Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Really? Hmm, I thought it went pretty well for you. You've only lost undead chaff and one of your tartarians, if I remember correctly, plus some unimportant priests/commanders. Why do you feel it went wrong?

...And our south-eastern front. That army is coming back, I just wanted to make sure I control Jotun castle province during this turn, in case my double ambush against Jotuns would fail and some of my SCs would have to retreat.

As for me sitting next to the broken gate in the north - yeah, silly script error on my part. :( The attack will come, no worries.

Speaking of TC - Ling, check your PM please.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

*expletive deleted*.

Corwin, if you see this can you add to the hosting timer?

Sorry for the late notice, but I had an emergency this morning (when I was planning to do my turn) and it's quite complicated.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Sh*t!

I was going to add to it since both you and Ermor contacted me asking for few hours delay, but the server has just hosted to my huge unplesant surprise. :( It turned out it send us 21 hours warning, not 24 hours! Damn it!

As a result both me and Ermor (not to mention TC) have stalled this turn, and I got a feeling that Jotuns had to rush it badly .

Looks like this 21 hours note fu*k up is the post-effect of recent Llamabeast server troubles.

I haven't open the turn yet.

Ok, so what we are going to do? Just soldier on? Or do we do a rollback, since 4 nations (inlcuding 3 current leaders) either stalled or rushed due to messed up server email note? Personally I am totally fine with rollback, but it's up to you guys.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yeah, the clock screwed me too.
I didn't want to send a rushed half *** turn myself, would have done more damage than good.

I have no problem with eating a stale turn, given, Im in the worst position to take a stale here, I kinda depend on my tartarian sanity to do anything and now I fear opening the new turn :(

I'm good either way, up to you. I just want to state out that roll backs are dangerous and the rules need to be followed to the letter if they are to be done.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

True. BTW just to be clear - I am absolutely not insisting on the rollback, just wanted to mention that this is an option here since server's email seems to screw all three leading nations, and overall 4 out of 7 nations either stalled or had to rush during this turn. But I am fine with eating rollback if that's what other players would want. Like I said it's up to you guys, as always I am simply voicing my opinion as a player, not a game admin. As you guys may have noticed I believe in democracy and concensus in game-admining matters, not in attempts in iron-fist dictatorship. ;)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

For me it's fine either way. I already made the new turn :) but it won't be a problem to do it again :)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Soldier on. I've never experienced a rollback that didn't end in disaster and gnashing of teeth.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

All right, that settles it. We keep going.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Well, after looking at my stalled turn, I can say that it was bad although it could be worse...

DrP has killed my last standing SC that remained on the battlefield after my last turn's double ambush. That guy was very valuable to my war efforts and losing him royally sucked, but at least Jotuns didn't have time to do much else in their rushed turn except taking one other province from me. Oh well...


Now where the heck is Ling? I've been trying to reach him for the last 4 days. That's why I've been delaying my last turn to the last possible moment and ended up stalling. :( Last turn he cut off my important supply line in violation of our NAP and then went MIA. Although it didn't looked like a full scale beginning of a treacherous war, so I am not sure what I am supposed to make out of it.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Um, can we got another 24h delay? Did the timer go back to 48h? I thought it was on 72....

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ok, delay has been added. (I've added 30 hours actually, so it would host closer to the evening in US time, like it did before, rather then in the middle of the day)

No, it should be on 72 hours timer, according to the server's game page .

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yes, I am still playing (sorry about the stale, I thought someone would extend the turn).

I will get the next turn in on time.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Shattered soul 25 my ars! I don't think I had a single turn so far where only 1/4 Tartarians were crazy.
One turn where remotely 1/4 were insane and barely capable to get organized I stale. This is beyond irritating.

Losing vital battles due to incompetence is one thing, but having everything dependent on fraking tartarians is hella lame!

So, what are the chances of your vital, single most important, can't do without tartarian being insane 3 out of 4 turns?

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Well, based upon my Dom3 experiences such chances strongly depepend on just how vital the tartarian in question is to its owner war efforts. ;) If he is important but not overly so - then I would say such tartarin is insane 25-35% of time in average. But if he is extremely important, as in "the matter of life and death" tartarian - then the chances can easily go to 70-80%... :banghead

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Well gentlemen, it looks like I'm done for. After barely hanging on against Ermor, I just had nothing left to fend off the lightning swift attack of the Bandar.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Woooooow!!! :happy:
You've domed yourself! How dare you? :mad:

That was an interesting battle! Shamefully I wasted some gems on flames from the sky, wolven winters to reduce the power of your Ember Lords, and some assassinations.
That could have really changed things... :(

Still not sure what happened altogether, it was a little confusing to watch, it seems everything on my part got annihilated with at least half my SCs going down. And btw, when the hell did you bring all those mages and SCs, I counted at least 15 SCs of yours? There weren't supposed to be... so many.
What still draws breath on your part? How much damage did I actually do?

Also, you moved the little wolves, I really counted on enslaving them...

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Oddly, for a game at this stage, I don't think anyone could take me out now. Granted, I don't have the offensive forces to win the game, but I think I can hold this little area for as long as needed.

I did do a little strike back last turn. I wanted to get some resource provs. It wasn't a lot, and I think I have smoothed over the nerves. Strange how a little nation like me could make someone nervous.

Anyway, good game still. I'm glad it did not get deleted.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

( Warning: This is going to be long post/AAR )

Finally!!! The great battle on the central front, for which I've been waiting and preparing for so many turns. :D

Well, that was very intense and nailbiting to watch. Frankly by the turn 3 I thought I am royally f*cked, since you've managed to destroy/neutralized my entire huge magic cadre, on which I've been counting a lot for this battle. And you did it while attacking! And having less then half of my mages! :mad:


Ok, answering your questions, as well as some of my own comments/AAR:

I've been preparing for this battle for the last 7 turns or so, since the time you've wiped my army defending bottleneck castle on our central front, and later smashed my ambush of 7 SCs, killing most of them. 7 turns is a long time to prepare jf you channel most of your resources into it. That's why I had so many SCs and mages there.

If you are interested in my opinion - frankly I think you've made a fatal mistake 7 or so turns ago Executor. You should be more aggressive after your large victories on our critical central front. When I've retreated tiny remains of my broken army from that bottleneck castle (rather then face the complete annihilation of what little was left of my forces on that front in yet another battle), you didn't pursue me, as I was afraid you would. I can tell with 100% certainty - if you would press forward back then, you would have no troubles at all smashing remains of my army and securing the next bottleneck castle at NE, the one that guards the entrance to the ex-Abyssia territory, and which is located just 2 provinces away from your castle.

Then you could easily overran the entire Abyssia in just 2 turns, trapping my weak southern army and reversing *all* my gains in our war in just few turns. I simply did not have army or any SCs to resist your advance back then, your kickass "boxing team" of SCs would be unstoppable, even if half of them would be insane and couldn't move on any given turn. Plus you could finally leverage your many thousands undead, once they are no longer locked in your core domain. And with gems/resources of the entire ex-Abyssia territory at your disposal and me pushed back to our pre-war boundaries...

All and all - that would be a complete catastrophe for me.

Instead you've spent these 6 or 7 turns chipping at the walls of my castle with relatively small force, then taking an empty castle, then rebuilding the lab I've destroyed, then not moving at all for few turns. That gave me enough time to bring a lot of troops, mages as well as a lot of SCs from my faraway homeland.

During the time since your major victories 7 turns ago on our central front, 80%+ of my resources and SCs on every given turn went toward building a new army at the province to which I've retreated. Also I've completely changed battle gear on many of my SCs, turning them into anti-SC force, designed to stand to your powerful "boxing team" that handed me my as* on the plate earlier.

Meanwhile I've bluffed, destroyed lab, repeatedly raided your back, showed off all my unique artifacts I've been hiding until then, basically did everything I could to delay your advance while desperately rebuilding my forces. :smirk:

So when you've finally attacked this turn I was ready and waiting for you to come.

Now for this grand battle - it was very interesting and intense. Before the battle I had a pleasure to see 8 or 9 of your spells smashed against my two domes. (Of course I've domed that province - I didn't stack 70 mages and geared human commanders and half thousand soldiers to be a sitting target for your artillery spells! :p ) Once score to me.

Then when the battle started by turn 3 I thought I am finished - you;ve outplayed me completely in mages battle. You've only got few of my mages with that master enslave on turn 1. (great move by the way, my compliments) Unfortunately for me you've got all critical ones!! :mad: Including the one who was supposed to cast anti-magic on turn 2. Which in turn made all my undead in the back an easy target for your repeated castings of undead mastery spell. Which in turn wiped out or prevented from casting pretty much every battle enchantments I've scripted! :mad: And then your damned acid storm finished the destruction.

By turn 4 I had no regular troops left and my huge magical force was gone. :mad: And 80% of my battlefield-wide protection and buff spells were not casted! Not to mention two dozens of my communion masters/battle mages did next to nothing.

At least my mist warriors and mass regeneration and doom took off. (out of more then a dozen powerful enchantments! :doh: )

All an all - the battle of magic was won by you, hands down. Amazingly well done Executor.

So by turn 4 all I had left were my SCs. Fortunately I've brought quite a few of them, and almost all were designed for anti-SC roles, specifically against your SC battlegroup.

So rest of the battle was decided by mighty host of your SCs (I've counted 11 front-line SC, plus 4 or 5 SCs you've used as mages in the back), against my own SCs. I had almost the same number of SCs as you, just one or two more. Yours however had almost double HPs, since they coming from your strong dominion with GOH. And unlike mine yours have benefited from many buff spells your mages have casted in the beginning of battle.

I have to say it was a great sight to behold - 30 SCs of all types, all equipped with top of the line battle gear, all cursed, duking it out in the middle of the battlefield, while all lesser troops aeound them slowly dying to Executor's acid storms.

But at the end my SCs have proved to be superior. Plus I've had several nasty surprises among my SC force I've been counting on, and it worked well.

All and all - for the first time in the history of this great war Ermor's SCs have been finally defeated in battle! :happy: (Up until this turn 95% of dead SCs on Pythium/Ermor battlefield were mine - to my huge irritation.)

Out of 11 Ermor's front-line SCs only 3 have escaped, the rest were wiped out.


Ok, answering your question about the damage you've done. You've completely wiped out my magic cadre (aprox. 60 battle mages and communion slaves.) You've killed all my non-SC commanders and all non-Tartarian troops. You've also killed my unequipped Grenddelkin. All and all - the casualties you've inflicted were very heavy.

However your attack has been repelled and each of my SCs have survived the battle. Scared? :mean:

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ah, yeah, I know I should have continued onwards but in my defense I was scared of all the artifacts you kept throwing at me. :)
Seriously tho, I kinda expected Jotun to put a lot more pressure on you and overrun you with flying demons since the majority of your forces were involved with me atm and had been weakened.

I think this game went south for me when I chose to overlook BL and went against Ulm instead as I had a NAP 6 Lolomo made. Though It'd take too long to get canceled. :)
It went even more south when I chose to send a very limited amount of troops to take over Ulm veeery slowly, and BL putting up Sea of Ice didn't help later.
Also, I probably shouldn't have made peace with Vanheim but it made sense at the time, before TC attacked him too. At that point it became rather easy for you to take over Van with him focusing on TC more and going on a bloody vengeance murder rampage. :)

All in all, I think you're getting really close to winning this. I certainly can't beat you alone, and now with my central force crushed with very limited loses on your side it's probably just a matter of time. So far I managed to keep up gem vise, killing more SCs than I lost, but now that's changed.

As for the battle, unfortunately some Tartarians I wanted there went all crazy on me but I chose to chose to attack anyway.
I really thought I'd have you beat. I counted on flames from the sky to cripple your communions, hit some important buff mages etc, than the wolven winter to reduce the power of the Ember Lords if only for a fraction trough defense and encumbrance, and I kinda hoped the swamp penalty + cold would fatigue out at least some of your Ember Lords. But damn you with your weightles items and high reinvigoration!!!:mad:

As for scripting, I sent only 20ish theurgs to get the needed buffs online before they die out of fatigue from > MA, UM, WOTF, AM, fog warriors and all the other buffs I cast trough a communion.
The plan was to enslave your troops which would mess up your communions, scripting and kill mages hopefully, than have my own buffs cover your enslaved troops and keep your SCs busy.
Than while your SCs were busy killing chaff troops my SCs would slowly pound them into dust. I even equped as much as I could with elixirs and phoenix pyre for durability.
That never happened...:(
It went perfectly until turn 4-5 I think, I managed to completely crush your mage force, throw off your scripting and eliminate your troops, but...
Unfortunately it seems I never got trough my chaff, and just stood there while your SCs slowly showered me with elemental magic which ultimately killed me.:mad:

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Honestly, if I'd had more time to devote to turns, I probably would've flown over and attacked him, yeah. Properly deployed, blood magic would've reduced his various teleporters to their constituent atoms.

But I just didn't have time :(, and now we're in bad shape because of it.

On which subject, can we have (another) 24h delay on the current turn? I was hoping to finish it tonight, but I didn't, and tomorrow is very hectic for me, with lots of meetings.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

All right, no problem DrPraetorious.

BTW when you will be finishing your turn, please make sure to build appropriate PD in all your provinces, and keep it up in the future. ;) It feels a bit strange to be able to conquer provinces with Arouse Hunger and scouts at that stage of the game. :o And by now you should be aware that I have eyes all over your territory.

(to be honest there was a turn when Ermor got a several provinces from me with Arouse hunger (right after I've used it against you for the first time) , but it only happened once and is not going to happen again. )

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yes, that was brutal, I've watched that battle over your capital. At least you have survived the Ermor assault and even kicked them back before BL tide was upon you both. Well fought Aethyr.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

My PD sucks. Do you know how much Jotun PD it takes to hold off a bunch of ghouls? And then you'll just switch over to Ghost Riders! Nah, I'm better off retaking the provinces with marauding squads of demons.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

That's true, Jotuns PD is not very efficient. Well, at least you may want to keep it above zero or I won't even need to use ghouls, just scouts.

As for GR and Ghosts - well, if it if of any consolation to you and Ermor, I have finally reached the bottom of my large supplies of death gems as of last turn (mostly due to aggressive raiding campaign against your territory DrP, as well as massive tartarian summons to replace heavy SC losses in Ermor/Pythium war, as well as several SC lost to your forces). Now I only have my regular monthly death income. I also had to reforge a Sickle after I've lost it to you 2 turns ago, so I couldn't draw on the supplemental income during this time, in addition to paying the forging cost of Sickle again. (BTW I am surpassed that nobody tried to beat me to Sickle and/or Boots of Planes. Or maybe someone did but I got lucky)

So now I have to choose every turn if I want to get more tartarians or spend death gems on raiding your territory. (Ermor's territory is 100% castled, so no point to use these spells against him, except in special circumstances).

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I think you may be right, although I've learned not to underestimate you. ;)

Unless Jotuns will regroup and rally after their recent defeats. They still only lost a single blood SC so far, and they have every unique blood summon in addition to other SC and strong troops. Why they haven't used many of them against me yet - I have no idea. They have split their main army in 4 parts about 4 turns ago to deal with my riding. Which has allowed me to ambush and destroy 2 of these smaller armies 2 turns ago.

If I would be in DrP's shoes I would keep my army together and send it all against my only southern army while it was still weak 4-6 turns ago. Instead they did attack in the beginning of the war but with the smaller force coming from the south, rather then with their main army.

To DrP's credit he did kill number of my SCs - at least 5 so far. Hmmm, I will have to start being less agressive with my SCs, now that my death gems vaults have shown the bottom...


Anyway, another big piece of good news for both Ermor and Jotun is that it looks like BL is joining the fray on your side soon. They have just informed me that they are going to attack me several turns from now, once our NAP treaty will expire. And they do have tons of SCs and other resources, since I don't think that have been suffereing any real losses for at least 15-20 turns, if not longer. We shall see how it will go...

Together three of your nations have more then 2/3 of my current gem income. And if Jotuns will get back their provinces I am currently raiding, then your combined gem income will be larger then mine. And I think you have roughly twice my number of SCs.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

New turn.

Newsflash:

Victory on the northern front vs Ermor!

After unsuccessfully chipping at the Ermorian's castle walls for more then 10 turns, the Army Group North of the Pythium Empire has finally breached the gate, thanks to the recent reinforcements. After furious storm the castle of Red River has been liberated from the undead yoke.

3 Ermorian SC have perished, together with many enemy mages. With northern ermorian castle in Pythium hand, the northern path toward core ermorian lands is now open.

On other two Ermorian fronts in the SE and underwater the ermorian castles are under heavy sieges with their walls either breached or crumbling.

It looks like impenetrable "Fortress Ermor" is finally cracking... :fire:

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

In other news, from Jotuns/Pythium frontlines:

The Jotuns Unholy Horde has finally arrived. I have to say it is very impressive collection of blood uniques, mages and demonic troops... :mad:

This is going to be inresting...

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Well, it looks like you are going to win, Pyth. That hereby negates our peace treaty (allied until the game looks like a goner). Tien Chi declares war on Pythium.

Don't take it personally Corwin. I never let anyone just run the table in the late game. The amount of hurt I can do to you is probably pretty minimal... but I'll give it a shot.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Hmmm. We *do* have 6 tutns NAP treaty though, and as far as I know it didn't have any clauses like "if it looks like the other side is winning". :(

However I am kindof ok with you withdrawing from it and attacking me, as long as we are not attacking each other this turn. I would hate to redo large part of my turn that is mostly completed.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Break the treaty! Treach your little black heart out!

P.S., thanks for the delay. I promise a less embarrassing turn.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

No problem, you are welcome. Looking forward to it.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

It's kind of an unwritten rule. Once one nation looks like they are about to win, all nations declare war on them. Sorry... I thought you were familiar with it.

And hey, someone knock down that Sea of Ice. Things would get a lot more interesting.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Geez, of all the possible timing. My PC (that I play Dom on), just bit the big one. It's a deader. I could transfer everything to my Mac, but it's like 4 upgrades behind, and seriously, since I am such a bit player, I don't see the point.

You guys let me know if you want me to upgrade my Mac system, and play on that, or if I can just stale out.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Guys, the official turn interval in the game is 3 days now, but in fact turns are constantly delayed and we have 7-9 days between turns. I just don't understand why I should do my complex turns in time and then wait for another several days until all delays are over. Seriously, guys, if we are not fine with 3 days interval, let's officially accept 7 or 9 days or whatever, but no matter what the interval is, let's try to keep it.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

New turn.

Sorry for my part in the delays guys. Recently at least half of our delays are my fault. The rest are due to other players contacting me vs PM or email and requesting delays. I always grant them.

The reason for my own delays is that my turns have been taking huge amount of time recently. ;( Now that I control almost half of the map, and in war with 2, soon to be 4 nations, each of them being played by strong players such as yourself. When facing such opponents I am fully aware that any serious mistake on my part will be immediately punished, as it was demonstrated many times in the past in this game. Not to mention we all change tactics constantly to adopt to each other new developments.


That said, I will try to keep delays it the minimum in the future as far as my nation concerned. I suggest that perhaps we should stick to 3 days timer, with any players requesting delays if needed. The reason for this is that I am concerned that switching to longer then 3 days hosting timer may cause some players to lose interest in the game. Am I right? Or do you all guys feel that 4 days delay is better at this point of the game?


So it's up to you guys. Personally I am totally fine with 4 days timer, in fact it would make making my turns quite a bit easier. But I don't want to lose players because of such switch or lessen players enjoyment of the game because of it.

So what are your opinions?

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ouch, that was unpleasant.
Well I kinda half way gave up after that bloody massacre on the central front, still not sure how I lost that one.:confused:

I managed to keep ahead resource vice during this war and not lose ground on the main island, but as of last turn this changed.

I've lost the Ulm - Bandar lands, the seas are lost, former TC lands too, and as of last and this turn effectively 70% of my SC's are down with virtually no loses on your side.
What's left of my forces is cursed, severely afflicted, horror marked and what not. You've broken the northern front, whipped out my army on the central front, and broken the southern one once again.
Ermor is ready to concede, well played.

Thoughts, comments and analysis from Pythium.
 

Thank you Executor. :) Very well played yourself.


Guys, here is a news update for all nations who may not have a large spy network over Ermor/Pythium frontlines, together with few comments and my analysis of the current situation in the game:


After critical victory against Ermor on the central front 1 turn ago turn, I've redeployed most of my non-injured SCs in the area to the southern front. It was the last front of Ermor/Pythium war where Ermor was still strong (they have defeated me there earlier and were besieging my castle, with a large group of SCs and strong army)

This turn there was a huge battle there, in which Ermor's army was pretty much annihilated. 12 Ermor SCs have been wiped out together with their army, with practically no losses on Pythium side.

Also 2 more Ermor SCs have fallen during the conquest of Ermor's underwater castle during this turn. All and all - I estimate that Ermor is down to less then 1/3 of SCs that they had 2 turns ago.

On my side I currently I have about 30-35 fully equipped SCs on 4 ermorian fronts alone, in addition to few hundred mages and large armies with gate cleavers to back these SCs and that are capable of tearing any castle's walls in 1 turn. (That not including numerous SCs on Jotuns and TC fronts, as well as those that have not been deployed yet.)

Combined with losses from earlier battles over the last turn, the situation indeed has become hopeless for Ermor, as Executor have explained.

With Ermor's military backbone broken, their remaining lands will be quickly absorbed into my own territory.


All and all - I have to say that I am positive that the fate of the game can not be changed at this point. The remaing nations still have strong armies and significant resources, but the final outcome of this struggle is no longer in question - the Pythium can't help but win this game at the end. The difference in the gem income and money income alone is too great.


Therefore by the imperial degree, the Pythium Empire would like to offer a honorable surrender to all remaining nations in the game:

You have fought bravely and well. You have survived to the endgame in a world full of mighty opponents, most of whom are no more. I think that it is time to end this bloodshed and start rebuilding the shattered land, under the benevolent guidance of the Pythium Empire.


What will you say, Lords of Song of Ice and Fire?

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

That's a shame, as I was finally turning things around on my front :(.

But with Ermor conceding, and given how long it takes to script an effective defense *everywhere all the time* (sigh), I'm inclined to accept. Let me take a bit of a longer look at this turn, though - with proper defenses in place, I can possibly beat your armies and just banish all your tarts to hell. It'll be tough, of course, as you won't be sitting still and waiting for me to do that; and even if it's possible, I may just not have time to do justice to the turns.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Congrats Corwin, by all accounts you have played a masterful game.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I understand your reasoning DrPraetorious. And I respect your fighting spirit. :up: But what you are describing won't be possible I am afraid - I am well aware of the power of inferno/claws banishment (I've used it against Ermor myself with great success) and that you are going to rely on it to try to banish my SCs to inferno. But it just means I will have to use counter-measures against inferno banishments, and I would, believe me. Nevertheless I partly agree with you, your blood magic will certainly limit my SCs usefulness to some degree, and it will mean that I will have to rely less on my SCs (or rather be more careful with the way I deploy them), and more om my armies, mages, communions and unique artifacts. But it won't be able to stop me.

Let me share more of my current situation: I control large majority of best unique artifacts (pretty much everything except Scepter which I have no need for). I have the only remaining fully functioning (healing) tartarian factory (outside conceding Ermor). If we continue to play in 4-5 turns most of the Ermorian lands as well as probably most of TC would be under my control. You and BL won't be able to prevent it in time due to map's geography and locations of your armies. Finally once Ermor's globals fall I indent to try to fill these slots with my own globals, backed by a lot of gems. Considering the difference in gem income, I except I should be able to grab at least 4 globals slots. (Starting this turn BTW - I've been saving gems to cast powerful global for the last 4 turns, once I've noticed BL's repeated attempts to kill off the caster who has frozen the Sea :) ). I also have a forging factory that creates 50 items each turn with hammers and forging site bonus, to equip all my new SCs and mages.

Finally with Ermor's resistance greatly diminished, at least 15 fully equipped SCs from their fronts are immediately coming to your front during the next few turns, by the means or personal teleportations, as well as by Gate Stone and Boots of Planes. Plus I am creating and fully equipping 6-7 new SCs per turn, most of them would be heading to your front as well, since you are the most powerful of my remaining opponents.

Please don't get me wrong, I am not bragging, just sharing with you a honest account of my situation, so you and other players could make your decisions knowing all facts. I am also sure that if we would continue your armies would cause me significant losses before they would be dealt with. Nevertheless even your powerful blood magic will not be able to turn the tides of war in your favor at this point - the odds are simply stacked way too heavily against you and your allies. Trust me, I love a good fight (as long as it can affect the final outcome) and I wouldn't make my offer if I wouldn't be 100% certain that the fate of the game is sealed at this point.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Thank you Aethyr. :)

Good game, Lord of Ulm. Very determined defense against mighty opponent.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ugh, you have a forge bonus site as well? Yeah, fair enough - I can't win against that.

I do think it'd be more satisfying to have you grab the requisite VPs and actually win, but it probably wouldn't be in your strategic interest to do so. Might as well just wear us down.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I agree, I think it would indeed just wear us down. And BTW missing VPs could relatively easy come from Ermor and TC territory - I wouldn't even have to push your or BL's armies back in order to gather remaining VPs, unless I would intentionaly choose to go down that road.


Yeap, it was my top-secret research and manufacture facility. ;) It has heavy patrols to catch enemy spies before they had a chance to look at it, as well as magic domes. (it was dangerously close to my pre-war borders) the one turn ago it also served as my tartarian summoning/healing factory, where my 6 (Death 7) liches and Chalice were located. It has 20 site forging bonus. I've located it pretty late in the game, but for the last 6-7 turns I've been producing 50 items per turn there using 49 dwarven hammers and one Hammer of the Forge lord.

Surprisingly enough I haven't found (or conquered) any other bonus sites in my entire territory, despite searching everywhere.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I've actually watched that battle closely during replay, since it was the most important battle of our war. Well, if you are interested in my opinion - I think it was a combination of several things. But me using my water/blood tartarian as a secret weapon during that great battle has played a large part in it. That tartarian alone has banished to inferno 4 of your SCs before they had a chance to engage in melee, including some of your best anti-SC ("boxing" grendlekins). Also my best Tartarian Titan equipped with Mage Bane and best items that gems could buy had fatigued and killed one or two of yours in SC vs SC duels. All together that has shifted number of SCs on both sides from aprox. parity that we had in the beginning of battle toward me having advantage in numbers of meleeing SCs. Plus the quality of my remaining SC vs your remaining SC was slightly better - I had a couple of Ember Lords, Water Queen and Gredlekin, in addition to regular tartarians we both used. But that was a minor factor.

Perhaps you may have won that battle (or at least made it into draw) if you would keep your SCs in the back for the first 5 turns, beyond the reach of my Claws spell. Or if you would screen your SCs with non-GORed tartarians. (Both these tactics I that I was planning to employ against DrP's blood magic in the next few turns, should we continue playing ;) ) But in your defense - that was the first time I've used blood magic against you in battle, so you didn't know to expect it. Also sending more of your mages into that battle would help too - you've wiped out my mages very efficiently early, but you didn't send too many of your own mages into battle. Since the battle had lasted for a very long time, and you've successfully sabotaged my anti-magic spell, eventually your mages would likely paralyze and soulslay some of my SCs if there would be more of them.

Nevertheless it was a close call. You didn't slay any of my SCs but you've come very close with several of them. And pretty much all of my melee SCs got a lot of nasty afflictions. I even had to pause my tartarian factory and organize improv Chalice-powered hospital in that province where we've fought battle. Even now two turns later more most of the participating SCs are still recovering from their wounds. BTW that's why I didn't counterattack you on the central front the next turn after battle - most of my SCs were crippled, and I wanted to heal them before sending them again into battle.

Anyway, just my two cents.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

It was a good game,
For what it's worth, I think I dropped the ball when the war with Ulm and Midgard started, I shouldn't have left Midgard alone to fight you but I really didn't expect TC to join that war.
On the Ulm side, I should have really attacked Bandar first and swept trough that continent rather than send very limited amount of troops over the seas backed by a few tarts, it took too long, but I had a too long NAP with BL.

Another thing that really killed me was the lack of magic diversity, the only useful indies I found were enchantresses shamefully. And tho I had the largest mage force in the game, probably twice as large as you Pythium, they had a severally limited usage. There just wasn't a lot I could do with S1D1 mages even tho I kept bringing 40 to every battle.
If only I had those adepts of the iron order like Jotun...

I made some rookie mistakes, like sending RoS tartarians with a mage scripted to cast VoR and forgetting to put the mage behind and alike.

As for my SCs, ha, it's really annoying when you can't GoR tartarians since you have an army passing trough your tart factory so you can't select them.:mad:
I still have about 20 SCs left, and I can still keep popping out a lot of tartarians, but I have no equipment for them, and neither the gems to GoR them anymore. The poor felas had to share the items frequently, I guess it taught them a little about brotherhood.:happy:

One things for sure, after this game I've really started to hate tartarians, shattered soul 25 my ars!

A funny thing too, I had 4 tartarians summoners, but only 1 of them was in my cap, but somehow it was always him that ever managed to summon a commander tartarin, and the damn tartarians always decided to pillage my cap with 36000 pop and dom 10 GONB on the single turn he was there, ingrates...

Anyway, congrats Corwin, it was a gentlemans game and your admining was superb. I look forward to killing you a bit sooner next time. :)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Oh, enchantresses. I would've loved some. The lack of enchantresses was killer for me. If I had any - I didn't - I'd have had Immortal Elixirs and some other cross-ele or ele-nature items *years* ago, and I'd be in much better shape. In fact, I venture to say, with enchantresses it would be me and not Pythium that everyone would've been complaining about in the midgame.

As it was, although I had every path of magic except substantial air, that was a strength of my nation. It was only recently that I acquired even a good share of the cross-elemental paths, and I never had nature-elemental casters.

It was killer, and the lack of enchantresses more-or-less-choked-off what was a very promising start. I did have Mount Chaining, which ought to be definitive for a blood nation. But without enchantresses, what could I do? I couldn't even build fire brands until my iron order came online, and I didn't find that until late, with a troll king, summoned by my God, spamming earth-site finding spells.

In the end, on a map this size, I was very powerful but had neighbors of above-average competence, and I had below-average luck on magic diversity from indies.

We should try this again on a wrap-around map :).

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I personnaly, would love to have another go with such sklled and knowledgable opponents...as long as I don't have to play Ulm again. :)

Also, it was both entertaining and instructive to read the "real time" AAR by various players as the game unfolded. Good stuff.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Great game everyone!

I am glad you guys had a good time. Personally I also have enjoyed it a lot.

My thanks to all players for participating in this game and for making it such an interesting and enjoyable experience.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Some random afterthoughts:

I think our game settings have worked very well overall. IMHO getting only strong veteran players with no newbies made the game much more enjoyable (and fair, since no veteran player could quickly roll over a newbie that happened to be next to him, as always happen in mixed newbie/veteran games, which would throw the balance out of the window)

I was also glad to see endgame not determined by who has casted one of the 3 game-winning globals but instead by strength of arms and magic on the battlefields.


Ok, since we are all bit*hing about our nations - let me bi*ch about Pythium a bit... ;) So about my nation - I had very rocky start in this game (not related to my actions). In fact in all my years of playing MP Dom2/3 that probably was the worst starting location. :mad: If you look at our map, you'll see that Pythium capital has just 3 neighbors. All of these 3 provinces are totally disconnected from each other(!), plus one of them is deadend(!!), and another is 5 province long narrow tunnel leading into Vans territory(!!!), and was stuffed with tough indeps.

All that made my earlier expansion a real logistical nightmare and the speed of it was much slower then it would be if not for such horrible starting location.

It took me two wars (vs Agartha and C'tis) and absorbing both of these nations to partly catch up with the game leaders in a number of provinces, but even then I was still lagging behind them territory-wise.

Another totally weird and unlikely situation in this game for my Pythium nation was my death income. I've searched each and every province of my land for death gems, including farmlands, using death games I've traded from other nations. You know how much death gem income I had at the end of this search? 4 gems per month! :( (for comparison - for each other gems type my income was within 20-30 range) And that was at the stage of the game when I was supposed to start getting into tartarians and lich summoning... :mad:

So I had to ravenfeast like crazy using my large spy network to comb the earth for places where Death reigned... (thank you Ermor for those large battlefields full of corpses that you were leaving behind you in your wars ;) ). BTW ravenfeast spell is really efficient with our balance mod. Changing its casting cost from 5 gems to 1 has made all the difference in the world. I've also traded death gems as much as I could, and forging Sickle has became my top priority when I've reached Con8, once I've realized that the Chalice was taken.

Only after I've conquered Vans territory and got several 30-strong loads of death gems from my Sickle's harvest the deathgems situation has became less dire for my nation.

Good bye
 

Regarding another game like this that several of you guys have suggested recently. I am afraid I am goign to take a break from Dom3 for an undetermined period of time. Since my return to Dom3 half a year ago, I've played two non-team games(won both of them :) ). It was great fun (especailly this game of ours - thank you all guys for your interest, efforts and commitment!) But unfortunately I don't have time anymore to play a serious competitive Dom3 game vs strong and challenging opponents (the type of game I enjoy the most) due to various RL commitments that I have at the present. So I will have to go back into Dom3 retirement, at least for the close/medium future.

It was a pleasure playing with you guys, thank you.

Good bye everyone!