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I see smaug has returned. would he care to test his mettle against Frozen Lama?

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So playing smart is disappointing?

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To me it's playing cowardly, safety in numbers, almost anyone will fall under multiple attacks.
I don't see the joy in playing the game that way. I know only a handful of people that prefer to go solo into war and that's what really disappointing.

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Hey, when I'm in the lead I'm all for solo wars!

Funny how you never hear the little guy who is charging bravely into battle against a superior foe complaining about how extra people entering the war ruined his joy and turned him into a coward, it's always the big guy that's complaining when the odds turn...

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I'm not convinced ganging is a noob or a vet thing personally, since it's the nation in question and the actions of that nation which usually dictates things. From my experience, you are far more likely to see early / runaway leaders, or aggresive nations getting ganged up on. Especially if the graphs are on since it makes these things very easy to spot.

I'm slowely coming to the conclusion that if you want to win games, then it's probably best to be a strong mid-nation through the early and mid game, and not a front runner. As nations that expand as rapidly as possible, and/or conquer every neighour in sight, usually become the first nation to be gangbanged. And once that happens, it's only rarely that they've managed to build up a position strong enough to not only survive, but also win at the end of it all.

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it depends on the map... some maps don't allow for gangbangs until people learn winged boots and cloud trapeze...


if you are on a map with lots of choke points you might only ever have two neighbors and if your a front runner you might just win 2on1 after 2on1 after 2on1


on this map every has like 4neighbors in 4different directions so it's not quite the same

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wait, you expand massively into everyone's spheres of influence, and then start whining when everyone doesn't just lay down before your magnificence?

the only thing I don't understand is why _all_ your neighbours aren't in for the banquet.

You clearly over-expanded and bit off more than you could chew. And I'm not even involved in this war in any way.

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Micah, I'm not complaining, I'm just stating. I'm rather used to this from my experience.
That's why I much more prefer no score graphs, and even no wraparound maps. That just given them more ability to gangbang you.

Everyone usually attack if they have a 2 vs 1 advantage, or are much more powerful, or spot a nice fresh noobish piece of land, and I think that's wrong, that's why I choose my targets strategically rather than by player/nation/odds...

So my ideal games would be no diplo no score graphs games, and those are very rare, actually there aren't any.

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Once again Arch, this wasn't much related to this game, rather generally speaking.

And I expanding this big because I know I have no chance of winning this game as I said before it won't be determined by skill, but rather by diplomacy no matter what you might think or say.

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eh, if it's not related to this game, you're not posting in the correct thread :D

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Ha ha ha. :)

If you want to get into some interesting one-on-one wars, I think you need a nice big screw-up in the first year so you won't scare everyone with your province count.

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Just you wait a couple months! We'll have so much gear on him he'll be invincible! Moo ha ha ha ha ha. We expect the false Machakan Wrym to be kitted out nicely, oh, somewhere around the year 17, based on your current research levels.

-- The Council of Cardinals

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So others should sit and wait on the side-lines patiently for their turn while one strong nation eats up them one at a time? That is quite an interesting way to expect people to act :eek:

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Bad luck on your part. I didn't coordinate it with Tien Chi. And even if I had, I definitely didn't think your army would be defeated.


e: And to be fair, if you are simply complaining about being ganged on by myself and TC then I don't know what you're on about. You can take us both on easilly enough. I don't know what's happening at your other borders however.

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nothing at all - although now that he has so spectacularly advertised his weakness, I wouldn't at all be surprised for that to change :D

basically, it would seem that he feels it unfair that you attacked him, instead of leaving him to deal w/ the mutilated remains of a previously staling T'ien Ch'i at his leisure. :)

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I understand Executor's expressed frustration, since I've witnessed him get dogpiled in pretty much every game he's played in. On the other hand, Arco did rack up some pretty impressive territorial gains. But with no gem income from indy provinces, 50% income, and LA Ermor scales in abundance, only the blood hunting nations can make really good use of additional indy territory.

That said, Marignon hereby declares war on Abysia and Vanheim! As soon as I'm done with Machaka, watch out, you evil hunters of the fair young maidens. Our knights will soon ride to your rescue!*

-- The Council of Cardinals

* Please note that due to extreme resource limitations and wars with spider beasties, we are currently a wee bit short on knights, so a small gaggle of flagellants will be sent instead.

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heh, vanheim can afford bloodhunters? net income is currently 66/turn, so I can afford a lvl 1 hunter 3 times a year :D

also, bloodhunt results are affected by gem frequency settings... so, I doubt that we will be drowning in oceans of it ;)

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I'm not complaining about anything!!!

I feel I'm talking to myself here,
yes I did attack TC, but only after a player had been found. Most people would do, and do do the complete opostie and attack a steleing nation, however I did not, and besides, who am I to attack, I have 3 neighbors that are the same size, and TC looked like a logical target with his pretender choice, I planned to attack him before he ever staled, you can believe me or not, I really don't care at all what anyone thinks.

I have little interest in this game as luck seems like the key factor and that's something I'm short of unfortunately, and the fact that I have les and less time for Dominions doesn't help me either. :)
Let's not forget diplomacy, I'm a little burnt out from it and don't even bother to make NAPs, so it was only a matter of time before some of my numerous neighbors attacked, that one of the reasons for my lack of interest here.

I apologize Demon, although, you must say it did look plenty coordinated from my point of view.

Jarko, ah damn, I had something smart to say but forgot what it was...
In short, you're getting the wrong picture. I'm not saying 1vs1 wars are a must or something like that, that would be silly, there are always some nation that are too strong to be dealt with solo, however, I'm saying that 2vs1 wars aren't a must either! Wow, deja vu.
I know a loooot of players that simply refuse to go to war unless someone is on their side, or just lurk and wait to join a war in progress, and even worst just lurk,lurk,lurk, do nothing the whole game and complain how some nation are just too powerful, wtf!?!? If you want to win you've gotta play to win.

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The Council is operating under the assumption that no nation is actually depending on taxation as a primary revenue source. As we understand it, the Pantokrator lobs a few gobs of cash at those nations who receive his lucky blessings every month. If Vanheim has not been receiving these gifts, it's probably because he's mad at you for all that blood-slave hunting you've been doing.

-- Marignon

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I'm sorry to hear that... if you are really not having fun though I think there are a number of players who would be willing to sub in.

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I think you hit the nail with that :) Now you have to ask yourself: Did you play to win in this game, or did you paint yourself as a target?

Now, we all play multiplayer games because we want to play with other people. Thus, if you intend to play to win, do you

a) Paint yourself as a target early on, either because you appear to be too weak or too strong
b) Keep yourself strong enough to not appear as a weakling but neither strong enough to gobble up your neighbours in a blink of an eye

Multiplayer gaming in its very core is like the TV-show Survivor: Do you want to be the next target?

Some would say only mediocore players can thus win. But the key is to play to win, and I think many will be prepared to play accordingly :) There are some damn excellent players around here who did not rush to paint a bullseye on their forehead (which I am happy of, seeing as I am neighbouring a few such players :D ).



@vfb regarding Blood: Dunno if it's just me, but bloodhunting is less than stellar. I decided I want to do some bloodsacrificing to pump up my dominion a bit. A B2 Pan was given the task to search for fresh virgins.

After two turns of bloodhunting and a grand-total of one captured blood-slave I discarded the idea. That one slave is now stored in the gem vault as a novelty, although I expect Bogus or some other hero to come and, as usual, rescue her in a couple turns...

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in testing at 0unrest a single warlock was able to average like 4blood per turn hunting his own capital with as little as 0 and as many as 9


a b2 pan shouldn't've been that much worse, so either you weren't hunting your capital or you got unlucky to get so few.

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Was hunting in my capital with 0 unrest, so seems I just was unlucky then. On average four per turn would be more than nice, as I'd need just two per turn for the sacrificing (would be nice to have a few more candles in my capital, just to make me breath a bit easier :) ).

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Sinner! You admit your crimes against humanity. And you were already on shaky ground with that blasphemous global of yours feeding you gems.

Marignon declares war on the evil Pan nation! You can expect to see a legion of knights appearing on your border shortly, or failing that, Alverne the Friar will pay you a visit. Then you'll be really sorry for catching that blood slave. *

-- The Council of Cardinals

* P.S. We have spoken to your want-to-be god, and he has proclaimed Blood Sacrifice an abomination in his name. Just go ahead and try it! See?

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well pan's will be worse than warlocks but I would reckon a pan would get an average of 2per turn at least? just run a separate test game i'm too lazy to do it over (warlocks are the best blood hunter in the era but not the only ones)?

keep in mind that in my test game I had 0unrest on everyturn I hunted not just the first...

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I want to install my Dom3 on another computer, and I can't find wherever I got the unique gem generator mod. Can someone provide a link?

Edit: cancel request. Had a flash of inspiration and remembered to check Llamaserver, found it.

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I'd just like to salute those nations/players that died in the first wave- better luck next game.

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Oh and a reminder since there seems to have been some confusion- both the sending of gems, as well as gold and items is banned.

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Marignon flaunts our Brazen Vessel before the eyes of those who would use it for evil purposes. Verily we did slay a legion of undead to prevent this foul object from falling into evil hands! We are going to put it in a museum and keep it there. No blood hunting here in Marignon, that's for sure!

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Hehe, figured out (again) MA Pan can't actually bloodsacrifice. This is about the 17th time I forget it's only the supercool *EA* Pans who can bloodsacrifice :( So much about that plan, back to building temples... At least the temples are still cheap.

In other news, seems Abysia has gone on overdrive with bloodsacrificing. Looks like there will be dominion kill casualties soon. Happily waiting here when Vans decide to start the sacrificing too :p

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haha bloodhunting. at 280 for a blood 1, that's not happening any time soon :)

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Then try 380 gp for a 25% chance of B2 ;)

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News came to the Council of Cardinals that the spiders of Machaka had betrayed their southernly neighbors, launching an invasion even though a non-agression pact was in place.

It would be foolish for us to trust that the arachnids would honor their ceasefire with Marignon. Additionally, as a purely defensive measure to prevent infiltration by the arachnid armies, the Council has launched Operation Hoover, to tidy up the forests surrounding our lands.

-- The Council of Cardinals

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*Spiders across the world clack their pincers in delight, and head to Mari's churches.*

*spider emissaries head to the courts of blood nations to whisper in their ears*

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I am sooo freaking unlucky my rarest and most valuable mage is the only mage to get diseased this winter!

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At least you're not Agartha.

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Why did you have to raze that fort and lab of yours just before the pro-active defence force of Pangaea arrived to relieve your burden of twin capitals? Do you have *any* idea how much rebuilding those will cost, especially in this game where money is so rare :( I mean, I was really looking forward to getting another fort and all http://www.smileyhut.com/sad/crying.gif

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Hosting postponed 15 hours by request.

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Hmm, I'm guessing it's because you backstabbed me. I save scorched earth tactics for such occasions...that being said, I was completely serious about doing my best to take Van down with me since he instigated the whole thing, if you fancy heading westward.

And about 1700g since it's on a farm province, assuming Pan does fortified cities there.

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I instigated the whole thing? you started trying to shortchange my puny territories I was to be getting, from 3 crappy pyth territories outside my immediate capital zone, to what was looking like 1, {even with all 4, the income value was about 15% of pyth's total) and then initiated discussions w/ Pan concerning... me. I talked to him, and turned it around. Any diplomatic results are due to your own actions. And my attack only came after pythium had been vanquished.

so now you wish to do some metagamey suicide, abandoning any defense against Pan, to send everything you have against me. Guess I'll be rolling with the punches then :)

edit: also, please cry more. thanks.

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Brother Leary preaches, "Should we build walls between us, that we cannot hear the preaching of the devout? Nay, let us not build walls. In fact, we would all be much better off if everyone just razed all their castles right now! So go forth and raze, peoples of the world. And ye shall receive our blessings." *

Thus spake Brother Leary.

(* Note: In order that our preaching might be better heard, unfortunately the brothers of Marignon need some sort of platform to stand on, so our own castle walls are exempt.)

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Arch - First off, your accusation of me discussing attacking you with Pan is a flat-out lie, assuming you meant before you attacked ME, but I guess I can see how it makes you look better to claim otherwise.

All I did was ask if you were taking a province since you moved your forces away from it and you somehow translated that into stealing it out from under you? A simple "I'll be taking it with a scout" would have sufficed. I also didn't notice you fighting anything that wasn't a single point of PD during the whole fight with Pythium, so I'm not sure what exactly you were getting rewarded for, though I would have stuck to the agreement if you had just used your words.

As for attacking you instead of Pan...I told you I wasn't giving up Pythium when you attacked it, I'm living up to that promise. I also have a better shot against you than I do against Pan, so I don't see the point of cowering in my cap waiting for him to decide to kill me off instead of going after you.

Oh, and way to be an ******* with the gratuitous personal attack.

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look, you're doing the classic meta-game suicide attack, as you said to me. I know what it is, how it is supposed to work.
I'm unmoved by it.

Your account of the provinces involved is incorrect.

The proper manner, in this game, to resolve such disagreements is through war. This is explicitly in the OP, and the special rules, such as the ban on trading, work to support this. I did not attack until Pyth was gone, as per my commitment, as I understood it.

You accused me of instigating the whole thing; I denied that and said, rather, you.

Also, "rewarded" - that's surely the attitude which made you so cavalier with the agreed disposition, which included Holburg. More like this war is the reward.

Anyways I do apologize for that last line in my previous post. It's more an internet meme than anything personal, but the tone is regrettable.

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It's not really suicide when you're dead anyhow. I don't see how cowering in my cap would have accomplished anything to increase my long- or even mid-term survival. Watching Pan's army tear through my 58 PD this turn without taking a single loss that wasn't freespawn doesn't do much to make me think I was mistaken.

What is the correct account of the provinces involved then? I recall having my prophet die because I scripted him to retreat so you could take the province SW of Pyth if you wanted it, so I'm not sure how that equates to me being overly belligerent.

Your comment about being a friendly neighbor if I attacked Pyth was misleading, intentional or not. I had intended to ask if you would be a good neighbor once they were dead, but I suppose you did satisfy the letter of the question with your response. Perhaps it was simple miscommunication, perhaps not. Regardless, at the end of the day you attacked me because you didn't like my attitude about the conquered provinces, so I don't see why I don't get to do the same.

As to Holburg: If I am not mistaken I took it for war operations against Pyth, including having my priest preach out the last candle of Pyth's dominion, which I told you about. You never even mentioned wanting to take it after he dommed out before you attacked me. Plus I'm pretty sure the terms we agreed on had you taking the provs WEST of Pyth's cap, which doesn't even include Holburg.

And I realize that the game encourages NAP-breaking and backstabbing, I'm not accusing you of playing outside the rules, but I do object to you portraying my response to your attack on me as being somehow meta-gamey or unsportsmanlike. I tried to hold on to both of my VPs as long as I could, but your successful vanquishing of Kin-Breaker made me have to decide between Pyth and Agartha, and both of them result in a messy death. I'm not sure why you consider sitting around and waiting for it to happen less meta-gamey than just getting it over with.

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Ooops, did I somehow stir the cauldron in a way I did not intend to? My previous post was intended as a funny remark on how Agartha snapped my prize in a clever way (fully supported by the game engine because these exact things, I believe).

Also, Pangaean losses in the assault on Agartha may have been freespawn, but they died in droves, just as anybody can witness by checking the graphs. Free spawn have feelings too, you know :(

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burning a lab would've counted as screwing pangaea? yet somehow burning the fort counts as suicide?


if you can't win a single battle you can hole up in your fort and repair the walls, oh wait nevermind pangaea's army is so massive it would've 1rounded the walls ANYWAYS...


razing the fort just COSTS pangaea 1700gold like micah said... i doubt micah's BATTLES could have caused 1700gold worth of troop loses against FREESPAWN...


of course I have no idea what you are arguing about... I'd just like to say I fully support fort burns, and now that I know they are possible I might use them in the future in a situation where I feel the cost of rebuilding my capital is greater than the damage I could deal in combat to that nation including the turns wasted sieging me.

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I have to look with a wry eye at your new rationale about it being easier to defend the pythian cap, as to why you uprooted all of your forces. When the war first started you told me that if I did not withdraw you would suicide on me. Now you are doing so. I never claimed it was unsportsmanlike; merely that threatening to suicide against someone as a negotiating tactic is metagamey (as the value of such is generally to make others fear crossing you in future games), and that I am not moved by such threats.

"provinces west" was the original suggestion; when you were being more sorely pressed by pyth's armies, you had it that I would get those pythian territories you did not currently have; that included holburg. When suddenly Pythium was no threat, you certainly changed your tune on holburg, and started elbowing in on that other. Why was your scout prophet attacking a territory that even you agree was to have been mine?

As well to say my comment that I would be a friendly neighbour for your attack on pyth was "misleading" imputes a long pre-existing plan to attack you. There was none, and the decision to do so was only made the turn I attacked - due to your pushback on those scrawny lands that were to have been mine, due to privileged information as to your diplomatic activities, due to the war with pyth being over and so my being a free agent, and due to the one turn window whereby my dom extended over the pythian capital.

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My threat to throw everything I had at you had nothing to do with metagaming. I was simply trying to break the double-team on me by threatening to go kamikaze on one of you, and I figured I had a much better chance of making a dent in you than I did in Pan, so you got the ultimatum. It didn't work, I was spread out and double teamed and eventually I lost a battle that effectively eliminated any chance I had at surviving more than a few more turns. At this point I'm just following through on what I said I'd do. I can see how you could frame me keeping my promises as metagaming, but some sort of reputation is unavoidable.

Let's just call this what it is. All of your supposed "reasons" for attacking me were fabrications, overreactions or very liberal interpretations of the truth. You decided you wanted to attack me and then went about looking for an excuse to do so, as opposed to the other way around. There's certainly nothing wrong with attacking someone in Dominions just because you feel like it, so why not just come out and say so? The aggrieved posturing is tiresome and dishonest.

Your assertion about my diplomacy is a complete fabrication. I never approached anyone about a joint attack against you. Pan approached ME with an offer to work together, but I had only indicated interest in it in a broad sense, and no targets had been chosen, and I told him that I would have to defer until I had Pythium in hand.

My prophet was attacking the territory in question because you didn't have any visible forces in range to take it and I didn't want to leave it uncontrolled since I didn't want a third party swooping in and taking it, as QM had already been asking after it. I sent you a message telling you that and letting you know I had set my commander to retreat so that I wouldn't take the province if you attacked it. You successfully took the territory in question with a scout that turn when my commander fled as ordered. I was also doing my diplo in a hurry since I didn't have a stable internet connection at the time and didn't get a response from you in time to get my turn in, hence the attack with retreat orders instead of not attacking at all.

Admittedly I would have happily taken some extra provinces if you had let me, (especially since you didn't do much fighting) but all you had to do was tell me that you were taking them per our agreement and I would have left them to you. I think skipping straight to a full-out attack because I asked who the province was going to is a bit of an extreme reaction, no?

I still have no idea what you're talking about with Holburg. As I said, I took it to preach there to kill Pythium, and you never asked about claiming it after that. I didn't build anything there or otherwise solidify my control of the province.

You were also not really a "free agent" when you attacked me, as we had agreed that I would get the Pythium capital as a result of the war, and I had yet to take it. Perhaps in some sense the letter of the agreement was fulfilled since I had control of the province, though not the fort, but it's clearly a mangling of the spirit of it. Additionally, I think most people would characterize an unannounced attack on someone you were working together with the turn before as at least somewhat underhanded.

Again, a sound tactic, but watching you try to cast me as the villain after you launched a sneak attack at me is quite irksome. You can trump up whatever pretexts you want, but at the end of the day you stabbed me in the back to try to get an advantage, which is fine. The farce of you pretending otherwise is what I take exception to.

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Hey, umm, how is Shin doing?

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Shin? Do you mean Atlantis? I eventually breached the walls, although it took some time. Btw how did you lose your pretender? I had attacked Shinuyama because I saw hte dead pretender in the score graphs.