Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Atlantis is leading, but he is just a little bit ahead of Marignon or Tien Chi. The game is far from be decided.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Just checked: Atlantis has 48 provinces, Marignon has 41, Tien Chi has 40, Gath 22. He is by no mean more powerful than any other two nations combined. He is not even in the point where he is the "must be destroyed or will win" target.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

gath has been set to:

rXXXn.jXXXa@gmail.com

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

I got this:

"Hi. On trying to host Immaculate002LateAgeNoobs just now, Dominions crashed. This is not a LlamaServer issue, but rather Dominions itself crashed with a "Nagot gick fel" error.

These errors are normally caused by a (generally inexplicable) problem with one of the players' 2h files. Therefore the LlamaServer moved all your 2h files away before hosting again. This is why you will receive a new turn file in which you've staled.

There are two options from here. Either you can treat the stale turn as a random event and carry on with the game, or you can roll back the turn and try to host again. If you try the latter your game admin will have to do the rollback via the admin options on the LlamaServer website, and you will all have to do your turns again. Note that in this case it is _really important_ that you actually do redo your turn, rather than just sending in the same one again (which people sometimes seem to do because they don't believe me). If you just send in the same file, hosting will simply fail again.

I hope you manage to get the game back on course, whichever option you go for."


There will be no roll-back. There are as many problems with roll-backs as there are with anything else and i don't want to have to manage those too. Sorry- everyone... we all get a stale. Enjoy your extra turn of income/disease/whatever else.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

I think it might be worse than just a stale turn (I got that email too). When I go to the llamaserver page I can't find this game. I'm in another game as well and it's there and seemingly fine, but no sign of Immaculate002LateAgeNoobs. Does this mean the game got eaten by a server bug or will it reappear sometime soonish?

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

hopefully- lets not freak out just yet. maybe it will just show up again.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

It's back! :D Thanks for your patience.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

thanks for taking the time to come and tell us directly- its much appreciated.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

SEEMS LIKE everything is fine after all. well, except someone cast that well of misery spell :(

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

NOW THAT was one hell of a fight! That made my day. I hope all of you who had scouts, spies or scrying spells in Jomon's capital enjoyed the show. Two big *** armies with major magic being tossed around having a fight to the death. Even if I had lost, that would have made for good entertainment.

Thanks for that, Morla; you were a good opponent. Your guys fought well and bravely, your mages were nasty, especially when they blew up, and your spirit-thugs were lethal and all but untouchable.

I just wish sieges gave you the fight stats afterwards like normal fights (X soldiers, X undead beings, X magic beings, Y killed, Z lost, etc.). I'd be interested to know the numbers.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

darn- i missed it.
what spirit thugs? shuras?

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Mainly Ujigami and Kenzoku, fully equipped. Sadly, all that equipment ran off at the end of the fight.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

THX, a few mages go off their script, but good battle. A few bad decisions doomed my game.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

such as?

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Instead of using my gems to rise an army and a few more thugs i used them to empower a few mages to forge and cast high end summons. Stop building a human army, and of course lack of diplomacy.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Very sorry for the late notice but it's looking unlikely that I'll be able to submit my turn in time tonight. Could I get a 24-hour extension?

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

In my infinite mercy i hereby grant you the extension.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Morla:

any chance of a brief AAR?

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Is the server down? I sent in my turn, but I dont see it on the game page...

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

yeah, its down.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Sorry about the stale, I just wasn't paying attention. Shouldnt have much effect, though.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Marrignon- we are breaking our 5 turn NAP at this point. Sorry.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Exactly in which turn does our NAP end? I didn't read this in time, and I'm not sure which turn was it when you made me the notice.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Crap! I have got to follow this thread better.

Anyway, with Jomon dead and buried it's time for someone to start something and it looks like T'ien Ch'i has. *Sniff* I'm so proud. So yeah, Marignon, consider this notice that Atlantis is ending our 6-turn NAP agreement. So there's no confusion, this announcement is coming at the start of turn 50 which means your nation and mine will have all of turns 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, and 55 to get ready for the slugfest that'll start on turn 56. Aqualibrium really doesn't appreciate having her enchantment handiwork knocked down time and again.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

turn 49 + 5 turn nap is turn 54.

So on the opening of turn 55 i will expect to see a huge number of remote spells bouncing off my domes in futility while your armies are slaughtered here there and everywhere. by turn 56 your entire empire should be in flames and i will be declare high cheese of the world! Vive all the cheeses of the world!

Just jokes... but in all honesty, i will order attacks during turn 54 and when you open turn 55 you should recieve news of attacks from myself. And vice-versa.

Tell me if i got anything wrong.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Sorry I didn't participate more fully, though I think I managed to get most of my turns in at least. To be honest I found the micro-managing overwhelming. Thanks for letting me play and I apologise again for my mediocrity.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

I don't think you were mediocre. you just had the double-bad luck of starting next to a very strong atlantis that hemmed in your expansion and gettnig the troll and his adventurer buddies stalling you for a long time. Than you picked a fight with me- which you sort of had to do i guess... and it was going well until patala died.

Anyway, don't feel bad. at least my attempt to use the ride the wind spell on your immortal pretender when he was out exploring by himself didn't work. grrr...

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

It's ok, turn 55 and 56 will be the attacks.
Fine enough, will try to hold a little bit before Atlantis win the game :P

To Shaetner: I'm sad you arent happy with your enchantment being knocked down, but casting a enchantment that make everybody ages fast when your "ally" has a nation that more than half of their mages have severe old age problems is almost casus belli. It's like poisoning our wells and telling us it's unfair to clean it. It looks like Tien Chi doesnt share this vision, which means that either they don't care about their own old mages (maybe they don't recruit them), or that they didn't notice your subtle attempt to decimate everybody magical support to secure your domination of the world. In any case, I did what I thought it was best for my reign.

See you all in the Battlefields I guess :)

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Aqualibrium's been castin' Well of Misery which does two things:
1) Everyone (you, me, and everyone else) gets 10% more income from their provinces
2) I get a butt load of death gems

What you are thinking of is Burden of Time, which causes all units to age a year or more every turn and is really bad news for old dudes.

Two completely different spells with radically different effects.

Edit: T'ien Ch'i probably doesn't care because he enjoys getting more money. Plus the spell says it eases the woes and aches of all the world's peoples so his old mages probably appreciate the spell cuttin' down on their arthritis.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Thanks Immaculate. I did try my best to hinder you with curse spells and so on - go down fighting rather than just give up - but I had no answer to your Ancestor Smiths and suchlike. I'd hoped my various summoned beasties would make more of a fist of the final battle, but so it goes. Maybe I should have been using them earlier.

I didn't have a coherent plan for my research, and I had no idea what items would have assisted me. I think this is the sort of game where note-taking is helpful!

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

@Moanarette: Yeah- i am not sure how to best leverage 'man'. i've never played them. They did really well in MA Morla but i have no idea how they went about doing so.

@Triqui: Burden of time i would have thrown pearls at you to help dispel

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

I force-hosted the turn because everyone had gotten their turn in except 'Man' and... well... it doesn't make sense to wait for their turn. hope that was okay.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Glad to hear that; I just came on to express my puzzlement at receiving a reminder when I've been knocked out!

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Ouch :confused:Completelly messed both spells :/

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Ok, I agree with you now, I am willing to concede the game to atlantis too.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Well, how 'bout we put it to a vote to determine where the game'll go from here. I'll abstain since I'm obviously in "conflict of interest" territory, plus it means there won't be a tie.

Also, two suns?! We of Atlantis take that as a personal insult. Heck we consider one sun to be pushin' it. We'd be angrier but we figure with Marignon so full of old mages, they probably did that just so they wouldn't have to keep turning the thermostat up. It's official, LA Marignon is the Florida of Dark Fantasy.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

k- game over.

i had 8 tartarians kitted out and ready to go- some with artifacts... none with any afflcitions and i was summoning 1, restoring its soul (if necessary) and kitting it out every single turn. Not sure what you had but i think that would have caused some hurt.

I am happy to finish this game though- i was really really newbish when i started and i feel i learnt a lot but that the decisions i made in the begginning have set me back a quite a bit.


EDIT: wait- gath- you want to keep playing this or not?

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

I'll lay all my cards on the table if we end the game, and if we don't I promise I won't use the info about your Tartarans in my in-game decision making (not that that would change my current plans very much anyway).

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Internet ate my long post. Twice. :(

I can summon a blood SC per turn too if I want. Latelly I was invoking 10+ demon knights and 20+ Devils per turn, as well as Enliving Statues and some Vine chaff to reduce the gap in total troops.
I have several SC too, including my god, a Heliophagus, a couple Fire Devils, awakened golems, awakened Eater of deads, a Djinn, and Elemental Kings. I can as well summon angels, including Seraphs. Most of them can be a challenge for Tartarians, specially if they use AntiUndead weaponry such as Flamebeaus or herald lances, etc.

I have also a very large amount of comunion-able thunderstrikers and a dozen bow of wars with quicken self that can shoot 600 high precision flaming arrows per turn, which might be powerful even against arrow fends, I suppose. Every single LA Marignon mage can comunion or sabbath, which is somewhat cool too.


The problem is I'm facing not only tartarians. I'm facing 3vs1, so it's a moot point to try to defend. I can hold my own for a couple of turns at best, you only need to attack every singlen province I own without a castle and I'll colapse. Also, Atlantis is already winning, he generates as much gems as everybody else combined, and in the late game, gems are the thing that matter. If we would face him 3vs1, it would be a coin toss. In any other situation, it's just pointless to keep the game running for another month or two just to wait for the inevitable.

I also learned a lot in this game. Diplomacy is not the most important thing. It's the only important thing. Patala faced 2vs1 and died (with me taking late spoils of war), Jomon faced 2vs1 and died (with Gath being the late robber), and now I face 3vs1. If I should have joined Atlantis half a dozen turns ago when he was asking me to attack someone, I might have got a chance, but I thought he was already winning too much. However, I did not join him, but I did not plot against him either, and that's a heavy mistake.

Overall, nice learning game.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

PS: what are we waiting for? There are 4 people in the game, 2 of them vote for finishing. 1 of them abstein, just becouse he is part in conflict. Even if he votes to keep the game on, it's a 2'5 vs 1

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

agreed on your point regarding diplo. Atlantis played well strategically and especially diplomatically and earned the win in my opinion.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

I've played and won as LA Atlantis once before so I wanted to try something a little different this time. First, I had a rainbow with lots of little blesses instead of a big W9N4 like last time. Secondly, I wanted to emphasize Atlantis' unique "I can invade far away" schtick, so I made it a point NOT to attack my neighbors (Man and Gath).

Because I was big and scary early on, my neighbors seemed happy enough to agree to peace (though I tried to be generous with gold and gems when needed to help cement the deal). I then went to war with Patala but my research was not to the point where I could remote-invade someone by myself. As such I invited Patala's neighbors (T'ien Ch'i and Marignon) in on the fun. I got bogged down in cracking a particularly tough fort and Marignon was a little late to the fight, leaving T'ien Ch'i to gobble up the largest chunk of Patala.

My neighbor Man was doing poorly and had no where to expand but into me or T'ien Ch'i. To give him something to do and to prevent T'ien Ch'i from gaining too much from our joint war with Patala, I encouraged Man to attack T'ien Ch'i. The majority of T'ien Ch'i's forces were way up north and had a lot of slowing terrain in the way so I figured Man could gain some turf and delay TC's consolidation of it's Patala spoils.

I don't know the particulars of that war but the end result was Man gaining little before TC stalled them out and then TC was able to bring his Patala invasion force south to successfully invade Man. Of course, Man takes a long time to actually lose a defensive war, which kept TC very busy for a long time... as in, busy for the entirety of the Jomon war.

During all this, I was cozying up with Marignon because I was quite worried about Jomon and a little worried about TC (both of whom were Marignon's neighbors). Marignon and I became good trading partners (mainly trading skull mentors for lightless lanterns) and started scheming on who to invade next. I suggested TC but Marignon (for his own calculated reasons, I'm sure) made a compelling case for attacking Jomon. Great! However, that left me with the problem of eventually having TC on my doorstep with me possibly still embroiled in a war on the opposite side of the map. Also, technically TC didn't have a land-border with Marignon (which doesn't matter much to Marignon since they can sail); if TC conquered Man, their only invadable neighbor would be me.

With TC clearly winning the TC-Man war, and with TC clearly occupied by said war, I gave a pretty blunt communication to TC where I spelled it out. I said that he and I were pretty much doomed to fighting in the future and it'd be a fight to the death. With that being the case, I'd normally invade him now rather than wander off and join Marignon in a fight against the distant nation of Jomon. However, if he was willing to sign on as "ally-for-life" then we could share a victory with Atlantis' god reigning supreme and Atlantis ruling the island and the ocean, while TC could have the outer-ring of land and worship whatever they wanted so long as it didn't try to unseat Atlantis' god. He agreed, signed an NAP-12 and suddenly I was free to invade Jomon.

I made sure to get Gath onboard for the Jomon invasion, mainly to make sure Jomon didn't talk him into invading me. People are generally willing to go along with whatever war will get them the most spoils and the deck was stacked against Jomon with me and Marignon already committed against it. The war on Jomon went surprisingly well, with Marignon kicking all sorts of Jomonese butt, while I had something of a repeat of the Patala war and ended up bogged down trying to dig the enemy out of a couple of castles. Fortunately my resources and research was more matured so I was able to simultanesouly besiege 3 of Jomon's castles (including their capital) while the Marignon blitzkrieg raged on.

As soon as the Jomon capital fell (oddly enough, this was the only foreign capital I controlled despite being the biggest nation), I started planning with TC about invading Marignon. I chose Marignon over Gath because he was reachable by my secret ally TC and also because I was very worried about Marignon's angel-devil-blood-blood-astral-fire endgame of doom. When I approached Gath about joining up (again because I sure didn't want to fight a two-front war), he said that invading me would probably be better for him. After all, my capital was closer to his forces and I tended to use convential armies, which he felt he was better equipped to handle than fighting Marignon's crazy blood-raiding-remote-attack armies. However, I had always been a pleasant, cordial neighbor and I had traded pretty favorably with him in the build up to the war with Jomon. In contrast, he had never had any sort of substantial diplomatic exchange with Marignon, so he was honestly open to either of us as targets for expansion. The point which tipped him into agreeing to fight Marignon was that I said fighting them would probably be more interesting and educational than fighting me. Gath agreed and that pretty much brings us to the present.


So this is a shared victory between me and and T'ien Ch'i. Congrats TC, we of Atlantis salute you from our island and ocean strongholds.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (now in the mid-game)
 

Very enterteining read and a very valuable one to learn about.

A great Sun Tzu's The Art of War approach. Being able to manipulate and bribe your neighbours properly is very important, probably more than being able to push an early expansion or create a late game good threat with research or whatever.

For example, I took Jomon over TC as a target for our combined assault becouse I had conversations with TC regarding you, and how he was affraid of your growth. I thought it would be easier for me to convince him to attack you if, after Jomon, you happened to take more provinces than me and your leading of the game was enough to make you a long term winner. I, however, was lenient in my diplo, and you convinced TC in the meanwhile to join you as the best of the losers... er... I mean... to share your victory as second one :P

From all your diplomatic manipulation, the one I think is more brilliant is the last one with Gath. "attack him becouse you will learn more" is simply brilliant, I would never had thought of it myself. I note it for future use, if you don't have it copyrighted ^_^. Sure, it didn't work for Gath, as he won't learn that much, but it worked greatly for you. I find it to be just brilliant. Probably it influence in the game was much lesser than, say, your ability to sign a long term alliance with TC after you pushed Man to fight them. That was probably the winning move.

I've learned a lot in this game. Interesting one indeed. So long live to Aqualibrium, the new God in the Pantocrator. I concede the game to Atlantis.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (GAME OVER: ATLANTIS/SHATNER WINS)
 

As far as wartime assets, Atlantis has always been about having (webbed) feet on the ground. I've been recruiting an Angakok and 10 Arssartuts plus probably 25 or so Ice Guard every turn forever (and I could turn that 25 into 50+ if I needed to). Given 2, maybe 3 mages casting buffs, these troops will result in even or favorable battlefield attrition... and I can win a war of attrition. In other words, if your baseline troops are just plain better, more numerous and as-or-more mobile than your opponent's, you don't really have to do anything fancy to win; cleverness is for people who are fighting uphill... the other guy just has to not trip while he charges downhill.

I've got a fully tricked out Bane Lord and Wraith Lord just sort of hanging out waiting to stomp on any raiders that wander over. I have one Elemental King of Earth and I could easily have all three Water Queens but I haven't bothered since I don't have any water-born threats. I've got a fairy queen and as many S2E2s, A2s and N2 neutral mages as you can shake a stick at. I also have a few pimped out ancient kraken, but those are mostly relics from my war with Jomon. I have an ever growing pile of naiad warriors, ghosts, catoblepas, and LOTS of wights. I also have dozens of thugged out banes (frostbrand + lycanthrope amulet or demon slaying sword + jade armor or dual axes of hate + lycanthrope amulet) and dozens of winged boots lying around ready to send my counter-raiders out in force.

The theme behind all this is flexible defense; until now I've always been fighting the other guy on his turf way away from my home provinces. So far my opponent's ability to project force on my homeland has been effectively nil. That means my need for a garrison, domes over key provinces or any other sort of defensive counter-measure has been minimal to non-existant. Even if Jomon or Patala had crushed my forces, my power base would still be untouched. With Marignon, I was having to gear up for all sorts of flying, raiding, teleporting, remote crap that I previously hadn't had to worry about.

My plan has been to pick a few outlying areas of Marignon's (island holdings mainly) and invade the crap out of them with excessive force while staying out of my allies' way. Meanwhile, I have such an insane stockpile of gems, a truly awesome gem income, and almost 100% research (8s or 9s in everything except thaumaturgy), I can pretty much cripple Marignon's economy without having to set foot on their homeland. The opening turn of the war was going to involve Marignon eating at least a dozen tidal waves that'd wash about half of his population out to sea which, combined with the massive unrest that spell causes, would heavily drop his gold and blood slave income. In other words, I'd attack Marignon's mainland with Tidal Wave, Locust Swarm, Blight, Volcano, Wolven Winter, etc. while conquering his peripheral holdings. Any sufficiently large armies that wandered out into the open would probably eat a Murdering Winter or two. All major battles would include Demon Cleansing and Neifel Flames.

I intentionally didn't bother with artifacts or super-high end summons because I played with that stuff last time I was LA Atlantis and this time I wanted to try going for lots of mid-range stuff economically equipped or buffed. I have two provinces that let me scry on stuff so I had very thorough accounts of Marignon's assets. For example, Gath was planning on casting Wish and asked me whether there was something he could steal from Marignon. I told him to wish for a Seriph and then have it forge the lamp to steal Marignon's genie (the archdevil wasn't worth stealing and I didn't know which Heliophagus he had because the scrying kept reporting his forgelord's name instead). I also had 1-2 scouts in every province of his because while the land routes into his mainland were heavily patrolled, the water routes weren't. I have an UW 20% conjuration discount, which is nice but still kinda limited because there's a lot of stuff you want to summon and most of it can't be summoned underwater. I have a crystal mage site, an illusionist site and an animist site, all of which really helped my magic diversity.

It's surprising the mileage you can get out of high-level water and mid-level death. Atlantis really is a very efficient nation whose handful of strengths seem very limited at first glance but are surprisingly versitile once you get used to them. But mainly this was a game about diplomacy.

Good times.


Edit: As for the "attacking him will be more interesting and instructive", or any of the other advice I gave any of my allies, it was all true. Gath had a pretty good idea of what I was capable of throwing at him, it was more a question of what volumes I could call upon, as well as how artful I was scripting it all. Late game LA Marignon however... that's a hard foe to anticipate. Hence my somewhat conservative strategy for the opening of the war.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (GAME OVER: ATLANTIS/SHATNER WINS)
 

Didn't say or tried to imply that your advice was false. I said it was genius. Gath told you that your armies were troop-based and mine were more about remote-crap and blood/astral stuff, and you used that very same argument to convince him to attack me instead of you.

"Well, it's true that I have "regular" armies with troops, but hey, if you attack me, you'll face only regular armies with troops, you'll learn more if you attack him". It's kind of genious, and I'm being sincere at that, not ironic.

In this case, it happen that it didn't work for Gath, becouse I don't see the point to continue a game that is decided, but that's not something that you, or Gath, could had known beforehand. The diplomatic trick was a good manipulation regardless of it.

Re: Immaculate-002: Late Age for Noobs (GAME OVER: ATLANTIS/SHATNER WINS)
 

Congratulations to Atlantis! I myself would have liked to play a few more turns, since I was looking forward to fighting Marignon, but I also felt like the game was getting a bit tedious. I think I learned a lot, but I would have liked to actually fight a real war (AI Ulm and Jomon's outlying provinces dont count).

Diplomacy was definitely a strong influence on my decision not to fight Atlantis. But in my defense, I was not "tricked". As the weakest remaining player, I didn't have a shot at victory, so I just wanted to have some good combat experiences, and I thought Marignon's summons would have been more interesting to fight than Atlantis' infantry hordes.

Anyway, it was fun just lasting until the late game and seeing what it is like. Next game, I think I'll try to be more aggressive, and start wars rather than waiting for them to come to me.