Elli (Started)

[MartialDoctor]

I'm going to have to pick your guys brain after this one. I'm still learning how this game works...

I didn't even know you could teleport guys in like you all did. I mean, I knew there were spells to move armies but I was a bit surprised that Indy moved his ENTIRE army like that :-)

I am really enjoying this, though. Quite an interesting game.

[Baalz]

Heheh, I did the same thing to him a few turns ago and managed to storm one of his castles before he destroyed my army (stupid nightmares ). The trick is to use leadership boosting items - several of them in combination will let one commander lead several hundred troops if you use the right commander and a mix of undead, regular and magic troops.

[IndyPendant]

Heh. I would love to trade tactics and stories when this is all over. I suspect mine aren't nearly as crafty as you may be thinking they are though.

I'm almost certainly going down soon, within about 2-4 turns. It's taking everything I have just to slow Ermor and Arco down. Arco's now taken back all the provinces I grabbed in my initial (unwillingly solo) thrust, and most of my own provinces have been fought over back and forth 2-5 times now. My lands are wartorn ruins, I've lost one fort, and another is besieged.

I can't get too annoyed though, really. I made no less than three major blunders in this war. (That I'm aware of. Heh.) First was forgetting to transfer more gems to my main army besieging Arco's home province way back at the beginning, so that when he sallied forth, my army wasn't Antimagic'd, Leaded, Mistformed, Regen'd, Reinvig'd, Flying, and Berserking. DOH! Second was sending my Gale Gate caster out by mistake to defend against Ermor's attack...and when he died, global spell went poof. *sigh* Third was sending extra support mages into that most recent battle where Arco is now beseiging my castle--and forgetting to set them to "Move and Patrol", so that now they're sitting inside the castle playing with their nice purty gems. --I suspect I may have lost that battle even with the additional support though; but at least I would have inflicted some damage!

I can't help pointing out though that the difference between me and Atlantis was that my mistakes were not deliberately ignoring an agreement to double-team Arco. Things might very well have been different if Atlantis had actually bothered to attack Arco when he said he would. We most likely would have had Arco all-but wrapped up before Ermor attacked, despite my mistakes...

[Baalz]

If it makes you feel any better I would have moved sooner if Atlantis had attacked. Part of my hesitancy was the large army on my border not doing anything yet, and there was *no way* I'd sit around waiting for you two to get around to killing me with no Arco to distract you. I would have immediately attacked with whatever I had if you both were moving on Arco.

I've made a couple fairly big mistakes myself from sending in a bunch of non-lighting immune tartarians in to not giving gems to the guys scripted to drop in and rain of stones you to my previously mentioned flub where I just lost most of my good astral mages. To be honest I was quite surprised at how fast Arco beat you back, it looked like he was sunk for sure with the amount of territories you took so fast.

But yeah, I feel like I've got my fangs sunk in and am tightening the coils now. Atlantis' capital is sieged and Caelum is rapidly bleeding to death.

ABANDON ALL HOPE. THE LEGION COMES AND THE ROTTING CORPSES ARE PILED HIGH. FALL TO YOUR KNEES AND BEG FOR A SWIFT DEATH.

[IndyPendant]

Hrmf. Bah. Sorry about staling out there, guys. I lost most of my remaining SCs last turn, trying to take out one of Ermor's armies (and failing). I've been wracking my brains trying to figure out a way to pull my *** out of the fire ever since, and I just can't do it.

So I intended to go AI, but forgot that the turn would be due before I got up this morning. ; ) I'll put myself on AI this turn, when I get home from work.

Nice recovery, MD; I didn't expect that so quick. And nicely played, Baalz. I would love to spend some time afterwards discussing suggestions and opponents' perceived mistakes, if you guys are still up for it. Just let me know when.

And have fun!

[Baalz]

GG man, that was an interesting fight, and some rotten luck on your part - I had just moved all those mages in anticipating storming that castle with a bunch of tartarians inside - if you'd attacked my other army you'd have easily won.

I didn't see many big mistakes on your part, other than a somewhat unavoidable over-reliance on lighting spam which was easily counterable once I got my head out my ***. I will say though that there's been no attempt by anybody (other than one halfhearted squad from Atlantas which quickly retreated to the water) to bring the fight back to my lands. As you noted, your provinces have all been fought back and forth for as you bleed troops while I've just been sending a steady stream over and putting castles up in 90% of my provinces. Seeing the speed with which Arco seemed to go down I expected some significant raiding onto my own territories as I had just thrown everything I had into yours and all that lighting is a whole lot harder to counter when I don't know where it's coming next.

[IndyPendant]

Heh. Jeez, I did almost as good this turn when I staled, as I have been ever since I began retreating in the face of Baalz's blitzkrieg!

And yeah Baalz, that was my intent--to try to keep the offensive momentum going. The problem was, it's hard to fight two superior opponents alone at the same time. ; ) Ah well, I still like Caelum for some reason, despite their horribly severe limitations. I'll probably be looking to play them another time later on.

[Baalz]

Baalz said:
GG man, that was an interesting fight, and some rotten luck on your part - I had just moved all those mages in anticipating storming that castle with a bunch of tartarians inside - if you'd attacked my other army you'd have easily won.

I didn't see many big mistakes on your part, other than a somewhat unavoidable over-reliance on lighting spam which was easily counterable once I got my head out my ***. I will say though that there's been no attempt by anybody (other than one halfhearted squad from Atlantas which quickly retreated to the water) to bring the fight back to my lands. As you noted, your provinces have all been fought back and forth for as you bleed troops while I've just been sending a steady stream over and putting castles up in 90% of my provinces. Seeing the speed with which Arco seemed to go down I expected some significant raiding onto my own territories as I had just thrown everything I had into yours and all that lighting is a whole lot harder to counter when I don't know where it's coming next.

Oh, I hope you weren't holding your breath too much as I don't have too much to add to this. One thing that I don't think was obvious was how much of an advantage I gained when I wished for the chalice. Not sure who I snatched it from, but I expected to have it snatched back and wouldn't have been able to re-wish for it for several turns. As it was, with the chalice I was cranking out a solid 2 GOR'ed and non-afflicted tartarians every turn. I was also steadily building castles and temples on every province. Having been on the other side of that I have to say it's immensely daunting trying to plan an attack on somebody with solid fortresses - while you're seiging castles they get the luxury of bending all their magic and picking the fights. If the game had dragged on much longer my overwhelming temple lead would have begun to show as everyone else's dominion crumbled, and I'd shortly be teleporting in to destroy any temples not in a castle - it's very hard to catch up at that point because you have to build temples *and* castles in large numbers. I'd also be summoning juggernaughts as fast as possible...