Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

I think that this game is on its way out. C'tis are staling out again, and while I'm having great fun reassigning some of TC's legions of Seraphs I don't think it'll save me in the long term.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Right... I asked llamabeast, and there was no admin for this game any more. I'll take up the reins of admin - I've done it on a few other games, so I know roughly how to go about it.

If there's no opposition, I'll bump the turn time to 72 hours. It's turn 92, and 48 hours seems rather too fast. Also, it might help Digress on the time limitations front.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Thanks Gregstrom,

I seem to be cursed in this game - spend ages doing turns and then managing to stale. I haven't meant to be quite so hopeless of late - the other games I am playing are going along swimmingly but setting up the armies of thugs C'tis needs is a little time consuming as is scripting them is even more fun.

The extension will help.

digress

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Excellent stuff. If you need any more time or want 96 hour turns at some point, post or pm me.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Need more time for this turn - my notebook is having some indigestion with the .trn file.

24 hours would be lovely.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Err... sorry, but I missed your PM until it was too late.

And Ossa (TC) seems to have turned AI. Which is a bit of a bummer, unless he was in far worse shape than he appeared to be. I'd eaten a shocking number of his Seraphs, to be fair, but...

Anyway, I'm more than happy to roll back but I'm not sure there's much point in doing so now.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

I had put but a scratch in the stock of TC SCs - but still don't have any SCs of my own.

Your having the nexus up for a while coupled with my hideous gem burning habits of late would suggest that you spider folk must have a truly silly number of gems floating around with which to blast my average hit point, largely unprotected, mages with fires from the skies until the cows come home.

With TC being AI the life expectancy of any of their remaining Seraphs is likely to be short ... what do you want to do ?

Ohhh ... and I will stop rambling now and wander off to find another glass of red.

Cheers.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Well, I do have rather a lot of SCs lying around now (my Tarts and TC's Seraphs), and being Machaka I have some acceptably large Fetish farms lying around. And clams, natch. It's how I put up my rather excessively hefty Nexus.

It's a real shame that Ossa went to AI. If we'd defeated him (which I guess might have been a little easier than I had been thinking, or he wouldn't have gone AI), there would have been a pretty tough fight between us for the military victory.

As things now stand, though, it feels like a bit of an anticlimax.

If you really don't have any SCs yet, then I could do you real harm before you caught up - possibly fatal harm. The AN, wishes and so on seem to be standing in my favour.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

I've postponed the turn while we work out what to do next. I'm quite tempted to call the game - then we could do a rollback and see what was up with TC's position.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

I am happy enough to call the game. My strategy, such as it was, required that you and TC completely cripple each other whilst completely forgetting my existence.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Funny - that was my plan too. Only thing was, TC wanted to gun for me first after I took away their overwhelming gem advantage.

Shall I roll back so we can see what TC were suffering from?

As to the game winner...

I'd like to claim the military victory on this one, as I seem to be in a pretty good position right now.

However, IIRC the overall game winner is chosen by the quality of humour they've produced in the thread (and in-game). I'm not sure how to do that... maybe contact all those who've played in the game and organise a vote?

Edit: According to OP, there should be a vote. I'll send a PM to Bwaha, and see if he can put one in the first post.

Edit Edit: You're posting from Sydney at this time of day?

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Gregstrom I don't know how to set up a poll.

My vote is for Tifone... :D

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Has to be Bwaha.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

I'll put my vote in for Tifone.

I've looked at TC's last turn now - while they're not in a dreadful position, it really wasn't looking great for them. They had the land and a phenomenal number of temples, but they were noticeably down on SCs and without any healing I'm not sure they could put enough new tarts into action.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

I'd concede the military victory to Greg - he stole my SCs and set up an astral nexus with... I dont know... how many hundreds of gems? I tried to dispell it with 400 if I remember correctly. It failed:/

I should have attacked you on the first instance you stole the enchantment, maybe back than I would have had a chance.

Ermor held my main forces at bay for so long... actually I vote for Ermor as the final winner in this game.

Having only one province and still hanging on is just such a great feat;)

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

The AN had something on the order of 850 pearls in it - I'd been saving up for quite a few turns, and alchemised over 300 each of Fire and Earth and maybe 100 of each other type.

Attacking me then would have given you a better chance - while I'd been saving up I wasn't forging or casting very much at all, as I didn't want to give you any more gems than I had to. I had to do some very fast equipping and wishing for gems to get back in the race.

It's the first time I've had an AN in MP, and they really are horrifyingly powerful. Generally I got about 120-150 pearls each turn, with more on special occasions like when C'tis put up their huge Well of Misery.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Thanks guys, but I feel too guilty, my unbelievable charge of rl work has put me aside from the whole game and wasn't able to partecipate after machaka kicking (with 8 legs, so ouch) my very hot butt.

My vote is for Gregstorm, the whole Bandar thing in the beginning was really hilarious ^^

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

I enjoyed writing that :)

Actually, I re-read the thread a day or so back and really enjoyed the experience. There's a lot of funny stuff in there.

I guess in order to formally declare an end to the game we'll have to close voting in, what, a couple of days?

After that... how's about starting up Joker 3?

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

I could be convinced to do this again. But I rarely come back here. I spend my time cracking jokes elsewhere. I do love humor. And I hang out at a forum that embraces both military history and humor. Pm me if you form a new game. I'm in. :D

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

I guess I could put up an AAR.

Lemme see...

I started expanding with (IIRC) blessed Black Hunters, for the most part. The bless was D9, because it's generally a bit funky and it's cheap with a PoD pretender. This worked surprisingly well, as even small squads of Hunters can splat many indies. I could even bundle a few archers with each conquest squad for extra power.

I soon found my empire was in a naturally defensible region, with choke points every which way. Sadly, this also limited expansion beyond those borders (especially since there was another nation bordering every choke point).

Being stuck in a (thankfully very tough) defensive posture, I set about turtling and punting up my research levels. I was getting along well with Abysia who were to my north (and south too, as I was soon to find). Bandar Log were to the east, near my capital, but I had good control over the choke points there. To the west, there was Ermor, and I could live with that - hordes of undead don't like magma and massive firestorms any more than anyone else does.

All progressed well until BL randomly decided to go to war with me. Well, I say randomly, but they only had two choices for expansion really. The other choice was TC, and they were a lot bigger and scarier than I was on the graphs.

Problem was, this turned into a big and expensive stalemate. BL couldn't invade me because whenever an army of theirs entered one of my choke points it would catch fire and/or drown under a tidal wave of magma. I couldn't invade them because they had a SC Ghost King with full immunities and a big list of buffs, and I didn't have something that could effectively counter it within their dominion.

This would have been fine - I was researching up, and had found site mages that covered up my worst weaknesses. Hiring the A2 merc mage for site searching found me a castle full of illusionists, a bit of Water found me Azure Mages, and Adepts of Pyriphlegethon were a less useful addition (except for the F1 mages who were worthwhile researchers at 60g each). The Couatl mercenary had even turned up just when I researched Con 8, which let me get the Chalice unexpectedly. After that, he was a good way to forge boosters for my Lizard Shamen, who were my only source of Astral in the game.

So, in the middle of my interminable and costly stalemate with BL, Abysia (previously good trading partners) suddenly go nuts and decide to go to war with me. This is awkward - I'm just putting together the sort of thugs who can take out BL's SC and suddenly I have a second and third front opening up. This triggers a mass redeployment of mages from my capital in Phophtasia to a handy fort in Dragon Ridge, a little further to the north.

I set up a bunch of troops and a well-equipped Giant Mummy (yeah, Hunter Lords turn into Giant Mummies - I blame it on very creative needlework by the women of Machaka), and pitch them into Abysia's armies. They might have worked, but Aby has ungodly numbers of Demon Knights. Still, the thing about mummies is you can generally rebuild them and they're no worse off the second time around.

Suitably chastened, I set up for the following rounds of engagement and swamp big chunks of Abysian army in lakes of magma. Quite why this works against beings who are made of magma themselves, I'm not sure... but I'm grateful all right. The Demon Knights buy it in swathes too, but I've lost territory.

At this point, my Tarts start to come online. I'm not doing brilliantly for D income, and I spend many turns hovering about the zero level in Death gems and whimpering gently to myself. However, I have the Chalice and Tarts, so I can put out a decent number of SCs.

While this is all going on, BL goes AI (presumably it had emptied most of its capabilities into me to little effect) and TC, who have grown into a bloated monster with noone paying enough attention to them, promptly start eating monkey territory like it's going out of fashion. I still have that damnable Ghost King SC in the way of my armies and an ongoing war with the magma men on my north and south borders, so I can't do much to stop it.

Ermor are suffering a serious invasion around this point, and decide to put up a Burden of Time. This would be very unpleasant for me, except that I have a small yellow cup in my labs. Soon all my Black Sorcerers are clustered round it sipping frantically at the contents while occasionally giving a few drops to the nearby Tartarians. I don't know about C'tis, but TC seem to suffer very badly from EMS (Elderly Mage Syndrome) at this point - their research graph goes all squiggly.

On the plus side, Abysia are about beaten and they turn AI too. I can get a few territories somewhere. I'm even churning out clams at a fair old rate. On the minus, a new period of peace is starting and... oh look. T'ien Ch'i has the Arcane Nexus. Well that's just dandy, isn't it?

So... I start on a period of enforced fasting. I keep summoning and GoRing Tarts, and I keep clamming as well, but that's pretty much it. Oh, and my nice Chalice gets stole. There is a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. TC are busy putting up more and more globals instead of making war, which I can just about live with. So, I put up the Pyre for the extra F income, and churn out Fetishes and Blood Stones (many thanks to Abysia for the blood slaves that let me start on that path - even if they did go AI owing me a bunch of F gems) as well as the aforementioned clams.

All goes well, until I break out the thousand-plus gems I've saved up, alchemise like crazy and put up an awesome level of Nexus. The empowered Lizard Shaman who did the casting promptly wishes for Power, so he can't get wiped out by stray artillery magic. I then frantically wish for gems to recoup everything I'd put into the Nexus. Overwriting other globals isn't so tough after that, which is nice.

Then, having dealt insult after insult to TC, I drop in the straw that breaks the camel's back. I wish for the Chalice they stole from me some time earlier, and for some reason this is what they choose to go to war over.

It starts off badly, with squads of Seraphs appearing all over the place, Tartarians rampaging over the hills and big armies of cavalry besieging me.

However, I spot some slight flaws in the kitting of the various SC squads and set out with some tailored hit squads of my own. I lose a couple of forts, but I gain a couple of Seraphs and kill a few more. I can Earth Attack with quite a few of my Black Sorcerers by this time, which helps against sieges. So I settle in and start breaking siege forces with SCs while trying to build armies. This is made a little more difficult by the fact that I have a negative income at this point, thanks to TC's early gains. However, a massive gem income can be handily leveraged into armies of summons if you need it to. I already have a load of Green Lions (Sorceresses, don't'cha just love'em?), which deal a very unpleasant and extremely terminal surprise to the Tartarians besieging one particular fortress and then move on to relieve sieges elsewhere. By the end of the game I have ~150 of these lovelies in various parts of the map.

When I can afford it, I also create Summer Lions, Mechanical Men and Banefire Archers for invasion forces. These take quite heavy losses, but there always more where those came from.

Towards the end I started doing things like using Wish to selectively kidnap uniques I thought should be working for me. I'd already been using it to take key unique items off certain enemy SCs - it's a trick that can occasionally upset a carefully thought out battle plan.

I'd have been wishing more near the end, but I wanted to have enough gems to reestablish a Nexus if anyone dispelled/stole it from me. I had a bit over 450 Astral in reserve, and nearly 100 coming in per turn after Wishing. I was setting up to hit TC's capital with 5 Flames from the Sky, a Murdering Winter or maybe two, and perhaps a few Crumbles on top, to see if I could nail their last global and a few Celestial Masters. Heck, just the Flames should have hurt a bit as I had a Shroud on each of the casters.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

Okay, it looks like we've had all the votes we're going to get. Therefore (drum roll...)

Tifone wins!!

Many congratulations Tifone, and thanks everyone for a great game. It's made me laugh more than any other I've played.

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

It's a me? It's a me!

Thanks ya all, noble funny brothers... While not the military winner (not even close to :rolleyes: ), I'm proud of having made you laugh a tiny little bit :smirk:

It's really been a great game, and I've to thank again all of you but expecially Bwaha who set up all this and made me have a lot of fun too. :D

As a side note, my attack to machaka was b'cuz I had spent tens of turns without delivering a single blow, and was running out of good material for jokes ^^ I've also been the last one in the graph for the whole game, so being able to kick the asses of some of his SCs and batteries of mages was a great fun indeed :cool:

So, what's else to say? Let's have party!!

Bwaha :beer:
Ossa :beer:
Gregstorm :beer:
Starshine :beer:
Mithras :beer:
Ylvali :beer:
Crust :beer:
Digress :beer:
Me :beer::beer::beer::beer::beer::beer::beer::beer:

Re: Joker: new game, new theme, HA Ha ha
 

np Tif, it was a pleasure to fight you.