Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

The officials of the Imperial Bureaucracy of T'ien Ch'i have one small addition and related speculation they wish to humbly submit. Ermor has a very strong triple bless, having death-9 or death-10 (there is no visible difference between the two), astral-9 and earth-6 or earth-7 on their god. This blessing gives their Shadow Vestals (who are already ethereal and carrying magic spears) the death weapon bonus, +3 magic resistance, twist fate, +250% affliction chance and +3 reinvigoration. This will also give their sacred casters useful reinvigoration and make all of their damaging spells much more likely to cause afflictions (beware the death bless evocation caster).

Given Ermor's high dom spread, they might have an imprisoned or dormant pretender, a high dom and are recruiting a full compliment of shadow vestals a turn. With a priest to unholy bless them (normal blessing does not work on holy undead units) and a handful of towershield troops to distract archers, Ermor could expand very quickly and cheaply at the expense of having what must be truly awful scales (triple blesses are expensive). Very few indies can deal with ethereal troops (and the twist fate would soak the first blow) and with their MR boosted to 18, the Shadow Vestals will be very resistant to priests spamming banishment.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

This seems like kind of a strange choice, considering that Vestals are Cap-only. While he's going to be totally rocking the early game, as the game goes on he'll be forced to rely on them less and less, and his scales will catch up with him as well. I'll talk more about implications of this once we enter the midgame, as i'd rather not cause problems at the moment.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Well, that's true. However, as Tien Chi's buroucrats have said, the bless is useful not only for the Sacred troops. It's good for evocation mages too (gives them 2 lifes, with twist-fate, high MR -good for Bane thugs too- Reinvigoration, and high afliction rate with battlefield evocations.

However, it's my first MP game with Ermor, I'm kinda noob in MP (only 4-5 games) and I've probably messed a couple things, so any debate about my strategy (later on) will be very appreciated :P.

On the economic side: yes, scales are bad. However, the 80% of 1000 is more than the 120% of 500, so it depends on how much you manage to expand as well as the scales. I'm on avereage right now in Income, and that's becouse I lost a battle today (damn lost arrow, hit the priest :/ ). Otherwise, I would had take three provinces this turn, making my Income in the top 3 of the game for now.

I understand that, later in the middle game, I'll suffer from it. Let's see if I manage it fine :)

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

I think i should have practiced my start in SP before trying it out in MP. I can't see my turn 'cause i am not on my gaming computer but the score ranks seem to suggest that neither of my expansion attempts worked this turn… if that’s true, that’s very very bad.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

I've submitted my turn but got no conformation e-mail.

EDIT: its done- just took much longer than usual.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Depending on when the game hosts, i might need an extension on this next turn. I'm going to be out of town for most of the weekend.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

no problem, i hope that llama fix the server problems.

Do you know if force host will work?

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

it says I stalled..... i ma getting really pist off.

I believe everybody stalled, maybe force host was forced once too many times. Or even more than once.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

me too. WTF, we can rollback to turn 8. I´m going to roll back so we did´t lose our turn, dont start your turn until turn 8 has been send.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Huh? Whats happening?

I got turn 9 in the mail but not turn 8.

Score tables on the Llamaserver are still for turn 9 currently despite the rollback.

http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/wp-...ck-montage.jpg

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

ok the turn rollback was successful. enjoy :D

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

SpaceViking21 the game will now host at 02:00 GMT on Monday October 3rd, is this good for you, or maybe 12 hours more.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

I actually managed to get my turn in before I got on the road, so you probably don't need to worry about me.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

In another game I was in, I had a similar problem to the one you are having here. In that game, if I recall correctly, the actual game client was one turn ahead of the website. It was on turn 18, but the website was on turn 17. 2h files would get rejected for being the wrong turn number, and when it finally hosted, everyone staled. You may want to get llamabeast to take a look before trying to continue. When I contacted him, and explained what was going on, he seemed to know exactly what was going on and was able to fix it quickly.
Here is the thread.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

The website has been out of kilter today, which I think explains the confusion (and I think the staling was because of a force host while the server was being odd). Sorry about that.

The problem wonderloss describes hasn't happened here. I checked all the games (since it did look like that) but they are all in sync, it's just that the website was behind.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

The Celestial Bureaucracy, the Center of All, the Orderly Realm, T'ien Ch'i will humbly present a reading into the portents and significance of the all knowing but oft-inscrutable charts. However, we are a nation of scribes and scholars, not bards or tall-tale-telling giants, so our reading is a drier, more info-ladden affair.

Provinces: Ermor rises ever faster, outpacing all. Ulm launches ahead to a distant second, though the army graph hints that this was at some cost, militarily. Marignon and Jotenheim have fallen below the "N-1 provinces in N turns" baseline.

Forts (in Haiku):
Walls are expensive
The masons labor too long
No forts have been built

Income: Again, Ulm launches ahead, this time to first place. A sharp jump like that means some combination of very rich provinces being conquered, money making sites were uncovered by luck events and/or site searching or Ulm has begun to squeeze its citizenry for ever more wealth. As with provinces, a close race is being ran for 2nd place. The four wealthiest nations are also the 4 largest nations, as is often the case. The faithful must be skimping on their tithes, to look at Marignon's plight. Note that wealth from lucky events can not be divined from the charts so Marignon and Machaka could secretly have received unfathomable wealth from on high and we'd never be the wiser.

Gem Income: Ermor sprung to the lead with 9 gems a turn either from one massive find while site searching, or they have found lots of little sites all at once. Man has had recent but steady gains, most likely as their awake pretender goes site searching (see research section). Pythium was in the lead until recently but not because of sites they had found; their capital provides 8 gems a turn instead of the standard 5... for some reason. Fully half the nations have yet to find a single site outside their capital. Note that gems from lucky events and gem generators don't show up on the charts. CBM doesn't have any non-artifact gem generators but some pretenders produce 1-2 gems a turn so these numbers might be lower than the reality of the situation.

Research: Ulm and Man, who both must have awake pretenders (likely rainbow ones at that) were neck-and-neck for research but Man's recent decline indicates their pretender has left the library. Their recent gem income increase backs up this theory. As a result, Ulm has established themselves the most learned of people at this time. Pythium and T'ien Ch'i have a gently upward sloping growth curve, hinting that they are hiring a mage a turn and stuffing them in the library. We wouldn't be able to make that assumption if people had more than one castle, but with just capitals available we can hazard such a guess. Ermor likely has it's mages leading armies, site searching or raising undead (as all Ermor mages are also priests and all Ermor priests can animate additional troops as a special action). Marignon seems to think books are for burning, rather than reading.

Dominion: Jotunheim has a strong lead here, either from an awake pretender (pretenders generate domain like three temples each turn they are alive), a high dominion spread rate or both. Ermor, Ulm and Man have an almost synchronized ascent in 2nd, 3rd and 4th place respectively. Everyone save T'ien Ch'i and Marignon have had their rate of dom-spread slow down, possibly because they are now bumping into their neighbors' dominions. This will not likely slow Marignon or Ulm as the game progresses, given that they both have inquisitors within their clergy who are very skilled in converting heretics to the faith.

Army Size: Marchaka has had a series of leaps and plateaus, leaving them in second place. This implies a buy-save cycle on their part. T'ien Ch'i has risen rapidly, in part because of their recent mercenary contract, but it looks like their line ricocheted off of Ulm's. Ulm must have suffered heavy casualties or lost mercenary contracts to Man this turn. Still, seeing a spike in Ulm's troop numbers is unusual regardless, because high resource troops are hard to mass quickly and ALL of Ulm's troops are high resource. They may have received a bunch of militia from a random event; if so they might have decided to suicide them into some indies rather than pay the upkeep on largely worthless troops. Pythium and Ermor have suffered identical dips. A casual observer might assume the two had warred with one another, but this seems unlikely this early in the game on so large a map. Instead, they must have run afoul of some particularly stubborn indies. Note that this graph shows the literal amalgamated size of all the armies (so the size of each unit added together), meaning that Jotunheim undoubtedly has fewer troops by number than, say, Ermor but each of their gigantic soldiers count for 2 or more of their human-sized counterparts.


Of 153 provinces, 62 are claimed and 91 remain independent of the 8 great powers. The combined armies of all the world's independents mass more than 4.5 times the size of all the 8 empires' armies combined. The world is still mostly unclaimed so a great many things can change before it means war. How do I know these numbers, rather than just the relative values shown on a chart with no numbered axes? Why, from here of course (http://www.llamaserver.net/showScore...me=MorlaMAnoob). You can get there from the game's llamaserver page, and then clicking on the "Show score tables" link in the bottom left.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Insightful read. :)

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

i like this kind of stuff Shatner :)
I want you in my next game !

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

I would rather say it implies a cycle of losing a lot troops every second turn and either resting or not losing every second, if the amount of levy is fixed. On the other hand, it also might mean using money on something else than on fresh levies every second turn, and not losing either at all, or suffering only minor losses which wont be seen on the chart.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Yeah- i find those reads very interesting. Can't say how accurate they are but once people feel willing to share, i would be very curious.

And yeah, i'm doing horrible. Lots of problems with 'stubborn indies'. (and just really really rusty- havn't played in over a year and even then i was a newb- still- lots of fun)

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

why, theres no need to send spies into my territories, I am clad to share all there is to share - we humble and poor tribal folk dont have much, thou.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

XDD, poor spy he was on his way home, he had family and friends...

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Your always and aldays friendly, peacefull and usefull neighbours, the machaka people, would be more than happy to forge you items of water breathing.

At this point we can force magic gems to become rings of waterbreathing, but in near future we look forward to be able to deliver more sophisticated items also. Just send you orders in and we can negotiate the price.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

We, the people of Ermor, would like to inform that we have used coffins on sale. Our deerly departed seem uncomfortable in them, and we have a few empty ones to trade

:P

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

We the people of Machaka announce that when we have enemies to place in the coffins, we shall turn to our good and dear friends, the people of Ermor.

But let us hope we never have, because we are so friendly and peaceloving tribal folk.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

We want to add something to our AD.

The pyhtium should not concern him self with our offer. We would be happy to send them hydras to water - but without any kind of water breathing abilities.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Ah, one more thing.

I got miself invited to attend a great hydra parade at Pyhtium's.

I know them hydras, so the performace is expected to be very poor. Thats why I am gonna bring my own actors - the whole gypsy train, mummers and everything! - and have my own show at the same province - actually, at the same stage and the street as them hydras. Then we all can judge whos performance was better!

I know them hydras pretty well, and with permission I would say they are highly overrated. Thats the reason I bring in my own entertainment.

But anyways now that we have a celebration, I would like to invite some friends of mine to join it also. So who ever is south from Pythium is more or less mi friend and he should join the hydra parade, especially now that the hydras are here with me he can - let us say - have real fun! And, besides, more the merrier!

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Dammit!

First contact with the nation of MAN, and they send me a messenger saying they will kill and conquer my nation, best to surrender! HOW RUDE!!! I guess i have to put up a fight... though i was hoping for a pieceful sandbox game building my castles...

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Poor Marco Polo :P

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

The machaka nation has announced a month long celebration to honor those who gave their lives in pursuit of a great victory achieved from filthy Pythium snakes last month.

You see that thick, black smoke at the northern horizon? Its their hydras'carcasses we need to decimate so they dont spread their filth anymore after death. And theres gonna be more smoke!

But while them hydras are running, I would urge all honorable people who live south from the snake lords to seize this opportunity to wipe them scum from the surface of the earth - the hour is now if ever. I hope you all join the frontier of free men who stand up against tyranny and oppression!

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

I am gonna get my turn in just before the host so dont worry, I aint gonna stall.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Any chance that a player with a bit more experience can do a run down of statistics analysis again?

All i can tell is that Ulm, Ermor and Man are doing REALLY well and that Tien'chi and Jotunheim aren't far behind (basing this on forts, provinces, incomes). And that Machaka, Marrignon, and myself are bringing up the rear.

Also, i think someone took a bite out of Tien'chi?

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

My vision (although I'm not as experienced as others)

Province and income-wise, Ermor, Ulm and Man are leading. They all are quite above the average, with 28, 22 and 18 provinces, which is quite a lot. Machaka and Tien'Chi are the bottom half, with 8 and 9 provinces. Income Wise, Marignon is poorer than any other, with 686, seconded by Machaka. The richest countries are Man and Ermor, which is not surprising since they are the larger ones too. Ermor scales prevent them to be the richest, despise being larger than Man.

In castles, Tien Chi, Man and Ulm are leading with 3. Tien Chi seem to be turtling up. They have 3 castles, a small country, number 1 research, and larger army. They might not be impressive right now, but probably will be a major player later, if they survive the initial preassure.

Machaka dominion is very low. They either have a small dominion value, had lost the prophet, are being attacked by a god or prophet, or a combination of those. Jotunheim has the strongest dominion. His SC god is awake now, which means he probably have dom 9 or 10 for awe, and he is spreading dom himself as well.

Army size, the winner is Tien Chi. They are probably massing Archers for later Wind-guided flaming-arrow massacres. The smallest armies are Pythium and Marignon. However, army size is such a bad statistic to look at... 10 hydras can beat easily 10000 militia, and the graph does not show that.


Judging by the charts, it seems Tien Chi got bited, and so did Pythium imho. (pythium lost gem income this turn, both of them lost provinces) Machaka seem to be the one that bite Pythium, and Marignon the one that clashed with the Celestial Buroucracy.


Man and Ulm are powers right now, with huge size, income, castles and research. Ermor is a major power too, but lags in research. Tien Chi is the inverse of Ermor: it looks tiny, but the Research is powerful and their mages are diverse.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Some bad news. My boss just popped up with an out-of-town job for me that will keep me away from my computer (and thus, dominions) for two weeks. I'll be making a thread to get a temp sub for the mean time.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Yes, I know it was rude, and I halfway regret.
Had better used Y'Gologna to take water provinces.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

We, the people of Ermor, announce we have been attacked by Jotunheim, due to a frontier dispute.

We are also willing to say that the traitorous T'ien Ch'i, who made a deal with us and got 400 gold for it, is going to break that deal and attack us together with the filthy big-people. The Celestial Buroucracy is honorless and deserve no respect, so we are willing to pay, bribe, help and support any nation who is able to make them and their 15 feet tall furry allies suffer in pain and agony.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

I'm surprised at you- i've seen your elite blessed units in action against vampires and Independents (yes- i had spies there) and they seemed kick ***.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

They do, they are quite good. That does not mean I'm not willing to pay, bribe or help anyone willing to fight against Jotun and Tien Chi, those are completelly unrelated facts :P

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

They don't like being turned to dust or showers of arrows very much. Figured out that one myself.

We prefer "Hairy", thank you very much.

Oh, and now may as well be the time to talk about the implications of such a strong bless on capital-only units. I came to the conclusion that Ermor would need to eat its nearest neighbors very quickly in order to stay afloat in the rankings. Naturally, I want to avoid that, so I attacked him before he could attack me. Builds with that bad of scales generally never want to be sitting back and not warring, you either win big and fast, or collapse under your own weight.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Well, that's a good reasoning, but it's completelly wrong in this case.

As you could have noticed from my income, my economic scales aren't that bad. I have sloth 1, death 1 and cold 1 (which should had been heat, as there was a Jotun and no Abysia). That's all. The rest of the points came from Drain 2 instead of Magic 1. That gives me a small handicap in research. However, I went straight into construction 4. I was going to build 10 skull mentors this turn, and I could even build 4 more if I wanted to. That would had made for the gap, and I could had built a nice midgame strat, with a very decent income (28 provinces and only slightly worse than average scales), and a decent research (Edit: with 10 skull mentors, I'll probably be the fastest researcher next turn)

If I would had wanted to jump early against a country, I would had done with Tien Chi when he was battling Marignon. That would had made him an easy target. Although I respect Shaetner ability a lot, facing 2 differnet countries, one of them triple blessed, with a country with 9 provinces and 700 income is simply impossible. I was not thinking about early aggression, was planning more midgame.

My mistake was not building solid NAPS, with at least one of my neighbours. Assuming those NAPS would had been respected, I would be facing an easier midgame and my plan would be working better. However, it didn't work, so I will have to change my way to fight and face both of you, struggling to survive. That's life.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

I guess I severely overestimated your dominion score then. I assumed you had done sloth 3 death 3 drain 2 and maybe even some misfortune in there.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Its hard just to ignore the guy with such a massive province lead either.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

This was a pretty big red flag as well. The tallest tree is the one that gets cut first. Of course, whoever ends up winning may have to contend with that problem as well.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Jotun, there is liebenraum north of you. Go North young (and big and furry) men! BTW, them hydras get exhausted very quickly because of cold scales and I am taking care of them anyways so they should not bother you.

I am willing to be the moderator of the peace talks, if the conclusion is that Phita is the enemy we all should face and wipe them from the surface of earth. When hes dead we can vote for the winner and live happily ever after under the god's peace.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

We're sort of busy to the south at the moment, you kids have fun though. And remember not to play with sharp objects, because someone could get hurt.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

I have dom score 8, with sloth 1, death 1, cold 1 drain 2 and a imprisoned Sphynx with the triple bless you all have seen posted here (D9S9E4). Raising from 8 to 9 or 10 vestals per turn is not worth the downside of bad scales.

It was actually a bless for my mages: I was planning to switch midgame to a strat of mages with comunions and powerful evocations (like shadowblast and nether darts). High affliction chances, big evocations, twist fate and reinvigoration sound very good for reverse comunions. The fact that bless made Vestals incredibly powerful was a secondary (and very wellcome) bonus.

However, it's true that leading the game is not a good thing. It's way better being the second one, it's easier to avoid being ganged up :P. I should had take a few less provinces, to avoid such notoriety, I guess. Specially if my plan was not being overly aggresive.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

Sharp objects and sticky spider web is a good combination!

Like I said, I could be a moderator in peace talks. I doubt Ermor is as vulnerable as Phita. Or even as aggressive.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

That's where I got mixed up. I had assumed since you were the closest in Dominion that you had at least 9 (you've likely figured out that I'm dom 10 from my pretender's presence in the battle).

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

WOHOOO, lots of info. So this momment is the door into midgame.

Olm do you have PM(Private Messaging) enabeled?, i sent you a message.

Re: Morla MA noob game (running)
 

I built a temple very soon. Most my troops are undead, and they can't be carried by Indie commanders, so I need a factory of Indie priest to do logistic stuff. Otherwise I lose too much mages and regular capitol comanders (lictors) just to move armies around the map from castle to castle or to join other armies and things like that.