Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I thought DragonRider still had one master plan he wanted to pull off. And I don't think he will go down without another fight.

To be honest, I was getting a bit burned out at this game. (Happend before, and the results of those turns speak for themselves). But I have thought up a few new tricks to pull of. Nothing major. But some ways to put the pressure back on Dragonrider.

And yeah, I don't think you are that much of a thread atm groundworm. Sure I do not have a huge army at that side. (The one you fought was largely decimated, and AC has prevented me from summoning more troops as chaff. But your army is also wrecked. And I think I can beat the one you are sending in now.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Well, I just dispelled Burden of Time and blocked the recast, so obviously I'm less inclined to give in now than I was before. Hell, even if my latest master-plan fails utterly (which past experience suggests it probably will), my gold and gem economies are both so strong right now that just playing the long game and flat-out out-summoning Jotunheim might even be an option if the current status quo persists. I'd rather it not come to that, of course, given that Jotunheim's blood economy means that their position on the gem scoreboard is better than it looks, but until there's an actual threat of invasion it may not be impossible for me to just outproduce them over a long enough period of time.

Even in a worst-case scenario where Jotunheim totally conquers Shinuyama with me still not being able to crack the border, vampires can't defend that front NEARLY as well as they can the one I'm currently pushed up against, so that still might not be worthy of declaring an immediate game over. So I really don't have nearly as much incentive to surrender as I felt like I did a little while ago.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I assumed as much. :)

Wow, we have been fighting the whole game have we...

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Hm. I'm beginning to suspect that the function of Wind Ride is not, as the in-game description suggests, to teleport a hapless enemy commander halfway across the continent to a pre-established murder-factory of your own design. Disappointing. Actually I've cast it three times now and I'm still not entirely sure what it does.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

At the very least the description is misleading. I was always under the impression this spell was bugged but then seem to recall something about it being fixed. Regardless, I ran a score of tests and (assuming the target was actually affected and didn't just fall to the ground as they sometimes do) in each case the target only moved one province. So you could use it to set a trap (anticipating where they'll land) or remove a commander from a battle but it won't just transport them to your caster's province (unless of course you're only one province away).

Edit: it is worth mentioning that when the commanders fall to the ground they take damage. Not sure how much, but 11 HP, 0 prot dryads were consistently dying in my tests.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Im gonna come back from this you'll see!

Shinuyama temples razed: 7

Someone has serious case of underestmating Pjoo :D

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

It's not so much a case of underestimating you as much as I had nothing with which to destroy your pretender combined with the need to attempt to defeat Jotunheim. My war against Jotunheim was quite unsuccessful, and now I basically have nothing.

I guess soon my lands will be covered with giants and lizards, more's the pity.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

**** staled, sorry. I knew there was something I still had to do before going to sleep.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

*%$&! Sorry abut that. I've obviously been keeping an eye on on things and postponing hosting if needed but I completely lost track of this one.

I'm going to go ahead and change the hosting interval to 96 hours. I don't want to set it to too long an interval and have the game never end but you've played almost 100 turns and it's been a while since we actually had all turns in within 72 hours.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Maybe also increase the reminder time? Can't be really checking the mail every 12 hours, 24 would be more useful?

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

That's a good idea; reminders will now be sent 24 hours before hosting.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I'm away this weekend, so I will not be able to play the next turn until Tuesday. Will still try to do turn 100 in time.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I'm probably going to need this turn delayed by at least a few days, if possible. I'm having some serious computer issues that probably need to be solved by reformatting, the data I need backed up is catastrophically disorganized, and I have some time-sensitive work I need to get done on the computer to boot, so dealing with all of that is going to be an ordeal for a little while.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Ok, no problem. I see your current turn is in so once the game hosts I'll put a delay on the next turn and extend it further if needed. Good luck fixing the computer.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Marignon's turn is missing so I sent DragonRider a PM to see how things are going with his computer and whether he's still interested in the game. Unfortunately he staled last turn. I extended hosting a couple of times because he was having computer problems but I missed checking before the last scheduled hosting time and he staled. Sorry about that. :(

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Also, if you haven't already downloaded llamabeast's correct version of CBM 1.6 (found here) please do so.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Any updates on the status of DragonRider?

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I haven't heard anything. This is a holiday weekend in the U.S. so that could account for it but he was also having computer problems and hasn't logged in for over a week. I'll postpone hosting again but I think if we don't hear anything by midweek we'll need to decide how to proceed. The last time we discussed this it seemed like DragonRider wanted to continue and everyone else was fine with either continuing or calling it a game. We could look for a sub but based on the score charts it looks like Jotun's position has only gotten stronger since then so it seems quite reasonable to declare Soyweiser the winner.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

At this point I am only a dried husk of an empire with no real motivation other than to cling to life. The real battle has been between Marignon and Jotunheim. At this point it's been over 2 weeks since we've heard from DragonRider, which I think is a reasonable length of time to wait. I would be fine with handing victory to Jotunheim.

I don't mean this with malice- DragonRider put up an excellent fight against Soyweiser; better than I could have done, I'll wager.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Ok, I haven't heard from DragonRider so I think we need to decide how to proceed.

We can either look for a sub or end the game.

Based on the graphs it looks to me like Soyweiser has the game won. I suppose if everyone allied against him there might still be a chance to stop him but perhaps not even then. Groundworm has already mentioned he's fine with ending it. Pjoo, are you also ok with this decision?

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

Personally, I would not be a big fan of a sub. As this game is starting to get towards the end both in stuff that can still be done, and my personal motivation.

Sadly I do not know the position of Marignon all that good. Sure he has most of the elemental royalty, and some other SC. But my skrattir can send those to hell in a heartbeat. And the past few turns I have been increasing my blood slave income even more, it depends on the turn, but each turn I have enough slaves to summon devils+imps and a vamp lord. With slaves to spare. I think I would eventually destroy Marignon, but it will take many many turns. As I would either need very large and vulnerable armies. (As I still cannot beat a large Marignon army without nasty tricks). Or, a lot of time to allow my dominion to push into mars lands. (And I would need to assassinate his inquisitor priests).

In my own lands I have enough vamps and vamp lords to withstand any invasion. I just need to prevent mar from getting a foothold. (which he got before, and that cost me some dominion, and thus lands).

And of course Astral Corruption could be dispelled, but that would just force me to put it up a few turns later.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

After the incredible fight you and DragonRider have had (What is, 60 turns? Maybe more?) it does seem a shame to have a sub step in. And the game is now far enough along that it is probably starting to become a burden, rather than being fun.

We haven't heard from Pjoo, so I'll PM him. Assuming he agrees, let's end the game.

Re: Boot Camp - Newbie intro to Dominions MP - Running
 

I heard back from Pjoo and he's also ok with ending the game. Congratulations, Soyweiser!

As an observer, it really seemed like Soyweiser and DragonRider had a superb, evenly matched, fight that went on for most of the game. Soyweiser, did you still plan on writing an AAR? I'd be interested in hearing some more on how this war went. And hopefully DragonRider will stop by at some point and give us his side of the tale.

I also want to thank Pjoo again for stepping in as a sub.

I hope everyone enjoyed the game.

Edit: I also really enjoyed some of the posts in this thread. DragonRider's comments on Zwago the Zmey's Krazy Kokytos Adventure were hilarious.

Re: Boot Camp - Finished - Soyweiser/Jotunheim wins!
 

Thanks for hosting Valerius. I'll try to do some sort of AAR. But it is going to be a lot of work. So it will be long term stuff. If I do not finish it, feel free to remind me :).

Re: Boot Camp - Finished - Soyweiser/Jotunheim wins!
 

Good game, everyone. And much thanks again to Valerius, who has been an excellent and accommodating host.

Re: Boot Camp - Finished - Soyweiser/Jotunheim wins!
 

Oh man. I'm really sorry I disappeared for so long. It's kind of a long story...the short version is that my computer was crippled and I needed to reformat, but it turned out that somebody misplaced or threw out my Windows XP disk for some unthinkable reason. Cue days spent frantically searching for it, giving up, paying far too much for a new one online (from some tiny outlet, because XP hasn't been manufactured for years), it takes forever to get delivered, I wind up so far behind in my work that I need to spend all my time catching up with that for a while, and a bunch of other obligations crop up on top of it.

Maybe it's for the best. To be honest I don't think I had much of a chance at this point. My original plan, such as it was, was to take the six or so death mages I had acquired through various means, give them all Communion Matrices and as much penetration gear as I could fit on them, and spam Control the Dead like crazy in hopes of getting rid of those vampires permanently.

The problem with this was twofold...one, it would have been trivial for Jotunheim to cast Antimagic and render my success chance negligible, and two, forging all the equipment and summoning all the troops I needed was taking FOREVER because of all the extra precautions I needed to take due to Astral Corruption. A bunch of key tasks could only be safely performed by a single mage, who could only cast every other turn because I kept getting forced to cast Returning and then trek out to another province so I could cast it again. By the time I was finally nearing completion on all of this, Jotunheim had whipped up who knows how many hundreds of Devils, who benefited from Darkness, were immune to fire, and who obviously wouldn't be affected by Control the Dead. I had a couple of side plans, but I don't think my odds of winning the upcoming battle were very high even with Demon Cleansing up, especially given how disastrous all the previous ones were.

In the end it was the combination of Darkness and Claws of Kokytos that got me. No troop type that I could mass could match either Vampires or Devils under Darkness. I couldn't just send in over a dozen darksight Ember Lords in to hack them apart because no matter how many I had they could all be trivially banished inside of two rounds due to the irresistible Claws of Kokytos cast by recruit-anywhere mages. The bulk of my own mages, in addition to not being able to hit the broad side of a barn under darkness, were one-trick ponies whose fire magic and MR-negates astral magic were easily countered (Jotunheim never even needed to bother casting Warriors of Muspelheim, which I know he could have on at least one summoned demon). For all my advantages in gold and gems, there didn't seem to be anything I could spend them on to solve those two key problems. I spent most of the latter half of the game searching for some magic bullet that would hopefully negate my biggest current problem (Warriors of Niefelheim for frost evocations, Storm and extra fire magic for vampire suicide waves, elaborate Control the Dead shenanigans for a committed battle against vampires, etc.), but by the time one was prepared Jotunheim had always come up with something worse, all while his territory and blood economy kept growing due to gains from weaker nations. I needed a shift in momentum to get anything done and every attempt to turn things around failed.

My only real regret is that I was curious as to how much damage a dozen or so Rocs could do. They seemed like the most useful air-gem sink I had (it was going to be Draconians until I remembered oops they're cold-blooded) and I had no shortage of them due to having used Gale Gate to prevent the recast of Burden of Time, and I kept trying to decide what they could best be used on. I was thinking about either doing a sickening amount of raiding (map move 5!) or sending them to battle, having them fly through the storm and all spam Shockwave in hopes of thinning out the enemy lines. I doubt either would have really saved the day, since they couldn't beat a blood hunter (the only kind of raiding that would have really mattered) and the defense penalty on Darkness would have probably gotten them swarmed and eaten before they could cast many spells, but it would have been interesting to see nonetheless (if only there had been a summonable, flying, air-immune troop more cost-effective than worthless Spring Hawks to serve as bodyguards for them the kamikaze wave idea might have worked, but I lost all my royalty-summoned air elementals when they proved unable to retreat from my last disaster).

Re: Boot Camp - Finished - Soyweiser/Jotunheim wins!
 

While I plan to react with a bigger post than this, I want to clear one thing up. Returning also works when you are in your cap province.