MP: EA: Vanilla, Newbie game [GOOD AGAIN!]

[13lackGu4rd]

Originally Posted by GameExtremist

Where did I hurl insults?

I believe my post was quite moderate, no personal attacks etc. I don't believe my posts were macho ..foolish or even making me look bad for pointing a few things out - i.e. Dom3 etiquette.

I was referring to this part of your post:
[quote=GameExtremist;743210]Well I guess if the game isn't fun for you anymore you can just quit?

Maybe you should take a look at this thread and remember the commitment to being a "good" player you pledged to be on Page 12. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showt...=43620&page=12

the message here was very clear, despite trying to hide it with smooth talk, sorry but I *can* read between the lines... also it shows that you love to jump the gun, talking about things you have no idea about, and automatically think you're right despite admitting you don't know the situation!

If anyone should feel insulted it should be the other players in the game - Lanka's player included as its now a case of "The pot calling the kettle black" so to speak.

and here you continue... I clearly explained why my situation was very different from Lanka, and you still offend me by smooth talking with the whole "the pot calling the kettle black" crap. seriously, do you think I'm that *stupid* to not see what you're doing here...?

I had no idea you'd set your nation to AI till Num pointed it out, a post in this thread requesting either a sub - yes some people will take up what seems to be a dead end challenge or letting the rest of the players know of your decision would have been a small courtesy.

first of all, here you admit that you have no knowledge at all of my situation, yet you happily lash out at me. who is the hypocrite now heh? second of all, the only people who *might* have been able to turn my situation around, if at all, are very experienced players and especially people like Sensori who is the master of making comebacks from hopeless situations. the problem here is that this was a newbie game so it would have been even more unfair to let somebody very experienced to take my place, and another newbie just didn't stand a chance anyway which is why I turned AI in the first place...

perhaps I should have posted about it in here first, but after the lynch on me, which you started by the way, I really didn't feel like doing that. I already felt like I was fighting against the game, with only Vanheim somewhat by my side, but even he canceled our NAP when he was Ermor was overrunning me... so again, go ahead and blame me, but look in the mirror first!

Anyway good day too you sir *tips hat*

good day to you too

[Humakty]

You turned IA ? How funny ! But, I know, you're very different. Sure...

[Num]

Game_Extremist do you think you are going to crush everything ? Well, the remnants of your opponents... Is there a chance to stand against your armies ?
I do not have a lot of scouts, that is why I am asking.

[GameExtremist]

Well there is really only you and Lanka that can pose any sort of resistance I think, Vanheim and I had a epic battle last turn, which was entertaining. Unless you have some SC's up your sleeve its probably not going to be easy to stop me.

I'm surprised Lanka is doing do well, I have spies too and it (the AI) has really creamed Tien Chi.

I'm happy to keep playing if others are...If not I don't mind if people set to AI, it gives me a chance to try some stuff out.

[Num]

Lanka has completely taken the edge against Tien Chi, I do not know the story. But I am backstabbing Lanka, demons are suffering many losses since (The AI is so bad).
I only have a few SC, and they are very bad tuned. My armies are slow and not adapted to counter SCs, I guess. So you are probably going to get rid of Ermor soon and quick. I do not have Tartarians, as I did not managed to reach enough nature and death paths on my pretender (Empowerment cost much and I waste lot of time, gold and gems in secondary goals, as I was battling with C'tis for a long time).
I have hard times in finishing the last sauromancers in the C'tis capital, that means a lot.

@All the players : Do not hesitate to write and explain what were your plans, strategy, goals. I would be glad to read that.

[John_Madlock]

Maybe if Lanka would be ruled by a living player we could face weak resistance. I am already finished. It was blitzkrieg. GameExtremist, you are not a noob.
2-3 years of absence, and so you can see it is not enough to become a noob again

[Stagger Lee]

Originally Posted by Num

@All the players : Do not hesitate to write and explain what were your plans, strategy, goals. I would be glad to read that.

Well, I'm done. My strategy was simple and not clearly defined. I wanted a chance to try an astral heavy nation. My pretender was s9e6 I think. I eventually wanted celestial soldiers and thought maybe MR would be important, but I also wanted good scales. In most of my games so far, I have sacrificed scales for bless, or SC pretender. I knew this was also a chance to try clamming, which is not usual now, and I haven't played enough to be sick of that game.

I tried to rebuild after my disaster when Lanka went AI, and should have been able to. BoT killed or rendered useless all my replacement celestial masters. I tried to regroup again, managing to kill a bunch of my masters of the way in various ways, usually with poorly planned communions and lots of dead slaves after a victory, leaving me weaker for the rampaging hordes of Lanka. A well set up empire, and even when I was winning battles, I never took Lanka land, just retook TC territory.

I just retook my cap again, for the third and final time. If I lose it again, I won't even try. I got nothing left for this game. I wish I could say it's been fun, but it hasn't. Not for a long time. Someone once said you learn more from one desperate situation than you do from ten easy victories. I hope I have learned something here. For one thing, a stale turn will always be better than a stoopid charge just 'cuz you're pissed off.

Good game to those still in, and congratulations GE if you get concessions. From where I sit, some of you had some real epic battles, and hopefully some fun.

See ya

[Num]

Thanks for answering, it's hard to figure out what were the other player's strategies and moves.

My strategy was simple and not clearly defined

Haha that is clearly my thought about mine .
I wanted a SC pretender (In my other game, Rattlehead, my C'tis pretender was useless, with strong scales and dominions, but it has fitted very well), but I missed magic diversity, and did not reached good numbers in nature and death paths... So I had a good early game. But with a lot of wastes and mountains and lack of magic paths, I missed both gold and gems incomes.
War with C'tis was successful at the end (I suspect Blackguard to play in too much games for his available time, and so I luckily had reasonable success against him ) but I have no endgame plan : No tartarian, few SCs (Fire Kings), too much standard troops, lot of summon tries. No chance (I guess) when Ulm is coming...
Anyway, I had fun, I hope I learned some things, I will continue playing a little.... See you.

[13lackGu4rd]

so, this game is finally over heh? well, cooling down is a wonderful think I gotta say

so anyway, my 2 cents. started the game pretty well with my Prince of Death, found Niefelheim too early on my north, very close to me, fortunately he didn't want an early war with me, than he started staling and was subbed. anyway, before I knew whether I had to face some crazy blessed giants on my doorsteps I immediately rushed enchantment3 to give me skelli spam as a stopping power for whatever rush might emerge from the north. than I found Ermor and Vanheim. at first I didn't know where Vanheim was, but we were fighting over the same indies, so I just let him keep a fort he had up and I built my own fort next to it, to block an incoming offensive should it ever come. my scouts reported that most of Ermor's province had no PD at all, some at 1 and not much above it. seemed like a perfect target to blitz, so I prepared some black servants with those skelli amulets, to hopefully raid all those juicy 0-5 PD provinces with just animate skeletons from the amulet. unfortunately I had to give Ermor 3 turns notice due to our previous NAP, and I guess he upgraded his PD immensely during that time cause my first strike was a horrible failure. I did capture a few provinces here and there, but not nearly as much as I hoped. than we basically got locked into this war that I eventually lost. my main mistakes were twofold. the first was that I didn't focus my research enough to really abuse my research lead, instead I went for as many globals as I could(Mother Oak, GoH, Well of Misery, eventually BoT) which forced me to not focus on a single field. the second is that I completely ignored gem generator making, mainly clams. nonetheless, these wouldn't have been too critical if it wasn't for a few careless stales of mine, that really destroyed my tempo and gave Ermor just enough breathing room to commit into a successful offensive and slowly but surely bring me down. at the end I was desperate, which was why I put up the BoT up, and if it wasn't for those crucial stales I would have had a few GoRed healthy tarts to hold off Ermor's push into my peninsula and cap, unfortunately due to the stales(and scattered research) when I eventually got the tarts out it was already too little too late, and I got 2 Monstrums instead of more useful tarts...

I guess Ulm did focus a lot on gem gens, as everybody should under vanilla settings, while I suspect the rest of you didn't. this, combined with his obvious experience lead to his easy victory with a relatively mediocre nation, especially compared to all the powerhouse nations we had(Lanka, Niefelheim, etc). still, if I hadn't messed up my research plans and tempo I could have probably still beaten Ermor back, than Lanka and TC and burst into Ulm with an armada of fully equipped tarts, which are much easier for me as C'tis to amass than for Ulm.

and well, it's not that I was in too many games per se, as I had plenty of free time for them, it's just that I lost my focus a bit too often which lead to my very poor game play.

[GameExtremist]

Prentender and scales -

I went with a dormant oracle with E9S4N4, Reason was being a Prot bless for my sacreds with a little regeneration mixed in, astral to help gain access to the high end of that path later on.

scales were Turmoil 1, Cold 1, Growth 3, Luck 1 .

I don't clearly remember why I chose those scales...all I know is that Luck 1 paid big dividends in gold and gems over the game (I usually pick misfortune).

Early Expansion and the Hinnom War. Turn 1 - 30ish?

I started in the NW part of the map, my cap 2 provinces from Hinnoms cap, so we met very early on, I tried to expand away from him and avoid confict but he came straight at me with an army of chariots 40+ http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Avvite_Charioteer led by a thugged out Melquart and Kohens http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Melqart (early game SC)...which I had nothing to counter with and he crushed my initial army, luckily he left his provinces with NO PDwhich enabled me to raid him and hurt him economically preventing more of those nasty chariots and melquarts.

Now he should have crushed me and could have taken my cap, but instead he went on a tour through my provinces and still DIDNT build any PD in my captured lands...so I was able to recapture with a simple scout that followed his main army. Meanwhile he was busy trying to recap his lands I had taken with indys while I built 21+ PD in each.

My forces built up and I sent armies north of our position and took lands up there, still avoiding a direct conflict with his main force, he then sent another chariot army north...oh great I thought but funnily enough he split it in two and I was able to encircle the two havles seperately and rout them ... meaning they were totally wiped out!

Now the saving grace in these battles was letting him come to me...he would set his chariots in a wall so they would span the width of the battlefield....sooo I set all my army at ther very back of the field all my mages were E2N2 spammed Earth meld so the chariots arrived in smaller lots and my steel maidens and sacreds were able to hack them to bits rather then be overwhelmed by the chariot mass. The strategy worked well.

After that it was a matter of grinding his economy down (giants costs LOTS OF $$$ and eat lots too) and we reversed roles his main army becoming the mouse and my growing force becoming the cat. Eventually I had it holed out and let it starve, Krec started staling around then which was disappointing as I believed he could still have put up a fight.

Arco, Helheim and consolidation Turn 30+ to 45+?

Were both near to Hinnom and Ulm, Helheim signed an early NAP with Hinnom much to my disgust as it crippled his expansion (locked onto a peninsula) and meant I didn't have the ally I hoped for against Hinnom, Arco refused a NAP too and attacked...seeming like they were going for a turtle strategy building lots of forts but not having many provinces.

I turned my full attention on Arco once Hinnom was defeated, of which went AI soon after...I went on a massive site searching (with spells) mission with my E2N2 mages but I was alos fortunate to find 2 that gave me A2 illusionists...sweet , A death indy site was found with one of my D1 randoms, enabling me to bootleg into death too.

Arco proved harder then I thought to bring down....I guess he had a lot of mages with gems and it took a long while to bring all my armies across the map, eventually they fell and I turned to removing Helheim which although seemingly weak were giving Vanheim a challange...Helheims pretender ...oh wow what a great build and strategy...I salute the 2nd player who still has Zynoggoly doing hit and run attacks.

Research
After my goal of researching earth meld (alteration 2)http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Earth_Meld I went straight to construction and didn't stop till I hit Const 8 nad had my warrior smiths with their 25% forge bonus making earth boots and dwarvern hammers (a further +25% forge bonus).

Thats right ...I had access to artifacts around turn 30 something...which I didn't want anyone to know this

There was also some excellent battle spells like legions of steel etc..

Gargoyles, Golems and Gift of Reason

I began making Gargoyles, gift of reasoning them and kitting them out...the first one Artabanes was given monolith armour and the Stone sword and a few other trinkets...this combo proved to be lethal, armies melt before this guy - Helheims main army did, he literally petrified 200+ undead, the great thing about this was 0 fatigue...and immune to the nasty self-petrification effect of the stone sword. The others were thugged out with the nastiest things I could forge and used as raiders. The Golems were my astral mages used to forge astral artifacts and boosters.

Neifelheim and Vanheim Turn 45+ to 70

After Arco fell I considered moving south to kill the crippled Tien Chi, however he was proving to be a nice buffer between Lanka (who was unpredictable being AI) and I now had a narrow land bridge to Neifelheim, he refused my NAP and attacked with a large army of Skinshifters (70+ I think)....I didn't feel to worried, Its expensive to keep all those giants around so I decided I could outraid him with my gargoyles and just surround his main army and rout it...so I did that, By now I had access to every path (even blood - I have this guy to bootleg with http://dom3.servegame.com/wiki/Treelord_%28Barkheart%29 ) so it was only a matter of deciding what to throw at him, I used warriors of muselpheim and rings of cold resistance to protect my army from the ineveitable cold (ulms troops have 25% cold res to start with) and tore it too shreds with everything else.


Now at this time Vanheim wanted out of our NAP, So after the alloted 3 turns, I turned my attention from Neifelheim of which had been hit very hard losing 20+ provinces and 3 forts in a handful of turns, oh Neifelheim had death scales too which was strangling his gold flow....made my job alot easier - I didn't gain much in gold from Neifels provinces....but that was more then made up for from the gems....all those provinces had lots and lot of gems...

Anyway back to Van, I hit Van after the NAP expired with my armies...armies of mages and thugs now....Having Forge of the Ancients up means my smiths and others are pumping out the max (50) items a turn, my biggest dilemma was not running out gems but emptying my item treasury every turn so I could fill it up again. Battlefield wide spells like armies of gold, storm warriors, mass regeneration were used...and as John Madlock knows Van was taken quickly as he really didn't have the resources to stop me...oh we had/have a second front in the ocean being fought over, but gargoyles with rings of water breathing and an army with goblets of water breathing seem to be winning too.

Gem Generators

Contrary to opinion I don't have any clams, I have about 10 fever fetishes as I only have a handful of fire mages which are too busy making items then site searching, all my gems are from the 2 globals i have and the huge amount of site searched provinces.


Why was Ulm so successful


I think some critical mistakes by Hinnom (like the fact he didn't crush me like an experienced player would have) and the fact his two neighbours Arco and Helheim were so weak was the biggest factor. Once I started building momentum it felt like a juggernaut that couldn't be stopped.( I nearly made one of those by the way )

Oh and Artabanes the Stone sword wielding Gargoyle. (The counter to this is the shatter spell).

While it might seem I'm uber experienced...the truth is I am currently in five games, already been knocked out of 2 others already. E.g. My idea to use Earth Meld against the chariots was taken from the Tophats game where my strategy as Arco revolved around trampling Van with elephants...he then taught me how effective false fetters (Air version of earth meld) was in stopping big rampaging tramplers . You learn lots by playing against more experienced players and these forums are great for tips....Dom3wiki is great too!

The Future
Should the game continue - I'd like too even if people concede to me and go AI.

I intend to mop up Vanheim and Neifelheim (still has a nice juicy army in his cap). Kill that damn lump of rock they call Helheims pretender.

I just wished for my first Seraph, I am going to Gift of reason him, transfer the chains of tartarus and some other goodies and start wishing for doom horrors.

From there I'll probably use my demon fighting army (I have started mass producing demon banes and herald lances for Lanka) to head south in Lanka and send the current Van/Neifel Army into Ermor....