MP: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]

[legowarrior]

Yeah.... I'm not sure. Damn, I really enjoyed this game too.

[earcaraxe]

im curious about groundworms opinion about that topic. I would like to add, that i already own about half of the map (the pangaean and half the ctissian lands, about the whole southern continent now and of course the waters), and many ulmian provinces are up for grabs and (easily reachable from the waters), since parone really didnt leave defense in the south. i think it i would have taken those even if he didnt leave.

we can continue playing, but im not sure it would make much difference.

[Zywack]

I didn't know you were that big (T'ien Ch'i auto-PD thingy is a black hole for spies), but just with basic geography it certainly looked really, really bad. I assumed that the southern continent was in Ulm hands and not yours, but considering Ulm's decision, it really would have made no difference at all.

It's really up to Bandar Log if they want to continue our slugfest for the sake of continuing it... As long as for lore sake that Shinuyama is allowed to exist and that there's no temples built for 500 miles around our lands, I don't mind considering my war with Bandar Log a draw and to give Oceania the victory and overall leadership. If Groundworms prefers to continue the war though, I'll indulge them and fight until one of us win or until T'ien Ch'i or Oceania gets bored and clean us off the map.

[legowarrior]

Yeah, not liekly that I will win though. Made some poor decision when it came to making my pretender and Oceania will eventually get through my pd. I am for calling it and setting up a new game.

[Zywack]

I'm honestly a bit tired myself of having to deal with the Dominion... It's been a sword hanging over my head with no solution.

Do you know what Dominion score my inherited god have? 2.

Two. I have TWO points in Dominion. This means that I had to spend an inordinate amount of time dedicated to priests instead of mages and troops. My war with Bandar Log was motivated by their big pile of temples (around 10 right on my borders): Even if I were to build as many, I'd have gotten wiped out soon. My war objectives were not territories, but just to blow up temples (The actual trying to win the war came a few turns later when I decided to risk it by combining my two armies to march north and just harass Bandar Log main army to hold it down by threatening it with a cut path of retreat and other perceived threats).

And then T'ien Ch'i dominion started creeping in beside temples and priests on the border. I'm pretty sure that wasn't intentional at all, but just a by-product of my utterly attrocious dominion score. So even though I killed around 50 mages in the last two turns, a tartarian and a Zmey, I'm still doomed by something I can do absolutely nothing about: Even if I beat Bandar Log before dying a dominion death, it's only going to buy me a tiny bit more time. It's not as if the war is going perfectly anyway: My storm staff anti-tartarian group failed pathetically mostly due to the storm staff itself last turn, and the multiple Ghost Riders cast each turn do put a strain, alongside with the southern front probably going back to it's locked front, and the mass-luck artefact sword still being in Bandar Log's hands despite our best attempt.

I knew the 2 points in dominion made a win impossible, but I never expected to reach that late in the game... Reaching turn 25 was my goal. My win over Machaka was simply a last-ditch defense by doing a lure and using the militia mercs and slime spam. It surprisingly worked, and my guesses regarding his movements were spot-on so I managed to get a castle for free by cutting his path with small armies with a bit of decoy help from Bandar Log. The war went flawlessly beside the actual "finish off their capital" which turned out be pretty painful.

For Bandar Log, I expected an early loss but I thought I'd bring down some temples at least. I expected massive amount of Mind Hunts from the first turn: If you are wondering, the reason why I've been trading for hundred of nature gems is because Kitsunes were my only potential source of Astral magic as a counter to it. Well, also because the entire Shinuyama lands produced a meager 5 nature a turn, despite it fully Haruspeced and having Machaka's capital...

Oh, quick question: can Bandar Log actually blood sacrifice? I thought they couldn't, but I've assassinated a Daikini that had a Jade Knife last turn so I'm not so sure now...

As a side note, I'm simply amazed at my three musketeer squad: It's a trio of Ghost Generals equiped with nothing else but a gold shield and a brand (depending on which). They've taken down piles of PD early on, fought in three big battles, sieged the castle housing Bandar Log's god... And all three are still alive somehow. Those were the best gem investment I've ever made in Dominion beside the "anti-60 mage communion" squad. That was a Master Enslave communion I assume?

[Groundworm]

Sorry, long post incoming.

Regarding the game in general: I didn't know Oceania was that big either. My spy network really never made it to the south. Or the west. Or anywhere outside Shinuyama's lands, for that matter. And, as Zywack has stated, neither him nor I are contenders for victory after our war. So if T'ien Ch'i feels that he's out of the running, then I'm fine with giving the game to earcaraxe.

Regarding the war with Shinuyama: I don't feel the need to continue the game just for fighting this war, as I'm now rather confident that you'll win, in the end. It will still be a long war and hard-fought, but you've been playing *far* better than I have, and your superior strategies have allowed you to do vast amounts of damage to me. I've done far less to you with better gem production. The ghost rider spam is inconvenient, I'm sure, but you're dealing with it just fine... it's not actually gaining me any provinces. And you'd get the Sword of Aurgelmer next turn, because it's trapped on one of my Yogis with no adjacent friendly province to retreat to. All of my armies are smashed; I'm down to just raiders. Your overwhelming victory last turn killed well over half of the mages I've recruited this entire game. I couldn't Mind Hunt you until this last turn, as I never researched evocation heavily because Bandar is not an evocation nation. I also spent most of my early astral pearls on Gandharvas (useless), and my later ones on artifacts and Rudras (much better, but very expensive).

Bandar can't blood sacrifice. You didn't assassinate a Daikini with a jade knife- you assassinated an Asrapa with a blood thorn.

No, it wasn't a master enslave communion- see above re: evocation research. I did research enough evo eventually to communion my E and W Rishis, and that was a mass-evocation spam communion.

In sum, I have no objection to ending the game. In fact, I'm not really sad to see it go. Shinuyama and I had an excellent war and you've all been great to play with, but I made numerous major mistakes, several serious tactical and strategic blunders, and I'm not sure I like Bandar Log after having played with them.

[earcaraxe]

thank Zywack for the input! that dom score of 2 is hilarious
and congrats for the achievement from ur starting position!

I understand it was a game mostly for inexperienced players, but it was my first MP game with oceania, which is perceived a weak nation. I certainly could do much better, for instance putting just a little earth and water on my pretender would have made difference. An other factor is i planned to amass lamia queens (baalz's guide), but chose cold3 (cold blooded ), so eventually i gave that direction up and put the water gems into unfrozen warriors and mages. which proved to be absolutely powerful/economical/synergical. I chose a rainbowish master lich.

This is the story from my perspective: I aimed to grab some land provinces fast thinking that i get get the water ones later, even at the cost of war and mother oak couldnt be cast from under the water. Pangaea was the only one who didnt answer my messages, and also had pathetic early expansion, so i teamed up with ctis and attacked. the war was nearing its end when i agreed with TC to attack ctis, so i ended up with all of pangaea and half of ctis's territories. in the northwestern corner i have found an 20% enchantment site wich gave a nice boost to my unrozen-factory later in the game. In the south abysia defeated vanheim, and thanks to caelums ineptitude for expanding, owned the bulk of the southern continent, however i thought he didnt have the forces to defend that, he massively overextended. And by that expansion he put a crosshairs on his back. while the last of my northern wars were chiming down, i have sent some troops to the southern continent to grab some provinces there too. abysia also didnt respond to my messages, so i just attacked him here and there. he managed to defeat my first weak tries, but at the very beginning he teleported his pretender to the battle to help out with astral fires, where my cavalry broke thru and killed him before routing, costing him his global enchantment. caelum didnt do anything not then, not later. in the meantime ulm defeated ashdod, then messaged me that he wants vanheims capitol while i defeat abysia alone. saying if i disagree he will just attack me too. so i ceded every province to ulm he wanted to leave me alone for a while and began my full-scale war versus abysia. It was my first war where my full army participated (actually not my full army, since i had so many territories even then that some of them were too far up north). I reached abysias capitol without resistance, i was surprised to learn how weak the abysian amred forces were. there was a HUGE battle at the capitol however, but storm/fog warriors and numerical superiority was enough to win. then TC attacked ulm, and parone retreated almost all of his forces north, so i spent the next 3 turns getting my armies into position. I have also found a 20% conjuration site next to former abysian capitol, there i summoned about 300 animals, and 4 elemental royalties, and marched eastward (ulm has conquered caelum in that 3 turns).

I also managed to be on good terms with almost everybody, and even before the start of the game i knew it was more optimal strategy to be expansionist, since no graphs will be seen, so one can grow unnoticed with a little luck, that i managed perfectly.

My long-term plan was (had parone not given up) - after defeating ulm, when i already own half of the map - to shoot up burden of time for which i have been amassing the D gems. capricorns, and all my summoned mages are basicly immune to BoT, but it would have killed most of TC's, shinu's and bandar's.

I have found ma oceania a very capable nation, the sirens (which i used for search and combat too) and the new selkie summons gives a quite strong and very maneuverable air-dimension to it.

this is the map of the world as i see now: http://www.math.bme.hu/~simon/giants.bmp

thanks all for this great game, i really did enjoy it too, i hope we meet soon in another one.

im very curious about ur aspects!

[legowarrior]

Nasty indeed. I hadn't realized how much of the map you owned. Glad I took a grab for C'tis when I did. I have nothing except tons of money to my name. I took Death and Nature on my pretender, but really got little in return (very little in nature income). After C'tis, it took me forever to move my forces to face Ulm, because I had to swamps to move through. My summons are pathetic, but I do have a lot of Crystal Shields and a communion to work with. Shinuyama was nice enough to send me a fire skull, but it took him forever to send it, and then I was all about Zmeys.


Finally, my income was super high (tons of site search) but I just didn't have the paths to get much of the good stuff.

Yeah, I would have lost to Oceania, even if Bandar and Shinuyama teamed up with me.

[Zywack]

Oops! Sorry about the Aspara/Dakini mess up: I had just checked the turn result very quickly before going to sleep.

I'm very, very sorry about how long it took to send you that skull legowarrior: I did send you one as soon as I possibly could. In fact, Construction is actually the first thing I've reached level 6 in... My top research speed was around 210 RP, and that lasted for maybe 2 turns since that's the time it took in between finishing off Machaka and panicking at Bandar Log's temples. I had started making some Skull Mentors, but I only ended up with 3 of them since I had to trade away everything to Oceania to buy some Nature gems. I greatly feared Mind Hunt, and getting Astral Kitsunes was my topmost priority... I ended up with one Astral Kitsune on the first turn of the Bandar Log war to protect my capital, and a second one the turn after to sneak around the northern army... That one did actually get 2 astral points, so it's been extremely useful. One kitsune got air magic, and it was my first air mage (even though I have decent nation-only summons...) so I did a tri-trade to get a bag of wind for her. It's definitively proven useful!

But yeah, back to research... During the Bandar Log war, my research speed was usually around 120rp per turn. I just never could afford to even have a big core of researchers. Mages were bought and sent to the front all game long since they were desesperately needed every single turn, and the few Bakamono Sorcerers I had at home always caught diseases and were busy either site searching with spells or crafting stuff. My highest research was Evocation at 7 for Storm of Thorn for my nature Uba, and I was aiming for Frozen Heart to counter the Zmeys for next research goal. Since my anti-Tartarian Squad with the storm staff that failed stupidly due to the staff making them miss all their Dust to Dust (and then they decided to switch to Decay...), I had a grand total of 37rp last turn. I didn't lose the mages, but 37rp at that turn isn't terribly fun!

Regarding Oceania's size... Damn! On the north west continent, I pretty much had spies that scouted every T'ien Ch'i province, and they died one single step away from Oceania's lands... So I had assumed that the North continent was all T'ien Ch'i beside maybe a few lands. On the southern part of the equation, I had a spy 1 step away from the southern continent... So I would have known next turn, but it obviously wouldn't have changed anything. I really value information, but T'ien Ch'i just screwed over my scouting attempts on the western side. If at least one of my western scout had reached Oceania's lands (I nearly sent some assassin to scout due to their better sneak scores but I figured that diplomatically it wouldn't be a good idea if she's caught) I would have been more wary of Oceania... But realistically-speaking, beside trying to convince T'ien Ch'i and Ulm to unite against them, I couldn't do anything either way. Our borders consisted of a single province, and beside trying to slooowly go down the river, I couldn't fight them. Plus, the army going downriver would be in stupidly large amount of danger since there'd be no retreat paths anywhere ever since I didn't own any of the river banks. Thanks for telling me what you were using all the water gems I sent you: I was genuinely curious

It's been a great amount of fun, thank you very much everyone!

[Ragnarok-X]

So, my gifts to Oceania and Ulm were not in vain after all. Great.