Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Incabulos, no, nobody does that. You can attack someone whenever you want if you don't have a NAP. In my case, I had a NAP and gave notice.

Anyway, I agree VPs are too low, but the line has been visible on the graph all game. The thing that has surprised me is how fast Shin has risen and how nobody has organized against him. In most games, a nation with a similar trajectory would have a rapid downfall as their neighbors organized against him. Here it just seems his rise and the low VP threshold is being lamented, but no action is being taken.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

I live on the other side of the freaking world. :|

Jazzepi

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Machaka declares war on Shinuyama!

BillyWitchDoctor.com kindly request coordinates to the Shinuyaman citadel. And satellite imagery, if possible.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Speaking as one who has already been declared taken over by someone (I am MAN).

I got beat up by Ashdod, but am now holding my own. I havea NAP with Shin, so I would have 5 turns to build up a force to deal with him if need be.

Also my partner in crime has been very forthcoming with information to help with my war against, Ashdod, so I think before you all think that this game is all but won, sit back and give it a play and see what happens.

I know Man is not very impressive on the graphs, but I have land in front of me to take, once I get rid of those silly Giant leaders in my front yard, and do not plan to roll over.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Contrary to my earlier joking, I would agree with Pelthin. I'm still looking at two Ashdod armies of 400+ units, they still have complete control of their capital, and they are still making an SC per turn. It would be nice if we could put down one threat (Ashdod) before starting the ritual drawing and quartering of the next threat (Shinuyama).

As to the comment about why people haven't ganged up on rising leaders, I would say that they have, since that is what I, Man, and others did to Ashdod. And as you have seen, it is thankless work, and likely to lead to your death either from the original threat or from the nations you are trying to save. It now looks like the spiders that we so doted on, that we sent so many lovingly prepared care packages, are now turning their many, many eyes away from us. I think that truly hurts worst of all.

Honestly, all that a dis-illusioned Shinuyama wants to do at this point is retire in peace back to the farm, having done its part to save the greater community of nations. We'll even go further than our previous guarantee, and will leave Ashdod in possession of its Mictlan holdings and all its other territory in the west. That will quickly level off the province graphs you are so worried about, even if I am successful against Ashdod.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Provinces mean little other than the gems (and to a lesser extent income) they produce - that's what makes the philosophers wet themselves when they gaze east.

Speaking of which, the White Tower has recently endorsed Vine Shields as the shield of choice for our thugs and seeks some nature gems. We can trade a mix of W/F/E/D gems in exchange. We are also offering Construction 6 abilities to all who seek our masterful works. We only charge MSRP + 2 gems. :)

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Well after I took Arco's capital, I was going to gear up and go after Shinuyama, actually.

Our original agreement was that I spare your nation, in exchange for military cooperation against the ogres.

At the last moment, as my NAP with Shinuyama expired, and I asked you where the heck your troops were, you stated that your initial thrust had failed, and that you wanted to back out of the war.

This was turn 18 IIRC.

< shrug > You managed to diplomatically keep me from annexing a second capital early in the game, by agreeing to a war against the frontrunner (Shinuyama), which you then backed out of, condemning Bandar to a game of turtling, which you then cut short by allying with our other proposed enemy, whilst complaining that no one is fighting against Shinuyama.

Blah blah blah, right? :happy:

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

No need to take it personally. We Machakans plan to declare war on everyone, eventually. :)

p.s. When the fate of the universe is decided, you MUST give us your giant recipe! Was that coriander? Our black hunters swore they tasted coriander.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Perhaps another perspective would be useful: :)

Bandar rushed our capital. Never took it. Elephant vs. elephant. Bandar had more but ours were home garrison, friendly dominion and his would be enemy dominion and general low morale impacting both. Either elephants could turn on a dime (read bad DRN) We had researched up the Thaum ladder with an awake pretender and felt we would wipe out Bandar if our mages could survive long enough. I honestly wasnt't sure who would win. We felt a battle between us would be mutually destructive and seemed like a total gamble. If you lost you'd basically be out of the game. That is not how I like to play. I don't play in 50 games and just roll the dice and then go AI or quit in games where my gambles don't work out. I play till the end in every game. Even when it seems like I am going to lose, as in this game, I don't just quit or suggest its not worth the time to take my turns....

Anyhoo, I asked for a NAP and said we should focus on the leader -Shin. Bandar agreed. I avoided signing a NAP with Shin and attacked what had been 2 undefended provinces. Apparently, Shin somehow learned of my attack and moved troops in. I lost both fights b/c his PD and troops skyrocketed in between turns (apparently there was a leak in someone's embassy or the Admiral has my apartment bugged). At that point, I didn't have much to attack with but still refused Shin's offer to both sign a NAP and give me land, as this would violate the spirit of my agreement with Bandar. Granted I couldn't do much offensively til I re-built my forces. Nevertheless, I can say Arcos attacked 2 Shin provinces this game, 2 more than Bandar ever did. Bandar then agreed to Shin's offer to a NAP. After that Arcos signed a NAP with Shin.

We had no more dealings with Bandar for many turns. Then, Arcos cancelled our NAP with Bandar. No big deal in our minds since all nations must fight one another at some point and all NAPs must come to an end.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Well I must say this is a very fun game. I love the banter on the forums and the general amount of mayhem in game.

Frankly, I have been getting my butt kicked as Man, but I love this nation. It has a little of everything, and I just have to balance my arrows with some power. :doh:

Hopefully the war rages on and we can see who will reign supreme.

Okay I stole that last line from Iron Chef. :eek:

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Recommend a delay...looks like TC's gonna stale 2X...replacement?

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

48 hour postpone given.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

There's no point to a replacement for me. I can turn in turns if you want, but at this point there is little difference between what TC does I turn in a turn and what TC does when I stale. I have a grand total of 3 mages, 1 prophet, maybe 40 light infantry, very little research, and zero gem income. I'm only alive until Shin decides to end me.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

This is where it gets fun.

I like suggesting things. There is -usually- a thinly or heavily veiled reason for me to say something, but often my point in expressing myself has little to do with being understood (seems a lost cause), rather than creating an effect (cause-effect, much more reliable than actual understanding).

Now, you can imply things about my character as a player, and that's great, but it just proves that you don't know. You see, I play to the end in every game as well. I have never passed a failing position to a sub as "still competitive", I have never gone AI prematurely, and I've never stopped submitting turns simply because a position begins to look hopeless. I'm actually only starting to become comfortable, in this game, taking the big risks when the signs are unfavorable, and I want to roll the dice. You make it sound as if you equate gambling, with a tendency to quit, or to abandon an unfavorable position. I find it ironic that when I turtled up with Gath in Kingmaker because I had no attractive options, you commented you didn't know how people could play the game without finding a fight, then when I rush you here, you complain to me how you keep getting rushed, and you just want to play out the game. And for clarification, I have gone AI exactly twice in MP games here, the first was Gath in Kingmaker, and I was down to my last 2 castles, with no units after my last blaze of glory. The other was World in Crisis, where I likewise had made a last desperate series of attacks against the *3* people attacking me, and only went AI when I did, because a player in a much stronger position in the game got frustrated about a stale, and wanted out - we couldn't find another sub so I offered to swap out, for the good of the game.

At any rate, I know full well about your confidence as far as our initial clash was concerned. The thing was, you were cut off from recruitment options, with no/little income (sieged capital), while I was prepared to send reinforcements every turn, with a very strong income, and national troops streaming in at a rate that I felt very much outweighed the potential power gains from your continued research. In any case, I'm not sure how you could argue with my assertion that I would be far happier with the situation had it played out as a 1v1 then on my terms, rather than a 1v2 against my vassal neighbor and his newfound double-dealing ally.

You see, what you called an "Alliance" (Star Elephant Alliance ring a bell? Your term, not mine), I considered vassalage. That's what happens when a nation is about to crumble under another, and out of fear of the end, begs for mercy, they become a vassal. Big mistake on my part, I suppose, to think that you might be grateful that I responded favorably to your plea for survival, and would continue to plan and work with me to make both our nations stronger.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

And therein lies the problem with our communication. I am not sure how alliance equates to vassalage :) I certainly never have in this or any other game said I'd be someone's vassal. My goal is to protect the good people of Arcos and see that my pretender ascends or dies trying. In my admittedly spotty mind, alliance just meant we would both attack the same foe. I complied and attacked but the "alliance" ended in my mind when we signed a NAP with Shin . After that all we had was a NAP with each other which had to end sometime. I have complied with it, right?

Going back to the moment where you had me besieged and I asked for a NAP - you didn't know how close my reinforcements were, nor that I had nice indie mages in addition to my capital mages, nor what my research level was, so your claims that I was "begging for mercy" are based on incomplete information. I asked for a NAP because, for the reasons described above, I thought I had a decent chance of winning back my besieged capital, but that even winning it would be a big setback. I didn't want to risk a single mage, and who knows what can happen on a battlefield with a bunch of elephants. I told you as much and you agreed to a NAP. Its not like I used the Jedi mind trick on you. How that turned into me being your vassal, I have no idea. I did not feel "grateful for your mercy" as you describe it but rather was annoyed that you thought it was a good idea to elephant rush another elephant nation when there were bountiful indie provinces all around. Part of the reason you were able to siege the capital was it seemed like such a bad idea, I thought you had attacked the adjacent province mistakenly and so I did not move in reinforcements. My stupidity there. And I am not saying your plan would not have worked - your elephants might have stormed through my sparse defenses and wiped me out - it might have been brilliant. I didn't want to take a chance that it was and so asked for a NAP.

And if I misinterpreted you on quitting, then my apologies but a few posts up you said "sort of makes me not want to bother making up a turn at this point.." and "I'd rather just have it over, and be able to start a similar scenario on the same map perhaps." That sounded to me like you wanted to give up.

Sorry if this all left a bitter taste - you alluded to being stabbed in the kidneys, etc. and I certainly don't want to make anyone feel like that. For me its just a game and fun. Having someone end a NAP or attack unexpectedly can be rough, but its part of the game. It knocked me out of the KM race when Eriu surprise attacked me but I played on in good humor with Cleveland, the evil Sidhe mastermind.

Ok, someone please post something funny to pull this one out of the mud...



:beer:

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

And I meant those things. It makes me not want to bother. And I would rather it was just over. But once I was diplomatically blocked in as Gath in Kingmaker, for example, I played at least 20 turns, just making myself as strong as possible, waiting for the inevitable attack. I don't think I even let the nation stale once, out of respect for the others playing (even to the extent that while I built up to hurt whoever attacked me, I wasn't just going to suicide against a neighbor I had no chance against, I was going to let them come to me).


I just find this current situation, and your rationale to be incredibly ironic. But again, the whole thing really is somewhat moot - Shinuyama will be on victory's doorstep before Bandar has fully exited, so I think in light of the VP conditions, and your own lamentation that people are not attacking Shinuyama, I'm just surprised that your solution is to attack Bandar, rather than to brooch the subject of war with Shin again.

In the scope of the game's scenario itself, and your ability to impact it, just take a moment to think, of Bandar's neighbors, who has always shown them respect, and who has betrayed their trust? If you think on that long enough, you may soon realize that your actions have in fact only hastened the subjugation and enslavement of your people. At least my people are going to be placed on a Reservation, maybe we'll build some casinos to garner a disproportionate amount of wealth for our subdued populace. ;) Your people will likely just become food, or slaves. :p

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

I agree its totally ironic :)

A pictorial history of the Arcos-Bandar relationship follows to illustrate the complex dynamics between these two proud nations:

Here is the scene where we convinced the Bandar general to spare Arcos:

http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/i...the-apes_l.jpg


Our alliance is sealed:

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k1..._apes_kiss.jpg


And here is the Bandar diplomat right after he was informed that Arcos has pulled out of the Star Elephant Alliance:

http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/feedforward...red-monkey.png

:D

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Wow, thats really uncanny DC. :D

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

OMG You're actually Marky Mark?!

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Attachment 7560

The above Enemy Agent was captured in Machakan lands. The Eyes of the Lord were unsure who sent him, until they laid themselves on the above photographic evidence.

Machaka therefore declares war on Bandar Log.

Machaka also declares war on Arcoscephale, for previously being allied with the vile Bandar.

- The Paranoia of the Lord

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

I've never seen that damned dirty ape in my life.

You've got the wrong man, see! I've been framed, see?!

:shock:

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Not that we can do much at this point, but Arcos will end its NAP with Shin and do what we can to save the world, again, sigh....

:)

The White Tower Forges are offering a special sale this month. Artifacts are available first come first serve. Cost + 10. Payment in advance. Death gems preferred. Mwahahaha!

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

We too must herald that this NAP with Shinuyama no longer serves the greater good and we hereby give notice that we wish it to terminate 3 months hence.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Don, you seem to have something stuck in your eye.

Jazzepi

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Jazzepi, Do they use shurikens in Shinuyama? That may be prescient of my fate.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Are you sure you want to cancel your NAP, DonCorazon? I mean, canceling a NAP10 is a pretty risky maneuver. Who knows what the world will look like 10 turns from now? :)

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

I think that when one nation is clearly running away with the game, the only risk lies in not cancelling any and all treaties with that nation ;)

Also, I don't think that anyone (except Shin, of course) would blame Arcos for failing to honour the period of peace in a crisis situation where the only realistic alternative would be to throw in the towel and call it game over.

Just the 2c of a distant but interested party :)

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

I think we can all agree with this :)

This kind of thing has caused many many bun fights on the boards and I am sure will do so again :p Lets just say this is a very controversial view of NAPs :)

Normally I don't like long term NAPs. Especially as they are usually secret. You don't know when you negociate with someone if he is in an effective eternal peace with some of his other neighbours or not. It also leads to situations like this when neighbours of the big bad are faced with a choice of oath breaking (to those who see it like that) or watching their neighbour win. It can also have a knock on affect for the whole game. If only the long term NAPpers can stop him them the game folds if they have scruples against breaking NAPs. Short term NAPs don't suffer from this, it is usually clear that a power is getting ahead in time for the NAP to be dissolved and the NAPer to help.

Having said all that long term NAPs were not banned in this game. And I have to confess I signed one :p Didn't do me much good though as the power in question went AI and shockingly has not kept to the bargin :shock:

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Unfortunately I don't believe in the emergency eject philosophy of NAPs so Arcos has to ride it out. I'll save the debate on that philosophy for another thread. I can't remember ever signing a NAP this long, but for Arcos it seemed a matter of survival at the time since our ex-foe, ex-ally, Bandar had just signed a NAP with him and our military was wiped out after our 2 botched attacks on Shin. In hindsight though, we should never have agreed to such a long NAP or waited so long to cancel it. We had hoped to resolve affairs with Bandar first and that in the meantime Shin's foes would be striking back. Which is why I said earlier I was surprised there seems to be no resistance. But it seems he has NAPed up with everyone but whoever is in his path. :)

So, I chalk it up to being out-maneuvered by the wily Admiral. And we see Shin is now attacking Bandar so things indeed look grim. We would hope those beiseieged by this foul menace will try and hold out in their capitals as long as they can. We have a couple tricks up our sleeves though it looks like they may come too little, too late. Sorry we didn't do more earlier.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Hah my utter inexperience shows as a bunch of monkey communions and some enslave minds destroys my army and steals my skrattis..

Ouch!!

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

I was all excited when I read your post (hadn't checked the turn yet), but there was no mention of those idiot hotshots blasting off 20 Blade Winds after their scripts were up, and killing off all my Communion Slaves. :(

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

so do you now have those skrattis and all their equipment? Well I think one enslaved skratti with the equipment ended up attacking the other equipped skratti...

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Enslave Mind reduces commanders to lowly units, with no equipment slots.

To spite me, your men killed most of the Skratti that I managed to Enslave.

To further insult me, the 2 that I got to keep, decided to be stuck in their Wolf form, which isn't the most exciting of the 3. :p

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Ah well :D
Does the equipment poof or did you get to collect it from the battlefield?


PS fear my moose of doom!

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

They just poof. I think the creatures should meld with their gear, and end up with bladed fists, and metal plates sticking from their spine.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

The once-mighty nation of Ashdod would like to inform the rest of this forsaken world that the upstart Shinuyaman bakemono sorcerers have the ability both to freeze the hearts of hapless men and to drain the very life from their enemies. You must be prepared for such abominable capabilities of their mages.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

The witch hunters of Marignon have deemed the act of Arcoscephale unredeemable, and wish to inform everyone that sending pearls our way will go into the purpose of dispelling this foul spell, that makes everyones mages and troops older and older. We shall be casting dispel in 2 or 3 turns, depending on how many pearls we get from people. If none come - it's your suffering. You are free to try to dispel it on your own, but the mighty nation of Marignon is offering to be the conduit of greater good here. Also any penetration items will be accepted gladly, primarily a rune smasher. Void eyes and spell foci we can make ourselves.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Before you dispell it consider Shin's mages are very, very old. :)

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

BillyWitchDoctor.com is outraged that his Black Sorcerers are now dying even more rapidly. We think.

The vile nation of Arcoscephale, our sworn enemy whom we are at war with, shall pay for this crime.

But BillyWitchDoctor.com also understands the need to kill off the vile Bakemono. We think.

So Machaka hereby declares war on any nation who attempts to dispell the Burden of Time. And any nation that assists with the dispell. And anyone who considers assisting.

Sincerely,
The Imbalance of the Lord

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Still, it hurts the counter-Shinuyama faction more than it hurts Shinuyama - there are still more old mages outside of Shinuyama .... *very* clever planning, and, of course, Abysia has to protest... *sigh*

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Postponed hosting by 72 hours due to Vanheim looking for sub.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Man is very ticked. When his main magic wielders are called 'Old' Crones, and they age faster...Well you get the picture..And it is Old and Ugly!

We will send aid to whoever has the best chance to dispel this foul spell!
:angel

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Any chance for a rollback? Dunno how ppl usually deal with such a matter - of course I'll moan about about not being able to submit orders, but I won't be the only one....?

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

No one could.

So, either rollback or a stale turn. Your call.

I would just ignore that stale turn and let the game go on. Who knows what complications occur if we start to tinker with llamaserver.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Normally I'd vote to just press on, but with the Burden of Time up, it's a bit different. Plus, Shin gets a free turn's worth of siegeing on those VP captials, which isn't trivial given how close he is to winning. I say we rollback.

-The Inability-to-Just-Let-This-Game-Die-Peacefully of the Lord

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

A rollback it is then.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

So..... we just got turn 32 again, instead of turn 33 again. :S

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

This game was screwed up before this and is even worse now. My understanding is at least one nation has invited Shin to take its capital to hasten the end, making it pretty demotivating for those who would otherwise fight to the last man.

And now we are rolling back turns, prolonging the pointlessness? I'd just move to elect Shin the winner and move on at this point.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

I would not mind being done with this game.

Oh and just for the record, I think a fairly large game with low Victory Conditions is an interesting concept, but if you try it again, I'd suggest stressing very loudly to people that the nature of the game is going to require vigilance and action.

Oh, I'd also suggest doing so on a wrap-around map, especially something like Asia Twist which has predefined starts that are pretty evenly spaced about the map.

Basically Shinuyama's start position in this game gave them a tremendous advantage, only magnified by them being coached by Zhao.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Congratulations to our new Overlords Shinuyama