Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I agree, very nice collection. To deal with all the mess I ask for 24h extension :)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

:)

Few other things that I am currently holding back, to defend against other aces Vanheim is likely to have up their sleeves... ;)

Although to be fair some of the things you have mentioned I only have in a single quantity. But I like diversity.

I have to say you have a good spy network, Lord of Death. ;)

That was an intense turn. Me and Van had about 40 battles all over the map. But as a net result I got a grant total of one province. And Van has besieged and demolished walls of my castle. :envy:

This is going to be an interesting war...

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

All right.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yeah, I saw Asynjas too, and shall I say some interesting summons that make me suspect a special site or two... Hm, and how 'bout that Seraph...

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Since several current players have not been in the game from the beginning, and since we are on turn 54 already, here is a quick reminder about this SoIaF game rules:

We have 3 banned spells in our game - Forge, Arcane Nexus and Astral Corruption.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Well, that was a nice battle. Probably with the forces from TC front I had a chance..

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yes, good battle. I had much higher casualties that I've expected. Plus my huge communion was wiped out.

I made one big mistake in this battle - I forgot that Gaya's Blessing does not stack with Storm Warriors. :mad: So I only had 50% lighting resistance when I casted Wrathful Skies, instead of 100% as I've planned.

Even thought your army had 75% lighting vulnerability, as I've expected, due to your casting Army of Lead, and I had 50% lighting resistance from Gaya Blessing, in addition to my battlefield-wise Luck and "Life after death", I think wrathful skies still has hurt me more then it hurt you, because most of your army were high-hp regenerating sea trolls and storm demons.

In any case it has certainly resulted in higher casualties on both sides, including our commanders.

Yes, I think with your troops from TC front you would had a decent chance of victory in this battle. But then again if my main army had attacked last turn as expected, rather than sit in my castle due to wrong moving orders, there is 50% chance that it would only had to fight half of your combined army last turn. In that scenario I would just go after your capital while letting you to besiege/storm my border castle, which would likely force you to abandon its siege and rush back to defend your capital.

Anyway, good battle. Well fought Dimaz.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Damn!@ Dimaz. You kicked my butt. Serious humiliation there. As a lone caveat, I was not expecting a counterattack on my siege. I was lazy and was waiting to set them up for a storming battle. I had even sent my Grendelkins out raiding, when they should have stayed put. My defense looked like something the AI might have come up with :)

The only good thing to come out of it was that now I have some income again. That damn army was sucking me dry of gold. I won't underestimate your aggressiveness again.

And yes, your battle with Pythium was excellent. I was convinced you had it won, even after you cast army of gold and made everyone susceptible to lightning. I think that one came down to you not having any SCs, and Pythium had several, and plenty of undead summoning to fill out the chaff ranks. Still, you cost Pyth an entire communion squad. Well done against me for sure, but against Pyth as well.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Actually Vans had SCs in that battle. I've counted at least 3 fully equiped Sea Kings. There were just difficult to see among horde of mistformed sea trolls. I've killed ay least one of them in a duel with my own SC.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yeah, I saw them. Sea Kings are thugs, not SCs.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I think there are kindof on the border between SC/thug, but properly equiped they are more in the SC territory. They are certainly much stronger than your average thug. To illustrate my point - one of these Van's Sea King just killed my well equiped SC in 1 vs 1 duel in another battle this turn.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I'm probably going to need a 24 hour extension on this turn, please. Work is crazy busy, and in the evenings I'm trying to watch the World Series, since my Texas Rangers are in it. And, Van just kicked my butt. So, I need to do some work. I'm about 1/3 done with this turn, but Friday night I will be able to devote my full thought to the game.

Thanks,
Ling

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

All right.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Corwin, in retrospect, perhaps with just arrowfend, thunder wards and fog warriors (and some fire fends probably) the battle could've ended better for me, as you cleverly exploited my Army of Gold and the main damage sources on your side were thunderstrikes that wiped trolls faster than they regenerated. With all the damage from your community and archers absorbed by regenerating trolls... Anyway, it's lost now. I was also surprised with my Sea King success underwater, btw, however I agree that Sea Kings properly equipped are more on the SC side.
Lingchih, I tested the battle in my tester prog, and Grendelkins were of litle help to you there. In my test with full TC army under Army of gold + Fog warrioirs I lost about 20 skinshifters. Now it doesn't matter however as the northern battle was more important.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yeah, I trust your tests. Grendlkin are generally not much but undefended Prov raiders. I guess I'll have to send my mages. It's a shame... they were busy.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Well this turn was fun to watch, although Corwin I expected a little more from you in all fairness, that army would have lost against me.

I think mass protection would had been far better for you Dimaz, not sure army of gold was a good move against an air nation.

Lingchih, you just got ***** slapped man. Grendelkin are not worth summoning IMO.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

*hopes somebody is keeping a turn file they'll post at some later stage* !

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

As to Bogus orders, Bogus himself can be used right?

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Against you I would have used a different army. ;)

Also you should take into consideration that 90% of that army was a reminder from the days when this world was younger - it is what I have used to crash Agartha and C'tis, I've brought it all the way across the map from the east. Naturally by the endgame it is seriously outdated, but I needed to do something with all these tons of archers and principles. So I've used it as a chaff, to slow down Van's troops while my mages would do heavy lifting. Couldn't really do much else with it, since I knew I would be fighting against army of gold+storm+arrowfend+fog warriors.

At the end it've worked well enough. Van had much better soldiers but it were mages + artifacts/items/SCs that have carried a day.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yeap, I don't see why not.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

My CPU cooler chassis broke down yesterday and it seems that CPU was burned immediately as I played Mass Effect at the moment with CPU temp already at 90C, so currently I can't make the turn. Maybe I'll be able to replace it tomorrow, but I'm not completely sure. You can try to find a sub or wait, it's not going to take that long.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

No problem, I'll postpone the hosting by another 24 hours. (so it will be set to host of Sunday). Let me know if you'll need more time to fix your hardware problem.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yeah, it would be a shame for Dimaz to have to sub out now. Let's see if we can wait and he gets his computer working again.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

OK, I replaced the CPU and cooler chassis, so I'll try to do the turn in time.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Sorry, but probably I'll need additional 12h as tomorrow I'll be busy until the evening...

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

All right.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

That was probably a foolish move, Dimaz. Moving into my heartlands. You did kill a Grendelkin (dunno if you picked up anything good off of him), but still foolish.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

It's fun to hear it from you :) After you decided to aid Pythium in this war, any "foolish" argument from you sounds to me, well, foolish. Sorry.
Hint: I've lost already and I'm not going to sit in my castles for the rest of the game or send venom charms everywhere or some other stupid thing.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Sure, I understand. Go out fighting. It's what I would do as well.
Actually, you'll probably take that castle you're sieging. I wasn't expecting a counterattack siege/storm, and I've only got little guys and a few troops in there. And, since I stupidly Domed it, I can't send any reinforcements in.

And, your graphs actually went up a bit. I don't think you are losing too badly. You've certainly cost me a lot of forces and money.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Nice job taking out that castle Dimaz. I hope I made it a little harder than you thought, but you lost little.

Whatever shall I do now? I've lost all those mages, and that nice army. Surely I am done for now.

Ling of Pan

18 hours left folks. Let's get this one in on time. The holidays are coming up, with lots of delays.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I have to say that the whole campaign on the Vanheim/TC front has not been going very well for TC. Considering that they only have to face a small portion of Van forces, frankly I have expected ex-Pangeya territory to be conquered by TC forces by now. Instead Vans are on tactical offensive there, have won few large battles, and TC just lost their own castle. TC will almost certainly win this war eventually, but Van's southern expedition force has proven to be much harder challenge for TC then expected.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Meh. Yeah, He's taken a castle, and raided me a bit. Honestly, I expected most of his forces to go for you. It appears he is going for my cap now. If he takes it, then yes, the rest of you rip me apart. You can even forgo the NAPs. I doubt he takes my cap though. He'll probably just keep raiding, which I can deal with.

If he dies trying to take my cap, then all those provs (and that castle) will be re-taken within a few turns. He just has a single expeditionary force going for my cap. Looks like a revenge force.

You forgot to mention that I also have the ex-Pan cap under siege, and he seems to be doing little to defend it.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Indeed, most of his forces did. More then 80% of his total forces I would say, including even all those from the northern ex-Pangeya territory. For the first 3-4 turns of this war there were anywhere from 20 to 40 battles each turn between my troops and those of Van.

By now I've killed and mindhunted large part of his raiders and won all major army battles, although several times it was a close call. All and all the Vans have fought back hard - so far the war has costed me at least half dozen of good SCs in additions to 20-30 mages and a lot of troops. (And BTW two of my well-equiped SCs died fighing his damned seakings. :mad: "Non-SC" my ***... >;) )

Nevertheless despite heavy losses I've suceeded in breaking the back of Van's military machine and have managed to break through to his capital. Last turn I gave orders the battered remains of my main army to storm Vans capital. Haven't checked the recently hosted turn yet.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Corwin, you lost another tart (somehow he again was lacking LR) and took the cap. My Sea King performance surprised me too as I said.
Other than that, in general, perhaps the better strategy for me was to take more defensive approach and try to deal with your raiders first without raiding as much myself. With Vans invisible for your scouts all over the place, it might've been harder for you to take all my lands so fast. And with Van thugs support I had better chances in big battles.
Lingchih, I tried to fight with Pythium while there was at least some reason in it. Now I absolutely cannot do anything there, so prepare yourself.
BTW the original plan was to gateway everythin to cap from the captured castle to make final stand there. However I somehow messed with forging so there was no crystal coin available.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

A note to all those who think TC appears weak. Yes, Van raided the hell out of us. But several of those raiders are dead now (and got some nice booty off of them as well). Yes, my cap is under siege, but there are strong forces to defend it. It appears that Van has thrown everything he has at me, (including his Crone pretender, who has transported nearby, well out of her dom, I might add). It took me six hours to do this last turn (totally sober, btw). If it takes as long to do the next ones, I will be fine with it, as long as it drives Van out of my lands.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Ling, I'm glad to see you handing in there. I've never thought that TC as weak, just a nation requring a more deft hand in order to excel.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I'm glad you finally decided to give some resistance :) Of course my forces on your cap are not enough...

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Damn Aethyr, you did some hurting this turn...
Those Asynjas were scripted rather badly I might say given that I 'took into consideration' you might attack me there. A foolish way to lose that one to fire drakes no doubt.

Would Pythium please stop mind hunting our scouts? How are we to watch the war? We have lost 3 just this turn!

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Sorry. I don't care much about scouts at this point, I am mindhunting remaining Vans raiders. Your damned scouts keep getting in the way. ;)

Perhaps you should consider using Stone Spheres. That's what I've been using to watch your war with Ulm for the last 10 turns or so - 6 stone spheres stored away in a small far away castle. Too many of my scouts die on various nations patrols before I can get them to the opposite corner of the map where you and Ulm have been fighting.

And by the way - I would like to express my gratitude to both Ulm and Ermor, as well as TC and Van in the south, for some large battles - both for entertainment and intel purposes as well as for the steady income of death gems from my ravens sent to your battlefields. It's an important addition to my meager natural death income.

And to whoever casted bunch of plague spells on my high-pop provinces this turn (Was it you Van? Or was it Ermor?) - the avalanche of free death gems I'll get from each of the affected provinces this turn are much more important for my empire then money at this point. So please be my guest and continue this spell barrage - I can always use more tartarians. :smirk:

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Well heck, now I feel ashamed! I'll have to put up a better show up for you Corwin! I am always glad to entertain.

And that's 60 gold you owe me for just this turn btw, don't make me demand a percentage of the gems from raven feast. (that spell totally sucks btw, I waste more gems that I gain with it)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I appreciate the compliment Executor, but I'm beginning to suspect that you're just "playing with your food". :)

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

No worries, you did well. :) Most of your and Ulm battles that I've seen were quite brutal for Ulm. The few unsuccessefull attempts to storm one of his castles and losing an SC to his army this turn were the only significant setbacks in your military campaign that I've seen so far. Other then that you clearly have an upper hand on battlefields.

Still Ulm, to his credit, has not been a pushover, he is fighing back with resolve and determination.


You are right, Raven Feast did suck in vanilla, rolyally. But I've found it to be very cost efficient with CBM mod we are using. It costs only 1 air gem to cast, and it comes back with 1-5 death gems. It should fetch even more with these recent plague spells casted on my high-pop provinces. (so was it you or Van? :) ) And by this point in the game battles between armies tend to be large and leave a lot of corpses in its wake. All and all that makes Raven Feast a great bargain, especially for an air nation such as myself.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Just a bit of warning: in Sharivar game finished recently I fought with Ermor and Pangea and they both patroled heavily in every province, so scouts were killed immediately on the border. So I had to switch to stone spheres completely to see what happens. Ermor had to do the same when he was fighting Pan. So after a while we had tens of spheres used each turn. And at some point battlefield enchantments (storm, firestorm, others with the icon in the corner) just stopped working with debug message "out of ench". I strongly suspect it's due to heavy SS usage (I used 23 spheres that turn) as it stopped the next turn when I used only half of them and they show during battle with the same icon as enchantments.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I would agree with Dimaz. I have seen such things break the game before. I would suggest limiting the usage of stone spheres, so we can keep the game legit. We all know how easy it is to "break" the late game in Dominions.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

And oh, I formally request a switch to 72 hour host. I'm about to start a new job, and my time will be limited. I know 72 hour tends to kill games, but I don't think it will kill this one. We regularly go even longer, on frequent delays.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Well we've been on 72 hours for quite some time, almost every turn seems to be delayed anyway so might as well change it to 72 hours.

Well those mechanical man are bad asses! 5 of them stopped like 50 undead horseman.
Didn't want to risk any SC's going in with that ridiculous teleporting Pretender and Prophet Ulm has, so I just keep sending waves of chaff to take it.

Maybe it was both me And Van :). I take offense to that you know, there are more players in the game I suspect they all have death.

I like to use black death when storming remote forts, you get quite a few hundred soulless to break down the gates.

Stone spheres can only give you so much information about me Corwin...

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I am ok with switching our game to 72 hours, unless some players have strong obejctions to it. For now I have added 24 hours to the current hosting interval. I can switch it to regular 72h once it will host, if this is the way we will decide to go.

Aha, so it was you. :smirk: I've suspected that much. Van tends to use their death gems to cast undead raiders on my armies rather than plague spells on my provinces. And other then you and Van, I only have TC as a neighbor. Who is also fighting Van, and I am sure they would rather use their deathgems to summon more tartarian then cast hostile spells on me.

Unless of course my little ravens would bring me all these corpses as air gems first. :p


True.
Well, I do have scouts over your territory, despite your patrols. But atm stonespheres are my primary tool when it comes to your war with Ulm since it is too far away from me and until recently TC has been patrolling like there is no tomorrow, in addition to BL and Jotuns patrols that I also had to avoid in order to get to your front with Ulm.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Yap, I agree with you, the strategy you've described would work better against me. I had long time to prepare my nation for your raiders, building castle network covering my entire realm that would allow me to take back the provinces you've raided.In the beginning of the war I was able to keep up with your much more numerous raiders because I was counting on you mostly using your raiders in offensive in my territory, rather then ambushing my own mostly non-stealthy raiders. Also in the beginning of the war many of your raiders didn't have high enough MR to withstand continuous Mindhunting attempts.

Other then raiders I think your large mistake was not committing enough mages to your initial attack. In that great battle in the beginning of the war, that has decided the direction of the entire military campaign that followed it, I was able to win only because of stronger battlefield magic. Your army had *much* better troops then mine (regenerating and mistformed sea trolls and storm demons against mostly archers and principles), and few SCs I had there were not enough to make a difference with such large armies as ours. On the other hand I had many more mages in the field and was able to take advantage of your Army of Gold spell. Still as we both have seen that battle was a close call, and should you pull more mages from your research and thrown them into the battle, you would carry the field on that day, destroying my main and only large army, capturing my key border castle, throwing me back and forcing me into defensive.

That being said I think overall you have fought very well, considering that the odds were against you from the beginning, and the whole war has turned out to be much more costly to me then I have expected.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

Excellent turn Executor. I knew that I had gone to well once to often with that pretender.

Re: "A Song of Ice and Fire", veterans-only game, MA. In progress, midgame...
 

I wanted to kill him the last time, but those Tartaian bastards have a tendency of getting crazy when they are most needed.
Good thinking on changing the battle orders.
And I hoped Id kill the Asynja too, but that was a long shot, I'll have to deal with that thing another time. :)

So, it looks like you are ready to make your last stand at your capital?