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[Quitti]

The Mageocracy of Caelum wouldn't care for such a pesky amount of little humans. Strike them down with thunder! Let the raptors descent upon them! Crush them beneath the wooly feet of mammoths! Make an impression that doesn't leave them second-guessing who's the rightful owner of the province.

[Ershalim]

Thunder mammoths you say? Of course! The Agarthan people will always remember your kindness, even if the Old Man King forgets. The blind stick-bearers will start breeding exploding mammoths immediately.

[Otherling]

On this day of winter, the Angakut went to walk upon the frozen coast, and there they found a spirit. A great spirit, now bereft of a home. And the Angakut knew both joy and sorrow. Joy, for this spirit no longer stood against the lord of ice and bones. Sorrow, for their cousins of lost Atlantis had followed this spirit, and the Angakut were now the last of their kind.

A mighty sacrifice was prepared to propitiate this fallen spirit. A hundred seals were slain, their blood and entrails burned upon altars of stone, that the smoke might guide the spirit to its final rest. A hundred skulls were set upon the coast, that the ice would bind them together into a tomb for this great spirit. The first barrow was raised upon the coast of ice and bone, and the name inscribed thereon was Dwr Serol.

[Rytek]

Um,I didn't think that would work. Starting next to a S9,F9,W9 Mictlan is probably every Patala's player nightmare. Jaguar warriors are fierce indeed with a blessing like that.

Beware the words of the tiny markata chittering the praise of our lord Rytek. Or the slithering tounges of transformed Naga mage/priests whispering about the coming of the lord Rytek.

[Calahan]

Looks like it's game over for Mictlan. Despite the best efforts of my heroic priests, there just wasn't enough enthusiastic volunteers queuing up to have their blood spilt in the name of Dwr Serol.

Possibly a lucky escape for the wee monkeys I think :-) As it was certainly a brave move by them to initiate a war against a rampant jag warrior army. But fortune certainly favoured the brave on this occasion :-) and if starting next door to tripled blessed jags is LA Patala's version of a nightmare start, then starting next to two awake Dom10 pretender's is certainly LA Mictlan's idea of double a nightmare!

I'm actually at somewhat of a loss to know how I could have avoided the dom-kill to be honest. I was sacrificing constantly from turn 2, and blood hunting from turn 6. I had one faith decreasing event, not in my capital, but it rubbed out a white candle none the less. Also lucked out on my first two blood hunting turns, which didn't help. Actually had a haul of 7 slaves arriving at my capital this turn, which would probably have saved the day. A classic case of a turn too late if ever there was one :-)

Maybe the neighbours I was given really was just a case of really bad luck, since there's no way the 1 slave income my capital gives stood a chance of being enough to hold their dominion out. I could of course have taken an awake pretender to trigger more temple checks, but then that does seriously defeat the point of playing LA Mictlan in the first place. I even held a VP province for 5 turns, which is supposed to act as a Dom5 temple. But I didn't get a squeak out of it at all, so I have major doubts that VP provinces work for EA/LA Mictlan like they do for all the other nations. If anyone has any advice on how I could have avoided (as I see it) the inevitable dom-kill from my starting location, then I'd love to hear it for any future LA Mictlan games I play. (EA Mictlan would probably have been fine in a similar start-up due to the 3 blood slave capital income)

I'll finish by wishing everyone the best of luck. Hope you enjoy the rest of the game, and many apologies if Mictlan's sudden demise causes any big unbalancing issues with regards the nation who takes up my previous home :-)

[Rytek]

Well, I had my Pfofet sitting at your capitol on turn 4 or 5 although I did not preach at that point. On turn 3 as I saw it was Mictlan who bordered me with a weak dominion I slipped a few of my steathy priest your way as well,just in case. The turn you eliminated Hectors Heavy horse, I realized that there was no way to beat you militarily. Either now, or midgame you would have had your way with the monkeys. My one and only advice would have been to open negotiations with me the turn you killed my mercs and tried to get some time to build your dominion. If you had offered me an iron clad NAP and the province that we blundered into each other I would have accepted and moved my profet out. That province is only 2 turns from my capitol and you should have realized your presence there with a bless like that would have put me on the defensive. As I saw it, you bypassed 2 other neutral territories closer to your home to take a closer to my capitol province. I too had my choice of 3 provinces, 1 closer to your capital which was doable, the blooddruid province which was doable with the mercs but would have left them doubtful on turn 3 for another province. And the province I chose which was closer to my capitol.

Oh, and one other thing. I was following your post asking weather a victory province acted like a temple, so I knew you were worried about dominion.

I think you really did get an unlucky start. Starting next to 2 awake high dominion pretenders. And one of them with a +50 stealth profet sitting in your capitol by turn 5. Not much you could have done with the build and position you had. And I agree that I got away by the narrowest of margins.

[Calahan]

Thanks for the AAR and feedback Rytek. Very much appreciated, and it certainly helped explain a thing or two. I should have paid more attention to those turn 2 prophet announcements!

This was also my first ever game as EA/LA Mictlan so had no idea if the lack of dominion spread was 'normal' or not. Knew LA Mictlan's dominion would be bad early on, but no idea how bad. And I was also somewhat relying on the VP province I picked up to hold my dominion over until the slaves came in. Will do some major testing regarding that at some point (will post my results)

With hindsight I should definitely have contacted you about diplomacy. I wasn't actually intending to fight you to be honest, which is why I moved away from your capital instead of towards it. When I clashed with your mercs, I only took that province since it seemed the most reliable to capture with just a handful of troops (still very much learning just how big a force is needed to conquer certain Indy's)

Although to be honest diplomacy is the one area of Dominions that is doing my head in with MP games. Most of my games are turning out to have less to do with strategy, tactics, skill etc. ie. the things a game should be decided on, and far more to do with how sweet tongued you can be. I personally think that far too much diplomacy goes on in MP games, especially considering the whole "there can be only one" nature of the game itself. But if you don't do diplomacy, you will lose to those who do. Think I might limit myself solely to RAND games in the future, where diplomacy and communicating is banned. Be interested to see how some players cope in that environment.

But thanks again for the lesson Rytek :-) much has been learned. Certainly look forward to playing in future games with you (and all the other players in this game of course)

[James243]

Yeah, bad luck Calahan. One of the things I wanted in setting up this game for new players was that it would have open discussion of rules, how things work etc (how we lose!). And the fact that there are a couple of more experience players involved is actually adding a lot to that experience.

For the record, you were desperately unlucky that one of those Dominion 10 neighbours didn't send his Dominion 10 (actually 9) super combatant pretender to attack some lizards in a swamp...

Interesting comments about Diplomacy Calahan. To be honest, I've found that every time I've taken a strong bless it's lead to unfriendly neighbours. In the book I Claudius, the Emperor Claudius maintain good relations with many people simply by seeming innocuous....

[Rytek]

Diplomacy. True. But even in the movie,"Highlander" they had negotiated truces and friends. You must think of diplomacy as being another "tactic" to use.

Even in a Rand game you will need to use diplomacy. It will just be harder to do. You admit that you were trying to show me that you did not want to fight me by pulling back. In a Rand game you will be hoping the other player is savvy enough to read what you are trying to tell him. It is either that or to war with every neighbor you come in contact with. And I am a savvy player and would have realized that is what you intended. But it would have been as you say, a case of being 1 turn too late, if I had waited and instead you had pressed the attack. I would have been in a bad situation with you parked next to my capitol.

In a multiplayer game like dominions, diplomacy must always be in your bag of tricks. And don't forget stealth and scouting. Many players disregard them until it is too late.

[Ershalim]

Sorry to hear about you getting snuffed out of existence like that. I think the blind peoples of Agartha would be really irate if they suddenly ceased to exist. :x

About the diplomacy, I think seeming innocuous is better than seeming nonthreatening. If you act like you'd be an easy target, you're probably inviting different people to attack you than you would if you seemed to be a powerhouse. I think the diplomacy bit is what makes it so much more interesting than SP. It sort of makes it that even when you can't really impact the game with your troops (because indies destroy you and you remain a tiny country forever...) you can still remain a player through diplomacy.

Or maybe that's wishful thinking. *Grins*