Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

i am the admin grudge;)

hosting extended by 24 hours,should be enough.

Since i am not regularly looking at this thread,its generally better to write me a personal message,which i get emailed,in case u want an urgent extension or something.

gg Grudgebringer.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Thanks...See you in the next one!!

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Bye Grudge! Didn't think I would outlast you in this one.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Hang in there Hoplo, guess I didn't see it coming this time.

Guess I have to learn that lesson every so often!!:)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

back 1 day sooner than expected. got my turn in now, so we can go back to normal schedule ;)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

been getting some weird things lately, the latest 1 being immortal vamp lords and vamps not respawning at my capital after death inside my own dominion. also had a few replay bugs in previous turns. anybody else received strange behaviors?

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

i watched the battle.
If you click on morale of one of your vamps you will quickly see,that it was not your dominion.
The thing to consider when battling with immortals is,that the turn order for this is important:

1. preaching happens

2. battles occur

3. dominion is spread by temples

so...if you have positive dominion in the turn you order to attack it might change due to preaching priests,renember that these can be stealthy!
Likewise...if you see you have positive dominion after the battle in the province,it might be because your dominion spread to a positive number just AFTER the battle.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

see, the thing is, I had positive dominion before and after the battle, so I don't see how stealth preaching or anything of that sort could change the dominion to neutral, but not long enough to last a single turn... the morale thing you saw is probably part of the bug I'm talking about...

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

see, i am encountering that in my other game all the time.
I am up vs a very strong dominion and using dozens of priests preaching.
I am always -10 dominion before battles and -10 after battles.
But my dozens inquisitor priests assure me positive dominion many a times for actual battles.


Say you have +2 dom when you order to attack.
Then preachers change it to -1 e.g.
Then the battle happens at -1.
Then your temples put your dominion back to say +3.

Thats the mechanic.
It doesnt matter what the dom was the turn before the battle.
The actually dominion after preaching only matters for battles and is not visible as such on the map since is altered every time by normal dom spreads.
That way,you never can be 100% certain when odering vamps to attack,unless you either got very high dominion before preaching or are sure enemy hasnt preaching in that province or bring lots of you your own preachers.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

well, I find it hard to believe that TNN(AI control) is actually stealth preaching over there. Ermor doesn't have national stealth preachers so that's also out of the question. that leaves you, and you don't have national stealth preachers either... so it's a nice theory but I still find it pretty hard to believe that this is actually the case here... but well, I guess it is possible that 1 of you is massively stealth preaching over there with stealthy indies or whatever, but still rather unlikely...

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

why stealth preaching?

He is besieging you there,you were trying to break the siege.
He can just order his commanders to preach.
I just took a quick peak at his commanders in the battle and saw several with priest level.

I didnt know that the AI is capable of doing this,but it makes perfect sense.
Since,as i already said,i was doing the same all the time in my game,where i was besieging like half a dozen castles with -10 dom.

Furthermore, could you swear ,that your dominion was positive last turn?
Maybe you did look at the wrong candles last turn? Happened to me in the past.

Most of the time its not a bug in the game ,but just a human mistake in such a case.

Battle reports being a little buggy at times is a known issue though,but this a whole different situation:
Sometimes the outcome of the battle is different then what was shown in the report. This is the bug.
But in your case,the outcome and the report were the same.
Its just VERY unlikely that this is a bug.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

FINALLY.
Some peace now?...
Well played Hoplosternum. You've been a pain.
Interestingly enough, your banished great enchantress is still perfectly visible on the map as an indy commander. Funny.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Bye everyone and thanks for the game. Especially LDC. Good game, you definitely taught me a thing or two about the potential of EA TC!

Good Luck everyone :)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

now that Helheim is dead and Arco+TNN don't have any independent provinces(their remaining forts are being sieged) it seems that we're moving onto a 4 player war, and from 4 shall leave 1 victorious.

I don't even remember what you guys told me about previous pacts you had or didn't have with the previous owner of Sauromatia, so to make things easier I'm canceling all diplomatic relations I may or may not had with any of you. I assume the most common would be NAP-3 so consider this the first turn of warning, whoever I may be NAPed with... just don't want to tie my(and well, all of our) hands now that we're down to 4 players...

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

gg Hoplo and sorry for the domkill.

@ Sauromatia

Ok,we take notice of you canceling our NAP3.
We are Turn 66...on Turn 69 the first battles between our nations might occur.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

This always happens after a domkill.
The remaining troops stay on the map for 1 turn,doing nothing,and then just vanish the turn after.
Furthermore, if you attack the province they wont even participate in the battle.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

oh, good to know that we had a NAP... after all those Ghost Riders, Black Deaths and all those other things you threw at me I was wondering why you didn't actually make an offensive move besides hiding behind cowardly "anonymous" spells...

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

1. i am getting blasted by several anonymus spells per turn myself.

2. since i cant prove who it is ,i prefer to stay calm with any accusations here.

3. i advise you to do the same.

4. Agartha did say already 3 times in this thread that it had NAP3 with you and will continue to honor the treaty.Your memory must not be the best.
We did not violate the treaty at any time in the game.

See you on the battlefield.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

in your case I'd have to agree. being the top dog naturally makes you enemies...

unfortunately I know for a *fact* that it's you. obviously I can't actually *prove* it because you use anonymous spells, but there are other ways of *knowing*...

well, this thread was pretty dead until not so long ago, so I could have just forgotten about it. as for "honoring the treaty" I guess that depends on what the definition of a NAP is, which seems to be a very hot topic these days... this thread: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=45171 is an example, but there are also local arguments about NAPs in specific games... seems like many people consider harmful spells as breaking a NAP, and it seems like a no brainer that Ghost Riders, Black Deaths, etc are in fact harmful... however I won't hold it against you in this game, and as I said, I canceled all NAPs in order to prevent this very thing we're discussing now... this doesn't mean I'll attack you as soon as it ends, or anybody else for that matter, it just means that whenever I do decide to attack someone it won't be breaking any NAPs...

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Since we all field Tartarians it seems pretty obvious that all remaining Nations,as well as Hellheim, are/have been able to cast those spells you mentioned.
I highly doubt that you can be sure enough to *know*.

yeah,no problem about the memory.
This thread wasnt too active in the past,thats right.

Concerning NAP`s,this is much more complicated.
There are games with binding diplomacy,as a house rule, in these games it sure is debatable on what spells are actually breaking the treaty.But even there,generally someone actually has to admit it before actions can be taken imo,unless there really is some way of 99% knowing it,like air spells being used heavily with only 1 Nation that got access to it.

Anyways,lets move on.
Agartha thinks as well,that a cancelation of a NAP is not the same as a declaration of war.
We will see what the future will bring;)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

I don't remember if I had a NAP with Agartha either. If I had, it is cancelled. T'ien Ch'i strongly suspects Agartha to have sent its magic assassin minions against our lands, and we won't let this be.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

we have NAP3,just look at your past PM`s/emails.

I didnt send anything vs you ever.
What kind of magic assassin do you speak of if i may ask?

Well then,so be it!
If you attack me before turn 72 you break the treaty.

(Personally we would feel extremely offended by this because Agartha did honor this NAP for a looong time,not backstabbing you ever,while having the possibilty to do so and/ or grabbing much more land from Hellheim)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

I thought we had a nap, but looking for them in the PM's, mails etc. is sometimes tedious. Now I'm sure :D. As for the assassination attempts, several kinds. Earth and death mostly. Can be anyone really, but you seem the most likely to care about it. Plus now you've eaten quite a bit of Sauromatia and can't be let running with the game. If it was Sauromatia, I doubt they'd keep sending stuff at me. Ermor is a possibility but they are quite far away so I can't see why they'd bother.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Yeah no problem.
The cancelation doesnt surprise me/catch me off guard anyways:D

Regarding spells:

Dont forget that some items provoke assassination attempts.
E.g. my Pretender is horror marked and wielding some uniques...he is getting attacked once a turn on average by ashen angels,horrors and all kind of other stuff.
I mean,seriously,i got some gems...but i cant cast dozens of spells every turn on everyone of you!
Wouldnt it make much more sense for me to harrass sauro in preparation of my assault?


Anyways,on turn 72 the battles may begin.
At last, a war for you... again,lol;)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

On a different note:

This game is meant to be casual.
Now that some pretty complicated turns are soon to be expected,i would like to get to a 96h quickhost schedule,probably starting with Turn 70 or Turn 71.
What do you think?

I am in huge endgame wars in all 3 of my games...pretty tough turns therefore atm(even though 1 game is at break currently).

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

works for me, I'm in plenty of other games to help me fill up my time ;)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

It's ok for me too.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

can I have a 24 hour extension please?

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

ok,24h extension granted.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

96h hosting from now on.

...of course Ermor got my GoH down with his Nexus:mad:

worst case scenario!

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Ermor, since you cast Arcane Nexus, T'ien Ch'i declares war on you (too). Anyone wanting to get rid of that thing can take contact with us.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Agartha hereby cancels the NAP5 with Ermor.
On turn 75 first battles might occur.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

*bump*

Ermor ,if you attack me before Turn 75 you are breaking our treaty.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Hmm... would it matter in any way?

Agartha has de facto won this game already. I do not even believe Ermor would stand a chance if TC would join (which would make much more sense) Ermor and topple our supreme power instead of siding with the winner.

Even with the nexus up Ermor doesnt even come close to your gem income.

I will happily accept the second place behind any other nation but Agartha, as they were leading from the beginning on. So, TC, in case you change your mind - if we manage to win against all odds (and Agartha) I'd immideately declare you the winner of this game.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

To me breaking a treaty does matter in any case!

Its simply the other way round, if you REALLY think i am such a overwhelming power,you could also just wait until turn 75 and doing it the correct way,given that we have had a loong lasting peace in this game;)
And we are now Turn 71 already...so its really not much waiting anymore.Actually I can morally live with all of you allying vs me...as long as you keep honoring treaties.


(Sauro is still alive(but didnt do orders at least for last turn)
You are much stronger with the Nexus than you are telling us here.Especially from a long war you would profit a lot.Combined with Tien Chi you are more powerful than me ...and with the Nexus its pretty easy to assume that you will come out much stronger if both of you manage to defeat me.)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

The Nexus is enough to make Ermor more of a threat long term than Agartha in my opinion. It's not a spell you want to cast if you don't expect everyone to attack you, ever. Why should I join forces with Ermor to attack Agartha now? I'd have to build items for my SC's. That would bring gems to Ermor. I might want to cast spells. That would strengthen Ermor. Should I defeat Agartha with Ermor and Sauromatia's help, who would have a gem income of twice or thrice my own?
I was to attack Agartha on next turn, and this was public knowledge. But the Nexus makes it a bad idea. Should we defeat Agartha, Ermor would have twice as much income as I, so the game would be won by them. No point. Taking out the Nexus is top priority over everything else, sorry.
If you want TC to attack Agartha now, dispel your own global or suicide its caster.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

So,Ermor,you did indeed break our NAP by attacking already this turn!
You are not trustworthy at all and will be treated as such from now on.
I can only warn everyone else that Ossa does not care about treaties.

Agartha will soon unleash the full power on Ermor, we have got some nice suprises planned for you!
Expect to get totally stomped by us:mad:

See you on the battlefield.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

I dont expect anything else, actually. I wouldnt have broken the NAP if I believed in any different outcome but your victory.

Nice move stomping TC anyway though, I almost suspected as much.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Not really difficult to be honest. I have good research but I spent a lot of energy fighting Helheim. I have never been at peace in this game, didn't set up any global, and don't have any SC worth talking about to oppose Agartha's. That and my mages are much more squishy than his.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

dont worry, Ermor is throwing enough Sc`s vs me to offset your weakness;)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

guys, I will be away from Monday 3rd of May to 10th of May.
Lets try to get 1 more turn in before i leave.

Since Sauro hast stalled for like 4 turns in a row now,i will force host as soon as the rest of us has got their turns in,so that you get to play 1 more turn while i am away.
I will then postpone hosting until the 11th of May.

That means we will have a 1 time 8 days hosting intervall instead of 4.
I hope thats ok for everyone.

@ Sauromatia

Its pretty disappointing that you just disappeared as soon as the action began.
You could at least set your Nation to AI now.
Thank you.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

just a reminder:

Since the 3 remaining active nations have posted their turns, I will force host this evening(in around 6 hours from now), in order to get to the right hosting schedule before i leave.
If you want to change your orders,do it now or send me a message.

gl for the turn.:)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

ok guys.
I will be back on the 10th of May.
I should probably be able to play my turn on the 11th of May.
have a nice week!

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

1 more thing before I leave:

Looking at page 2 and 3 of this thread, we have to talk about the victory condition now.
I have no problem with a consensus,but if its 60% of the provinces i just reached that number;)

(60% of 221=132.6 and i got 137)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Since I was the one to propose 60% in the first place, I would definitely agree with calling it a victory of yours.
Anyway, I have hardly anything left to fight you. A dragon, an immortal, so few tartarians that it's laughable, and no gargoyle left. Even when my troops hold yours in a fort, my leaders flee (thanks mechanical men to hold off indefinitely fire gnomes, but that was useless).

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Mrf... I dont think I'll take you down alone:/ Unfortunatly I didnt even notice Sauro was stalling.

I'd agree to calling it over with Agartha as the winner.
I'd like to play this game on in solo though if noone else wants to;)

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

ok guys, I am back.

Agartha is declared winner of the game.:)

I will post my turn file and some more things soon.

@ Ermor

if i get it right,you want to keep on playing that game solo on Llamaserver.
In that case,Tien,Sauro and me have to go AI,right?

I have no problem with this.
If Tien agrees to this,i will send you the admin password,too.

@ all

Thanks for a great game!

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

below you will find my turn file.

Basically the game went very good for me after the forced Early war vs Ryleh.Even though i basically took Agartha on this map because i wanted to compete with the Squids for the Water territories(because i think controlling the water is the key to victory on Cradle), he catched me offguard by attacking instantly the turn he neigboured one of my provinces.
This war did hurt my research a lot,but luckily i was able to win it pretty quick.
After that,i did go heavily for site searching and did find quite a lot of sites early on.
I was pretty unlucky though in finding rare sites and Astral or Blood indies(only 1 Shaman province,zero blood access).
I discovered pretty early that Hellheim did have some very good sites,but i wanted to close my research gap first...later on i didnt want to interefere in the very interesting fight between Tien and Hellheim...i was really enjoying watching those battles every turn,having scouts in most provinces.
All in all, It was pretty game deciding imo that Sauromatia was idle for quite some time and later on it was only played the 2 or
3 first turns of our war.
that way i was able to conquer most of his territorry ultra-quick.
I must say though,that i was able to kill most of his unique SC`s right at the start of the war,when he was still playing his turns.So even if he would have kept on playing i dont think he would have been able to really "hurt" me.
the war with Tien Chi afterwards was pretty much very tough to play for LDICesare,since i did prepare for this already like 20 turns ago and didnt use many troops vs Sauro,so that i was able to launch full scale attacks from all sides,with my own territory pretty well fortified because he didnt have the time to prepare for attacking water territorries after his looong lasting war vs Hellheim.Also i had much superior SC`s,which didnt surprise me since i hade GoH up for quite the time and i knew the chalice was in hands of Ermor.
I must admit though,that I didnt think Ermor would break our treaty.That way i did have some trouble at the start here,since i only was prepared for defending...counterattacks took me some time because of comlicated logistics..if you look at my turn file you will quickly see though,that within the next turns, this would have changed drastically and I indeed think that Ermor wouldnt have had a chance here,since every turn i could free more armies and SC`s from the war vs Sauro and Tien to throw vs Ermor.The Nexus didnt worry me too much,since i was wishing for Blood Slaves like every turn and with the 40% Blood Site in (52),i woulda soon have become a very strong blood nation,too,fielding all blood uniques in no time.

Agartha is very underestimated imo in the way how powerful the easy water access is,expecially early on and especially in non-cbm games,where there are no easy to get manuals of water breathing.
Coupled with strong national summons and easy access to Army of Gold,Agartha definately is a well rounded nation.
For Me,Agartha is a pretty good Nation in EA.

I have attached the turn file.
Notable sites are:

-40% blood in (52),did belong to hellheim most of the game.
-(16) is my Mind Hunt base,with like 6 or 7 hunters checking vs 17 or 18 MR withe the penetration boosters.I believe i took down over 20 mostly fully equipped SC`s in this game with Mind Hunts.
-(76) is my 20 conj site,though its Underwater.I never had the time to move many E4 Mages there to spam Earth Attacks for 4 gems,sadly.But my Water Queens,Trolls,etc. all had a nice discount.
-(68) 20 Constr site,did belong to Hellheim as well.Just starting to use it.
-(57) 20 evo site,pretty nice for spamming flames from the sky and fires from afar.Didnt have much targets in this game so far yet,though.

gg,hope to see you in other games as well!

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

I've attached my trn too in case someone's interested.

I had a very disappointing early game.
I planned to attack R'lyeh early on, surprising them with my Demons of Heavenly Rivers, who can breathe underwater and are pretty good early on.
Unfortunately, R'lyeh got slaughtered by Agartha (and I don't think EA Agartha is weak either - umbrals, magma children, Earth attack spammers with lots of hit points, amphibious troops - those who call them weak didn't play them much imo).
Worse, Abysia declared war on me as soon as we met. This forced me to recruit warriors of the 5 elements en masse, as they cut through abysia troops like butter and their 50% FR comes in handy.
The war against Abysia was rather easy and fast, but it prevented me from attacking R'lyeh and let Agartha dominate all the water provinces.
Then, Helheim attacked me before Abysia was even dead. I managed to get some help from Sauromatia, but the war was long and hard. Warriors of the 5 elements became scarcer and are not the best choice against Helheim. I didn't have time to switch to archers armies and my research lagged a lot because of the war effort.
I managed to clam a lot, but I didn't put the gems to any good use. I was staggered when I found the 40% blood site in Helheim, which wasn't protected by a fort, didn't have at least 25 PD on it and no blood mages therein. I think Helheim might have won the war if he had put that site to use. I don't remember what his scales were, though.
Anyway, my late attacks against Helheim cost me a lot of troops and I was a bit careless in letting myself suffer many casualties when trying to take out his last fort.
I was also unlucky in having an Earth attack kill the ether lord I had just empowered to get a powerful S mage, while there were many other commanders in the province.
Basically, I think the wars I fought during the whole game prevented me from putting up a good fight in the end. I also miscalculated the time of the NAP end by 1 turn, but it wouldn't have changed much anyhow, but the decisive factor for me was that I had to use my gems and wizards to fight Helheim, lost a few tarts and nice gargoyles when other nations turtled and built strength.
The Nexus was also a pain for me. In case I managed to hold off Agartha by some kind of miracle, I would have given so many gems to Ermor that it wouldn't have been remotely interesting to keep playing.

Conclusion: This was a pleasant game and well done to Mardagg.

Re: Casual EA for busy schedules (now underway)
 

Mh? I just received a turn. I thought this was over. Ossa, if you want to keep playing it solo, can you see with llamabeast to retrieve the fatherland file and stuff and we close the game?