Re: TheEndofTime - started
 

Hey now, Atlantis is doing better than I am, he's even beating me in dominion, of all things. Plus I got stuck with this absurd drain scale. Props to Pangaea for doing an excellent cockroach impression as well, I've been having a much harder time than I expected squishing him.

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Don't count your chickens before they hatch. I for one am glad to have Micah playing with us.

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JimM and All

When I signed up for this game my computer and Dominions were both running fine :-) But I only managed to make one turn before the 3.17 patch came out, and for me the patch came with problems. The combo of new patch, new windows XP SP3, and new Ati drivers, was more than my faithful old video card could handle, so it promptly decided to quit the show all together while I was fumbling around with drivers and settings trying to get Dom 3.17 to work. This sadly forced me out of the 2 MP games I was in at the time :-( while I sorted out a new video card.

I managed to find subs for both my MP games, Micah in this game, and johnarryn in Glory. I was hoping that both subs would be on a temporary basis, as both games were going to be my first real taste of MP :-) so I was eager to play them. It unfortunately took me about 2 weeks to get my computer fixed, which was far longer than I'd hoped for :-( (crappy delivery service at fault)

Once up and running again, I contacted Micah and johnarryn to tell them that I could resume my games :-) But in contacting them, I also gave them the option of continuing the games if they wished to do so. Both of them expressed an interest in continuing to play, so they both then became permanent subs for me in these games. I was happy to let them do this, as I felt it was only fair on them. Since they had both subbed me on turn 2, and all the hard work done in the game so far had been done by them. I had done nothing except design the Pretenders (which might not exactly have been a bonus for them!).

I'm grateful to both Micah and johnarryn for subbing me (thanks again guys!) I guess in an ideal world I would have found subs who had the same ability level as me, so as not to unbalance the game. But this isn't always possible due to time and the nature of subbing itself.

Sorry for all the rambling, but thought I'd give some background on why I needed to be subbed in the first place.

And my apologies to all those Micah is using, and will use, his (considerable) Dominions skill against.

Cal

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Was just curious Calahan. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Would have rather my first game involving Micah had been under other circumstances, but I'm not mad, or going to stop playing because of it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif Good luck in your other games. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

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Cheers JimM :-)

Just started 2 new MP games, so looking forward to 'finally' getting my Diminions MP gaming underway :-) after several false dawns. (walks round house touching every wooden object in sight)

Up til recently I had the fantastic MP experience of :-

'Glory' - 1 turn then re-start.
'Glory2' - 1 turn then my computer died.
'EndofTime'- 1 Turn then my computer died.
'Huntsgame' - 2 Turns as sub, then server (lch/GP) died.

4 games, 5 turns in total. Can anyone beat that introduction to Dominions MP-ing! :-)

New games running smoothly so far, although I'm finding time is tight at the moment since I'm bloody playing PSI-5 all the time now! :-) (downloaded it from Underdogs and running it on Dosbox)

Fecking Skronts's are doing my head in!

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Well I did try and get his neighbours to stop fighting each other but I seem to remember not all of you were interested http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

I am not very experienced either. But fighting LA Ermor and fighting Micah (or any of the other really good mp players) are two of the experiences of Dom 3 mp you want to have before you retire http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif You will learn a lot for later games from doing so. And while it would have been better to have started fighting him a few turns ago it's not too late. Well it might be now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif , but fighting Ermor always has an epic feel to it.

Ermor’s three main neighbours Agartha, Marignon and Jomon should be fighting him now. Or at least preparing to fight him. They certainly shouldn’t be fighting amongst themselves and their enemies should realise that fighting these powers now helps Ermor at least as much as it helps them.

He has been throwing armies of several hundreds at me. But you are likely to face armies in the high hundreds or even in the 1-2 thousand range now. But this isn't something you can avoid. Waiting will mean fighting armies of several thousands later. It just gets worse and worse. Then his SCs and deadly global enchantments will come http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

But fighting Ermor is usually fairly straightforward at this stage. Although often hopeless as you usually get overwhelmed in the end like Pangaea (me) has been in this one. If you don’t know what to do there are guides but in essence try several or all of these:

Build Priests. You want dozens when you take on armies of several hundred undead. Spamming Banishment. So if you haven’t done so already build temples and hire some. Plus the temples will help to keep his killer dom out of your lands. Holy 2 banishment is MUCH better than holy 1, and holy 3 is much better again etc. So if you can recruit high level holy priests at your castles do so! They are worth more than mages vs Ermor usually at this stage unless those Mages have holy magic and are communionable.

So if you are fortunate enough to have communionable mages which have holy magic (e.g. like Pythium) then you can boost your holy magic to much higher levels. But you need to understand how communions work before doing this. There are guides. Because banishment costs no fatigue (except the usual spell caster encumbrance iirc) you don’t commune to spread this out and you want all your mages casting banishment after the communion is set up round 1. Therefore you need the Slaves to be casting before the Masters. Otherwise they don’t cast. The Communion is purely for the holy level boost in this case.

Jomon (in a Communion) and Marignon at least should both be able to cast Flame Arrows and other missile boosters on their armies. Set up a wall of meat shields and have lots of missile troops firing flame arrows at him.

And get some Thugs equipped with area effect damage (not cold though) to cut through the chaff. Charcoal shields should work well.

Astral and death both have decent anti undead spells and because the undead chaff has low hit points but there will be huge numbers of it look for damage spells with big area of effects even if it has low accuracy and low damage. Remember not to try and poison or freeze them though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif His most dangerous chaff is the Cavalry but be careful about targeting it as he may have it guarding commanders at the back and then your archers etc. will start to advance through his infantry chaff to get in range….

Make some supply items! Bags of Wine or Cauldrons of Broth are fairly cheap. Then try and fight in his lands rather than yours. And try and keep your army together. He can handle the attrition much better than you can. You want to kill his armies off with few casualties on your side.

Good Luck! It will be fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

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I'd have to disagree that it's in Agartha's best interest to gear up to fight me when he's getting his head kicked in by Atlantis, who's beating me in the majority of the graphs.

I'm hardly the only threat in the game, especially after the last couple of turns of spiking gold and gem income that Atlantis is pulling in.

If you gang up on me at this point you'll simply be handing the game to Atlantis, as he destroys his weaker neighbors (Agartha) and the rest of the world does him the service of destroying the major threat to his dominance. He'll be gaining rich lands while those fighting me will have nothing but gems to show for their efforts.

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I'll respectfully disagree with my friend Micah here. He is without a doubt the biggest threat. Letting him live would be a very bad idea. And I say this without designs on any of his neighbors, who I either do not border on or am at peace with.

Once Ermor gets beyond a certain point they are very nasty indeed.

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You describe some sort of choice, which is really no choice at all. Atlantis is the strongest of the living, yes, but is also has the most untenable position, stretching across the entire map.

Unfortunately, while you may say that Atlantis will "probably win" if Ermor falls, it can be said with even greater surety that Ermor "absolutely will win" if everyone continues to quibble over pie. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif There is no pie in Ermor, and it is only growing larger daily, this "no pie zone". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

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Mmmmmm....Pie.