Re: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]
 

My apologies to Hoo and Sambo for not delaying the game for them. I had intended to, but made it back to my computer about 5 minutes too late. OTOH, neither asked for an extension.

I was also concerned with the two tries that both R'lyeh's golem and Tir's Eater got and was worried that we had hit some kind of bug, but I think I understand what happened. Banishment to Cocytos does not actually kill, just sends them elsewhere. They still exist and still have orders to fight in the death match so they do.

So with that out of the way: Congratulations to our new Pangaean overlords! Can we at least have some revels before the purges commence?

Re: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]
 

TwoBits:
Pirenna was something of an epic battle. It was quite fun to watch all your Maenids vanish in the first couple Rains of Stones, but then we got to prove that 2 buffed endgame armies essentially can't kill each other.
So we ran the clock out and I won. Though with your berserk Ice Devil I wasn't sure of that for a bit. I think he would have gone down faster if my troops had surrounded him rather than chasing after everyone else.

I was also disappointed that my Champion didn't even get a spell off. Petrify slowed him down and then he was in melee and just hacked instead of dropping Gifts from Heaven on you.

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All hail our glorious Pangaean overlords! Mavreni and Lanka were missed at the tournament, but I find it hard to believe that they could have beaten a GoH'd father Illearth wielding mage bane with a built-in army of undead, who opened at point blank range with petrify. That was quite a fine strategy. I had considered sending my tartarian blood master in with a wraith crown, but the Hat of Zapping did ok as well. My blood magic plan (claws of kokytosx2, attackx1, clawsx2) went horribly awry when Caelum's Spenta of fire started off our combat with Firestorm... 20+ blood slaves wiped out, just like that! Damn you Caelum! As soon as I saw the wave of fire come through the air my perceptions paused and I spent a couple seconds thinking "Oh... crap."

On a side note, how many military troops did everyone lose due to my armageddon? Vanheim lost around 380.

The tournament has finished and the world rejoices with the cessation of hostilities! A new era of peace is upon the world... let the drinking begin!

If anyone would like to watch the battles, the file is here: http://www.filedropper.com/earlyvanheim

Re: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]
 

Of course, Illearth also got lucky and defended in both of his fights (IIRC, I know he did with mine.) Claws or GfH first round would have finished him just as nicely.
I almost scripted Petrify first myself, but decided that I wanted more scripted meteors instead. Not that it mattered since he went for the 50% chance of physical attack instead of casting every round once the petrify wore off.

Re: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]
 

My fire Spenta burned through all 30 fire gems in the first battle! Next time I'll script Living Fire twice only :)

Without the gems, the AI took over, and boy did it like prison of fire!

Congrats Pan!

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New Converts to the One True Faith,

In the name of Pony, Pantakrator, Queen of Heaven and Earth, the Emerald Goddess!, all Pangaea welcomes you with its green embrace! Indeed, now that the terrible and bloody Last War has ended, and Lady Pony has Ascended to true Godhood, a new era of Freedom and Revelry shall sweep the World! Let all living things rejoice!

Your people shall be glad, as their cities are thrown down (to be covered once again by the forests), and they are released from their artificial prisons of walls, streets, towers, gates and other such abominations. Your menfolk will be relocated to reeducation camps in the wilds, there to learn the joys of revelry and a proper respect for nature, while your women shall embrace the cult of the bacchanalia, to swell the ranks of the Maenads, and enjoy the ecstasy of the Orgy with the Beast-men of Pangaea!

Let the World be covered over in mighty trees and green vines, and let this one mighty Forest be filled with wine, song, dance and carnal pleasure!

So the Lady commands, so let it be done!

Troes the Pan, Master of Revels and Servant of the Pantakrator.

Re: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]
 

I think I did get lucky in some respects. Indeed, Father Illearth (my script was Petrify, Living Earth, Reinvigoration, Attack) was on the defensive in both his fights, and that first round Petrification probably did a lot to screw up opponents' scripting. And anyone facing Caelum's Spenta in the first round would have had their hands full as well.

But then again, he came into the fights with 234 HP, 20 HP regeneration, and luck. He might have been able to survive a Gift of Heaven strike or two, long enough to get off that Petrify. And Claws of Kokytos would just have sent him back into the tournament pool (he might have lost his Blood Slaves though, I'm not sure, but skipping the Reinvigoration might not have mattered much). And in the end, he never had to even use Mage Bane.

Yeah, I kicked around a lot of ideas for the tournament. Plan A was a Blood empowered Garnet-Sorceress casting Infernal Prison (with a Bag of Winds, so the Air Elemental would be the target of any enemy spell). But when I tested it, I realized that it just sent the victim back into the contest, so eventually she would have run out of Slaves, and would almost certainly get squished by the last competitor.

I also thought about an GoRed Ettin armed with Mage Bane, the Hammer of the Mountains, and the Gift of Kurgi, but I had no Ettins in a lab when the tournament was announced.

And I also Blood empowered a Vampire Lord, with the plan to give him a bunch of Blood boosting items and Slaves, place him in the back, and scripted with Life for a Life x 5. But I worried that enemies with high HP, regeneration, and/or luck might be able to shrug it off, and toast him in close combat. I didn't even think about all the Slaves getting toasted by Flame Storm and the like!

And my Gorgon pretender was another option (armed with Mage Bane of course, with flying, and Petrification for crown control).

But Illearth seemed to have the best combination of survivability, crowd control, and offensive capability - with Mage Bane at least. If it had been wished away, I may have gone for one of the other options (probably the Vampire Lord).


TheJeff: Yeah, Pirenna was crazy! Boy, when all my Maenads got wiped by the RoS, and many other units blasted by Neifel Flames and Flame Storm, I thought I would break and retreat in the first round!

And yeah, once both sides got up their buffs, and the gate got clogged with Sea Trolls (I think the same two stupid buffed - but not with an attack bonus - and regenerating Trolls stood in that gateway for 30 or so turns, or so it felt), it was stalemate, until the timer expired. Yeah, I thought I was going to get lucky with the berserk Ice Devil, and I would have too, if he hadn't gotten in the way of your retreating Fire Snakes ;)

If one side uses storm to stop fliers, I don't know what can be done in that kind of situation.

Maybe just use the Maenads to tear down the walls, but only send in the high HP mages and some tough SCs? But then those few SCs just become targets for everything, so I don't know. In the future though, I definitely would have continued using Maenads and such on offense - they just die too easily before they can get buffed.

Re: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]
 

BTW, Stretch, Pangaea lost 399 units to Armageddon (and I saw a handful of commanders with random Afflictions too). Considering Pangaea's huge number of chaff, I think I came off pretty well there. But I'm sure Gift of Health played a big role, as it did with Atlantis' Flames from the Sky and Murdering Winter strikes.

If the Armageddons had kept up, it would have been the population loss, and resulting drop in gold and Blood Slave income, that would have hurt Pangaea the most.

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Tarnations!

Our plan was to bring a Mandeha. Auto darkness, undead horde, rush of strength, mists of deception, attack! By my calculations, he would have dominated.

Looking forward to the next game... on a smaller scale! Good fighting everybody.

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That Mandeha sounds tough. The Auto Darkness would have been tough. Petrification might have threw off his casting though, and I think a bunch of Earth Elementals may have dealt easily with any hangers-on. But close combat in Darkness may have been rough (the Stone Bird might have helped there though).

Dang, I'd almost say "wish for another Death Match" just to see how it would come out, but now Illearth is stuck with the stupid Trident, so I guess we'll never know :(

Anyhow, I'd like to thank everyone for a cool game. Mists was my first foray into Llamaserver games, and was quite an experience, especially going from start to finish (how long was it, almost a year?).

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It is a shame you both didn't make it to the death match. The Mandeha would have been interesting.

I'll second the thanks to everyone for a good game, especially the subs who came in and helped out.
The announcement post went up 5/21/09 so just about 10 months. A good, but occasionally rough ride.

Unless someone has strong objections, I'm going to take the game down from llamaserver so it doesn't start emailing us stale turns.

Re: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]
 

Congrats to Pan and sorry I missed it. I was debating sending a Chayot equipped with either a) the unique 2 handed sword that banishes to inferno or b) Summitt/Aegis. Would also have had the monolith army for protection/regen, boots of calus for endo, and ardamon's soul trap for insta undead warriors & mages.

A good game that sadly fizzled as I think it was a long way for ending and the turns were more of a chore than a pleasure for most players. By the end, I think I have 10+ chayots/serpahs, 2 air queens, a host of golems/irondragons probably about 60% of the unique artifacts. I had a construction bonus site so I was pumping out multiple iron dragons/golems a turn. I also had the blood 40 or 50 site as well as a few other bonus sites like evocation.

I was going to unleash an offensive on Van aimed at taking 30 provinces around one of the capitols and being able to construct a lab and then take over one of the main armies using gateway. I know that Van probably had enough for about 100 seeking arrows saved up so I was preparing counters for that. I would lost a lot but I had a few other tricks up my sleeve since I had a lot of mobility and magic diversity. Still don't think it would have been enough unless Atlantis was able to get going.

Re: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]
 

My last turn is available online earlier in the thread. Massive armies would fall like chaff before the might of the vandrotts and vanjarls, which could be summoned to strike at any place, any time. Atlantis and I were busy throwing SCs and thugs at each other non-stop or else Mavreni would not have grown so quickly. It was good that you took advantage, but any large armies would be decimated by an airborne strike, and any grouping of thugs or SCs would be banished to kokytos/life-for-a-lifed/thugged into oblivion. Chayots and Seraphs were not much of a trump card any longer, and Vanheim had vast blood reserves that it was never forced to use. None ever successfully assaulted a Vanir castle, and none even took Vanir lands and held them unless they were given over of our own free will. Our capitals were stuffed with troops, with more on the way should I have chosen. I was eagerly awaiting the day that someone would bring a force of note into my lands, as I had several horrible traps in wait (a battalion of immortal demiliches, more 4A vandrotts than I could count ready to unleash air magic on armies who tried to protect themselves via army of lead, high level mages in all paths at the likely attack points, ubiquitous blood magic, etc).

Regrettably, I was putting less and less effort into my turns (and trying to win the game by attacking TNN and then wrestling 3 more capitals from someone else), but were someone to launch a huge assault on me would have spelled doom for many of their raiding troops and near-immediate retaking of all lands, with horrible reprisals for any scouted armies, I guarantee you! Everything except massed tartarians would have had a nightmarish time taking down myself (or, likely, Lanka) since end-game blood magic coupled with air magic on the same unit (i.e. vandrotts, vanjarls, and dakinis) is brutally powerful. What air queen or chayot could stand against massed blood sabbath/life for a lifex4 communions except tartarians (who I do not think it effects), unless you were using blood magic yourself? Seraphs are so vulnerable to mind duel I'd hesitate to ever summon one against a diversified opponent (I had about 20 sorceresses and the skullcaps/crystal coins to equip some nice mind dueling strikeforces which took out 2 seraphs without a hitch via power of the spheres/mind duel/returning scripts). Chayots are fun but they lose forms quickly and route somewhat easily against life for a life spam, when they don't just get banished to inferno by a vandrott that they have to get a lucky roll to even strike.

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Seraphs are vulnerable to Magic Due, but you got ridiculously lucky with the duels you won.

Remember, though I wasn't going to point it out to you at the time, only base Astral level counts for Magic Duel. Not items, not booster spells.

I played around with the first of those duels using Ctrl-U to add chaff and rejigger the RNG. Several times the Seraph surived, I think once one of the Sorceresses suicided to take him out.

Re: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]
 

Ahh, really? I did not know that! Another good thing to keep in mind for games in the future. As you can see, fantastic luck was on Vanheim's side as well! In any case, that'd lower the cost of magic dueling to just the cloud trapeze which isn't bad, and after seeing life for a life in action I have trouble being scared of any SC that doesn't have insane regen or is immune to it (I assume that undead are immune but I didn't have any time for testing late game).

Re: Mists of Time: Early Era Game [full]
 

Lifeless units are immune to L4AL, not undead. Many chaff undead are lifeless, but not Tarts IIRC.

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Interesting, seeing how powerful the main players were. Lanka, unfortunately, was a broken nation after our war with T'ien and Neifel, and we never recovered. Our ultimate plan was to throw up a Astral Corruption / Utterdark combo and rampage through the world, but it looks like they would have been dispelled (even though we had the gems / slaves to cast them at full power).

We had just started an exploratory campaign against Atlantis / TNN, but we were seriously considering shifting course and invading our old allies, Vanheim (sorry, Stretch!), when the death match idea came up. Considering how long turns were already taking, and that we were a minor power, it was an easy decision.

Great game, I certainly learned a lot!

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Hey guys. The second Thain of Tir na n'Og here. My predecessor was not acquainted with the theory of clamming. When I took the reins on turn 70 or so, we had some gems in reserve, but we were generating one earth gem/turn by bloodstone with no clams or fetishes. By the time of the tournament, we were getting more than 40 pearls/turn via clams, and a dozen or so fetshes. Blood slaves were impossible for me to come by. I kept hoping for my small random chance mages to produce a blood hunter or two, but I should have traded for them.

On the turn before the tournament, I got to cast my first wish. I wished for a cyclops. I got one, non tartarian, and not a leader. Should have looked at the list. I had been pumping out tarts for 6 turns by then. All bad. My best was a limp cyclops that I GoR'd anyway, and he was working his way to the front with an impressive (to my mind) army. I know I was well behind most of the leaders. Blood was off the table, and death was rare. I had Tarrasques, and that Eater, and an Air Queen.

Marverni and I were in discussions, and though I probably wouldn't have been much help, he would not have stood alone against the rest of you. A doomed campaign against Lanka would have been interesting, and hopefully fun. But against Van too? No, the tournament was the only chance.

When I subbed in, I'd only had the game a little more than a month, and I'd never seen turn 70 in MP. I found all of this new and fun, and I did what I was there to do - nobody got free provinces while I was watching. Thanks for the game, and the chance to try some things I'd never been able to before. :)

btw:I don't mean to knock Iron Duke, wherever he went. I think he did remarkably well without gem gens in this sort of game. My position was solid, and the nation is not a traditional power.

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"It was good that you took advantage, but any large armies would be decimated by an airborne strike, and any grouping of thugs or SCs would be banished to kokytos/life-for-a-lifed/thugged into oblivion."

I think a lot of it is countering what's thrown at you and the reactor has the advantage.

I figure I'd take my licks but be able to draw you out. I also planned to attack and then script returning. So you attack me, I teleport out and re-attack outside a lab.

Marverni is a pretty solid late-game powerhouse b/c of their diversity and since every druid has a good astral/spells recruitable at every castle.

And I agree that L4L and claws are 2 gamewinner spells. But there's others as well.

I still think Van would have won since Pan was going to support him. Getting the Nexus up was the gamewinning move.

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I had to consult this game thread for a few things and wound up reading the last few pages. What a great game of Dom3!