Re: Oh, the horror
 

Well with zens item mod it nerfs clams a bit with it being changed from 2w to 2w2s.

Re: Oh, the horror
 

Problem is the gem cost is hardwired to the fatigue; prior to Zen's mods, hardly anyone ever summoned the elementals in battle because of the gem cost. On the other paw, one version he had the elementals costing zero gems! Can't remember who it was, but someone immediately realized that taking 10 in an elemental path meant you could essentially spam elementals forever (especially since the AI favors summoning even when it shouldn't).

Re: Oh, the horror
 

You have done very well again Jeffr. Your Pan is always amazing. Reminds me on the cradle of zen game we played where i was pythium and you pan with your e9n9 medusa.

You were leading every graph in that game too and man persuaded me into attacking you which i did since i wanted to try out something else than clamming in that game.
You put up such a good fight then that i suffered so much attrition that nasty man could kill me then. We weakened each other too much.

This game has gone similiar. You have almost wiped out me. Fortunately Jurri gave me the idea with an SC then and out of a sudden i reminded my Moloch. This helped quite a bit but was not sufficient. You would have still killed me in a 1on1.
Chris couldn't let that happen because he would have been the next of your targets.

You did put up a very good fight again in this game and kept it interesting. It is one of the fiercest and most exciting games i have played so far.
As you said yourself your only fault was maybe that you looked too strong. That wouldn't be problematic but me + Chris could develop a bit too and while alone to weak to stop you i stalled you long enough for your downfall.

It was like with LotR. You were progressing well but my last forts did hold out long enough like Minas Tirith and then finally Chris saved me like the brave Rohirrims + the Ghosts in LotR.

You can maybe still have lots of impact on the game though both for you and me the future turns are not so fun anymore since we have the ungrateful role of minor powers now who can maybe be kingmakers but maybe make no difference anymore at all.

A kinder, more gentle way
 

Hmmm, perhaps in the next game I will pursue a more peace loving game so that everyone does not feel the need to destroy me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif It seems that the good players can mask their strength.

But in this game, I only started the first war against IronHawk's Man. I was attacked first by both Machaka and Boron, so I'm not sure what I could have done differently there. Perhaps offer peace instead of seeking to wipe them out.

Chris - I did cast a Dome of Flaming Death, and the messages said that two spellcasters (that had cast Ghost Riders) were struck by the fire blast but survived. It would have been a good counter (and maybe a nasty surprise http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) if the spell worked a little bit better.

Zen's item mod increases the cost of hoarding items? I'm all for that. Anything that discourages inaction is a plus in my book. From what I've seen, I like these Zen's mods.

One possible bug is that I think I read that the Hama Dryads are supposed to have Enslave Mind, but when I summoned a few, they had Steal Strength instead. Or is it a spell that doesn't show up on their unit description? They didn't seem to cast it but maybe they routed too quickly.

Now, how do I stop this tactic of casting Ghost Riders and then taking the province with a scout or spy? My initial strategy of just killing the Ghost Rider casting enemy before he could do much damage didn't work very well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Also, Chris mentioned the Soul Stone or something like that. Does this give you free wolves outside of combat?

Re: A kinder, more gentle way
 

Jeffr both me and Machaka attacked you because Ironhawk told us how scary you are.
Machaka attacked you because he tried to help Man and i attacked you because i knew your playstyle and assumed that if i do not attack you you will attack me soon anyways. I thought that my jaguar warriors are stronger http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif.

Regarding the soul stone: It gives you 1 free summoning of call of the wilds per turn.

According the Ghost riders: They are a cheesy strat. Zen made them D6 to cast (Vanilla D4) so they are not as frequent anymore but still annoying. In vanilla i always summoned a bunch of demiliches just for the purpose of Ghost Rider Summoning and as "Landsturm".
Some kind of SCs beat the ghost riders and so do very large and well composed armies. But Ghost Riders are a problem since they are so cost effective. Even if your Army is huge and basically untouchable some Ghost Riders cast upon them can force this army to spend all their gems and thus soften it up for the next combat. It is almost impossible though to do several such Armies that cannot be damaged by Ghost Riders. They are just a great great tool.
With Ashen Angel + Ghost Rider attacks you can soften up almost any Army/SC. But they are fairly late spells so they deserve to be powerful.

Re: A kinder, more gentle way
 

The soul stone allows you to cast call of the wild once a turn for free. In combat it gives you a bunch of wolves each turn.

According to the spellmod, tha hama dryad has weapon id 284, which is steal strength. Yeah, they suck.

The usual tactics against ghost riders I've seen/used include equipping a high penetration mage casting a spell that targets the wraith lords (like Charm) as the riders will dissolve if the leaders die, getting a bunch of priests casting banishment with some high protection troops to shield them, fielding SCs that can off the riders without too much trouble. (Luck and etherealness and prot of 20+, preferably combined with fireshield, in the way of an example.) Another option, especially with stealthy armies, is to sneak every other turn, which prevents the Ghost Riders from ever catching them. Then use said army to take back the ridered provinces; in theory two such groups can keep a province from enemy hands. (Attack the province on alternating turns.) Anything that can off a scout/spy is enough, so maybe army is a bit strong a word.

In this case it's probably a waste of time to try to target the casters, as they are likely lamia queens or wraith lords or demiliches; the latter are immortal and the lamias are pretty buff. Also, a prudent ghost riderer twiceborns any living mage to prevent any mishaps, especially with the increased level-demand of the mod.

Castling will also reduce the damage done; it's not an option for you with your huge castle, though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif You should really try a game sometime with a 40 admin castle: It costs 300g and 2 turns less to build and offers almost the same level of resources and gold and supplies.

There's little you can do to prevent/survive a ganking, aside from aggressive diplomacy. It really doesn't matter who you play against or how: it's always preferable to attack an opponent with superior force, so weaker opponents will band up to gain an advantage. If you are the strongest there is, there's no single nation left with enough force to challenge you alone; thus you'll be ganged on, unless you can do the diplomacy to prevent it. Ask Chris how he does it: it looks like he's first convinced Aku that I am the greatest threat, and now he's convinced Boron of the same thing, while to me it's obvious he himself has more provinces and magical gem income and armies than anyone else. Even if my globals stay up.

This will turn ugly, with players like Boron around... Either he's a master schemer trying to get a benefit from driving me to a corner, or just plain clueless and misinformed.

A slight delay, if the gentlemen won\'t mind
 

Hey guys, I might have slight trouble harnessing enough computer-time to do a turn even every other day for the next two weeks. So could we switch to, say, 72h quickhost for the time being so I don't need to rush things (cuz where's the fun in that?). Sorry for the trouble and the delay, I will try and overcome the obstacles to not hold up the game untowardly much. Thanks in advance!

Re: A slight delay, if the gentlemen won\'t mind
 

Sure.

Re: A slight delay, if the gentlemen won\'t mind
 

That would be great for me, too. I am going to be lounging by a lake for 5 days starting Saturday. A 72h quickhost would prevent my substitute from needing to play too many turns.

Re: A slight delay, if the gentlemen won\'t mind
 

I had to restart the server. The hosting time says 72-hours right now, but I'm going to host tomorrow sometime in the evening (maybe 10pm or something?) to keep it on track.