.com.unity Forums

.com.unity Forums (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/index.php)
-   Multiplayer & AARs (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/forumdisplay.php?f=62)
-   -   MP game - "Pantheons" Started (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=20331)

Mark the Merciful September 9th, 2004 11:43 AM

Re: Players
 
dum-de-dum-dum-dum-dum etc.

Welcome to Aran News Network, brought to you by the Power of the Spheres.

The main story tonight; Ulm's Cyclops dies in a tragic wraithsword accident. An Ulmish spokesmith said, "He'll be back. Anyone need any horseshoes?" The Jotunheim Ministry of Propoganda and Gloating issued the following press release; "Ha ha ha!" Analysts speculate that one-eyed Pretenders may have had their day; "in these modern times one needs to have a global vision to be a competiitive Pretender" said Pontius Pontificus of the Aran Institute of Theology. "That's twice as hard with only one eye."

A bribery scandal rocks the Motherhood and Apple-pie Alliance, as several prominent Mercenary Companies defect from the Evil Overlords, causing much confusion on the front lines. Many claim the defections are the result of enormous bribes paid to the mercenary Captains; eye-witnesses state that every soldier in Brave's Breakers was wearing a gold Rolex at a recent parade. Aides to Captain Brave say that he is currently unable to comment because of an Ulmish lance stuck through his head.

Machakan and Arco forces withdraw from some of their most advanced positions. "Aaaaaargh!"s of celebration were heard from sacrificial victims all across the Mictlan capital city.

In a new development, giants in the armies of Jotunheim are going into battle with strange runes etched into their breastplates and shields. An Ulmish crossbowman who took part in a recent battle said; "a bloke in my platoon speaks Jote, and he told me the runes said things like; 'this Niefel Jarl is proudly sponsored by Cealum Airlines.' and 'Caelum Airlines: Fast as lightning.'" Does this indicate a new phase in the war? A Caelum spokeseraph smiled seraphicly and refused to comment.

And finally, mysterious Pangaea continues to maintian its lonely peaceful course. The Pangaean spokesmaenad was so distracting we forgot to ask her any questions. Pictures at seven, eight, nine, eleven, twelve and all through the night on the Aran XXX channel.

And that's all from Aran News tonight. Good night.

Dum-de-dum etc.

reverend September 9th, 2004 02:31 PM

Re: Players
 
*swamp gas forming the National Pythium News logo*

In a confusing turn of events, celebration of Pythium Archtheurg Egalitus over encircling the Arco army sieging the Pythium capitol was cut short, when Caelum Airlines landed in the snakes camp.

Caelum Spokesseraph comments on this: "Ooops."

Caelum Airlines CEO blames this event on bad weather, to which Pythium spokessnakes reponded: "This isn't bad weather, it's a SWAMP for snakes sake!"

*swamp gas forming the National Pythium News logo*

Aku September 9th, 2004 06:36 PM

Re: Players
 
Pangaea says that Korak is a male name not a female name.

And keep up the writing Mark.

Lex September 9th, 2004 07:51 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

reverend said:
*swamp gas forming the National Pythium News logo*

In a confusing turn of events, celebration of Pythium Archtheurg Egalitus over encircling the Arco army sieging the Pythium capitol was cut short, when Caelum Airlines landed in the snakes camp.

Caelum Spokesseraph comments on this: "Ooops."

Caelum Airlines CEO blames this event on bad weather, to which Pythium spokessnakes reponded: "This isn't bad weather, it's a SWAMP for snakes sake!"

*swamp gas forming the National Pythium News logo*

Official Response from Caelum Airlines: "The flash of light you saw in the sky was not our Airlines. Swamp gas from a weather balloon was trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus."

Mark the Merciful September 15th, 2004 05:51 AM

Re: Players
 
(cue airy violin music)

...And welcome back to ANN's Reading Matters. Our final book tonight is the "The Battle of Dershid: Last charge of the giants." by Erik Eriksen. As the Global War still rages around us, it is clearly far too early to make historical judgements about its course so far. So Eriksen's book must surely be seen as more journalism than history. Still, it is the first book to cover a decisive battle from the first phase of the war.

The author is at his best when narrating the battle and the maneuvers leading up to it. His clear crisp prose powerfully brings to life such dramatic moments as Frosty the Son of Niefel storming forward to turn the tide of battle, or the tragic failure of the Niefel Giants as they fell one by one trying to break the Ulmish line, or the cool heroism of Ulm's Master Smiths as they fired magma bolt after magma bolt into the giants; even as a pack of winter wolves broke into their rear and rampaged amongst them.

Eriksen's analysis is more controversial. He is surely right to suggest that Dershid was a Pyrhic victory for Jotunheim. But his speculation that the pursuit that led to the battle was the result of an Ulmish intelligence failure is unsubstantiated, and his assertion that the failure of the Niefels at the gates of Ulm and their fall at Dershid were the result of C'tis War Syndrome and widespread Gingerbread addiction is hotly denied by the Jotun temple authorities. Still, this is a well written and thought-provoking work that will appeal both to the amateur militatry historian and the avaerage giant in the street.

That's all we have time for tonight. Next week in Reading Matters we'll be looking at "Wot you lookin' at? The rise and fall of the one-eyed Pretender", "Give Peace a Chance: A one-page Enyclopedia of Pangaean war heroes" and "Lizards in the mist", the new best-seller from C'tis. Until then, good night.

(cue more airy violin music)

The_Tauren13 September 16th, 2004 06:26 PM

Re: Players
 
Something is all [censored] up with my turn... i cant get in.

Aku September 16th, 2004 09:37 PM

Re: Players
 
umm half of team A has the blinking problem so are unable to do their turns...is this the same thing with team B?

Oh and its not their computer it is their nation. I can do my pangaea turn but if I log into their turns I get the blinky problem. It blinks so fast that you really cant see anything.

alexti September 17th, 2004 12:13 AM

Re: Players
 
Yeah, I have this problem, it's only in the nation selection screen though, after that it's ok.

alexti September 17th, 2004 08:54 AM

Re: Players
 
After careful examination I can see that the nation screen doesn't show my (Mictlan) turn as made. Though when I select the nation it warns that I've already played this turn. So I've no idea if the server has accepted my turn submission or not.

Mark the Merciful September 17th, 2004 10:10 AM

Re: Players
 
It's been fine for me since yesterday evening (and I've done my turn, cancelled it, done it again, then logged in twice to make changes!)

Lex September 17th, 2004 11:37 AM

Re: Players
 
my turns are working fine

Aku September 17th, 2004 02:06 PM

Re: Players
 
half of us are screwed bec out of the 10 of us...5 of us are going to stale lol

Boron September 17th, 2004 03:01 PM

Re: Players
 
I always get the error : ppt : error reading ret turn .

Anyone an idea what to do ?

Mark the Merciful September 17th, 2004 06:27 PM

Re: Players
 
Boron: you tried deleting the game directory for Pantheons, and re-connecting?

Aku September 17th, 2004 11:45 PM

Re: Players
 
What is going on with this game? Didn't five people stale Last turn from not being able to enter the game?

alexti September 18th, 2004 12:34 AM

Re: Players
 
I staled the Last turn, but the current one seems to be fine. I guess we've escaped with just stale turns for few nations.

The Panther September 18th, 2004 12:40 AM

Re: Players
 
Yep, I staled also, for the second frigging time this game! This is getting quite annoying indeed. I am just lucky that nothing too bad happened to me with those two stales, but I luckily escaped unharmed.

Not that it really matters, as this game is basically over due to the cheap false horror bunk. That spell needs to be nerfed for sure.

Lex September 18th, 2004 04:39 AM

Re: Players
 
well.. false horror is the best use of a Seraph. but you should know that Caelum's false horrors where pretty useless against Machaka's Black Hunters, and anything with really high moral will have no trouble against a group of FH.

one or two SCs with flying would also put a stop to Caelum's seraphs. so would any decent group of flying units in general. (as long as there's no storm.. and so far Caelum's been raiding nonstop without any Staff of Storms, making them very very vulnerable to flying units. luckily no one has summoned any)

false horror isn't unbalanced, it just requires deliberate effort to counter (which is why its so effective, since its such a pain to commit resources to counter a particular tactic early in the game), but i would have imagined that in a team game, someone would have focused entirely on countering Caelum, just like the others focus on defeating their nearest opponent.

In this case I'm surprised Pangaea hasn't attacked Caelum yet (since he's the closest). Obviously I'm ready and waiting, but still, you can't just ignore me!

Pickles September 18th, 2004 06:16 AM

Re: Players
 
Yeah I agree with lex that I have not yet got enough information on false horrors though it is unquestionably strong. It is the combination with flying that makes it so horrific. Mind you the fact that my 750 gps of spider plus a couple of leaders plus 25 PD could defeat 550 gp of seraph plus 6 troops is only what you hope would happen. I am not sure whether anything would counter the full mass of Caelum's seraph forces - must be over a dozen & could be 20 plus by now. I have not seen this though so who knows?
As to countering Caelum. As well as not being sure how to Caelum can choose to engage whoever it wishes & will avoid its counter pretty easily - provided it is not next door as our earlly power house Ulm was next to a good counter to it in Jotun.

The graphs are depressing though. I think our main weakness has been lack of communication. I never seem to get round to it & noone picked up on the email thing.

Anyway onwards & downwards!

Pickles

Boron September 18th, 2004 08:35 AM

Re: Players
 
This turn works now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

So ONWARD MY MINIONS to victory ( trying to bolster myself http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif )

The Panther September 18th, 2004 10:44 AM

Re: Players
 
False horrors are unbalanced because it makes 90+% of the national troops worthless much too early in the game. Even my power-blessed heart companions with very high morale are worthless against false horrors. My chariots and elephants, were I to build any, would be even more hopeless because trample fails miserably against ethereal troops. My many priests refuse to cast sermon of courage because of some problem about the horrors that I have yet to understand.

Ulm has pretty much no counter to the horrors either until he gets mechanical men, which occurs significantly later than Caelum gets horrors. The smiths cast bladewinds and magna bolts on their own troops when the horrors arrive.

There has been many a post on the forum on this very subject. You can argue against this all you want, but that does not make it any less true. That is one of the reasons that Caelum is frequently Banned in many a new game.

It looks like my turn will work now. Staling twice in the Last 4 turns is rough, but at least it means I have some extra gold now. Also I now have the research to counter the horrors if it happens again. But it is too little and too late for the good guys, I am afraid.

Lex September 18th, 2004 11:01 AM

Re: Players
 
Well, i'm pretty sure Flames from Afar would be quite painful to 20+ Seraphs. But in combat, I've never seen anything beat a large group of Seraphs. Maybe an army of Devils or other summons would work well. A lone SC wouldn't have a chance against the 200+ False Horrors, but a group of them would eventually push their way to the Seraphs, who would be asleep from exhaustion after so many turns.

Its also useful to know that Seraphs can't seige a fortification in a million years. Even a group of 20 Seraphs would need a half dozen turns sometimes. So building castles is a good defence against Caelum, since it means the worst they can do is cause unrest and disrupt income for a turn.

Also, is everybody forgetting that anything etheral can fly through a storm? That means etheral SCs or Ghosts or Vampires can attack Seraphs directly on the first turn. If you have more then Caelum has Seraphs, you'll win. In mid to late game, any player with a blood economy should have no problem attacking Caelum. And you don't need to attack Caelum's armies, obviously you attack Caelum's empire and force his armies into a defence posture.

Its just really expensive (or impossible) to defeat massive amounts of False Horrors with your "normal" units. And defeating it early game is almost impossible, which is why False Horror is level 6 research. But obviously it pays off to do the research and raid all you unsuspecting opponents before they can summon an army to stop you. That's simply a good strategy.

Anyways, I'm gonna stop telling you guys how to kick my ***, and get back to playing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

alexti September 18th, 2004 11:11 AM

Re: Players
 
Same goes for Ice/Arch Devils, Elemental King/Queens and even simple Bane Lords. You just can't use national troops alone except in the very beginning. Add to them some fliers or mages with area damage spells and a SC or 2 and they become very decent force. So the main problem with seraphs is not defeat them, but to catch them. They're more similar to call of winds/call of wild in this sense. But of course, when you caught out unprepared, those seraphs with their false horrors can be nasty.

Though in this game with known sides and starting locations, Caelum's seraph-fest was as easily predictable as early Ulm's power rush and the early assault on Mictlan.

alexti September 18th, 2004 11:15 AM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

Lex said:
Well, i'm pretty sure Flames from Afar would be quite painful to 20+ Seraphs.

That's why you'd better move in small Groups of 1-2 seraphs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Quote:

Lex said:
But in combat, I've never seen anything beat a large group of Seraphs.

You can beat the large group of Seraphs with just one SC of the right kind. I won't tell what is the right kind though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif For now.

Boron September 18th, 2004 11:18 AM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

Lex said:

Its also useful to know that Seraphs can't seige a fortification in a million years. Even a group of 20 Seraphs would need a half dozen turns sometimes. So building castles is a good defence against Caelum, since it means the worst they can do is cause unrest and disrupt income for a turn.

Also, is everybody forgetting that anything etheral can fly through a storm? That means etheral SCs or Ghosts or Vampires can attack Seraphs directly on the first turn. If you have more then Caelum has Seraphs, you'll win. In mid to late game, any player with a blood economy should have no problem attacking Caelum. And you don't need to attack Caelum's armies, obviously you attack Caelum's empire and force his armies into a defence posture.



Are you sure about vampires etc. flying during a storm ?!?
Afaik it doesn't work .

Your fortification hint is not very helpful .... .
First some nations like ulm play usually with a high admin fort so madcastling is not an option .
Second severe madcastling is so expensive that you fall behind in research or other important areas .
Third you don't need to really siege the castles just as you said taxing to 200% is enough .
On other provinces than the capitol you can normally keep anyways a small seiging force to put unrest >100 . Often there are no mages .

The false horror is too powerful but mainly because of the problem with the fear aura as Stormbinder / Arryn suppose .

2 or 3 seraphs with a few archers can't be beaten even by a small garrison + pd .
You would need to have everywhere mages or SCs but thats impossible for a long time .

Level 6 research is earlygame , at about turn 10-12 at least you have it researched and it gives you good SC buff magic as well .

Especially in a teamgame where you get probably gold from other players you can very quickly build 2-3 new castles and spam hordes of seraphs .
No enemy expect pan cw and ermor can beat that in early - midgame reliable and not too costintensive .

Boron September 18th, 2004 11:21 AM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

alexti said:
Quote:

Lex said:
Well, i'm pretty sure Flames from Afar would be quite painful to 20+ Seraphs.

That's why you'd better move in small Groups of 1-2 seraphs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Quote:

Lex said:
But in combat, I've never seen anything beat a large group of Seraphs.

You can beat the large group of Seraphs with just one SC of the right kind. I won't tell what is the right kind though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif For now.

Yeah an SC of the right kind . But that is only 1 or 2 seraph armies .

It is just brutal he can strike at will on all weaker defended provinces . If you split your forces to avoid that then another teammember like jotunheim comes with a SC army and defeats one garrison after the other .
In a normal game you could probably deal with caelum better but in our teamgame we should have forbidden it imo .

The Panther September 18th, 2004 11:32 AM

Re: Players
 
False horrors may be level 6, but it is in the school that Caelum usually researchs first. And Caelum researches faster than any other race, except possibly for GE Arco and Ermor.

It dawned on me that I could have gone GE Arco and gotten the flying elephants. This would have completely eliminated the Caelum raid strategy against me (but not anyone else). But GE would have been far worse against my nearest neighbor Pythium than standard Arco.

Also, with our team having no air races, there was no way to get a staff of storms, which is another possible counter.

As far as the flying SC thing and the army of devils, that takes easily more than 3 times longer to achieve than Caelum merely researching up to level 6 in its preferred path.

Still, the bottom line is that we are getting badly beat, almost primarily due to one single unbalanced spell. Without that, Pickles and I may have eliminated both Mictlan and Pythium by now.

Of course, this does not take anything away from the fact that the Team B playing well and using their inherent advantages to the fullest. They surely are.

I wonder if it is too early to call for a rematch???

Boron September 18th, 2004 12:03 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

The Panther said:
I wonder if it is too early to call for a rematch???

It is still a bit too early but i think in 5-10 turns it is time to call for a rematch . We could play with the same map / nations but with changed nation allocations to teams . This way Team B could show if they can do as well with our nations against us .

Lex September 18th, 2004 12:07 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

Boron said:

Are you sure about vampires etc. flying during a storm ?!?
Afaik it doesn't work .

Vampires are etheral. False Horrors are etheral. False Horrors can fly in a storm. Therefor Vampires can fly in a storm. It also makes sense that if you're etheral, a little wind won't stop you from flying around.

Quote:

Boron said:
Especially in a teamgame where you get probably gold from other players you can very quickly build 2-3 new castles and spam hordes of seraphs .
No enemy expect pan cw and ermor can beat that in early - midgame reliable and not too costintensive .

for the record, I've had a surplus of gold all game. I've been giving it out whenever its needed. Remember that no one has attacked me, with the exception of a single scout who took one of my undefended provinces TWICE. So I've just been sitting on high income provinces and enjoying the quiet life with Pangaea while an early raiding army of 12 seraphs split up and had some fun down south.

Edit: i actually had more then 12 seraphs to start with.. i lost a whole raiding party to machaka's Black Hunters and I've since been avoiding him http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

alexti September 18th, 2004 12:15 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

Boron said:
Quote:

alexti said:
You can beat the large group of Seraphs with just one SC of the right kind. I won't tell what is the right kind though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif For now.

Yeah an SC of the right kind . But that is only 1 or 2 seraph armies .

Yeah, but the Caelum player won't be happy to lose even one 20-40 seraph army per turn. And the right kind of SC can cloud trapeze/teleport, so it will completely prevent Caelum from using massive seraph armies. They can still raid by lone seraphs though. But on another hand, killing that lone seraphs with remote spell only costs 3-5 gems, so it's more or less equal exchange.

The Panther September 18th, 2004 12:17 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

alexti said:

You can beat the large group of Seraphs with just one SC of the right kind. I won't tell what is the right kind though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif For now.

Obviously, a single air queen can stop this easy. Several flying pretenders can also. Also a flying bane lord, perhaps. But I built my pretender with my neighbor Pythium in mind, not Caelum.

The crux of the problem is that false horrors is a quick, easy research to level 6 in the preferred path for the fastest researching nation. Air queens are not only light years further away, they are impossible for our team in this game with no air races.

I think for a possible rematch, we will have to ban Caelum to be fair.

Lex September 18th, 2004 12:19 PM

Re: Players
 
also, consider that Caelum has the absolutly perfect starting position for this team game. Its protected from almost all sides, and is far enough away from the other team that it would take considerable time for non-flying armies to try attacking it. In my opinion, that simple starting position is what made Caelum unstopable, and not the spell False Horror

Imagine how things would have been if Caelum started next to Ulm? Or next to two opponents. So far I think most people missed the point about how to defeat Caelum. Their biggest weakness is their near-inability to seige a castle. A good general would not try to mad-castle. A good opposing general would go straight for Caelum's capital and/or production centres and steal their castle with typically low defence (Watch Tower or Mauseleum). Once you have their production centres, Caelum is helpless, and will most likely never be able to get them back. They might have a few Seraphs left, but they are defeated.

The Panther September 18th, 2004 12:26 PM

Re: Players
 
I admit that I did wonder what was the logic for placing Caelum in such a remote starting location on the map. Switching Jontunheim and Caelum start locations would have made a big difference, I think.

I still believe that Caelum does not really have any big weaknesses, though, except for being kind of weak early on with the wimpy national troops. Other than that, it is a solid race, the best in the mid-game for sure.

alexti September 18th, 2004 12:27 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

The Panther said:
Also, with our team having no air races, there was no way to get a staff of storms, which is another possible counter.


Staff of storms would rather be helpful to seraphs, but air would give you call of winds which is a good counter.

Quote:

The Panther said:
As far as the flying SC thing and the army of devils, that takes easily more than 3 times longer to achieve than Caelum merely researching up to level 6 in its preferred path.


Not true, you can start fielding Bane lords with Conj-5 and Con-2 which is less research than Alt-6.

Quote:

The Panther said:
Still, the bottom line is that we are getting badly beat, almost primarily due to one single unbalanced spell. Without that, Pickles and I may have eliminated both Mictlan and Pythium by now.


That's a bit optimistics, considering that you couldn't even harm my walls and probably I was summoning fiends faster than you could bring re-enforcement. Still it was seriously hurting my development, but at the same time Caelum enjoyed
unhindered growth allowing him to quickly get required research and infrastructure.

Quote:

The Panther said:
Of course, this does not take anything away from the fact that the Team B playing well and using their inherent advantages to the fullest. They surely are.

I wonder if it is too early to call for a rematch???

I think that the race selection for Team B is stronger than for Team A. Basically, we had all stages (early,mid and late) well covered, plus we had races with their own specialities which were complementing each other.

Rematch sounds interesting. I would be for exchanging nations, we play Team A nations, you play Team B nations (which nations to choose from the allocated selection is up to each team).

Lex September 18th, 2004 12:29 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

alexti said:
Yeah, but the Caelum player won't be happy to lose even one 20-40 seraph army per turn. And the right kind of SC can cloud trapeze/teleport, so it will completely prevent Caelum from using massive seraph armies. They can still raid by lone seraphs though. But on another hand, killing that lone seraphs with remote spell only costs 3-5 gems, so it's more or less equal exchange.

You Flames from Afar my capital, then jump in with some SCs that slaughter my Seraphs, move to the three neighbouring castles before I can recruit enough mammoths to take my castle back, and then one by one, you hunt down my remaining Seraph raiding parties. You could kill me in 10 turns.

Edit: granted you'd need Gate Cleavers at least to seige in one turn. and you'd have to hope that I haven't modified my strategy beyond False Horrors. But Caelum's defeat, had it been planned for, is at least in theory a real possibility.

The_Tauren13 September 18th, 2004 01:05 PM

Re: Players
 
I vote for re-randomizing nations for a more fair game if we have a rematch. And maybe going with random starting locations. And maybe allowing Ermor; I've been wanting to play broken empire. And maybe taking out Caelum.

Aku September 18th, 2004 01:46 PM

Re: Players
 
I need to catch up and reading the rest of this page but Vampires DO NOT fly in a storm. Staff of storms was used against me in another game against my vampire army and my vamps didnt fly.

Oh and team A has NO air nations or blood nations so the counters I have read so far are impossible for us to do.

Going to continue reading the rest of the Posts.

alexti September 18th, 2004 02:12 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

Aku said:
I need to catch up and reading the rest of this page but Vampires DO NOT fly in a storm. Staff of storms was used against me in another game against my vampire army and my vamps didnt fly.


Yep, I don't think vampires can fly in the storm. However, horrors do, apparently their flying is teleportation based, rather than wing-based. Anyway, has anybody ever seen a horror with wings?

Quote:

Aku said:
Oh and team A has NO air nations or blood nations so the counters I have read so far are impossible for us to do.


May I remind that team A has choosen not to use their air and blood nations?

alexti September 18th, 2004 02:14 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

The_Tauren13 said:
I vote for re-randomizing nations for a more fair game if we have a rematch. And maybe going with random starting locations. And maybe allowing Ermor; I've been wanting to play broken empire. And maybe taking out Caelum.

To ensure fair rematch, I'd vote for the same nation sets, but reversed. Besides, it would be interesting to see if all those people who suggest various counters will be able to use them in practice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Aku September 18th, 2004 03:17 PM

Re: Players
 
What air or blood nations did team A have that they didnt use?

The current 5 team A chose are not air or blood nations. The 6th nation was marignon and the 7th nation was tien chi.

Well I guess you could say pangaea could of done blood with its 320gp blood hunters lol or bf ulm theme was chosen or use tien chi for a little bit of air but realisticly all of those options are not feasible. They are nowhere in comparison the same as what team b has which is complete blood and air dominance.

The botton line is that getting raided on turn 15 by false horrors was able to put 5 players on lock down. One nation shouldnt be able to do that. It has nothing to do with the teams or the players it is just a balance issue in the game. It just happens that the nations that could counter it that early were not options to pick for team A such as vanheim and man.

Bleh I still have to read the rest of these Posts because the forum went down right when I posted before. So if I am repeating anything it is because of that.

Aku September 18th, 2004 03:25 PM

Re: Players
 
Pangaea is closest to caelum but vanheim is closer to pangaea than caelum is. Also heavy cav indies blocked the way to caelum which are too much for maneads who get butchered on just heavy inf. So like someone pointed out Caelums starting position secluded like that made it perfect for raiding everybody while nobody can attack back. And someone said a bane lord counter...our only death is from ctis who gets put next to jotumheim to get raged early on.

The placement was extremely bad. The random generator didn't seem too random. I personally felt it was extremely biased and if a rematch was did with the teams swapped I would refuse to play because team B would have all the crap nations that team A is using now. What would be the point of playing an unbalanced team game. Waste of time if you ask me.

The set up of the game was done improperly. We should of had 2 captains where they take turns choosing nations. Also the two captains would choose players. Basically one would get option to choose players first while the other gets to choose their first nation first. Would of been fair. It would of taken probably a week to set up but who cares. I rather it take longer to set up something properly than play something that was half assed rushed out.

Those are just my thoughts.

Aku

Mark the Merciful September 18th, 2004 04:49 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

Aku said:
The placement was extremely bad. The random generator didn't seem too random. I personally felt it was extremely biased and if a rematch was did with the teams swapped I would refuse to play because team B would have all the crap nations that team A is using now. What would be the point of playing an unbalanced team game. Waste of time if you ask me.

I think you put that unreasonably strongly. Team A has/had a lot of strong early game options to choose from. The only bias I think that's built into the starting position is the location of Caelum, which is ideal for the role it's taken.

And why not take the rematch with swapped sides? Maybe we'd like a chance to prove to you that good play and strong inter-team communication is important to winning a game. And you'd get a chance to prove to us the False Horror really is broken.

Mark

alexti September 18th, 2004 07:21 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

Aku said:
What air or blood nations did team A have that they didnt use?

The current 5 team A chose are not air or blood nations. The 6th nation was marignon and the 7th nation was tien chi.


Marignon Diabolical Faith is a very strong blood nations, probably second to Mictlan. And unlike Mictlan Marignon even has a decent national troops. The only drawback is forced turmoil. However in the team game it's less of a problem. Somebody can help with financing.

Marignon's Conquerors of the Sea is a good air nation. Unfortunately, you have to choose between blood and air in this case. If you want to go into blood heavily, you have to take Diabolical Faith Marignon, there's no other really strong blood nation on team A roster. But if you plan to use blood only for items, Pangaea will do it just fine. Everybody can bloodhunt with every random blood they got and send blood slaves to Pangaea. If you decide that you want all kind of devils, it leaves you with Tien Chi to cover the air.

Obviously, with Caelum, Vanheim and Man team B has air dominance. But team A has advantage in death, earth and nature. How to capitalize on this advantages is a good question. But maybe we can learn some answers during the rematch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Boron September 18th, 2004 08:07 PM

Re: Players
 
Good analysis Alexti .

Those Tien Chi S&A CM's should be almost as good False horror casters than Caelum .
But Tien Chi is not an option :
Tien Chi is seen as the probably weakest nation .
The CM's are capitol only so they can't be used like caelum can because they are not so easy replaceable .
Pythium furthermore could put a mind duel Theurg in the important provinces and so has good chances to kill of a lot of CM's .

Otherwise Tien Chi is just weak .
The main benefit from being air is getting the Airqueens .
We with Tien Chi only would have had no chance to win the researchrace against caelum .
Then vanheim + man can just give their airgems to caelum and they get all 3 airqueens before we can get them .

Marignon DF would have been probably a good idea .
Iirc the map position of marignon was really bad though . At least panther said so .
Our advantage in death , earth and nature is worth [censored] .

For summons blood is way better . For SCs blood + air is better than death + nature too .
Not to forget that you have SCs from the beginning with your Jotun niefelheim .

Weaponwise a bloodthorn or a hellsword is better than a wraithsword too .
Death + blood serve similiar roles but until Tartarians/ghostriders/demilichs death is clearly inferior to blood . We likely never get these spells .


The biggest advantages of your team nations lie in Flexibility , Mobility and most important the option to pick out where to attack very cheap via stealthy van/man armies + caelum drops .

With Ctis , Tien Chi , Machaka and Ulm we have 4 little liked nations in our team .
Arco is probably a top 5 nation and pangenea + marignon are middlefield .

You have with Caelum the probably a bit overpowered nation which is often Banned .
All your nations are very liked . So for your team the decision which 2 nations not to play was quite hard while for us the decision which nations to play was even harder because most of them were worse than your nations imo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

alexti September 18th, 2004 09:58 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

Boron said:
Good analysis Alexti .

Those Tien Chi S&A CM's should be almost as good False horror casters than Caelum .
But Tien Chi is not an option :
Tien Chi is seen as the probably weakest nation .
The CM's are capitol only so they can't be used like caelum can because they are not so easy replaceable .
Pythium furthermore could put a mind duel Theurg in the important provinces and so has good chances to kill of a lot of CM's .

Otherwise Tien Chi is just weak .
The main benefit from being air is getting the Airqueens .
We with Tien Chi only would have had no chance to win the researchrace against caelum .
Then vanheim + man can just give their airgems to caelum and they get all 3 airqueens before we can get them .


Tien Chi's mages are too expensive to use them as seraphs. They just give an access to air to search for air sites, forge few magic items and cast calls of winds (which is very important to counter Caelum's raiders). But taking air for this purpose isn't a must, at least someone on the team is likely to find air-capable indy mages.

To get Air Queen you don't really need air nation, just pool all air gems to air-capable pretender. Conjuration is need for many nations anyway. I guess this strategy will get one out of 3 air queens.

Quote:

Boron said:
Marignon DF would have been probably a good idea .
Iirc the map position of marignon was really bad though . At least panther said so .
Our advantage in death , earth and nature is worth [censored] .

For summons blood is way better . For SCs blood + air is better than death + nature too .
Not to forget that you have SCs from the beginning with your Jotun niefelheim .

Weaponwise a bloodthorn or a hellsword is better than a wraithsword too .


Concerning summons, blood and air gives you better (and more expensive SC). Bane Lords are not as powerful, but they're much cheaper, need little equipment and for the raiding purposes they work just as well as stronger SC. Air doesn't have much summons besides Air Queens, while death (bane lords, wraiths, ghosts, wights and more) and nature (lamia queens, lamia, ivy kings+vine ogres, faerie queens) have a lot of good summons. Plus nature have very nice sort of summoning called charm which allows you to get various SCs (air queens, Ice/Arch-Devils) which you wouldn't be able to get otherwise.

Quote:

Boron said:

Death + blood serve similiar roles but until Tartarians/ghostriders/demilichs death is clearly inferior to blood . We likely never get these spells .


Blood doesn't even have anything comparable to Ghost riders. And tartarian mages are real monsters, and they come in unlimited quantity. The only problem here is to survive until you get death industry running.

Quote:

Boron said:
The biggest advantages of your team nations lie in Flexibility , Mobility and most important the option to pick out where to attack very cheap via stealthy van/man armies + caelum drops .


Mobility, yes, mostly due to Caelum. Taking Van, Man and Caelum wouldn't be practical (too much concentration) and stealth-wise, Pangaea is very good too.

But flexibility comes from the choice of the strategy.

Quote:

Boron said:
With Ctis , Tien Chi , Machaka and Ulm we have 4 little liked nations in our team .
Arco is probably a top 5 nation and pangenea + marignon are middlefield .


I don't know how you making this conclusion. C'tis is a perfect nation for team game, possibly the best one. You can buy D3N mage for 180, plus a random pick. And they have one of the cheapest national researchers (due to sacred), which is also useful on the battlefield. And if it wasn't enough they can just rollover the indies with 0 losses. Opponents are better expect roaming Bane Lords by turn 10. And in a team game they're likely to come properly equipped.

Ulm is not particularly strong by itself, but if he is used as a forger for other 5 nations, it's a huge gem saving.

Machaka is strong nation on its own, both mages and national troops. Part of their strength comes from flexibility of their mages, which is somewhat lost in the team game though.

Marignon, as another specialist nations suddenly gains value in a team game.

Standard theme of Tien Chi is pretty good, but their main strength in their magic versatility, which makes them much less attractive in the team game. Given the set of nations on team A, they still probably need Tien Chi for the air and water, unless they want to take a risk and rely on indies.

Quote:

Boron said:
You have with Caelum the probably a bit overpowered nation which is often Banned .
All your nations are very liked . So for your team the decision which 2 nations not to play was quite hard while for us the decision which nations to play was even harder because most of them were worse than your nations imo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

I think it's wrong to evaluate nations for the team on the basis of the regular MP. TC has a weakness in the early game and is likely to fall a victim of a rush. But the same applies to Mictlan. In a team game, nations that come into force early can help and protect other nations which can contribute to the team later. That doesn't work well for TC though, because their strength is in flexibility and for the team game specialization is more valuable. For the same reason Arco, which is one of the best nations, may not necessarily be very good pick for the team.

Boron September 19th, 2004 10:33 AM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

alexti said:
I don't know how you making this conclusion. C'tis is a perfect nation for team game, possibly the best one. You can buy D3N mage for 180, plus a random pick. And they have one of the cheapest national researchers (due to sacred), which is also useful on the battlefield. And if it wasn't enough they can just rollover the indies with 0 losses. Opponents are better expect roaming Bane Lords by turn 10. And in a team game they're likely to come properly equipped.



Well you have jotunheim niefelheim which can make the first SC on turn 2 .
D3N gives you not sooo good battlemagic a bit drain life a bit animate skeletons and that's it basically .
A niefelgigant should normally kill a banelord easy .

Basically the only weapon we have is charm . But thats high research and since ulm is dead now he can't forge Lanterns for pangenea speeding up research .

Hopefully you will show us in the rematch what ctis etc. can do http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
I fail to see how they fit better for a teamgame then e.g. caelum http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Lex September 19th, 2004 11:47 AM

Re: Players
 
2 Ctis just defeated 4 of my Seraphs in battle. went a little something like this:

Seraph 1: *yawn* well, he we go again. you guys ready with your False Horrors?

Seraph 2: Yup. Lets scare the [censored] outta the poor Ctis army.

Seraph 3: Did you guys notice something different about these dudes?

Seraph 4: Yeah, they kinda look "undead" a bit.

Seraph 1: Just start pumping out the False Horrors, everything should go as usual.

... many many many turns go by

Seraph 3: Hey guys, why are we still here?

Seraph 4: Because those [censored] Sauromancers are producing more Skeletons per turn then our False Horrors can handle.

Seraph 2: Doesn't that mean that we'll eventually lose this battle?

Seraph 3: Yup! Actually one of us will probably get killed, and then the rest of yous will run like little girls.

Seraph 1: Hmmm, yeah, sounds about right.

Seraph 4: *AHHHH* I'm being torn apart by a stupid skeleton! This wasn't in my job description!!! *AHHHH*

Seraph 1: Ewww. Time to run boys!

Mark the Merciful September 19th, 2004 02:38 PM

Re: Players
 
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Boron September 19th, 2004 04:23 PM

Re: Players
 
Well for poor Ctis it was not that funny http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif
I guess those horrors would even give a banelord trouble http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif

Lex September 19th, 2004 07:47 PM

Re: Players
 
Quote:

Boron said:
Well for poor Ctis it was not that funny http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif
I guess those horrors would even give a banelord trouble http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rant.gif

oh. you know, playing Caelum really desensitizes you to the massive death toll other races face. i didn't even notice the big army Ctis had except for the two Sauromancers that gave me trouble!


All times are GMT -4. The time now is 04:41 PM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©1999 - 2025, Shrapnel Games, Inc. - All Rights Reserved.