Ermor MP Battlefield Game - FFA /CLOSED/

[Norfleet]

First - your only stable water income or astral income in this game (exculding astral income from clams later on) did not come until 7 turns ago, because you didn't search for *any* sites until 7 turns ago, for the first 15 turns of this game. The graphs show it very clear.

Actually, the first sign of this was when I attained sufficient astral income to do acashic scanning. Prior to that, my income was tapped out for either reverse-alchemy or forging. It's only recently that I could afford the surplus, and had enough mountainous terrain to sack.

Second - the only mage capable of clamhoarding that you had in the begining was your own pretender. And I am sure your GK pretender with 6 schools of magic at level 4-5 would have better thing to do than to forge clams every turn.

D3W with a bracelet. Not hard to do.

You only other realistic option to make clams would be to wait until your reach Con6 and than make water braclet for those Dusk Elders who have water 1 as their single random pick. Going to the extremes like forging Water Robe(20 water gems, 15 with Hammer) or empowering your Dusk elder to water 2 (30 water gems) would not be economicaly feasable by turn 22.

Con-6 was my first research target. I hit that milestone a long while ago, and with the on-stock I had from being socked with randoms, immediately set to work with it.

This, and the fact that you had zero astral or water income from the sites (just because you didn't search for any sites until 7 turns ago), means that you could not possibly produce a lot of clams by now, and therefore could not have a lot of astral income from them yet.

So - how many Clams and how many Fetishes do you have in your Empire by now, turn 23? Aproximate number is ok, if you can't calculate the exact number.

Depends on how you define "a lot". Is a figure somewhere between 30 and 40 a lot? I don't happen to have, or want to give, any more exact numbers on a game in progress, even if you, personally, think it's over for you. Until everyone else formally surrenders, the fight remains on. Speaking of which, do try and take your turn. Go AI, if you wish. This shouldn't take you too long unless you're trying to stall.

How many 1500$ events did you have in this game? And are you saying that all money to fund your 20 or more castles (450GP each), with the aproximately the same amount of temples and laboratories (200+200 GP each), came from the random events?

Several. At least 2 or 3 of those, perhaps more, with a fistful of lesser takes.

Also do I understand you correctly, that you are saying that you didn't use alchemy to fund these constructions? I though you have said yesterday that:
"When I alchemized to fund the construction of my buildings, I mostly used firegems from my fetishes". Is it correct?

Incorrect: I said alchemy did not constitute the bulk of my gold production, and when needed, it was primarily fetish-based.

Puting "average 40 Death gems yield" claim aside - how many Air 4 Casters capable of casting Raven Feast spell do you have? Air 4 is very hard to get for Soul Gate Ermor early on in the game. Or are you using your pretender to cast these Raven Feasts?

Sorcereii.

Also how many Raven Faests total have you casted by now? Again, you may give aprox. number if you have to.

I am not a beancounter that dwells in the past. I have many games to play, many of which blur together, and I have honestly have no recollection of exactly how many times I have cast it.

The information about your income is correct. Although you average money income per turn for the duration of the game (your total money income devided by the number of the turns) is in 200-250GP range, as it can be clearly seen from the graphs.

So there you have it. 200-250 as an average, with peak takes up near the 350 range. This does not include my pillage income at all, as this is unlisted, and, in fact, my income was able to hold in this range in spite of pillage losses, dominion killoff, and mounting unrest. Truly a testimony to the formerly wealthy state of the lands I hold.

So please tell how many castles you have by now, turn 23? And I assume you have both temples and labs in almost all of your castles, correct? Again, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, I am just trying to make sure that I understand your explanations correctly.

I am not going to beancount castles for you, sorry. I rejected this when you proposed this method of castle-limitation before, and I'm not going to try and count them now.

Speaking of which - please tell me what is your current regular gem income from the magic sites, without clams/fetishes?

I do not care to discuss this matter at this time. This will have to wait.

However my point was that you have used 470 gems worth of summons and equimpent in this battle, or 440 gems asuming use of Dwarven Hammer to forge expensive parts, as you said you did.

Yes, but of those, my supply is primarily limited by the Death supply. As you saw in the accounting above, the gems of other types are of low usage and can easily be accounted for.

However, what is much more important, that if my guess is correct, you may have as much as 1500 gems worth of summons and equipment elsewhere in your Empire, in addition to the 440 gems you have demostrated with just 8 of your commanders, that you used in this battle.

Is this correct?

I doubt it's that high. You do tend to exaggerate a little, and I am not going to beancount every Last commander. This is a waste of my time, and I have wasted enough time with this.

Everyone ELSE I have talked to finds my explanations to be quite plausible. I have been more than accomodating, and now the amount of time and energy I'm willing to devote to conversing with you about the matter is exhausted. Arguing with you is tiresome and unpleasant, this forum hurts my eyes, and I am not as young as I once was. I have already unwillingly belabored the point at excessive length, and I'm sick of it. This inquisition is over. Leave me in peace, and either do your turn, or leave the game.

[Stormbinder]

Second - the only mage capable of clamhoarding that you had in the beginning was your own pretender. And I am sure your GK pretender with 6 schools of magic at level 4-5 would have better thing to do than to forge clams every turn.

D3W with a bracelet. Not hard to do.

Not exactly. To make a braclet you need a Con 6. That's 600 RPs. (20+40+60+100+160+260) It is not even *technically* possible to do as Soul Gate Ermor on Magic 3 before at least turn 10, and your reseach graphs confirm it. It is now turn 22. Are you saying that you did not build any Clams before at least turn 11 (+1 turn to make a braclets), probably later? And you have said you used hammers to forge a lot of your equipment, including probably your clams. How many Dwarven Hammers do you have?

This, and the fact that you had zero astral or water income from the sites (just because you didn't search for any sites until 7 turns ago), means that you could not possibly produce a lot of clams by now, and therefore could not have a lot of astral income from them yet.

So - how many Clams and how many Fetishes do you have in your Empire by now, turn 23? Approximate number is ok, if you can't calculate the exact number.

Depends on how you define "a lot". Is a figure somewhere between 30 and 40 a lot?

Hmmm. Did you mean you have between 30 and 40 Clams and Fetishes together, or between 30 and 40 Fetishes and between 30 and 40 Clams? If you mean together, than it is not that much.

Also do I understand you correctly, that you are saying that you didn't use alchemy to fund these constructions? I though you have said yesterday that:
"When I alchemized to fund the construction of my buildings, I mostly used firegems from my fetishes". Is it correct?

Incorrect: I said alchemy did not constitute the bulk of my gold production, and when needed, it was primarily fetish-based.

All right, point taken. So how many Fetishes you have now, to sub your massive castle constructions? The approximate number is fine.

Putting "average 40 Death gems yield" claim aside - how many Air 4 Casters capable of casting Raven Feast spell do you have? Air 4 is very hard to get for Soul Gate Ermor early on in the game. Or are you using your pretender to cast these Raven Feasts?

Sorcereii.

I assume you mean Sorceress? How many sorceress with Air 4 do you have now? Is she lucky Air 2 with Winged Helmet and Bag of Winds?

Also how many Raven Feasts total have you casted by now? Again, you may give aprox. number if you have to.

I am not a beancounter that dwells in the past. I have many games to play, many of which blur together, and I have honestly have no recollection of exactly how many times I have cast it.

That's ok, I am not asking you a specific number. Can you at least recollect if you have casted it in once per 2 turns in average? Once per 3 turns? Every turn?

So please tell how many castles you have by now, turn 23? And I assume you have both temples and labs in almost all of your castles, correct? Again, please feel free to correct me if I am wrong, I am just trying to make sure that I understand your explanations correctly.

I am not going to beancount castles for you, sorry. I rejected this when you proposed this method of castle-limitation before, and I'm not going to try and count them now.

Norfleet, you can't have that many castles, and they are easy to count. It will not take you more than 30 seconds, you have spend *much* more time writing these answers. Or is it another information that you have chosen not to reveal before the game is officially over?

Speaking of which - please tell me what is your current regular gem income from the magic sites, without clams/fetishes?

I do not care to discuss this matter at this time. This will have to wait.

Norfleet, please. You are in the game with 3 absolute newbies, for whom it is the first game, and with Cohen's Abyssia who is not nearly in the position to threaten you, who have no army, and whose gem income, territory, castles, research are totally inferior to you, and whose only SC (his pretender) was killed by you and came back hopelessly crippled and unfit for any battle. All other players together do not constitute even 5% of the force that you posses, and they all perfectly aware of this fact. So please don't worry about revealing any strategic secrets, especially when I am asking you about information that is visible from the graphs to everybody, like your magic sites current income.


So please tell us what is your current gem income from the magic sites, and how much of it are in form of Death gems?

However my point was that you have used 470 gems worth of summons and equipment in this battle, or 440 gems assuming use of Dwarven Hammer to forge expensive parts, as you said you did.

Yes, but of those, my supply is primarily limited by the Death supply. As you saw in the accounting above, the gems of other types are of low usage and can easily be accounted for.

No, I haven't seen it, sorry. How could I see it if you are avoiding to give me any of the numbers that I am asking for? So far all your responses where I asked for some numbers (with the exception of clams/fetishes, and I still don't know what you mean, please clarify it) were "I don't remember", "I don't care to beancount", "It is a secret".

Again, I am not asking for hard numbers where it is hard to count, or when you don't remember. Approximate number would be just fine.

However, what is much more important, that if my guess is correct, you may have as much as 1500 gems worth of summons and equipment elsewhere in your Empire, in addition to the 440 gems you have demonstrated with just 8 of your commanders, that you used in this battle.

Is this correct?

I doubt it's that high. You do tend to exaggerate a little, and I am not going to beancount every Last commander.

Hmmm. You think I tend exaggerate a little? So do you think your actual number of gems is lower? Ok, what is it that? Again, don't bean count, just rough estimate would be enough. 1000 more death gems, in addition to 440 gems used in that battle? 500 more gems? 100 more? Or you are not using Dusk Elders worth 20 gems each and Spectral Mages worth 10 death gems each, with maybe some Skull Mentors (10 gems without hammer, 7 gems with hammer) to get that fantastically high research that you have, based upon graphs? Unlike gems and money that you can get from random events, the extra research can not received from the random events, even on luck 2.

Bottom line Norfleet, if I am missing something here please correct me. I freely admit that I am not an expert on Ermor, unlike yourself, who have a lot of experience with this nation. So in case I am somehow mistaken here, I am eager to learn. Maybe you are currently using non-summoned mages for large part of your huge research, that didn't cost you gems but just money to hire and small upkeep?


As you have seen, I have been staying extremely polite toward you here, and I am not implying anything. I just totally confused by the numbers, and would like to hear your explanation how did you manage to do it? Other 4 players in this game are very interested in this as well, and they would like very much to hear your answers. We are just genially confused and don't understand what we are seeing in our game. So we are asking you to explain, now that you have won this game, as all of us can see.


I hope you understand me correctly. I am not implying anything here. I was very polite to you. All I want to hear is an explanation and answers for these very simple and very polite questions. As you can see from this thread, other forum regulars would like to know more about it too.


From myself, I can promise you that: if you'll answer these very simple questions, I will do what you have been urging me to do all along, meaning I will stop stalling the game and will continue it, despite the fact that you have destroyed my only army and that I have no chance in hell against Ermor at this point, just like everybody else in our game(unless of course you prefer that I go AI). At the very least if it'll become too distressing for me to continue I will find human sub for myself(I have a friend who love hopeless challenges, and who is semi-decent in Dom2, after 2 months of playing it. ( I think he is a bit masochistic, so he may even enjoy it ).

[Norfleet]

I assume you mean Sorceress? How many sorceress with Air 4 do you have now? Is she lucky Air 2 with Winged Helmet and Bag of Winds?

Sorcereii don't have to be lucky to be Air-2. They come that way out of the box. How many I have? That's a subject that I don't wish to share with you.

From myself, I can promise you that: if you'll answer these very simple questions, I will do what you have been urging me to do all along, meaning I will stop stalling the game and will continue it, despite the fact that you have destroyed my only army and that I have no chance in hell against Ermor at this point, just like everybody else in our game(unless of course you prefer that I go AI). At the very least if it'll become too distressing for me to continue I will find human sub for myself(I have a friend who love hopeless challenges, and who is semi-decent in Dom2, after 2 months of playing it. ( I think he is a bit masochistic, so he may even enjoy it ).

So now you're trying to hold the game ransom in exchange for the option to continue to interrogate and harass me after I have already indicated that I tire of this inquisition, and do not intend to answer any more questions on the matter. I have already told you enough.

Suffice it to say that my luck in this particular game has been exceedingly nice, more so than usual, and that continuing this interrogation is only going to make me more irritable and even less inclined to share in the future. I addressed this matter with you privately already, and I do not appreciate you refusing to accept the answers, and instead taking this into a public inquisition.

Maybe if you were somebody I actually liked, I'd be more willing to share, but no, you're somebody who has harassed me at every opportunity and now that you want something from me, for whatever reason, you're suddenly pretending to be polite. It won't work. I see this clearly now that I have gotten some rest. This discussion is OVER. No further questions.

[Graeme Dice]

Actually, the first sign of this was when I attained sufficient astral income to do acashic scanning.

Are you seriously expecting us to believe that you've had enough random water and astral gems to forge 30-40 clams and using only your pretender and one or two dusk elders since the start of the game?

D3W with a bracelet. Not hard to do.

Actually, it's quite hard to do, since it represents another 160 death gems spent for each one, and you either brought them along with you in that battle, or you happen to have even _more_ summons in your capital.

Con-6 was my first research target. I hit that milestone a long while ago, and with the on-stock I had from being socked with randoms, immediately set to work with it.

Once again, you will not have gotten more than 20 or 30 death gems from random events, so there is no way that you could research to construction 6 before turn 15 at the earliest as Soul Gate with no gem income other than your capital.

Depends on how you define "a lot". Is a figure somewhere between 30 and 40 a lot?

Yes, that represents another 200-400 gems that you have to have received from somewhere, and haven't yet accounted for.

Several. At least 2 or 3 of those, perhaps more, with a fistful of lesser takes.

So you've performed the equivalent of winning a lottery three times? That's almost beyond being lucky.

Incorrect: I said alchemy did not constitute the bulk of my gold production, and when needed, it was primarily fetish-based.

Which only your pretender could have forged, along with most of your clams. You can't have had too many fetishes by this point.

I am not going to beancount castles for you, sorry. I rejected this when you proposed this method of castle-limitation before, and I'm not going to try and count them now.

Beancount? That's a 15 second count to find out how many you have built.

Yes, but of those, my supply is primarily limited by the Death supply. As you saw in the accounting above, the gems of other types are of low usage and can easily be accounted for.

You say that you have two or three hammers. That's at least 20 earth gems, since you claimed that you found two, so you've spent between 30-60 earth gems on those. You've spent somewhere around 200-400 gems on clams and fetishes. You've also spent an unknown, but large amount on researchers. In short, you've not been able to account for all the gems you've spent, and we are wonodering where they came from.

[Demosthenes]

Seriously. There seems to be a slightly accusatory tone here, but really I think the question is...

Teach us?

I have no reason to think that there has been any foul play here. It is well known that Norfleet is a superior player and that he has a huge amount of free time. Clearly this is an advanced strategy.

So I say ante up! Norfleet, you must have hit on some strategies (and some luck) that completely eludes even the
more experienced players.

I'd like to know how to do it.

[Huzurdaddi]

Stormbinder,

how lame. I mean really. You must be hanging your head in shame. Everyone in the game allies against one player on turn 22 and they lose. Even worse you come to talk about it?

Amazing.

If I was norfleet I would be pissed off that a game was so rigged against him. But he clearly does not get as upset about dogpiling as I do.

I have no idea how it is possible that he had so many gems but he did an you lost. Take it like a man.

Actually that's being nice about the whole deal. I mean if you had dogpiled me like that and I had won I would say : "eat it, *****." I mean, god, what a horrible way to play a game.

It would definitely check if you spent the gems in the process, since gem-spending counts are a part of the cheat detection as of 2.12. I can't imagine how you would manage to do this, however, because the files are encrypted and checksummed, nor what purpose it would serve, since the alarm would be sounded.

Actually checksumming and encryption if done on the client ( and in this case it has to be ) is the incorrect route to take to make cheating impossible. The correct route to take is to simily have the .2h file contain the orders from the turn and for the server to validate. I'm sure IW knows this and I would guess this is what they have done.

[Zapmeister]

If I was norfleet I would be pissed off that a game was so rigged against him. But he clearly does not get as upset about dogpiling as I do.

The impression I get from Stormbinder's report:

We are playing this game with Graphs ON, and from the stats it is clear that the only nation that was even coming close to the Ermor was Vanheim, other nations are very far behind on most graphs. So I have been fighting Ermor for the Last 7 turns or so

is that the alliance against Norfleet is only 7 turns old, and that it formed in response to Ermor's graphs going ballistic. That's not "rigging" a game, it's ganging up on the clear leader, which is appropriate and something everyone does.

[Huzurdaddi]

That's not "rigging" a game, it's ganging up on the clear leader, which is appropriate and something everyone does.

Nope the whiner has already explained how it is TOTALLY rigged and he lost. Now he is mad since he had this plot to rig the game and Norfleet crushed him like an insect. Also note that the "alliance" is supposedly 7 turns old that means that it started at a minimum on turn 15. However another quote shows that it started much earlier:

have been sending me all their gems for the durations of the game.

BWHAHAHAHAHA! And he did not attempt to rig the game? Please.

AND HE STILL LOST. BWHAHAHAHAHA!

Honestly whiner, give it up man. You are accusing someone of cheating when you totally rigged a game. I think that wins the prize for losing in internet game! Congratulations! You WIN MAN! No one has ever lost so hard, ever. WAY TO GO!

[Norfleet]

Honestly whiner, give it up man. You are accusing someone of cheating when you totally rigged a game. I think that wins the prize for losing in internet game! Congratulations! You WIN MAN! No one has ever lost so hard, ever. WAY TO GO!

That reminds me of a guy I pummelled 80 to -6 once in Jedi Knight, using a myriad variety of crappy weapons like the stormtrooper bLaster, my bare hands, and, my most deadly weapon of all, sitting still and watching my opponent kill himself in an attempt to trap me. Ah, happier times. But at least he took his beating like a man.

[Norfleet]

how lame. I mean really. You must be hanging your head in shame. Everyone in the game allies against one player on turn 22 and they lose. Even worse you come to talk about it?

To be fair, they WERE newbies, some in their first MP game, and their contribution could not have amounted to more than "negligible". If I had been in Storm's shoes, I'd have either alternatively ignored, or attacked for the territory, depending on exact positioning. If I were in Storm's shoes, I would also want to wash my feet after taking them off.

If I was norfleet I would be pissed off that a game was so rigged against him. But he clearly does not get as upset about dogpiling as I do.

Eh, when you're Ermor, that's par for the course. You sorta expect this when you're against the fearmongers who think Ermor will be unstoppable later.

I have no idea how it is possible that he had so many gems but he did an you lost. Take it like a man.

Well, at the moment, he's procrastinating interminably instead of taking his damn turn, or at least having the decency to go AI. Instead, he makes up rumors about the other players wanting to concede as well, although none of them have responded to corroborate this, and then drags his feet, even though his turn can't possibly take more than 30 seconds if he was REALLY conceding defeat. Deliberate procrastination to stall the game is very dishonorable.

Actually checksumming and encryption if done on the client ( and in this case it has to be ) is the incorrect route to take to make cheating impossible. The correct route to take is to simily have the .2h file contain the orders from the turn and for the server to validate. I'm sure IW knows this and I would guess this is what they have done.

That's done also, and was tightened even more as of 2.12, which surely complicates life even more for the would-be cheater. Sucks to be them, heh.