Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

I'm unexpectedly out of town until Tuesday afternoon, with minimal internet access. I'll try to submit my turn before then, but may not be able to. Apologies.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

It's quiet around here.

Let me break the ice and tell you about a bone-headed I made earlier in this game. For several turns I noticed that the population of my capitol wasn't growing and I had hundreds of corpses strewn across the country side. I was convinced that AOE was up to some sneaky mischief, but despite blanketing my province with mind hunts and numerous patrols I couldn't find a thing.

The turns are going by and my population is shrinking despite having crazy good scales, and it's driving me nuts -- until I realized that it was due to my Wendigos, which were snacking on my population. I had no idea they had this effect, but it happened for long enough that despite 100+ turns my capitol has barely grown.

I realize I'm an idiot, but I try to salvage the situation and use Carrion Reanimation to turn those corpses into soulless. I end up reanimating several hundred of them and kept them in my capitol as a possible reserve force if things begin to go poorly on one of my fronts.

Little did I know that this was also a bone-headed move because those undead have lots of nasty afflictions that were interfering with my priests heal ability, which meant I had less mind hunters for several turns.

There was lots of other stupid stuff I've done in this game, but that's the most recent.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

I like being blamed for suspicious activity. I was actually mind controlling you to do such things by the way. I'm totally foiling all of your plans everywhere because I am always watching you in your head, and I'm always in control.

Now look deeper into my avatars picture once again.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

I shall obey.

http://www.digitalbusstop.com/wp-con...Shall-Obey.gif

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

Both T'ien and Atlantis staled that last turn. This was especially problematic for T'ien who lost several engagements -- including one where he lost an entire major army. He still has some scattered troops, a broken army holed up one of his fortresses, and a few SCs floating around, but I don't think he has any hope of stopping my advance.

Atlantis looks to be in pretty poor shape as well with a few disease-ridden armies that I've been blasting mercilessly with remote attack and assassination spells. He's likely going to lose a good chunk of those next turn as well -- especially if he stales again.

I feel like this game has already run it's natural course. Under all of the game metrics, e.g., provinces, gold income, etc, I'm ahead of everyone else combined with room to spare.

I want to be respectful and can understand if someone wants to fight on, but I'm hoping we can end this soon to save time for ourselves. If not, I'll continue to fight to the best of my ability.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

I personally didn't put enough stock into domes, and I'm paying the cost. Without the other major players consistently putting forth the effort, I will have to agree that revenant's victory is a foregone conclusion.

I'm going to wait until tomorrow just to see if there are any objections, but if not, I will close out the game and announce our new winner.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

This must have been due to the mind hunts? I wasn't sure how effective they were since I suspected you were using scouts to help shield yourself.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

Your mind hunts were on the whole ineffective. I utilized scouts, always bought an indy commander and started to protect my valuables with sneaking astral mages. I was referring to the shatter walls spell, I could have made them less effective by using domes.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

On a different note, I declare the game officially concluded with revenant2 the winner. Congrats. Perhaps next time you will fall by my hands.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

That makes sense.

I'm sure you already figured it out, but my plan was hit a bunch of your fortresses simultaneously so that you couldn't reinforce them. The mind hunts were there to try to stop from moving troops around.

Rain of Stones was a real pain BTW. I had to break up my large astral enslave armies into much smaller forces to avoid getting decimated.

However, at the end I was recruiting so many mystics a turn (40+) that I didn't care too much if a few got pulverized.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

Thanks everyone.

This game was pretty wild -- at least for me. I don't think I had a single peaceful turn from about turn 10 and onward.

I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I chose LA Arco. I actually though they were supposed to be a bit weak, but nothing could have been further from the truth.

Their priestesses are all kinds of awesome.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

Congrats on the win, rev, and well-deserved. I had honestly considered you to be a rival, but not a true threat, while we were cooperating against Caelum (who, at the time, was definitely stronger than either of us). However, you took a large portion of Caelum's empire and your power jumped off the charts.

BTW, was it deliberate the way you attacked Caelum in such a way as to block me off from most of their territories? If so, nicely done.

I'm curious- priestesses? Of all the tools Arco has at their disposal, why did you single them out as particularly excellent? In what capacity did you use them that made them so valuable?

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

Acro priests are sacred units with the ability to cure afflictions and come standard with Nature 1 and Holy 2. This allows for a variety of very cool tactics:

1.) Mind hunting without fear of feeblemind.

I made it a priority to field a small army of +5 penetration mind hunters. Depending on the movements of my armies, I had between 8-12 mind hunters that I used to knock out raiders and disrupt army movements.

Against AOE and you they weren't terribly effective (although they are were good at knocking out sneaking units). However, I did quite a bit of damage against Atlantis and they absolutely saved my butt when fighting Mictlan.

2.) Resilient armies.

I always made sure that each of my major armies had a priestess or two to help heal afflictions. Besides the obvious value of not having afflictions, it made my armies virtually immune to leprosy, which was used extensively against me.

3.) Excellent at defense.

This might be surprising, but with their nature 1 ability and the right boosters they can easily cast Animal Horde or cast Forest Dome for defense. I did this a bunch of times in this game when you guys threatened my castles. It was partly for this reason that I tried to make sure that I kept a priestess in each of my fortresses.

4.) They are good researchers and preachers.

Due to their sacred status they are the most cost effective researcher for LA Arco. If you accumulate them, you can also use them to help preach, which means you can get away with having weaker dominion as well.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

I think this was due to how we were situated on the map, although I did move aggressively to take his fortresses on our border since I suspected I would need them against you.

In terms of placement, Atlantis was almost totally shielded by you. I had a little border with him on the South, but I couldn't mount a significant offensive. This might have been a good thing since he had some very scary armies.

By the way, I tried to stop you from joining the coalition for as long as possible and viewed you as a major threat. I had actually held back against the other guys so I could field enough strength to counterattack your inevitable invasion.

Despite this, I had a few tense turns after you invaded where things went rather poorly for me.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

Yes, Congratulations to Revenant 2 for his victory. I have always been sad that I could not continue this game and believe it or not I have only just got internet connection again (last two and half weeks).

Best wishes,
Steve

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

How did you survive without internet for six months? That sounds terrible.

I should be the one thanking you. If it wasn't for our early alliance and our early rush of Abysia, my position would have been much worse.

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

The internet connection came rather quickly in the end but from 10 October to 20 February, they had NINE attempts to activate my phone line. After that it was a wait to 5 March for the broadband connection.

And yes, I was pulling my hair out.

I am glad that my pull out didn't give you huge headaches.

All the best,
Steve

Re: Primordial Cake - [Game In Progress]
 

I wouldn't say that :)

After you went AI your former nation went full retard and threw everything they had on my unprotected heartland. I had a few very tense turns, but in the long-run it benefited me since I was able to secure your very nice capitol and a good chunk of your territory.