Re: RE: 2400 gold down the drain.
 

Why don't you send it like maybe 5 or 6 turns later? That way it wouldn't matter if we knew where your forces were half a year ago.

Re: RE: 2400 gold down the drain.
 

I must say that man has a whole lot of indy knights raiding his provinces. Scales like that, you don't need legionnaires pouring down from the north.

But, like I said, the nation of pythium is goodhearted.

Re: RE: 2400 gold down the drain.
 

Sure... Sounds good, Starshine Monarch. Anybody else willing to save a turn to share later?

Re: RE: 2400 gold down the drain.
 

You know you've lost a battle when the results read regular units lost , -25.

Re: RE: 2400 gold down the drain.
 

The nation of Atlantis, with its repeated aggressions, has given the nation of pythium reasonable cause to suspect its duplicity.

The nation of atlantis has encroached on pythium territory without sending any clarifying messages. The nation of pythium has further waited to respond to said aggression (as the first attack was of an extremely ambigious nature), even unto sending messages requesting clarification. None has been forthcoming. Instead, the nation of atlantis has continued to attack positions held by pythium. Pythium therefore demands an explanation from the nation of atlantis.

Endgame
 

Hmm... I've dramatically suicided my troops. I hadn't meant to do that... but there go my oracles. I'm going to stay in the game for now, but I'm eventually going to go AI if I can't figure out a way to retaliate. I think R'lyeh isn't interested in peace, but I did kill two thirds of those 60 commanders.

So, I'm sane now, won't go AI without a specific warning ahead of time, but just letting people know so they can prepare. If I go AI, I'll try to warn you three turns ahead. I'll be focusing on retaliation at the moment, but I'll also consider wrapping up any loose ends of trade and whatnot, and what, if anything, to do with my treasury if my capital is taken.

I would be interested in negotiating peace between Man and Pythium, followed by trying to talk man into striking R'lyeh while his army is still devastated. If I can pull that off, I'm probably not going to go AI.

So, lessons learned...
Planning war against R'lyeh? Prepare for Mind Hunt, and Lead Shield your best or most likely targeted units.

Find a chokepoint, and patrol it with around 80 units- it's a big help on reducing Assassinations.

Oracles do fairly well up near the front of your formation.
With regard to large armies and the spell Blade Wind, 2 oracles are not enough. Four is necessary if you want to use Blade Wind decisively. If you're just using two, while the other two buff, it'll have an impact, but not a decisive one.

Re: Endgame
 

Long ago, I switched away from AT&T, to Bellsouth internet, because I was unhappy with their service. AT&T bought Bellsouth. Now I can't friggin attach anything to my email, today. We'll see if I stall. I may setup a free email account for dominion games... any recommendations?

Re: Endgame
 

I'm using yahoo. They've been pretty good lately.

Re: Endgame
 

Gmail is excellent. I'm sending you an invite.

Re: Endgame
 

Thank you both. Llamabeast, will the server know what to do if I send my turn in from a different account?

Edit: Actually, I can probably test that myself and have an answer in five minutes.

Edit: Cool. IT works. And while they both have advertising, so to does my paid for email account.

Re: Endgame
 

Paid account with advertising? That sucks http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Anyway, i can change your email address from llamaserver's admin panel, just let me know what it should be.

On another note, i'll be taking a week long vacation next week, i'll be propably be substituded by Zolharm for that time.

Re: Endgame
 

For the moment, I'll be using lazper12(at)yahoo(dot)com

I'll be looking at gmail some, but I'll be using yahoo because the beta has that integrated chat feature. It could come in handy.

I have no problem receiving attachments at my bellsouth account, just problems sending them, ATM.

Re: Endgame
 

I've changed your email in llamaserver's config. Next turn (41) should be sent to your yahoo account.

Re: Endgame
 

Heh. Revenge on Atlantis. Teleported several archtheurgs onto his pretender. Which was a 9f9w dagon, incidentally. And then horror marked it about ten times before mindburning it to death.

Re: Endgame
 

I actually have a battle I am willing to share now, it is the climactic showdown between Avika, Voice of the Divine Spring and Osiria, Lich Queen of Ermor (F4D9) at the gates of the capital city of Eldregate. Unfortunately, as I had forgotten to pack a Rishi to cast Antimagic with, a lot of my units got Soul Slayed to death. His legion of Grand Thaumaturgs paralyzed and killed all my Elephants before they even got in the door. Somehow I managed to win and, because I managed to get a dominion foothold in his capital, His goddess was forced to retreat. This battle was possibly the bloodiest battle in the history of Bandar Log. I will upload the .trn file here sometime in the future.

More Small Talk...
 

So...Does anyone here play Halo at all? How about Metroid Prime?

Or better yet, how about both at once?

Re: More Small Talk...
 

Zolharm will be subbing for me for next week.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

Countdown to AI. Three turns or so. I've decided not to do any major last bequeaths- all my efforts are going into that last stand.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

I'd like to thank man for an incredibly fun war thus far. It should become more conventional shortly.

Re: Endgame
 

Also, forgot to mention.

Did my turn completely, stalled anyways... Any messages sent last turn, I missed.

Re: Endgame
 

What do you mean you staled anyway LP?

And how come you missed messages? Surely you have all the turn files in your e-mail?

Re: Endgame
 

I mean human error. I don't know what precisely went on, but I assume I forgot to send it. I don't know if I missed messages, as a result of staying up till early morning to do turns. Mental confusion as result of being awake to long.

In my time,that post was made at 1:25 AM, after a long string of late nights.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

OMGWTFBBQ

If that's the quality of videos that people can create on their own in their spare time now, then I was born at least 10 years too early! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif Watch it to the very end!

Re: More Small Talk...
 

I've gone AI. There's no point in giving any notice, I've got almost nothing left. I lost 100% of my main army because a great hawk cut off my retreat path when I lost.

I've got researchers in the capital and some units in Eribon and that's it. The Eribon force is about half woodsmen blowpipes and half heavy infantry. It's leader was assassinated.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

Hope you enjoyed the game Loren.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

If loren doesn't mind, I'll post the battle and my thoughts about it within a half dozen or so turns.

Thank you for the game.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

Been good having you around,Loren. Hope you enjoyed it.

Re: Endgame
 

That was a pretty epic battle http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif.

I think the one thing I would change is I would not have used terror at all, and just done more soul slays, that could have tipped the battle in my direction I think. I was hoping I could get some of your elephants to rout with terror, but it just didn't happen http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif. I had around 4 of my GT's I believe scripted to do 5 terrors in a row, if I had it to do over again I'd have put them into soul slay.

Either way, it was the funnest battle I've had in my very short MP career thus far, even though I came out on the wrong end of it--the fallen empire of Ermor salutes you!

Overall I think my biggest problem was I didn't make enough units this game. I was hoping I'd just get deep conjuration before I was attacked, a gamble that didn't pay off. I put my Shadow Vestals to reasonably good use, but ultimately I needed more boots especially at that final battle.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

Why in the world should I mind?

I was doomed from turn 0 in this game due to the lack of income in my part of the world. I knew that force was going to die, the only question was how much of your army I could take with me.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

Yeah, sorry about the being-doomed-by-map situation Loren. I've learnt my lesson, and my latest games are on a modified version of Parganos that is less unfair. This one is really really uneven.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

Commentary on the war-

Pythium's position was about the same as Man's was. The one difference was that I had a scout telling me where most of his troops were (Three-four moves south), so I decided to launch a strike while they were out of position. So i raided for some time, in an attempt to split up his forces to a manageable size. I then scripted my spellcasters to negate what I felt to be Man's largest threats- longbows and heavy armored units (Heavy infantry and knights). Storm and thunderstrike worked better than I expected, or I probably would have lost the battle- as it was, I lost around half to a third of my troops. Double and triple experienced knights (mostly of avalon) slice right through unsupported principes.

I found, in the end, that this is not a game where one can be cautious about attacking- human opponents will be just as efficient at army building as you, so it is not always possible to wait until one has the superior position before committing to the assault. If you don't take serious risks against human players, someone else will expand more quickly than you.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

What you also didn't know is that you got about 1/5 of my army without a battle--I lost a bunch of troops to desertion because I couldn't pay them because you had too many of my provinces.

Re: More Small Talk...
 

I think now would be a nice time to post the Siege of Eldregate. Here is the .trn file if you wish to see.

Re: Endgame
 

Not here. The battle replay shows Ermor as the clear winner, with his mage battery [censored] up your units at his entrance.

Re: Endgame
 

What? I clearly captured that fortress. I have the Death Gems to prove it. The battle must have gone differently on your end. I know I just barely won there...So it's possible.

Re: Endgame
 

I think Ich is referring to unit loss. You took more casualties, and lost more gold in that battle.

Re: Endgame
 

No, I was referring to the battle report. It shows Bandar log fleeing with few remaining archers for me while the Theurgs burn their hides. You do own the fort now, nonetheless. Must be another case of different battle reports depending on OS.

Re: Endgame
 

Sorry for interrupting, I looked at the battle and I see Bandar Log clearly loosing. I'm running linux, but maybe it won't matter as the turn is already generated.

Nice with those Soul Slays. Oh and Terror wouldn't have been very effective because of his troops fighting in his own Dominion (+1 morale) and their high experience (+1-2 to morale).
The elephants in the battle had 11 morale (normally 9) and Terror causes a Fear attack of +10, that means that they have to beat 12 with 11 DRN, which is not very very hard. If they instead had been fighting in your dominion (-1) they would have had 9 morale (9 in base +1 experience - 1 dominion) making it difficult for them to beat the morale check (24%).

Re: Endgame
 

I've learned some hard lessons about gem use... Despite having read that section, it hadn't quite hit home, and I don't really understand the mechanics to this day.

E3 Oracles without any boosters can't cast Earthquake, right? (Guess) Even if they use one gem to case E4, they'll be short one gem.

With Earthboots, I can cast the spell, and get 112 fatigue points (observed). I'm not quite sure how that tallies up. 3 magic scales in province, if that matters. Spell casting encumberance of 7.

So rather than chain quakes, I slept. I'd forgotten about the gem use limit. If I'd gone earthboots, earthpower, ironskin, earthquake, earthquake, I could have wiped out all their commanders. Instead, six...

On top of that, sloppy formation work (read- none) resulted in my Oracles of the Pincushions taking on arrows and dying early. One guy stuck in the back avoided any unnecessary arrows, but the other...

Well, 50 earth gems down the drain. Over

Well... its time for me to go AI. I've got some forces remaining, but I expect the AI could use them better than I have.

Shall I attempt to later do some sort of AAR report detailing my painful mistakes? I haven't been nearly religious enough about keeping track, unfortunately, even deleting some of my old turn emails.
I've learned several important lessons from this game. Most of them painfully. It's been a pleasure playing, though.

By the way, what turn was it me and R'lyeh had the epic battle. You know, Blade Wind spammo? I'm ready to post it now, if I can find it.

Found. Zipping.

Re: Endgame
 

There we go. I've switched to AI, and here's that really good battle.

Re: Endgame
 

I see the same result that Starshine Monarch sees, I inflict extremely heavy losses, kill all his elephants and et cetera, but in the end my forces retreat.

I must admit, while I haven't played many multiplayer games, I have played many games with the pretender I used in this one, and have never, ever, seen her retreat before even once, no matter how badly the battle fared. So I did think it odd she retreated, and was a bit upset about it because I think she could have killed more of those filthy apes!

But, the problem of people seeing different battle reports is well known. I have the turn file of the battle from my end still in my mailbox, and I lose the battle in the end with my forces retreating.

On terror, yeah, once I watched the battle a few times I realized it was not a good spell selection. But I'm still relatively new to multiplayer (this being, along with a few other games I was concurrently in, my first foray into MP.)

Re: Endgame
 

Atlantis has staled 5 last turns. I think it's time to set them to AI.

Re: Endgame
 

Is he actually staliing, or just not doing anything? Because I think he took a turn a few times, and his army appears to be getting bigger reguarly. At least, occasionally.

Re: Endgame
 

Staling it seems. And... done!

Re: Endgame
 

Now, that wasn't very nice of you, Rl'yeh. You ought to be ashamed. Actually, worried.

Re: Endgame
 

Far better to have them AI than doing nothing as sitting ducks. At least the AI will spend the saved cash on troops.

Re: Endgame
 

Oh, I wasn't referring to the staling...

I was talking about the mindhunts hitting my provinces.

Re: Endgame
 

Huh? Care to explain?

Re: Endgame
 

Mindhunts?

Hitting my border provinces?

Re: Endgame
 

Erm, you're an astral nation, using mind hunts against you is kinda pointless... Whoever is attempting that, it's certainly not me.