Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Thanks.

Wish I could say I was busy, but in fact I got distracted by sunshine. Will revert to troglodyte lifestyle ASAP.

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

TURN 11:

http://img826.imageshack.us/img826/5333/turn11.png

Abysia decided to wait and group their armies. Fine. They'll besiege an impregnable wall with all their troops while I send my stealthy bastards and my minotaurs to wreck havok in their land. Cool. A rush requires you to attack immediately, not to delay, buddy! I'm sending some more revelers in the south and from there they'll march in to abysian territory and preach with dryads.
I build more gear. I thought the fire plate gave 100% fire res but, no, it's 50%. Sucks. I wouldn't have built that, but a better shield instead. I go with a pendant of luck, along with some boots and bracers of protection. That will give me a better defense, one more attack, fairly decent prot so I can withstand a few blows.
I also should get Arcoscephale to help me for hopefully 15 nature + 3 water gems. I send him 12 nature gems. He'll equip oreiads with vineshields. Immac, honestly, I'm not sure oreiads are the good weapon against abysian fire mages, but I need help, so I will just hope they work, at least as a deterrant. Anyway, Abysia can't field enough armies to fight two wars, so that should help us enough.

I really wonder if Excist's wrong assertion that maenads count as 1/10th of a defender made him think he could take my forts. This is wrong, as Calahaan pointed out. It's still the only reason I can see for him trying to attack me. His wrong post is dated april 8th, which is around turn 14. So I think that Abysia's whole attack has been made on the premise my maenads wouldn't help me hold my walls, which is false. And partly explains why he can never tear down my walls.
Anyway, it's quite sad, because if that's the case, he's basically committed suicide because of a wrong belief, and dragged me down the drain along the way.
Because of course, I didn't plan on being attacked so early as doing this would mean lost game for the attacker.
It would be nice to hear from Excist...

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

Turn 4: Exponential expansion happens.
http://i.imgur.com/9uMa5.jpg
Only two events happened this turn. Two expected battles battles.
http://i.imgur.com/uIHp9.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/Wqpmg.jpg
Victory was a forgone conclusion given the expected opposition of shieldless militia and Crystal Amazons, but the fact that neither expansion party took any casualties was unexpected news. This makes the second battle that my prot 7 Fir Bolgs make it through without losses. Combined with the experience stars they are getting they are becoming a stronger force without me having to do anything.

As my spoilers showed last turn, one of my unmarked still managed to receive two afflictions from the enemy mindburn assault despite his 6 HP/turn regen. Making 3 afflictions from the battle as a whole. Their mothers wont be happy once they return. I can tell you that.
http://i.imgur.com/qYEBZ.jpg
Back in the capitol another expansion force already stands conscripted. Due to the continuing resource shortages I only managed to get four giants and a short guy last turn. Well down from the six that I wanted. Probably enough to take out the group of militia that guards the desert to the south east of my capitol though.
http://i.imgur.com/QVakD.jpg
Every expansion force continues to challenge themselves. I'm mainly moving north east to block off whoever starts up there from getting a foothold in my direction. I have already decided that the three provinces to the east belongs to me due to their proximity to my capitol. If I can also grab the desert and the forest beyond them then I am happy.

Although the picture here dont show it too well, the province located directly to the south of my cap contains barbarians. And although giants normally dont fare well against barbarians I have a plan for how to fix it. Next turn I will finally get my allotted 6 giants per turn.
http://i.imgur.com/donRF.jpg
These gents will provide cover for these gal's:
http://i.imgur.com/GvrgU.jpg
Once I get them that is.



A useful thing to do is to look at the provinces adjacent to the ones with your dominion in it each turn. Although you do not have any candles in them you can still tell their scales and this can allow you to deduct weather there are any interesting magic sites in them. Looking at provinces early, before they have had the chance of having any dominion in them will also prevent the results from being tainted by yours our others scales.
http://i.imgur.com/AWVy9.jpg
I look at ???(64), witch have luck scales. Jackpot! As far as I know there is only one thing in the game that can cause luck scales in an indy province without dominion in it: The site “Totem Collection”. It gives the owner 1s and 1n per turn and increases the luckscales in the province. Not a super site by any means, but it gives me an S income that can be used to remote search for further sites and it only requires S1 to find. And I have just found S mages!
http://i.imgur.com/qMeQ1.jpg
The other interesting province have growth scales in it. Not in itself quite as interesting as the luck due to the fact that there exist random events that cause growth, but it could potentially be something much more spectacular. One of the best non-mage, non-discount sites in the game increases growth scales. Namely “The Shrouded Lands” that gives, on top of growth: 2s 2a and 2n gems. I could not actually find it even if I got that province though because it requires N3 to find and Fomoria only ever get N1 on its mages. It might be one of two other sites but neither of them are very interesting so I wont contemplate those possibilities.
http://i.imgur.com/xMYZ3.jpg
Meanwhile, the Druid Eingeach have been busy figuring out how to read in the last couple of turns. Once he accomplished that feat he was immediately told to explore the possibilities of the construction of magical equipment. With his quill he is researching almost as fast as a respectable mage!

The focus on construction this early will leave me without any early battle magic. But seeing the state of my mages, that probably does not mater. Almost all the things I want out of construction is located at construction 4 so we wont be seeing any use out of it for a while.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

Turn 5: First contact
http://i.imgur.com/Yd561.jpg
I actually had an unexpected event this turn!
http://i.imgur.com/NUHY8.jpg

Six beautiful nature gems! Keep them coming RNG! I need at least 30 nature gems to empower a druid. Otherwise I cant sitesearch remotely or forge boosters to get higher in the nature game.


Three battles happen.
http://i.imgur.com/WsWp8.jpg
My Paint Fu is weak but all the battles were victorious.

Our Fir Bolg finally start taking casualties though. The dying people were mainly dumbasses though as half of them were people who ran in to melee rather that threw their javelins like I told them to.
http://i.imgur.com/J2HSx.jpg

Javelin throwers often have these problems. Those in the squad closest to the enemy think they are too close to use their ranged weapons so they run in and die due to breaking squad coherency. My Fir Bolgs have defence 15 base with their shields. It does not help much because defence gets reduced by 2 for every previous attack a unit have gotten against itself. And with all the barbarians closing up for a hit they did not stand a chance. Had they stayed in formation the enemies attacks would have been spread around and their defence not been diluted as much.
http://i.imgur.com/zGYZz.jpg

In the northern theatre we finally encounters R'lyeh. I send him a message about drawing up boarders. The Isle of Balor is MINE! No mater what those huffy bankers might think! I tell R'lyeh that he can have the peninsula to the north in exchange. It is actually more in the zone-of-control of the guy starting to the north-east of me so R'lyeh landing there would be more of a threat to him and giving R'lyeh 3 provinces makes me look like a friendly and reasonable neighbor. It looks like R'lyeh have already made a failed attempt to land there based on the fact that he lost troops this turn and my scouting reports show that only 5 heavy infantry stands guard over Ermor.

Troops are marching north, but to not lose any speed by bringing a new expansion party to the eastern front. I instead recruit a mercenary party capable of beating weak indies on their own. Dante's Stingers.
http://i.imgur.com/OFZKo.jpg

I did not get the Archers in White despite my decent bid. Dang it. This means I have to combine two expansion parties to take care of the barbarians to the south of my capitol.
http://i.imgur.com/Dn68J.jpg

Oh well. The tiny expansion party killed militia just fine, but they might have had trouble with the barbarians in the province to the south of them if they were to attack alone. Ten Giants might be killy enough that they'll get through this without casualties.
http://i.imgur.com/mbf5V.jpg

Recruitment is cut back on in the capitol to account for the merc bid. I buy only what is absolutely necessary. I mean I'm not made of money. Not yet anyway...... Lets fix that.

You remember this picture from a bit above?
http://i.imgur.com/zGYZz.jpg

Like mushrooms, from the grounds sprouts militia!
http://i.imgur.com/SZLcx.jpg

This is all part of my clever plan to convince R'lyeh that I am an AI player. I often do things that must seem strange and witch only he can see due to his ocean provinces bordering just about everything.

What else hey are good for.... Well I think you can guess, good reader.



Oh yea! Some interesting things have also happened in the graphs since the game began.
http://i.imgur.com/1Msdg.jpg
I actually have a presence on the research graph now. The graphs reveal that Caelum seem to be using the famous Eagle King thug expansion strategy. Were in the player stay in his capitol for several turns while the research pretender with an earth bless (probably a great Enchantress from the female name) research the mistform and shockwave that the eagle kings need to expand on their own. Or maybe just air shield and mirror image if you feel like gamble. A solid strategy. If rather bold and risky.

Pangaea had his pretender research the first turn and then used it to expand. This combined with its nature/death titles indicates that it is obviously a Carron Dragon. A very powerful Pangaea only pretender with death and nature that got built in vine shield in CBM. A predictable build for Pangaea. But a solid choice none the less.

Arco seem to have built two philosophers. Or two Oreads. Though the later is unlikely this early due to cost. This means he is probably doing the sloth build thing. Good to know.
http://i.imgur.com/xMoPz.jpg
Several other players were complaining in their updates that Fomoria was looking scary and even though its early, this graph might explain it. My expansion curve almost look exponential! R'lyeh had a head start, but I am finally ahead of him as I should. Only Giants may be biggest! Caelum has only taken one province and then dedicated all its money towards research. Marvernis expansion stall and remain unimpressive. Pangaeas expansion stalled last turn. His pretender is not dead though so maybe it was just driven of by unexpectedly tough indies? Helheim has finally started to expand and Abysias line is hidden by mine. He uses stealth expansion to prevent people from realising how big he is!

http://i.imgur.com/nvALD.jpg
From the income graph I can tell that everyone except Marverni probably overtaxed their capitol on turn 1. R'lyeh never stopped overtaxing it! Witch is why his income is almost on par with mine despite my scales.

Most graphs are pointing upwards due to new territories but Helheim's took a dive in the other direction and seem to have plummeted all the way down to 0 on turn 3! How this is possible is a mystery so I got in touch with him during turn 5 on IRC.

I dont have the chat logs because of mibbit, but this is what I remember.
More banter followed and he learned my starting position. But so terrified was Helheims player that he must have used mindbleach to remove the memory of this prophesy and our conversation from his mind. But the foretold misfortune came true anyway.

Anyway, I'm not sure if its good or bad that he did not start near me because although a weakened player like that just begs to be rushed, Fomoria have a hard time dealing with glamour cavalry in the early game. Maybe he will become someone else's target. Though starting on the peninsula he will only have two neighbors plus R'lyeh. That means he is hard to gang up on but his neighbors also knows that he have to attack one of them in order to expand. That makes for wary diplomacy.





One of these days I must make a post about the metagame. This post is as good as any. It is interesting to see that none of the players in this game picked any of the true EA powernations like Lanka, Hinnom, Mictlan or Niefelheim. Or Sauromatica. Instead we have many of the weakest EA nations like Caelum, Pan and Marverni. (Arco is a special case) Granted marverni gets stronger over time and with research, but...

In Vanilla, both Fomoria and R'lyeh would probably count among the weak nations as well. After all, Fomoria could not clam, make bloodstones or fetishes or hammers. Nor could it really afford to put these abilities on its pretender as fomoria could not afford to not have an imprisoned pretender if you want a bless, due to lacking the temperature preferences of the other giant nations. And you know what? Now, no one can forge those things, making the playingfield much fairer. Fomoria is still highly cap centric, but good scales can mitigate that to an extent due to decent non-cap troops.

The rest of the changes to Fomoria are relatively minor. Cheaper Morrigans, Fir Bolgs and fomorian giants, and weaker kings, are the main ones. Further changes were not made to the nation itself, but every heavy armor nation got reduced defence and encumbrance penalties on their armor. Making heavy infantry more viable. Several items have also been made better so that they are actually worth using, witch change Fomorias game a good deal.

The changes to R'lyeh are much larger. The fact that all the aboleths now are amphibious were a necessary no-brainer of a change. But thats only half of their increased power! The other half relies on the fact that R'lyeh is currently the only nation capable of making gemgens! (Llamabeast! I, what is this I dont even!!!) Ehh, I mean troop gens. R'lyehs 50g H2 Priests domsummons(2?) aboleth spawns and domsummon20s his sacred cap only 60g mindblasters. This means that every 50g priest he recruits from any fort will produce 10 (5?) spawn chaff and ½ giboleths each turn in dom 10 for the rest of the game. Or half of that in dom 5 witch is the highest they can reach by preaching. If you imagine him recruiting 3-4 of those each turn you can see the long term problem. He'll eventually run out of money due to upkeep but sacred troops and commanders never desert so I dont know how much that maters.

Jotwebe, the player of R'lyeh does not seem completely unaware of these things.


Anyway, lets talk about the rest of the opposition. I did not know most of the people in this game at all when I signed up. Some I has seen on the forum and some I knew by reputation, but I have never played a game with any of them in the past.

Immaculate is probably the one I have had the most contact with. I have been coaching him a bit in another game and from those conversations I would probably say that he is an intermediate player that learns quickly. He will be real dangerous one day, but for my sake, that day is hopefully not sometime during this game.

Warhammer and Excist: They exist. I have seen them around the forum on occasion but I have not had any diplomatic contact with them whatsoever. Or at least I have not gotten any answer on my diplomatic feelers to Warhammer. (Oh wait I did! Eventually.) Both seem very busy with real life stuff.

Bluemage and Roland Jones are Goons. I know next to nothing about them but I will assume from their goon reputation that they are axecrazy madmen that will attack their neighbors on sight and who do not believe in things like peace or NAPs. So far Bluemage have lived up to his borrowed reputation but Roland Jones have been disappointingly calm. Possibly due to his bad start. I have talked fairly much with both of them over the course of the game. Mainly because you can always find them on IRC.

LDiCesare is the most veteran member of this game. Probably the one I'm the most worried about before starting the game. Granted he plays Pangaea and thats a terrible nation. But they can get really annoying when played by a good player due to them having stealth troops out of every castle. And being unable to actually lose those castles due to them stacking the walls full of madwomen till they reach the sky.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Your assessment of goons in general- and the two of us in particular- is... shall we say, *unique*. Goons are typically not ax-crazy, mad, or indiscriminate. If anything, good goon Dom3 players (of which I am NOT one) should have a reputation for being deliberate, conniving, and opportunistic. You can count on them to do exactly as they say they will, for exactly as long as it benefits them- and no longer.

Except for trades. No goon would dishonor a trade. No matter how sneaky.

The big difference between Shrapnel players and SA players is the mindset. Shrapnel seems to favor late 18th century to early 19th century rules of war- gentleman generals, upholding their honor on the field of battle. For one thing, you favor binding agreements, and some degree of professional courtesy.

Goons are more like the Great Houses of Dune. If you haven't heard from somebody, they're probably planning to invade you. If they have talked to you, they're either busy killing somewhere else (and want a nice, quiet border while they do it), or are trying to get you to drop your guard before they invade. The only agreement that is binding is one that is in the best interests of the goon, and even then, only until it stops being so. The only question in an alliance is who will break it first.

After all, this is a game of war. There can only be one winner. All alliances are, by definition, temporary, since no team can ever win the game. You can't have a pair be Pantokrator. In the end, you WILL have to fight everybody else, so maintaining an alliance is effectively pointless, unless it benefits you in the short term, or keeps another player from dominating the game.

Oddly enough, both Roland Jones and myself are generally less treacherous than most goons. Generally, if we say something, you can assume it to be the truth- more than you'll get from most goons. I won't say much more about RJ, except that we've always been able to keep things cordial, amicable, and honorable.

(Mind you, I might be lying about being honest/getting along with my fellow goon. You never know.

Paranoid yet? Good. You're ready for an SA game.)

Apparently, though, Corinthian is either relying on first impressions as he writes his opinions, or not reading my turns. When faced with a rapidly expanding enemy, the last thing you want to do is let them consolidate- and his own graphs show you just how well his expansion is going. A desire to stop him from taking all of the land flows rationally from that fact.

I had just wiped out a conventional army of his, with relatively trivial losses. As far as I could tell, I was facing a small group of giants, the remnants of the army I'd killed, and little else. The plan was to make a play for territory, quickly drive down to the edge of where I'd wanted to be anyway, and sue for terms based on a much more defensible border, cutting off one avenue of expansion in the process, and making it conceivably possible for me to keep the juggernaut off my back. There was both time and thought put into that plan, and I would've gone for immediate peace were it not for two things.

1. Fomoria was in territories I'd claimed as mine. (I mean, really? Did he not SEE the invisible signs I'd posted?)
2. I assumed that what I'd seen was representative of his armies as a whole, and figured I could intimidate him into a better border.

Suffice it to say that Cori would've been FAR better off to assume less insanity, more sense, and a LOT less knowledge on my part.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Having played in both communities:
-Goons typically prefer "I will not attack you in the next 10 turns" agreements over NAP 3s. I have come to share this view, cancelling a NAP 3 gives your opponent clear evidence you are going for him, quitly letting the 10 turn no war pact slide does not. There are also "We will not attack each other unless the other is looking really weak" pacts, which I recently had with thedemon. It stuck untill effing midgard ran away with the game because effing Mictlan put up Astral Corrpution and a Doom Horror at my mega gate stone troop leader (heroic leadership, he actually was not very strong otherwise....)
-Shrapnell players tend to view a non aggression based agreement as neccessary for trading/cooperating/sharing information. Goons do on occassion trade with people they are at war with.
-I would say that role playing is a bit more difficult in goon games, because the single mega thread + IRC is not very suited for it.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Well, regardless of any differences, its certainly nice to see some cross-fertilization. I just wish SA didn't require you to give them your credit card information or i think we'd see a lot more of it. Also the SA forum mega-thread is a really horrible way to do things. (having said bad things about SA- i must say i really like the goon players i talk to on theDemon's ICQ)

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

my 2 cents. I'm happy that there is more contact between the two communities. We might not all agree on everything. But difference in play styles and ideas is interesting.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

I've extended the turn lengths since they are taking a bit longer and it looked like maybe a few of us would stall- including myself.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

Turn 6: Confusion reign.

This is one of the turns were my recollection of what happened is different from what I saved in the H2 file. Possibly because I sent in a modified turn to the server and forgot to update the archives. I will be correcting the mistakes as well as I am able.
http://i.imgur.com/YGYHh.jpg
Three battles happen and once again no one dies. If only we could go on like this forever...

Oooh and I also won the bid for Dante's Stingers. A completely generic heavy infantry company of 30 men. They are useful because they can often expand on their own against weak indies with modest attrition.

http://i.imgur.com/Z0yMq.jpg
Only two giants this turn to compliment the three already in garrison. But why? Were did all my money go?
http://i.imgur.com/z8qbL.jpg
Oh that explains it. R'lyeh is expanding southwards and I was antsy that they might try a sneak attack upon my capitol. This early they might knock me out of the game if they succeeds with that. I raises the PD in my capitol by ten points to 35 just to be safe.
http://i.imgur.com/MKDlG.jpg
Otherwise nothing much happens. Expansion continues according to schedule. Though I am not entirely sure why I did not split the southern force that so valiantly defeated the barbarians in to two groups, and attacked two provinces? Possibly because I was not entirely sure who was beneath me and weather he was powerful? I could have used a big expansion force in case I would run in to an enemy expansion force? I know there is someone starting two provinces down but I have no idea who it is.

Turn 7: Second contact of the bad kind.

http://i.imgur.com/DU75l.jpg
Expansion continues to go splendid. Only casualties are four mercs who dies to lion tribe arrows and..... Wait? What is this? Two battles in the same province?
http://i.imgur.com/LgQMa.jpg
Oh... Well I guess I know who my eastern neighbor is.

http://i.imgur.com/bLVqv.jpg
My veteran warriors fought bravely. They battled to the last man without ever retreating. The only ones who left the field were my force commander and my cute prophet. But they were too important to die needlessly so they will just have to bear the shame.

Overall, I think my troops held up well against the enemy onslaught. The main problem was that the enemies were so numerous that they overwhelmed the Fir Bolg warriors 16 points of defense. And the enemy used one of Marvernis new national priest spells: “Strength of Boars” witch increases the strength of every friendly unit on the battlefield by 4. Meaning that almost every hit was a kill. The warriors held for a while as the slingers pelted the naked enemies with great results. But the warriors were soon overrun and the slingers who lacks the warriors high defense were cut down before they could flee.

That is one heck of an expansion force to conquer a province that my scouts told me contained only eight troops though. Almost looks like an invasion force to me. This worries me. Granted, Marverni got less than half my number of provinces and barely a third of my income. But I cant think of any other reason for such an army. Maybe he got an ally in R'lyeh?

To settle my worries I got in contact with Bluemage142 on IRC. I might have talked to him before this turn but I dont remember. I still have no chat logs, but I imagine the conversation went something like this:

See!? This is the power of diplomacy! Not that I think it prevented an attack, but rather that I was made aware of the attack. Armed with this knowledge I contemplate my options.
http://i.imgur.com/9LJ3T.jpg
I imagine various places Marv could attack and how to counter. But eventually I just decides to play it safe and focus all my efforts on this mysterious province I just noticed, Nardago. The strange thing about this province is that it has much higher income that what should be possible. Normally a province generates 1 gold for every 100 population a province contains. This province generates 43.6 gold too much. Or if you account for the fact that the province loses 5% of its income due to the heat then it might even be 50g too much. It took a long time for me to figure out why this was so. There are no visible mines in the province. And positive sites tend not to do anything unless you find them or unless they modify scales. Eventually, after a long while, I remembered that there is a random event that increases the income of a province by 50g permanently. This province must have gotten that event while it was still owned by the indies.

Anyway, I send my other expansion force of 5 giants to it and reinforces it with 28 points of PD.
http://i.imgur.com/xy7zo.jpg

You have probably noticed that I'm building a lot of PD. This might seem strange as most people consider Fomoria to have terrible PD. And in a way they are right. For the first 19 points of PD Fomoria only gets one giant militia and one Fir Bolg slinger per point of PD. The secret is that the PD gets much better at 20+. There, it will also get 2 Fir Bolg Warriors per point and those things are awesome. Furthermore, slingers are good versus the naked troops of Marverni and they all have between 12-13 MR, witch is great against R'lyeh.
http://i.imgur.com/8AFln.jpg
I send some fresh giants up towards the future front. Meanwhile the mercs and those giants too far away to get to the possible war in time, get to continue to expand. I finally remember to split the southern expansion army in to two, but I do not attack downward as that would put me inside the cap circle of whoever lives there. It is a bit strange that they have not yet captured a province located next to their capitol. But never the less I cant afford a two (three?) way war at this moment so I ignore them.

R'lyeh continues to expand southwards. I can only see 30 troops in the water and none elsewhere so I doubt he is in on any particular attack of Marvernis.

Ever so slowly, militia is being herded towards the capitol for some mysterious purpose....

Oh yea. I should probably state some irrational goals for this Let's Play. I'm told that's a tradition.

Here are my irrational goals that I had for this game:

1.Fomoria must be the biggest! No other nation can have more provinces on the province chart. If they do then I have to rectify that quickly. I will expand like crazy and then remain biggest for the rest of the game.

2.I must have the Isle of Balor. Or possibly Balor must have the Isle of Balor. Whatever.

3.I must never sign a NAP. This is mainly for the sake of the LP. If the wars get predictable then the LP gets boring. This will make for more excitement and random chaos. Although it will make thing hard on me as people tend to gang on the biggest player. Again, whatever.

Pangaea Turn 12
 

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

TURN 12:

http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/9317/turn12.png
I expect to have my capital besieged this turn, to face some burning ones with my minotaurs in the north.
He doesn't attack my capital but instead moves 4 Annointed of rhuax to face my northern minotaurs. Wow. 28 rp lost. I destroy a lab earned in a lucky event in the swamp north of Pangaea. No point gifting it to Abysia. [i]And a good idea to geet rid of it as I won't keep that province and may not see it back before long.[i]
A battle showed me that minotaurs against burning ones will lose in equal numbers, but my 12 minotaurs killed 2 of the 5 burning ones backed by 4 flare-casters. So, minotaurs can stand agaisnt burning ones and deal some damage. That's good to know.
I'm researching to get tangle vines and fire resistance next turn. Some sneak attacks behind Abysia's back to see what we can do. Recruit a dryad, some sneaky monkeys and minotaurs. I bring my prophet back near where her smite and dom spread can be useful. I try to blood hunt a bit more. Blood burst would actually be useful against a few burning ones but it's not like I'll ever research it. I'll face a lot, unfortunately, so I'll more likely stick with long term plans of alteration magic next. And that's really long-term. Abysia spent some PD on provinces at our borders, but not inside his realm, so I'm attacking 2 inner provinces this turn.

Overall, I am slowly losing my territories while Abysia is committing everything to fight me, leaving himself open for Arcoscephale to strike soon. The next updates will reveal how poor a tactician I am but will likely be of little interest to those who don't enjoy the sight of turtles.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Today’s turn AAR is brought to you by Peter Gabriel. About time I say!

So last time I posted, I was outlining an assault on some crystal amazons after herding all my forces together. I was expecting them to be tough so I threw lots of pixelmen at them.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=25f3y49" target="_blank"><img src="http://i45.tinypic.com/25f3y49.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>
We do suffer some losses- a lot of mind burns and a few arrows.

Getting back to some diplo.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=2qslz7m" target="_blank"><img src="http://i46.tinypic.com/2qslz7m.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

I actually got pretty nervous about this and wasn’t sure if it was a declaration of war or not. I asked some other players to see if they got similar messages and they didn’t so I expected war. I then wrote to Corinthian to ask him straight up if it was a declaration of war and he said no. But then I asked him for a NAP(3) and he said “he didn’t believe in them for a LP”- which actually makes perfect sense but drove my paranoia considerably.

So yeah…

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=mvqk9k" target="_blank"><img src="http://i45.tinypic.com/mvqk9k.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

Remember those philosophers? They are sort of doing what they are supposed to do… hitting the books hard that is… and it seems to be working. Caelum is out-nerding me… but not by a lot.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=dqkc5f" target="_blank"><img src="http://i49.tinypic.com/dqkc5f.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

And here is what the map looks like for a minor corner power.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Today’s turn AAR is brought to you by Journey.

On turn eleven we are still taking only one province per turn. I do manage to take the province without too great of causalities however.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=2jfepef" target="_blank"><img src="http://i48.tinypic.com/2jfepef.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

I also begin construction of a fortress on the province that had crystal amazons.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=noj7tl" target="_blank"><img src="http://i46.tinypic.com/noj7tl.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

So we are also planning an assault on a province with a truly large number of barbarians protecting it. I had made a deal with Corinthian to let me have that province- probably he didn’t want to spend the manpower to that many barbs.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=e61y6p" target="_blank"><img src="http://i46.tinypic.com/e61y6p.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

Winter strikes. There are two philosophers that gain the ‘diseased’ trait. This will hurt my research rate when they invariably die.


So, by this point I had tested some other arco builds, being very dissastified with the rate of expansion. I conclude that the sloth build for arco may have been viable in earlier version of the game but that the rate of income modification from the production scale is too great and impoverishes the player. Also, it greatly limits he rate of initial growth by limiting the number of troops one can hire. The strength is supposed to be that you save money by researching with philosophers instead of oreids or mystics but I would counter that with a production build you will make a lot more money because you will control way more provinces. The other end of this is that philosophers are old and you lose the research edge with nothing to show for it but dead philosophers; they cannot cast spells. If you choose to do your early research with mystics or oreids, then you can use them in battle… and you don’t lose them to old age.

All in all, I am very dissatisfied with my build but then again, I knew that it would be difficult to expand without an awake pretender and decided to proceed with it anyway. That was a mistake. If I were to do a sloth build again I would have taken an awake pretender. But more importantly, I would have taken a production build. I would be glad to hear someone argue the opposite point but that’s how I felt at this point in the game… and still do.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

yeah, I think the big point behind the arco sloth build is that you reseaarch some quick buffs & gear for your awake SC god, turning it into a destroyer of armies as quick as possible (just watch out for turkeys).

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

R'lyeh ~~ Turn 10

Soundtrack: A. Avkhimovich: The Sound Theory: 07. Brainfuzz


TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The triton cannot hear the tritoner;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

~~Wllii'am Bt-Ler Yts, the Poet Mind Lord

Penned to commemorate the worrying happenings in Lake Fortune last
month, this poem should turn out to be strangely prophetic. Worse
things are coming.

In the Great Blue, a Skallhög, king of the sea trolls, has sent one
of his captains to take the province.

http://i.imgur.com/W9UHF.png

http://i.imgur.com/xf8wF.png

Our troops are nowhere near. Our province defence consists of a traitor
prince and his henchmen, all two of them. The attacking army consists
of a lot of sea trolls.

http://i.imgur.com/f3tne.png

The outcome is unexpected.

http://i.imgur.com/TeL59.png

Did I write unexpected? I lied.

http://i.imgur.com/1k0Eo.png

Not all is gloom and doom, however. On land, R'yeh's finest continue
their foray on land, after having reduced mighty Ermor to picturesque
ruins. They turn north to storm-swept Bolfagon.

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

The outcome is... unsurprising.

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

The next target is fair Saeborea. It is defended by cavalry, maybe they
will be more of a challenge.

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

There is also some diplomacy. It appears that Corinthian (Fomoria)
directed both Bluemage142 (Maverni) and me (R- wait, you should know
that) to the same provinces in his north. Not sure if I mentioned it
already or forgot, but when Corinthian claimed Komoroo/the Isle of
Balor, he suggested me to expand into Numecria/Ermor.

The interesting bit about the geography is that there is no land
connection east from Bolfagon; the peninsula is only reachable via
Numecria. Or amphibious units. Or sailing.

Numecria also is the easiest path for Maverni to reach Fomoria ~~ there
is another connection further inland, but it is via a mountain
province. So Corinthian gains some protection and ideally causes me and
Maverni to get mad at each other.

However, we agree to be flexible about those provinces and work
together if and when we go to war against Fomoria.

This becomes a lot more likely a little later, causing me to revise my
turn. Originally Yöt-Webbogoth had orders to return east and liberate
The Great Blue once he got there (three turns later), but news from
Immaculate changes that.

He reports to have received a threatening message from Fomoria, and
suspects he will be attacked soon. I change orders to send
Yöt-Webbogoth north, where he will build a fortress off Fomoria's coast
and defend against possible aquatic incursions.

Offensive operations will have to be done my regular troops, since I
can't make amulets of the fish yet.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

The poem was inspired. Thanks.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Just so we're perfectly clear: it's Yeats' poem
The Second Coming with a very slight alteration. It is
awesome, but I cannot take credit ~~ unless you mean the choice
was inspired, in which case picture me nodding smugly.

And with, we continue our rapid catching up with:

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

R'lyeh ~~ Turn 11

SOUNDTRACK
A. Avkhimovich: The Sound Theory: 09. Uranium-238


Well, not quite as much happening this turn. In R'lyeh the cult of
Yöt-Webbogoth feels secure enough to extract additional contributions
from recalcitrant mind lords.

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

I bet there's more where that came from.

http://i.imgur.com/31FeM.png

Immaculate wants water gems. No idea what kind of deal we make.

The battle for Saeborea is indeed more interesting than the conquest of
Bolfagon. Well, slightly.

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

The army is positioned pretty far back, and the trolls are set to guard
commander, in an attempt to draw archer fire. The mind lords can take a
couple of arrows. It might have been smarter however, to position the
small stuff in such a way that they don't walk directly through the
fire zone on their way to the action. I guess I wanted them to catch
the cavalry first strike if any made it far enough?

It doesn't matter much, though. The attacking heavy cav is enslaved as
they approached and/or dies to the infighting that follows. The
survivors turn back and slaughter the light infantry that was following
them, assisted by atlanteans, lobo guards and mind blasts.

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

Then they all continue on to the horse archers. REAL horse archers
would proceed to give them a hard time, but these stand around like
chumps and take it. Until they rout.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

I know Yeats, poetry is one of my passions, I liked what you did with it.

In the MP i am in at the moment I am playing Tien Chi and am attempting to do the poet Li Bo justice.

Mike

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

If you want to catch fire is is usually best to just use one (archery is good in hitting large amounts of groups. (And lucky shots killing commanders, lone troops are usually safe ;) ) and to put it in front, set to guard commander.

The troll walks back to the commander, drawing the archers forward in pursuit.

You do want your arrow catchers to walk trough other troops. Sure it is one turn of missile fire, but otherwise you draw the attack closest enemy troops right toward your commander.

Minor note, the second aboleth is still at risk from stray arrows in this setup above.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Roland, Excist,

Whats up with the stales?

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

R'lyeh ~~ Turn 12

And another short update.

Soundtrack:

A. Avkhimovich: The Sound Theory: 12. In Memory of C64

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

Somebody found a site? Neat.

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

Yay, death gems!

There are two events in Smallsea, both of them bad.

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

People leaving? I didn't take turmoil... and turmoil is required for
this event. Hmm, it appears Pangaea did, which is not surprising. Damn
them to the Outer Void!

On the other hand, at least it's not two dozen angry sea trolls.

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

And now that we've had a polypal mother in R'lyeh for almost a year,
let's have a look at how much freespawn we collected.

http://i.imgur.com/P0vnV.png

Hmm, that's... not bad actually, considering that the dominion in
R'lyeh isn't even maxed out yet. I think there's at least one store-
bought gibodai but even so that's a lot. In fact it's a lot more
gibodai than show up normally. The lone atlantean is a coward/survivor
from Auluudh's army's first battle.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

(Yes, I have been lazy as of late. This should do for now.)

Turn 8:

<a href="http://imgur.com/lnjM7"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/lnjM7l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Hmm. Four battles. Since I ordered four battles, this is a good sign. Let's see how they went.

<a href="http://imgur.com/OjHNZ"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/OjHNZl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/qgY8R"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/qgY8Rl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/swO3L"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/swO3Ll.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Not too shabby, overall. First one ran into what looks like one point of province defense. Lost a mercenary, but took the province. The second was my new formation against some militia, which was an easy win. The mage didn't even bother casting spells. Fourth battle was one of my groups against 2 PD. Economy-wise, I lost that fight, but it is a province won, and that's worth it.

That third battle, though...

<a href="http://imgur.com/Ysm1Y"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Ysm1Yl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

That is a LOT of PD. At least 20 of it. To add to the fun, he's got a few of Fomoria's real units in there- the Unmarked (those guys with the purple shields), a Nemedian Champion (the mirage behind them, and a Fomorian Champion (the big guy in that mob, there). The last one was probably given to him at 20 PD, but the other six units are bad news.

<a href="http://imgur.com/HScHr"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/HScHrl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/f7F7k"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/f7F7kl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

The Champion is...difficult... to hit. 19 defense is quite impressive. Also, see that icon with the two men on it, below his stats? That's glamour, a really irritating ability. He makes mirror images of himself, which you have to hit before actually hitting him.

(Glamour has another, more insidious use, which I wish I'd thought about at the time.)

The Unmarked are bad news. 16 protection makes it hard for mere humans to actually deal damage to them, and 35 HP means they can take whatever gets past that armor. I COULD, mind you, but there's one other problem.

(The problem with Unmarked is that they're (relatively) expensive, sacred, and cap-only. This battle has one turn's worth of the things- in that time, MY cap can pop out 6-7 BCs for each of his giants. It doesn't take much to realize that, economically speaking, fighting Marverni with Fomorians is a losing proposition.)

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

I didn't bring enough men.

Luckily, diplomacy was achieved. I give those two provinces back, and no war. I withdraw my men, and redirect my attentions to the north and south.

No new mercs, no new magic (I miscounted RP), and I don't have enough gold to do much recruiting. I hold on to it, planning to save up for a fort.

This turn sucks. I don't have the heart to look at graphs right now, so have a picture of what happens when your screaming barbarians don't have good accountants.

<a href="http://imgur.com/Zq5HB"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Zq5HBl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Turn 9:

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

As expected. The first two messages were Fomoria taking back its provinces, as per the peace we brokered. Third was me grabbing a province between him and me, and the fourth was the new party headed into the southern forest. Between them, I lost about 13 units, and gained two provinces. Acceptable losses. The Archers in White are still mine, too, which is entirely a good thing.

<a href="http://imgur.com/I99JL"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/I99JLl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

I don't have the funds to do much recruiting, since I want my first fort up soon. I grab another Gut, pick up an indep commander in the west, and give orders.

<a href="http://imgur.com/Thtg8"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Thtg8l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

The group to the south is taking the forest area well enough, and the western army is being recalled for reinforcements. They'll be headed north, next.

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

Thaum2 finishes next turn, so I'll have to change research. Alteration will give me the keys to the castle, as it were- ways to keep my oh, so very expensive Druids alive, and make my oh, so very cheap BCs far more effective in battle.

This really isn't a big turn, because a fort is EXPENSIVE. I make 661 gold a turn now. The cheapest forts cost 800, and I've seen some cost 1200. That's two turns of NOTHING else- no recruitment, no upkeep- NOTHING. Luckily, most all of Marv's forts (each nation has a few different types of fort, each built in different terrain types) are 800-gold cheapos. Figure that my 661 income is actually 544, after unit upkeep. 544, plus the 331 I have now, is 875. I can start fort construction next turn, and that makes this one worth it.

Turn 10:

Nothing much happened this turn. Here's the details.

<a href="http://imgur.com/F8PuX"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/F8PuXl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/xbAFU"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/xbAFUl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/NNUJz"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/NNUJzl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

So Caelum prophetized a mage. Interesting. Must've wanted some more dominion- I'll have to check the graphs. That second event is quite nice- 50 more pounds of income is a good chunk of my total income right now. The unrest bothers me not, since it's on a province worth 16 gold.

<a href="http://imgur.com/e5p8z"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/e5p8zl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

News, it seems. There's Helheim to the east. Fomoria is to the south as well- how big ARE these guys?! Nothing too surprising.

(This is the point where I should've been panicking. That much land is NOT a good sign.)

Thaum2 is finished, so I set all my RP into Alteration. Alt1 will finish next turn. Now, for my biggest mistake this turn.

<a href="http://imgur.com/xom1s"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/xom1sl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

See this? This is a fort not being built. I forgot that my commander would take a turn to get to the build site. Painfully dumb of me.

Recruited reinforcement infantry, another mage, and PD enough to keep scouts from stealing my southern provinces. There will be construction next turn, I SWEAR!

Turn 11:

<a href="http://imgur.com/Ciq3Q"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/Ciq3Ql.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Nothing really special here. Somebody outbid me for my archers, but I'm to the point where I don't really need them any longer. The battle went smoothly, and I got hit with a dominion loss in Kratas, here.

<a href="http://imgur.com/AVZJk"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/AVZJkl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>
<a href="http://imgur.com/0be3Q"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/0be3Ql.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

Like I said, nothing to worry about.

<a href="http://imgur.com/iRDE0"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/iRDE0l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

This, on the other hand, sucks. Caelum has grabbed two provinces I sort of need. Worse yet, I know from diplo that he's blocking Helheim's only other way out of the NE peninsula. There will be a war there, and I don't know who with. Oh, and Pangaea is down there, too. I'd make war, but my connection to the homeland is rather weak.

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

CASTLE. BEING BUILT. This should've happened three turns ago.

<a href="http://imgur.com/9cZs5"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/9cZs5l.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

NW expansion force is on its way, though I know that there's going to be diplo involved. R'lyeh has the tip of that peninsula. My current goal is to take some of it peacably, and aim him at Fomoria as part of a combined strike. Then take the rest in return for some of Giantland. We'll see how well that pans out.

None of the other barbarians are worth anything, I don't have the money for troops, and research is right where I want it. Another Gutuater, and that's the turn.

Turn 12:

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

Everything here is as expected. That first notice means that, over the next few turns, any nation that decided to create a dormant pretender god will have it appear in their capital. This would be a cause for joy and celebration... if I were one of them. More on that later. The battle was won rather cheaply, and the event was water gems.

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

No armies on the horizon, which is good. Right now, I'm consolidating my position- fancy-talk for 'I'm scared to get into a war, so I want to get EVERYTHING figured out first'. My western army is good enough to keep going, so I send it on, while sending my scout deeper into Fomoria. Helheim is has some DEEEEEVIOUS PLANS involving teleportation, so I'm scouting out arrival sites for him. I'll have the gold for my third fort next turn, so that's what my southern army is waiting for.

<a href="http://imgur.com/h6HHc"><img src="http://i.imgur.com/h6HHcl.jpg" title="Hosted by imgur.com" alt="" /></a>

FINALLY. The time of the Druids approaches. I intend to crank one of these buggers out every turn from here on out.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

With some spare troops, and a indie commander you can easily overtax. Gets the first castle so much sooner. Works great with growth. (Which you have ;) ).

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

Turn 8: We have seen the enemy. They are naked!?!

http://i.imgur.com/UkUVo.jpg
An unusually eventful turn! Our first level of magic research has been completed by the lonely nerd that we left back in the capitol with the quills. To alleviate his loneliness he has invented a method of raising corpses by blasting them with lightning. This discovery does not help anyone.

http://i.imgur.com/UDS3F.jpg
A magic mound is also found outside the Crystal Amazon settlement. Death is one of the two magic types that we have good access to, so it is highly useful.

And our expansion is going better than ever! Six battles!

But wait! Aren't some of those provinces mine already? Oh yea! Marverni said he was gonna attack me this turn. It very sportsmanlike of him to announce this to me ahead of time, but I still feels like that it is a bad idea to fight this early in the game while so many indie provinces still stands. Especially as neither of us have a real rush build.

I wonder how it went?
http://i.imgur.com/HH9Pv.jpg
He seem to have split his forces in order to take as much of my land as possible. Two losses and one victory for me. Though I seem to have killed about 2/5's of his forces in my defense. Furthermore, the only province that was actually valuable, Nardago, with its strange gold income, remains in my custody.

Two battles were pretty much walkovers due to me putting up only token PD. But what about the third battle?
http://i.imgur.com/ZmFvl.jpg
Overkill! Due to the bad scripting of my Unmarked, they winded up in the back behind the PD and barely got a stab in. The PD however behaved in an excellent fashion. The militia cant hit well but they are strong enough to punch straight through the Bare clad's shields and cause damage that way. They are also tough enough to withstand a few hits. The Fir Bolg warriors filtered through the militia. Because the militia is size 4 and the warriors size 2 they can both fit in the same square. And the Warriors can both hit and oneshot BC's . Finally although slingers are normally not very good and fomorias 11g slingers are outright bad, any ranged weapon works great vs BCs due to them not having any armor.

The outcome of the battle was never in doubt. I might even have beaten all of his armies that attacked me if they had all attacked here. And although the 28 points of PD was expensive the enemies losses cost roughly as much and atleast I get to keep the PD. You never know when some random powerful PD surprise an enemy! (This investment in PD will turn out to be very useful indeed, in time.)

http://i.imgur.com/mPLio.jpg
Eventually I talk with Bluemage and we both agrees that it is stupid to fight when there are so many indy provinces left in close view. He agrees to give back the provinces he took and I promises to not go for any of the indies to the north east. This is fine to me as I was planing to stop there anyhow. Invisible borders and whatnot.

I am fine with peace because, clearly, I expand much faster than him. In peace my power will grow faster than his power and although I am already both more powerful and richer than him, I gain more from attacking easier prey than another player.
http://i.imgur.com/vxq1R.jpg
To the south I send a third party of Unmarked to join forces with the two already there in order to beat the province with the huge number of barbarians. My scouting reports put them at between 90 and 140. I dont think that number of barbarians can exist naturally so I assume that a barbarian province got invaded by barbarians. As ridiculous as it might sound. My troops fair badly vs barbarians, true. But that is the province with the growth scales in it and maybe I feel like gambling?

Furthermore I can tell that the province to the south of me have sloth scales witch makes me think that it might be Arco that I got down there.
http://i.imgur.com/sHhTP.jpg
In the capitol I feel like trying something new. I'm at peace now and I dont need further expansion forces. Instead I'm recruiting something that could be useful in upcoming wars.
http://i.imgur.com/Hu8fo.jpg
Nemedians are the Fir Bolgs older, and much more competent cousins. They have better stats in pretty much everything and they have magical golden weapons. More importantly, they have stealth and glamor, meaning that the enemy will not see them before its too late. How they can stealth while clad in shining gold is a mystery, but they can!

Unlike Fir Bolgs, Nemedians are not cheap and they requires surprisingly many resources to construct. But thats why you have a scale build. And even if I do not have any direct use for them now, the glamor means that the enemy will not see them and will not plan for them when contemplating war against me. Even on the statistics screen they dont count as more than a militia.

Originally I bought Nemedian Champions because they were cheap and reliable commanders to use with my Unmarked. But some later assessment shows that they are in fact awesome. More on that later.

There is also a Nemedian sorceress to complete the series. But you will never see her because she is mopey and terrible. Just about anything she can do, a fomorian king can do better.

They will join my garrison, and... What is this?
http://i.imgur.com/KTNng.jpg
Suddenly, poorly dressed humans crowds the streets of Fomoria!

How to explain this? Well Immaculate had a good idea earlier. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAyogqIdyzY#t=2m10s" target="_blank">Let me explain my feelings through song!</a>

http://i.imgur.com/KWjkn.jpg
Gold in the early game is more important than gold in the late game so I have no reason to not squeeze my capitol for all its worth. This gold will be more than what several of my enemies get combines and will fuel an new Fomorian construction boom to compensate for the old bubble that collapsed. Once winter comes I might even get rid of that pesky heat scale point I took. (No it wont! Almost everywhere but the capitol will lose the heat point!)

I also put in a new minimum bit for Dantes stingers. I dont think anyone might challenge me for them as they have taken casualties and might lose half their remaining numbers from the upcoming battle.

Turn 9: We get better neighbors.

http://i.imgur.com/nyEGK.jpg
Five battles. And for once they are five conquests. Only casualties are 2 mercs. Though two of the battles are just me retaking undefended provinces that Marv took from me during the One-Turn-War.

In Chilad, a couple of children finds two earth gems. Their fathers are not very impressed, but the children seem endlessly proud.

And in Fomoria, the militias hunt for filthy people have begun for real.
http://i.imgur.com/p9brj.jpg
We finally meat our southern neighbor. And as I had guessed, its Arco. It is being played by my friend Immaculate. I immediately send my newly recruited Nemedian warriors down to Arco to scout out his weaknesses and prepare for a potential attack. Despite the size of my empire I have not found a single scout province.

I said earlier that Arco can be considered one of the weakest nations in the Early Age. This statement needs an explanation. Arco can be really strong or really weak depending on whom it winds up next to. If it starts next to a heavy infantry nation like Abysia, then it is a monster because its were-chariots can trample and their armor piercing attacks can easily bypass heavy armor.

The Were-Chariot is all that Sloth build arco have going for them though, and size 4 chariots are completely worthless against size 4 giants. And due to the sloth, they will not be able to build a lot of other units. And guess what? All my sacred giants are size 4-6! He would normally also be able to counter me with magic and he does have good research. But I'm betting that all that research was made possible through non-magical philosophers. And those guys could not cast Flying Shards to save their lives. It should be a walkover.

I dont attack him right now however, as I have better things to do. I do send him a friendly, and vaguely threatening message that was though to have been lost in the sands of time, but can be read in one of Immaculats posts above.
http://i.imgur.com/xq3rL.jpg
I though I said that I would be building castles this turn but it turns out I burned all my money on other things. Namely a Fomorian King with retinue! The king alone almost cost half a castle all by his wholesomeness.

http://i.imgur.com/Nfr3c.jpg
These babies are the main reason anyone ever play Fomoria. Few nations have anything comparable in power and almost no other nation have recruitable SC that can also teleport without boosters. (Well, Hinnom and Ashdod on occasion.) I mainly designed my bless to benefit these guys. And with it they regenerates 11 hp/turn and have only enc 3. More about how I get around the rest of the enc problem later.

They come in 3 flavors depending on what randoms they get.

The First flavor is the A4D2 one. These guys are just like eagle kings that cost 100g extra and dont fly and... well I bet they can take an eagle king in a fist fight and thats all that maters. A4 is useful for all manner of things, but in the short term they will probably get pigeon holed in to the roll of thunder-strikers.

The Second flavor is the A3D3 one. It it mainly useful due to being my only D3 access and thats always cool. It is too expensive to do any real skelly spamming, but after a lot of alteration research it can eventually become a SC with the help of the Soul Vortex spell.

The Third flavor is the real SC of the group. The A3W1D2 guy that can cast quicken self. He need very little gear and research, so you will probably see him thugging far sooner than the others.

http://i.imgur.com/rAmtX.jpg
Out in the hills to the northeast of my capitol, a Crystal Sorceress is finally being recruited. This means that I have broken in to astral magic at last. Yay! This is important when you are living next to R'lyeh.

http://i.imgur.com/Wounw.jpg
Many of my expansion parties stops their conquest here, and start site searching instead, as they have ran out of viable enemies to attack. The amazons have been promised to Marverni.

The commanders only got A1D1H1(D) but I suspect that 1 in a path is enough to find 50-60% of all sites in a path. And air and death are the kind of magic that I need the most.



Turn 10: Motherland! Here we come!

http://i.imgur.com/8McI3.jpg
The various site searching pays out unexpectedly well for this light level of looking around.

http://i.imgur.com/8S2ac.jpg
A total of 4 extra gems are pretty nice. I have also previously gotten an extra 3 gems from sites that are automatically reveled when you capture a province. This means that I am now number one in gem income with a total of 14 gems/turn!

Two provinces are also captured. The brave mercenaries fight almost to the last man but eventually prove victorious. These guys have definitely been worth their money. Having singlehandedly captured four provinces for only 337 gold.

http://i.imgur.com/YcMEa.jpg
Oh wait. Having looked at the battle it turns out that the only reason I won was because 3 crippled mercs did not have time to leave the battlefield before the enemy. Praise redacted!


But there is something wrong with the event list here. Something is not there that really should be.
http://i.imgur.com/2M9AR.jpg
The combined power of all my 80 hustlers did not manage to find a single victim to sponge money from! Unrest is spiking from this and I am forced to lower my taxes for a while.

And finally, as see above, an expedition to recapture the Isle of Balor is being levied.
http://i.imgur.com/sbhBz.jpg
I have no idea what kind of barbarians the new tenants might be so I send a comparably large force. One of the many qualities of Fomorian Kings is that they can sail over water provinces. Bringing every troop under their command with them without touching the ocean in between.

The force consist of a line of giant, sacred spearmen that will hold the line. Meanwhile the smaller Fir Bolgs will filter through the legs of the spear-man formation and launch surprise attack against whoever is attacking the giants. Brilliant!

In the speshul province of Nardago, a fort is finally being built. My prophet has been preaching there for a while in order to bring them my excellent scales.
http://i.imgur.com/Ki0MR.jpg
Another army is being recruited in the capitol in order to prepare for the upcoming war against Arco.
http://i.imgur.com/Mtq5L.jpg

On the diplomacy front, Immaculate and I send several messages back and forth in witch I reject the concept of having NAP3s in AARs. I also subtly hints that he should attack Abysia as they would probably be busy fighting Pan right now. We also agrees that he can take the barbarian province to the north as I dont feel like wasting troops on it. After all, I can always take it from him later.

To Be Continued.....

Pangaea turns 13-16
 

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

TURN 13:

http://i.imgur.com/qqaP0.jpg
Abysia assassinated a commander of mine. My only indy commander in fact. Not a big deal, but it does mean I need to put some bodyguards on those non stealthy commanders of mine. Luckily, I only have one, who is a mercenary, and I don't care much about her.
I conquer Midria with my army of 10 harpies. Quite effective cost-wise :D
As expected, Abysia besieges Pangaea and wins but can't harm my walls. Also as expected, I take another abysian province that I'll lose next turn. But now he'll have to wonder where I go.
The situation is bad of course, but the problem is I am facing a very **** opponent.
I edited away the insult. I really feel that the whole move was utterly stupid. I believe Excist thought maenads were worthless in terms of defending sieges when they are in fact awesome. So his whole war was doomed to fail from the start but ruined the game for both of us because he made a bad assessment of my fort defense.
He cannot take Pangaea. I have so many maenads inside he'll never be able to breach the walls. Of course, the maenads will eat food, but what do I care? He takes some of my provinces, but I'll cause trouble in his backyard. What benefit does he expect? He'll get attacked in the back when all his forces are near/on my capital. Like I said, it's a lose/lose. To be fair, Excist is much brighter than what I portrayed here. He would try to preach me out. That's a good idea with H3 priests. Not so bright with a low dominion vs. a dominion of 9 and someone who can blood sacrifice. Also, committing all one's wizards to a rush means you lose about 40 turns of mage-research time plus the time spent besieging. That is suicidal, particularly considering your neighbors will inevitably attack you after a rush, either because you're losing and are an easy target, or because you won and look threatening. So putting all your forces in a short term benefit and neglecting research is really a bad idea.

Meanwhile, Fomoria built a second fort and R'lyeh a third fort!
Which is really what nations should be doing early on. Getting forts for mages to do some research.
I somehow don't see Abysia building a fort anytime soon. He'll have conquered indie provinces that I took, and left other indie provinces to Arcoscephale and Fomoria. He won't have my capital, ever. Never, I tell you.

I've made a lot of tests to see if my forces in the fort can defeat Abysia besiegers. Surprisingly, they can, but with a low probability. At best 2/3. One chance in three of losing the game now is still too much. It would still have been better than 1 in 2 a few turns later, though. So I bring back revelers and one more dryad. I need chaff. The tactics is to draw abysian troops to a side, considering he'll likely use the same placement as right now, which is a solid troop placement. Drawing to one side, casting tangle vines, I turn his burning ones into useless junk that minotaurs can turn to shreds. The problems are:
- tangle vines has a small AoE.
- tunes of growth would replace it fine, but it is very hard to place wizards well to use it.
- F** spellcasting ai wants to cast tune of fear on berserk abysians.
- I have too few minotaurs.
- Flares are what really kills my troops, since tangle vines protects them enough (I mean, the minotaurs and my god and casters, I don't care about maenad losses).

TURN 14:
http://i.imgur.com/YXDTb.jpg
This may be a bad idea, but turtling is boring. Arco should be attacking Abysia next turn. R'lyeh doesn't have any troop nearby. My tests indicate a 2/3 chance of winning for me. I brought some more maenads, some revelers and some dryads. I have better magic, but that's mostly irrelevant. The mercenaries I bought should cause some more trouble inside Pangaea lands.
If I fail, my surviving Pans can sneak back inside and hopefully hold the walls while my pretender will hopefully do suicide come-backs.
I also discover that maenads are generated AFTER an attack, not at the same time. So my mercenary archers attack a 20 PD province, get killed, and only afterwards do a dozen maenads pop up and flee. Please color me silly for not checking that before playing. I can say all I want about Excist's maenad assessment, but mine is also quite faulty. With a bit of luck, seeing the maenads will make Abysia think my Pan(s) is (are) moving south and will divert some of his troops, but that's unlikely to have any effect. I wonder why none of the maenads fled to a neighboring province. Might be a bug.

TURN 15:
http://i.imgur.com/FDpU5.jpg
Big battle expected. Abysia played well in preaching there, so my god is no longer immortal. This means game over:

http://i.imgur.com/OAlll.jpg
Abysian deployment. Exactly the same as before, but more misbreds and 1 more annointed, as expected.
http://i.imgur.com/AieSV.png
Pangaea deployment. Minotaurs down, slightly back so as not to draw the first fire. God in front in order to cast resist fire first. The rest up to draw enemies this way. Archers to shoot at fliers.
http://i.imgur.com/AWIoe.png
OOOPS!!! Huge mistake. I didn't order these dudes to hold and attack. Hopefully they'll just get killed so my songs will kick in in range. That's a small misplacement, but every single soldier mattered and, combined with the +1/-1 morale from unfriendly dominion, it counts a lot.
The result is a rout. My minotaurs didn't attack straight the regular infantry on the right contrary to all my tests, but ran into the burning ones immediately. This ment that I didn't kill those 5 or 6 abysian infantry which would have provided crucial hp loss for the opponent morale check.
I'm bringing my Pans back and the maenads to defend the fort. It's not too damaged, so hopefully maneads can hold it, but that's not certain. Still, it should take Abysia a few turns to dent it as they have a very low troops count there.
I don't usually play Pangaea, and I'm not a patient person. I will have to learn to turtle in this game. I should have done that already, but waiting it out till I get Mother Oak inside my capital sounds so boring... Not that I'll ever be able to cast Mother Oak, mind you.

TURN 16:
http://i.imgur.com/9teeN.jpg
My dominion is sinking in my capital. I got some maenads who spawned, but only a dozen. I have no idea why I sent a Pan in the north. My priests are preaching in their temple, ans are researching and one summons vine men, just to check how many I get. They are mindless, so they don't help much at repairing walls, but 10 of them would be worth 1 burning one in defense. Monkeys are also coming back to help and will be there in 3 turns. My defense is 229 out of 250, so it's rather good as it should hold long enough.
I also try to build a fort in the north, hoping the abysian reinforcements go to my capital rather than try to take the mountains. this is called wishful or desperate thinking.
Arco took one province, but failed to take another one.
R'lyeh is out there in the south, probably to attack my island, maybe the troll province, but more likely myself or the two indie land provinces.
I grabbed this screenshot, so I guess R'lyeh attacked on turn 16 in fact:
http://i.imgur.com/kVu6X.png

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

cool aar

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

R'lyeh ~~ Turn 13

Our research has been pretty abysmal so far. Nevertheless, we have
reached something of a way point. The first school we researched was
Conjuration, and this turn the busy monster fish have succeeded in
unlocking the secrets of the second level.

http://i.imgur.com/CO7g1.png

As you can see, the spell we're most interested in is Dark knowledge, a
remote site searching spell. Finds all death sites in a province, costs
three death gems, one more than most other site searching spells. There
are also some actual summons we could use, but we're not interested in
them. We're waiting for more powerful stuff.

For now, the new research target is thaumaturgy 2:

http://i.imgur.com/gq29Z.png

We're aiming for a bunch of different site search spells and more
importantly this one:

http://i.imgur.com/Td9Gl.png

Could come in very handy to move out mages quickly. Could be we're not
going to use it, but if there's a problem in the southwest, the big
stuff can arrive quickly.

There is an interesting development in the distant south east:

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

Looks like war. Let's play vulture.

http://i.imgur.com/W8nER.png

Like Leprechauns, the Abominable Mind Eaters of the Deep bring good luck!

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

A great victory for the heroic diplomatic corps of R'lyeh. Note that
I'm not all that surprised; I doubt that Excist wants me to jog his
elbow, and this way he doesn't have to divert resources to keep those
provinces pacified. "Nice war you're having here, be a shame if
something happened to it..." LdiCesare, on the other hand, is hardly in
a position to object.

Obviously I'd have preferred the whole island, but let's not get greedy
now. More greedy, I mean. Not right now, that is.

Meanwhile, in the sea of Underhome, off the Fomorian coast, the traitor
pronce Ra'ntegoth has completed our third fortress. He and Auluudh
march south to conquer the land we claimed.

http://i.imgur.com/v9egp.png

In R'lyeh, a momentous event has occured:

http://i.imgur.com/7Ggrk.png

So sue me, I lied again. Here's the host of mermen:

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

And here's a close-up of one of these miserable creatures:

http://i.imgur.com/pv9aI.png

Hmmm, morale 10 isn't horrible, compared to some other stuff we have. Nets can be very useful at times, too. It's a once-per-battle attack that if it hits reduces the target's defense massively and stops it from attacking until it breaks free. How long that takes is probably based on strength in some way.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

R'lyeh ~~ Turn 14

Our army of aboleths scouring the ocean floor has some success. They find a curious field of ethereal clams that sift starlight instead of water and cursed island that is impossible to find unless one knows the secrets of certain constellations and just as impossible to leave for the poor souls stranded there.

http://i.imgur.com/tHo2y.png

It seems fate favours R'lyeh again. Taxes flow like the great currents, and even better, on the abyssal plain near R'lyeh a sunken Fomorian ship from the time of their exodus is found. Maybe it sunk because one thousand pounds of gold were a bit to heavy?

http://i.imgur.com/s7Pxc.png

The lost treasure is immediately put to use: across the world, in Lake Vastness, Nyarlathotep commands the construction of another fortress. The actual work is overseen by a local triton who has seen the light (the mad, leering light of the green star Phna'ghshug). Nithü the shark-taming Slave Mage is in charge of building the lab. You may have noted that it was him who found the clam field: go Nithü!

Maverni (Bluemage142) wants Numecria after all. I want Maverni to have good access to Fomoria, and it's just a land province. If we go to war at a later time, I'll be able to get it back easily enough.

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

The mermen in R'lyeh didn't come with a leader, so I buy them one. Since they need normal leadership, it'll be a traitor prince.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

Turn 11: Interlude

http://i.imgur.com/9v0LW.jpg

A short and eventless turn.

150 extra gold in taxes are had due to a mild winter in the mountains of Cimri. Snakeys heat dominion keeps the snow at bay and the roads usable.

The other main event of importance is that The Isle of Balor, sometimes known as Koromoo, has been returned to its rightful owners!

http://i.imgur.com/DzySA.jpg
I was right in bringing a large force, as the enemy turned out to, in fact, *be* barbarians. Two Unmarked and two Fir Bolgs dies to their madness. This marks the first time in the game thus far that an unmarked have died. Those thing are surprisingly sturdy.

http://i.imgur.com/uH5GO.jpg
Desmond and his men spend some time on the island admiring the scenery and partake in the ancient Fomorian arena culture. But its just not quite what he remembered. Eventually he decides that his nostalgia has gotten the better of him and returns to New Fomoria and his work.

On the east front, expansion is happening at a comfortable pace. Actually I have slowed down my expansion a bit in order to not over extend myself. I though from previous diplomacy that Marverni was going to have the provinces in the forest so I only slowly made my way there. Many of my commanders are instead occupied with site searching.

Dante, for the crime of cowardice, is sent on a mission to negotiate with the horse tribe people.


Turn 12 End-of-Year-Wrap-Up.

http://i.imgur.com/I3Uni.jpg
Lots of people searched for magic sites this turn. But only one was successful.

http://i.imgur.com/nbvHU.jpg
A ****ty death mage finds yet another ****ty death site. Well, many streams small and all that.

http://i.imgur.com/NVn1P.jpg
Armies conveys in the province of Isurian for a mysterious meeting. There they talk of war and conquest, but not everyone is happy with the current course of action. They say that the omens are against us and that we should wait.

http://i.imgur.com/yrqDY.jpg
The Kings of fomoria will not listen to that ear however. They gather a mighty host and continues their preparations.

http://i.imgur.com/Xc0Sa.jpg


As this is turn 12 ,witch many considers to be an important turn in a game, I will have a graph wrapup to show people how the game have proceeded thus far.

http://i.imgur.com/2WWE6.jpg
Oh wow. This Graph really is rather impressive from my perspective. I count 24 provinces at turn 12, witch is almost twice the average of the other players. There is no wonder that my neighbors fear me. Exiting!

Despite that I have actually slowed down my expansion a bit in order to get more manageable borders. You really dont want more neighbors than necessary. So Marverni holding the forest in the center of the map prevents me from sharing a border with Caelum and Pangaea. It is my opinion, that from a psychological perspective, it is hard to attack someone who does not share a border with you. Not to mention the logistical problems and the problems of holding ground in a part of the world not connected to the rest of your empire.

This is why I prefer normal maps to wraparound maps. In the later the biggest player will always have so many boarders and fronts that he can not focus much on anything and risks being overwhelmed. On this map however, I only have three neighbors. So even if they were all to attack me all of a sudden, at most I would only have to fight 3 people at once. Thats the theory anyway.

It is too bad that its no longer going so well for Abysia, as I was counting on him to soak up some of the threat factor for me. But no such luck. I can tell from all the graphs combined that he is fighting Pan though. And I'm trying to convince Arco to attack his unprotected back.

http://i.imgur.com/uhZMB.jpg
Another interesting graph. You can clearly see were I started to overtax my capitol. Before that I was not leading as much, compared to the province graph, because most nations get the lion share of their income from their capitols were they have good castles and scales. Still, my income is even more huge when counted after my upkeep. This should leave much gold for infrastructure projects witch I am building around my lands.

http://i.imgur.com/d5uiS.jpg
Despite finding only minor sites that can be uncovered with a mage with only one point in a path, I am still in the lead, even here. The fact that Aby has stolen gem income from Pan is one of the reasons I know they are at war.

The rest of the graphs are either not interesting or not flattering to me so I will leave them be for now.



Turn 13: A view to a kill.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wijkse6fuiY#t=1m6s" target="_blank">Oh, and taking inspiration from Immaculate again, you really should listen to this song while reading this turn in order to get the proper feel for things.</a>

This is it gents! This is war!

http://i.imgur.com/wZcWK.jpg
My armies will launch a three pronged assault on Arco. The expansion force to the center will go for the growth province, the stealthing Nemedians will attack the entry province next to his capitol and the major army will simply sail over the seas and land on the other side of his capitol. Next turn the two groups will siege it and with the help of my strong giants they should be able to break down the walls to the helpless philosophers in just 2 turns. After that it is over for arco, and the rest will be just mop-up work. The Chariots he have been relying on until now are completely unsuitable for fighting my giants. So while he might be able to raid my provinces still, he will not be able to break the siege.

Even if my other neighbors take offense to this it will take a few turns for them to get their asses in gear. And by the time they have done that Arco will be a nonentity, thus allowing me to divert my forces to fight my other neighbors.

It is a perfect plan and I'm a genius! :D


To be concluded....

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Oh Noes!!!!

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Man... I was rooting for Pangaea and was curious about Marverni and Helheim, but... It seems that even though I had three picks, none of them turns out too positive for the moment, except for Marverni who is doing okay-ish.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

I wanna say that this is great guys. I love AARs and I read this from start to finish. Keep up the good work and I hope you will finish it. I wish there were more AARs like this.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

I'm also enjoying this thread very much and have been reading it avidly. Keep it up! :)

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

Where are the updates?

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

I'll probably get a few this weekend- i was on vacation so i've fallen behind.

Thanks for cracking the whip because that is a VERY good question indeed!

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

I will probably post an update tomorrow. The entire game is on pause due to Immaculate's vacation so no one is thinking of the game much. Even though we probably should use the time to get ahead on our writing.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

I'll post a bunch of updates together in a few weeks. I don't have much to say anyway and I think it's better to have several turns grouped together.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 8-9)
 

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

This one's a weird story/gameplay hybrid. It menaces with tentacles of oneiroplasmic goo.

R'lyeh ~~ Turn 15

Soundtrack: Brad Sucks - I Don't Know What I'm Doing: I Think I Started a Trend.

Messages pass back and forth along the aether: The mystics of
Arcoscephale turn and toss in their sleep, haunted by horrible dreams
of vast fish-creatures wallowing in slime and darkness and unnumbered
coiling pale and puckered tentacles. Yet they sense significance, a
meaning, even intent, trained as they are in the interpretation of
oneiric visions.

Something that lives in the deep wishes to ascend to the world of air
and light.

Perhaps they should have ignored these dreams, deadened their senses
with subtle drugs, but they sensed power, ancient and occult, behind
their visions. And so they decide to send a message back. And in their
lust for power, they make an offer. For in Arcoscephale the crafting of
magical gadgets and instruments is an art far advanced beyond the
skills of other realms. And in the conquered undersea territories where
the tears of mermaids are collected, the overseer-slaves jab their
coral prods with vigour, for there is a shipment to be made.

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

Meanwhile, in the desert of Ard, a white-winged being of unearthly
splendour stands alone in the barren waste. Does it know of its
servants' dealings? Is it deceived? Does it accept dark deeds in the
pursuit of the greater good? Even though it is named with a song, it
remains silent, while the desert sands blow out over the sea.

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

In the utmost north, where far below the floating mountains of ice a
fortress of dark stone crouches. There a slave-priest toils with a
ceremonial bucket to prepare the inner chambers for the polypal
mothers. So vile and unspeakable are the necessary rituals and
abasements that only slaves will perform them. Slaves, and the one
known as Nyarlathotep. But then the one known as Nyarlathotep is also
known to be a creep.

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

A chieftain of the Maverni, Catamantaledes by name, has heard of the
prophecy the druids gave concerning Ermor in Numecria: "If Ermor
conquers Nume, the conquest of the world shall begin at Ermor." To be
more exact: he had heard the second half. Some would recall that the
bard who told him came from the mist-shrouded west, and some would
remember that his gray eyes were empty of smiles and full of stratagems.

With barbarian cunning, this Catamantaledes planned to take advantage
of the prophecy. By planting his throne on the ruins of once proud
Ermor, he hoped to become invincible in battle. Or at the least, he
hoped to gain fame and attract many warriors to his cause.

http://i.imgur.com/cyf7A.png

Thundering warcries and waving their axes, Catamantaledes and his
warriors burst over the tumbled walls of Ermor.

http://i.imgur.com/y5rtv.png

However, the druids have sent warning ahead of him, for they would not
risk war with the masters of the ocean deep for one chieftain's foolish
ambition. Yet luck or fate smiled on Catamantaledes: the inscrutable
creatures of the deep also eshewed confrontation. They had left only a
herald behind; a hulking atlantean in clad in spiked gray metal. What
he was to say, the Maverni never learned, for they were so disgusted by
the herald's toad-like appearance that they immediately hurled a volley
of javelins at him and cut down his attendants as they fled. Thus was
Ermor conquered the second time.

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

And not far to the north in a dingy Bolfagonian tavern two men sit
across a low table. One is a fisherman, but with a curious and
unwholesome slackness of expression uncommon for men of his stripe. The
other is a sharp-eyed old man, magnificently bearded. His clothes look
drab and nondescript, but in a manner difficult to remember and
impossible to describe.

The fisherman places a pouch on the table, the rough hemp at home
between the ale stains.

"This is it?" asks the bearded one.

"Open it," answers the fisherman.

The bearded man reaches out and pulls the bag across the table. It is
larger than it seemed at first. He undoes the frayed string and the
pouch gapes open. With a gasp, he speaks a word of power, shrouding it
from the sight of the uninitiated. Nobody hears it: it is one of the
word's powers that it is forgotten save by those trained in the magic
of air and seeming.

For a while, the bearded man merely gazes at the perfection before him.
Flawless pearls, the size of eyeballs, the colour of the full moon at
midwinter. Perhaps a hundred. "Yes," he hears himself say, "you will
have my services." A moment later, he adds: "For the next three moons."

http://i.imgur.com/6C6Gg.png

And in the distant south-east, in the war-torn land of Ultima Delca, a
message scroll bursts into flames.

The misbred commander shakes the flakes of burning paper off his hand.
"So R'lyeh will not attack them, despite our generous offer?"

The human standing before him pales even further. "They... they said
they had already left the sea, on another shore."

"Can't be helped, then. It was worth a try. Now: how far have the
Arcoscephalans advanced?"

~~~

How far have the Arcoscephalans advanced, indeed? My scouting is pretty
spotty to nonexistant (the latter really), since there's no independant
underwater scouts. And isn't that an Abysian talking? Well, consider
that scene a teaser. Updates by Excist and Immaculate will maybe make
things clearer...

Arcosephalae Turn 12
 

WHITE WEDDING awakens!

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=b4au60" target="_blank"><img src="http://i49.tinypic.com/b4au60.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

Good morning sleepy-head!

Also, this turn, I get some nature gems from Pangeaa.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=ic5map" target="_blank"><img src="http://i48.tinypic.com/ic5map.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

I wonder why. Maybe I am being bribed to attack someone (and leave my back open to attack by Formoria- maybe the trick is on me?)

We also manage to take a province with LOTs of indie barbs. Formoria generously offered to let me take it without making any claims to it despite how close it is to their lands and their extensive armies.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=2vm8101" target="_blank"><img src="http://i46.tinypic.com/2vm8101.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

We do lose many troops but they are largely our mercenary barbarian forces under Rexor.

Here’s a look at the map after the end of the turn.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=96aic0" target="_blank"><img src="http://i50.tinypic.com/96aic0.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

Next turn I intend to take an indie province with the best 80s song in the world all by herself.

Arcosephalae Turn 13
 

Brought to you by Blondie!

Our god attacks some heavy cavalry.

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=9bgm8g" target="_blank"><img src="http://i46.tinypic.com/9bgm8g.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

And wins without losses. As you can see, we’ve obtained alteration 3 and are putting it to good use I feel.

The rest of our forces reposition, not taking any more provinces this turn. We are preparing to take three more indie provinces next turn however. Remember, up until now, we have never taken more than one province in any one turn (I do believe).

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=15d1bit" target="_blank"><img src="http://i46.tinypic.com/15d1bit.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

Just a reminder of what I learned about from Corinthian for this turn…

Hateful little creature! Damn you and your dominant play!

Am I soon going to die? Did he not consider the strength of my Virtue? Can I turn this attack? What will happen?

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
 

I think I might need a bit of an extension, say 12 hours? Could be I can manage my turn on the original time, but in case I don't, it would be nice to have the buffer.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
 

Hosting postponed for SharedAAR by 14 hours. The game will now host at 18:11 GMT on Saturday June 9th.
Please note that this information will not be updated on the game status page for a few minutes.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
 

Cori,

Do you still want me to wait for your next update before i post mine?

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
 

The remaining dominant players seems ready to call it quits.

If anyone thinks the end is still in doubt, please say so otherwise i'm going to call this game over.

Please no one ruin the ending of how things went. Since this is a fairly short-lived game, i think we can probably all finish doing AAR write-ups, at least until the point where we got eliminated, even if its a glossy 3 or 5-turns at a time report.

Looking forward to seeing all your write-ups.

I.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
 

Don't mess it up guys! We are looking forward to the AARs. It would be a great shame if the AAR wouldn't be completed after so much effort was put into it. I'm only saying because I love AARs! :)

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
 

Hey, I need at least one more turn! Maybe two at most. I don't care what the dominant players think.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
 

alright - on we go!

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
 

Turn 13: Revised.

Welcome back after our long hiatus. It seems we all have taken a break from this thread for various reasons. But now that the game is mostly over I see no reasons why we can not start it up again. We do have more time now after all.

Music for the turn.

Oh yea. First. Lets make it clear that the things I posted last turn did not actually happen. This is because I changed my mind at the last moment. My plans were too precious to not write down in this thread so I had to fool you a bit.

What follows is the correct retelling of turn 13.
http://i.imgur.com/M920J.jpg
A strange sight greets me as I contemplates my invasion. A solitary angelic figure towers over the central fields of Arco. Last turn I sent my sneaking army in to the one remaining indy province outside Arcos capitol in order to get a look at the eventual opposition if he were to attack it.

They saw the following.
http://i.imgur.com/PIA04.jpg
This horrific being is Arcos pretender, the Virtue “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. It is the first Super Combatant we have seen in the game thus far and its represents a completely different kind of challenge than the rest of Arcos forces.

Its just one guy, but never the less it dominates the heavy cavalry indies that opposes it. How? It can do this because it has great stats and a huge number of special properties. Both innate and from spells it buffed itself with in the beginning of the battle.

If someone was to attack it, they would first have to overcome a long list of hurdles. Like its Awe +7, witch means you have to make a morale save vs 17 or 19. (I'm uncertain). Indies have an average morale of 10. After that you'd need to get past the Virtues Luck and Etherealness attributes that it gave itself through self-buffing spells. Both effects combined will allow it to ignore 7/8 of all non magic attacks and ½ of all the magical ones. Indies, naturally dont have magic weapons. Nor do they have mages in this case. But if they would nevertheless succeed with these hard feats and also overcome 15 points of defense, they would still only do 1 point of damage per hit. This because it also self-buffed with mistform, witch makes it so that every hit that strike it will only do 1 point of damage unless it is an instant kill attack like soulslay. If it is a magic attack, or if it would have caused more than 25 points of damage after protection, the spell will dissipate. But the attack that caused it to dissipate will still only cause 1 point of damage.

Each of these abilities on their own are beatable, but together they mean that the indies never had a chance. I don think the Virtue even took any damage.

Another thing of note it that it have Astral 9. Something tells me that my opponent was really paranoid about getting magic dueled during pretender creation. S9 does also provide a decent bless of course and access to some neat globals and rituals like Arcane Nexus and Wish. But his sacred units requires a lot of resources and are cap only, so I dont think the bless will see much use.

Some people likes to simulate wars and battles in single player before they do something. I am not that patient that I can run an entire SP game just for that kind of thing, so I just do some quick and dirty calculations in my head or with pen and paper.

Killing this thing is not impossible. But it will require that I rethink my strategies. I dont think the giants would be able to do much against it due to the etherealness and mistform, but my Nemedian Warriors might stand a chance. They have magical golden spears that are totally bling. The Awe would still be a problem, but they have morale 14 base witch could become 16 with Sermon of Courage. That means that they will manage to launch an attack somewhere between 1 time in 3, or 2 in 5. If I attack it with the 10 guys I have standing in the province, that means maybe 0.75 hits per turn after accounting for enemy defense with fatigue and after luck. The warriors do 17 hp damage vs its 5 points of protection. So more like 12 damage *0.75 = 9 points of damage per turn on average. First hit does not count due to mistform. This means I would need 10-11 turns to bring it down. Although it would flee before that.

http://i.imgur.com/5tdu6.jpg
However this calculation is only true if it does not strike back. Its unlikely to be that pacifist. The flamberge that it wields is both armor piercing and adds 4 extra points of attack skill. Although my nemedian warriors have 16 points of defense, 5 of those points are because of the golden shields they wield. For practical purposes, those shields wont do much difference vs a damage 18 (+18) armor piercing flamberge. I will assume that an attack would be deadly to the warriors 75-80% of the time after accounting for defense, shields, protection and hitpoints. However, the warriors also have glamor, witch means that all melee attacks have a flat 50% chance of missing. So the Virtue will have a 37.5-40% chance of killing one of my dudes each turn.

This is dour statistics because I cant even be certain to face it alone and I only have 10 Warriors ready for attack right now. My chances with it would be rather mediocre right now even should I catch it. I rather hold my troops in reserve and monitor the situation.


Well, you know how LiDCesare is always whining about how Abysia is ruining the game for both of them? Well he is largely correct. Unless you have no other choice, attacking someone without a realistic plan for how to kill your opponent quickly is suicide. Because although you (I) might have enough power to win the war, you (I) will probably not have enough power to do that and also fight off all your opportunistic neighbors. This means that you must either leave a sizable force in reserve and fight a slow, grindy war. Or you attack with all you got and hope that you other neighbors are nice enough to ignore you or that you can finish the war before they can strike at you. Or rely on diplomacy I guess. Though diplomacy have never been my strong point.

For me that is doubly troublesome because not only am I the biggest player by a good margin, I also have three close neighbors compared to the two that just about everyone else get. So thats three fronts I have to guard compared to, say, Abysia.

http://i.imgur.com/VOhx9.jpg
You know that Desmond guy? Yea it turns out he listened to the bad omens of the previous turns and decided that he rather wanted to sitesearch while he exercised his troops a little. Many other mages continue to sitesearch across the lands, while the ones in the capitol continues to transform air gems in to owl quills.

An expedition of unmarked is sent to the horse tribe lands to the east to determine were the mercenaries I sent there earlier disappeared to.

http://i.imgur.com/DcFpa.jpg
Meanwhile, more Nemedian warriors are recruited for a “mysterious” purpose. I now also have enough money to recruit a king almost every turn. Or at least when I'm not building a fort.

http://i.imgur.com/vf2Mt.jpg
A strange and awkward singing stone has also been found. It is immediately moved to a nearby pub were it is put to use. Drunk people find it to be hilarious apparently.



Turn 14

http://i.imgur.com/wrN95.jpg
A bunch of new sites are uncovered.

http://i.imgur.com/hzLY2.jpg
The totem collection I already knew was there but the others were a pleasant surprise. We now have enough astral that we can remote site search once every turn. I dont have the research for it yet, but arcane probing will prove to be a continuous and massive waste of pearls for a long while in the future.

The owl quills also allow us to reach construction 2 this turn. The new trinkets are cool and all but we have not quite gained the level of proficiency were we can start mass-producing things other than quills.

The horse tribals were forever mournful of their sins, and we sent them to the land of the dead so they could apologize to the late mercs in person. No casualties.

http://i.imgur.com/gFYi9.jpg

Meanwhile, a fort has been completed in Nardago and several more forts are being planned or constructed around the lands with the help of my prodigious gold income.

Nothing much else happens because living in a land with Order 3, luck 0 scales is really peaceful. (Future me: With the exception of the, like, four-five times that I have been invaded by barbarians due to other peoples scales.) A couple of kings join the group of mages responsible for manually searching for magic sites.


Turn 15

http://i.imgur.com/wXUVP.jpg
On the surface of things nothing much happens this turn either.

http://i.imgur.com/t6HPT.jpg
A magical air site is found in the land of the obstinate horse tribe . And to celebrate that I get an events that give me air gems.

http://i.imgur.com/DkHQ5.jpg
Nothing else much of note is happening in my lands, so I must spy upon other lands to get some excitement. Looking around a bit I can see that Marverni have taken the city of Ermor from Rlyeh.

http://i.imgur.com/BRTW1.jpg
I doubt they are actually at war as I can't see how Marv would get down under water and I doubt he would invade someone without the means to finish them of. Still, that Marv would have the guts to boss around not just one, but two nations that are bigger than himself and get away with it... Is impressive. Thats one brave bastard.

http://i.imgur.com/bmYmj.jpg
The construction of a fortified city was started in the plains of Hesperia last turn. Normally I build cheaper forts, but there is something to be said for an admin 50 fort with lots of neighboring provinces sometimes.

An expedition force is also sent to greet the barbarians living in the Dragon ridge Pass. Their weird gods and traditions should be no match for giants. I will show them once and for all that magical larping is no basis for a proper religion.

Despite having the biggest empire out of all the players I have not found a single scout province! This means that my only source of information from outside my lands are the score graphs.

So here are some of the current ones.
http://i.imgur.com/p7pfG.jpg
On the Province graph we can see two important thing. 1) Damn I'm big! And 2) Abysia and Pan is losing lands while Arco is growing rapidly. This can only mean that Arco have attacked Abysia in the back as he in turn was busy attacking Pan.

http://i.imgur.com/QGiuk.jpg
On the fort graph we can see that the first forts are coming online for several of the players. R'lyeh lacks underwater capable enemies and seem to be determine to fort up the entire ocean before he get any.

http://i.imgur.com/AzWis.jpg
On the income graph I am equally monstrous as I was on the province graph. But I did not get this way until I started overtaxing my capitol. As far as I can tell I am the only one who is utilizing this short term strategy.

http://i.imgur.com/QMZF2.jpg
The army graph is also interesting, as not only does it show that I have bypassed freespawn Pan in army size, it also shows that Aby just destroyed most of Pans armies with relatively light losses of his own. And might therefore be able to dedicate a large part of his forces towards fighting Arco, as Pan just got a lot less dangerous.


But the big thing to take away from these graphs is of course that Arco followed my suggestion of attacking Abysia.

THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!!

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
 

Since I already wrote up to and including turn 16, I'll wait a bit more that other people with more interesting things to say post stories before continuing. It's not like much will be happening in Pangaea for a while.

Re: Multi-Player After Action Report (Now Discussing Turns up to 13-16)
 

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

R'lyeh ~~ Turn 16

Chill Carrier: "Surfing Clouds"


The annoying thing with doing diplomacy over this here forum is that you don't keep your sent messages. So if you didn't remember to screenshot your diplo, it'll be lost in the void. Or at the mercy of your fellow players, anyway. Still better than the in-game system, where you can't even check whether you did or didn't send that declaration of war yet.

Or you could save the screenshots of your diplo in the wrong folder. That's why you can now read last turn's Abysia/R'lyeh diplomatic correspondence now.

Since this turn is otherwise really uneventful, that's not bad actually.

Figure 1: really uneventful turn

http://i.imgur.com/5HcBe.png

Figures 2 and 3: amazing thalassopolitical shenanigans

http://i.imgur.com/v5EEU.png

I'm just grabbing some cheap land here. The dangerous guy is on the other side of the world, right there on the beach.

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

Since one of the three events was some new research, let's look at that for a second. Conjuration 3, apart from some water summons I'm not planning on using a lot we have:

http://i.imgur.com/7CzR8.png

It's a nice booster spell. Doesn't look like that nice a deal on first glance, but since its area of effect is caster, when a communion master casts it, it'll also benefit all of his slaves. In addition the rather steep cost gets spread around some.

But nice as it is, it's not why I'm researching conjuration at this point. There's a certain spell at the next level which is very interesting for water nations.

http://i.imgur.com/XEo89.png

Obscuro's job is site searching. And he immediately succeeds: the narrow straits seperating Bolfagon and Maverni Ograthon are home to wild wind spirits that make it impossible to cross by ship. Obscuro devises an illusion-based trap that occasionally lures one of their number into a magical pouch.

http://i.imgur.com/hBRK2.png

And lastly, Auluudh has reached Smallsea, the inappropiately named water province surrounding Tir na n'Og's shores. On the new moon, he and his army will rush ashore and wrest the fertile plains of Pirenna from the evil Lich's grasp.