new game: two versus two -- After Action Reports

[Zooko]

A critical event in the war between Marignon and Jotunheim was when Marignon attacked, lost the battle, and lost three Grand Masters plus a handful of Initiates. The same army had earlier conquered a province from Jotunheim, but the difference was that this time Jotunheim had a Niefel Jarl there who cast Rain first thing. Rain doubles the fatigue of all non-underwater-casteable Fire spells, and so each of the three Grandmasters cast Flare twice, after which they each had 184 fatigue, and never moved again. Oh, I forgot to mention that the province was cold, which also increases spellcasting fatigue.

I wonder if the Rain added-fatigue effect multiplies the cold added-fatigue effect? Because 97 or so fatigue per casting of Flare is a lot!

Regards,

Zooko

The rain was killer. I should have thought of it though.

[Zooko]

It is a nice tradition to discuss the strategy of a game after it is over so that others may learn from it.

My strategy was simple: recruit Niefelheim giants which have high number of hit points and are sacred, and use the Green Dragon Pretender with 9 Nature magic to give those units regeneration and berserk. By attacking fearlessly with those sacred units, my starting Jotunheim army, a Niefel Jarl, and the Green Dragon Pretender, I had the highest number of provinces every turn until turn 15 (with the exception that one turn my partner Arcoscephale had a higher number of provinces).

Then our strategy went into phase 2 when Jotunheim came into contact with Marignon. In phase 2, I focussed almost all of my resources on damaging Marignon's armies and depriving him of provinces, even though this was risky and expensive for me. I lost a lot of units in two separate losing battles, including my Pretender, but more reinforcements from my home castles arrived, I recalled my Pretender, and I was able to prevent Marignon from retaking his provinces by committing almost all of my armies, including my Pretender, plus a huge provincial defense (20, 26, and 32 provincial defense in three of the contested provinces), and a Niefel Jarl casting Rain, as discussed earlier.

The point of this strategy was that even if I lost, my reckless attack would probably have weakened Marignon enough that my partner Arcoscephale could finish him off.

This strategy pretty much worked. Pythium apparently tried to help his partner Marignon, since a couple of assassins from Pythium attacked my commanders at various points, but basically it seemed to me that Marignon was overwhelmed by facing two enemies.

My partner Arcoscephale and I traded gold, gems, intelligence, and magic items quite vigorously throughout the game.

So one lesson that I draw is that if you play a two-vs-two game, you have to have good scouting or other kinds of intelligence and watch out for both of your enemies coming at you at once. If you see them coming then -- I don't know what to do -- get into a defensive posture and encourage your partner to attack their rears?

Perhaps the map was too big. I never had any contact with Pythium, and I think the contact between Pythium and Arcoscephale was limited. So perhaps it wasn't fair to Marignon that he happened to start in a location where, in 40 turns or so, both of his enemies could reach him, but his partner Pythium couldn't reach either of them.

This was the Inland map with 150 ? provinces. That's 37.5 provinces per player, which seems way too much to me.

Too bad there isn't a wraparound map with only 100 provinces.

[GriffinOfBuerrig]

Gratulations!

I really really had bad misfortune in the game: My Strategie was to build many nation units(rich world) and to get as many Provinces as possible quite fast, meanwhile my Archlich should
serach the newly conquered provs for magic sites(75% magic sites in the map), then i would later(after round 10 or so) cast ashraic record(with my Archteutorgs to get as many sites as possible and to cast all my hording spells.

The problem was that in the north where 2 Provinces with 25 Heavy Cavaleries(and som infantrie) and in the south 60 Babarians... so much about my strong nationforce...

My temple was destroyed in turn 3 by a random event and i FOUND SO DAMM FEW SITES!!!!

But it was fun, i would be interrested in playing again with you, maybe on the Sundering, the map was really to big

Griffin

My plan since we were on high magic sites was to do lots of searching, use assassins and mass of xbowmen to expand. Pyth and I were also tradeing lots of gold/gems/info. I also planed on supporting my xbow with fire spells, which were slaughtered by rain, lamais which I had a site for, druids and pike men.

At the start of the war between me and jotuy I was doing well, but then lost a huge army to rain+insane province defence. While I was occupied in the south of my territory around my base arco came from he north and captured a bunch of my provinces including a sage site and a castle.

Pythuim was right below my capital, and so could never really help me unless he snuck units through(which he did, assasins)or went around the world.

[Zooko]

Ah, that's where Pythium was. Yes, I think this map wasn't a good choice for 2-vs-2 because of things like that.

My Jotun scouts had reported to Arcoscephale that he could profitably attack Marignon's northern provinces.

Ah, you had a sage site! That's why you had such high research. What did you research? I was always afraid that you would have some killer spell and destroy my whole army, but nothing came of it.

Also, how did you and/or Pythium assassinate a Heavy Cavalry Commander and a Troglodyte Commander? Lots of Pythium assassins attacking at once?

No, I research construct for my assasins and evo for my mages. I did not get that sage site untill later in the game. But I had magc +3 I think as well as druids I also had order 3 and possibly some growth( I can't remeber exactly what i had). So i recruited druids and marignon mages every turn. I also had a huge gold income and alot of that went to pyth.

[Zooko]

What items did your assassins use to kill the heavy cavalry commander and the troglodyte commander? Why didn't you ever try to assassinate my commanders with the same items?