Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

parone, what would u like exactly?

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

will be afk till wednesday a.m. will try to get it done then, if that's possible.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

how many hours of delay would u like?

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

I need 6 hours myself.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

postponed by 6 hours.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Parone might need a little more time on the clock. I'd keep an eye on the buzzer, and if it isn't in on time, give it some more.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

i was thinking the same. i extended it by 9 hrs more.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Yeah, better safe than sorry... I doubt anyone can really afford to lose a turn at this point in the game.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

thanks guys. got it in this a.m. i did a really lousy job, but i got it in! back to back 18 hour days at work makes dominions tough

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Well...

That's the kind of turn that's pretty scary... The new turn is in my inbox, the file size is big, I didn't order any major attack this turn and I don't have access to the game for around 10 hours. Which means it's going to be 10 hours of anxiety wondering just how bad the turn went. I guess I'll just try to mentally convince myself in the mean time that the big file size is due to seeing a big battle between T'ien Ch'i and Ulm and not one of my own. I suppose that it still beats having two 18 hours work day in a row :)

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Yeah, the battles weren't mine. You had a lot going on this game though.

Also, my bad. rest assured, punishments will be had by those in charge. Also, I think the compensation package I'm sending you will help you out.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Nyeah... Well, I've had a pretty good record of correctly guessing my opponent's moves so far in this war so I guess I shouldn't be too harsh on myself for messing up last turn. I knew that sword would screw the upcomming fight over ever since I learned of it's existence with my assassin (I would have danced in joy if it had worked)... To boost my morale up, I'll consider the battle a draw since there's only been a difference of 4 casualties between the two sides :)

Regarding the incident, no major harm done so it's all good!

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

i just like to remark that zywacks enthusiasm always lights my mood up.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Zywack's enthusiasm and general good spirit is excellent- I could take a lesson from it myself. You've definitely added a lot to the game since you took over for Shinuyama, and it's been a pleasure to have you.

You've also been kicking my butt, and playing very well. It's been difficult to even hold against your armies. But... well: what happens when monkeys stop flinging poo? what happens when monkeys invest in death magic? what happens when you make death monkeys angry:evil::?:

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

That one is easy! You get dead death monkeys!

... if everything goes well anyway :)

I'm pretty disapointed that the monkeys are resorting to such evil, despicable ways. Us from Shinuyama only use honorable and honest ways to conduct wars, such as using tons of bandits and sneak attacks.

I'm pretty glad to be part of this game too: It's a good and fun learning experience! A quick unrelated question: Is there death matches in multiplayer too? Including this game and the other game I'm part of, I've played around 70 multiplayer turns and I haven't seen a single death match yet. Is that normal or is it just "bad" luck?

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

just luck as far as i know. no difference.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

had two death matches in my last three games. even won one. not that it did me too much good...

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Ah, well, that's unfortunate... I always have a lot of fun watching those even with the AI, so it'd be swell to see what actual people come up with.

Not that I'd likely send a serious contender this game though: From what I can see so far, I'm definitively better at "sneaky *******" warfare style than head-on fighting, and there's not much space for surprise attacks and other nasty stuff inside the arena :) Still fun to watch, though!

By the way Groundworm, I got to say I'm amazed at the amount of death magic you got everywhere, especially for a nation that doesn't even have native death magic! In theory, Shinuyama should be the premier death nation with the players we have left, and the only death things I've ever sent at you are those three musketeers fellows... I'm going to have my death-using license revoked if I don't do something more drastic, but our Shinuyama is a kingdom of peace-loving, life worshipping monsters in general... Decisions, decisions!

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

actually, most players feel as you do, and either send nothing or a very weak commander. if the match is early in the game, i think it is worth sending someone fairly good. i sent a SC pretender once, and got the fire helmet, which would have been very useful had i not got killed two turns later.(i suck with SCs).

just food for thought.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

I've lucked onto several of Bandar's national heroes this game... one of the ones I got very early is a D2 mage (my very first death monkey!). He got my death gem economy rolling pretty early, but with only one death mage I was just stockpiling death gems. So I constructed some death boosters and cast some spells and... yeah, lots of death mages. This is the first time I've really invested heavily in death magic, and I'm *very* pleased with the results. It's not just about Tartarians- there are a whole bunch of really nasty things you can do!

I'm working on more surprises for you as I write this, Zywack. :)

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Well, to be entirely honest, that wasn't much of a surprise. I've been expecting that since the first days of the war so the main surprise is that it took this long for it to happen :)

I unfortunately can't say that I'll be able to pass the next turn as a draw... But as I mentionned in my very first post, the main reason to have joined this game is to gain some multiplayer experience and it certainly did that, so mission accomplished! *pats self on back* What I wanted most to experience was the end-game part: I did read a bit about it in AARs, but the vast majority stop before reaching there, and the few that does reach it kind of skip over it (Like making entire turns a few lines). It's also not something you can actually experience against the AI, since it's tactical acumen stops at "Buy stuff, send stuff".

It kind of sucks that I'm not at end-game level and that my opponent is, but hey! I get to experience at least half of it :) Before I took over on turn 12, there's been some research done, but from turn 12 to 19, I gained a grand total of ZERO research point: I needed to throw 100% of what I had in a frantic attempt to expand in all directions before it was too late. Then the Machaka war started, and all my mages were required in battle until the 2nd victory. It's also where I learned to gain a new appreciation of the Slime spell: It may be my favorite spell since it's saved me against Machaka, but it's not terribly effective at this point in the game! The total amount of research points gained from turn 12 to 30: Around 60 points. I knew it was going to shoot me in the foot hard eventually, but hey! Goal was to survive so it's all good. Beside, from what I can see even on my best days from a new game I'd be badly lagging behind on research (On my SP games I'm never at the research state you guys are at by turn 60), so that's definitively something I will need to improve in my next game. I also now know that my warfare style can definitively be effective in the right situations, but that it's not enough by itself to win a war when the end-game nasty stuff rolls along.

Thinking back on it... The objective in the Bandar Log campaign was to burn temples so that I could die from fun military battles instead of dying lamely from being dominion killed. It's certainly looking good for that objective too! :) New objective is to make as many death monkeys dead as possible. It's really starting to look like Germany vs Russia in WW2: Unexpecdly favorable beginnings, reach the gates of Moscow/Bandar Log capital, get stopped and lose the war. But in between the last two states, there's been a lot of hard-fought battles, so I'll do my best to give you that!

Thanks for swell war Groundworm, it's certainly fun!

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

We this is the most exciting game I have been so far. Several conflicts going on. We have a few globals up and running, and some tarts in the game. A lot is going on. I cant wait to see the turn brought me.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Zywack: don't underestimate yourself, you've been playing quite well. I'm quite sure that you'd be doing significantly better if you'd had a chance to design your own pretender and play the early game for yourself.

You can reach certain elements of the end-game if you focus on it. I wasn't initially planning to go death-heavy, but modified my strategy when I realized that it would be advantageous for me to do so. And since Bandar benefits greatly from conjuration research anyway, I recruited large numbers of mages and focused the vast majority of my research efforts on it. It's not difficult to generate a huge number of research points if you recruit mages out of most/all forts each turn, I'm discovering. You were, regrettably, handicapped in this effort by needing your mages to fight. Shinuyama, though, is a potentially excellent research nation with their Bakemono Sorcerers being recruitable anywhere and sacred, with a large number of research points each.

And your research is getting better. I haven't missed the number of zmeys you have flying around, and I'm not looking forward to dealing with them!

And legowarrior, I agree- this is a good game, with good players. :)

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

You don't seem to be terribly Zmey-deprived yourself!

I scratched my head for 10 minutes wondering how the **** your tartarian escaped. I rechecked his equipment a few times, went through the entire spell list in the game and couldn't figure out how that was possible... Until I finally noticed that my province actually had a lab: An abandonned lab site that I probably missed when looking through site-search spell result list. That sucked, but at least the mystery is solved!

Regarding the "main event"... I wasn't sure if it was mechanically possible for that plan to work so I figured I'd at least give it a try to know for future games how viable it is. I kind of overdid it a little, but I have to admit it did work even better than my best expectations... It's good to know! Upon seeing what Ulm and T'ien Ch'i are bringing to their war and just how badly we are clobbering each other, my current prediction is that neither of us have a snowball chance in hell of winning this game. Doesn't make it any less fun, though!

Regarding Bakemono Sorcerers and research... It's definitively a mistake on my part, but I have a huge dislike of Old Age mages in general. I did hire some Bakemono Sorcerers for research early on, but all of them beside one got Diseased in the first winter after my takeover, and they quickly catch feeblemind and mute and other things making them useless. I know that they are blessed, but I figured that Ubas were much more reliable and didn't need replacing each year at 300 gold a pop... It's most likely been a big mistake, but what's done is done. That's also the reason why I highly prefer to play nations that don't have Old Age for main mage.

Regarding having my own god instead... I'm no expert, but it would at least be better than this one. You've seen my borrowed god in "action" this turn. 3 Fire (on a nation whose mages go to 3 fire already) and 7 death (on a 3 death nation) isn't exactly the best usage of design point I could imagine!

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

well oceania and tien chi, i guess i can understand the two on one and sneak attacks, but did you really need to lie to me when i asked you a direct question so that i'd move all my forces out of postion and not take time to script commanders/mages so that you would meet no resistance?

i would have gladly given it my best effort to fight the two of you(you would have beaten me, but i'd have been glad to give it a try. but if you need to win so badly you'll lie about your intentions, then i guess i'm done with giants vs dwarves.

congratulations on a win achieved through lying. you must be very proud of yourself.

au revoir.:up:

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Hey, you never asked, nor gave me a NAP. Hell, we've were neighbors for several turns and never extended the olive branch. For me, you were the logically choice. A quiet neighbor is a deadly neighbor in my book. That is why I have had strong diplomatic efforts with my neighbors when possible.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

sorry lego, should not have included you in that blast. you have been totally cool. me lumping you in there was UNcool. my bad.

the other dude though...well, the less said the better, i suppose. good luck all. for the most part, this was an enjoyable game.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Uh? I think my spies missed something... I saw one intact massive T'ien Ch'i army and one intact massive Ulm army one province away from each other, but I didn't see anything more than that... What happened, if it's not secret?

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

tien chi not the problem. he and oceania in alliance vs ulm. oceania assured me of peace so i could move north to engage, then backstabbed and attacked as soon as i had moved forces out of his sphere.

no biggy. apparently he is afraid to fight someone, so will only engage while part of a 2 vs 1 or 3 vs 1 alliance, then lie to the person he is attacking so as to have an overwhelming advantage to open the already uneven conflict.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

I would like to add, that i didnt break NAP.
(And even when I offered it, ulm refused it.)

So the accusation is: im not being straight and telling u about my plans of attacking u five turns later. I guess this kind of behavior from me is well within the boundaries of the norms of a gaming-community like this.

Also: I find being straight much more easy from the (ur) position of power: as u stated about urself in one of our negotiations: "nobody can stop me, so do what i say" (paraphrased).

U ask if i am proud of myself for gaining advantage through deceiving my opponent in a strategy game? I am, yes.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

i also would like to thank u for participating, regardless of this issue.

thanks!

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

bandar and shinyu, just so you know:

asking about on the boards, lego and earaxe often play in games with one another and never attack eachother. EVER. there is a bit of conjecture that they may be the same person(personoally, i don't think so)

since, earaxe, you tried to organize a 3 on 1, and apparently join games with sham alliances with other people, i must surmise that you are an absolute coward. you are afraid to fight anyone 1 on 1 on the off chance you might lose, and back this up with phoney negotiations and lies.(personally, i think in a war with me, you'd have won if you had gone at if fairly, but hey, we'll never know, will we)

but i'm gonna give you your dream game here, buddy. i won't go ai. that pesky ai has a tendency to buy new units and 'gasp' move armies around. so what i'm going to do for you is, just send in my 2h whenever i get a turn. see the beauty? since im not scripted you should suffer near zero casualties! sure, this will ruin the game for everyone else except you and tien chi, but hey, who cares? that was your intention from turn one, right?

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Well...

While it certainly was a cheap move on Oceania's part, I can't really see it as unfair. The rules on the first post states that diplomacy is non-binding in this game: While it's in my nature to do things by the book, we always have to keep in mind that others might not do so. 2vs1 or 3vs1 is the name of game from what I read about this game: 1vs1 is a rarity, and they usually don't stay that way for too long.

For example (maybe I'm too paranoid), but I kept expecting T'ien Ch'i to attack me after the Bandar Log war started: Even though we had good relations and that I knew it wouldn't be anything personal, I was the obvious target in my mind. Already involved in what would definitively be a costly war, and without a big economy, and it made sense geographically speaking. So even though I would have obviously been utterly doomed, I did have some plans in place to fight them off as best as I could and make them pay.

Since T'ien Ch'i decided to attack you instead, Oceania really had only two choices: Either they attacked T'ien Ch'i or they attacked you, sitting around doing nothing simply meant that whoever won the T'ien Ch'i/Ulm war would be the undispusted winner of the game. If I was in their shoes, what I would have done is to attack whichever of the two side was the stronger one: Winning the war alongside the weaker side meant that they could be of relatively equal strength to the other nation, whereas if they sided with the stronger nation they'd be doomed since that nation just got even stronger. As far as I can currently see, Ulm is stronger than T'ien Ch'i right now (That may be innacurate however since my spy network isn't as good as hoped). If that's correct, I believe that Oceania's decision was the right one strategically speaking and I would have done the same in their place with the only difference being making a proper declaration of war and less sneaky dealings.

I mean, I've had excellent relation throughout the game with both T'ien Ch'i and Ulm. My long term plan was simple: If I win the Bandar Log war, I attack whichever side is currently winning the Oceania-T'ien Ch'i-Ulm war (while following NAP terms of course). I both consider you to be good neighboors and I would hate to fight either of you, but that's the only way I could have even a remote chance of winning the game. Heck, I even consider Bandar Log to have been a good ally and a pleasant neighboor (and a great opponent), but I had to declare war on them to both survive short-term against the temples (Upon seeing what happened my fears were definitively warranted) and it also made sense long-term for the territories and the corner if I wanted to stand a chance. I still feel a bit bad about attacking them since they had been my most helpful neighboor, but it is a strategy game where the goal is about being the only winner in the end. (I don't feel bad about beating Machaka though since they've been a jerk since the start)

So what I'm saying is... If you were indeed the strongest nation on the map, Oceania's decision to attack you is the only one that makes sense to them if they want to win the game. The way they did it is certainly cheap and not very honorable, but they were within the rules to do so. If T'ien Ch'i and Oceania decide to do a joint victory together and that they've already done so multiple times in other games, then I can see it being a concern. If that's not the case, then I can only see this as Oceania's only viable strategic option to win the game (The method might have been really sneaky, but the war declaration in itself makes sense).

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

WTF Parone! This is my second MP game in Dominions ever. And I'm currently in only 3 games. And I've never played with Earaxecar before. Ever!. I don't even know what other games Earaxecar is in, but it isn't TheAscensionWars or HappyKatanakka, the only others games I am in.

So, as you can see, your facts are wrong. And as others have stated, being #1 puts a giant bulls-eye on you. Congrats on being seen to be on top. Now you have to pay for it. This isn't AI, this is MP, and I'm sorry you are having making trouble with that transition. Please don't blame us for your folly.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

I'll respond with a longer post later, but for now... Zywack- to say that our battle (which I was confident I would win) was devastating to my war effort is a massive understatement. Very well played.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

good luck all. perhaps we will all meet again in better circumstances.

Strength and Honor!

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

To be bluntly honest, in the future I don't think I'll be joining a game you are a part of, Parone. I genuinely liked you throughout the game, but this pretty much destroy the game entirely. You might be having a setback but that's part of the game.

Machaka stayed until they had 1 single commander left. Abyssia stayed until they were 2-3 turns away from being game over. C'Tis stayed until the very end. That's what was agreed upon at game start and it's also what I was intending to do myself. You are going to quit when you have a massive army intact and around 1/3rd of the map? That just screws up the game entirely for everyone else involved.

Everyone here spent a ton of hours on this game, and all that time just gets invalidated by that single action. Is that what you are going to do every time things start not going your way?

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

as have i. the game is ruined for me as well. it is your perrogative to not play again with me, and i respect that. so you know, i am currently in two other games, in the midgame, where i am losing, and have no chance, and am playing them to the bitter end. not only do i not mind losing, i am actually enjoying both those games very much.

it's not winning and losing. it's choosing not to spend my leisure time with someone who openly boasts about being proud of accompishments made through lies and deceit.

quite frankly, i get enough of that in real life. and i can't avoid it. here, i can.

as i said. good luck, whether we cross paths again or not.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

if the reason for u leaving the game is that i said i was proud of deceiving u, then how is it possible that the first time u said u quit the game happened in post #325, while my statement about that was 330# (=later)?

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

So... What's the plan now? We give the game to Oceania and call it a day?

T'ien Ch'i is mostly blocked by Ulm's army and will have to pay heavily to get through, Shinuyama and Bandar Log are stuck in war with no possibility of reaping any benefit from Ulm quitting, and Oceania has full uncontested access to the entire Ulm empire that they can consume in extremely short order.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Yeah.... I'm not sure. Damn, I really enjoyed this game too.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

im curious about groundworms opinion about that topic. I would like to add, that i already own about half of the map (the pangaean and half the ctissian lands, about the whole southern continent now and of course the waters), and many ulmian provinces are up for grabs and (easily reachable from the waters), since parone really didnt leave defense in the south. i think it i would have taken those even if he didnt leave.

we can continue playing, but im not sure it would make much difference.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

I didn't know you were that big (T'ien Ch'i auto-PD thingy is a black hole for spies), but just with basic geography it certainly looked really, really bad. I assumed that the southern continent was in Ulm hands and not yours, but considering Ulm's decision, it really would have made no difference at all.

It's really up to Bandar Log if they want to continue our slugfest for the sake of continuing it... As long as for lore sake that Shinuyama is allowed to exist and that there's no temples built for 500 miles around our lands, I don't mind considering my war with Bandar Log a draw and to give Oceania the victory and overall leadership. If Groundworms prefers to continue the war though, I'll indulge them and fight until one of us win or until T'ien Ch'i or Oceania gets bored and clean us off the map.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Yeah, not liekly that I will win though. Made some poor decision when it came to making my pretender and Oceania will eventually get through my pd. I am for calling it and setting up a new game.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

I'm honestly a bit tired myself of having to deal with the Dominion... It's been a sword hanging over my head with no solution.

Do you know what Dominion score my inherited god have? 2.

Two. I have TWO points in Dominion. This means that I had to spend an inordinate amount of time dedicated to priests instead of mages and troops. My war with Bandar Log was motivated by their big pile of temples (around 10 right on my borders): Even if I were to build as many, I'd have gotten wiped out soon. My war objectives were not territories, but just to blow up temples (The actual trying to win the war came a few turns later when I decided to risk it by combining my two armies to march north and just harass Bandar Log main army to hold it down by threatening it with a cut path of retreat and other perceived threats).

And then T'ien Ch'i dominion started creeping in beside temples and priests on the border. I'm pretty sure that wasn't intentional at all, but just a by-product of my utterly attrocious dominion score. So even though I killed around 50 mages in the last two turns, a tartarian and a Zmey, I'm still doomed by something I can do absolutely nothing about: Even if I beat Bandar Log before dying a dominion death, it's only going to buy me a tiny bit more time. It's not as if the war is going perfectly anyway: My storm staff anti-tartarian group failed pathetically mostly due to the storm staff itself last turn, and the multiple Ghost Riders cast each turn do put a strain, alongside with the southern front probably going back to it's locked front, and the mass-luck artefact sword still being in Bandar Log's hands despite our best attempt.

I knew the 2 points in dominion made a win impossible, but I never expected to reach that late in the game... Reaching turn 25 was my goal. My win over Machaka was simply a last-ditch defense by doing a lure and using the militia mercs and slime spam. It surprisingly worked, and my guesses regarding his movements were spot-on so I managed to get a castle for free by cutting his path with small armies with a bit of decoy help from Bandar Log. The war went flawlessly beside the actual "finish off their capital" which turned out be pretty painful.

For Bandar Log, I expected an early loss but I thought I'd bring down some temples at least. I expected massive amount of Mind Hunts from the first turn: If you are wondering, the reason why I've been trading for hundred of nature gems is because Kitsunes were my only potential source of Astral magic as a counter to it. Well, also because the entire Shinuyama lands produced a meager 5 nature a turn, despite it fully Haruspeced and having Machaka's capital...

Oh, quick question: can Bandar Log actually blood sacrifice? I thought they couldn't, but I've assassinated a Daikini that had a Jade Knife last turn so I'm not so sure now...

As a side note, I'm simply amazed at my three musketeer squad: It's a trio of Ghost Generals equiped with nothing else but a gold shield and a brand (depending on which). They've taken down piles of PD early on, fought in three big battles, sieged the castle housing Bandar Log's god... And all three are still alive somehow. Those were the best gem investment I've ever made in Dominion beside the "anti-60 mage communion" squad. That was a Master Enslave communion I assume?

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Sorry, long post incoming.

Regarding the game in general: I didn't know Oceania was that big either. My spy network really never made it to the south. Or the west. Or anywhere outside Shinuyama's lands, for that matter. And, as Zywack has stated, neither him nor I are contenders for victory after our war. So if T'ien Ch'i feels that he's out of the running, then I'm fine with giving the game to earcaraxe.

Regarding the war with Shinuyama: I don't feel the need to continue the game just for fighting this war, as I'm now rather confident that you'll win, in the end. It will still be a long war and hard-fought, but you've been playing *far* better than I have, and your superior strategies have allowed you to do vast amounts of damage to me. I've done far less to you with better gem production. The ghost rider spam is inconvenient, I'm sure, but you're dealing with it just fine... it's not actually gaining me any provinces. And you'd get the Sword of Aurgelmer next turn, because it's trapped on one of my Yogis with no adjacent friendly province to retreat to. All of my armies are smashed; I'm down to just raiders. Your overwhelming victory last turn killed well over half of the mages I've recruited this entire game. I couldn't Mind Hunt you until this last turn, as I never researched evocation heavily because Bandar is not an evocation nation. I also spent most of my early astral pearls on Gandharvas (useless), and my later ones on artifacts and Rudras (much better, but very expensive).

Bandar can't blood sacrifice. You didn't assassinate a Daikini with a jade knife- you assassinated an Asrapa with a blood thorn.

No, it wasn't a master enslave communion- see above re: evocation research. I did research enough evo eventually to communion my E and W Rishis, and that was a mass-evocation spam communion.

In sum, I have no objection to ending the game. In fact, I'm not really sad to see it go. Shinuyama and I had an excellent war and you've all been great to play with, but I made numerous major mistakes, several serious tactical and strategic blunders, and I'm not sure I like Bandar Log after having played with them.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

thank Zywack for the input! that dom score of 2 is hilarious :D
and congrats for the achievement from ur starting position!

I understand it was a game mostly for inexperienced players, but it was my first MP game with oceania, which is perceived a weak nation. I certainly could do much better, for instance putting just a little earth and water on my pretender would have made difference. An other factor is i planned to amass lamia queens (baalz's guide), but chose cold3 (cold blooded :doh:), so eventually i gave that direction up and put the water gems into unfrozen warriors and mages. which proved to be absolutely powerful/economical/synergical. I chose a rainbowish master lich.

This is the story from my perspective: I aimed to grab some land provinces fast thinking that i get get the water ones later, even at the cost of war and mother oak couldnt be cast from under the water. Pangaea was the only one who didnt answer my messages, and also had pathetic early expansion, so i teamed up with ctis and attacked. the war was nearing its end when i agreed with TC to attack ctis, so i ended up with all of pangaea and half of ctis's territories. in the northwestern corner i have found an 20% enchantment site wich gave a nice boost to my unrozen-factory later in the game. In the south abysia defeated vanheim, and thanks to caelums ineptitude for expanding, owned the bulk of the southern continent, however i thought he didnt have the forces to defend that, he massively overextended. And by that expansion he put a crosshairs on his back. while the last of my northern wars were chiming down, i have sent some troops to the southern continent to grab some provinces there too. abysia also didnt respond to my messages, so i just attacked him here and there. he managed to defeat my first weak tries, but at the very beginning he teleported his pretender to the battle to help out with astral fires, where my cavalry broke thru and killed him before routing, costing him his global enchantment. caelum didnt do anything not then, not later. in the meantime ulm defeated ashdod, then messaged me that he wants vanheims capitol while i defeat abysia alone. saying if i disagree he will just attack me too. so i ceded every province to ulm he wanted to leave me alone for a while and began my full-scale war versus abysia. It was my first war where my full army participated (actually not my full army, since i had so many territories even then that some of them were too far up north). I reached abysias capitol without resistance, i was surprised to learn how weak the abysian amred forces were. there was a HUGE battle at the capitol however, but storm/fog warriors and numerical superiority was enough to win. then TC attacked ulm, and parone retreated almost all of his forces north, so i spent the next 3 turns getting my armies into position. I have also found a 20% conjuration site next to former abysian capitol, there i summoned about 300 animals, and 4 elemental royalties, and marched eastward (ulm has conquered caelum in that 3 turns).

I also managed to be on good terms with almost everybody, and even before the start of the game i knew it was more optimal strategy to be expansionist, since no graphs will be seen, so one can grow unnoticed with a little luck, that i managed perfectly.

My long-term plan was (had parone not given up) - after defeating ulm, when i already own half of the map - to shoot up burden of time for which i have been amassing the D gems. capricorns, and all my summoned mages are basicly immune to BoT, but it would have killed most of TC's, shinu's and bandar's.

I have found ma oceania a very capable nation, the sirens (which i used for search and combat too) and the new selkie summons gives a quite strong and very maneuverable air-dimension to it.

this is the map of the world as i see now: http://www.math.bme.hu/~simon/giants.bmp

thanks all for this great game, i really did enjoy it too, i hope we meet soon in another one.

im very curious about ur aspects!

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Nasty indeed. I hadn't realized how much of the map you owned. Glad I took a grab for C'tis when I did. I have nothing except tons of money to my name. I took Death and Nature on my pretender, but really got little in return (very little in nature income). After C'tis, it took me forever to move my forces to face Ulm, because I had to swamps to move through. My summons are pathetic, but I do have a lot of Crystal Shields and a communion to work with. Shinuyama was nice enough to send me a fire skull, but it took him forever to send it, and then I was all about Zmeys.


Finally, my income was super high (tons of site search) but I just didn't have the paths to get much of the good stuff.

Yeah, I would have lost to Oceania, even if Bandar and Shinuyama teamed up with me.

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

Oops! Sorry about the Aspara/Dakini mess up: I had just checked the turn result very quickly before going to sleep.

I'm very, very sorry about how long it took to send you that skull legowarrior: I did send you one as soon as I possibly could. In fact, Construction is actually the first thing I've reached level 6 in... My top research speed was around 210 RP, and that lasted for maybe 2 turns since that's the time it took in between finishing off Machaka and panicking at Bandar Log's temples. I had started making some Skull Mentors, but I only ended up with 3 of them since I had to trade away everything to Oceania to buy some Nature gems. I greatly feared Mind Hunt, and getting Astral Kitsunes was my topmost priority... I ended up with one Astral Kitsune on the first turn of the Bandar Log war to protect my capital, and a second one the turn after to sneak around the northern army... That one did actually get 2 astral points, so it's been extremely useful. One kitsune got air magic, and it was my first air mage (even though I have decent nation-only summons...) so I did a tri-trade to get a bag of wind for her. It's definitively proven useful!

But yeah, back to research... During the Bandar Log war, my research speed was usually around 120rp per turn. I just never could afford to even have a big core of researchers. Mages were bought and sent to the front all game long since they were desesperately needed every single turn, and the few Bakamono Sorcerers I had at home always caught diseases and were busy either site searching with spells or crafting stuff. My highest research was Evocation at 7 for Storm of Thorn for my nature Uba, and I was aiming for Frozen Heart to counter the Zmeys for next research goal. Since my anti-Tartarian Squad with the storm staff that failed stupidly due to the staff making them miss all their Dust to Dust (and then they decided to switch to Decay...), I had a grand total of 37rp last turn. I didn't lose the mages, but 37rp at that turn isn't terribly fun! :)

Regarding Oceania's size... Damn! On the north west continent, I pretty much had spies that scouted every T'ien Ch'i province, and they died one single step away from Oceania's lands... So I had assumed that the North continent was all T'ien Ch'i beside maybe a few lands. On the southern part of the equation, I had a spy 1 step away from the southern continent... So I would have known next turn, but it obviously wouldn't have changed anything. I really value information, but T'ien Ch'i just screwed over my scouting attempts on the western side. If at least one of my western scout had reached Oceania's lands (I nearly sent some assassin to scout due to their better sneak scores but I figured that diplomatically it wouldn't be a good idea if she's caught) I would have been more wary of Oceania... But realistically-speaking, beside trying to convince T'ien Ch'i and Ulm to unite against them, I couldn't do anything either way. Our borders consisted of a single province, and beside trying to slooowly go down the river, I couldn't fight them. Plus, the army going downriver would be in stupidly large amount of danger since there'd be no retreat paths anywhere ever since I didn't own any of the river banks. Thanks for telling me what you were using all the water gems I sent you: I was genuinely curious :)

It's been a great amount of fun, thank you very much everyone!

Re: Giants and Dwarves [MA; CBM ; Noob friendly] [Full 12/12]
 

So, my gifts to Oceania and Ulm were not in vain after all. Great.