Pointy Sticks MA started

[RonD]

No problem.

Correction: one problem - I will need the admin password.

[Mightypeon]

I am firing the rollback, also sending rond the admin pW

[Gurthang]

I am firing the rollback

Should we resend last turn exactly as it was, or replay it at leisure?

[RonD]

That should probably be up to Mightypeon, as he is the person who needed the rollback.

[Mightypeon]

I would say replay at leisure.

[Mightypeon]

I am sorry, but my Computer is non functional, getting repaired and will be back in 2-3 days. I still have internet, but no dominions access.

[RonD]

When I reset the timer to 75 hrs, it reset the deadline to Thursday night(the extra 3 hours will hopefully help keep the hosting time from creeping forward too much - we'll see).

Let me know when you are back - I will keep extending it in the meantime. My work exploded with all sorts of worky explosions the past couple of days anyway, so I have no problem with a short break.

[Mightypeon]

My turn is in, I am certainly preparing some devious and whacky little suprises!

[RonD]

Not sure what has become of Gurthang. I have postponed hosting again, until Monday night.

[Mightypeon]

Definitly, he really should not/must not stale in the given situation, as this is a crucial turn.

[RonD]

He didn't (Caelum has not staled all game). New turn is up.

The rollback cost me one golem, but cost you one Iron Angel.

[Mightypeon]

Happens, I gotta check out which one.

[Gurthang]

No intention of staling right after the rollback ;)

As a side note, it cost me a Garnet Sorceress with Blood skill 2... a rare animal.

[Mightypeon]

I killed no such thing!

[RonD]

He probably means that he got a lucky new recruit in the 1st version of the turn with a 10% pick, but did not get lucky in the new version of reality. Similarly, I lost a golem in a battle that was identical between the two versions, except for the outcome (I still killed Iron Angel, but in the first version of reality both of my golems survived, and they took control of the province).

[Mightypeon]

That battle was a bit weird, I could have sworn that the Angel was on holdX5 attack large, but I think he went in immidiatly due to Berserk.
I really need to improve mage scripting, Shatter did not went off a single time when fighting any Golem of yours.

[Gurthang]

He probably means that he got a lucky new recruit in the 1st version of the turn with a 10% pick, but did not get lucky in the new version of reality.

That's it!

[Mightypeon]

Also: Damn those Black Lords are nasty, a ungeared one just nearly managed to kill a fully thugged out Black priest. As it stands, the Priest is only muted, which is still quite nice given the 0 gem investment. And that against the powerfull combination of Soul Drain and Phonex Pyre...

[Mightypeon]

I will have issues getting the turn in, and have to ask for a 24 hour delay.
Edit: Nevermind, did it myself.

[Gurthang]

I cast Open Tartarian Gate this turn, but nothing came out of it. Dinner time in Hell, or did you already summon every guy down there?

Looks like Hell and the Astral Plane are turning into pretty lonely places... :bored:

[RonD]

Are you sure? Only about 20% of tartarians arrive as commanders. Look at the regular troops in that province.

I was sort of hoping this game would proceed without anyone bothering the tarts, but I guess not :shock:

I'm not try to make you feel bad about doing it - tarts are a perfectly legal part of the game and it will feel like a normal dom3 game with everyone bopping around behind our big, bad tartarians. I just happen to have a personal feeling that the game is more interesting without them. This is largely because the best way to counter them is with tarts of your own, so all those nicely differentiated nations at the start of the game end up looking alike by the end.

On the other hand, that no-gem thug of BR Ulm's laid about 70 points of damage on my undead Dust Priest in a single round - so 2 or 3 of them ought to be able to take down a tart in a round or two. BR Ulm may have have the perfect cheapo tart-counter.

[Gurthang]

Are you sure? Only about 20% of tartarians arrive as commanders. Look at the regular troops in that province.


You are right -- the Tartarian is there as a regular troop -- even if I would doubt the wisdom of a nation enlisting such a guy as a regular in the army. Let's say I wouldn't sleep well in a dorm beside him :o


I was sort of hoping this game would proceed without anyone bothering the tarts, but I guess not :shock:


If we all agree to it, I won't summon any other Tartarian :)

[RonD]

Mightypeon is free to chime in of course. However, "no tarts" was not a stipulation that the game began with, and not even an actual proposal on my part (just wishful thinking). I am guessing, based on you not knowing where to find your new tartarian toy, that this is a new aspect of the game for you. I've never noticed anyone making a game that actually bans tartarians, so using them here will be a helpful learning tool for you for future games.

[Mightypeon]

For what reasons should Tarts be banned?
With Undead GoR they are es expensive as most other SC choices (12+20 or so), and fyi I am fairly well equipped to cheaply deal with undead things.
Sneaky Things and Remote Things are much more annoying :)

[RonD]

I almost feel sorry for the Iron Angels. What are they now, 0 for 4?

I'll know the string of losses are starting to really hurt when you stop giving the new ones cute names like General Zukhov and Zmey Removal System X9000, and start naming them "next".

[Gurthang]

What is Undead GoR? :confused:

[RonD]

In vanilla there is just "Gift of Reason" and it works on any non-commander unit. CBM changed it. GoR is much cheaper, but does not work on undead (tartarians). They put in a new spell "Restore Soul" that costs more (I think it is the same as vanilla GoR) and works only on undead.

[Gurthang]

Dom 3 is more like a culture than a game... hat off for the designers!

[RonD]

A note about an upcoming pause: I will be away 8 or 9 days starting a week from today (probably completely without dominions). I will try to take whatever turn is up before I leave town, and then set a really long timer.

[Mightypeon]

I should propably purge my Iron Angel department, some Foul treacher seems to be at play there! For Zeh Vaterland!

[Mightypeon]

On the plus side, I am putting some lections from RonD to use in a game where I am playing Shinuyama :)

[RonD]

I have postponed the next hosting until after I return from my trip. I might be able to do the current turn before I leave - but probably not (I have a huge amount of more important stuff needing to get done first).

I expect that once I return, I will have absolutely no recollection of all the cool plans I've made :)

[Mightypeon]

Hmm, I am switching from "try to win" to "cause lots of damage" way more fun that way!

[RonD]

"cause lots of damage" is a big part of trying to win....

I am back. I might need an extra day to wrap my head around the game, so don't be too surprised if I postpone hosting by another 24 hours.

[RonD]

Hah! Nutty things happen when you go away for 10 days and then try to cram planning a big complicated turn into a couple of hours.

I had no idea my Asynja would show up in that one battle. That was supposed to be a quick little "golem teleports in, returns out" info-gathering trip...

A bunch of other littler things got neglected as well.

[Mightypeon]

Was a bit suprised about that too :)
Not going to complain about it though.

Hmm, "s" is doubtlessly up to absolutly no good though :)

I was also a bit in "Oh crap, Rain of stones?" mode when I saw her showing up.

[Mightypeon]

Eh, that went badly, Shinus assassination spell output is also quite impressive.
Unless Caelum does something while I still have armies, they will definitly win. From my own scout networks, Caelum would stand absolutly no chance 1on1 against Shinuyama. Shinuyama can cast Storm Warriors, can very likely cast Gaias Blessing, and can definitly cast warriors of Niefelheim.
Shinuyama can counter even large armies of me due to having major access to all spell schools (other than Blood). Bakemono Sorcs with Reinvig 8, are quite tough, especially if supported by mistform, arrow fend and army of gold which makes killing them with random shots unfeasable. I can at least do something about Heat from Hell and Firestorm, which will propably rip Caelum a new one if they end up in a major battle.

My main issues is still being in "late midgame" while Shinus is fully in the lategame, as well as some mistakes in Pretender design (should have gone for a rainbow), diplomacy and a lack of true lategame options.

I did kind of precict things, which is why I tried to end Shinuyama early, but Acro intervened. Than came Mictlan, followed by the war with Pythium.
I made another mistake there in offering to prop up Pythium after Shinu/Caelum went for it, which totally faeled due to the subbing issues.

Overall, Black Rose still has the following weaknesses:
-No access to Wards of any kind
-Highly dependent on Earth Income, which was not particularly forthcoming. I didnt check for the -1pathboost on my pretender, who actually cant cast Bloodwell -.-
-Poorer Magic diversity than CBM Ulm.

I failed to transport my midgame advantadges into a truely powerfull lategame position.

[RonD]

Eh, that went badly,
Aww, that was just a border skirmish way far away from where the main armies are staring at each other. You had actually had quite a lot less capability there than what you used against Pythium 25 turns ago.

Overall, Black Rose still has the following weaknesses:
-No access to Wards of any kind
Really? You had really early access to 50% resist to all elements, which is all that fire ward, etc give anyway. Or do you mean domes?

-Highly dependent on Earth Income, which was not particularly forthcoming.

Lots of nations have the risk that they won't find the right kinds of gems. I have another game as shin where I have only maybe 5 fire gems/turn and not much more death - well into the late game.

[Mightypeon]

I mean Domes yes :)
That you played your game better than I did (I think I got a bit of Victors disease after dealing with Pythium) of course is also a factor :)

[Mightypeon]

I have to think a bit more about my next turn, can I have a 24 hour delay?

[RonD]

done

[Mightypeon]

I need another 24 hour delay sadly. I already postponed since I still remember the admin password.

[RonD]

No problem. Thanks for letting us know.

[Gurthang]

Unfortunately, I won't be able to do my turn before Monday evening. I am afraid that involves a 48-hours delay.

As a side remark, I am learning a lot from the battles I am witnessing... my hat is off guys!

[RonD]

Done. Let us know if you need any time beyond that.

[RonD]

All turns except Ulm are in, and the turn is scheduled to host in an hour or so. I am going to go ahead and extend the timer another day, just in case. But feel free to put your turn in tonight if it is ready.

[Mightypeon]

Tahnks a lot! Going to try something new :)

[Mightypeon]

Thanks a lot for cathcing my stale RonD, I set reminders to 24 hours as that is imho better. Its damn easy to miss a reminder if you have an early job, and the reminder comes in at 1 am in the night.

[Mightypeon]

Ulm is officially all in! Will hilarity ensue?
Also: Bah, forgot about the stupid quickness on the wendigo. Was propably my best chance of getting him by providing Shinu with a nice piece of bait and then moving in with the sea queen who regenerates back to full health every turn :)

[Mightypeon]

Damn RonD, you are a great player!
So yeah, whenever I siege try sieging, my armies armour gets premptivly destroyed by a single Bakemono Sorc on Acid Storm, backed up by a lizard wizard with a staff of storm scripted to cast returning.
I actually had one golem scripted to cast soul slay, but it didnt hit the right targets, well, at least Caelum has stormflyers :).
I am learning a lot from this game though!

[RonD]

Ulm is officially all in! Will hilarity ensue?
Also: Bah, forgot about the stupid quickness on the wendigo. Was propably my best chance of getting him by providing Shinu with a nice piece of bait and then moving in with the sea queen who regenerates back to full health every turn :)

Yep, the bait-then-attack was a nice ploy. Remind me when the war is over, and I will pass on some tips about how to have been more successful with it.

I figured the leprosy campaign would eventually force you to attack. From the looks on what is left of :sick: the faces of the besieging troops, all those leprosy casting have done their job well.

[Mightypeon]

Hehe, if you recall that we were at war when you just subbed in, Shinuyamas incredible late game was the actual reason why I tried to kill them first, even if it would result in an ugly map.
At that time, I knew my northern neighbour to be Mictlan, who is not really an immidiate threat for Rose Ulm (oohhhh, sacreds! Cute!) threat, MA Ctis, who isnt what I would call heavy threat to Rose Ulm (Well, I can get poison resistance and even darkness counters with comparable ease) either, and Tien Chi + Acro who are imho "meh". MA Acro has mindhunt (not great against Rose Ulm), and Tien Chi does not have anything that would scare me as much as massive Earth and Acid access with easy access to a large variety of powerfull elemental/death magics.
I must confess that I had a policy of trying to kill Shinuyama really early , if encountered in games, and this game certainly did nothing to change this notion.
Incedently, my success rate of rushing Shinuyama (3 times with MA Ulm, once with MA Man) is 50/50.
I also failed to stress the point of Shinuyama being the main threat to Caelum, although its hard to sandbag to someone whom you sold a bunch of stone spheres.

[RonD]

Ahh. I was actually talking about the specific task of killing the wendigo. But I'm sure we will also talk about the war in general once it is over.

[RonD]

As you now know, the real purpose of the acid storm was to set your troops (and, hopefully, mages) up for the following turn's weather extremes. That all worked out quite well (from my point of view, that is).

[Mightypeon]

Not a whole lot I can do about it though.

[RonD]

True. We have reached the stage of the game where you cannot expect to get away with having a big mid-game army out in the open. On the other hand, Ulm normally just laughs off Flames From the Sky and Murdering Winter, because of their super-duper armor. You have the misfortune of being up against a nation with easy access to acid storm. Even then, I have to have the right caster in the right place. Its not like I can teleport in an acid storm caster. But it does mean that you need to come up with a different late-game invasion strategy vs. Shin, compared to what you might use against most other nations.

[Mightypeon]

I have a lack of late game experiences, by virtue of usually being either dead or already dominant before lategame happens.
My root causes of defeat are economical and diplomaticall though.
Perhaps I should have went after Tien Chi and not Pythium, but I saw that awesome opportunity to eliminate Pythiums standing army and could not let that pass.

[Mightypeon]

That confusing, I definitly issued a move patrol order, which would have resulted in my army remains killing that wendigo without a lot of trouble.
I also believe that I remade the army in a way that had units as followers of "tough" commanders to cut down stragglers, did I fail to submit that turn properly?

[Mightypeon]

I am willing to concede to Shinuyama.
I am a bit suprised, I teleported a Golem into the province your army came from, shouldnt that have interfered with your movement (or at least caused a battle that may have triggered gem use? I was expecting earth quakes actually).
Nevertheless, the better player won, congratulations!

[RonD]

I do not have time right now to write up anything about the Ulm/Shin war - I'll do that later.

I just want to take a quick second and offer a :bow: and a :cheers: to Ossa, whose Mictlan was finally defeated for good this turn. Despite spending well over half the game as a 3-province power, Ossa showed up and submitted every damn turn, every time. Thank you!

[Mightypeon]

Indeed, Mad props to Ossa!
Actually Ossa is still alive!
There is a sheltered province within Ulm, one can say a lot about Ulm, but the peoples Republic tried to protect its allies!
:)

[RonD]

I am heading out of town for a couple of weeks. I will upload the current turn before I leave, and I think I will be able to play 2 or 3 turns at various times while on the road (but no promises).

I didn't see an obvious way to turn off the clock, so I set the host interval to some very large value. Quickhost is still on, so if turns get submitted they will also get processed.

[RonD]

Caelum and Shin's turns are both in. I currently have fairly predictable internet access, so I will wait (at least) 48 hours in case Ulm wishes to submit a turn, and then I will force host.

Time is the major issue during my trip, so I will still leave the game on a very long clock. It appears that Ulm's intent is to stale out their remaining turns, so I will try to continue to give notice and process a turn every once in a while, depending on when I have time to prepare my own turns.

[Mightypeon]

Lets see what I was doing in that game :)

[RonD]

I'm back. I will reset the timer for 72-hour turns.

[RonD]

Holy cow - did I ever screw that up! In the process of trying to set the game so it would host a few days from now, I apparently moved the hosting time into the past, and it hosted (twice!!!) before I realized what I had done.

I can try to roll it back, or I can stale while y'all take free shots at me, either way is fine with me.

[Gurthang]

I would prefer a rollback. Also, I am afraid I won't be able to do more than one turn a week. Apologies, I am so busy these days :sick:

[RonD]

OK - the game is rolled back to turn 72. I have submitted my turn. I will just leave the clock on its very long timer, so let me know when your turn is ready and uploaded, and I will then force-host.

[Mightypeon]

I am currently writing my thesis, expect no frequent turns from me either.
I will totally attempt to troll Shinuyama a bit though.

[RonD]

Gurthang messaged that he will not have the time to fight on, so I went ahead and closed the game out. Many thanks to Llama for running the server for us, and many thanks to the players. I think it was November - and a turn somewhere in the late teens - when I subbed in. I had a great time.

I hope to have time soon to write up a bit about how the game looked from my perspective.

[Mightypeon]

Congrats to your win RonD! You see, there was a reason why I attacked Shinuyama early. From SP testing, I am fairly certain that Rose Ulm can Trollface/Rush anybody without something like an awake SC immortal Pretender early on (spies to lock down the cap, early summonable troops to get monomentum, Mages that dont need much research to kill things), so I tried took out the nation I saw as the largest threat asap. I may have did it without Acro interfering.
It was propably a bad move to attack Pythium without having the means to finish it quickly, but I saw a great opportunity to eliminate Pythiums standing army with some cooperation from Mictlan, which didnt quite work out as it should have (wasted an army I needed not to have lost).
The next mistake was no longer being diplomatically active, as well as not bringing Anti Thugs to bear earlier against Pythiums harbingers.