Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Just so everyone knows, the sickle whose crop is pain is available for forging this turn :)

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Ah, it feels good having an income again.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Apologies, but I won't be able to get my turn in today. And since next turn is the onset of itza-alugran aggression, I am really not inclined to stale...

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

My turn is in. And has convinced me never to survive until late game again :(. I have so many commanders it's just annoying.

I'm sure burnsaber will be willing to give me a hand with that, though.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Wow. I can't believe you found all those chameleons. I know watchmen have a patrol bonus, but you didn't really have THAT many of them in the province....

Well, it would appear the first battle between Itza and Alugra goes to the courageous lizards of Itzan. Huzzah! Certain things did not work out as well as planned, and I can see I definitely need to bring a few more things to the table next time I fight one of those huge alugran armies. But overall this was a victory I can live with. We both lost mostly a bunch of chaff troops... but there are 170 alugran heroes dead this day, and no more than half that many temple guard. We also killed roughly the same number of commanders, though most of mine died due to being overused by their slann masters. Not quite sure what to do about that. I guess bring more skinks, dumb as that is sounding. I could live without the mass feebleminding of my troops though.

Now let us see if I can manage to capitalize on this grand victory.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Just curious, anyone get gems from me this turn that they weren't expecting? Should've been 15 pearls. I'm not going to make you give them back, but I'd like to know who it was.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Okay, I am going to go ahead and send in another turn tonight. Meanwhile, I'm opening a poll for all the players in the game. Are you still interested in continuing?

Now, the only real problem is I'm not really sure who to declare a victor here if we do end it. Alugra looks to be the strongest player currently by the graphs, but I have the feeling he is on his way out. And through various diplomatic machinations I think I am probably the most likely player to win the game eventually should it be played out. But, that is pretty hypothetical and if we don't actually play the game out, I don't quite think it's fair to call me the winner. If you all do, I won't object. But I think in the current state it would be more fair to call a 3-way tie between me, alugra and stygia. If anyone objects to this, now is the time to speak.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

I would like to continue playing. However, I won't make a fuss if the big 3 decide to end it. I agree that declaring a winner is problematic, and think that a three way tie is probably the best solution.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Well, I'm fine with ending it since I'm almost dead anyway. Not sure if it should be a three or four way tie though, since Nehekhara doesn't seem out of the running.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

I don't know, somehow nehekara doesn't seem to be quite on the same level as itza+stygia+alugra. But in the end it hardly matters. What's the difference between a third of a win and a fourth of a win anyway?

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Actually it seems I'm going to have to postpone. I got roped into a last minute late night blitz game on irc. I'm not going to be able to do the turn until tomorrow anyway. Sorry.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Ossa has agreed to sub for me. In the interests of easing his transition into the game I'm going to add another 48 hours to the clock. He may or may not need all this time. But I have a lot of commanders.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Welcome Ossa. Instead of getting a sub for yourself rdonj, I would have been happy with just a 3 way tie being declared. But, as you wish.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Septimus threw a odd message this turn in the game. I was kind of confused what it meant. I'll assume it was about ending the game.

As for keeping this game going, I've been playing just out of sense of commitment for the last 15 turns (really, I never had the slightest shot at winning, I'll explain in more detail if the game is declared finished). I'd be really happy just to call Itza the winner and save ourselves 20 turns of struggling*. Also, I really can't understand the 3-way gangbang I'm facing, but I guess there just wasn't any way for you to know my lack of clams.

But my turns are getting simpler and simpler, so I will play on if people want to. I always love to play last stands.

*Let's be really honest here. With a map this huge, this is a clam game. Most clams = win.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

I believe Ossa is playing Itza, and I think Ferrosol is playing Alugra (rdonj are you still admining the game/updating the main post?) Which nation are you playing Burnsabr?

If Stygia(myself), Itza, and Alugra agree, and there are no more objections we can end the game and declare a winner or three way tie.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

I didn't even mention your lack of clams to ossa. When he took over, I decided that your telling me about them should be kept secret since our conversation had been likely to lead to the game's ending at that point. I can explain the gangbang though. Stygia and nehekara have basically been allied this entire game. When stygia and I signed peace so that I could try to save haida gwaii from you, stygia decided he wanted in on the action. I think nehekara joined in for a chance to grow his empire.

It sounds like everyone but trumanator is willing to call the game at this point (and I don't blame him as he's not had to fight any of the major world powers yet, with his bloodstones and SCs he should be sitting pretty happily right now). If you still don't really want to play on, I have no problem ending the game.


Septimius - Yes, I am still admining the game, I'm kind of an administration specialist :P. Also, burnsaber is alugra. Sorry, I completely forgot to update that on the main post. He took over for ferrosol fairly early on when he disappeared.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

I'm playing Alugra, Ferrosol stopped playing on turn 40ish? and I stepped in.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Well, if Ossa is in agreement we can quit and declare a three way tie, however since Ossa has just joined, he may wish to keep going a bit. I'll continue for the sake of anyone who wishes to keep playing. So let us hear from Ossa on this matter and anyone else who may wish to do so?

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

I am going to be busy with ROTC essentially all this weekend, with absolutely no internet access. If I could have a delay till Monday that would be great.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Granted.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Well... I'm ok with calling the game. THough I believe I would steamroll Agua... (sp) with all the stuff I took over from the previous player;)

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Very well, rdonj, it would appear the game is over then. A stalemate having been called, no winner. The current turn (70) I guess will be the last. It was a pleasure and a privilege playing with all of you.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Yeah, I agree. I think this game should be declared a draw between Itza and Stygia.

As for the game, when I took over a over turn 40 something, Alugra was a mess. Ferrosol's PoD gave me a pretty big empire, but the paths on it don't really contribute much. Also, Ferro hadn't really done much site searching either and the gem income was quite small and focused on absolutely wrong paths (only one hammer and +2 earth gem income, yikes!). I could see Ferro's PoD working out, but it seemed that he run into some really bad luck with his Librarians (over 12 GoR'ed and no W1N1) and sites.

So I did my best to get back into the game, but no mater what I did, I couldn't beat the 16% chance for a N1W1 Librarian. And thus gems that would have been better spent in making RoS and RoW's went pretty much to waste. When I finally managed to get decent gem income and forge 1 Blood Stone per turn, it was already turn 55+ and I had no clams, no RoS, no RoW, mages to can only get to pathpower 2 (no-real-late-game magic) = dead nation.

It's pretty depressing to play a nation that has no shots at winning, so I started to play in a more "fun" way. Not microing much and trying out some new crazy strats, which made situation somewhat worse, but allowed me to be motivated to play.

At least my war with Haida went smoothly, but that was mostly due to his suboptimal Thunder Bird-strat (if he had spent his mage-time and air gems elsewhere, I'd likely have lost).

But all in all, I have no one else to blame for my loss expect me (if I hadn't desperately tried to that W1N1 Librarian and instead focused on boosters, it could have gone different) and I learned a lot from this game. Alugra will likely get updated and put up to the llamaserver now that it has gone through it's "Trial of Fire", so to speak. Once he smiths get their nerf, I think it will a fun nation for MP with a unique gameplay.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Alright, I'm closing the game. I'm sending myself the turn file for itza first though, so I can see what my empire looked like at the end.

It seems that earth gems were scarce pretty much the world over. I had a max of 10 earth gem income at the height of my empire, and I got something like half of it from killing the skavens. So it took me a long time to build up my bloodstones also. It also did not help that executor got extremely lucky very early into my bloodstone forging when I only had 3 or 4 of them, and assassinated my empowered skink who was forging them (and was carrying my only RoS). It took me a few turns to recover from that loss, and at the end of the game I had something like 20 of them. I was never able to forge more than one per turn. And hammers, hah. I had maybe 5 hammers, since I didn't really get into thugging and only had 4 or 5 golems at the end there. Two of which were supplied mostly with items I'd pulled off of bogus and crew. So I mostly tried not to need hammers, and did most of my forging while arcane nexus was up :P.

It seems nehekara got just about all the earth gems on the map, since he apparently had enough to give stygia bunches of them early in the game, and create a grand bloodstone horde.

I did much better on clams, though I still wasn't really pressing those very hard due to other goals. However, after haida gwaii knew they were dead, they gave me all their clams... 45 of them, under the condition that I had to keep giving him the gems until he died, which I did. Itza had probably forged about 70 clams when I left.

I'd also saved up hundreds of gems and 20,000 gold that ossa immediately began putting to good use, summoning saurus and buying shedloads of troops so that the losses he took fighting alugra didn't phase him. Looking at the turn, he's down to 6,000, so you did accomplish something burnsaber. Not sure how he got all those slann feebleminded... mind hunts? It's frustrating that, for a nation so excellent at mind hunting, almost every single nation in the game was immune to them :P. Anyway, that gift of nature's bounty was a ridiculously key global for me... moreso than arcane nexus, which never got me more than 60 extra pearls a turn. Without it I was losing money, so I really had to get it back up or lose (4k in upkeep each turn). So I did... with 300 nature gems. Until then I hadn't cast a single global for price, as I had two enchantment bonus sites. I had to convert a lot of pearls to cast that so high though.


The whole war with stygia was pretty dumb. I should have just rushed him and lived with the losses I took killing his stupid undead things. I could probably have replaced them, and I might have gotten somewhere. That war had me so uninterested in playing my turns, because we hardly did anything. I kept trying to preach dominion in his land, and his stupid h4 priests mostly kept me out. It was only when septimius attacked into my dominion and lost a bunch of them that I was actually able to make any progress on that front... and then the war ended when I finally had positive dominion under one of his armies. Meh. At least that war allowed me to stockpile gems, summons and equipment that would later be put to use against alugra. Oh, and skink priests. Hordes of them. Although you did see most of them burn.

I'm really surprised alugra was so weak gemwise, but I suppose it maeks sense. It can be pretty hard relying on randoms to get the paths you want. Last time I played alugra I didn't have much luck getting a good librarian for clamming either. But I managed to find enchantresses to do it for me.

Why were you using so many gifted as soldiers, and almost none as thugs? When I play alugra I tend to mass watchmen and smith thugs. And hardly use the gifted as soldiers at all. I should actually try using them that way at some point. Anyway, I'm glad that alugra finally got its chance in mp. I don't think you did so bad, considering.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

I didn't use gifted thugs because Haida had sprinkled his ravens all over his provinces, who'd decimate the Thugs between their buff cycle. I had so many gifted soldiers because I had money to burn and tons of resources in my capital (so, why not?).

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Fair enough.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

I dunno about getting the majority of the E gems on the map, but I definitely had something like 30-40 BS all told at the end. At first I thought that the B3 avatars were useless, but then I figured out that 2 of them will basically set you up to forge 2 or so stones a turn for the rest of the game. I still find the randoms on them rather annoying though. I also had no clamming, and almost no S income, but I didn't feel like I needed it as much, since I had my own national SC chassis, and I was planning on spamming Poison Golems once I had someone else's territory to put them in. I will say though, TK is perfect for epic skellispam :P

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

lol, at least this means I get to clean out all the PMs related to this game out of my inbox :D

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

LOL. Suboptimal is a nice way of putting it. ;) This is the second time I've put all my hopes on immortal troops - time will tell if I make the same mistake a third time.

Interesting to hear people talk about the lack of E gems - I had no E gem income and that was a problem. The other strange thing is that I only had 4A income (2 of which were from my cap).

I figured early on that clams were going to decide things and Haida is a clamming nation so I played that game, even though I hate clamming. My big mistake was declaring war on Aulgra before I was ready. I rushed it in order to help Nehekhara, but when he cast BoT I called it off - too late to avoid war with Alugra, though.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

lol, this situation was pretty unintentional, but probably looked like some pretty good statecraft from a distance :D I really figured that you would actually be pretty safe from it with your GoH, and that it would be pretty bad for Alugra. I will admit though, the metagame improved for me drastically when Alugra shifted focus to you.

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

Yeah, prolonged BoT would have been pretty painful, since my manifests only have maxage 50. If it had been up only two turns more, my manifests would have started dropping like flies and my research (+thug communioning) with it.

My one regret is not using thug communions more. I only put one up against Itza in the last turn, but it kinda backfired when the first turn "Arcane Domination" got some critical masters, losing me many critical buffs (like Soul Vortex, some elemental resistances and the absolutely critical "Use the Leylines"). They might not be the most powerful things to do with manifests, but are the most awesome.

Valerius might recall some of my early attemps when I forgot to double-check the scripts, leaving me with some masters without "retreat" orders, making the thugged manifests just stand there after getting blinked by "Use the Leylines".

Re: Tourmaline - Mod Nations Game (Playing)
 

I used a thug communion once against the ai in a singleplayer game. I had 25 or so of them go up against 300 various t'ien ch'i troops, including a decent number of chariots. Only lost 3 :) But I didn't retreat the masters. Do you have to retreat masters in order for them to work properly, or is giving them attack orders good enough? I had a number of them who stood around casting spells for some reason even though they were all scripted to attack at the end of their scripts. If so that might explain it....

Alugran manifest thug communions are certainly fun though, when you're not fighting against the most powerul astral nation to have ever existed :P