Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Please add 24h for this turn.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

done

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

24h added as per player's request.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

I'm sorry to ask again, but it looks like I won't be able to finish the turn today. Please add another 24h for this turn.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

NP Dimaz.

Edit: The game will now host at 23:08 GMT on Saturday April 23rd.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Wow. Killing not one, but two WraithLords. Nice start. Too bad Wraithlords are immortal...

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Good work Dimaz. You annihilated my army offhandedly :)
It's the first time I saw wither bones applied so successfully. Thank you for the enlightening lesson, I'm sure there'll be more lessons to come ;)

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Please add 36h.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Hosting postponed for GotMI by 36 hours. The game will now host at 01:27 GMT on Saturday April 30th.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

@ All

I'm subbing in for Marignon / Stagger Lee this week, so I guess if anyone has any diplo or trades involving Marignon, you'd best PM me until Stagger gets back. Although hope I'm not out of line here now in asking this, but why is this game still being played?

As I can't ever recall playing a game where one nation had such a big lead over all the others, like the one Ermor has in this game right now. And indeed looking around the current Marignon turn, I can see at least two wars going on that don't involve Ermor. So that really makes me ask what exactly is trying to be achieved with continuing this game?

Since Ermor have probably won at this stage even if everyone else did attack them starting right now. But to be fighting anyone apart from Ermor at this moment seems close to being the very definition of a waste of time. As I can't imagine the turns being that quick to play for several players given the lateness of the game, and AC+BoT aren't exactly helping with the micro either. I also bring this up now because it appears Executor staled last turn, and has gone missing in all his games. So unless you go sub-hunting, then one of the most important nations is going to stale again, and maybe even stale out (I'm guessing Jotunheim are important due to the impact their globals are having on the game).

So while I'm only here as sub for the next week, which probably means one or two turns at most, I still generally don't like seeing players investing valuable Dom-time in a game that it appears should have been declared finished several turns ago. As then that valuable time turns into wasted time, which is something nobody wants to see. And I often find games go on longer than they should in general, as perhaps players are just too polite to call for a vote or discussion, on what will be the likely inevitable outcome of the game, and thereby taking the initiative to potentially save everyone a substantial amount of time and effort by ending games in good time, and before they get stupid.

But as most of you know I'm never too polite :p and as such I have no trouble calling for games to finish when I think that they should. Which is why I now ask "Why is this game still going? And what is hoping to be achieved by it continuing?"

(unless of course I'm missing some rather huge piece of information that would mean Ermor are not going to win this game comfortably. And if I am missing this information, then I'd be grateful if someone could please enlighten me with either a thread post or a PM)

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

I can answer for myself - never played UW nation before and this game is as good as others to try them. Also, Ermor still has allies so my war with Mictlan is indirectly against Ermor. Other than that, I agree with your analysis.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

I hope you are all sitting comfortably. Then I'll begin....

Once upon a time, after the usual early knock outs and hoovering up of the high strength Indies, the Gardens of the Moon game was quite close - having three large powers. In order of size, but not necessarily power - Ermor, Jotun and Pythium. And several medium sized powers - Shin, Ulm and TC. The victor of the UW war - R'leyh. And some small crappy island powers - Vanheim, Marignon and Mictlan :doh: And the sad remains of Arco and Caelum.

Then war began between the big three. Jotun and Pythium against the already huge hoards of Ermorian undead. It looked like an even fight or one that favoured Jotun and Pythium. And there did not seem much doubt that Jotun (serious blood power with a big empire and income so potentially a huge blood income) and Pythium (good end game) were the ones the rest of us feared most at that point.

So as the rest of us wound down our own wars we all planned to join in. I am afraid a very predictable pair of gankings were plotted. The love on this board for all against all games, or so many VPs it hardly matters, means such gankings are common :(

So I joined Ermor (and the besieged in his capital Caelum) against what looked like the more dangerous faction. We only needed to wound Jotun before we could turn on Ermor. But we did need to knock him down to size before that blood income overwhelmed us. R'lyeh promised to join in a few turns later - and after various delays - did. And Ulm and Shin a few turns after that (once they had digested TC). Now I don't want to give away too many secrets but it's just possible the plan was to then turn on Ermor, after Jotun and Pythium were reduced :)

But it all went wrong due to two factors. One was Jotun's type of defense and the other was the change of ownership of R'leyh.

Jotun did not try and defend all his empire. He gave up many provinces without a fight which meant that although he got smaller he took little damage to his skrattis or other forces. So no significant reduction in mages, troops, expenditure of blood slaves or forts. Neither I nor R'leyh could do any permanent harm to him. In his inner core he had Gift of Health backing a large hoard of Vampires. It proved difficult for myself or R'lyeh to do any permanent harm to his forces while we lost a lot of our own. It was only when Shin, Ulm and Ermor all joined that he started to crack (Pythium was slowly crushed by Ermor with I think Shin grabbing his last few territories).

Worse was to come as Jotun started putting up obnoxious globals. First was Illwinter. We could all have lived with that ;) But it was followed by Burden of Time. Then Arcane Nexus. Then Astral Corruption. So we had Jotun - getting more powerful each turn and making himself so obnoxious he had to be taken down.

Now had he been a friendly talkative diplomat :angel he may have talked us all round in to switching sides while he still had a decent stab of winning late on. His pretender was E/N so was not one of the obnoxious global casters who therefore may have been deemed expendable by him in return for peace. But he made it clear to me (at least) that he was not interested in diplomacy. NAPs and a bit of trading that was all he was prepared to do. It seemed to be a position driven by philosophy rather than game situation :)

During the war R'leyh quit after losing a large army and force of mages to a Jotun counterattack. The two may be unrelated of course ;) We will never know....:) Still Dimaz stepped in after a short pause. Now there was a clear long shot win strategy for R'lyeh. He needs 9 capitals. He has two and can fairly easily take and hold the three Island powers capitals as all the island nations are weak and very vulnerable to him. That is 5. He then just needs to seize four more. Not impossible with his teleportation / gateway abilities and so many capitals being on or close to the coast. And the situation of everyone fighting the by then dominant power's enemy rather than Ermor must have seemed stupid to him. And those obnoxious spells are less bad for R'lyeh. He can laugh at BoT. And Arcane nexus - even if he got no cut - would simply give gems to a power fighting his enemies. So I can see why Dimaz has played like he has. And he has been taking on Ermor pretty much singlehandedly.

But for the rest of us it slowed down the assault on Jotun just at the time his obnoxious globals were starting to bite. Further pushing back the time any switch to opposing Ermor could take place and forcing us all closer to Ermor. And to take up the slack the departing R'lyeh forces left, Ermor stepped in. And so he gained some more territories there too.

So the game has drifted to an Ermor win. The most likely outcome for some time. And I don't think anyone could say Wraith has not deserved it. He's fought well (and often) and done the diplomatic spade work.

Of course if people want to carry on I am happy too. It is difficult to muster much enthusiasm now in my one sided fight with R'lyeh but having held on in such a hopeless position, fighting hopeless wars, for so long, I am not going to quit here. But considering Ermor now owns the Nexus backed by quite a few gems ;) Even a final crusade - for those of you who remember or care for such plans - now seems rather futile....

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

All i want to know is how much *** kissing WL had to do to make the original Ryleh player build dozens of hammers and send all the items away. its become an IRC meme about games with WL. Me and Maer both looked at subbing and were shocked at what we saw. Not only was ermor clearly running away with the game,but somehow ryleh had no items.

i can't verify that he was sending things to Ermor, but i cant think of anyone else they would have gone too. and i doubt he made a dozen hammers and no other items

btw i dont mean to be offensive to WL, i'm just curious

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

In fact he clearly *received* at least 3 rune smashers (probably from Ermor). Just to make your remark more comlete, I don't argue that the situation with hammers and gems was pretty interesting.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Well R'lyeh had just lost a large force within Jotun's lands. In that battle he lost a lot of commanders. It is possible that many were equipped thugs and mages and that is where most of his items went.

I can confirm that no items were sent to his other ally at the time - Mictlan :(

Shin would surely be a more likely provider of Rune Smashers as he can build them from his main mage???

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

executor was on IRC at the time and was just as suprised as the rest of us. he at least didnt mention that

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Wow. So much went on when I was out partying.
It's late night here so I'll try to briefly address some of the comments made.

Calahan & Dimaz, I had similar thoughts but this was born of complex and somewhat rare (at least for me) circumstances. I think Hoplosternum has articulated this well though there probably is more to the story.

PriestyMan, I don't recall R'lyeh sending me anything, let alone hammers and if he had sent something he got something of similar value in return. I've no idea why he had no items, maybe he had no E forgers, maybe he had a strange strat. Sorry but I wasn't the recipient of or in any way involved in that :)
Certainly not kissing them squiggly monsters behinds ;)
Oh, and Dimaz, rune smashers weren't my dpt until recently so he can't have gotten them from me.

I fought hard most of the game. Not as much as Exec but neither have I been idle on the battlefield. I have spent time and effort to engage in diplomacy which (as it turns out) is a part of the game I really like and having played so many RANDs lately forgot how fun it can be.

I will of course abide by whatever the fellow players prefer. Cont. the game or cede it. I'm good with both, though I must say that I tend to agree with Calahan, Dimaz and Hoplo.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

ok. I checked my game logs (good thing I keep them :) ). I did make one deal with R'lyeh on turn 46. He has sent me 60N in return for 12 bags of wine.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

well that is funny. dozens of hammers but no items. he could forge his own hammers too iirc, so its not like he bought them from someone

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

I vote to give Ermor the win.

Jotun gave ermor the win by putting up BoT. We had to destroy Jotun when he did that. Of course we planned to fight ermor after that, but the long war against Jotun and his BoT and AC sapped whatever resources we had left to fight Ermor with.

Of course if we aren't agreed to a win yet, I will continue on fighting!

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

AC was up, so maybe he decided to stop forging for fear of getting attacked by horrors.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Dunno about the lack of items, but he received the rune smashers from me (shinu) waaaay back before the inital assault on Jotun began.

I can't add much to what Hoplo has said, there were wheels within wheels, but IMHO any possibility of withstanding Ermor went out the window due to the global defense Ex put up--I was just brutaized by it.

I'm fine with whatever folks decide.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Rlyeh had E3 mage so probably he forged the hammers himself. The question is, where all the other gems went. Anyway I vote for finishing too.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

ok friends. It seems like the decision has fallen to cede the game to Ermor.

Indeed it seems I got lucky in the sense the Jotun globals backfired on him strategically and actually bought me precious time to solidify my position.

It was a strange game for me all along. I am not used to being in leading position and this is by design. I hate to have the target marked all over me but in this game it sort of happened and I wasn't able to stay back. Like Pythium's attack on me and my consequent conquest of most of his lands. I had to fight him back, though had been up to me I'd have stayed smaller.

I have enjoyed the extensive diplomatic action. As Ahethyr said, plots within plots, and I was aware of the fact that probably all my allies were just waiting for the right moment to back-stab me so I was anxiously waiting for that each an every turn until BoT & AC came up and I could relax some.

All in all, fun game (regardless of the way it ended) with awesome players.
Thank you so much all. It was great having you on board!
Thank you Calahan for raising the flag early and saving us all precious time.

BTW, I would like to arrange a sequel game. I'm now short on time. Later today I will lay out the details here and invite all of you who wish to do so to join it.

BTWX2 what a mystery with R'lyeh (missing, non-existent?) items. :confused:

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Ask llama if he'll zip and send you the turn archives from the llamaserver. As that'll give the answer.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, vets, busy, 12/16 players left
 

Good idea but the prospect of sifting through all of his turns is not how I'd rather spend the next two hours :)

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

I would like to do a sequel but before I open a dedicated thread for it I'd like to present it here to get some ideas and to make sure the players of this game can be first to join.

The sequel will be named Deadhouse Gates - DHG.
Settings should be similar to this game with some differences (in Bold)
Victory condition: 50-60% of # players (15) capital VPs. Each capital is considered to be one VP. Capitals will be marked.
Nations: All MA+ENP1 nations.
Mods: CBM 1.84


Same as GotM:
Map: According to players number/wish/vote.
Hosting Pace: First 15 turns every 24h, turns 15-30 48h, turn 30-45 72h, turn 45-60 96h, turn > 61 120h.
Hosting is planned for busy ppl!
Disallowed exploits: copying Bogus' orders and overfilling enemy lab to prevent his own forge.
Killing own mages under Ankh or LaD to gain freebe mages and troops.
It's ok in a battle but it's not ok to set it up on purpose (whoever likes to do it knows what I'm talking about)
Probing armies with scouts/commanders must be done in such a way so as not to block movement.
Hosted on llamaserver.
Diplomacy allowed.
NAP's are not considered binding.
(I for one have no intention of breaking my NAPs but every player is free to act as he will in this regard)
Graphs: on
HoF: 15
Indies: 9
Map: ???
# of players: ???
Research: Normal
Magic sites: Normal

Please reply here or PM me if you wish to join or alter the settings.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

I'm in! But what's ENP1?

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

Expanded Nations Pack 1, it's the warhammer nations one.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

I would like to reserve tomb kings then please :-)

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

Yes, compiled by llamabeast and sporting, arguably, the top WH and general mods - http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/...?showtopic=379

ENP1 is the WH mod pack, containing:
"
Itza, Servants of the Old Ones by Sombre
Bretonnia, Knights of the Grail by Burnsaber
Nehekhara, Tomb Kings by llamabeast
Skavenblight, Rise of the Under-Empire by Sombre
Ogre Kingdoms, Gathering of Might by Sombre
Dwarfs, Grudges of the Ancestors by Burnsaber
Altdorf, Pride of the Empire by Sombre
Sylvania, Vampire Counts by llamabeast
"

LoloMo, I'm signing you in. Feel free to experiment with the mod and make a nation choice.
I'll go with Bretonnia.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

Good choice. I really like this mod but I never figured out quite how to play them right :)

I read the guide and experimented quite a bit but generally ended up frustrated for being sub optimal.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

I love the pretty sprites! I'll make them work somehow :p

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

First, congrats WL on a well deserved win. :)

Second, I'm in, and I'd like to reserve Skaven. I reserve the right to change my mind--I've never played them but they look interesting. I'll either confirm in a few days or select another choice.

A.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

Wait a minute, what is this dwarfs I see? It's like Ulm on Getafix's potion! I would like to play the Dwarfs please. :D

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

Thank you Aethyr. Skaven are indeed very interesting, I think you'll have fun with them.

Sure Lolomo, you get dwarfs.

I'll wait a few days for players of GotM (or passersby to this thread) to have a chance to join first, then I'll open it publicly.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

I would like to play. But I haven't decided which power.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

You could try Ermor ;)

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

:) Well I may well pick a none Warhammer power but I doubt it will be that one.

By the way if you did want a slightly different feel to the game I can strongly recommend the Victory Conditions of the Scourge of Nations games (not all the other settings though). The winner is the player who made the most initial captures of Capitals. Unless the original owner recaptures his capital no one else can claim that VP. And even if you are completely eliminated you still keep your VPs.

So it encourages people to fight early and often. The winner is not just the most powerful nation at the end and turtleing is discouraged. Now of course that power is often the winner and was in the first game. But it was very close as at one point another power had 4 VPs withI think just 5 left available for the largest power. But the early leader lost one of his Capitals to the original owner - putting it's VP back in play - and we called the game at that point.

Had GotM been played under those rules R'lyeh and Shin or Ulm (depending on who had actually grabbed Agartha, TC, Arco and Caelum's capitals) would have had a great chance even with Wraiths dominant position because he would have struggled to capture enough unconquered Capitals. Of course the game would have been played differently and peoples builds and nation choices would have changed.

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

Just got back. Congrats WL.

And thanks to Calahan for subbing this week!

Re: GotM: Gardens of the Moon, Game Over: WL wins.
 

Thanks Stagger Lee.
If you want you can jump right into the sequel. Should be interesting enough.