Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Here is the smoking gun proving ossa is the meta-gamer not me:

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Huh, I feel a bit bad now too.

I had good relation with R'lyeh since the beginning of the game. I had absolutely no idea he is working with Marignon - I rather got an impression original player would be interested in fighting MAri together, especially looking at the geography. I had no idea they are fighting AI Atlantis together [as it's hard to make alliances against AIs really]. I did see Marignon grabbing former R'lyeh provinces. No idea if they were conquered for some time by AI Atlantis and then took by Marignon, or was it direct attack on weakening and staling R'lyeh [I was creating backup plan in case R'lyeh gets volatile]. I have no idea if Marignon made any contact with new R'lyeh player or if he offered him back the water provs he took. I simply asked R'lyeh for help with Marignon, which at that time seemd to be gaining fast on me and going for victory. SciencePro did a great job as new owner of R'lyeh, doublign provinces, greatly increasing capabilities, income and research. So it is a rant that R'lyeh has at least 2x better player now, one that can really play the nation?

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Sigh, of course I am doing it to win. And what I did has nothing to do with what happened in the other D3 game.

I am a noob to dominons but, from watching Survivor (the tv show) it seems to me that a good strategy when there are 10-15 players is to ally with the strongest one. Then when there is just 3-5 left you gang up on the strongest.

Zeldor started PM'ing me and was the only one to contact me. It seemed highly likely that i would get farther in the game working with him than trying to fight him and getting immediately crushed.

I'm working with him now, but if i'm still around later in the game and he is still the strongest, then obviously I will have to join an alliance against him.

The only sense that I am metagaming is that I am trying to be political and win. Obviously if i was truly RP-ing Ry'leh i would just sprout gibberish and attack randomly. But that doesn't seem like a very good strategy.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

hehe thanks for the nice comments but, as ossa points out he's been kicking my butt in the battles so far. It was easy to climb up the graphs at first because the other player had just been staling. But i obviously have a lot to learn about winning fights.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

The Survivor-technique won't work in this particular game due to Ermor's overwhelming position. Their growth follows the geometric model. Unless you challenge them early on, you lose.

And you lost.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Is Ermor really that overpowered? How come they don't win every game then? Shouldn't they get a nerf or something?

It seems to me that Zeldor is winning because he is good politically. He was the only one to contact me for example.

He only has 70 provinces out of a total of over 300. If 3-4 of the other strong empires ganged up on him i bet he would go down easy. If not then then D3 is hilariously unbalanced.

Correct me if I'm wrong here but in this game Ossa appears to have taken on Zeldor more or less single-handedly. So of course he is losing and to be the only one to join him in that quixotic quest would be suicide. But don't go blaming me - if you want to beat Zeldor then try to set up an alliance against him.

So far exactly no one has PM'd me suggesting to ally against Ermor. Or really PM'd me at all to suggest anything for that matter. But yet multiple people have seen fit to complain publicly that i am helping him. That doesn't seem like an effective strategy to me.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Well, working for such an overgrown LA Ermor isnt the best idea.... Even LA Rlyeh may have troubles stopping him once he has grown THAT large. :)

P.S.
Sorry Zeldor, I just had to say that. )))))

Ermor isnt winning all games, because usually everyone gangs upon it. Immediately. Kill Ermor first, ask questions later. Because there will be no 'later' if you dont stop that plague.
And, well, sometimes LA Ermor (and LA Rlyeh too) is just banned from LA games.
Despite that, LA Ermor has the most victories in the late age.

And yes, you're right, Zeldor is good politically. And Zeldor is just good. And he is LA Ermor. :)

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Everyone was talking so much about Ermor all the time that I decided to try them in a game where it's not banned. And I really think people are overestimating it. It's not bad early game [unless you face nation with good archers], then it gets weaker [as anti-undead weapons are easy to come by]. And it can be easily owned by R'lyeh, even much smaller one [it's quite obvious why]. No recruitable troops, no recruitable mages, bad research, bad diversity...

Anyway, if someone wants to give up, I can accept it :) I'm just doing my best to win and it's how you should play that game :) Do you really think that you'd just stop Marignon, when he will have all research done, so many elemental royalty, artifacts and 20-40 additional forts from my lands and that gem income? Ossa should not complain thjat people are not helping him - they are smart enough to know that they'd just help him win. And while we two are fighting and bleeding, they can gain up [mostly Man and Abysia] and get a fighting chance. And R'lyeh trying to grab Marignon lands is a logical consequence of geographical location. Marignon and Atlantis caps are really inside his lands, slowing his movement, hurting dominion and loweoring income. If he got Marignon he'd be able to attack me from many many points and be a major player. He wouldn't have that chance if he decided to attack me together with MArignon.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Why have recruitable troops when you get a crapload of them for free? :)
Bad diversity is not just Ermors problem. Look at LA Man, for example. There are always ways to go around it - I am 95% sure you've managed it ;)

Sure. :) Its much easier than trying to win an attrition war against Ermor.

But I am sure we wont win if Rlyeh will let YOU claim Marignon's land. Now, it might make sense for Rlyeh to ally with Ermor, and then have a little 1vs1 with him once everyone else is dead. But since in Setsumi you're much bigger than Rlyeh already, and he's rather new, thats not gonna happen.

Not to mention that this scenario is a perfect reason not to let both Ermor and Rlyeh in one LA game... :(

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

The reason why i have not fought Marignon is simple - failure at both pretender creation and early game research, which made R'lyeh just not ready to fight and needing time to adapt. The only thing seems not quite diplomatic happened is that nap presumes warning before attack, which was absent.

That one seems correct, looks like i haven't understand R'lyeh ways yet.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

yeah it was just the very beginning of my second game ever so i didn't understand that. Sorry!

Now that I actaully know what the "+3" means I will abide by it in any future dealings.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Enough drama already.

This game will be over next Sunday unless I see private messages or forum posts requesting otherwise.

Congratulations to Ermor.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Anyway, I'm leaving tomorrow, will be back at 30th. So if the game continues, Micah will sub for me, Juffos can contact him for email.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

I want to continue, so dont stop this game please. I'll take my chances against Ermor, would be silly to give up without trying.

Hopefully, everyone will learn this lesson and wont ignore Ermor till its too late in future games, despite all warnings.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

I wish you luck. Have fun.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

You mean that you go AI?
Can I have your stuff? (c) )))

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

okay i'm confused. Are the major players willing to stay in and finish the game? I am if everyone is. Ermor has less than 25% of the map under his control so i don't think he is unbeatable. Hell i had fun working with him but i'm ready to backstab him just to prove everyone wrong about how unbeatable he is. But if the big dudes and/or host are just going to quit then we might as well put this game out if its misery.

So could everyone please speak up now?
Are you willing to stay in and fight if everyone else is?
I am.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Well, Utgård is willing to play on.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

I would not mind if the game was ended soon.
It has been taking WAY too much of my week to do these turns.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

I think we have enough votes to keep fighting.

Anthropos, give up and your subjects will be spared! :)

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Science - I'd really appriciate it if you'd backstab Ermor now just to prove a point;)

By the way, is there any chance we might settle our own personal conflict while this crusade is going on?

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

well after a battle where i cast 26 soul slays and had 1 success
i find that somehow my god got attacked before she moved (which i didnt know was possible)
and died to the first soul slay cast
:(

this was my first multiplayer game of dom3
my opinion of the game is a bit sour today
but i am feeling the randomness of certain things is a bit to much for me
after so many months of investment in careful turns
its pretty disspointing for things to go south so quickly

congrats to man who has expertly dismantled my empire in two or three turns
i feel sad that my merciless conquest of Ctis will not be completed

as i do not want to see man inherit all my empire

i hereby formally renouce all NAP I have with anyone effective immediately
please do not expect that i am going to keep any agreements i may or may not have made with you
nor will i for this point expect that you will keep those you made with me

bye for now
anthropos

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Well, since it's Kuritza you are up against, you can perhaps take comfort in the fact that you are being trashed by an excellent player. You might want to try a smaller map with other noobish players next time, if you prefer your lessons in dominions to be a little less brutal. :)

Soul Slay cares about MR, it's not completely random. Penetration items on the caster and MR of the intended victim matter a lot.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

I always said that MR is an unreliable protection against spells like soul slay, charm etc. As a rule of thumb - never, ever send your SCs out without at least an antimagic amulet. Your goddess had MR 19, which is rather low. And I got lucky, of course. MR of 25 will protect you long enough, most of the time. (I still lost some Arch Devils with MR 25 to WL's charmers back then - some bad rolls). MR of 30 is more or less a proof, but its also really hard to get without gimping your SC.

To intercept armies before they move, you need a teleport or cloud trapeze. Magic movement is resolved before normal movement. Teleporting is a huge advantage, actually, because you can see the equipment of your target, you know his weaknesses and thus can attack him where it hurts.

Btw, a tip: if your SC has astral, give him two pearls. After the battle, script him for returning and move to the lab; if he gets intercepted, he just casts returning and stays alive. (Golems are a notable exception - they are dumb and can ignore scripted returning sometimes). You can also script your lone SC for retreat if you expect an ambush, if there are friendly provinces to retreat to.

Again, let me say that for a first MP game you did just great.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

It's generous of you to provide your opponents with advice!

One point I don't agree with: scripting an SC for retreat will get it killed if there are no other commanders of yours in the province, and someone casts an assassination ritual on it.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Indeed, assasination spells makes retreat order a very hazardous one.

This conversation of yours reminds me of a game where I was ea TC and vfb was R'lyeh. I just kitted out my cyclops with MR items to keep his soul slays busy. None of them got through (Not a big surprise with that high MR). Too bad something got him blind a few turns before, so he was somewhat useless in close combat with his hordes of trolls, or whatever he was throwing at me.

Pic of the aforementioned cyclops here.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Wow. :) You forgot a magebane sword!

Yea, btw. Scripting SC for retreat might auto-kill him when he's earth-attacked or something. But your opponent has to guess that you will retreat, otherwise he just wont cast earth attack on a supercombatant. Sometimes, Dominions reminds me of poker.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

so how do you get past an MR of 19 anyway? Do penetration items stack with each other? If not then even if you had a S9 mage with a eye of the void your soul slay bonus would still only be 15. Beating someone by 4 on a 2d6 roll doesn't happen very often.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Yeah, penetration bonus items stack. That's Void eye + spell focus + rune smasher = "cheap" +5 penetration iirc. Then there are RoW and RoS and probably some artifacts that also give penetration if you have third misc slot for the caster. And like you implied, more magic skill gives penetration (+1 penetration for every 2 skill over spell path requirement). At least that's how I remember it.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Dice rolls are open-ended here, afaik. On a roll of 6, you roll 1d6 one more time. So actually, MR 18-19 gets penetrated routinely, even without penetration items.
...oh, and maybe some spells get some penetration bonus themselves, as an undocumented feature. At least SS, control and charm tend to work. Maybe its just Murphy's Laws though.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Yeah, dominion random dice rolls are fun. With a roll of 6, you get 5+d6, with two 6's you get 5+5+d6 and so on, at least that's how the manual states it (so 6 on d6 is not 2d6 but actually d6+5 with option to go on until you don't get a 6 anymore).

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

By the way. I believe Zeldor said something about being away from computer; since Ermor started staling, I guess he didnt find a substitute. As much as I approve of beating the leader senseless, I guess we'll have to wait till he is back or somebody confirms he is in charge of Ermor now.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

I have assigned a sub for Ermor for the time being.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

After reviewing the triple stale I have been handed as a sub I request that the game be put on hold until Zeldor returns to deal with this. I believe rollbacks would also be in order due to the disadvantage this places him at, since I was not properly notified of the game's continuation until a great deal of damage had been done.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Huh, what happened? I was just told by Micah that there were 3 stales and game did not end. Juffos knew that Micah would be my sub, if game continued and confirmed it. I didn't check what happened, but Micah said it's not pretty.

I haven ever asked for anyone to surrender and it was my enemies that suggested it and claimed that Ermor is unbeatable [I'd call it partly propaganda], but now I'd want either game to be rolled back before my stales or it to be finished, like Juffos was asking for. I'm not going to continue a game when I'm ruined just because email was not changed [not blaming Juffos much here - his nation is dead, so his interest in that game].

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

I simply forgot to ask Micah to sub for you. Micah had also forgotten he was supposed to sub for you.

The admin position is still open. I am managing this game against my wishes. Things like this happen.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Unbeatable 1vs1 ^^

I remember being thrashed by stales in lategame, so usually I'm the one to support the rollback. But... three turns is just too much of a rollback, sorry. :(
And I also objected against closing the game back then, and still dont want it to be finished.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Well, I doubt that those stales would really ruin the game of the ermor, unless there are a few warfronts I'm not aware of. But still, should Zeldor really want it, I'd be willing to give him a fair chance and (somewhat grudgingly) allow a few turns of rollback.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Three turns? I object, your honor. (c) Too much happened over these three turns for me.
And I wasnt granted even one rollback in Qwerty back then, even though it happened because host didnt postpone game by my teammate's request, and despite we were ganged by the whole map so one turn of staling under such circumstances meant a sure loss.

You can call me spiteful, but now I am against three rollbacks.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

True, Kuritza, you are entitled to your own opinion. I just wanted to sthate that it wouldn't ruin my game, it'd make it harder, true, and more tedious by having to do those turns again, but getting a proper opposition means more to me than winning the game.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Well, to sum things up, for my stales:

1. I got suddenly attacked by someone.
2. I lost 4 forts that were not even under siege, when I left.
3. I lost about 25 provinces.
4. I lost lots and lots of troops and mages..
5. and forging and summoning time.

Sure, I have some chances at pulling it back, but I'm not going to do it. I did not request the game to get finished earlier, I did not want anyone to declare me as winner, as I didn't feel it was fair. But now there are only 2 options that can work - either end with Ermor as winner, as no one had objections to that on Saturday, day before deadline, or roll the game 3 turns back. Of course there is no way of not using all that info from new turns. But I simply won't play with 3 stales, so Marignon or Man can win it.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

I'm sorry? I objected, SciencePro objected, Quitti objected. I am really sorry it turned out like that, but in my opinion you should've contacted Micah yourself.
There is always more than two choices.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Micah was contacted, I went on holidays - he was just waiting for the information that game continues and the change of email address, so he can play turns.

And what other solution can you offer? You all stale 3 turns, so I can do something to recover? I lost pretty much 1/3 of my provs. And pretty much whole army on one front, one that was being prepared 10 turns.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

I had to go AI in such situation. We were holding Nexus with 300+ astral pearls per turn, summoning two Rudras / tartarians per turn etc held like 1/3 of the map etc, but two stales in a row killed us because we were fighting everyone, everywhere. Both times we have asked for and extension, but host didnt read our request in time.
Everyone objected to a rollback, even one rollback, mind you, and the game carried on without us; WL won.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

WL won after denying a one turn rollback?

There's absolutely no good answer in a situation like this. 3 turns rollback is pretty extreme, otoh it would seem to be partly the fault of the host, who is no longer playing so it is hard to blame him much...

hopefully you guys can figure something out.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Kuritza:

I totally understand you, but why should we bring some bad admining from other game here? Is there any solution here that you can suggest? I don't feel like throwing the game by just not playing, but I also don't see the sense in continuing it from where we are now - as you and Marignon profited way too much on my stales.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Indeed, Don't bring another game with other players or other admin in here, since what happened there does not apply here. No game is the same. This is bit like bickering if breaking a NAP in other game justifies you to break one in this or the next game that happens (and for that reason, I prefer machiavellian rules to diplomacy, but that's another story).

I'm willing to go on with the rollbacks or without, I can understand both of your points of view well enough, the game is tedious as it is without rollbacks even when I don't have huge amount of stuff to do per turn. Also, I'd very much like to have opposition from my opponent if I were Marignon, which in my opinion justifies the rollbacks.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

I cant think of any solution that would totally suit everybody.
Maybe Marignon could give you a break and let recapture some of the lands you have lost. But a 3-turns rollback? No, my turns are perhaps as micro-intense as yours now, and I managed to do too much over these 3 turns.

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Yeah, but still, do you want to rather get 52 turns wasted, instead of 3? You have stated your aggressive position against Ermor many times, so why should only Marignon be the one to help redo the situation? So you get even easier win?

Re: Setsumi - LA game, upload pretenders!
 

Hmm, if the primary complaint is an objection to the extra MM this will cause I'd suggest that everyone else stale 3 turns to let Zeldor catch up, thus not undoing any work done by the other nations. But, with a bit of a twist, since letting him run rampant for 3 turns with advance knowledge of stales might be a bit much, 3 turns in a row.

The full suggestion is this: For the next 4 turns every other nation gets to submit a single .2h file. This prevents Zeldor from fully abusing his advance knowledge since another nation can still react at any time, but does give him a powerful advantage. It also takes the situation and makes it into a (hopefully) fun mind game for everyone instead of a complete game-buster...use your turn early to fall back, or hold onto it to counter what Zeldor sets up...the choice is yours. =)