Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

If people want to call it, that is fine with me. I'm fairly confident that I'll hit 6 VP in the next 3-4 turns, though I'd say there is still a slight chance of rain on my parade.

At the moment I have 3 VPs. I have powerful armies on 2 other capitals (Mictlan, Bandar Log), and am very confident that I can take those in the next two turns. For the final VP I'm attacking or set up to attack 3 other capitals, though each of these attempts is a bit more risky, and might take several additional turns if things don't go according to plan.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Very well then, it seems like people will start calling me names if I don't end this game :)

If someone would like to fight to the bitter end, let me know. I will declare this game finished tomorrow unless someone objects.

Congratulations to the winner.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Ugh. What a waste :|

Jazzepi

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Congrats Admiral!

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Congratulations then :) I was just about to start coursing through your lands with my very-affliction-riddled inquisitors. At least was going to try to.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Congratulations Admiral :)

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Well, thanks for this short game then, guys. Next time I'll pay more attention to vic conditions for sure, since this setup (and the people) showed quite some potential for a promising game :)

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

i think all those surface dwellers should've tried really fighting shinuyama. they gave up too easliy imo.
the waters were having a lovely war, i wonder how it would have turned out.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Lord Batux, Ex-Defender of Atlantis, curses that thrice-damned Otherness and all of your Starspawn from beyond the grave.

In any case, Atlantis recongnizes the awesomeness of Admiral Zhao, and wishes to not be wiped from the map.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Thank you all for playing, next time I will use a wrap-around map :)

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Thanks for organising the game :)

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Good game everyone. The Sleeping Princess of Man is to be the new Generaless of the West and will be responsible for subduing those nations who resist the divine order. Bubbles and his Rishi will help those who wish for peace in re-integrating into civilian life and putting aside their warlike ways.

Juffos, thanks for setting up and running the game.

A quick AAR for those who are interested:
For Shinuyama, this game could be summarized by a single word: humongoluck. A characteristic example of this would be around turn 25, when we discovered the Cedar Pillar (30% enchantment bonus), and then the next turn had a fortunate event which placed a castle on top of the site (this despite taking misfortune 2). More importantly, I had a great starting position, probably the best I've had in any SP or MP game. Of the starting 6 provinces, 5 had between 10000-18000 population, and that sort of pattern continued on through out many of my other initial in indies. My favorite one had 26000 and a gem deposit on it. :) Then there was the fact that I had a corner start, that my northern neighbors were literally on the other side of the map, and that I had plenty of water provinces to let my amphibious Pretender and troops shine. All in all, it was a perfect petri dish for Shinuyama expansion.

Early on my main source of anxiety was my Western neighbors of Arcos and Bandar Log. From previous games I've seen JimMorrison and DonCorazon to be very humorous, skilled, and generally easy going players, so I thought we would quickly establish NAP3s and then go about the business of conquering indies and then weaker nations. I envisioned it as an enlightened meeting of the minds, as between the Pope, Mother Theresa, and the Buddha. Instead, it turned into a vicious brawl, as between three drunken and low-class Irishmen. I expanded one province too far to the west, thus nearly starting a war with Bandar, and then they rushed Arco, and then I expanded too far again with Arco when it looked like they were going to be destroyed. After that Arco and Bandar Log made peace and threatened to join up against me, and it was a couple of more months of posturing, pleading, and maneuvering before I could move north again. No one really gained anything from the fighting, though it did at least sow the seeds of bitter dissension that would help prevent concerted action later on.

After that Shinuyama fought its first and only real war against Ashdod. Juffos played them very well, and came close to defeating 4-5 nations in the first 30 turns. Unfortunately, he ran into a tricky, tricky ambush on my part, lost a bunch of sacreds, and was on the defensive after that. I like to believe he hit the ambush due to overconfidence after stomping on both Mictlan and Tien Chi so early in the game. :) Ashdod had wrecked his 4 neighbors to varying degrees, so with him on the defensive it left 80+ provinces that were defended only by indies, PD, and AI. I moved through those as quickly as I could, while trying to research spells to break into Ashdod's fortified castles.

It was around this time that people started to notice a problem. Fortunately, Man was still dealing with Ashdod and then Arco marauders, Arco and Bandar Log were still looking to settle scores, and Jotunheim proved no match for the Rishi armies. So aside from the threatening armies of Marignon and an incursion by Machaka's Colossal Fetish, our expansion went unopposed until the end. I'd sum it up with a Simone Weil quote which is the basis of my MP strategy: "Oppression that is clearly inexorable and invincible does not give rise to revolt but to submission." :)

A few other misc notes:
- Pelthin, please build at least a point of PD. 10 provinces with no PD will tempt even the most loyal allies. :)

- Ashdod is very, very powerful. I had a difficult time with them even when they were outnumbered and did not have spells; I can't imagine winning against a strong, well played late game Ashdod that can back their troops up with Earthquakes and the like.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Good game Admiral. It was sad to have such a research lead and not be able to capitalize on it. Did BoT do much to you? I had the Chalice and a source of blood for Boots of Youth so thought I could ward off some of the ill effects. But once Bandar surrendered to you, there wasn't much I could do without violating the NAP which is why I was willing to throw in the towel. I had hoped to fight long enough for your mages and troops to start keeling over and was building labs with that golem to gate in troops in some random spots once our NAP expired...

Anyway, my lessons for this game:
1. Don't play on non-wraparound maps
2. Don't sign a NAP longer than 5 turns
3. Don't piss off the monkeys :)

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

When I think back on how many glorious wars Machaka could have been embroiled in, I'm going to learn this lesson as "Don't sign a NAP ever." Better to die on your feet than live on your knees, Lord Obamono. ;)

ps - BillyWitchDoctor.com takes the top spot in the Hall of Fame! With an aesthetically pleasing 2^8 kills!

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Heh, I should've attacked Shin the second I got a border with them. Even refused to sign a NAP with them to keep opportunities open - but unfortunately I was on my way to start a war with Jotunheim - should've paid more attention to graphs at that point. I never even did get the chance to break the NAP with Jotunheim - I was still building army for that moment, and getting holy pyre (and other evocations) researched in case their master lich would've provided some nasty skeletal surprises. And then came BoT, which really hurt us - all mages of ma marig are old age (except for f1 nonsacred somewhat useless ones). Actually I think I had only one commander without afflictions in the force I was gathering to shin's border (After giving up on the Jotunheim part and seeing that shin was such a threat).

It really sounds like you had the ultimate starting position - 5 out of 6 with 10k pop is insane. It would provide the fuel for the rest of the game. All I had was some random forests :/

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

First up, congratulations to the Admiral and thanks to Juffos for running the game, but I'd also like to comment on this NAP business.

I'm not going to admit my age here, but suffice it to say that I cut my MP teeth on a boardgame called Diplomacy shortly after it was invented, in which agreements between players was the central theme.

The thing is, everyone understood that treaties and the like, while being essential tools for sorting out your friends from your enemies and arranging short-term operations, were never regarded as binding.

It's was a little disconcerting, I suppose, to come into this community and discover that these "NAPs" are regarded by many people as similar to legal contracts that cannot be broken, even in the extreme situation we faced in this game.

This is not a whine :) just an observation about the evolution of diplomacy in multiplayer games. While I acknowledge that others see it differently, I do still believe that trying to make treaties binding in a game does not improve the game.

I actually regard myself as a reliable ally. In-game relationships built up through a history of co-operation are the most valuable, I think, and I try to build a lot of them. I just hate it when people ask for certainty. I always want the option to stab, even if I rarely use it.

Just my 2c,
Zap.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Those are the ones I enjoy backstabbing the most :D

Jazzepi

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

And that's exactly the reason why Discharge (another MP game) has "machiavellian" diplomacies - like real world. Breaking a treaty might benefit you, forging a solid trust can benefit you even more. It all depends. Just keep in mind, it's said in llamaserver faq about starting a game:

I usually consider it a machiavellian game if it's not stated that it's not. I suggest everyone do the same. If something is not EXPLICTLY forbidden, it must be allowed. There's no gray area between them in this case.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

excessive NAPage has become a real problem, IMO. If I were starting a game, I would put a limit on the number of turns a legitimate NAP could be.

Also, it is absurd to believe that NAP's can't be broken under force majeure. If someone is going to win (as in this case), NAPs are vitiated.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Well, there were a lot of problems in this game, and violating a NAP wasn't going to do much to fix it. I view it as my responsibility not to enter into a NAP if I can't deal with the consequences.

My strong preference would be to play games with either NO diplomacy like RAND or ones where NAPs are explicitly unenforceable and in fact encouraged to be broken. I am kind of sick of the whole, NAP with 2 of my 3 neighbors and attack the 3rd strategy. So much of the game then just comes down to geography.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

For BoT, it is effective, but not as bad you might expect. You would think that the Baekomono mages would die like flies from it, since they are all 50 years over their expected lifespan. Since they all have death 2-3 though, the old age doesn't bother them too badly. I lost 2 to feeblemind, and another 4-5 with mute. About a third of the others were catching diseases, but since they have 20 HPs they get 3-4 turns before they actually die. So it does hurt, and after 10-15 turns it would hurt a lot, but it's not quite the mage-armageddon you would expect.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Hey Admiral, out of curiosity, how would you have dealt with ol' Billy? You taught me a great lesson about lightning immunity on high-mobility thugs in Kingmaker, just wondering how you'd have handled him with those simple Const4 toys he was holding.

-----

RE: NAP-Xs

Tribal Leader #1: "Greetings mighty Tribal Leader #2! I've got good news and bad news. The bad news is that our wise Tribal Counsel has decided that you, your children, your agents, and any person ever pledging allegiance to you is to be immediately annihilated from the face of the planet. Further, we are to take immediate possession of your rich lands, and enslave your cowed populace."

Tribal Leader #2: "Dang!"

Tribal Leader #1: "But the good news is that, despite the fact that our Fearless Warriors are at this moment poised to strike a decisive blow against your heartland - which would ensure a swift and relatively inexpensive victory - we're gonna wait till the Summer."

Tribal Leader #2: "We'll prepare our defenses!"

Tribal Leader #1: "You do that. And perhaps find a few allies in the mean time? Just be sure to tell all your friends to call on me, Tribal Leader #1, for all their annihilation needs."

-Transcript of dialogue on African Savannah, March 2nd, 9883 BC

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Well, like Zapmeister, I found it strange, or ... unexpected at least how NAPs were considered here. Machiavellian style would seem "standard" to me, rather than a noteworty exception, but it must be something that has evolved this way in this "community" here.

Unfamiliar to me from other games, though.

Re: Chlorolera is made of contagious and deadly!
 

Billy was a big problem. You might even say a "Colossal" problem. *cricket*

I only had 2 mages up there with all those troops, since the armies started marching into Ermor before I could spare any mages from the Ashdod sieges. So the options were fairly limited. There was one Uba who was set to advance and then cast frozen heart, and one mute Baekomono mage set to advance and cast disintegrate. For the most part, I was hoping Ermor's dominion would drive him away before he could cause too much damage.

If I had more mages there, they would have essentially done the same thing but repeatedly. Frozen heart since Billy didn't have cold resistance, and disintegrate since he had low MR.