Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")
 

From the notes of George Gammell Angell, Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island

Fragment IV.a

The Aboleth - Physiology

Though sometimes described as eel-like, the aboleth as commonly pictured has a closer resemblance to the rattail fishes of the family Macrouridae, the most common benthic fish of the deep sea. However, despite some superficial similarities, the aboleth follows a fundamentally different bauplan.

One obvious deviation is the vertical instead of horizontal arrangement of the aboleth's eyes, which in turn are able to perceive light both above and beyond the human-visible spectrum. It is a persevering misconception that aboleths enslave Merman mages for the purpose of observing the heavens from above the waves -- they are perfectly capable of seeing the stars even from the bottom of the sea. They simply prefer to employ slaves for routine tasks.

The aboleth possesses severel more sensory organs: a sophisticated hearing system distributed over their body that is relatively ill-suited for usage on land -- its strengths are the low frequencies of chtonic disturbances and far-traveling sea noises.

Along its side the aboleth is equipped with a strange ichtyid organ that perceives electrical charges and which also only functions when submerged.

The characteristic barbel-tentacles on the aboleth's head, apart from their function in immobilizing larger prey and draining its life force, are in addition sensory organs able to detect vital energy and mental activity.

end of fragment

Fragment V.c

Ontogeny and Society

The aboleth species is characterized by an extreme sexual diorphism: The females are immobile coral-like growths that spew forth a flood of young aboleth spawn with unbelievable fecundity. These are the elder aboleths' preferred source of nourishment, and are in turn provided with the bodies of mentally lobotomized sea creatures to feed upon.

Male aboleths' lifespans are measured in millenia, the female polypal colonies grow older by several orders of magnitude. They are however afflicted with long periods of dormancy, during which they do not create any new young. What causes these strange jubilees is unknown, save there seems to be an influence of certain constellations and a role played by the unspeakable rites performed in the vile so-called temples of this ancient race.

The young aboleth's scales are quite hard at the time of leaving the maternal polyp, and it yet lacks any power over the minds of others or, indeed, any powers of higher reasoning. A cowardly creature, it prefers to feed on carrion or prey rendered helpless by its elders' mental powers.

After about a millenium, the spawn has grown enough to be about one and a half man's length from snout to tail and has developed a rudimentary sentience, although yet incapable of communicating meaningfully with other intelligences. The telepathic ability is rudimentary in complexity yet powerful in projection: the monstrous fish-thing is capable of what is among cognoscenti known as a “mindblast”, a stunning and even immobilizing psychic attack. In this phase of its life, it is called a giboleth.

Some giboleth develop an exceptionally close mental tie with the polypal mothers -- these are known as gibodai and develop the ability to drain and store life force, which they then provide to the coral growth. Their mental and physical growth is forever stunted, yet they are treated with uncharacteristic deference by the larger and more powerful aboleths.

In the Black Tablets of Hathat, the giboleth/gibodai stage is compared human puberty, or “a young man newly taken to the spear”. There may be some sense to that, for it is in a mere one or two centuries that it achieves the ability to express itself fluently, comprehend and apply the occult principles of stellar and aquatic power, as well as develop a life-draining ability akin to that of the gibodai. At this stage in its life it may correctly be called an aboleth. It has grown even larger, but has shed most of its hard scales, leaving its skin covered with a slimy mucus.

fragment ends

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")
 

Havn't seen your turn up so i added another little extension. Hope everything is alright.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")
 

R'lyeh

In the farthest reaches of the encircling ocean, where the briny surface currents meet the great wall of ice and plummet into the deep, there is an abyss under the black sea. Past the roots of icebergs the currents plunge, leaving behind the world of light, shedding colors one by one.

http://i.imgur.com/0NnTL.jpg

The pressure increases relentlessly, and the ice-chilled currents pass a lifeless zone where even the merfolk cannot breathe and only certain strange squid drift in sluggish dreams.

Finally, in this gloomy realm, there is a colorless plain of slimy ooze. The carcasses of sea-creatures slowly decompose, playing host to disgusting coiling throngs of boneless hagfish and spiny, long-legged crabs.

http://i.imgur.com/WMa2d.jpg

Yet the current is pulled even deeper: over jagged, rocky cliff into a crack of even deeper darkness, so cold that the water would freeze but for the merciless pressure that squeezes the very mind into strange and warped shapes. Down into the chasm, past the ghostly lures of vast and monstrous great-jawed fish of stunning ugliness.

http://i.imgur.com/P0FW5.jpg

Deeper into the abyss, the current is met by pillars of strange gases rising from the cracked rock, half obscuring the brooding Cyclopean basalt blocks that lean at subtle and surreal angles. In the center of the city, spanned by arching bridges, there is a cleft where even the aboleths do not venture.

This is the ancient city of R'lyeh. There has been some disturbance and unrest lately, as a strange Atlantean has come among the slaves, pale, pudgy, and uncanny, always appearing where he was not expected and speaking of the death of the Pantokrator and the advent of a new era. Nyarlathotep this Atlantean called himself, but whence this outlandish name hailed from, none knew to say.

Among the aboleths, the powers were split in their opinion. Most disdained this arrogant Atlantean, yet some were swayed by the impelling fascination and allurement of his revelations. In the year 63,123,288 Nyarlathotep's enemies, worried about his ever-increasing fame and popularity, decided to take action.

Nyarlathotep was again speaking to a crowd of slaves and lesser aboleths, capering on top of a bridge that spanned R'lyeh's central chasm. As was his fashion he proclaimed a vast change; a time, drawing near, in which the hidden stars themselves would be shaken.

Of a sudden a group of five aboleths, among them the notorious L'grss, closed in on the crowd, followed by a large mass of those degenerated slaves known as lobo guards. The aboleths began to bend their vile minds upon Nyarlathotep, adding to vast pressure of the deep a mental component.

The Atlantean prophet let loose an unholy shriek, and an even greater sense of foreboding settled on the scene. The towers of R'lyeh swayed in the grip of an earthquake, and the chasm suddenly gaped wider, ripping apart the bridges in tumbles of Cyclopean blocks.

Nyarlathotep also fell, and the aboleths moved to the chasms edge, driven by cruel curiosity.

Suddenly, with uncanny speed, five pallid rubbery arms shot upwards up out of the darkness and wrapped themselves around the stunned aboleths. Even their vast size did not avail the hapless creatures as they disappeared into the deep, wailing and gibbering.

In their place a monstrous octopoid head rose out of the widened chasm, while the prophet Nyarlathotep stood on its pale dome and shouted out his damnable prophecies in vile ecstasy: "Iä! Iä! Yöt-Webbogoth hath come!"

http://i.imgur.com/D5COB.jpg

(next: gameplay updates)

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")
 

F*cking A!

Sweet intro!

Yeah, i guess we are at turn 18; if peeps want to start posting their turn 1-3 stuff they are welcome to do so- especially if their non-gaming time-constraints get tighter in the week are are looser on the weekend.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")
 

Can we add 6 hours to the clock and move to a 30h quickhost to combat the deadline creep?

Turns are getting too long to do them back to back, especially with treaty and trade negotiations.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")
 

right- no problem.

EDIT: wait- you are signing treaties? Shouldn't i be involved in this? Surely you want to take my offer.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")
 

Also: For jotwebe:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6078/141.full

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report ("Who are YOU cheering for?")
 

You made sure I wouldn't be able to afford your ransom so I just have to finish Pan as fast as I can and then focus on you.

Turn One Arcosephalae
 

Arcosephalae
Turn One: Sweet Dreams

Click the turn name. Even the Eurythmics love Arcosephalae. And it shouldn’t matter if Annie Lennox looks like that- “I travel the World and the Seven Seas. Everybody’s looking for something.”


Anyway, it’s a little early to post my first turn- we are only on turn 18 in the game but I don’t feel I am giving too much away and I have time to post tonight and less over the next few days so I thought I would get right to it.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=3hl4i" target="_blank"><img src="http://i42.tinypic.com/3hl4i.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

Here’s the nation description. I think generally they are not usually thought of as an early game power. Their mystics allow for excellent communion evocations however and so, in my opinion, they begin to come into their own once you can field communions and you get some command over evocation magic. Their militaries are not generally considered very good or anything. The myrmidons are really slow and require a ton of resources. I won’t be using many- mostly because they are slow. Another unit they mention are the Pegasus riders and these aren’t bad at all- with both 16+ defense and 16+ protection. I was in a game recently where the arcospehalae player took an earth 9, astral 9 bless and his Pegasus riders were totally bad-a$$. I won’t be doing that however.

The philosophers are interesting (see screenshot below). They cost 50 gold and generate 5 base research plus 1 point per point of sloth. That translates to very efficient research. They are, however, old. The oreids are awesome and I will get to them when I start fielding them.

The last and perhaps most important thing to mention is that we are led by an awesome song from the 80s, “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. If you haven’t applied yourself to rediscovering the beauty that is Billy Idol, than you are missing out. You can’t listen to it seriously- you have to adopt a sort of facetious good-naturednes but if you do that, you will surely enjoy them.

Click the link.

“White Wedding” has a number of titles, each more grandiose than the last. Beyond that, I will share no more at this juncture. So for now, lets move on.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=kf1ppf" target="_blank"><img src="http://i39.tinypic.com/kf1ppf.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

For those of you who are familiar with the map “Shadowshore”, I am starting in the bottom left hand corner. Which means no real resource-heavy provinces around me None of the neighboring provinces are mountains or forest. At this point I am really praying for iron mines or something near to my capital.

You can see that I had my starting commander do some patrolling while I jack up taxes a bit. Additionally I set my scout to be a Prophet of “White Wedding”. His will be the job of sharing the ‘good news’ of 80s rock with everyone.

What else can you see in this screenshot? Right. The scales. As you can see I took lots of order (money, less events), sloth (less money, much less resources), misfortune (offset hopefully by the order scales) and magic (faster research).

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=9ztwr8" target="_blank"><img src="http://i41.tinypic.com/9ztwr8.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

I recruit a bunch of slingers to augment my starting army. Slingers suck but they are cheap and don’t cost much resources so its pretty much the only thing I can hire.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=xdcfb4" target="_blank"><img src="http://i40.tinypic.com/xdcfb4.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

More interestingly, here is the commander I hired this turn. With sloth scales and magic 1, he produces 9 research point per turn for only 50 gold. Many will get diseased and die in the first winter but it will give me a strong early research. I have to be sure to capitalize on it though because other researchers (mystics) would last longer and be able to forge and cast spells.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=256aixt" target="_blank"><img src="http://i42.tinypic.com/256aixt.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

Lastly, I had some money left over (because philosophers are so cheap) so I put a bid down for some mercenaries.

At this point i don't have any strong strategic plans. Its a pretty standard opening i think.

Anyway, that’s the first turn. Cheer for Arco!

R'yeh turn 1
 

<a href="http://imgur.com/D5COB"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/D5COB.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="R'lyeh" /></a>

Welcome, friends of the squamous and tentacular, to R'lyeh turn 1.

http://i.imgur.com/b9VS2.png

I'm starting with an awake kraken, it should be able to solo a province on turn one. It has a massive amount of hitpoints, but low dominion could be a problem. For that reason the prophet will follow it and hopefully catch up when the kraken goes on a small detour. It goes east.

I prophetize the starting scout while I set taxes to 140% and patrol with the starting army. And the prophet-to-be gets renamed to Nyarlathotep, sine he obviously is one of his avatars.

This is the map zoomed fully out:

http://i.imgur.com/pjDv6.png

As you see, except in a few places, the sea is a narrow one province wide ring. Since reinforcing it will be tricky, I will take my time assembling my expansion army. This turn I'm recruiting slave trolls and a polypal mother. I want one in R'lyeh anyway, and this way I'll get a turn of preaching out of it before my dominion is too high for it to make a difference. Mages will come later.

The army, once completed, will set off southwards, in the the opposite direction of Yöt-Webbogoth.

When the stars are right, they will meet again.

Helheim: Prologue
 

http://i.imgur.com/aS0Z8.png

Prologue

Helheim. Land of the dead. Gate to the underworld. For ages, the Vanir of this land have watched over and guided the dead, under the rule of an old god, whose blessing granted power to his followers. Now, that god is dead, and though its blessing remained, its rule held no power in Helhalla. For a time, Helheim was governed by the Hangadrotts, ancient Helkarlar who hung themselves from an ash tree, learning the secrets of death. The wisdom of the Hanged Kings kept Helheim stable, but they gained little. The old magics and rituals fell to the wayside, and the Valkyries no longer served as messengers of death.

Then, one day, Marceline arrived. With powerful magic and great, wild ideas, she impressed and captivated the Vanir, effectively becoming their leader. She told them of a new future, one where Helheim reigned over not only the dead, but the living as well; one where they could act as they pleased; one where the world had been reshaped to their desires. To this end, she cast open the gates of Hel, and with them open to their fullest, its influence began to spread out into the world. In addition to this audacious act, she bestowed her own blessing upon the Vanir of Helheim, making them stronger, more powerful; combined with the blessing of the dead god, this magic made them demigods among men. The Vanir knelt before her, the Hangadrotts deferred to her judgment, the Valkyries flew once again. Helheim had a god once more.

However, Marceline was a restless, capricious goddess. Even as she told them tales of ruling the world, she was looking to other places as well, with other plans, or simply for her own amusement. She frequently disappeared from the halls of Helhalla, sometimes for months at a time. While her blessing remained when when she was gone, and the Hanged Kings could keep order, it was concerning that their deity was away so often, and seemed so unconcerned with the fate of their nation at times.

During her longest absence yet, something dreadful happened. The false gods of other nations put forth their own attempts to claim true divinity and rule over all. Deciding that they could no longer wait for her return, the Hangadrotts give an order heard by all of Helheim. They would prepare for war. Despite the fickle machinations of an absent goddess and the continuing spread of Hel's draining influence, the nation would not falter. Helheim would conquer all.

Pangaea Turn 1
 

http://lpix.org/images/Lilli/e119a69.../panbanner.jpg

[SPOILER]What's in italics is actually After Action. What's not is notes written on the spot. Therefore, italics may disagree with plain text as I've made a lot of mistakes, some of which were immediately clear, some which showed only later.[/SPOILER]

Thorion is my pretender. He is a Lich, ruler of Pangaea.
My idea is to have a strong dominion with bad scales, which is obviously a bad idea.
So... Why?
Well, Pangaea has Pan wizards, who bring forth tons of Maenads around them provided there's enough turmoil. So I want Turmoil 3 to get lots of maenads, and a big enough dominion to actually have turmoil 3 everywhere my Pans will go.
Having Turmoil 3, Luck 3 is a no-brainer. Anything else would be suicide in my opinion.
Now, I want a high dominion in order for it to spread, but what good is a high dominion score?
Well, it accomplishes two things:
1/ Immortal units don't die in friendly dominion. I do mean friendly
2/ Some global enchantments work better (or only) inside your dominion.
So, I so much want Gift of Health to turn skinny maenads into fat-hit-point maenads. And I've found out that immortal pretenders can be fun. Therefore, let's have a look at Thorion.
He's a Lich. Liches are death wizards with immortality inside. They don't have much else to go for them, but an actual test shows that a lich is actually a fairly good SC. He can single-handedly take out indie provinces, with no equipment, and even archer provinces provided he gets a raw-hide shield. With some more death, he's got both Fear and Awe. With some expensive magic diversity, he can even be useful later on, and let me out of E/N/B.
In order to get an awake, Dom 9 pretender, I pick utterly poor scales: sloth 3 and Heat 3. I take Growth because I will have to patrol, and Magic 1 because I so need it. I mean, seriously, look at Pangaean mages. Pans cost more gold than you can have, and dryads are so bad at research that it's pitiful.
the heat scale was an either/or. Heat was bad if I fell against Abysia, cold against Caelum. I actually fear Caelum far more. Their thunderstrike teleporters leading tons of Frankenstein monster armies are scary. Turns out my two neighbours woul be Abysia and Caelum and I picked the wrong scale seeing which of these was most aggressive.

It's important to point out that I have never played Pangaea in MP, and very rarely in SP either. I also never played a Lich, and picked him just because it looked actually cool and was surprisingly efficient at early expansion in my tests. I fancied using it for Carrion Woods, but I think it's not a good idea trying to go that route with EA Pangaea.
I'll also point out that I picked Pangaea precisely for the reason I rarelly play them. They require patience, which is something I clearly lack, as will be shown in later turns.

--- --- ---

My starting position is in the south east. I should have easy access to Tir na n'Og, which has a nice chokepoint to reach it, so this is huge. Unless there's someone close to the bog in the south, I can't think of a better starting position.
First thing, however, is that renaming id Off :( So long for good names, I won't be able to rename my prophet, so she'll be Graia the harpy. The good news is we won't see the infamous wizards named S2NA2 and such. Actually it seems to be on, but I must have mistyped R when trying to give a cool name to my prophet. Don't expect much of me if I can't even rename a commander!
Peiroos the minotaur immediately starts patrolling while I raise taxes to 200% on first turn. I buy a batch of harpies for patrol duty, along with a minotaur to lead them. I would have gone for a dryad, but since they'll be patrolling all game long, the 40 gold upkeep is cheaper than the 120 holy upkeep, and I'll need the money to buy Pans next turn. And then dryads, depending on income.
Research starts on construction. Depending on where my dominion spreads, Thorion and the satyrs will attack next turn. Hopefully Citala/Rath Chimbalth and Renthale (north) will not be too heavily protected. Citala would be great for a fort but Tir na n'Og's farmland would be good too, although I prefer forests.

Let's check the other pretenders:
Arcoscephale has 6 titles which look like a high astral goddess.
Marverni has 5 titles, looks like astral/air/death.
Abysia : 2 titles? What dominion score does that mean? I know he can blood sac, but still. It's certainly a good move of him to have attacked me by the way because in a dominion war, I could dom-kill him if I had enough temples, or at least force him to blood sac too with more expensive temples and priests than mine. Lots of wishful thinking here.
Caelum also has only 2 titles, and no blood sac. Dominion dead. Looks like nature, maybe earth. A great mother?
Fomoria has 3 titles, nature and earth. Well, surprising giant bless isn't it?
Helheim has 3 titles, probably astral and death, maybe earth?
R'lyeh has 4 titles, looking like astral.

I forgot there was a stinking fish in this game. I HATE water nations. So long for the good chokepoints of Tir na'n Og. Hopefully his home province is the norhtwestern sea on the other side of the map. Yes, I didn't think of checking the starting provinces before the game by running a test game or jsut looking at the map file.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Turn 1 Reports Trickling In)
 

I'll post my first turn report when turn 21 comes in. We're on turn 20 now, so it won't be too long. Probably tomorrow, really.

On that topic, if anyone wants me to make a banner with their nation name and flag on it, just PM me or something. They'll probably be prettier than mine, too; I know some fancy effects for things like fire, ice, water, vines, and so on, but all the parchment tutorials I found were a bit lacking.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Turn 1 Reports Trickling In)
 

I'm playing two different Pangaeas in MarchMadness and aLearningExperience right now. Generally I think in CBM turmoil/luck is the way to go. Death/Nature is also nice. Even if you don't go for Carrion Woods you can summon the various vine priests and have them reanimate stuff.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Turn 1 Reports Trickling In)
 

D+N is the way to go for Pan, IMHO. Not because of Carrion Woods, but because of Lamia Queens - they bring much needed diversity to the table. Mannikin factories help too.
Oh, and don`t underestimate dryads - they are cost-effective resesearchers in magic-1, being cheap and sacred. Also, Pan doesn`t need awake pretender - they have revellers and centaur archers for expansion, after all.
If you want maenad hordes - go for Mass Protection. You will pick Mother Oak on the way (which is huge for Pan) and it gives your pans some early spells to cast (earthmeld and destruction come to mind). And even if someone gets Gift up - you can steal it later with your superior N income (from capital, Mother Oak and N4 sitesearchers).

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Turn 1 Reports Trickling In)
 

EDIT: ignore this.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Turn 1 Reports Trickling In)
 

http://i.imgur.com/Zo8Ws.png

(Everything here was written as I took my turns, except this. And, well, everything else inside parentheses. I'll do this to correct things that past-me said, and provide a bit more input from Turn 21-me.)

Turn 1:

Here's my starting location.

<a href="http://imgur.com/1dMku"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/1dMkul.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

I like this. Quite a bit. I've got a couple directions I can expand, good resources near my capital, and really only three directions of land to worry about.

(True, but I really needed to look at the stuff around me more closely. I'll realize this later.)

<a href="http://imgur.com/kEEob"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/kEEobl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/hACQ7"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/hACQ7l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

My starting army is 15 Marv BCs and 15 Javelineers. I plan to get these guys killed off ASAP. First, though, I'm going to turn my starting commander into a prophet, and dispatch my scout to, well, scout.

<a href="http://imgur.com/C7xmP"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/C7xmPl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

This is my recruit screen, which you might recognize from my second post. Right now, I have plenty of gold, and not nearly enough resources. I grab an Eponi Chieftain for a leader (since 40 guys just isn't enough), and load up on Carnute BCs and Slingers. Cheap, effective, and enough of them to make up for my second-turn losses.

<a href="http://imgur.com/PaxHa"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/PaxHal.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/mHBps"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/mHBpsl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/nYCHT"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/nYCHTl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/zRMu6"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/zRMu6l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

I've spent my resources and used my commander slot for the turn, and I still have 180 gold. Now, I want to expand FAST, so I take this chance to check the Mercenaries screen. The Archers in White, 20 Amazons and a Pegasus Rider, are up for bid, so I put 172 gold down on them. I only needed to spend 100, but the extra gold gives me a really good chance of getting the mercs. If I do, it'll speed my expansion nicely, so I change my recruitment to a mess of BCs (meat shields for the Amazons), and end my turn.

(Both parts of this ended up being good decisions, BTW. Archers + Barechests = effective expansion.)

Helheim: Turn I
 

http://i.imgur.com/aS0Z8.png

Turn I: The Beginning

http://i.imgur.com/7aDWq.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/dIXTD.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/8XNuH.jpg

Standard starting message stuff. Everyone who's played the game sees this, but since no one else put this in I figure I may as well. For those not familiar with it, the first screen is the message screen you see before every turn (unless nothing happens, which is rare); apart from the first turn, when you get this narration, it's mainly random events and battle summaries, plus some other things we'll eventually see.

http://i.imgur.com/Xyga2.jpg

Here is my capital. I'm in the north-east, on a peninsula. Rather penned-in. While I can cordon it off easily, I can't make the explosive expansion and claim everything like Helheim normally can. Not great, but at least I am relatively safe from being attacked when I inevitably piss off everyone and make them all want to murder me.

So, let's take a look. I start with a Helkarl, who is decent but not as good as Vanherses for the purpose of raiding, despite slightly higher stats. He gets to patrol with my starting army, because he's an *******, and I need money (note that these pictures are from after all my orders have been given; I started with the same 400 everyone else did). Also have a Van Scout, who is currently becoming Marceline's prophet. You can also see my dominion, which is horrible. I took a hilariously inefficient pretender; I could have easily gotten one that could have done the same, mostly, for a lot less, but I wanted to do this instead. Because it's funny. Helheim doesn't need the help, anyway.

Topic of that starting army, let's take a look.

http://i.imgur.com/DJwXe.jpg

Twenty-five units, which is less than some nations, but the troops are slightly above-average, so that makes up for it slightly.

http://i.imgur.com/oeAlN.jpg

These are Huskarls. They're Vanir, so they have above-average stats, and more importantly, glamour. There's only a fifty percent chance of melee attacks hitting them, which, while not as good as what my Vanir commanders get, is pretty awesome. I could also stealthily lead them into enemy territory, but, well, an army of these guys isn't as good as a blessed Vanjarl thug, so I won't.

http://i.imgur.com/fvj8H.jpg

And these are the other troop I start with. Serf Warriors, utterly ordinary and boring humans. They are completely uninteresting, so I will waste no more words on them.

http://i.imgur.com/TpiaE.jpg

Here is what I'm recruiting this turn, a Vanjarl and two Helhirdings. A Vanherse would cost half as much and do just as well for the beginning, but I want my first hero (I mean that literally; the early commanders easily make the Hall of Fame, and thus get special abilities, really easily) to be awesome. Besides, it's not like I'm going to be short on money or anything on turn two. Nothing can go wrong that early, right?

Next turn: Something goes wrong.

-------

Bonus: Pretender guesses.

As LDiCesare went over in his post, pretender titles hint at what paths they have and what their dominion is; certain titles only come with certain circumstances, like nation, chassis, and paths, and generally more titles means greater dominion strength. So, for the entertainment of everyone here, let's take a look at what everyone has:

Arcoscephale worships "White Wedding" by Billy Idol, Mother of Gods, She Who Holds the Fate of All, Patron of Arbitrators, the Afterthought, Princess of the Hierarchs.

That's five titles, so somewhere between eight and ten dominion, I'd bet. Sadly I can't guess the paths from this; I've seen "the Afterthought" before but I was never able to connect it with anything. The one about "Fate" implies Astral maybe, though? Also, the titles are all female, something that only happens with chassis that are such; by default titles are male. So he has one of the few female chassis, like a female titan, or maybe a Virtue (angel thing).

Marverni worships King Roland, King of Many Names, Prince of Clouds, Symbol of Unchallenged Victory, the Stealer of Corpses, the Unforgiving King.

Again, five titles, so high dominion. Also probably has Air and Death magic. Maybe other paths too, but those aren't showing up here.

Abysia worships Dwayne Johnson, the Everburning One, the Fortifier.

Two titles, so really, really low dominion. Ouch. Also, first title implies Fire magic, and the second implies Earth. Not much else to say here, as there really isn't much here.

Caelum worships Metatron, Goddess of Strength, the Creator of Wine.

Another god with two titles, jeez. Another female chassis, probably a Virtue, with... Hm. I dunno. The first title is generic, and the latter... Nature? I really don't know here. Also if it is a Virtue he didn't increase her dominion at all, which seems insane to me, considering how easy it is to get hers up to awesome levels. I dunno, guess we'll see.

Pangaea worships Thorion, the Terror of the Tomb, the Beast, Guide of Souls, Gatherer of the Dead.

Four titles, which can be middling to near-max dominion. Also, Death. Death death deathy death death. Seriously.

Fomoria worships Snakey, Prince of Animals, Prince of Metals, Prince of the Wildlife.

Okay, so it's a prince. Also has Nature magic and okay-ish dominion, I bet.

Helheim worships Marceline, the Terror of the Tomb, the Hidden One, the Fortifier.

And here's my god, obviously the best. Three titles, so my dominion is presumably middling (spoilers: It's five, actually rather low), and she seems to have Death and Earth, possibly something else. See if you can figure it out; there is no way you will ever guess what it is based on its name and all the names I'm gonna be using for my units. Nope. Not a one.

R'lyeh worships Yot-Webbogoth, the Beginning and the End, Symbol of Unchallenged Victory, God of Near and Close, Patron of Soldiers.

So, four titles, meaning high dominion, and his titles imply no paths. Considering that a pathless kraken is awesome for expansion, this makes sense. And, as his earlier post shows, this was right.

So, wasn't that fun? I predicted the paths and dominion levels of everyone's gods based on public information, and guessed or at least narrowed down what chassis they were using in a few cases too. If I wanted to, I could open up the pretender creation screen for their nations and look at the options to narrow it down further, especially in the case of the female pretenders. Metagamey? Yes. Fun and useful? Totally. And if you think this is bad, just wait until you see what I do with the score graphs. But that'll be in a later post. Look forward to it.

Pangaea turn 2
 

http://lpix.org/images/Lilli/e119a69.../panbanner.jpg
TURN 2:

Looks like renaming is on after all...
Only 6 prophets. All scouts except a Marverni chieftain.
I get a 200 gold lucky event.
Score graphs are on. Damn. That sucks. I don't like graphs on because it makes it easy to gang up on the fool who expanded like crazy early-game. On the other hand, it makes it easier to get people to strike those who attack you, as the graphs show clearly what's happening. Knowing that graphs are on, rushes are a bad idea unless you're really sure of killing your opponent by turn 15 or 20 at most.
So what do the graphs say?
R'lyeh started expanding. Helheim has a money problem. I have a money problem too, but that's just my scales.
Caelum and I are the only ones to do research. I guess everyone else is asleep or imprisoned, except likely R'lyeh.
The dominion scores are somewhat like expected: R'lyeh strong( awake, likely 10 since it's underwater and needs it to survive). I come second, then Arco and Caelum, then Fomoria and Abysia. Helheim is at the bottom and didn't increase. Wtf happened to them?
I got the biggest army! Yes, like it's going to be that way all game if I can get maenads. Not that it matters much.
http://img850.imageshack.us/img850/3262/turn1maenad.png
So here's a maenad. She's beautiful. A naked madwoman who wants to kill you with her nails. She appears wherever Pans go. After the battle, most of the time. This makes the Pans' natural stealth rather awkward. They try to remain unseen but naked women pop out of the woods wherever they go, so Pans suck at scouting others provinces as they are easily spotted.
Looks like Abysia tried an attack with someone and failed (HoF). Marverni also has a lots of experience.
I use my gold to recruit a Pan, and get some longbow-cenraurs to get along with since I have some archer neighbours.
I send my starting army north. There are some deer tribe there, who are usually weak, but they have some archers so I can lose the battle. But my dominion is positive there. Unfortunately, it's not in the southern province.
My pretender goes in the marsh northwest, instructed to cast some frighten and then close to melee. He doesn't face archers, and should be able to find some D site in the marsh with a bit of luck. Plus he's immortal.
The map is rather uninteresting at this point so I don't think it's worth posting it with just indies all around. I'll post nicer maps later with intelligence about everybody's provinces and a complete map (which is off by 1 province at worst) by turn 22.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Turn 1 Reports Trickling In)
 

Hey guys, bring in the AARs!
I guess my turns are faster to play than anyone else (except Abysia?) but still.

Now that the updates have started, and the turns have been extended to 48 hours, I'll be doing my update the first day and my turn for the game the next. Which means, for all you viewers out there, I have another turn coming later today, after I get some sleep, and there should be an update from me every other day. For the other players, I'm sorry if this slows things down somewhat, but between the game, the updates, multiple things on other sites, and job stuff, I'm a bit busy and this is the best way to keep myself from being overwhelmed. Also, at least it gives more time for diplomacy and whatnot.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Turn 1 Reports Trickling In)
 

No need to apologize- the intention had always been to slow things down a little bit to allow players to post their updates and still play the game(s).

Not all of us spend part of every night awake with a child who just needs to be rocked while we write the update.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Turn 1 Reports Trickling In)
 

http://i.imgur.com/D5COB.jpg

R'lyeh - Turn 3

Turn 3 starts off with a nice event:

http://i.imgur.com/3kpBJ.png

Where is turn 2? I seem to have mislaid it -- or have been made to mislay it... What happened that the aboleths do not want us to know? Are we, perhaps, better off not knowing, lest the terrible truth crush our puny intellects in its inhuman vastness?

Let's go with that.

Anyway, 400 extra gold, sweet.

Yöt-Webbogoth successfully conquered his first province, it had Amber Clan tritons. Here we see him taking on his second. This one is defended by unexceptional triton militia:

http://i.imgur.com/tVmxV.png

The tritons rush up to him gamely enough, but then only a few can bring themselves to actually move into the reach of the kraken's arms. At the last moment, the triton warriors freeze time and time again. Meanwhile, the kraken spews clouds of poisonous ink at them.

http://i.imgur.com/eAQQP.png

The Ancient Kraken comes with a fear aura out of the box -- this reduces the morale of units close by. I took a dominion strength of 10, which is where the awe comes from. Awe makes it necessary to pass a morale check before attacking every round. Nice synergy there.

The kraken isn't immune to its own poison clouds, by the way, although it does have a 50% resistance. Together with its massive HP, its not much of a problem.

Unlike the wyrm, it doesn't regenerate, but recuperation does a good job of removing any afflictions it does pick up.

Meanwhile in R'lyeh, I get lucky recruiting a mage: A nature pick, just the one I wanted.

http://i.imgur.com/yMsdk.png

This little guy will get to site searching in Yöt-Webbogoth's wake (behind a slave priest I think I recruited the turn before). I'm hoping for a kelp fortress site. In vanilla, there tend to be a lot of those. CBM I think made them a lot less common.

Interjection from an older, wiser jotwebe: "Yes, they had their rarity set to 1, whatever that means exactly. CBM adds another nature site, the Kelp Grove, that needs N2 to find. This little dude will walk (or swim) right past them."

Still a good outcome. The other possibilities (EWS) I can also get on aboleths.

For now, I recruit another one that will go in the other direction, and finalize the expansion army. I think I recruited all slave trolls last turn.

http://i.imgur.com/anyvz.png

The lobo guards are there to stiffen the starting troops, which have been diligently patrolling the whole time.

Why have I recruited 60 gold gibodais over the cheaper 40 gold giboleths? They only cost upkeep like a 30 gold unit, since they're holy. And it's very unlikely they'll die during expansion, so they'll stick around quite a while.

Why didn't I recruit all gibodais, then? 'Cause I'm indecisive, I wanted critical mass for my mindblast battery and also wanted to get the show on the road.

That's it from R'lyeh -- ahead of the pack!

Caelum Turn 1
 

Been a bit busy, I have had this done, but forgot to post.

Turn 1

What remains of our once proud empire? How were the believers enslaved? My punishment and their debasement shall be avenged!

Caelum is a nation of flying men. They have unsurpassed strategic movement capabilities. Their archers are among the best of the Early Age. Add to this with unsurpassed Air magic capabilities in the Early Age and you have a force to be reckoned with.

Let’s break their standard units down. The Caelians come in three different varieties. The first are the Spire Horn Caelians. They are differentiated from their brethren by their 50% shock and cold resistance. High Caelians have 100% cold resistance. Finally, the Raptor Clan has slightly above average strength, but no resistances to the elements.


Each one of the clans has an “elite” unit. When referring to Caelian units, “elite” is a term that should be used loosely, as their units are not strong in hand to hand. The first of these three “elite” units are the Tempest Warriors.


The Tempest Warrior is a decent unit. They are completely resistant to lightning which will come in handy later in the game. Their attack skill and defense skill are higher than many basic units, but their size 3 hampers their performance. One nice thing about them is their Ice Lance. This is a magic weapon, which means they can hit ethereal units out of the box. One of the limiting factors of these guys is their map move of 2. This limits their usefulness to us.

The second of the “elite” Caelian units is the Iceclad. This unit is a little stronger defensively than the Tempest Warriors. They retain the map move of 2. But their resource cost is substantially higher. The two advantages they have is their cold resistance of 100%, and their Icicle Mail gains protection with each additional cold scale. However, unlike Tempest Warriors, their resistances do not mesh well with what we will be doing later. However, I may use these as a change up vs. my normal forces.




The last of the “elite” Caelian forces is the Iron Crow. They are the Raptor Clan elite. They have arguably the best stats of the Caelian “ground” troops, but they are not worth investing heavily in. They have no resistances so they will not be very useful in our mage heavy armies.



One other ground unit I should mention is the Mammoth. These beasts are tramplers and can lead an army of archers into battle. One of the best traits of the Mammoth is their average morale. The Achilles heel of Elephants is their morale of 5. The Mammoth with their superior morale will not rout as easily.



So if most of our units are junk, what will we be using?



The Eagle King is the backbone of Caelum’s Power in the Early Age. These guys are a A4W1E1H2 mage-priest with a FAWE 10% random. These guys are expensive, but they are a force to be reckoned with. They can fly into a province, self bless, fight, and fly out again. They have a map move of 3, along with guaranteed access to cloud trapeze when that becomes available. They are 100% shock resistant, and have 50% cold resistance. Plus, the have Awe +2, so anyone trying to whack them with a pointed or blunt object need to make a morale check first.

The other mages are nice, but we will not see any of them for a while, so I will not discuss them yet.

Based upon our units, our early strategy will be to build up a force of Eagle Kings. We will use our massed mage power to expand, but not quite yet. I will send my scout north to determine who my neighbor is in that direction. Ideally, there will be one or two weak provinces I can nab with my starting army, but we need to wait until next turn to see what that brings.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Turn 1 Reports Trickling In)
 

Looks like I need to re-up on one of the online picture sites...

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

http://i.imgur.com/Zo8Ws.png

Turn 2:

<a href="http://imgur.com/FBmJQ"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/FBmJQl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Here's what happened at the beginning of the turn. All the 'proclamations' are nations making prophets. Looks like six of the eight players chose to prophetize either of their starting commanders, which is interesting. I also got the band of mercenaries I wanted, which is good.

<a href="http://imgur.com/KPHCB"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/KPHCBl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Speaking of mercs, there's a new band up for grabs. 60 Militia. You know what? No. Just no.

<a href="http://imgur.com/QPLYP"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/QPLYPl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/jUFSA"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/jUFSAl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/1t3xw"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/1t3xwl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/K8ZG1"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/K8ZG1l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/QQwfL"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/QQwfLl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Here are my neighbors. The unit types that these pics give are (mostly) accurate; the numbers attached to them can be wrong by quite a bit. Still, I like fighting Militia as much as I dislike the thought of ever using them. Heavy Inf is doable, the undead I'll discuss in a sec, and the bakemono should die easily enough. The Amazons will be a pain- best leave them for last.

(You don't know how right I ended up being. On BOTH levels.)

<a href="http://imgur.com/Ayjzs"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Ayjzsl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

So here are my new troops. I have a prophet, 30ish melee guys, and 35ish ranged guys. This is what I want them to do.

<a href="http://imgur.com/fF9an"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/fF9anl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Now I have the melee troops screening my archers and javelineers, everybody ready to charge, and my commanders safe enough. My prophet is set to toss out Strength of Boars, a buff unique to Marverni- it'll boost strength for all my guys, which helps the BCs on the front line and the javelineers behind them. He'll follow it up with some morale boosting, and Banishment, which should cut down ghouls and soulless en masse.

<a href="http://imgur.com/1NPIK"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/1NPIKl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Let's look at the score graphs. Here, we see that R'lyeh struck out first-turn. This suggests that they took an awake combat pretender- I bet it's a Kraken. Now income, and what do we have here...?

<a href="http://imgur.com/kMo0a"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/kMo0al.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Looks like Helheim got hit with a painful event. Just looking at it suggests some population loss, but which one? The player was kind enough to tell me...

...but I really need to learn to tell on my own.

<a href="http://imgur.com/H1HIV"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/H1HIVl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

The only way to get research is to have an awake pretender with magic paths, so I know Caelum and Pangaea have done this. Don't know if they're rainbow pretenders or combatants yet, since most people don't move until Turn 2, but I'll know next turn.

<a href="http://imgur.com/AqTak"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/AqTakl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Army size is basically what I expected. I'm near the top, beaten only by Pangaea (who gets free infantry), so this is all going according to plan.

(Maenads.)

Recruiting a mage, some slingers, and some BCs. The infantry is dual-purpose: replacements for casualties, and some of my next expansion party.

<a href="http://imgur.com/l5Tke"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/l5Tkel.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Plans for the next turn. Attacking the undead, and scouting the next turn's target.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

Click the turn name! Its time to get to work! Down south! Awesome fluting in the trees at 1:01.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=346oy95" target="_blank"><img src="http://i40.tinypic.com/346oy95.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

With my starting expansion party, I order an assault on the province I feel is probably the weakest. I need resources and this provinces has some of those at least and I feel its also least likely to cause my initial expansion party to be completely murderfied.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=2zirpd4" target="_blank"><img src="http://i39.tinypic.com/2zirpd4.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

I script as shown. The forward heavy infantry units are under orders to withdraw to their commanders location. Hopefully this will cause the barbs to follow them. Meanwhile the slingers and peltasts will fire slings/javelins at the barb flanks. Then, if everything goes well, the central heavy infantry will meet the barb line just as the peltasts engage the flanks. We’ll see next turn if it works or not.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=w9z0go" target="_blank"><img src="http://i44.tinypic.com/w9z0go.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

This turn I order the training of a few chariot archers and a philosopher.

Here is what the philosopher who is set to research looks like.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=iv8yti" target="_blank"><img src="http://i43.tinypic.com/iv8yti.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

As mentioned, he gets a +3 to research for the three points of sloth, then another point for the magic scale. So yeah, he’s researching pretty fast for someone who only costs 50g. There are bad-sides to this equation of course; old-age, sloth scales, no magics… but it’s a good way to get a head-start on research and also save some money. I didn’t rename him because he’s not terribly important. Oreids will get renamed for sure though- so many good 80s songs to use…




All in all I think this is a pretty standard low sloth arco opening except maybe most sloth scale arcos would probably have an awake pretender to help their expansion. I do not unfortunately.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

http://i.imgur.com/aS0Z8.png

Turn II: Things Go Wrong

http://i.imgur.com/6fXBF.jpg

Okay, six prophet proclamations, including my own, and an event. Since I have Order 3, this isn't particularly likely. Let's see what it is-

http://i.imgur.com/OC0VU.jpg

Oh, wow. Wow. That is bad. In fact, since most events of that magnitude have, in a "recent" patch, been changed to not happen until about a year into the game at the earliest, that might be the worst possible turn two event. Let's, let's just take a look at how bad it is...

http://i.imgur.com/K3B6D.jpg

Good grief. Look at my unrest. It's over one hundred. That is terrible. My capital is now really unprofitable, and due to the population loss, will be worth a good bit less even when I get rid of all that unrest. And I can't recruit anything this turn, not that I can afford anything with less than 100 gold.

http://i.imgur.com/eRVtu.jpg

This is what your recruitment screen looks like when you have over 100 unrest or the area is being besieged (the other situation where you can't recruit). Hopefully we won't be seeing this anymore.

Anyway, as seen in the picture above, while Marceline's prophet is heading out to scout, Sir Slicer and his army are patrolling another turn to help stamp down on the unrest, which is aided by me setting my taxes to zero. Meanwhile, Finn, the Vanjarl I recruited last turn, is preparing to attack one of the three adjacent provinces; while the one to the west has fewer units, it also has two elephants, which trample things, and trampling ignores glamour, making them really bad news for my small attack force. Meanwhile, the one to the right has cavalry, who are tougher than unmounted units generally. Finn here is scripted to cast Blessing twice, which will activate Marceline's blessing on him and the Helhirdings with him; while Blessing has enough of an AoE to hit them all at once, sometimes it misses, somehow, so I script it twice to be safe. After that, he casts Air Shield on himself, which makes projectile attacks miss him, before moving in to attack, with the Helhirdings guarding him so they stay near him and help him murder things. Only three units may seem risky, but these guys are ridiculously strong; a single Vanjarl can take on most provinces alone. He's going to take that province, and things are going to get better.

Next turn: Things don't get better.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

tough break...

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

continue the good work - really love this nice AAR!

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

http://i.imgur.com/iK5UR.png

Fomoria: Better used budget giants!

When I joined this game I thought it would be a great opportunity to get some practice writing stuff. So why dont I start? Inertia!

Oh well. Here is something at least.



Welcome to New Formoria! A land of huge, one eyed giants and their goat-headed offspring.

http://i.imgur.com/9tLLa.jpg

Currently this land is in disarray and chaos, the property bubble have burst and the national economy is in depression.

This was not always the case though. Before, during the early reign of the previous Pantokrator, they were living on a beautiful island called the Isle of Balor and they were prosperous and happy. But then disaster struck! The island was invaded by foreigners known as the Nemedians. At first, the Nemedians caught the Fomorians by surprise and was winning, but old King Balor conjured up a plague to strike the Nemedians and this changed the course of the war. Both friends and enemies were devastated by the plague, but eventually it resulted in Fomorias victory.

The Pantokrator was not pleased however. He had earlier put a ban on the use of biological weapons and his wrath was boundless! He cursed the Fomorians with hideous deformities and because of that, they now only have one large eye in the middle of the face. The full effect however, was not felt until the Fomorians were driven of the island by a group of international loan sharks that preyed up on the fact that in the chaos of the war, the Fomorians could not pay their mortages. The Pantokratorian courts then took their island as collateral. Both Fomorians and Nemedians, -who had discovered that they had been played for fools,- were forced to settle in what had once been the Formorians summer homes on the main continent.

The bankers renamed the island: Tory island, in honor of their Tartan master. (No! Really!:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory_Is...ncient_history )

But the tragedy did not end there. Only once they settled in their new lands and had offspring did the full effect of the curse become apparent. Their children were born stunted and afflicted, and almost all of them were cursed with goat heads. The pantokrator was one vengeful bastard.

Today, the giants of Fomoria are a sorry lot. They can mainly be found hanging inside the giant pub, moping. Or outside the pub were they practice their dangerous games of drunken javelin punting were they shoot javelins with their feet.. Made even more dangerous by the fact that they have no dept perception anymore. In the Pub they vent their frustrations and make ineffectual promises to one day recapture their home island, now that the Pantokrator is gone. Aaany day now Balor will lead us back in victory they say. But no one knows were the old man has disappeared to or when he will return.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

Awesome. I like the goats and the loan sharks.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

http://i.imgur.com/aS0Z8.png

Turn III: A Startling Lack of Progress

http://i.imgur.com/xXp8m.jpg

Okay, let's see here. Abysia made a Demonbred (winged assassin demon thing, pretty awesome) their prophet, there was that attack I made, and there's my ongoing attempt to get rid of the unrest from that one event. Let's take a look at the battle results, I want to see how badly I beat those-

http://i.imgur.com/D07Lt.jpg

Wait, what. What. I lost? And a Hilhirding died in the process? What the ever-loving f... Okay, okay. Let's just watch the battle and see what happened.

http://i.imgur.com/Iz6kU.jpg

Started off well enough. Finn followed his orders exactly with self-buffs (since the blessing got him and his Helhirdings in the first cast, he cast something else afterward; Holy Avenger is a spell that, if the person who cast it dies, will smite several enemies, which is useful but not something I hope comes into effect). Let's take a look at the result of this.

(Weird extra images of my units are the effects of glamour; they have mirror images, as explained in my first post, which reduce the chances of them being hit as enemies strike at the wrong images.)

http://i.imgur.com/0tDSW.jpg

We see several new icons here; astute viewers familiar with Dom3 will notice that one that should be here isn't, though, since I watched the battle again when I took this and thus the Air Shield icon isn't here. Anyway, the lit candelabra means the unit is Blessed; sacred units can be blessed in battle, and your prophet and anyone who is wearing a certain item receives the effect of your blessing whether or not they're sacred. The little hydra signified regeneration, meaning he regains health every turn, and the earth elemental guy is for reinvigoration, which reduces fatigue every turn.

http://i.imgur.com/kkT37.jpg

And here's the bless itself. Wow, that's quite a bit. While the increased morale is a part of every bless, the other parts come from my god's magic. The reinvigoration and protection both come from Earth magic, the former being the minor bless (activates at level 4 and increases from there) and the latter being its major bless effect (activates at level 9 and doesn't increase, what with 10 being the max possible that you can put on your pretender). Meanwhile, the magic resistance comes from Astral magic, the regeneration from Nature, and the strength from Blood. So, what this means is, my god has nine in Earth, and four (or five) in Astral, Nature, and Blood. I'll admit now that only the Earth and Blood parts of this are important; the other two are nice, but I mainly have those magic levels for other reasons. My god may have other magic, but none of it higher than three. Based on the information presented in this and earlier updates, can you figure out my god's paths before she is revealed?

Anyway, now that I've explained that, let's get back to the battle. Finn's buffed himself and his minions up, and is charging into battle.

http://i.imgur.com/P7TqF.jpg

The three of them wade right into the midst of the enemies and begin kicking butt and taking names. At first things are going pretty well.

http://i.imgur.com/kjsj5.jpg

Soon, though, a lucky soldier manages to hit one of the Helhirdings, breaking his glamour and allowing his allies to also hit him, soon felling him. Not only that, but soon after the other Helhirding takes some damage too, causing him to flee.

http://i.imgur.com/nAUHR.jpg

He runs like a coward, leaving Finn alone to fight the horde. Finn, meanwhile, doesn't even notice at first, and continues slaying the foes of Helheim.

http://i.imgur.com/OxBlb.jpg

After the Helhirding leaves the battlefield, though, Finn finally realizes that he's alone and runs after him. (Or, mechanically, the total health of my army, after the Helhirding left, fell below a certain percentage of what it was originally, causing a rout.) He makes it off pretty fast; the enemy soldiers stand no chance of catching him, and in fact I missed him myself trying to screenshot it.

http://i.imgur.com/JhHCB.jpg

Okay, this is ridiculous. That horrible turn two event? That was sort of funny, in a "wow that's just unbelievable" way. This, though? This has me pissed off. I'm almost out of money, I have gained no provinces, and my nation's capital is still basically useless. I have missed out on two turns of mage/thug recruitment now, and will lose at least a third after this turn too. All because of a lucky shot by a dang independent troop. Bah. Let's take a look at the score graphs.

http://i.imgur.com/tM0Zj.jpg

Here we see provinces, where every nation but me has managed to take land this turn. Heck, some nations got two. This is ridiculous.

http://i.imgur.com/2zHMP.jpg

And here's the income graph for this turn, where we see that my income has hit rock bottom. While almost every other nation has also lost income overall, this is just the effect of them no longer overtaxing their capitols, although I'm curious as to whether or not something happened to Arcoscephale there. Either way, though, it's turn three and one of my graph lines has hit the bottom. This is absolutely horrible.

However, not everything that has happened this turn is bad. Those who were paying attention would have noticed a new icon in the map screen on one of my units. Let's take a closer look at the person in question...

http://i.imgur.com/nquac.jpg

Okay, there are two icons here that normally aren't on a Vanjarl. There's the reinvigoration icon again, even though he isn't blessed, and the star. The star signifies a "Heroic Ability", what units gain for entering the "Hall of Fame", which basically is a record of the units with the most kills and experience; non-gods get an ability that increases in effectiveness the longer they stay there.

http://i.imgur.com/Guzlp.jpg

And here's the ability in question. You know, that sounds a lot like reinvigoration...

http://i.imgur.com/TCdTq.jpg

Yep. Finn has innate reinvigoration now. While this may not seem like much, it's actually one of the best abilities he could have gotten. It stacks with his bless, and it will only increase the longer he stays in the Hall of Fame (which, since he got in early and is a pretty powerful unit, may very well be the whole game); eventually he'll be losing fatigue each turn instead of gaining it, excluding when he casts his spells at the start of a battle. This is pretty great, really.

http://i.imgur.com/M7vd9.jpg

Speaking of the Hall of Fame, here it is. Only units above Finn at the moment are two gods and the mercenaries Marverni bought; since mercs start out with exp, Finn here is doing pretty well for himself. Expect to see a lot of Helheim flags here in the future, too; powerful thugs soloing provinces rack up exp and kills like it's nothing. As I stated earlier in the thread, I have made it my goal to completely take over the Hall of Fame eventually. It might be difficult, but it's far from impossible.

Anyway, looking back up at the map, as you can see I'm attacking two provinces this turn. Finn is going back to finish off the soldiers that drove him back, and Sir Slicer is leading his army to take on that cavalry there. Screw patrolling down the unrest on my capital; I need to get some land now. It's do or die.

Next turn: Finally getting something accomplished.

Pangaea Turn 3
 

http://lpix.org/images/Lilli/e119a69.../panbanner.jpg
TURN 3:
World information:
Abysia has appointed a Demonbred for its prophet. Nasty demonbreds. I just hope we aren't neighbors. Like, yeah, I wrote that. In retrospect, I would write it again, demonbred or not.
My pretender routs a weak enemy thanks to Frighten/Fear/Awe.
http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/474/turn3awe.png
Unfortunately, he gets a never-healing wound along the way. It will heal, but it'll take some time.

Other news include satyrs being wimps. They run from weakling deer tribe warriors but we take the province no matter what.
http://img94.imageshack.us/img94/6291/turn3satyrs.png
This turn's result is ok. I got 2 provinces, my dominion expanded to the south and noone is in sight yet. Typhia, northeast of my pretender, sports an army of statues, led by Antatus the Golem and some gargoyles. This province will be a pain to conquer, so it will be left for later. I might send a harpy to check if there's some magic item to loot from Antatus at some point. Note that 20 turns later, noone dared attack this province yet.
http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6352/turn3o.png

The swamp lets me recruit scouts, so I'll likely get some soon, but right now I pick an indie commander there while Thorion searches for magic sites. I might get air magic from a lucky deer tribe shaman in the northern province, but at 10% chance for Air 1, I'm not going to dwell too much on it.
My new Pan came with 20 maenads all for himself. That's great. He builds a raw hide shield for Thorion in order to celebrate the maenads'lust. That's why I need an indie commander. I'll be ferrying archers and maenad fodder to the nearby provinces, and I need commanders for that. Pans could lead the army, but I'll want some to do some research soon.

Now let's look at the graphs. R'lyeh took another province. I took two. Everyone else but Helheim took one. I think Helheim is dead already. Their income is simply zero! Well, they got back in the game better but I still think these initial turns will cost them a lot in the long run. Arco's income, along with Caelum, also suck. Even at 200% tax in my capital and with 2 more provinces, I'm still 5th out of 8 in income. Gold will be rare with my scales, but I knew that. Caelum is skyrocketting in research, while Arco starts strong too. Noone else researches yet, which is a bit surprising. Well, I won't be researching this turn either.
Dominion-wise, Helheim is still dead in the tracks. If he's unlucky enough for me to find him with my harpy prophet, I'll preach him dead. Caelum could have done the same, by the way, but his dominion is not that strong. But then seraphines are stealthy, and had I been Caelum or where Caelum is located, I think Helheim could be dominion dead at this point.
I don't understand how Finn of Helheim appears in the HoF with 4 kills and not dead despite the nation's province count. My Minotaur lord got a Heroic agility, which is nice.
http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/992/turn3peiroos.png
Minotaur lords aren't really good fighters, but they have some hit points. They don't perform very well in fights so I don't think I'll ever buy more of these since even a black harpy is usually better. Indie commanders are also arguably better since they don't waste fort-time (thus mage) to build.

Abysia bought Burelk's city guards. Man, do these mercenaries suck. I'm not sure why he's wasting gold on that, but maybe they can beat some Markata province by his capital?
I'm just regrouping and searching this turn. Next turn, my prophet will keep scouting while I'll invade the southern province to reach Tir na'n Og island. Thorion will either attack indies or go fetch his shield. It would be better to attack and then have a Pan come give him the shield and site search afterwards. After all, if my attack fails, I just come back to the capital uninjured so it won't matter much.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

<a href="http://imgur.com/D5COB"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/D5COB.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="R'lyeh Banner" /></a>

To make up for the missing turn, and foreshadowing the next:

The Doom of the Amber Tritons

Once there was in the oceans of the Shadowshore a great and noble kingdom of tritons. This kingdom had risen in one of the millennia in which R'lyeh lay dreaming, when the polypal mothers stood barren and the aboleths, all save one, had buried themselves in the pelagic ooze to sleep.

The tritons were wise enough to avoid the deep places, and flourished. They learned the secrets of amber forging, and fashioned mighty arms and armor from it.

Then Auluudh crept up the continental shelf, out of the lightless deep into the blue and green shallows. Auluudh the Eldest, the Unsleeping Mind Lord.

http://i.imgur.com/re9zI.jpg

And the Margrave of the Abyssal Edge in his castle of Kelp put on his finest hauberk of amber and swum up with his retainers to challenge the monster. But as the Margrave came upon Auluudh, a drowsiness came upon him, and his retainers, and they went back to his castle to sleep.

In the old triton kingdom, the tritons ruled, and the atlanteans were their servants, whom they sent up the shore to gather things and to trade with men.

They were kind masters for the most part, but the lightest servitude will chafe, while the most crushing slavery deadens all feeling. This the aboleths know, and this Auluudh knew.

So Auluudh conspired with certain atlanteans, and with the power of his ancient mind enslaved certain others, atlanteans and triton both.

And so it came to pass that when the king grew old, of his two heirs the elder grew haughty and the younger grew envious, for their tutors were enmeshed in the aboleths fetters. It is not known if the elder grew impatient as well or if the king did die a natural death, but for a surety his younger son claimed otherwise.

Each had their followers, loyal and passionate most, and some of them also old Auluudh's slaves. Words had been said that could not be unsaid, and now deeds were carried out that could not be undone. War came to the great and noble kingdom of amber, tridents flashed green and gold and blood billowed brown and the sharks glutted themselves on the dead.

Yet the brothers did not fight each other in the end.

The civil war's carnage had created in both a revulsion for bloodshed, yet the bitterness of fallen friends and the acrimony of their quarrel precluded a true peace. So it came to pass that the kingdom split into two halves, of which the elder and his followers retreated south into the Moon Sea, while the younger and his people struck out east, to make a new home in the Sea Untamed.

Of Auluudh nothing had been heard since before the outbreak of war, save perhaps that on the kingdoms north western edge the shark attacks were particularly bad, and the Margrave of the Abyssal Edge and all of his blood disappeared without a trace, while his castle of kelp fell to ruin and neglect.

More than a hundred years would pass until the stars would align, and in deep R'lyeh the Mothers would bloom and spew forth spawn in the dark, and the aboleths would stir and twist out of the sludge, and the Mind Lords would swarm out to capture fresh slaves.

And an ancient power would boil out of its lair, and the younger's kingdom would fall to its arms, while a mad prophet-slave would dance through the ruins.

And an army would assemble in the wakening city, and Auluudh would creep forth and crawl at its head, and the army would crawl out of the deep, and past the old ruin and towards the Moon Sea.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

Some rumblings concerning the city guard:

If you went for a heavy scale build, with growth and good order scales, the city guard can quickly recoup its investment by patrolling at 200%.
This will cost some income on the long run, but income early game is much more important than income in the lategame.
I am totally not sure on what scales Abyssia has, but I recruited the city guard several times as O3P3G1 Ulm and usually got about 800-900 gold in profit from it.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

I didn't have nearly as rationale a reason as it turns out. The idea was to take a 10-20 lizard man province without my expensive sacreds getting cursed.

More details on how that worked out when I get a chance to post my AARs this weekend.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

Nice work all of you. Enjoying the read while sitting in a tent in the rain....
ssj

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

we barely missed the rain. we went canoeing and came to shore just as it started.

Pangaea Turn 4
 

http://lpix.org/images/Lilli/e119a69.../panbanner.jpg
TURN 4:

I find several interesting things this turn. A 1D income site in the marsh. Not very good but better than nothing. I also locate Abysia. Too near for my comfort, but not too near either. I'd just rather not have a neighbor that likes my hot dominion.
Abysia, Fomoria and Helheim all took 2 provinces thus turn. Caelum and I stagnate.
I do some more scouting, and attack to the south. I also recruit a Pan and a scout. The Pan will research and spawn maenads. The scout will just scout. Another Pan should bring the shield to the mountain province Thorion should conquer next turn, and then site search that. I'll need more commanders at this point, maybe a centaur priest or a dryad to fetch troops.
Nothing special worth saying this turn, since I didn't take any province, just scouted some more.

Re: Pangaea Turn 3
 

You seriously underestimate their berserk potential. Give him a flesheater axe (for +3 berserk and magic weapon), a lycanthropos amulet - and you`ve got some serious anti-thug force: high attack, VERY high damage, high HP, regen, some natural armor (from berserk) and gives enemy a chest wound. Oh, also immune to awe/fear/seduction. Caelian Eagle Kings aren`t going to like this.
I mean, look at this (additional HPs are from Gift of Health):

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

Sure : For 10 gems or so, you have a MR 11 thug who dies to 1 thunderstrike. Against 1 mage + chaff, he's going to kill some of the chaff and then get paralysed/soul slain/mind controlled or otherwise magically fried.
The +3 berserk and magic weapon also matters little when you end up trampling most of your opponents, so the strength and attack boost become irrelevant unless you are facing opponents of the same size or bigger.
A fort-turn is better spent buying a dryad most of the time, or a Pan, unless there is no lab or temple in the fort.
Also, a sleeper will be less effective against thugs, but more so against human-sized troops, and comes with a magic weapon for 8 gems, along with having 4 more MR and better leadership, which make him actually suited to fight mages and lead magical troops and shoot arrows from whichever bow you prefer.
Also, lycanthropos amulets eventually turn your units into werewolves, so this build is efficient for a really short period of time and only against a limited set of opponents.
So, yes, what you describe is a very strong thug against size 3 thugs that don't have chaff shields and can't cast MR-negating or AN-damage spells. It is very situational, and I still doubt I would ever want one instead of a mage.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

As alluded to by Roland in the Helheim AAR, I did indeed get hit with a bad event on my capital, though not nearly as bad as his.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=9qdw11" target="_blank"><img src="http://i40.tinypic.com/9qdw11.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

Ultimately it leads to a substantial decrease in my income for the turn and I am forced to reduce taxes to 50% to compensate. Oh well… at least I didn’t lose nearly as much as he did. And… I do have slight misfortune scales so this sort of stuff is bound to happen sometimes.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=mu7tz6" target="_blank"><img src="http://i39.tinypic.com/mu7tz6.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

The battle against the barbarians goes much better. My ‘decoy’ scripting works nicely and I don’t lose a single unit. It doesn’t hurt that they fail their morale checks very early.

As a result, our capital has access to much more resources and I am able to expand the recruitment queue.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=2hf2kxz" target="_blank"><img src="http://i41.tinypic.com/2hf2kxz.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

I also recruit a single barbarian commander from our new province. I’ll use him to help ferry chariots around very soon.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=4u6j39" target="_blank"><img src="http://i41.tinypic.com/4u6j39.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

I also order an assault by our initial expansion party upon the province south of the one we just took.

There are many more barbarians here so I don’t believe we will do as well as we did with this turn’s battles. As it turns out, I will not be disappointed.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

Show me 10n-gem thug who doesn`t die to 1 thunderstrike. :)
And Pan should roll in N gems.
Just like a bane. Only bane gets dust2dust instead of soulslain.
Most thugs are at least size 3. All ponymen nations, Caelum, giants, banelords...

Yes, but not if Eagle Kings come knocking.

Against common humans you have common minotaurs - just trample them into dust. Also centaur archers. And revelers.
So what? Werewolf is weaker - but he also has his uses (assuming, your minotaur lives long enough to be turned into one - thug life expectancy is rather short)
Yes.
No. 29 HP is enough to live through couple AN spells, unless it`s soulslay-grade.

Helheim: Turn IV
 

http://i.imgur.com/aS0Z8.png

Turn IV: Catching up

http://i.imgur.com/6z5DN.jpg

Okay, nothing happened (for me) this turn besides these two battles. This is it, let's see if I'm doomed already.

http://i.imgur.com/CXfeR.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/MPDiL.jpg

Heck yes, won both of them. Few casualties in the second one, but it was probably just some cheap human troops. Let's see how it went down.

http://i.imgur.com/fROmc.jpg

Finn's rematch first. Starts the same way as the last battle, except this time I had accidentally scripted the Helhirding to "Hold and attack" rather than "Guard Commander", so he rushed ahead before Finn was done casting. Wound up not getting him killed or anything though, so it's fine.

http://i.imgur.com/oYXIH.jpg

He did take a few hits for his stupidity, but he deserved that. Anyway, Finn and his minion clean up the rest of the jerks who drove them away last time with no real trouble.

Let's check out the other battle now.

http://i.imgur.com/xMjx8.jpg

Okay, this one's set up a bit more dynamically. Sir Slicer, the *******, is set up in the back, to bless himself and... Well, he has Death magic rather than Air, so he doesn't have much to do, for himself or his soldiers. Meanwhile, the serf warriors are set up in the front, where they will hold for a few turns before moving in, while the huskarlar are set to the side and a ways back, but will move in to attack immediately.

There's actually several reasons for this setup. The serfs are generally weaker, but they have shields at least, so they can block some arrows, and since they're in the front, the enemies will target them first; since the enemy AI doesn't change targets for its shooting unless engaged in melee or the target routs/dies, they will keep shooting at these guys even as the more valuable and huskarlar get closer and ready to murder them. The huskarlar, being set to the side and further back, meanwhile, will hit the enemy in the side, theoretically, and will actually reach the enemy at about the same time as the serfs, who start further ahead but don't move at first, resulting in my entire army hitting them at once without the more valuable units having taken damage yet. Sr Slicer, meanwhile, is on a horse, and therefore moves a lot faster than the little men walking around, so he'll get there at about the same time too.

http://i.imgur.com/elZYC.jpg

Here's the enemy, meanwhile. Mounted archers. They can attack in melee, but they won't unless engaged directly, since they're primarily archers. I was expecting a melee portion to this battle, since I wasn't that familiar with the Horse Tribe and didn't know I'd meet an entirely ranged regiment here, but fortunately my plan holds up regardless.

http://i.imgur.com/9op85.jpg

And here we see my plan working. The archers are firing at the serfs even as the huskarlar come in for them. Meanwhile, Sir Slicer cast a low-level Death spell after blessing himself; Frighten lowers the morale of a few enemy troops. Nothing big, but it could help a little, and it's one more turn he's busy instead of rushing forward on his horse; if he were the first person to meet the enemy, he might be in trouble, and the commander dying means the army automatically routs.

http://i.imgur.com/79zZr.jpg

Anyway, my positioning and scripting worked out mostly well here; huskarlar and serfs hit the Horse Tribe at almost the same time, and while Sir Slicer wound up behind some other units and unable to attack at first, he also reached the battle at the same time at least. In melee, the Horse Tribe has trouble striking my glamoured troops, while the huskarlar stab at them and their horses with impunity.

http://i.imgur.com/KRWGe.jpg

Unfortunately for the serfs, they are not protected by glamour, and barely protected by their crappy armor, so they take some casualties and damage from the tribe's weapons.

http://i.imgur.com/0XP7F.jpg

After several of them take various wounds, they break, leaving Sir Slicer and the huskarlar to fight. By this point, their running makes little difference in this battle, but unfortunately if they retreat they'll move to other provinces, meaning they won't be with this army for the same strategy this turn. My arrow fodder is running away.

http://i.imgur.com/9hPvD.jpg

As said, their absence makes no difference; the huskarlar and their Helkarl finish off most of the remaining Horse Tribe with ease, and the rest flee. Rather quickly, at that; they get off the battlefield before the serfs do, meaning that, while they ran away, the serfs end up staying with the army anyway. Score.

http://i.imgur.com/TmCfH.jpg

Aw yeah, look at that. Not one, but two provinces in a turn. I'm now making enough money to... Pay upkeep for my army. Yeah, with my capitol still at zero percent tax to get rid of the unrest, I really am not making much money. Had enough to get two more Helhirdings, at least, which are what Finn is moving back to the capitol for; he only has one minion at the moment, and it got a chest wound from the failed battle. Meanwhile, Sir Slicer and his army are still moving forward; as the serfs didn't flee, I can use the same strategy for the next battle, and the province they're moving to is full of Ichtyids, fishmen who are rather weak; I could have probably taken this province with only the Huskarlar and Sir Slicer, really. Serfs being there to take the focus off of the real units basically dooms the poor fishmen.

Sir Slicer has also made the Hall of Fame, but the ability he got isn't nearly as nice; he merely got Heroic Precision, which makes him more likely to hit things. Not detrimental, but compared to Finn becoming the Energizer Bunny it's kind of a letdown. Oh well.

Something really nice, in addition to getting land, is that both of them had magic sites on them. While most sites that you can see without searching aren't very good, they can be useful.

http://i.imgur.com/hFH5N.jpg

The Ichtysatyr Village is a site that, despite seeming to do a lot, is rather simple, really. I get a Nature gem from it every turn, which is nice, and it lets me recruit some units I normally couldn't; Merman Captains are amphibious commanders, meaning that they can lead troops under water or above it, while Ichtysatyrs are weird shapeshifting fishmen (as as in, they have mermaid-like lower bodies underwater, not that they're fishlike humanoids like the Ichytids up there) who take the form of satyrs on land, are stealthy underwater, and recuperate from injuries. Kind of neat, but ultimately not that useful for me; as much as I'd like to get into the ocean, R'lyeh can kill these guys without any trouble, although if I claimed an ocean province before his pretender or army arrived, I could possibly demand that he leave it to me or effectively declare war on me, giving me an excuse to punt his scaly butt back into the ocean wherever I find it on land. I'll consider it.

This site also produces a small amount of resources a turn, which isn't too great here since there isn't much I want from this place; however, since it's adjacent to my capitol, and forts draw income and resources from the surrounding provinces, it helps make my capitol more productive. Not bad.

http://i.imgur.com/wKLJI.jpg

The Shambler Reef is a recruitment province like the village, but it's far less interesting. No gems or resources, just allows me to recruit Shamblers from this province. Shamblers are large Atlantians who wear no armor, and aren't really that great. Could be useful for taking an ocean province, but in the long run I'm not getting much from having them.

Anyway, I know what you all really want to see: Graphs. Let's look at graphs.

http://i.imgur.com/an3V9.jpg

Province graph, heck yes. I am back in the game. Fomoria and Abysia also gained two provinces this turn, tying them with R'lyeh who's gained one since the start, but this puts me equal with Arcoscephale, Marverni, and Pangaea, and ahead of Caelum.

http://i.imgur.com/z87yV.jpg

Income is... Less exciting. I'm making money again, but hardly any. I'm still behind even Arcoscephale after whatever the heck crashed their economy there. I really need to get my capitol up and running again.

http://i.imgur.com/zZ5wf.jpg

Army size, meanwhile. I'm at the bottom, but that doesn't matter at all since I rely on a few elite units rather than massed militia. Abysia seems to have suffered a huge loss here, but this is actually them gaining and then losing that mercenary band of sixty militia, i.e. some of the worst units in the game; checking the mercenary screen confirms this, as those guys aren't listed there anymore. For those players who didn't know, mercenaries also show up in your army graph; this is also why Marverni is just behind Pangaea in units despite all the freespawn Pan gets.

Other than that, there isn't much of interest here. R'lyeh got a huge boost but they have access to Lobo Guards, some of the cheapest units in the game, so he probably bought a lot of them. More interesting is Caelum; they've had a steady boost there, one that's increasing by the exact same amount each turn. Since my first turn, I only got three units, and the slope there is greater than that of Caelum's line... He's only recruiting one unit a turn? Maybe; since he also expanded, but kept his research going, either he expanded with his starting army and didn't lose any units (unlikely, Caelian military is some of the worst in the game, which is unfortunate for people like me, who like Caelum), or he switched from researching with his god to researching with whatever he hired first turn while the god took a province and the starting army continued patrolling his capitol so he could afford the singular unit he's recruiting: Eagle Kings. These guys are 400 gold each, which is quite a bit of money. They're definitely worth it, but recruiting them from the start is a painfully expensive strategy, and as we can see, one that limits your ability to expand quite a bit.

Anyway, that's turn four. Catching up to everyone else and horribly abusing the graphs even more; while I love using them, I think anyone who argues against them can, instead of formulating an argument for why they're bad, simply point to my posts here and say, "Because they let you do that". And I'm just starting here.

Next turn: Stomping on fishmen.

-------

Bonus: Scales analysis.

So, you may have heard some of us talking about "scales". You may be wondering what the heck the big deal is. Well, scales are the effects your pretender's dominion has on the surrounding environment; they're called scales because, well, that's how they're represented in pretender creation, a set of scales that can be weighed one way or the other.

http://i.imgur.com/noD9p.jpg

Here's a sample set of scales, what's on my capitol this turn. You can also see what scales an individual province has by looking in the upper-left corner of the screen while on the map; the more of an individual icon there is, the stronger the effect of that scale there. The side that is weighted down is the dominant scale in this case, with the left side being the good one in all but one case (where both sides are bad and balance is good), and the right one being pretty bad for you. So, as you have probably gathered, my scales are downright toxic. Let's look at them in more detail, top to bottom.

Order versus Turmoil: The first scale, represented on the map screen as a dove and crossed swords, respectively. Order increases the amount of income in a province and decreases the number of random events there, while Turmoil makes the province less profitable and causes more things, good and bad, to occur. Order also unlocks a number of positive events, while Turmoil has a mix of good and bad ones it enables. (The scales of a province determine what events can happen there; you won't have an event where snowfall impedes trade in a province with Heat scales, for example.)

Production versus Sloth: Represented on the map screen by a hammer and a sawing log (ooh, a visual joke). Production increases the income of a province slightly and really increases the resources there (resources are a non-monetary aspect to unit creation, generally used in units that need heavy armor and weapons; resources aren't saved from turn to turn and are specific to their province, instead of shared across your kingdom like gold, so a low-resource province will never be able to make a ton of heavily-armored knights), while Sloth decreases both. Interestingly, this is the only scale that doesn't affect events at all; it only changes income and resources.

Tangent, CBM (the mod we're using) adjusts the Order and Production scales a bit, decreasing the income from the former and increasing it on the latter, making them more equal since, in the vanilla game, Sloth 3 was taken by almost every nation that didn't have really heavy units. This is, in my opinion, a really terrible change, as it ends up making Order barely more profitable than Production when it's supposed to be the scale about money, and enables a formerly-risky strategy of combining Turmoil and Luck scales, hoping to get a lot of good events to make up for the income loss, because now you're not losing that much income, especially if you take Production as well. Some people have said "well Order also brings good events", which is true, but it also makes events less likely, and it doesn't affect whether the events that happen are positive or negative, just that there are more positive ones if you're lucky in the 50:50 chance the event will be good. Personally, I like how a mod from SA handles it: The income from both scales is the same as vanilla Dom3, but Production and Sloth affect how many resources you get a lot more; Sloth 2 in it decreases your available resources by more than vanilla Sloth 3. If you take full Sloth scales in this mod, then unless all your units have a resource cost of 1 you will have trouble massing anything for an army. Instead of devaluing Order, it increases the value of Production and makes Sloth 3, the strategy CBM is trying to battle and that I took anyway, a lot harsher to do.

Anyway, tangent over. Back to scales analysis.

Heat versus Cold: Represented by a sun and a snowflake, this scale is actually negative both ways; a balanced temperature is best for most nations, although some prefer more extreme climates. The further you are from your preferred temperature, in either direction, the less income and supplies you get; a nation that prefers Heat 2 and is in a Cold 1 province would get the same penalty as a nation that prefers neutral temperatures in Heat or Cold 3. This scale can also fluctuate based on the season, so many people take it at one past their preferred scale for extra points without a huge impact on their income. Helheim prefers Cold 1, by the way. Another interesting thing about this scale is that, when a province has three levels of it either way, all units in it take more fatigue in battle unless they're resistant to the appropriate element (so fire for Heat and frost for Cold).

Growth versus Death: Represented by a shaft of wheat and a skull. The former slightly increases income, greatly increases supplies (basically what keeps units in that province fed; if they don't have enough they will starve, then get diseased, which is bad), and slowly increases the population of that province over time, which makes it more profitable. Death, meanwhile, it a very dangerous scale that decreases all those things, slowly killing your population and unlocking a lot of bad events (and one good one, strangely enough; Growth meanwhile is mostly good but has a few bad events, including one that is almost game-endingly nasty depending on where it happens). So, of course, I took Death 3.

Luck versus Misfortune: Represented by a four-leaf clover and a wilted clover. Both of these scales make events more likely, in the same way Turmoil does. However, Luck increases the base chance of the event that happens being good, while Misfortune makes bad events more likely; normally it's an even chance either way when an event happens. They also, predictably, open up a lot of new events, with all the Luck ones being good, and the Misfortune ones being some of the worst events in the game, especially when combined with Death or Drain. After taking Misfortune 2 in my first multiplayer game, I vowed to never touch it again; my Luck scales are neutral here.

Magic versus Drain: Represented by a purple sphere and a gray one. Magic increases the effectiveness of researching, while Drain decreases it; notably, since it affects it by .5 per scale, which is then rounded up, people who want the research bonus can just take Magic 1, while those in need of points may as well take Drain 2 since it doesn't affect your research more than 1 does. They also affect the difficulty of casting battlemagic in their province; in Magic scales, casting uses less fatigue and affects targets more easily, while in Drain it's harder to cast and people are more resistant to its effects.

The scales I took, by the way, are Order 3, Sloth 3, Cold 3, Death 3, and Drain 2. These are very bad scales. My dominion is a place where the life and energy is drained out of everything and almost nothing happens. Sounds like a land of the dead, alright. Why would I take such bad scales? Well, as I said, when creating your god, you have a certain number of points, which can be spent on increasing the strength of its dominion, its magical ability, and your scales, with good scales costing points (except in the case of temperature, where, again, moving either way counts as "bad", even if it takes you to your preferred temperature; this is pretty cool for nations like Abysia and Caelum, who like extreme temperatures) and bad scales getting you points. As you may have guessed, I got a lot of points from taking these scales. This allowed me to make a pretty powerful god, although at a big cost. Of course, Helheim's a pretty powerful nation, so I can overcome these (mostly self-imposed) difficulties. Hopefully.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

http://i.imgur.com/Zo8Ws.png

This Sunday, a Marverni double feature. Turns 3 and 4, in one post!

Try and hold the applause. Yes, all two of you.

Turn 3:

<a href="http://imgur.com/sT5wz"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/sT5wzl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Here's what I see when I start my turn. Another Prophet (probably a recruited commander- maybe a priest, to try for Holy 4), a random event, a battle, and a message that makes me grin. See, if I got a magic item, that probably means I won the battle, which means things aren't yet failing on my usual scale.

<a href="http://imgur.com/cFniY"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/cFniYl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

The event was actually good, too! 200 gold isn't much- there are 1500 and 3000-gold events, if memory serves me right- but for somebody with Misfortune 1? Nice.

<a href="http://imgur.com/aWqiJ"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/aWqiJl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Look at that ratio. 53 troops and 3 commanders down, for eight of my (expendable) troops? I'll take that any/every day of the week. More on the battle in a bit.

<a href="http://imgur.com/NXHPL"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/NXHPLl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/w1PM1"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/w1PM1l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

This is the magic item I found, and it's a bit of a mixed bag. It's cursed, so my prophet is really easy to permanently cripple- and I can't take it off. On the other hand, it's a weapon that boosts my defense, curses guys it hits, ignores armor, and counts as magic (so it can hit ethereal enemies, which normal attacks miss 75% of the time). To top it off, it's on a guy I'm not trying to get into melee. On the whole, I'll call it a slight gain.

<a href="http://imgur.com/paFpo"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/paFpol.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Here's the battle. On the left, my guys. That's my group of BCs up front, javelins behind and above them, and amazons behind and below. Behind that are two commanders. My prophet is the guy in the middle of the javelineers- look for the red shield.
On the other side, some bog-standard undead. The brownish ones are ghouls, and the green ones are soulless- basically zombies. The soulless can't have their morale broken, and the ghouls are really darn motivated (morale 18, to my 10-13), so the only way I'd win this is to kill them before they rout me.

<a href="http://imgur.com/cwGMu"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/cwGMul.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Strength buff goes off as planned, and the amazons kill a handful of ghouls in one volley. They have 11 HP, for reference. You can see that each arrow is either crippling or outright killing a ghoul, which I like.

<a href="http://imgur.com/w5Pop"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/w5Popl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Volley of javelins at close range. More damage, but less accurate.

<a href="http://imgur.com/fz0VT"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/fz0VTl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

We've closed to melee now, and things are inconclusive- a few hits here and there. One of my Carnutes went berserk, which you can't see right now, because I was too focused on the effects of Banishment. Those are a lot of damage numbers!
Figure that that hit at least nine zombies, all of them taking 25-75% of their life in damage. VERY effective.

<a href="http://imgur.com/8uR76"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/8uR76l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Another round, and you can see what a javelin barrage and melee attack did to the ghouls. Also, note the Carnute BC with the 12 over him, a row back from the front line. That's a one-hit kill from friendly fire, there. If it had hit anybody IMPORTANT, I'd be sad, but this is Marverni. None of my melee combatants are important.

The rest of the undead die in a few boring rounds of melee.

<a href="http://imgur.com/exo2F"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/exo2Fl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

See that? That is R'lyeh's pretender god. Unescorted. Last turn, I guessed that he'd taken a Kraken, and here it is. An easy call to make, since most underwater units are total suck, but it's always nice to be right. Now, to my plans!

<a href="http://imgur.com/WvJ7O"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/WvJ7Ol.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

No new mercs, and Abysia recruited the militia I saw last turn. Were they hungry? Low on charcoal? Who knows?

<a href="http://imgur.com/kJPEJ"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/kJPEJl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Another Gutuater, a pile of BCs, and some slingers to round out my purchases. This is more than I got last turn- my new province at work- but a FRACTION of what I'll be recruiting ten turns from now.

<a href="http://imgur.com/5gMFY"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/5gMFYl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

My first Gut goes into the lab, and I set him researching Thaumaturgy. Usually I go for Alteration or evocation right off, but this is Marverni. Thaum gives me two things I want- most of the site-searching spells, and the ability to force my Carnutes to go berserk. Thaum1 will give me a limited amount of it, and Thaum2 gives me an area berserk and the search spells, so I can get to what I need quickly, before moving over to Alt or Evo. Four turns to Thaum1, and two more to Thaum2.

(Useful, but berserking requires one more component- Nature gems. Not something that'll be an 'I win' button for every battle.)

Scout moving to the next province over, army moving over to where the scout was (20 militia/heavy infantry? Slaughter), mage researching. Fairly obvious.

I also sent a message to R'lyeh, basically saying that I wasn't going to attack him, and asking him to stick to the seas for now. R'lyeh needs time to consolidate before it pushes up onto land, so I suspect jotwebe will agree for the time being. Sadly, I forgot to screenshot the message, so he'll have to show you all.

<a href="http://imgur.com/9s7XS"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/9s7XSl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

This is interesting. Notice the bright green line, and how it went flat? That's Pangaea's research. This, combined with grabbing two provinces this turn, tells me he has an awake combat pretender with magic. Turn 1, he had it researching, and then he sent it out to fight on Turn 2, once he knew what the neightbor provinces looked like.

<a href="http://imgur.com/LAKO2"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/LAKO2l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Income tells us a lot, too. Helheim isn't doing well, at all- no new provinces and no more income (no income at all- 103 unrest shuts you down cold). I'm steady, R'lyeh gained a bit from his new province, and everybody else made a classic move. That spike-and-drop their incomes did tells me that they all increased their tax rates on Turn 1, so they could get a bit more gold on Turn 2. The cost of that is unrest, which either forces lower taxes, or forces you to use your units to patrol the province and restore order.

You can see that Abysia and Fomoria dropped back down to my level this turn- I suspect that they used patrollers. Arcoscephale... didn't. That, or they got hit with an event, too.

(Also, notice how my graph barely moved. A cookie if you can see the problem with that.)

The other reason why I won't be buying many commanders from my forts, by the way, is that I can just get them from my provinces! They aren't as good, but think of it this way: I'm trading a bit of inconvenience for another mage every time I buy independent commanders instead of Marverni ones. Mages win the mid- and late-game. It's an investment.

On to Turn 4!

Turn 4:

<a href="http://imgur.com/AM8AI"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/AM8AIl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Three messages, all possibly good or bad. Let's look at them.

<a href="http://imgur.com/cidDm"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/cidDml.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

So R'lyeh wants me to know he has a kraken near me. He's also a bit dramatic. That's fine with me. Next!

<a href="http://imgur.com/TxkOS"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/TxkOSl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

More free money! I'll take that!

<a href="http://imgur.com/NcTs6"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/NcTs6l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Kill ratios are still nice. Let's take a look at that.

<a href="http://imgur.com/r0D2c"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/r0D2cl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

You know what? No. Let's not take a look at that. We're fighting Militia and Heavy Infantry.

<a href="http://imgur.com/nGmIL"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/nGmILl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/hPs3F"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/hPs3Fl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

These guys. This is basically five decent soldiers, three commanders, and a bunch of javelin decoys. Nothing more to see here, though I am running low on BCs. Let's fix that.

<a href="http://imgur.com/TsE2A"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/TsE2Al.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

See what I mean about volume? That's 40 barechests, and I'm not NEARLY at full production yet! I'll be able to turn out over 100 a turn, just from this fort alone- think of what you could do with that many attacks!

<a href="http://imgur.com/XSsfH"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/XSsfHl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Rehiring my archers, because they've been awesome. Mercenaries only stay with you for three turns; you have to renew your contract, if you want to keep them. Thing is, each pound of gold you offer is worth twice as much when rehiring mercs, so 50 gold from me is equal to the 100 gold other people would have to put in. I, of course, will be paying a good bit more than that.

<a href="http://imgur.com/8B2YG"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/8B2YGl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Province graph. Helheim is recovering- two provinces a turn is good work. Caelum has been lacking in success, R'lyeh is leading because of its first-turn attack, and Pan hit a wall. Maybe he's stocking up on Maenads.

I haven't gained much income, but Arco and Helheim are rebounding. Caelum seems to be in a bit of a slump. Wonder why?

<a href="http://imgur.com/8PXX8"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/8PXX8l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

That funny-colored line there is Pan, Abysia, and Helheim all finding magic sites that give gems. They're probably coming across the low-level sites- level 0 sites can be found by any commander. Nothing to worry about yet.

Caelum is still research-happy, Arco, Fomoria, and I are all building up, and Pan has totally stopped research. Pans are expensive, so this suggests he's putting gold into other things- a fort, maybe, or temples. Maybe just building combat commanders.

Pan is getting ridiculous dominion, as is R'lyeh. I'd say that the temple idea is fairly possible, given that. R'lyeh is just expanding into the water and the beach provinces- well, that and his pretender probably has maxed-out dominion. A classic move.

Pan's cheap troops and freespawn are SLIGHTLY more numerous than my cheap troops. R'lyeh is probably getting some freespawn, but most of that is cheap underwater guys.

<a href="http://imgur.com/6rXFL"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/6rXFLl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Sending my guys back for BC reinforcements. You can't see that I just bought two independent commanders in my non-capital provinces; these guys will be my second expansion party. The kraken left, and my scout is heading west, where my first party is headed.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

Excellent updates from both Marverni and Helheim. Just a few small notes about graphs and other things.

The graphs work slightly different than what people looking at them might think. Mainly the dominion graph and the army graph. You actually get 5 points on the graph for every province with your dominion in it + 1 point per candle. This means that nations with awake expansion pretenders that touch close to many provinces looks like they have bigger dominion than they really do. This is especially true if you are a octopus circling the world.

The second strange graph is the army graph witch gives you size-1*unit(?) points. This means that a giant (size4) count as 3 size 2 humans on the graphs. A big fomorian giant (size6) count as 5 humans. Size 1 units gives 1/2 points I think.

Also, I hate undead provinces. Because they never have much population in them. I think they have base type *0.4 pop. So you never get much of any gold from them. They are reasonably easy to beat if you bring a prophet, but you are usually better of attacking another more useful province.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

5 N + 5 blood slaves in your example. So with 2 magic paths, any A thug is lightning immune.
NO. Bane: MR = 15. Minotaur: MR = 11. That's four point difference, and this is huge. Banes are much more survivable than this. Andd what size are they, btw?
Not banes, though. And jaguar warriors, warriors of the 5 elements, mechanical men... are all size 2 and slaughter the aforementioned minotaur easily.
Eagle Kings = Thunder strike, so your minotaur is fried in this case.

Thunder strike? 26+, AN, usually cast by caelian high kings who are Air 4. Check. And it's Evo 4, so same level as the Cons 4 items required for this build.

The build you describe may have its uses, namely sending it solo against a solo thug who is not a Caelian High King (who would fry it in 1 or 2 of the thunderstrikes he is scripted to cast anyway).

By the way, since you gave the example of a Bane, a (4 gems + 1 turn of summoning) bane beats this (5 gems + 5 slaves + 40 gold + upkeep + 2 turns of forging + 1 turn of recruiting + 1 turn blood hunting) minotaur.
So, it certainly is very situational and probably not worth mentioning unless you face someone sending in solo thugs (it could be a good counter to Helheim for instance, but there are others).

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

http://i.imgur.com/D5COB.jpg

R'lyeh - Turn 4

Turn 4 starts with good news (some earth gems in R'lyeh) and bad news (brigands in the Sea of Carassos increase unrest). The Sea of Carassos is the province Yöt-Webbogoth conquered last turn.

http://i.imgur.com/CAQeV.png

Yöt-Webbogoth continues on its rampage and subdues the northern sea of Baptizer. Barely pausing, it continues east, now accompanied by the pudgy prophet Nyarlathothep.

They're going up against a province with shark knights next. I don't want one of those bypassing the big guy and skewering the prophet. So I'm having him sneak -- the kraken does not need the smite support. The extra temple check is more important.

In addition the good and the bad news, there's also great news:

http://i.imgur.com/6A9O9.png

Auluudh crawls out of whatever repulsive lair he had kept himself secluded. He has slightly more magic picks than my regular mind lords and twice as many "enslave mind" attacks. Oh, and he gets fear, which the regular version doesn't have.

Note from the future/present: it's a bit strange, but more recently I've looked at him, and he had only one enslave mind attack instead of the normal two or the four he used to have. He's also properly amphibious instead of both amphibious and aquatic at once. Here's a picture of him from the future/present:

http://i.imgur.com/H0hoC.png

So the best way to use him is on the front. He immediately is drafted and marches (well, slithers) off to the south-east of R'lyeh at the front of the several lumbering slave trolls, a score of downtrodden atlanteans and tritons, the same number of imbecile lobo guard and almost a dozen mindblasting giboleths and gibodais. Their target: Moon Sea, a province held by one of the powerful Amber Clans.

In other news:

http://i.imgur.com/bmFNC.png

Maverni sends greetings. They're located on the north coast, off the Sea of Carassos. I send a reply which the aboleths have censored for some reason. Maybe Bluemage142 will leak it...

Note from the future/present: looks like he did. Excellent. Although I can't see it -- is imgur not working for you guys, too?

So far the gameplay. Instead of graph analysis, for those who like, another little story. Feel free to skip.

***

The city was in ruins, motionless under glittering schools of cod. The kelp had not yet claimed the broken buildings and tumbled towers. Nithü the Slave Mage drifted with the current, dispassionate as his eyes roamed over the destruction.

Scavenging crabs scuttled away as he passed them. A small shark circled him at a distance, just out of sight in the murky green waters of the northern seas. But Nithü had senses other than sight to guide him. There... one tower still stood.

With a measured kick of his tail, the merman propelled himself closer. It was strange, coming home like this.

Like all triton towers, the court mage's tower had its entrance at the top. Nithü let himself sink down to the flagstones. The door had been warded with certain sigils of the aquatic school. Their power had bled away with time, Nithü knew. A week ago the tower would have been hidden by the strange currents the sigils conjured.

He knew who would wait within.

The merman thumped the iron-shod tip of his staff against the door. Shod with the iron of R'lyeh, not with the mage-crafted amber he would once have carried.

"Lagash!" he called. "The kraken is long gone. It is safe to come out."

For time, Nithü waited and followed the shark's distant circles with his mind.

"Lagash!" he called again. "What are you waiting for?"

His new powers told him of a presence just behind the door. Just as he pulled back his staff for another strike, it opened a crack.

"Nithü?" a querulous voice asked. "Nithü! It is you! It is a miracle."

The slave mage studied his former teacher critically. Lagash, the court mage of the Northern Kingdom, now little resembled the well-groomed figure he had once been. His hair and beard were still green, but hung lank and bedraggled, and the wrinkled robe was in a state the triton mage would once have never accepted. He blinked in the comparative brightness.

"Nithü. When you were lost, we thought you were gone forever. Did you escape? Did the kraken attack the aboleths, too? If so, we must travel to the Southern Kingdom at once! Old grievances must drift away, we have the opportunity--"

"We have nothing," Nithü cut him off. "The Northern Kingdom lies in ruins around you, old man. The Southern Kingdom is about to fall as we speak: R'lyeh was not destroyed, but awoken. And I, I did not escape. No, Lagash, I now serve the God of Near and Close. The things I know now... you triton mages are like children. I have more power as a slave in R'lyeh than I would ever have had here in the Northern Kingdom."

"But you would have been free!" the triton quavered.

"I would have been a merman, and never the equal of you noble tritons with your precious royal lineage. Now I know the true shape of things... now... why am I even talking to you? You are an irrelevance. Leave the tower, swear fealty to the Kraken God, and you may have a future. You can run, but the sea is a circle, and R'lyeh lies at the beginning and the end."

"Run? Swear fealty? I have had enough of hiding!" Suddenly the ancient mage's eyes blaze fierce and wild. He throws wide his arms, robe swirling in the water, and shouts a word of power. A shockwave of water strikes the younger mage and whirls him against the tower's breastwork.

Nithü brandishes his own staff to answer in kind, but before he can complete the gesture, another strike flattens him against the flagstones. Blood billows from his smashed nose. As he tries to rise, the water strikes a third time.

The old triton glides up to his former student. "Now you will die like the traitor you are, merman scum! And then we will see about your masters." He pulls back his staff of hardened amber for the coup de grace. Behind him a shape appears out of the green murk, and is gone just as quickly, leaving behind a cloud of blood.

Lagash stares at the stump of his arm. The shark strikes again, taking a leg this time. Two more passes, and the triton is no more.

Nithü gets up slowly, using his iron-tipped staff to keep his balance. He knows the shark will come again, and turns to face the beast. Now it is Nithü's turn to shout a word in the language of shark-kind, which is to say it is not truly a sound. But the shark slows, passes the merman by. Its empty black eye seems to glare.

The shark turns in a lazy circle and makes for the merman again. Now the mage calls the abyss between the stars into his eyes and locks his gaze with the predator. Shark-kind has lived a long time, unchanged, not least because it knows which is prey and which is not. It knows the mark of R'lyeh, and knows better than to tresspass.

After a moment Nithü swam over to where his teacher's amber staff had come to rest. He picked it up: it would have some value to his new masters. Then he decided differently, and with a silent spell broke the staff in two. He tossed the pieces over the breastwork, where they would rest among the tumbled stones at the tower's base.

Then he sent a thought along the astral ley lines, informing the aboleth council of a new source of water gems in the Sea Untamed.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns 1-3)
 

I like "the sea is a circle with r'leyh at the beginning and the end" very poetic.