled and the other would make an AI player on turn 4... Neither of those are favorable IMO.

[mscfish]

I would have to approve of the restart, much though I dislike the idea. One option would leave Ashdod essentially crippled and the other would make an AI player on turn 4... Neither of those are favorable IMO.

Agree with you.although it is not a good idea to restart,but it is much better than make an AI in such a early time,turn 4.

[Corinthian]

I don't mind either way. My start was not spectacular. Though i would appreciate at lest one more turn so that i could see whether or not my starting army really could beat those elephants.

Witch ever you choose, do it soon. This game was pretty slow, even before the drama came along.

Juffos could flip a coin, or something.

[Juffos]

We have already decided on this. The restart should have been done during the first turn.

We will proceed.

[Pjoo]

Well, we could actually ignore Ashdod capitol when calculating victory points?

[ghoul31]

I didn't get my prophet until turn 4. So I didn't know what my bless was until then.

Most people seem to agree that we should restart,but Juffos wants to be a jerk about it for some reason, so I'll just go AI then.

[Juffos]

We all knew what your bless was going to be when we received the cheat message during the first turn. You got it too, and it was your own decision to ignore it. We discussed the message here on the forums and concluded on a decision based on your actions.

By the way, your definition of "most people" seems to be quite interesting.

tl;dr
Can I have some fries with all that whine, please?

[ghoul31]

I didn't know what that message meant. I didn't know what affect it would have.

But at least I'm starting to find out who the aholes are on this forum. You are now on my ignore list.

[Juffos]

:lol

[Quitti]

You are now on my ignore list.

OH NOES IGNORE LIST.

Sorry for flamebaiting. Just had to do it.

You had ample opportunity to rectify your 1st turn situation, yet you didn't. I consider this course of action fair.

[Executor]

Whoever takes over Ashdod can consider themselves in war with me. ;)
I'm actually serious.

[Verjigorm]

I agree with 0-pointing Ashdod's capitol.

[Juffos]

Occam wins, Ashdodian capitol doesn't count towards victory.

[Quitti]

Sounds good to me.

Ghoul31, will you be submitting your turn or not? We'd like to get on with the game and you are the only one we're waiting for.

[Corinthian]

I didn't get my prophet until turn 4. So I didn't know what my bless was until then.

Most people seem to agree that we should restart,but Juffos wants to be a jerk about it for some reason, so I'll just go AI then.

Ghoul31, please understand. No one likes to play against Ashdod, because that might just mean that they have a horde of sacred giants sieging their capital on turn 12. By extension they will not like the player of Ashdod. Now however they have no need to and will not gang up on you!

Second: Even without a powerful bless, and the points for said bless wasted, Ashdod is still more powerful than nations like Man, Ulm, Machacka and Oceania. And three of those nations are actually in the game!

So please don't give up just yet.

[Debaser8]

Looks like Ashdod has gone AI.

[Juffos]

Steel, not flesh!

[Corinthian]

Anyhow. Whatever happened to Shinuyama. Did their capital get a visit from knights/Bogus? Or was he rushed? Because that is one sorry score chart line.

[NooBliss]

They decided to join Abyssia.

[Corinthian]

I see. Perhaps it was lucky that I were not allowed to pick Shinuyama.Still you'd think they of all nation would be prepared for a Abyssian rush. Seeing as they have hard hitting dai-bakemono, that can pierce both armor and high defense.

Maybe they picked sloth scales?

[NooBliss]

It's all about charisma. :)

[Stagger Lee]

I sent a PM on irc, but just in case will ask here too. Can I have an extra 24hr this turn? Happy Turkey Day, all!

Go Jets!

[Juffos]

Happy turkey day postponements granted.

[Corinthian]

Just wondering. Why is Shinuyama supposed submit a turn, despite the fact that they were just dom-killed?

[Debaser8]

You have to submit the turn after you are defeated for some reason. Maybe, just a final kick on the way out.

[Pjoo]

Ok so umm...

There was this guy Pjoo, who wanted to have Uber-High Seraphs with cool heroic abilities like extra precision or reinvigoration. Then the one of his High Seraphs gets on the Hall of Fame...

Unequaled Obesity! Ok, so, that guy went from potentially uber high seraph to research only high seraph. Lets see how the other one I have been using turns out... He gets on the Hall of Fame...

Unequaled Obesity! For some reason people looked at me funny when I burst into laugh in middle of a lecture. Wohoo, now I got TWO high seraphs only useful for research.

The moral of the story? Never waste research time just because it'd be cool if your mages had heroic abilities.

[NooBliss]

Well flying should be quite exhausting, expecially for a humanoid-sized creature. They have to eat a lot. ))

[Verjigorm]

Unequaled Obesity!

Sounds like you selected "America" as your nation rather than Caelum. What you need to do is select "Construct Building" from the orders menu and then "Demolish McDonalds". That should fix it.

[Verjigorm]

Pythium's doom has been sealed by Mictlan. The empire will be burned so as not to enrich them any further.

The Capitol of Pythium is province 89.

There are no significant magic sites to report.

The lion's share of my gem hoard will be transmitted this turn.

I will remain until my last province is taken.

...and for those wondering, Mictlan's bless is 9W9D.

[AngelSong]

Every beginning has a end.Mystic of Avalon almost destroy by Abysia's flame and T'ien Ch'i's Blade.Man's people turn to pray,for a glorious death.

[Quitti]

Herp derp. Verjigorm could've been a better sport, but we can live with everyone knowing our bless! Oh my!

Got to hate that pythian PD. My troops can't break through it.

[Verjigorm]

Better sport how? I always release any interesting information I have when I go down--once it has no intelligence value for me, what's the point in keeping it secret? Additionally... since I'm sure you will easily kill me, why not burn everything down--you are after all, on top of the charts. :P

[Corinthian]

Every beginning has a end.Mystic of Avalon almost destroy by Abysia's flame and T'ien Ch'i's Blade.Man's people turn to pray,for a glorious death.

Remember when I gave you my spot in BearTrap? Yea. I figured that I would last longer in this game than you and that you would need a new game soon.

A strategic tip to you: Talk with your neighbors. Because it's the guy that no one hear from that will be attacked first. In many ways diplomacy is more important than battle field strategy.

I have at least some diplomatic relations with every one of my neighbors, except you and Awund. But Awund is a bad man. He never responds to my messages in the other game.:(

[NooBliss]

... Almost as important as some flanking cavalry. ^^

[AngelSong]

Every beginning has a end.Mystic of Avalon almost destroy by Abysia's flame and T'ien Ch'i's Blade.Man's people turn to pray,for a glorious death.

Remember when I gave you my spot in BearTrap? Yea. I figured that I would last longer in this game than you and that you would need a new game soon.

A strategic tip to you: Talk with your neighbors. Because it's the guy that no one hear from that will be attacked first. In many ways diplomacy is more important than battle field strategy.

I have at least some diplomatic relations with every one of my neighbors, except you and Awund. But Awund is a bad man. He never responds to my messages in the other game.:(
Thank you for giving me the spot in BearTrap.
When I see the Oce at turn 2 and see jomon at turn 3 And see abysia at turn 4，I see the end...
Power country nearly my neighbors,and I haven't powerful God.That is why I see you and not diplomatic reasons.
Failure is sooner or later.

[Corinthian]

... Almost as important as some flanking cavalry. ^^

I think I did put them on flanking duty every time but the first time. It did not work. I do seem to keep my cavalry though. They don't die in battle much. They just retreat when the rest of my forces do. Maybe I should dedicate a squad of sheep infantry to hold position in the rear and act as cheerleaders. Then my cavalry could win the battle on their own.:p

[Awund]

I have at least some diplomatic relations with every one of my neighbors, except you and Awund. But Awund is a bad man. He never responds to my messages in the other game.:(
I should've been more active diplomatic wise in this game, but in tenderfeet I have diplomatic relations with all my neighbours except with you, sorry. I was a bit short on time this week and while I did do all my turns I didn't take enough time to do proper diplomacy.

Anyway, I'm meeting the hordes of Ermor now and I'm quite low on the charts anyway. If you want to crush me now is the time, if you want to make a stance against ermor now is the time too.

[Quitti]

top of the charts. :P

top of the charts.... until mid-late game. MA Mictlan is a sad nation.

Also, I liked the poetry AngelSong gave us. It was beautiful. I don't know what it means though.

[Stagger Lee]

Treachery!

We were taken in by their silvery tongues, and sweet smelling emissaries!

But these men are not of the earth, or with the earth. The simply use the earth as a means to an end, a fearful, terrible end. No treaty with these unprincipled men, whose hearts are as black as their armor, should be considered binding. The darkness take you, vile smiths of the lowest form!



(the ridicilliously overpowered in cbm 1.7 nation of Ulm blatantly disregarded a nap3 of his own proposing to invade Agartha :ahh:)

[Quitti]

Oh man, of all the nations the most powerful of them all attacked you!

The nation of Mictlan condemnes all violations of diplomacy and continues their meddling elsewhere. Be seeing you!

[Quitti]

Oops, I accidentally the whole pythian army, is this serious? Abysia at least seems to enjoy bashing pythian PD too, welcome aboard to the failboat!

[NooBliss]

Oh, nevermind us. We just needed a passage to some tasty indies, and Pythium is dead anyway. Dead men don't need shoes, right?

[Verjigorm]

Oops, I accidentally the whole pythian army, is this serious? Abysia at least seems to enjoy bashing pythian PD too, welcome aboard to the failboat!

Gladiators are relatively easy to kill, but I had figured you wouldn't actually fight them instead preferring to use the standard anti-gladiator tactic which is to take them out with a tiny force set on retreat and back your army off of my capitol which is what you did. If I had instead used my resources to build a small number of durable soldiers, you probably would not have removed your army from my capitol.

Now that your army has left the capitol of Pythium, I get another attempt to demolish the fort which was the the purpose of the invasion, and if you had left your army in place to fight the gladiators, I would have most likely injured your force in some way which is also good, but, I think, probably significantly less expensive than the possibility of losing a free castle. Which means that opting to remove your army from the capitol may have, in fact, been the wrong choice depending on whether or not you can retake the capitol next turn and prevent me from destroying the castle. Since my entire force is set to attack you in your current province, there exists a probability that your force will not be able to reoccupy the capitol in which case, you lose the castle. ;)

As for my strategy, it was an obvious failure, but it was my first attempt at using Pythium in MP. My building strategy, I think, should have employed Hydras to take out early indies since they're quite good at that and for some reason intimidating to early rushers (according to other people, whom I don't necessarily believe), and used gladiator groups to capture capitol neighbors on the first few turns to produce an income lead. The strategy I used was sh!t, I admit it. It was a very poor opening.

[PriestyMan]

Props to Man for denying the castles to his enemies. way to spite them!

[Quitti]

I would have most likely injured your force in some way which is also good, but, I think, probably significantly less expensive than the possibility of losing a free castle.

Except that I would've had the need to ferry more troops from over 6 provinces away, which would cost me few more turns to deal with this whole mess. And I'm kind of time-constrained. Sure, I'll miss your great city if you manage to take it out.

there exists a probability that your force will not be able to reoccupy the capitol in which case, you lose the castle. ;)

Depends on the nation order. cba to check out which one of us gets the first move.

should have employed Hydras to take out early indies

True. Your expansion was pitifully weak compared to most other nations.

Dead men don't need shoes, right?
Exactly. Though it might be sandals in this case.

[Executor]

As far as I've seen everyone's expansion was pitifully weak in this game, doe I blame that on the map, it's hard to work around all those choke points, bridges, mountains...

[Verjigorm]

No... My lackluster expansion was due to stupidity resulting from laziness... Blaming the map will not improve my future performance.

[Verjigorm]

Depends on the nation order. cba to check out which one of us gets the first move.



Pythium is nation #29, Mictlan is #33.

I had thought it was somehow randomized... I recall reading something in the manual (that I don't want to look up right now) that said that aggressive movements occur in a random order, but if what you say is true, and it is based on the nation ordinal, then I will successfully block your move back onto the capitol and the city will be burned to ashes before you arrive.

Also, I'm not Man, as someone stated above, but rather Pythium, and once it was clear that "winning" is not an achievable goal, then in accordance with the Honorable Player rules, I must, therefore, alter the goal to seek to injure my opponent(s) as much as possible before I fade into Oblivion. Assuming that all of my property becomes the property of various enemy factions, then the best option, therefore, is to damage or destroy my enemy's future property while it is under my control unless production within said property would yield a greater net loss to my opponent than it's ruin. In this case ruin trumped production due primarily to the projected speed of conquest, and demolishing production facilities became the most profitable option.

[Quitti]

in accordance with the Honorable Player rules, I must, therefore, alter the goal to seek to injure my opponent(s)

Exactly. I commend thee on following this tenet, my dear sir. It's what I usually do.

[PriestyMan]

You are not Man, but the player who is man just demolished *2* of his own castles in order to deny them from his enemies

[Executor]

So that's Ashdod, Shinyjama, Man, and Pythium so far. Is it even turn 20 yet?

[NooBliss]

You forgot about Utgard. ^^ He is just as dead as Man, isnt he.

[Quitti]

Utgard is LA nation, this is MA game afaik.

[Executor]

Abysia, that would be a good place to stop your expansion, you've taken crystal sorceresses, don't get greedy.

[NooBliss]

Of course.

[Verjigorm]

Success! The destruction of Pythium's capitol fortification went as planned. All remaining provinces should be at or above 100 unrest.


Aaah.... Mission accomplished.

[Awund]

So that's Ashdod, Shinyjama, Man, and Pythium so far. Is it even turn 20 yet?
And jotunheim, I'm as good as dead (down to 2 provinces).

[Awund]

Ok, that was before I viewed the last turn. I'm now down to 12 units without commanders in my sieged capitol. I've set myself to AI too.

[Executor]

That was one heck of a battle.

[Pjoo]

Yep. It really looked like at one point you were going to lose, but then Jotunheim routed :/

[Stagger Lee]

A single thud.

Some have likened it to the sound of a prize 400lb tuna slipping out of a net and dropping 20 feet onto a concrete pier.

That is the sound of revelry in Agartha. No bells ring out, nobody dances in the street, but when the enemies of Agartha are dead or running away, at the end of the day, all agarthans raise a huge, meaty hand and in unison strike at the only thing they know they have a good chance of actually hitting - the rock outcrop above the cycloptic eye that most species call a "forehead". And for a night, they will be less morose, for Agartha is free and the pretty knights in black are dead, or gone, it matters not which. Tomorrow, the melancholy will return. Will Ulm?

[Verjigorm]

My last province is taken, and I am now officially out of the game.

Have fun!

[Ossa]

Ouch. I didnt know what at17 horsemen with 2 attacks with +6ap damage can do.

Looks like i did my TC builds wrong all the time;)

[Corinthian]

Ouch. I didnt know what at17 horsemen with 2 attacks with +6ap damage can do.

Looks like i did my TC builds wrong all the time;)


Why, thank you!

When I first made my pretender i read Baalz excellent guide for T'ien Ch'i. It was a rather awkward strategy involving masses of cheap infantry and super communions. Naturally, I turned around and did the complete opposite. After all, there is no point in using the same tactic that everyone else have already used and are expecting. For example: Baalz guide specifically states that T'ien Ch'is sacreds are bad and are to be ignored.:D

I'm essentially playing T'ien Ch'i: The sacred rush nation!

I could give you some more tips on playing TC but unfortunately I am playing against you right now and it would probably be a bad idea to reveal my had this soon.




Also, Ossa. Why all the temples? According to my calculations, you are putting out twice as much dominion as me and your dominion is caustic! Seriously! I built a ring of four temples by the entrance to your lands, plus used preachers. And my dominion was still being pushed back. I had to evacuate one of my research castles in order to avoid disease.:mad:

In short; you should have expected my attack!

[PriestyMan]

just wait till you have a big fight in the winter....

[Corinthian]

just wait till you have a big fight in the winter....

Faithless priest! The winter will not bring me down! It is I whom will bring the winter down!

You'll see! You will all see!

[NooBliss]

Shh! Dont mention this abominable season!
Heck, our old bones ache just from thinking about it...

[Juffos]

I will be gone during the weekend.

[NooBliss]

What's up with the hosting interval? One turn per week doesnt seem like much action.

[Corinthian]

It's probably to accommodate the fact that a lot of people will be unable to play regularly during the holidays. Me? I will party were the sun don't shine. I'm not kidding about this.

[Corinthian]

Um, guys? Keep in mind that just because it's a long timer doe not mean that you cant send the turn file early. If most people have already posted their turns, it will put pressure on those whom have not yet submitted and we can all play faster.

I can see several people that are online that have not submitted a turn yet.

[NooBliss]

Afaik, in order to make people submit turns earlier you have to shorten the timer. There's no other way. I, for one, dont feel like submitting my turn and waiting for 4 days - even if my turn is ready.

Thats why I asked to switch to some realistic schedule; host can always postpone the game after all.

[NooBliss]

Maybe it's more humane to declare this game finished?

[Quitti]

To whose benefit? Why?

[Stagger Lee]

Holiday breaks are neither unusual nor unwelcome. I assume normal scheduling will return in a week or so. As will the players. :)

[Juffos]

Santa called. This game is over.

...waitaminute

[Quitti]

...waitaminute

Exactly.

Now. Let's get this game going. Submit your turns! (Even the russians should find a moment of soberness for it!)

[Executor]

Will the hosting interval be lowered again, I have no intention in playing with a turn per week schedule.

[Corinthian]

Hmm. Oh yea! This game! I was playing TC right? Now what was I up to? This game move so slowly that I have forgotten.......

[Quitti]

Attack a neighbor, make it interesting again!

[Executor]

Ermor buying astral gems, we offer fire at exchange rate of 1.4 for 1, air at the exchange rate of 1.2 for 1 and death at 1 for 1 ratio, we also offer gold at the price of 30 gold per astral gems.

Also, anyone interested in selling blood slaves please contact us.

[NooBliss]

Is it just me, or is this game postponed yet again?

[Executor]

Yes, but I think this one was a Llamaserver delay. Llama seem to be fixing some bugs regarding the new patch, regarding score graphs? and I've seen other games get delayed (the ones I admin)

This of course means that someone will still wait til the deadline to drop in the turn, just before it hosts...

[NooBliss]

Damnit. Server has postponed the hosting even further!

[Corinthian]

Oh no! Pangaea! What happened to you?



Seriously though. I thought I would loose that battle. As such, I only sent the expendable mages that I could afford to miss. And I would probably have lost it too, were it not for one of my mages breaking script and spamming raise dead. That probably gave my army the hitpoints to resist a mass rout. It also, regrettably, killed half of my communion slaves. A fair trade though.


Anyway, what is going down in Mictlan these days? I don't have any scouts down there and i'm curious.

[Executor]

Never so good to stick everything in one single army. Was a good battle doe. I thought TC would have lost due to fatigue and critical hits eventually but it seems it was TC who cast relief.

But seriously? Panic? That was a terrible spell for either one of you.
Did either one of you actually script that spell or was that yet another brilliant AI move?
I expected something more like destruction + earth meld. I think that would have easily won you the battle Pangaea.

And yes, what is happening? I've been waiting for a while to see any real battles down there. I must say, I like your armies Bandar.

[Corinthian]

Yea, panic did not work out like he planned it. The problem seem to be that it always target the biggest, unbroken, unit first. For me? That would be my squad of Celestial soliders. I checked, and at one point one of them had moral -52. Unfortunately for Pangaea, he did not take any damage for a long time and did as such not need to make moral checks.

My only panic caster was a indy commander with a wall shaker. Wall shakers give you the ability to cast panic for free. And its not like he had anything better to do.

Personally, I expected him to cast: AoG and earthquake. But I did not realize that his only earth 4 caster only had 1 hitpoint. Man, Pangaea is really hurting for lack of bloodstones, aren't they?

[NooBliss]

Could we just increase hosting interval and stop postponing? IIRC each turn is being postponed twice since before the NE. I know it's very dramatic, but more then enough is too much. :)

[Quitti]

Anyway, what is going down in Mictlan these days? I don't have any scouts down there and i'm curious.

Oh the normal stuff, warm winters, hot summers. We're enjoying some stellar views from our castles while couple of nations are knocking at the doors. Not much to do but to drink enough wine (those endless bags are really good, they pack a punch) and this broth is really tasty. Yum. The general populace are confused though, why are the evil burning men and apes appearing all over? Are they scared of our forests or what? It's not like we haven't been peaceful (Except for those evil pythians, who were like really evil with their PD40 provinces!). We even forfeited all blood magic to keep you guys happy and this is how you repay us?

[Debaser8]

The score tables are stuck on turn 41. I was wondering if we should ask Llamabeast to update them. On the one hand it would be useful to have more information, on the other hand being a little in the dark might add to the fun/realism (a relative term in dominions) of the game and we do have graphs (though I find them harder to read for some things). And of course it would take some time from LLama who generously hosts the server.

[PriestyMan]

Juffos hasn't been on IRC as much as usual lately. this is frustrating. COME BACK! lol.

and stop turtling. beware of Juffos everyone. he's a known turtler

[Executor]

Oh noe! AN down...:p

I wonder who are the geniuses that are actually *helping* TC..?
Was it 4 nations TC?

Please don't take this the wrong way, but you folks are bloody idiots...

[Executor]

Well, that's about it for old Ermor. It seems my AN got dispeled again after I alchemized everything to cast it the second time.

I sincerely hope nobody was dumb enough to give TC pearls this time around...

[NooBliss]

Wow that's a... surprising turn of events. Chinese people are resourceful indeed. We'll make a really big funeral for them.
Or not, seeing how fast did Ermor go down. Good thing we don't need a funeral ourselves.

[Corinthian]

Welp, thats how it is when you cast Arcane Nexus. Either it gets dispelled directly and you loose or people fail to dispel it in time and the next cast is unbeatable and it is chayot apocalypse for everyone. I was working from the assumption that you got pearls from Pan, Oceania and Caelum and that you made somewhere between 80-200 pearls from the nexus every turn. As such I could not afford to not dispel it on turn one and neither could anyone else.

And as for four people... Well, four people offered sympathetic words. Three of them also promised pearls and two people delivered on those promises. (Abyssia!!!) But the great majority (80%) of the pearls were mine. And I had to alchemize quite a bit myself and had to overcast the dispels to guarantee success. Not cheap!

Also, your alliance is not half as doomed as you make it up to be. I would never consider a nation with a wisher and the village of strange men to be harmless. And both Oceania and Caelum have individually more thugs than I do. Both combined have three times the number of thugs that I do and thats considering I cant see parts of Oceania. Oceania got all the water queens, a Cyclops and at least 3 commander tarts that I can see. Not counting the one I killed. Oceania alone would be pretty scary if he was not frozen down under. It fit the name of his pretender though.

As a final note. Executor. Did you really intend for that big scary communion to cast returning? Were did they return to? Wasn't that their home castle?

[Executor]

Nope, I cast the AN alone, tho that's not a bad idea, I'll have to run it by Caelum and Ocean. :)
As for those sympathetic people, consider yourselves in war with Ermor. If I manage to get the AN up again by some chance I'm gonna armageddon and BoT your arses for allying with TC.

Well, given the fact that you have more gems that the 3 of us combined I wouldn't say we have much of a chance against you. The part where some of the nations are helping you isn't accommodating either.
* A logical move would have been to leave my AN until I managed to do some damage to TC and perhaps even push him back, leave the two of us to waste resources against one another, and than either dispel it or gank me, but flat out helping a nation that is 3 times stronger than everyone and on a fast lane to a win is kinda silly to me. *

Oh, btw TC has a bigger gem income than I do even with the AN, soooo???

Those nations must be very gullible if all it takes is for you to say that I have the alt site for them to donate gems. :)
Quick everyone, TC has the ultimate gateway and the summoning circle! :p

And as for that final note, Ermorian theurgs are laughably pathetic and a dozen of them are neither big or scary, and can hardly form a useful communion. And besides, you took out larger communions with just one rain of stones, and I can't even protect them effectively, so given the fact I had no idea with what you were storming since you changes troops two times I decided to save them mages. And no that was not my captial obviously.

By the way, did you by any chance cast raven feast on my capital after that ritual?
The carrion reanimation spell didn't work properly, there were about 600 corpses in my cap so I cast 5 carrion reanimations, but I only got 100 soulless, and strangely enough there are still some corpses in my cap.
But than again either all my rituals or the raven feast would go first due to casting order and monster ID right? So what went wrong?
I know the corpses should stay for the spells since I used to cast tidal waves, or black death with a remote attack on capitals and than cast carrion reanimation on them to breach castle walls in one turn.

[Corinthian]

Are you sure you did not get pearls from frozen? Then were did he get all those artifacts? His SC are littered with them and he himself claims that he has not researched const 8 yet. Don't tell me you gave them to him without getting anything in return!?! In retrospect, I might have horribly overcast those dispels.

Also, I thought returning mages would go to the castle you built them in? There is a home province tag after all. Oh well. You learn something new every day.

And I did cast raven feast on your capitol. I thought it was underwhelming that I only got 7 death gems out of it though.

[Executor]

Are you sure you did not get pearls from frozen? Then were did he get all those artifacts? His SC are littered with them and he himself claims that he has not researched const 8 yet. Don't tell me you gave them to him without getting anything in return!?! In retrospect, I might have horribly overcast those dispels.

Also, I thought returning mages would go to the castle you built them in? There is a home province tag after all. Oh well. You learn something new every day.

And I did cast raven feast on your capitol. I thought it was underwhelming that I only got 7 death gems out of it though.

I gave Frozen the aegis only, I think, asked for nothing in return. I have nobody to put it on so better to give him the aegis, it's still your troops getting killed right?

Hmm, that's rather strange, why did I get the soulless than if you cast raven fest after all? It should have used up all the corpses in the province.

[Corinthian]

Rituals are cast in turn order depending on unit number. I think. If you only got 100 soulless then you got one guy with lower unit nr than my caster. And the rest had higher nr. Its to bad it is not possible to check your units numbers yourself that I know of.

[Executor]

I always though that monster ID was used for that (shift+i on a monster name), and the monster get IDs randomly chosen from front or back every turn.

[PriestyMan]

monster id has nothing to do with it. it is all unit id

[Stagger Lee]

I have to go away next week, and am trying to arrange a temp sub. Please let me know if anybody knows someone who could do a couple of turns.

[Debaser8]

Our admin staled. A bit worrying.

[PriestyMan]

he hasnt been on irc for days. we may need to contact llamabeast

[Debaser8]

What do people think about pausing the game till we figure out the fate of Juffos?

[PriestyMan]

ok, i have the admin password, so i will try and make sure ulm doesnt stale anymore. someone on irc should solicite for a sub. my computer is being reparied, so i am using a friends computer and i dont have IRC access. I will post a sub thread too

[PriestyMan]

well calahan and quitti have spied him on irc, but he hasnt responded to them. i'll give them another day or so. i think stagger lee is out of town anyways atm. if he hasnt shown up/a sub hasnt shown by the weekend we will have to start considering AI, or perhaps we can convince players who have been defeated already to rejoin the game

[PriestyMan]

ok, ulm has submitted a turn for this game, so i guess he must be back or something.Since agartha's turn is still out, i'm guessing he is still away like he said he would be so i will keep extending for him then send in my own turn when stagger gets back.

[Debaser8]

Yeah, just saw Ulm submitted a turn, and I was like "WTF?". It would be nice if he let us know what was going on.

[Stagger Lee]

I'm back now. Looks like 1 stale. Could have been worse. Game on!

[PriestyMan]

heh, yeah my bad. i staled too. i blame Shogun2 Total War

[Debaser8]

What do you think of adding 24hr to the hosting schedule?

[PriestyMan]

i dont really care either way. do you need it?

Edit: With 1h left till hosting and ermor and ulm still out i have extended hosting for 8hours. i'll check again later tonight and hassle executor if he gets on irc. if ulm stales again, i will just take the nation off of juffos's hands and give it to lolomo i think

[Executor]

What? Stale? Never, I have an AN to cast of course!

Kinda of a stupid question, but what the hell is everybody waiting for exactly?
Bandar Log? Abysia? Don't you think it's about time you're joined against TC, otherwise we might as well call this game, I rather not waste my time pointlessly if you're just gonna sit there.

[PriestyMan]

ok, exec's turn is in. it looks like ulm isnt going to be sending a turn in, so i have sent lolomo a pm since he said he would sub. i will extend the turn for at least a day for him

[LoloMo]

Hi all, I'm taking over Ulm in place of Juffos until he gets back. I know I'm at war against Agartha. If you have any existing agreements with Ulm, please PM me.

[Executor]

I need two more hours on this turn.

[PriestyMan]

executor i have saved you from a stale. thank me

[Executor]

executor i have saved you from a stale. thank me

Thank you O gracious admin for postponing the game after I already sent my turn in. ;)

[NooBliss]

... And the mighty Fishes are free to roam the land again!

[Executor]

A riddle,
It frightens everyone, one turn it's there, the next it's gone. What is it?

[Squirrelloid]

A riddle,
It frightens everyone, one turn it's there, the next it's gone. What is it?

Arcane Nexus?

I can think of some other answers too...

[Executor]

Yes! And up it goes again! Cheers TC.

[PriestyMan]

Well Calahan has pointed out that infernal disease is free in CBM 1.7. Perhaps you should stop casting it Noobliss. I'm kinda sad to see that you kept on spamming it when it was obviously a bug.

[NooBliss]

I can send you, say, 100 blood slaves if you promise not to use them, to compensate, or otherwase waste them if you can find some easy way.

[Debaser8]

I could really use 100 blood slaves. Don't really want to be spammed with disease demons though :).

[NooBliss]

Stripping me of one of the strongest Blood magic 'selling points' would be unfair, wouldnt it. Especially now that bloodmagic thugs are made obsolete by cheap Shishis, Zmei etc.

Let's find some way for me to compensate for these free disease demons; easiest way would be to dump them to somebody with no access to blood magic, and who isnt going to diversify into it anyway, like underwater Oceania. My blood income allows me to spam non-free disease demons just the same, trust me. :)
Or, I could send scouts with bloodslaves to attack somebody. This requires me to hire mass scouts though.

[PriestyMan]

mainly i think it was unethical of you to not point it out at all and abuse it very much especially early on against mictlan when the cost could have been an issue.

i dont know what the best way to deal with it is though. one person said on irc that they had the caster send the slaves to the victim of the attacks in one of their 1.7 games. The spell is supposed to cost 7 blood slaves in 1.7, so you would be without a very large amount of slaves at this point. I'd say that either you stop casting it, or start sending blood slaves to TC as you cast the spell.

alternatively, you can send them to me if you wont send them to tc, but i can make minor use of them just so you know.

[NooBliss]

There are many things in Dominions I consider unethical - like sending absurd amount of gems to other players, or using these absurd amounts of gems. But I didnt notice this bug immediately, and even then - I have only 'spammed' it in a relatively late phase when cost wouldnt be a problem for me.
Anyway, we'll sort it out somehow, starting next turn. Sending blood slaves to my enemy is out of question; I'll probably stick to suiciding them into some PD.

[PriestyMan]

well i assume your refering to the nexus? well thats your opinion i guess, but thats not even close to relevent. you were blatantly and knowingly taking advantage of a bug in a mod. If you had mentioned it when you noticed i wouldn't have minded at all, but you didnt and continued to abuse it.

but its in the past. i hope i can trust you to get rid of a *significant* amount of slaves to make up for all the free ones you've had.

[Executor]

I say abuse the damn bug, we all do it, Priesty is just getting all judgmental on you and stuff, powah mad I say...

[NooBliss]

but thats not even close to relevent.

Well thats your opinion I guess. :)

I will suicide enough slaves to make it up for some happy demon-spamming, dont you worry.

[PriestyMan]

are you seriously going to compare them? one is questionable diplomacy. the other is abusing a ****ing bug. do you really think thats at all similar? thats.... really really dumb. to say the least.

a better comparison is like copying bogus orders. there is a clear standard that ingame ethics are up the the game creater, but taking advantages of bugs in the game itself is never allowed.

[NooBliss]

Questionable diplomacy can break the game in a much, much worse way than one or MAYBE two turns worth of blood hunting.
And it does, quite often. This time it's ok though, since its a game about drama, isnt it?
Kek.

[Squirrelloid]

Diplomacy is anything goes. If you can get another (potentially) rational agent to agree to do something for you, its fair. Its not broken, its working as intended.

Someone agrees to do something stupid, well, so they're stupid. Might as well call pretender design broken because someone will put an F4A9N4B4 bless on EA Mictlan. Lets call scripting broken too because someone will group their communion in one place and then have a master cast Phoenix Pyre and proceed to get a slave killed by over fatiguing it. (Hilarity results)

[NooBliss]

/care

There are many ways to break the game.

[Squirrelloid]

/care

...whatisthisidon'teven...


There are many ways to break the game.

People being bad or stupid is not 'breaking the game'.

Diplomacy is an activity you can be good or bad at. Being bad at it is not game breaking, it is simply being bad.

Similarly, being bad at the mechanics of the game such that you die by turn 12 is not game breaking. Its just being bad.

[Quitti]

Drama! The game is living up to it's name again!

Please continue. /me cracks open a beer

[NooBliss]

When you get 700 gems for free, you get an unfair advantage. When you win by using the resources of several other nations (willingly heloing you), its an unfair advantage. I dont give a damn if you get an unfair advantage by coercing some guillible fool or by hacking the .2h file.
And yes, it's Drama. So I dont mind if somebody else SUDDENLY casts a +999 gift of natures bounty while we are at it. :) I just laugh when somebody tries to makes me feel guilty when I know what I know. )))))

[Pjoo]

When you get 700 gems for free, you get an unfair advantage. When you win by using the resources of several other nations (willingly heloing you), its an unfair advantage. I dont give a damn if you get an unfair advantage by coercing some guillible fool or by hacking the .2h file.
And yes, it's Drama. So I dont mind if somebody else SUDDENLY casts a +999 gift of natures bounty while we are at it. :) I just laugh when somebody tries to makes me feel guilty when I know what I know. )))))

You seem to be unable to grasp the fact that diplomacy and manipulation are parts of this game, while hacking/abusing bugs isn't. If you coerce some idiot to give you free gems, good for you. If you hack/abuse bugs, you are breaking the game rules.

[NooBliss]

Blame the mod and idiots who give others free gems. :)

I am able to grasp what YOU think. But I see more and more no-diplo games; perhaps I'm not the only one who thinks that such random crap is killing the game?
Gotta join more no-diplo games.

[Squirrelloid]

When you get 700 gems for free, you get an unfair advantage. When you win by using the resources of several other nations (willingly heloing you), its an unfair advantage. I dont give a damn if you get an unfair advantage by coercing some guillible fool or by hacking the .2h file.

Diplomacy is the art of convincing people to do what you want them to do. If you are good at diplomacy, you are more likely to get other people to do what you want.

Diplomacy is by definition 'fair', insofar as everyone has an initial equal position from which to attempt to influence their peers. No one is privileged by anything outside of (1) their ability to conduct diplomacy and (2) the game state.

Ie, this is the very definition of a fair advantage. You're just crying because someone is a better diplomat than you and punishing you mercilessly for it. Meanwhile, you've been exploiting an obvious bug without saying anything and are for some reason offended that this makes people unhappy?

Wake up. Bugs aren't cool. Mercilessly abusing the stupidity or gullibility of your opponents is.

[NooBliss]

What you call diplomacy, I call abusing the metagame. When TC convinced me to send him astral, it was a good diplomacy. When Executor convinced me to attack TC, it was a good dimplomacy.
Getting hundreds of gems for free is game breaking, as is convincing others to help you win just for lulz. I know where I stand and you wont convince me otherwise.


But... you know what? I'm in a good mood today. I'll add more drama.
This 'abuse' talk after I already promised to compensate, after this 'dimplomacy' thing, sickens me; find yourselves another Aby. I'm looking for a sub. :))))))))))))))

[Pjoo]

What you call diplomacy, I call abusing the metagame. When TC convinced me to send him astral, it was a good diplomacy. When Executor convinced me to attack TC, it was a good dimplomacy.
Getting hundreds of gems for free is game breaking, as is convincing others to help you win just for lulz. I know where I stand and you wont convince me otherwise.


But... you know what? I'm in a good mood today. I'll add more drama.
This 'abuse' talk after I already promised to compensate, after this 'dimplomacy' thing, sickens me; find yourselves another Aby. I'm looking for a sub. :))))))))))))))

Sure, I can always use my water gems spamming murdering winter on the TC thugs and Unfrozen roaming Caelumian countryside, but I am not sure if I would benefit from it. We three combined aren't match for Corinthian or you, plus with the whole... It will atleast hurt him a lot if he decides to keep going after me instead of focusing on Ermor with the Nexus and all.
Maybe it was a bad desision, with you and Bandar attacking TC around the time, would probably buy me a break anyways, but it still wasn't for lulz...

[NooBliss]

So you've also pooled Executor?

If you cant find some use for gems yourself, thats not the reason to play a kingmaker. Why punising other players, like me, TC or Bandar?
But thats not my problem anymore. Cya. :)

[Pjoo]

Why punising other players, like me, TC or Bandar?

Umm, cause punishing TC greatly reduces the ammount of punishing he does to me, making me live possibly considerably longer?

TC should be able to dispel it, if he just puts some effort into it instead of whacking me. You could dispel it too. I can't use gems when the AN is up, you don't have to either. Might really help you saving up some pearls for dispel...

[Quitti]

Hey...


Someone ragequitting due diplomacy working against him..


... Is Kuritza back?

[NooBliss]

Diplomacy is working against TC now. My nation is fine at the moment.
But playing like that is not enjoyable, and being accused of getting free assassinations worth ~150 bloodslaves after somebody has received 700+ gems is stupid.

Ragequit? No, just no desire to play anymore.

[PriestyMan]

fwiw ermor has definitely not gotten 700+ gems from other people. oceania has only given 80S in the entire game, and caelum is not that much more than that

[NooBliss]

He has. :) At least if he's to be believed.

[PriestyMan]

his number is 140 confirmed

[NooBliss]

140 gems from Caelum?

[PriestyMan]

caelum gave gems equal to 140S to ermor.

and besides, why do you even call it kingmaking? do you think ermor is now a clear leader or something? it was more like keeping afloat

[NooBliss]

...Then Ermor has received at least 900 gems. And you guys still ***** around some minor abuse I promised to pay for? :) Kekeke. Not funny.

Let's say, he has a very solid chance now in my opinion. Giving somebody gems, in general, is OK. Even though you've called me, I believe, a 'bloody idiot' for that. :) But getting 900 gems for free in one game? Wow. I'm envious. :) And I refuse to be frowned upon after that.

[PriestyMan]

so who send the other...... 700ish gems to him? you? i doubt it was bandar since they have so much use for S.

[Dimaz]

Finally some drama :)

[PriestyMan]

troll senses tingling...

[Executor]

First of all, shut the **** up if you don't know why or how I got any gems ( the harsh language is for the drama :) ).
I got gems from Pangaea, yes. I never had ANY contact with Pangaea other than a in game "NAP 3?" massage. Seeing as how I was the first to attack TC after he lost I assume he sent me gems he couldn't use, as he was already dead, to help inflict pain on TC. I never asked or manipulated or had any sort of contact with Pang. I hate diplo. What did you expect me to do, suicide commanders with gems???
And all the gems I received didn't do **** to help me fight off TC as he was incredibly more powerful than me atm, but, seeing as how you all were content on letting him win I attacked him, so you all need to thank me there.

Second, Caelum and Ocean helped me a bit with my last AN, yes. However they didn't give me free gems just for the heck of it.
I'm not sure how lending someone gems and returning them in greater numbers in the following turns can be considered Kingmaking. That's the same as saying Abysia and Bandar giving gems to dispel my AN is kingmaking TC???

In fact, if TC didn't have to waste hundreds of gems on dispeling my ANs all the time this game would already had been over, so you all need to thank me here again.

And if you want to talk kingmaking, letting someone roll over nations one by one with no change of stopping them can be considered kingmaking itself, BL, Aby, Ulm, Agartha...

[NooBliss]

What did you expect me to do, suicide commanders with gems???
Ahaha )) I'd have used them. But dont look at me, I've also decided to have some fun with free demons till I'm caught. :)

[Debaser8]

I think everybody (except perhaps Abysia) agrees that he should have reported that the disease demon ritual was costless as soon as he found out and figured out a way to compensate for it.

Ermor, Instead of spending those gems on the Nexus couldn't you have just spent those gems defending yourself? That might also have prevented TC from winning and would not have left you with a Nexus.

Well, TC doesn't look particularly close to winning now, so it seems rather ironic to accuse those of us who weren't fighting him before of king making.

[Quitti]

Only now, disease demon discount! Get yours today! From practically free to free!

[NooBliss]

Why, I absolutely agree that I should've reported the bug immediately. But, see, I did not. )) Because it was too much fun and I expected that somebody will raise this topic within 2 turns. Seriously, why did nobody?

Oh, and I think that using hundreds of free gems is immoral, too.
:)

Now seriously. I'd have used the disease demons in the same quantities, free or not. Even at 7 slaves each, with blood income at 100+ per turn its very spammable (practically free), so the impact is minimal. I wouldnt have summoned that useless Geliophagus who died shortly afterwards, and maybe I'd have one less vampire lord who sits in my lab doing nothing.

I can submit one or two more turns to suicide enough slaves before handing my nation to the next player if you wish.

[Corinthian]

First thing first, I dont fault Pjoo and Lama for helping Ermor and sending him gems. After all, the enemy of my enemy is a temporary ally. And as long as its temporary and you do it to improve your personal chances to win/survive further down the line, there is nothing wrong with it.

There is of course an exception to this. A player should always put his own winning first. Helping another to hurt a third is one thing. Playing just to hand the victory to another, (maybe a friend) would completely distort the game and remove any prospect of fairness and sportsmanship. I dont think thats what happened in this case though.

As for poor little T'ien Ch'i; our star has long reached its zenith. I doubt that I have a real chance of winning any more. Not that I did not have one. My main mistake was to not finish of ermor in a timely fashion. TC's strength lie in the mid game. Were i could have leveraged my research and resource advantage to overwhelm my enemies. Instead of the quick and decisive lightning war that i had hope for, (like against Pangaea), my expansion was bogged down and reduced to raids and counter raids. I did never have enough troops to hold the vast expanses that I captured and the only thing i could do was bottle ermor up in his cities while fending of Oceania and Caelum.

Attacking oceania under water would be hellish and Caelum was a highly mobile enemy located on the other side of the map. Neither were an enemy I could finish quickly. And while I could have beaten both in time, much of my strength was being sapped by having to dispel ermors Arcane nexus. The nexus is a spell that gets stronger the larger the map you are playing on is. I suspect that this is as large as a map gets before it is unconquerable. Still I suspect he made a profit on every casting and that only the fact that he could not cast less that the highest overcast among the other globals, and that his wish caster died, prevented him from running away with it.

That Aby and bandar would also come for me eventually meant that I had a tight deadline. And when they came I was far from ready. I had not yet time to transfer in to the late game magic. TC is good at the elements but lack D/B/S, witch they have to complement through other means. All my astral and more was eaten up by dispels and my blood access was good enough for some forging only. I did have good death access, but with the decreasing usefulness of tarts and my lack of undead healing ability meant that it was not enough.

That said I am definitely burning out on this game. The scripting dozens of communion to fight against five different enemies is mentally exhausting and i cant find it in me to care much for this game any more. I can tell that at this pace its going to drag on for a loong time.

In the end I can only see two possible victors though. Either ermor or who ever takes over Abyssia. I cant dispel the Nexus any longer, even if I had the gems i could not afford to waste them on such a long term concern as an enemies future income stream. And if i cant afford to dispel it then that means than no one else are likely to be able to do it either. in combination with the alt site and you have a power-snowball waiting to happen.

The only one able to counter that would be Aby with their massive blood income. Abyssia has a whole host of immortals and could really just dom-kill the world with some preparation. Its not really a counter as much as it is sidestepping gem income and land holding completely.



That said I want out. I am completely toast on this game and have not really submitted well thought out turns in a long while. Most of my movements the last five-ten turns or have either been routine or things that seemed interesting at the time. I cant seem to concentrate on all my fronts as that would take forever. And from what I have seen i am not alone in in this. As I am typing this the deadline is 10 hours away. Only one nation has submitted a turn yet. And this is the rule rather than the exception. The timer gets prolonged more often than not in this game and almost everyone send in their turn as late as possible.

I cant imagine anyone wanting to sub my position. Thats why I propose an end to this game.

I vote Executor as the winner. He does logically have the biggest chance of winning Unless everyone unites to share the burden of taking down the nexus of course. But I dont see that happening. Also, I nominate him because he caused the most damage to me by far of all my enemies.

[PriestyMan]

I wouldnt declare Executor the winner by any means, but i agree with your assesment about the likely winners.

In all honesty, the chances of an aby sub are pretty low, and it is for sure going to be a looong game. i'm fine with quitting, but i will certainly play on too.

[NooBliss]

Aby cannot domkill anyone on such a big map. Its a myth. I am sacrificing slaves in three castles that belonged to Mictlan for like 10 turns now, and I didnt even spread my dominion to the neighbouring provinces.
Put some temples up, set some priests on preaching - and dominion push will fail.

[Debaser8]

Considering that the players of 3 of the top 5 nations are seeking subs or have left and Executors Alt site is a ticking time bomb (Why the game breaking sites mod that was added to CBM didn't take this out I don't know.),I'm ready to call it a game.

Fighting a disinterested TC doesn't seem all that appealing. Abysia with his dominion and globals and remotes is a defensive monster, and I don't have any border with Ermor and his infinite fort repairing animals.

I think we should have gone with 4 capitals inclusive of your own to win the game that would have forced the action and maybe prevented the game from getting bogged down (even if the winner was slightly arbitrary and it forced people to take more upfront power builds). In the games I have played recently scales builds with heavy growth scales seem to be the trend. I think this might contribute to longer games as the global income slowly goes up over time.

[NooBliss]

Well, Squirreloid is gone from this thread it seems, so if we keep Teh Drama to acceptable level, I can keep sending turns.

But does anyone want to play on? If TC and Bandar Log have despaired, I can agree with the Ermor-pooling coalition and vote for Executor. Democracy ftw.

[Executor]

This is rather sudden, I agree I maybe do have a good chance of winning now that TC is crumbling but in all likelihood this game is far from over and it can go in several directions.

[NooBliss]

In case anyone tries to dispel this AN in the future: a +30 dispel has failed.
Pooling somebody to cast, of all things, an Arcane Nexus!.. Ha ha.

[Corinthian]

Maybe i should have told you that my previous attempt to dispel it at +60, the turn before also failed. I suspect that you need somewhere around +250 to get this ****er down. Witch requires alchemy, witch is expensive. You remember how I said that i could not afford to dispel it? Well yea.

[NooBliss]

So, unless everyone unites against Executor starting this turn, we can safely call it a game. I remember him saying that he will suicide the Nexus caster after TC threat is over, but I dont think this is going to happen.

[Executor]

Well the TC threat is still there, and that's seriously overestimating me, I still have much fewer provinces than before the war started, terrible gem income and a non-existing gold income, half of my forts either conquered or under siege still, haven't recruited a mage for like god knows how long now, there are no SC's, thugs, worthwhile troops...

[NooBliss]

... And a Nexus probably ticking for ~100 pearls per turn. For 3 turns now.

And the scary TC is nearly torn apart, surrounded by enemies, hardly a threat anymore - as shown by the graphs.

[Debaser8]

Considering I'm the only one that staled last turn I guess the game is still on.

[Corinthian]

... And a Nexus probably ticking for ~100 pearls per turn. For 3 turns now.

And the scary TC is nearly torn apart, surrounded by enemies, hardly a threat anymore - as shown by the graphs.

Even with the help of his allies he could never have put up the nexus so many times if he did not get at least 150 pearls a turn from it. Possibly more considering that he has also found the pearls to empower a new caster after the first one died. And thats assuming that he only have one wisher and could not wish for gems, witch he could get the pearls back from, through the nexus, by spending them.

[Quitti]

I don't mind either way, I'm not in a winning position and my turns are not taking a long time to do. I can't do anything against disease demon spam (and now the added manifestation spam).

[Corinthian]

Well if the game is ongoing then i should probably post for a sub.

[NooBliss]

An extention would be nice...

[Executor]

Indeed, staling nations can't spend gems to fuel my nexus.

[NooBliss]

Oh come on. Dominating by casting over 9000 Nexuses after being pooled by everyone is annoying by itself, no need for witty comments. :)

[PriestyMan]

first of all, sorry about the stale. long weekend.

I feel bad mainly for executor, but if tc and aby are both subbing out, this game is dead. I've played in games where most of the major players were subbed out, and it drastically unbalances games, and makes them much less fun. i've also played in games where major players had to leave, and we just let the games die and that went fine. so this is my call to let it die. I will assume that Aby and TC vote yes since they are subbing out.

[Debaser8]

Are we going to pause the game until we find a sub for TC or set him AI? And Aby is no longer seeking a sub I assume?

[Debaser8]

If both Aby and TC are leaving I'm all for letting it die, as I said it my earlier post.

[NooBliss]

The flames died, so I'm still here. TC is leaving, but he's dead anyway, so actually it's up to Oceania if he's really willing to crown Executor or to keep playing.

[Executor]

You would all deprive me of my glorious finale!? How could you be so heartless? "In the night, I hear them talk the coldest story ever told
Somewhere far along this road, he lost his soul..."

[NooBliss]

Once again, I think we should stop hosting it until a sub for TC (at least, kek) is found.

[PriestyMan]

i've already delayed it for a day. adding another two days now

[Debaser8]

We should come up with a contingency plan if a sub for TC can't be found.

A) Set TC AI
B) Let TC stale it out
C) Call it a game

[NooBliss]

I say set him to AI and plunder him. And gang on Ermor. All the while fighting our current wars. All at the same time. ^)

[Executor]

I say set him to AI and plunder him. And gang on Ermor. All the while fighting our current wars. All at the same time. ^)


I actually like this option the best. I vote for this.