Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [9/24 players left]
 

Mictlan has fallen at last. After many turns of holding up the walls of our forts we have finally succumbed.

we gain peace in knowing we killed many men in the defense of our cap incuding the great evil giant Balor

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [8/24 players left]
 

Would you care to give us a short recount of your heroic deeds?- Such that won't infringe on the anonymity of the remaining players?

Good game. Thanks for playing.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [8/24 players left]
 

Well i started out pretty good, started next to agartha, which as anyone knows, when you start next to them, you attack them, no matter who you are, you just do because they are agartha. But being a W9S9B4blessed mictlan made that easier. i broke their back easy enough, but took much to long to close the deal i'm afraid. then i got attacked by a really really bizzare Helheim. I dont think i ever would have thought someone would make masses of thugs equipped with 2h baneblades and champion skulls. while this wasnt particularly scary, helheim was much bigger than me and could wreck my economy. it was sorta touch and go, but then formoria decided to kill Helheim from the other side. There really wasnt any way my war-torn nation could hope to fight formoria's onslaught, so i decided to turtle in my forts and make it hard for him. by using cross-breeding and a couple hundred vampires, i held out for many many turns tying down a huge amount of troops. eventually formoria brought in around 900 men plus gate cleavers and stormed my fort. I did a decent amount of damage, like i said, killed Balor, but it wasnt enough to break formoria's morale.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [8/24 players left]
 

Broke my back easy enough? How many hundred jag warriors did i kill? Seriously, I probably drained enough resources from you that you were unable to recover.

Turn 33 was way too late to attack. I was expecting to be dead by turn 20. I didn't even get attacked until well after that.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [8/24 players left]
 

CBM 1.8 contains some improvements to Agartha. Possibly it will become more competitive and will no longer occupy the "must be attacked" slot.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [8/24 players left]
 

just loaded up my turn 33. at that point i owned everything but you cap, so i'm pretty sure that means i attacked before that turn.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [8/24 players left]
 

Huh, i recalled turn 33. Well, it was pretty late. Maybe turn 28. It was much later than i wouldve attacked in your shoes.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [8/24 players left]
 

Another titan has fallen. Come forward please, you who have led mighty Atlantis thus far.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [8/24 players left]
 

Yes Atlantis has finally fallen. I started the game with an awake Wyrm with some extra magic to try to get some fast expansion as well as some later magic diversity. This sort of worked ok to begin with and I think I had an early lead in territory. When I ran into Rlyeh I thought I should try to attack him early before he got too much scary research for his Aboleths but unfortunately he was able to repel my attack and things looked grim. Then he and Oceania got into a war and I stood by on the sidelines thinking I would be able to kill of the victor. Unfortunately Oceania then suddenly collapsed before I was ready and my somewhat rushed attack again failed.

After that me and Rlyeh waged a more or less continuous war back and forth but as I had feared I couldn't really come up with an effective answer to his troops. This was of course not helped by my wyrm getting mindhunted and killed just as it was on its way back to base to start using those expensive paths I had bought for it. Well I mostly tried to use thugged out Basalt kings but I could never get enough of them and in the end Rlyeh just run me over.

Good game and well played whoever is Rlyeh, and good luck to all remaining players.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [8/24 players left]
 

GG Isokron. Thank you for playing.
Oh and until this one is over you're still the reigning YARG champion :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Short update (to spark some interest in an otherwise quiet game) per turn 94:

Provinces
Nation Provinces
Arcoscephale 31
Ermor 9
Ulm 35
Tir na n'Og 29
Fomoria 60
R'lyeh 45

Forts
Nation Forts
Arcoscephale 12
Ermor 7
Ulm 13
T'ien Ch'i 45
Tir na n'Og 4
Fomoria 20
R'lyeh 21

Income
Nation Income
Arcoscephale 4273
Ermor 1700
Ulm 2367
T'ien Ch'i 5939
Tir na n'Og 3179
Fomoria 4741
R'lyeh 5570

Gem Income
Nation Gem Income
Arcoscephale 106
Ermor 45
Ulm 102
T'ien Ch'i 235
Tir na n'Og 73
Fomoria 128
R'lyeh 120

Nation Victory Points
Arcoscephale 3
Ermor 1
Ulm 4
T'ien Ch'i 6
Tir na n'Og 2
Fomoria 5
R'lyeh 3

GG so far, I hope the remaining players are having fun.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

You have omitted TC in the Provinces Ranking

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Oops, sorry about that:
Provinces
Nation Provinces
T'ien Ch'i 80

Good to know that at least one person checks this thread :D

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

It's hard to say too much without feeling like you might be crossing a line... even for me. So that probably explains why most people aren't saying much. It's too easy to say something that could be construed as being in poor taste as far as the rules of the game are concerned. That's the only problem with this sort of game, the near total communications blackout with your fellow players. I imagine that must be especially hard in a game like this one, that has lasted for a very long time and seems to be coming to a head.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

you're right of course.
Do you reckon that posting a (perfectly publicly available)short update every once in a while is ok?- If only to bump the game thread so we know it's alive :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Somewhat. The problem is it still looks halfway like diplomacy. Of course, there's the chance that you could use it that way ;). But I know that you wouldn't, wraithlord. In any case I think what you've done is fine, but it's just really difficult to talk about this game. It's a bit sad, that's part of the fun part of the game for me, talking to other people about what's happening. But eh, what can you do. Anyway go ahead and make postings like what you've done. I can't condemn it and you're right, it's certainly publically available. Anyway, the game is certainly in interesting territory right now. I'm anticipating a possible ending now, and I'm still not sure what's going to happen. I'be b een sadly a bit out of touch with the players lately due to various events going on in my life right now, which I most certainly regret, but I realize there's not a lot I can do about that. It's just sad the game thread is suffering as a result.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Yes. I see your point.
I think just to be safe I'll refrain from any such posting here. Indeed sad for game thread but better safe than sorry. Anyone interested can just check the score tables for the game.

It's a shame that such interesting games with lots going on are so quiet so all the heroic deeds end up unknown and forgotten.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

It would appear that TNN has gone AWOL and went AI last turn. They're a pretty big nation, and I really don't think that an AI of that size is acceptable for this game. I'm going to go ahead and see if I can't find a sub/convince the original player to come back and do a rollback. If I can't find one though, we'll have to consider whether we want the game to continue or not in light of TNN's abdication and subsequent damage to the balance of power.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

:(

How can we consider what we want to do?- It looks like a catch 22. We can't deliberate this in any way w/o compromising our ID. Perhaps a private voting of remaining players would work?

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Yeah, we'd need a private vote with everyone tellibng me what thyey want,and I can release the results publically.

As an aside, TC has declared that it's not interested in seeing a rollback either. This being the case, it would seem that a vote as to whether or not to continue the game should take place now regardless of whether I can convince anyone to keep TNN in the game or not.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Evidently we decided to cont.
May we know who was TNN player who went AI?

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Actually no, the game is officially over. I was just waiting back to hear from everyone still. Today I heard from fomoria, who a few other people's votes were contingent upon, and the consensus seems to be that TC was going to win soon and there was no point in going through the effort of finding a sub to continue the game. Good game everyone. Congratulations TC on your victory!

Here's my player list:

1. Yomi - Dimaz
2. C'tis - Calahan
3. R'lyeh - WraithLord
4. Ulm - WingedDog
5. Atlantis - Isokron
6. Fomoria - Slobby
7. Ermor - Alpine Joe (temp subbed by vfb) (subbed by valerius)
8. Kailasa - TwoBits
9. Agartha - Squirrelloid
10. Mictlan - Frozen Lama
11. Tir na n'Og - Agusti
12. Arcoscephale - Don Pablo
13. Hinnom - Danbo
14. Pangaea - LumenPlacidum (temp subbed by Ferrosol)
15. T'ien Ch'i - Psycho (subbed by dimaz)
16. Lanka - yandav
17. Oceania - Graeme Dice
18. Helheim - ghoul31
19. Sauromatia - Rytek
20. Caelum - Lingchih
21. Vanheim - GameExtremist
22. Abysia - Aethyr
23. Niefelheim - Stagger Lee
24. Marverni - Kheldron

Apologies to any subs who aren't listed there, I lost my player list for a while and wasn't able to update it for a time. So if you're not listed, please speak up so we know you were there :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Doesn't everyone already know? Since the TNN player revealed his identity before the game even started. (or at least he did to those paying attention)


And mainly posting to congratulate the TNN player on the most pointless ever existence in a MP game of Dominions, as your presence in this game was the most utterly pointless waste of time I have ever witnessed in my 3+ years of playing MP games. You really should get an award for it I reckon, as it truly was masterful the way you managed to do nothing at all the entire game.

I do not understand why people even bother playing MP games if they have no intention what-so-ever of interacting with the other nations in the game. If you want to play a sandbox game, then go fire up Sim City or Sim People or whatever. If you are just happy to survive, then go play some Tower Defence game. But most of all keep out of MP games, as your "sit there and do nothing" approach for 80+ turns isn't wanted by anyone (who enjoys playing good MP games).

------
Edit - Ah, rdonj jumped me it seems with the final list. Congrats to TC on the win.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Wow. Finally. Hurray :D

Congratulation to Psycho and Dimaz. You played awesome and fully deserve this victory in one of the most epic games I have ever been part of.

Slobby, you did great too. If you wanted a good chance to win you should have fought TC though :)

As for me, Isokron neutered me most of the game and made sure I won't be a deciding factor in the end game. Well done Isokron, you fought like a ninja from hell :up:
I really struggled with the mechanics of EA R'lyeh and how to make it work so the made the game extra fun for me.

And most important a big thank you to rdonj who did a superb job admining the game.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Yes. I might phrase it less harshly but I basically have to agree with Calahan.

I was practically warring non-stop from day 1, even when it was obvious that TC would win. I really can't fathom why some nations just decided to do nothing at some point.
All the time I was thinking, why are they doing nothing?- What's the point?
I'm more tolerant to this behavior but I'm really puzzled as to why it exists.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Wow. Suddenly.
I'll write something tonight, it was pretty interesting game for me so it deserves some AAR :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

As for me I was surprised when Fomoria attacked me (Arco).
I was going to attack TC when found myself at another war.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

And you don't know how I was surprised when both nations I was sort of afraid of attacked someone else on the same turn. That was the turn when I declared TC as the winner to my wife :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Yes. for me it was like that.

A. Finish game long war with Atlantis.
B. Lick my wounds a bit. look around. TC is winning but surely Fomoria would attack it since he can also be in good position to win.
C. The turns go by. Ok, deep breath. Any second now Fomoria would attack TC. For sure Arco + TNN would join in and by then I'd have enough AotF and summons to exercise power on land and join as well.
D. In the meantime I'll put some minor effort to take Ermor. I can't sit idly by. right?- too boring :)
E. Fomoria attack Arco. What???- And I was thinking - congrats TC. Fomoria's decision just won you the game :D

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Heh I find all this Fomoria hands the game over to TC talk quite funny. I'll do a more in depth as to my choices in a follow up post/wrap of the game, but for now just going to concentrate on the Fomoria gave TC the win talk.

Point C of WL I'll take a stab at first - namely because with a no diplo game there is no guarantee that a team gank would occur, mostly because you don't know what the other players are thinking/doing. If I had gone after TC there was just as good a chance that they would come after me as TC, seeing how TC was the big bad wolf in this game and not I. Also you'd have to count on every player playing to win.

As both WL and Cal pointed out already the player behind TNN didn't do jack, and I found it funny that the turn after I attacked TNN the player went AI.

Also if anyone had an awesome chance to stuff TC from gobbling Ulm it was Rlyeh and not I, but you just sat in your beachhead right next to Mictlan with your big army, threatening me. I could also point out that Arco could have scored some of Ulm's caps as well, but that didn't materialize either.

Furthermore regarding TC they actually won when WingedDog bowed out and Ulm was subbed. The sub that came in played worse than the AI. I watched many a battle between Ulm and TC and got a measure of what each was about. WingedDog's defense was pretty awesome. Watching the subs defense well...I was pretty disgusted by it. Especially the defense of Ulm proper when it didn't even look like the Ulm sub scripted the army.

I knew then that TC had the game unless I could steal caps faster than TC could. And so I made up my plans and embarked on a 4 line/front assault on Arco/TNN with the plan to either get my fifth from Ulm or Arco. But that didn't go as planned on the southern front. Nice job Arco :).

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Oh. I do know who the sub for Ulm was actually, but after a scathing post like that I am not so sure I should reveal who the player was unless they want themself to be known. But the sub did tell me they didn't really have time for this game, and wanted to pass it on to someone with more time on their hands. My sub search didn't get any bites though, so they decided to play on despite not being able to devote a proper amount of time to the turns.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Haha was it scathing? I suppose so, but that's honestly how I felt at the time. :)

No worries on the reveal. It doesn't matter to me, all I know is that the player wasn't putting in what WingedDog put in, and that's all that's important.

Also I know you did try to find a sub and there were no takers. It is what it is.

Oh and also gratz to Psycho/Dimaz they played a good game. :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

So, this one is finally over. I was TC until turn 60-ish and here is the AAR for that period. Dimaz will give the rest. I was pretty disappointed when I got TC, since I didn't like the nation at the time - all paths, but low levels in everything. But then I discovered how insanely powerful W5Es are and TC is now easily my second favourite nation (right after Kailasa).

Build: Dormant Lady of Fortune W9S5N4, scales are the standard Order 3, Sloth 3, Heat 1, Misfortune 2, Magic 1. First research goal was constr4 to equip my SC pretender after she wakes up, as well as some alt and ench for buffs. Together with nice blessed sacreds this meant an easy early game. After that I went for enchantment, since all important buffs for my sacreds were there - antimagic, elemental wards and arrow fend. Finally, rush to constr8 and pick up golems along the way. I aslo planned conj6 for celestial soldiers before that, but realized that I don't need them.

Expansion didn't go that great. Apparently my part of the map was crowded, since by turn 9 I ran into 5 (yes, five) neighbors and had nowhere more to expand. Also I ran into two neighbors with my two expansion armies on an early winter turn and lost practically all my army due to a bug with W5Es. I'll write more about the bug on the general forum - it is one reproducible cause of incorrect battle replays.

Fortunately, one of the neighbors was Kailasa with no bless and excellent scales, imprisoned oracle pretender (the only possible choice for those scales), recruiting tons of bandars and atavis. Kailasa without bless? Well, he asked for it. Of course, I rushed him. I quickly reduced him to his capital, but that is where the problem occured. Namely, his army size was 3-4 times larger than mine, so there was no way I could breach those castle walls and he refused to come out and play. I tried to lure his army out a few times, but unsuccessfully. He remained bunkered in the capital for the next 50-ish turns. Oh, I should also say that right after my pretender awoke, in the first two turns I got an elemental stuff and a ring of wizardry from random events. Can you imagine what kind of boost that is for TC.

On my south border Hinnom was growing insanely, gobbling up Ctis who overexpanded. At first, I though that Ctis would make a comeback or at least slow Hinnom down, because I profiled him as a better player than Hinnom, but this didn't happen. So, I had to attack a stronger opponent while having Kailasa with an army at least three times as large as my own sitting behind. I thought that others would join in once they see someone is making the first move against Hinnom - namely TNN and Pangaea, both of whom were in no wars and had borders with Hinnom. Boy, was I wrong. Thankfully, Ctis was doing some uber defence of his capital, crushing Hinnom's storming force three of four times, which really helped my cause. First year of the war I was probing him - took some territories, waiting for him to retaliate into traps I set for him. And also for others to join in. Nothing of this happened, so second year I went in with all my forces, save some token force on Kailasa capital. And I must say, I was disappointed with Pangaea especially at this point. Because, Hinnom had three armies, one of them on Ctis capital and the other two pinned by me in his castles, as well as all his SCs. Pangaea had a streak of provinces guarded by nothing other than pd on his border. The war with Hinnom was where W5Es buffed by masters really shined. Hinnom thugs/SCs were helpless against them. Imagine a Melqart or a Hinnom hero fully equipped with a frost/fire brand, vine shield and the rest of the standard equipment losing to a group of 20 sacreds, killing maybe one of them. All resistances, defence of 20, 16MR for those vine shields and astral shields and two short swords with water bless to go past luck and defence. Again, I quickly took the provinces, but the capital was the problem - three SCs fully equipped, one of them prophet and sphinx pretender.

Around that time Pangaea went full out on Ctis leaving his lands undefended and I reached constr8. Flying ship + flying mages = my troops on his capital instantly and without warning. And again Ctis helped me by destroying the force storming his capital. Djinn took the Hinnom capital on his own (those 30 att and 30 def are unbeatable, I love djinn). I was quickly done with Pangaea and proceeded towards Ctis. I felt bad about having to attack Calahan after all the help I got from him and the great game he played even though he knew he couldn't win since like turn 15.

Ulm was playing a superb game to my east, killed a very good opponent (Sauro), who I thought would last much longer. Again, as with Hinnom, I knew I must react in time. So, while I was attacking Pangaea and finishing Hinnom, I prepared the attack force for Ulm. I knew his bane and gargoyle thugs stood no chance against W5Es properly buffed. I also made some SCs of my own - golems and summoned lots of troops to breach castle walls. I tried to attack while his thugs were still busy north with Sauro, but he had more of them than I thought and he was ready for my attack. Still the attack was successful and his capital was under siege and about to be stormed by my more numerous and superior forces. The only problem were iron adepts he had and they were the only thing that saved him at the start of the war.

This is the moment when real life kicked in, I moved to Switzerland and had to find a sub. I hated having to quit the game, especially since I knew I was winning. Fortunately, Dimaz was out of the game early and at least I gave my nation into capable hands. So, he got handed this very hard late game position and did a great job with it. Anyone who subbed knows how hard it is to take over a nation in late game. He was in war with Ulm, nation about roughly the same in power as him, led by an excellent player and also Kailasa and Ctis left to mop up. And with my flawed plan about how to attack Ulm's capital. Namely, I thought that magic duel would target the highest astral mage in the army. So, I thought that sending the pretender along with the army, would make all Ulm's iron adepts try to magic duel the pretender, instead of the masters buffing the W5Es. I was wrong. That battle on Ulm's capital was the weirdest thing I ever saw - another case of bad replay. In the replay, iron adepts aren't very successful, the buffs go off and the whole Ulm's army is slaughtered with maybe 2-3 W5Es dying on TC side. In the battle report, however, Ulm loses 3 units and the whole TC army is dead, except the pretender. Crazy.

This was a really great game for me with many good opponents (Sauro, Ctis, Ulm just to name a few). Unfortunately, most of them killed each other and just as I attacked the best I had to leave the game. Winged Dog, I would love to fight you in another game. Thanks also WL for organizing and for playing a good game with Rlyeh. Would you share how you did your early expansion with aboleths. When I saw the HoF early on, I tried some tests with them, but they seemed to lack the killing power. And, of course, thanks rdonj our admin. When I left the game, I sent you a PM about my guesses for the remaining players. Do you still have it, I am interested how many I got right.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Slobby, my beach head was my first land province in the whole game.
Atlantis offed my pretender so I had a lot of catching up to do in order to get to end game level. I was nowhere near being in shape to attack any land nation, let alone TC.

Thanks for the explanation. You played as you saw fit and don't need to "defend" your decisions. I still think you should have gone at TC. For the simple reason that you had the best chance to win after him.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

I wish I did have it, but no :( I had to clear my messages since that pm. Maybe you still have it? I remember responding to it, and may have left the quotes in.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

The game has ended already? A bit unexpected.
My congratulations to Psycho and Dimaz, hope you did like our battles and mindgames as I did (but I think you did enjoy them even more since you actually won ;)).
It was certanelly the most interesting game I ever participated thanks to the players, the ballance Cal brought to the game and to rdonj, who is a perfect adminisrator.

Today I'm on a construction site, so I will have time to write an AAR only tomorrow or on Saturday.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

:lol Didn't know about this extra "someone attacked him" part of why he bailed, but it does make TNN's existence even funnier.

As TNN in this game was like a mirage. As I'm sure some players looked at TNN throughout the game and thought "Hhhhmmm, they could be a slightly tricky foe due to their mass raiding, and they could certainly have a say in who wins this game". But then when Slobby decided to be the first to actually touch the mirage, POOF!!! they immediately went up in smoke, as TNN didn't actually exist :shock: Superb stuff :)

----------------
Nice write-up Psycho :up:
Yeah, on reflection I certainly over-expanded. Although oddly I still think that it was more that my expansion rate was normal, and everyone else's was just slowed due to the Indy 9, so this just made mine look over-ambitious :) One thing I do need to change with my play in Indy 9 games is to realise just how much they slow others down (as tbh they rarely have much effect my expansion rate). Lessons learnt for next time though ;)

And I had intended a comeback against Hinnom, but 3 crucial factors prevented me.

1 - Couldn't find an answer to those Hinnom Chariots, as tangle vine casters would always target the Hinnom infantry (mainly as they can pack 2 in a square. They have to be made at least size 4 IMO, but that's another story)
2 - Some snipers (TNN, Pangaea, nation North of TNN) took away my income base by grabbing half a dozen provinces off me the turn after Hinnom attacked.
3 - Most crucially of all, the retarded Pangaea player who not only decided he wasn't ever going to attack Hinnom, but also made sure I wasn't able to counter-attack either by sitting on my second fort with his main (only) army for 10-15 turns. As Hinnom could only pin one of my forts down with what he had in the area, and so what he desperately needed more than anything else for a comfortable victory over me was someone else to pin my other fort down. And lo and behold, fortune favoured him by having a lifetime member of the "I love Hinnom" fan club right next to him in the forest sitting in the Sacred Grove.

I was more than happy to help your cause against Hinnom (and help myself of course by surviving), since you were the only player who showed any brains in attacking them. As by that stage "Complete destruction of Hinnom" was my only aim in the game. And then again "likewise all the above" with Pangaea when they came back for their second helping of Lizard. (why they attacked me again after I beat them off the first time I have no idea. As it was blindingly obvious what would happen if they did. ie. TC would kill us both easily. Oh yeah that's right I do know why, it's because the Pangaea player(s) were useless retards, that's why)

And you certainly shouldn't feel bad in any way about attacking me after the Hinnom/Pangaea dust had settled. As there's no place in this game for "lets all join hands and live in peace". Attacking me got you another cap for very little pain, and it would have been a bad mistake IMO for you to have done anything else, especially considering you had decent forces in the area anyway. (and I wouldn't have expected anything else either)

-----------------
...constructing evil plans ;)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Congratulations to Dimaz and Psycho on the win. Also, thanks to rdonj for admining.

When I subbed in Ermor was one of the smaller nations but with game leading research (pretender was an F2E3S3 forge lord with Order 3, Productivity 1, Growth 3, Misfortune 1, Magic 1). Two of my land neighbors were Fomoria and Ulm and attacking them didn't seem like a good idea. I was planning on attacking Pan but TC beat me to it before I felt I was ready (in retrospect I think I was being overly cautious). I could perhaps still have jumped in, though I'm guessing TC would have perceived this as poaching and proceeded to attack me. Unfortunately, this meant I now had three much larger neighbors and I wasn't sure where to go from there (I never seriously considered going into the water where Atlantis and R'lyeh were busy fighting it out).

This was my first time participating in a RAND game and my thoughts at that point were to not suicide myself against a far stronger nation, try to weaken the strong nations, and try to increase my nation's power (though my chances of winning were of course virtually non-existent). The best I could come up with was to help Arco/TNN if/when they were attacked (I was assuming it would be Fomoria since TC and Ulm were occupied). But then the same turn Fomoria made his move R'lyeh attacked me. In any case, once the TC/Ulm war was no longer a stalemate I should have scrapped the original plan and attacked TC.

I've really gotten used to the EDM summons and missed having them (iirc the mod hadn't yet been released when this game started). When a global spot opened up and I was able to grab earth blood deep well I really wished I had some EDM summons to spend it on. As it was I did my best to get some tarts with my weak D and N income.

Btw, at one point I wished for the Chalice and had it for about a dozen turns before it was wished away. I immediately wished it back but lost it again the next turn. At that point I would have had to alchemize my remaining gems in order to try again and I probably still would have lost it so that marked the end of my healing tart afflictions. I'm curious who I wished it from originally and if that was the same person I went back and forth with a bit later.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Well, first of all, thanks to our admin rdonj and game organizer WraithLord for very interesting game. Also I want to say in the beginning that it’s clearly Psycho and not me who deserves main part of the victory. In fact, I lost in this game almost a year ago :)
Some words about that first part. I got Yomi (another thug nation after Gath in YARG1) and my planned strategy combined Baalz’s size-1 goblies and Dai Oni thugs. Expansion went pretty good (those goblins are great at it) but the start position was in the middle of mountains and caves so even with one of the top province count I was in the middle by the gold income. It hit me immediately as there was not enough gold to hire both Dai Onis and goblies. And their strength is in numbers, as you know.
My neighbors were Lanka, Ulm, Sau and Vans and the Van was in the map “corner” so it was pretty obvious that we started to fight (I don’t remember who attacked but it doesn’t matter). Soon I discovered that in tests my goblins fail to kill his infantry in reasonable numbers so I started sneaking all around and taking the undefended provs while researching const and buffs for Dai Onis. One turn IIRC I had all the Van lands except the castles. But I had no means to kill his army yet. After some time when research was finished I started adding Dai Onis to goblin groups and had pretty good chances to finally deal with Van but at this time Sau attacked with lots of archers and Witch Kings. I wasn’t prepared for it and after some battles lost pretty quickly.
Then, after long time, I was contacted by Psycho who asked if I can sub his TC who had a leading position. I looked at the turn and decided to help. TC position was really strong; he had some unfinished business in the west (monkeys and Ctis) and a war with second big power in the east (Ulm). The only thing that surprised me was that he didn’t have lanterns with fire global up and has been researching with his cap mages and fighting with ordinary ones.
First of all I started forging lanterns with everyone who had F so there was some drop in research graph after switching the players, but after that I moved lots of the (now free) mages to the Ulm cap that was sieged before I joined. On the west front, after some unsuccessful attempt to storm Ctis, I was able to finally do it. Also, monkeys were able to break my sieging forces and moved to my neighboring castle and tried to storm, but I ported some EA guys there so he received 3 or 4 RoS on the first turn and the storm failed, after that it wasn’t that hard to take them too.
So the west front was secured, I hit my target of 1000 RP/turn and had the strangest situation never encountered before in Dom: I had too much money. All the research was done with cheap sacred mages with lanterns, but it was hard for me to find those mages any other task – 2W and WS can do some tasks in battle, but D, WN, WA – well, I think it’s possible to use them with success, but I don’t know how – in late game. So I completely stopped buying anything except Celestial masters, W5Es and some indy mages (iron adepts mainly). So I had several thousands free each turn. I started castling like crazy and in the end I think all the lands I had originally were castled almost completely.
OK, so the west front was secured, but what about Ulm? I tried to storm his cap (that was already sieged) but failed, and I don’t even know why: replay bug. I lost ton of cap-only mages, fortunately the pretender survived. Another Ulm castle, Fever Fens, was also sieged and it was in the middle before my cap and Ulm’s; I concentrated all the remains there.
Ulm decided to counterstrike and used flying banes to capture lots of (not castled yet) lands, I started to use golems to hunt them, but it was a trap – one turn he killed 3 or 4 golems with duelers there. After that I started to act more cautiously so part of TC lands were under Ulm rule for some time. Also I started hiring Ds to put with PD everywhere to spam DtD on banes but it wasn’t that effective.
However, at that time we had AC in play which I think also influenced our war. I had S mages with all the important combinations so I was forging gear for bane thugs/golems without fear of losing the hammers and the forger; also as I had Iron adepts I started MHing those banes so he had to retreat eventually. Somewhere at that time I tried to storm Fever Fens but he had very strong force there so I lost again.
Now we are approaching the final part. I had the chalice from the beginning so the obvious route was to go for tarts; VH research made it not that easy, but still after some time I got the con9. Also I had the ench site near cap where I summoned several Liches; it was during AC period so some of them entered the neverending death cycle (I saw it first time, when horrors attacked them several times – one during forge/cast phase and another one during horror attack phase) and several permadied in Fever Fens storm (I think it has something to do with turn resolution sequence as I always had my dom there but during the battle it was Ulm’s). Anyway 2 Liches started to summon Tarts each turn; while Ulm prepared another raiding party, now with Harvesters of Sorrow. Somehow I managed to deal with them and it was the time when the Ulm ownership switched. New player made several mistakes and lost many valuable items and commanders on me, after which I stormed the Fever Fens again. I have to say that I wasn’t prepared for 6 RoS during turn 1 so my battle plan failed almost completely; however I had 6 or so fully geared tarts and several banes there and 2 Liches somehow survived so one of the main part – 4*Undwad mastery with all pen boosters – still worked so in the end Fevers Fens became mine. After that I ignored the Ulm army in the next castle and move to the cap, taking it without much effort. Now I had all the roads to Ulm lands open, I moved there and the turns became like 1) equip 2 new tarts 2) send teleporting ones 3) send moving ones 4) forge equip for 2 tarts and Gate cleavers 5) repeat. That’s how it ended.
Also someone tried to wish away the chalice from me (2 times) but I got it back pretty soon both times. And in the end I was wishing for gems every turn and captured Conj site from Ulm so even more tarts.
In fact I was somewhat afraid of Rlyeh because he had easy access to some of my caps and of Fomoria for the same reason. But they played as they played and TC won. I’m not sure they had the chances anyway; I had pretty strong Tart force, many Iron and silver adepts and other stuff. I’ll attach the trn file to this post.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

"Would you share how you did your early expansion with aboleths. When I saw the HoF early on, I tried some tests with them, but they seemed to lack the killing power."

Sure, though in retrospect I'm not sure I'm all that happy with my build or strat.
I took a rbw research pretender with aim of getting some crucial alt. spells ASAP.
Once I had those the mind lords became semi SCs, they could quite dependably clear indie provinces of any given size.
They started failing against Atlantis fully equipped Basalt Kings. This was where I started a desperate search for the right counter, after many failure I found one. Water Elementals.

This game convinced me that R'lyeh needs an awake SC. No getting cute about it.

Guys, any interest in a YARG3?

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Thanks for subbing Valerius :) I think I got the better end of the deal, no one likes dealing with fish men!

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

EA R'lyeh needs massive amount of AotF to be effective on land. I was tied too long in the war with Atlantis to be able to do anything about the land.

I really enjoyed the game and want to thank you all for participating.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

2 Psycho/Dimaz

Considering that famous Ulm capital storm. Imagine me: I knew about all sieging troops and mages, I knew the spells you are going to cast and in what order, I knew about the items you are going to bring to that storm (Ankh particularly). I scaled and set up the perfect defense against it, which displayed to me 100% destruction of Tien Chi forces in every single test. Now I load my turn and watch you breach my walls killing my front line, making my second line rout leaving my mages uncovered and slain after, and in the end finishing off my pretender... Ten minutes and two bundles of valocordin later I find courage to continue watching... and... I see in the battle report: Ulm wins Tien Chi loose!!! PHEW, STUPID REPLAY BUG! DONT YOU EVER SCARE ME LIKE THIS AGAIN!!!

The secret of this trick I reveal with pleasure: dominion from preaching spreads before the battle, while dominion from temples/prophets/pretenders - after the battle. And I was preaching with about 12 priests of different level out there.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Hehe, I loled at this. But seriously, I don't know about your tests, but like you said ankh was in play, phoenix pyre as well, and also there were redundant casters for all crucial buffs. I would love to see what actually happened there. In retrospect, we should have tested, then we'd know that magic duel targeting is random and probably just send pretender to try and take out a few iron adepts. But that was the time when the transfer of command occurred - bad timing for TC.

Edit: Oh and also, you shouldn't have known what army was there, but unfortunately the golem that was supposed to clear pd got a crippled affliction while doing it as well as one of your pd guys. So he was chasing this last pd member for about 20 turns and eventually died due to time limit. Now that battle was retarded.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Wrap up time :)

To say that I was non plussed about getting Fomoria is an understatement. After getting Jot in the last YARG and going E9N6 for the first time I didn't care to be at the helm of another giant race where E9N6 is supposedly a no brainer. And so with trepidation I went with an imprisioned Divine Serpent E9N6 T1L3M1. In hind sight a minor bless from a rainbow would have been better.

My opening was non stellar, I actually failed to attach turn 5 I think and staled. That said I then had Marv's PoD on my cap, but took it out with ease with N. Champs. I then decided to counter with everything I had and eventually ground out Marv with the use of sailing/call of the winds. So all of a sudden my opening situation actually looked pretty good I had a good chunk of territory, a second cap, and some astral.

I then looked around at my neighbors. TC was in the south east and seemed to be as strong as me. TNN to the north - definately not someone I wanted to fight due to glamour raids, and our affinity to Air magic (a feeling which stuck with me most of the game). Ermor to the East - many a times I thought of going after them, but all plans that I came up with posed the possibility of costing too much for little gain. That left Helheim to the west, again a glamour air nation, and ideally not something I wanted to deal with.

In time Helheim went after Mictlan and so I decided on a multi approach attack, using my sailing kings, and the few W kings that I had who I kitted out to be SCs. The attack went great. Some raids but all in all Hel decided on trying to cripple Mictlan.

So with Hel out and my TNN/Ermor/TC neighbors being the same I then went after Mictlan, which went great until I started sieging his cap. Mictlan had over a hundred vamps and strong dominion and so I couldn't dent his walls and was getting attacked by vamps every turn. To minimize the losses I had to cast gem rec battlefield spells, and so as the useless siege went on I was spending gems for no gains. For awhile I actually thought of withdrawing to think of something else, but then buckled down and analyzed what I had to work with that could possibly end in my victory. I tried fighting dominion for awhile but that didn't work. Mictlan also had the habit of sending the vamps out to raid and then sneak them back into the cap, which allowed me to start penetrating his walls, so I tried timing a crumble, but that didn't work. My last resort was...siege monkeys <3! At least that's what I decided to call the pale ones that I recruited en mass. And as soon as the monkeys started showing up leprosy spam began. The monkeys did the trick and I was able to breach the walls and take the cap, but the cost to the Fomorian war effort was pretty heavy. Gem stocks were low and my large stack in the west was riddled with diseases and dying.

For a time I was elated! I was tied in terms of caps with TC and Ulm and the TC/Ulm war was stalemated! If that stalemate continued I could pick away at my neighbors and secure the win. I had eyes on everyone, thinking of my next step, but then Ulm was subbed and the flood waters broke.

An aside on my views of TC. I watched many a battle from when they fought Hinnom, Kailasa, and Ulm. It became more and more apparent as I viewed them that I was behind in terms of power. I had some unmarked champ thugs, and just a smattering of SC W-Kings most of the game. My luck on the kings generally resulted in getting the A4D2 variety or the A3D3 variety and so my attack forces pretty much relied on moving large stacks around backed up with Air buffs. I felt that tactic against TC would fail as they had Air as well and a whole lot of other paths which I pretty much lacked, so win on the battle spell front. Then when TC started sporting his djinn and bane lords and tarts I was out classed on the thug/SC approach as well. Finally TC had a huge income and just put forts up everywhere...not great for a quick attack approach, especially since TC had astral as well and so could gate troops to wherever I attacked. Credit to Psycho/Dimaz as they set my tempo! I would watch what TC had and thought holy **** I'm behind! I need to catch up! I set up two tart factories, multiple morrigan factories, a gargoyle factory, played around with hidden in snow, demi liches, fairy queens, troll kings, etc...spend spend spend!

All of this was going on after Mictlan and before Ulm was subbed out. I started planning on an invasion of Arco. Many an hour I sat there planning. :D Taking stock all the troops, mages, spells, I had access to, planning attack vectors, etc. Truly that was the most fun I had in this game.

But then the Ulm defense broke and all of a sudden I had to think of something...quick. I contemplated taking Lanka or Van from Ulm, but 1. My western forces were still plague ridden, and 2. I had that Rlyeh beach head to worry about...worst case scenario I go after either and Rlyeh goes in and takes Mictlan, cutting supply and wiping out my west. I then thought, well I know I'm not the only one scouting out TC/Ulm. Probably Rlyeh is too and that beach head is going to go and grab Lanka!

So I turned back to my original plan to take Arco and then included a staggered attack on TNN, of course modifying my forces to account for the 4 way attack on 2 medium sized powers. Finally it was time I had sights on being on Caelum and Arco in two turns. Niefelheim in 3 turns and TNN in 4 turns, with the plan to then blitz Abysia or Van for the fifth and the win.

Seeing how both TNN and Arco lacked domes on their caps and had the majority of their forces parked there my idea was murdering winters/leprosy on TNN caps and flames from the skies/leprosy on Arco's cap. So essentially nuke what they had and go in. TNN no problem as they went AI after that. Arco thought the same thing as me and nuked my Arco force with FftS's. The Caelum force broke through but with the Arco division wiped out there was no more point...TC had won.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Lol especially when I think of TNN as a smoke in mirrors/mirage/ghost nation, here one moment and gone the next!

Truly the player thematically played the nation in the end!!! lol!

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

I have to say I added some small bits to Arco defense (several more MHs on the Fomoria raiders), not sure if they made any difference.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

Guys, I'm planning to organize the sequel YARG3 as soon as DHG is up and running.

I was thinking MA with CBM 1.84 and perhaps ENP1.

As always, former YARG players have first priority for sign up so let me know if you're interested.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [7/24 players left]
 

ok. Some things are in motion so I prefer to start YARG3 in a month or so.
There's CBM 1.9 in the oven, possible fix from IW to a recently found bug and some personal matters that will keep me busy.

Anyone gave thought to ENP1/2 in the game. Good?- Bad?- Ugly?