Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Alright, just pm me your email address and I'll get you switched in.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Hi Mightypeon, welcome aboard! Thanks for jumping in to keep this interesting game going.

I'll PM you with current diplomacy.

- Alex, Machaka

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

I am sorry, but I have some very busy weeks coming in now. I thus have to retract my subbing statement.

Best wishes,

Mightypeon

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

I could probably sub in a game like this, although I'm not a newb. (I've lost one or two MP games with C'tis actually, though uusally not MA).

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

I doubt anyone will mind at this point. Pm me your email if you're interested in taking a look at the turn file.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Ok. I looked at the turn file. It's interesting.
Kuketski, I sent a message to Pythium asking a few questions. I'll wait for an answer or a brief before playing the next turn.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Alright thanks to LDiCesare for subbing in, we're back on the usual 48 hour timer.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Real life and asthma from allergies are really wrecking me right now, can I get an extension for the upcoming turn?

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Postponed the turn 24 hours at request. I won't be granting any more turn extensions for a while unless they are asked for well in advance. This game has been going slow enough as it is.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Well, since I'm down to my capital and a handful of mages, I've decided to go AI. Well fought Machaka, I underestimated you in just about every possible way.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Tratorix, thanks for sticking with it. I surely underestimated your ability to send out a second army, and your capital mages surprised me. I hope you had fun.

If it makes you feel any better, the map is not really balanced. Many of the provinces in the south are 150 income farmlands, while everything in the north is mountains or wasteland.

Oh, if Tratorix is leaving we should find a new admin. I guess now that I have moved I could admin. Or LDiCesare could on the grounds that he is less noobish than the rest of us.

- Alex, Machaka

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

That battle was my last hurrah. Good game everyone--I'm now switching over to AI.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Horrorfend, thank you for being a competent opponent and sticking with it to the end.

It now looks suspiciously like Pythium is about to stale again... has anyone heard from them?

- Alex, Machaka

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Nope. And I'm not extending if he can't be bothered to ask. This really shows me that team games are a bad idea unless the players involved have a good track record.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

No news from Pythium either :(

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Ugh. If he's not back by the end of this turn, I guess I'll look for another sub.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

I PMd kuketski, who is playing Ctis, and got a response:

---Quote (Originally by aaminoff)---
Hi. Are you planning on submitting a turn in the next couple hours? Or if not and you are done with this game, please post something saying so on the forums. It's really frustrating not to know what is going on with a player.

- Alex, Machaka
---End Quote---
Sorry for disapearing, but yes, i thnk i cant continue playing dominions! ill post last turn =\

Well, it is up to LDiCesare. I feel like at this point we (team 2) have eaten enough of Pythium that it is difficult to see how we could not win. So I suggest we call it, or perhaps run a few more turns of Ctis vs Machaka just as a training excercise. Trying to find a sub for Pythium does not seem pointful.

- Alex

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

I'd like to fight at least this turn out and probably the next, just in order to have one or two battles. It's not like the nation I received was in any good shape (I mean, what did he plan to do with that research?), but I've had the time to do a few interesting things.
I'm pretty disgusted by Kuketski. When you do some team play, you at least warn your partner that you may not be playing any more. I wasted some mage time and gems to help him, that's really lame.
But yes, the game is probably won by you, although it totally depends on Machaka's magic research. (I rule off Pangaea as an immmediate threat alone given the graphs on research so far).

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

This is a fascinating war we are having. I would love to continue for a few turns. Pangaea is quite willing to sit out and just finish off Pythium and watch. Next turn we can probably set Pythium to AI, since there is not enough left that it is likely to go rogue and attack Ctis anymore.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Ok. We can fight it out a bit more. I have to warn you that normally my best strategy would be quite boring. I don't know if I'll go for it. I'll probably try something less efficient but more entertaining.
Setting Pythium to ai would be better than have them stale, but Please have Pangaea attack them on the turn they go ai and the next one so they don't declare war on me. Normally if they are besieged in one fort, that should be enough for the ai to consider it's already got one enemy.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Hi, I'm playing Pangeae.

I'll be happy to play dancing bear to Pythium's AI. I am currently beseiging one fort and was in the process of setting up a second in this turn.

I've already ordered all forces (which wasn't much) away from the one province that borders C'tis, and will not move any forces of any sort into C'tis. At this point, I'm considering myself to be playing a parallel single player game to your multiplayer game. Hope you two have a niced war :)

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

Something is definitely messed up on the llamaserver.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

I PM'd llamabeast to ask him to look at the game. Hopefully he can figure it out.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

It seems to be back to normal. You probably have to ask for a turn resend manually to get the .trn, though.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

I lost a lot of mages in that battle. C'tis still has a bunch of units in several forts, but if next turn's battles go wrong, I think we can stop it there. I doubt I have the time to summon stuff to equip so I can actually use the ridiculous construction research I inherited in a short span of time.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

That battle, with the communion of Lizard shamans, I have to say I thought you had it won. You were paralyzing and mind blasting spiders left and right, the Relief on top of all of those communioned mages meant that you could keep going forever... Why did your main block of infantry all suddenly rout from the middle of the battlefield? They were not really in melee combat yet. Was it really just the panic spell? Did something else happen in the battle that I missed?

Most of your mages retreated in good order, it just adds to the extremeness of the result that you had no retreat location and so they all died. Or maybe they were able to escape somehow, I don't know.

Just goes to show that in a Dom3 battle, almost anything is possible.

- Alex, Machaka

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

I think the rout came from the panic spell. I'd have had better results if I hadn't brought that bunch of soldiers or had let them on guard commander duty. That and if I had had soul slay researched instead of worthless construction with no units to equip. That and if the ai kept casting the good spells instead of casting a swarm after the 5th round. wtf? Blasting 100 fatigue and a gem on a spell that's only useful to disrupt enemy formations early on instead of casting some 20 fatigue paralysis or mind burns...
I think the game's over. I could field some more armies, try to use the pretender in combat with his magic diversity and actually try to kit some unit, but I lack the gems for that (thanks Pythium for asking a skull mentor and then leaving, I could have summoned a bane lord with these gems).

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

I think the rout came from the panic spell. I'd have had better results if I hadn't brought that bunch of soldiers or had let them on guard commander duty. That and if I had had soul slay researched instead of worthless construction with no units to equip. That and if the ai kept casting the good spells instead of casting a swarm after the 5th round. wtf? Blasting 100 fatigue and a gem on a spell that's only useful to disrupt enemy formations early on instead of casting some 20 fatigue paralysis or mind burns...
I think the game's over. I could field some more armies, try to use the pretender in combat with his magic diversity and actually try to kit some unit, but I lack the gems for that (thanks Pythium for asking a skull mentor and then leaving, I could have summoned a bane lord with these gems).

Anyway, well played Machaka.
I was not familiar with the summon spiders spell, it's quite annoying and useful.
You had a few thugs with more/better equipment than I could field, lots of mages with strong summons and evocation.
The only hope for C'tis would be to poison the armies (was I happy to see I had a poison spell and the wards cast to get rid of a single mage). Attrition, C'tis's forte, wouldn't work well because you have a strong economy in the back that can't be easily raided.

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

It really is a bummer that Pythium punted. Dean and I were really concerned right around the time that the first war vs Arco/Van was wrapping up. Dean's predecessor left him with a not great situation, including in particular no research, and so in some respects I would have had to fight 3 enemies simultaneously.

Researching Construction to the max is actually a pretty good strategy in a team game: One nation can focus on that while the other does other stuff. Then Pythium could have been feeding you gems to forge lots of cool stuff with, some of which would have gone to equip Pythium's thugs, others you would have kept.

The other problem with this game was that the map is not balanced. I started with nothing but farmlands all around me; so did Ctis to some degree, whereas the north of the map is all wastes and mountains. Very realistic no doubt, and presumably true to the fictional source material, and undeniably prettier to look at than many other Dom3 maps; but, does not make for a good game.

The disease dominion does work. Once I have 20-30 mages besieging various forts, most of them are diseased, and will die off eventually. I have to keep feeding in a steady stream of replacement mages; the situation reaches some steady state where N of them die per turn and I need to send in N fresh ones.

I'll send you my last turn to see if you want. What is your email address?

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

It really is a bummer that Pythium punted. Dean and I were really concerned right around the time that the first war vs Arco/Van was wrapping up. Dean's predecessor left him with a not great situation, including in particular no research, and so in some respects I would have had to fight 3 enemies simultaneously.

Researching Construction to the max is actually a pretty good strategy in a team game: One nation can focus on that while the other does other stuff. Then Pythium could have been feeding you gems to forge lots of cool stuff with, some of which would have gone to equip Pythium's thugs, others you would have kept.

The other problem with this game was that the map is not balanced. I started with nothing but farmlands all around me; so did Ctis to some degree, whereas the north of the map is all wastes and mountains. Very realistic no doubt, and presumably true to the fictional source material, and undeniably prettier to look at than many other Dom3 maps; but, does not make for a good game.

The disease dominion does work. Once I have 20-30 mages besieging various forts, most of them are diseased, and will die off eventually. I have to keep feeding in a steady stream of replacement mages; the situation reaches some steady state where N of them die per turn and I need to send in N fresh ones.

I'll send you my last turn to see if you want. What is your email address?

Re: 'Stillborn Noobs' Running
 

I guess I can have a look at the disease effect: email is laurent dot di dot cesare at gmail dot com.
Don't forget to declare the game finished on llamaserver.