Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Many thanks for the 15 hour delay qm. And my hungover head thanks whoever asked for the additional 3 hours as well.

Reading the recent posts reminds me of just why I love no diplomacy games so much.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Reading the recent posts reminds why I love so much diplomacy games. :) No diplomacy games are just a variant of singleplayer games, period. Why play multiplayer games if you do not like to discuss with people? With no diplomacy there is no drama, there is no feeling, just pure dullnes :)

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

You gave me that threat immediately after I attacked. This was two turns before Pan attacked. It was just me, who was clearly militarily weaker than you were (I had no ready SC at the time; you had two). In fact, at the time, you were indicating to me that you rather expected Pan to come after me.

Secondly, all your hurf-blurf about my aggrieved posturing - I was upfront about my reasons, and that you needed a counter after pythium evaporated. It was surely you acting all aggrieved. But my other immediate rationale was quite real - you were elbowing in on those few scraps of territories that were due to me. That's how it goes. If you treat an ally with contempt, you should not act all shocked when he ceases to be your ally.
Our agreement during the height of the war was that I would get all the remaining pyth territories currently not in your possession. That included Holburg, as it was still pyth's. I then said I was moving in to take both those territories. You later took it to preach/cut off retreat. We had no formal agreement extending beyond the fall of pythium, so I can't quite consider this a backstab. As to trying to cast you as a villain - I was not the one to bring this to the thread.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

It seems that the underwater nations are allied.
Who will next strike the forces of Arcoscephale?

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Which was sort of true at the time :) I was sure Van would be after me, what with me having a low dominion and Van being able to blood-sac -> My dominion was close to get wiped around that time if Van had started a blood-sac campaign (but I have since learned that fear was unrealistic at the time). I even moved an army to the wastelands next to the Van border to take an indy barbarian province, but to also act as a first line of defence *and* to protect the temple I just built there. I pledged Agartha to help me in case Van attacks, as I had already run out of clean underwear because of the death-bells I heard gonging in my head. Agartha wasn't super keen, but said something along the lines he would be available after the Pythium business if the issue was still pressing.

Then of course I had the pleasure of having scouts in the area where you two were quarreling, and saw an opportunity. My dominion situation rapidly was improving with the new temples up. Thus I had second and third thoughts, and reversed course totally. I think I was able to do a pretty classic backstabb on Agartha (not that I am especially proud of that, I don't usually do such blatant backstabbs without a moral casus belli whatsoever; but as it is the theme of the game and because I could...), which I hope Micah won't hate me for the rest of his living days :smirk:

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Yes absolutely. And zero diplomacy SP games are exactly what I want out of my MP games :)

Dominions is the only game I have ever done (online) multi-player gaming with. Everyone has their own reasons why they start playing MP games, but for me the one and only reason why was that I really loved Dominions 3 as a strategy game, and I just purely wanted to have better AI opposition. As I had played against the AI for 18+ months before playing MP, and I had finally run out of variant ways to handicap myself, or role-play against it. And the only way to get better AI opposition was to turn the AI opponents into human opponents.

I personally have no interest in the diplomacy side of MP games, as I'd prefer my fortunes to be based entirely on my actions and strategy in-game, and not on whether or not I can sweet-talk, bluff, threaten, plead, with my various neighbours. I have every respect for players who like the diplomacy aspect of MP games, and even to some extent envy those who are good at it. But for me diplomacy plays far too big a role in MP games, as it doesn't matter who you are, or how good or bad you are, diplomacy can counter-act everything. It is very common to see players making in-game decisions purely based on which player, and not which nation (or it's actions), they border, or can attack, or feel most threatened by.

I also think diplomacy in this sort of game is un-thematic, as if for no other reason than I can't believe for a moment that the nations would all share a common tongue, so communication between them would surely be difficult. Or that vastly differing nations would instantly get along as neighbours. Because there is no in-game mechanic for diplomacy, this results in there being no restrictions on which nations can team-up together. And of course the overall sticking-point of there can be only one.

In some ways I think diplomacy is the ultimate game balancer in Dominions. But I personally don't like the thought of there being something that is powerful enough to entirely negate a players skill level. And while it rarely happens that skill level is completely negated by diplomacy, even the greatest player(s) on offer would lose very quickly if surrounded by poor players who simply agreed to all attack the good player for no other reason than he/she was a good player. I've seen several well known players post on the issue of getting ganged purely because of who they were, and nothing to do with their nation or actions. And to me that is just wrong. As every player should start every game being completely equal in status (baring which nation they are)

And all of that rambling is why I like RAND games the most :)

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

I pretty much agree completely about diplomacy. That said, I do miss being able to discuss unusual happenings with my opponents in RAND games. For me, probably the perfect game is one that allows communication, but with an honorable group of players who agree to not make any kind of deals with it.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

RAND games should come with a game counselor...

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

I too agree with Calahan and QM, the most enjoyable games I was in were/are RAND games.
Although I do miss the occasional battle report exchange with my enemies in RAND games.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Dominions players get very concerned about the fate of their nations :D

Diplo is either a chore, or causes these sorts of kerfuffles, but it is entertaining to talk about the game w/ others. I think QM's attempt just to ban trading was a good idea.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

If that is the case, could someone explain to R'lyeh that it was a bad idea to teleport one of their starspawns to attack Atlantis? Of course, R'lyeh is welcome to waste gems and mages teleporting to get killed by my province defense, but still, be careful when you say 'allied'. Oceania and R'lyeh might be, but Atlantis hasn't had contact with them. Except for that unfriendly starspawn, I mean.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

There is in-game diplomacy: Sending messages, gold, gems, items. Also known as tributes.
Nations never needed a common tongue to communicate. They need one tongue both nations can share, lie the old language used for Pantocrator liturgy before the Pantocrator fell. Spaniards managed to make allies in Mexico to fight the Aztecs without knowing the language for instance, so it's not really a problem.
I respect the fact that one may not like the diplomatic aspect of the game, but I think Dominions is a game about becoming the only ruler of the world, and there is not just war to achieve this. There is also dominion push/preaching, for instance, but there's also diplomacy. War is a side effect of diplomacy. In reality, most nations would rather convince their neighbour to give them a territory than enter war to seize it. War is a side effect of diplomacy, and no-diplomacy games are only realistic if there are few exactly 2 or exactly 4 nations: 1 vs 1 is pretty obvious. 4 results in 2 1 vs. 1 fights. If it's 3 vs. 1, one of the three is going to get a bad position and be killed by his former allies if he ends in the middle. In a 3 players game without diplomacy, one player is most likely to lose because of geography (hello Mr InTheMiddle). I think it's worse than losing because of lac of diplomatic skill.

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Was was that LDICesare?:p
Under attack by Atlantis, R'lyeh and Oceania. That seems like ALL the water nations to me.

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Well, I guess the argument between Vanheim and Agartha has been settled, at least. :)

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I assume that was a starspawn lost in the void gate trying to get home.

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Well, I just saw the update and I didn't expect to see a giant octopus there. I only attacked Arco because I thought you were a nice juicy affordable target. It was totally uncoordinated from my part, but I promise I'm going to talk to Oceania ;).

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That would be me

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are you sure he teleported? and didn't just return randomly from the void?

(maybe he did teleport but you have to figure that r'lyeh has some mages lost in the void? eh?)

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He was certainly a bit mad and had some skill at void summoning. How he appeared in my province I have no idea. Since he was astral 2 the first thing I thought of was teleportation. I'll admit I haven't delved into the void enough to know how he could have gotten there.

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That pretty much assures it wasn't a teleport.

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see! not only is he viciously attacking, but he's haxoring as well!!111

yah the insanity and the summon skill is pretty well proof that he was just returning from the void. You should have baked him a welcome back cake. or bowl of kelp.

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Perhaps just a stupid observation from my part, but, maybe Agartha and Vanheim should have joined against Pangaea?

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I can explain that, he was lost in time and space, when he returned he returned to that province. S2 starspawns can't teleport anyway. Poor guy got lost the turn I finished researching returning, so I couldn't hand him pearls and get him back properly.

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I am much too cute and nice to deserve such an evil alliance descend on me :(

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haha cute... or duplicitous. which, of course, we already knew :)

If Van falls to the Pan menace, who of you could stand up to his hordes of manikin?

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No problemo, as soon as I kick back the ocean dwellers back to where they belong, kill all those giants squids, void monsters, worms, and all the those other things running round my lands, Pangaea'll be dead in a jiffy!:)

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

haha yes

I might suggest said ocean dwellers consider a different target now, given the situation...

Turn file corrupted.... and a brief AAR
 

This last turn my .trn file throws a "turn file corrupted" as does a resent .trn file. Any ideas? I did send the last few files from my work laptop as I was traveling last week.

-ssj

On another note....

After action Report from some turns back.

Kudos to Ermor's horde and medal of honor to the Shade Beasts that waded through a barrage of H3 banishments to crumble Mictlan's right flank and “get into the mages” as I temporarily sat on his Cap. back on turn 16 or so. I foolishly withheld my pretender from that one. Fortune favors the bold.

Assuming I can get this turn file thing fixed I will play it out to the end (which won't be long).

-ssj

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Euhm, Pan being described as the menace? What has the world come to :(

Pangea pledged for an alliance, was crawling on her knees in front of both of Vanheim and Agartha, but all that was got was evil laughter (it still echoes in my head) and finger pointing (or that was how the Pangaean scribes deciphered the hieroglyphs, at least), from both of these evil neighbours. The hands of Pangea have thus been tied, there has been no other alternative but to undertake operations of pro-active self-defence.

Besides, the pro-active self defence operation on Vanheim was a near epic fail. Only two provinces fell instead of the six I had planned; why are you people going so bananas with PD? Don't you have a single nice thought for the poor little sneakers or the poor fluffy animals dwelling in the forets?

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his vast armies are poised to take out both van castles. being now broke from defending against micah's suiciding, I have no further defensive options. It looks like Pan should take this, unless there is a concerted effort. It's up to you guys :)

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Bold comments, most likely meant to make me feel immortal while you crush me :D Hopefully we can have a good fight though :)

In a few turns everybody will have so many counters to manikin it's not fun at all; they are so yesterday pretty soon. Besides, hopefully somebody gets Dispel soon, my population is dieing like a flies in a DDT fog :( As Vanheim is perhaps the most dangerous nation (of the ones remaining), it wasn't much of a difficult choice even to take this rather drastic pro-active step. If Pangea (and the potential others swooping in on Vans like vultures) can not stop Vanheim *now*, Van will walk home with this game; they get stronger and stronger by each turn passing.

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Agartha's final attack on Vanheim killed almost a whole thirty troops and zero commanders, clearly they are now crippled and unable to defend themselves properly.

Or they are just continuing their diplomatic campaign of untruths to gain an advantage. You be the judge.

Vanheim's SC Ghost King has awoken, their troops are second to none, and they can blood sacrifice. Coming to their aid now or ever is a grave mistake.

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I think who has been telling untruths is pretty clear. Micah is so sore that he is willing to spin against me from beyond the grave. Why would he just mention that one battle, when clearly I lost a hundred this last turn. I have only a handful of troops left, and one of my castles will be breached next turn, the other the turn after. Anyone w/ eyes can look at the troop graphs - Pan has pretty well 10 times the forces as I do. And how am I to blood hunt when my lands are about to be over-run? Why is my dominion so middling then? And how is it that a single ghost king is supposed to withstand massed manikin? Only a total dominions noob would take his claims seriously.

Now, I understand, following your own tactics, I should abandon my castles and head out to fight some lesser threat.

As to why your final attack was so poorly executed, I'll let you dwell on the reasons.

Jarkko's spin is self-evident. Micah's just petty.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Why would I mention that last battle? Because it is the one you referenced (my suicidal attack.) Your subsequent loss to my PD was your own tactical blunder, though all you lost were some huskarls and your ictyid mercs, which the army graph rates the same as skinshifters and einheres.

And my listing of your national strengths wasn't there to say you could hold off Pan, just as a reminder that helping you out might not be in the other players' best interest.

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Anyways, I really liked the idea and settings for this game. I wasn't very well prepared for it as I was a last-minute sub, and certainly wouldn't take the same strategy as I did. Vanheim itself is a bit hurt by the settings, as it is so gold hungry, and my placement was... unfortunate.

Hopefully there'll be another one like this soon, as I should be out of this in a couple turns. I'd suggest modifying carrion woods, and limiting dom to 8 or so.

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Haha, yes, I am sure the other players are worried about the Van threat, and I have no doubt that my combined total of 30 einheres/skinshifters will repel the measly 5-600 pan troops currently invading :D

but don't let me stop your spinning

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

from QM's OP, and the rules of the game:
Many nations have already been crushed; everyone else seems to have taken their lot with good grace. You might want to consider whether games with these rules are the best fit for you.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Arch, your attitude and the twisting of the truth, as well as your incessant attacks on my character are what I have a problem with, not the in-game action.

Jarkko also backstabbed me, but hasn't put up the same line of BS you've been spouting, and I haven't taken any issue with him. I razed my cap to the ground in-game to do what I could to hurt him, but that's the extent of it.

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Flame war! Flame war!
Man, I'd take Van over Arco any time, there just isn't much I can do with them...:(

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this is ridiculous, and oh so tiring.

1. In a breaking agreements is fine game, even though I do not think I did, and with what I felt was sufficient cause, I attacked.

2. You emo-raged, and certainly did not take my attack quietly.

3. You threatened to suicide against me.

4. You brought the quarrel to the game thread.

5. Instead of a perfectly strong defense of your castle against the pan hordes, you packed up and went to attack my army, where you were soundly trounced, and I killed your god.

6. Now you engage in hilarious spins about the Van threat.

edit: 7. oh, also, I was not polite in my responses to this behaviour.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Ahmm, I "accidentally" stumbled on this thread and happen to know and respect both of you. I'd suggest you get off that track and share the peace pipe instead :)

Oh and whose the cunning bastard who runs away with the crown?- Jarkko?
Whoever he is he must have quite a story to tell...

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Indeed. You guys need to lighten up. I only stumbled in here myself, because I was an early player. But the flaming is getting to a ridiculous point.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

My problem has been so far that I am way too honest. I've been offering the crown in the form of an alliance to practically anybody who has been willing to listen, but nobody is taking me seriously :( I am not interested in one turn affairs, I'm looking for a lasting relationship. But all I get is suggestions for one turn mambo.

Anyway, this turn is a do or die turn for Pangaea really. As I get home pretty late today, I hope somebody keeps a stern eye on the graphs and tells here what happens.

Re: Turn file corrupted.... and a brief AAR
 

It's not going to be over *that* quickly. You still have a pretty large army of good sacreds with a good bless, and those sacreds cause an awful lot of casualties before they die.

It was a very close battle back around t16. I'd not fully understood then how best to use my undead boosting spells: I took a lot of damage from banishment I didn't need to, and very few of my troops had Unholy Power. I like to think I'd probably have defeated the remnants of your force even if you won, as I had my pretender and about 100 units uncommitted, and plenty more magepower which I'd held back to acquire a vital new research level.

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And the meek shall inherit the earth ;)

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

I ask again....

Does anyone know how to work around the corrupt turn file issue? I cannot send my turn in until it is fixed and Mictlan will continuously stale.

Thanks,
-ssj

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

you should contact qm to stop the turn from hosting. otherwise the solution is to rehost last turn.

hmmm QM should have noticed this - looks like this turn will host. A rollback should be possible.

Re: Forge of Godhood - started
 

Arch,
My current game position doesn't warrant a rollback... Thanks for the suggestion though.
-ssj

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ah, shucks

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A quick question: Is *everybody* going to raze their castles and labs as soon as a lone satyr has been sighted in the distance? Don't you know the castles are culturally important heritage? What are our grandchildren going to tell to their grandchildren?

"Come now here Clark. You are still so very young, but let me tell you a story of this field. You see, there used to be a great city here once upon a time, but then a young satyr, not much older than you in fact, happened to walk by. That young satyr was my grandfather. When the inhabitants saw my grandfather stroll by over the hills there (do you see those hills there far away? yeah, it is sort of difficult to see them from here, even though it is a sunny day today), they all went 'OOOooooooOOOooooOOOooo!!!' and then they burnt their city, ripped away all the stones from the walls, hammered the stones to sand with their bare fists, filled their cellars with the sand and then commited mass-suicide. Yes, I know, it is a sad story."