Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

And how would you explain the same phenomena in first YARG, that was even won by non bless nation?

I'm looking for feedback so I could decide on the settings for the sequel. I'm not hell bent on hard research but it's certainly different than your run the mill game.

Perhaps the players, dead or alive, would be kind enough to say yes or no (or elaborate if they want to) so that I can get that feedback.

As for your position, in retrospect, was your build optimal or do you think you could plan or do things differently and do better?

I know that both in this game and the previous I made grievous errors that severely hurt me. That said, in previous game I had the non bless Bogarus and got as far as staying alive until endgame.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

So, non-bless nations tend to have stronger late games, its true, which means if a few survive the early game, one of them is likely to win. (There are exceptions of course - Lanka and Mictlan both have strong mid and late games).

I have no idea what even happened in the first YARG game, so i can't comment.

Also keep in mind that there are non-bless nations that have good early games. Sauromatia in EA, for example. Bogarus has an amazing early game, so making it to late game with them isn't surprising.

Regarding my position: I was EA Agartha. There was nothing plausibly useful i could do except hope i could gain a sufficient research advantage while i still had material left to do something. That i survived as long as i did was a miracle, especially given my neighbors. But it took so long to research essential spells that I just ran out of material before I could do anything.

TBH, i had planned on being dead by turn 20. It was kind of shocking when that failed to happen. But i pushed my research as hard as i could in the time i had, it just wasn't soon enough.

My recommendation? Don't include (non-LA) agartha in RAND games. Ever. They're simply so bad that they're unplayable when you can't conduct diplomacy.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Eden was won by AdmiralZhao with EA Agartha. :rolleyes:
And he left competitors far behind almost at the very beginning of the game, if my memory serves me right.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Bogarus has an amazing early game? First I've heard, from ANYONE.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

i'm really hoping that you are joking here

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Ok, there are like 2 notable players in that game beside Admiral Zhao, so basically he beat up on n00bs and bad players. Go him. Admiral Zhao is a top notch player, and Baalz has also handicapped himself with Pangaea.

I'll also note that said game is not a RAND game, which makes a huge difference for weaker nations. Its pretty obvious from the thread that he was making ample use of diplomacy as well, since he apparently had NAPs with most of his neighbors.

The rich settings may also make Agartha more viable, but I'm not sure.

Basically, you can't point to that game as an example of anything, much less a RAND game.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

(1) CBM cavalry for them is amazing
(2) TS rush/spam is trivially accomplished.

The only weak thing about them is infantry, and no one compels you to hire them. They have incredible research tempo out of the gates, which should give them an early research lead *without* an awake pretender. Combine that with some of the better mages in LA and if you can't turn that into something awesome then you're just bad.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

What's wrong with EA Agartha? I'm not joking or mocking, I just never played them and I'm not much into theory.

Squirrelloid
You could really provide us your AAR, Caelum and C'tis already did. I doubt your story would affect the game at this stage. I wonder what was your build and what you were planning to do in the game.

WraithLord
My vote is for difficult research in further YARG games. I play the second game and I really enjoy this setting.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Yes Squirrelloid, you could share your build + AAR with us and we could do a theoretic exercise in seeing if it could have been better optimized for this game.
Also, what is "TS" for Bogarus.
I disagree that they have amazing early game. They have good research yes and nice cavalry but an early rush from a bless nation can kill Bogarus. I'm not just being theoretic here, I'm talking from personal experience both as Bogarus player and neighbor to Bogarus. In a RAND type game I wouldn't recommend taking it w/o awake SC pretender - well unless you have a death wish that is.

WingedDog, I feel the same. I'm glad you like the settings. So far we have:
Hard research: 2
Normal research: 1

Another advantage of this settings is that it helps push further in the direction that CBM is leading: i.e. get more mileage out of earlier spells/items/summons.
Did previous YARG game end with tartrians all over the place?- Lo and behold - It certainly did not! and that with an earlier CBM. The more I think about this the more I like the setting.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

WraithLord
I don't know, my personal choice for Bogarus is a great sage. With early research boost and proper magic schools they can deflect any rush, or even rush someone themselves. Then total arcane domination in the midgame, as noone even close to their research level.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Yes Squirrelloid, you could share your build + AAR with us and we could do a theoretic exercise in seeing if it could have been better optimized for this game.
Also, what is "TS" for Bogarus.
Edit, Oh Thunderstrike - it's nice but if that's your one trick pony then a good opponent will make you pay dearly.

I disagree that they have amazing early game. They have good research yes and nice cavalry but an early rush from a bless nation can kill Bogarus. I'm not just being theoretic here, I'm talking from personal experience both as Bogarus player and neighbor to Bogarus. In a RAND type game I wouldn't recommend taking it w/o awake SC pretender - well unless you have a death wish that is.

WingedDog, I feel the same. I'm glad you like the settings. So far we have:
Hard research: 2
Normal research: 1

Another advantage of this settings is that it helps push further in the direction that CBM is leading: i.e. get more mileage out of earlier spells/items/summons.
Did previous YARG game end with tartrians all over the place?- Lo and behold - It certainly did not! and that with an earlier CBM. The more I think about this the more I like the setting.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Sounds good in theory. When preparing for first YARG I had tested a similar build but, as you well know ;), opted for awake Wyrm. I'm really interested in concrete evidence how this great sage build for Bogarus works in MP games. As it stands I'm a bit wary of it.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Mind if I pop in and say aye to hard research? :) I loved YARG 1, while I was in it, plan to be in YARG 3.
And I'd say Bogarus is an all well rounded up nations that dominates all spheres and game phases.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Thanks Executor. Naturally players from previous YARG can vote as well.

And *all* who stumble upon this can opine. I'm really interested in listening to the feedback. Including those who, like Squirrelloid, don't like the setting.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

A 72 hour delay has been added to the timer to accomodate for new years. So I don't want to hear any excuses about your drunkenness detracting from your play this next turn, you hear?

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Just a quickie to say that IIRC, YARG1 was originally going to be CBM, but was then changed to vanilla during sign-ups for Ano, as he wouldn't play if it was CBM. I found this switch a little annoying personally, and this was compounded when Ano left the game just a dozen turns in, while marking his goodbye by inadvertently (due to llamaserver logs) revealing both his nation (unavoidable after he posted to say he was leaving) and also stupidly naming the player who was replacing him at the same time. Which gave everyone else the one thing they should never have in a RAND game, which is a confirmed matching nation+player ID for an active nation.

General FYI - Subs in RAND games on the llamaserver MUST remain anonymous from everyone but the admin, and anyone wishing to leave a llamaserver RAND game must do so only through the admin, and must certainly never post in the thread about leaving the game. (although as long as players don't know who is replacing those subbing-out, they only get one piece of the player+nation ID. But even that is one piece too many IMO)

Maybe this is obvious in hindsight, but Ano is certainly an intelligent enough person (from what I know of him) to not need telling any of this. This was my first ever game with Ano, after hearing many good things, but must say it didn't leave he with a good impression of him at all.


Anyway, enough mini-ranting. Despite my poor showing in this game (poor by my own standards), and my struggle in YARG1, I still think hard research is a good setting for this game. Only thing I might suggest is that for YARG 3 it could be worth using Burns's mod that reduces the research level of some useful early spells, which he made to assist weak nation survive early rushes in games with hard/v.hard research settings.

Not sure this mod has ever been used in a MP game yet (or at least none that I know of), but in theory giving weak nations quicker access to essential survival spells should be a good thing. I know my demise against Hinnom in this game might have gone differently had I been able to research certain spells while I still had a feasible position to back them up with. But as it was the spells only arrived in time to help defend by capital, rather than any realistic chance of turning the war around. (although in my case, other factors played a bigger part than the research level, but the hard research setting was a factor none-the-less)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

I'm still playing, so I'll keep my comments simple for now. In a game with hard research and/or level-9 indies, I think the roster of available nations should be trimmed (and not just of EA Agartha).

And I'll comment further (AAR and all) when I'm done in this one.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

:doh:

Calahan, Thanks for the correction re. YARG & CBM :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

So, i've run economic builds with sleeping pretenders as *marveni* and *bandar log* and foiled or deterred rushes. Its all about choosing your early research appropriately and knowing how to counter bless rushes with magic. Earth meld is great for nations with earth magic (so long as their native precision is high enough to hit the broad side of a barn), Fire Prison and its lesser cousin work great for fire nations, etc... Basically, hard research shafts some nations against early bless rushes. (this won't necessarily lead to a bless rusher winning the game, but it can cause a player to lose the game because they can't accomplish sufficient research early enough). Most early rush foiling spells are level 2, and hard research makes it take 60% more RPs to reach level 2 in a school. That's a substantial difference.

So, its been awhile since i was in YARG2, so there are things I don't remember. Lets talk about Agartha first.

(1) their troops are bad. Really bad. Incomprehensively bad. Lets start with size 3, ie, outnumbered in every fight because they can only stick 2 in a square. And unlike most size 3 units (even monkey's bandar), they don't even have any real stat advantages except excess hp. In fact, their stats are pretty awful. So they just die in droves - even the 'elite' cavern guard unit.
(2) Their sacreds are worse. Base encumbrance 4 (before armor!), size 4, lackluster stats at best, and weak armor. The typical giant bless is probably the best thing on them, but its not very good on them. Now, on a unit basis they're better than the average troops, but on a cost basis? Much worse, and they require an investment in a bless which Agartha can't afford. Sure, they're recruit anywhere, it doesn't help. (Seal Guard at least have decent armor, but they're cap only and require like *50* resources, making them impossible to mass since taking production scales and a bless is impossible, because you need other things. Also, they still aren't that good.)
(3) Oracles are inefficient with respect to other nation's mages, make terrible thugs (though you pay for their enhanced stats), and are cap only. They have base 5 encumbrance, and no starting armor, so to thug them you basically need full gear, and even then they can basically only thug PD or indies. And of course thugging them requires a bless. So you have really expensive researchers, battlecasters, and ritual casters, because we aren't going to thug them (not cost effective, would be better off using banelords or something).

Next we consider their magic paths. E3X1 + 110%EX where X is W, F, or D. This is actually kind of crappy.

-no cross-path combinations except with E. This means, among other things, you need a pretender to carry F+D for fiery skulls (despite having F+D nationally!). You also have a hard time getting to F4 for the helm, or D4 for the skullface. You can't tart-farm notably well. (Have to bootstrap like a non-D nation).
-No good way to D4 means no good way to cast Darkness, which might make their troops *almost* useful. (Seriously, Agartha should be able to cast darkness early and often. Instead its a struggle to even get a caster to be able to do so.) Lack of W+D combination means you can't use Streams from Hades to expedite this.
-Precision of ~7, which is terrible. Yet most of the good spells they can cast are combat evocations which require aim. (Bladewind and Magma Eruption are some of your most useful). No native N or A magic for targetting help (and N on indie mages doesn't help...).

Despite all that, Oracles are the only thing arguably good about the nation, but they aren't really that good, especially not comparatively. Also, given they're the only thing agartha has going for it, they're stupidly overpriced. Other nations with better troops have much more affordable cap only mages with equal or better magic paths. Lanka's Raksharaja is stupid efficient, as is TC's cap-only mages. If you kept everything else the same about Agartha, the Oracles should cost ~275g apiece at a maximum, and they still wouldn't be winning the efficiency award (that would be EA TC).

(4) Recruit anywhere mage is mostly useless. E1+100%EFWD. Sure, its sacred, but its average for a sacred 2 path mage, not very useful in combat (E+F randoms can be made combat useful with earth boots, but that's quite a heavy gem investment if you're going to be doing that in numbers that matter. W1s will eventually be useful, but its a long time coming, and frozen heart isn't that useful after midgame.)

So, your magic is pretty bad. Your troops are worse. You can no longer effectively mass Umbrals anymore because they require 3d instead of 1d (a +200% increase in cost, which is huge), which was the only thing the nation had going for it. You don't tart rush better than anyone else, in fact, worse than many because you can't natively forge the chalice or cast GoH. You can't dragonmaster into massed cave drakes or similar. In fact, there are no good E summons for you.

Which brings us to your pretender. Your nation has weak troops and a really weak early game, so you might want an awake SC. But your cap only mages are fricking expensive, so you really need good scales. You also desperately need Mg1 or better yet Mg3 so your research isn't useless, since you have to hang your entire game on the performance of your cap-only mages. To get any use out of 50% of your recruit anywhere mages, you're going to need to mass produce earth boots (among other things), so a Forge Lord is also a good idea. And have i mentioned how bad your magic diversity is? You basically have to treat your nation like you only have E magic natively because you don't get any of the useful crosspath combinations, and your non-E is pretty weak. (And if you wanted a bless, well, good luck with that).

Hmm... this was longer than i intended. AAR in next post.

Edit: oh yeah, for those who don't know, everything but trogs is cold blooded.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

AAR:
I ran a forge lord pretender. I don't remember if he was awake or asleep, but i think he was asleep. Hung my early expansion on troglodytes, because they're the only unit you have which can actually kill indies efficiently.

Discovered my neighbors were Arco (ok), Mictlan (ouch), and Nieflheim (double ouch). Resign myself to an early death.

I'm pushing construction as hard as i can while site searching manually from turn ~4 with a D2E3 oracle. My pretender wakes up and starts spitting out hammers and then skull mentors. I build a second fort.

Turn 20 passes and no one has attacked me. I boggle at Nieflheim and Mictlan and keep researching. I think i'm pushing Evocation now, but it might have been conjuration.

Turn 33: Mictlan finally attacks. My second fort gets overrun and he rampages through my lands despite my research advantage. I huddle in my capital and finish some last minute research before emerging, then tearing my walls down so i can keep researching while defending from his army while it returns. (Need all my mages)

Virtually annihilate Mictlan's army when it tries to retake my capital.

I've got Evo 6 and Ench 6 and Conj 5 at this point for sure, I'm running down Alteration for Darkness, having a D3 Oracle by sheer luck. I'm burning most of my gems on summons.

I annihilate a second Mictlan army. Do some counter pushing to try to get some gem and gold income.

Laugh when Lanka and Niefl die before I do.

On the turn i finish Alt 6 a Mictlan assassin with B2 (the first i've seen it) gets lucky and picks off my D3 Oracle.

At some point here Mictlan gets jumped by Helheim, and deals with them while continuing to send massive armies my way.

I think I repel one more major Mictlan army, and then die to the next one: having literally spent every last gem on summons to keep me alive.

Summons used: statues, claymen, cave drakes, fire drakes, umbrals. Basically anything that might hold the line long enough for me to drop bladewinds and magma eruptions on jag warriors.

Each Mictlan army I remember was like 200 jags + beast bats + etc..., often with Onaqui and Mictlan Priests carting blood slaves. There was an Arch Demon eventually.

If Mictlan had attacked me on turn ~12 (or earlier) like they should have, i wouldn't have had the research or material to do anything.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

( Damn, a man can't edit his posts anymore :rolleyes: )

:doh:

Calahan, Thanks for the correction re. YARG & CBM :)

Edit, that makes the observation re. non-tart endgame even stronger. It stands to reason that it's directly tied to the hard research settings.

I guess we could trim the nation list a bit. The problem with this approach is where you draw the line. If you remove EA Aga. then later ppl will complain about XYZ and later about this nation and later about that. I'm not sure I want to go that path.

And if my count is right we have:
Hard research: 4
Normal research: 1

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

No other nation is in the ballpark of badness that is (EA/MA) Agartha except maybe MA Ulm. And I have to stress maybe.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Your analysis of Agartha contains some good points for improvement for CBM. Did you try to give such suggestions to QM?
Two notable improvements:
- Since Agas troops suck make their mages, including Oracle, cheaper. For the oracle an alternative would be to keep the price but give him more picks in D/S/E.
- Give access to national variant of darkness spell lower in the research tree
- Give them low level summon spell for a beefy cannon fodder.

Your build is reasonable but I wonder whether you'd have been better served with an awake naked dom10 Wyrm with solid scales. Then all your income goes to castles and mages.

BTW, I had the bad luck to get EA Aga. in Pasha RAND and then MA Machaka in the sequel. Getting a lousy nation in a RAND game sucks alright but I'm still reluctant to ban nations. I do hope CBM would give some love to EA Agartha and MA Machacka b/c both sure need that. MA Machaka actually got worse as CBM progressed :(

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

I must say that I have liked the slow research speeds in the yarg games. Although what I would like even more is slower end game research. Say that you start with normal research cost(40) and then progresses as
c(n) = c(n-1) * 2
instead of
c(n) = c(n-1) + c(n-2)
as it is in standard dominion. I am no modder though so I have no idea if this is possible to implement.

Edit: Well doubling might be a bit to much ending up with a l9 cost of 10240, using something like 1.9 instead one would end up on about 6800 for l9.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

:up: hard research
:down: trimming out 'weaker' nations...it's part of the fun!

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Ditto.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Unless you're stuck with one of the "weaker" nations, that is.

I would suggest, instead of trimming the 3-4 'worst' nations, have some way of selecting the top 12 or so 'good' nations. The list doesn't have to be accurate (whatever that means in something so subjective as a list of 'top' nations), but should at least contain no outright stinkers.

It would mean a smaller YARG3, but if it filled up quickly, just start another game (YARG3A and YARG3B).

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

I did better than that, I made my own balance mod (which I will theoretically get back to once i figure out how to merge it with CBM 1.7 effectively). As far as I know, QM did not really use it for ideas.

I improved Oracles and their national troops (although the troops are still probably bad, they just might actually be playable). The Oracle improvement made casting darkness easier, among other things.

A dom10 wyrm would have been no more than a speedbump for Mictlan, and i'd have been much less advanced in research (no cheap skull mentors) and would have crumbled much quicker. I don't think even a pile more national recruit anywhere mages would have made up the difference (a skull mentor is worth ~2 non-cap mages for agartha even with Mg1, and you have to pay upkeep on the mages).

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Hard research: 7
Normal research: 1

I think we will keep all the nations for next YARG, which would be MA ( we already had LA and EA). I share the sentiment that it's part of the fun. It's like lottery and you don't know what you'll get and that's part of the excitment. If you happen to get the worst nation, well that sucks but you do the best you can with it, experiment if you like, and hope to have better luck in the next game :)

It happened to me twice already and it didn't change my opinion re. the fun factor of having a full nation roster. As I see that quite a number of players feel the same way I currently plan to have a full nation roster for next YARG.

Squirrelloid, Wyrn would give you awesome expansion and income for lots of armies. indie, or merc. if you like. then other nations would think twice before attacking you. Or so one would hope...

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

If I was Mictlan, a Wyrm wouldn't do much to deter me. Jags just eat it. And i'm not sure it would have improved my expansion all that much since i had constrained paths to travel down, and at least know Mictlan's capital wasn't *that* far from where my southern border reached after initial expansion. I imagine Arco and Niefl's capitals were also vaguely proximal to my original post-expansion borders.

Really, Mictlan isn't going to look at provinces or income, its going to look at unit roster (or at least it should). If jags eat your unit roster, expect mictlan to attack you.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

While it doesn't really apply to this version of YARG the pd20 autocast darkness for EA/MA agartha in cbm1.7 is pretty huge. With that version of cbm I'd probably go O3S1H3D3L3M1 (nuke the enemy supply :)) high dom and awake pretender with a combo of A2 (wind guide) & D3(4 if it can be afforded) for sure for EA agartha.

Assuming we play cbm1.7 or the next version in the next YARG installment I don't think EA/MA agartha are in that rough a spot.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

I'll point out autocast darkness isn't actually that great on PD because it doesn't let you use it offensively, and you have to buy 20PD. It just means that blood nations and undead-based nations still laugh at you on offense, and other nations might need to be a little more careful (or get into blood, which was a good idea anyway).

Rather than choosing when you use darkness, PD-provided darkness means the enemy gets to choose when and with what they fight in darkness with. That's a substantial difference.

(I did not think the PD-darkness was a major buff or even all that useful, tbh).

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Ah but then I think the saying 'the best offense is a good defense' comes into play. With H3D3 scales supply in your domain is atrocious but of course is irrelevant for EA Ag. And lets be honest EA Ag isn't a high tempo nation but a turtle nation. Having that dominion with strategic pd20 provinces that are garrisioned by decent sized armies backed with mages potentially buy time. Time that is needed to get to alt 6. Once you get alt 6 underway then it's time to take to the offense. I would actually go crazy hard alt like pan and even moreso pushing for alt 9 asap.

But really an alt 6 spell, that's to be casted by D4 mages that you don't naturally have, that make other nations on par with Agartha's pile of crap, that you don't need D gems to funnel into, that costs only 210g. That's a boon.

Of course blood/ud nations don't care but the pd 20 helps EA ag in the early game, which is where it counts and where large amounts of ud/demons shouldn't be encoutered.

If anything being thug raided in the early/mid would be the problem. But that's a problem for most nations anyway. :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

210g *per province*. That gets expensive quickly.

Even with darkness, i'm pretty sure pale one militia loses to regular militia, but i'd have to run the numbers again to be sure, and with similar fates for other agarthan units against comparable indies. (Agarthan military is so bad that even darkness doesn't do more than *almost* level the playing field).

And straight rushing alteration doesn't work out so well for you since Evocation is where most of your good combat spells are. (And you're going to want umbrals, even at the awful price of 3d, so conjuration is also a priority).

I'm reasonably convinced a construction rush for skull mentors and lanterns is entirely the right play and gets you most research faster ultimately, especially since you'll also need the earth boots to make your non-cap mages useful at all.

Finally, you have that backwards. Its 'the best defense is a good offense'. (Mel, the cook on Alice. Also some more notable people, but that reference is funnier).

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Despite what seems to be a rather unneeded level of *****iness from squirrelloid about this game and Agartha in general, I think he's right that darkness at pd 20 is essentially nothing. There is simply no way Agartha can be considered anything remotely resembling decent until/unless they A- get some *significant* stat boosts on their troops, and B- something is done to make Oracles not be the worst "nation's best" mages in the game.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

I fail to see how having access to a spell in alt 6 in turn 1 that pretty much halves the att and def stats of most of the units in the game is not a boon.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

No one is saying it isn't, just that its pretty much insignificant since even under darkness Agartha's troops aren't very good, and getting the darkness is extremely difficult to force while also being very expensive.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

It's time to reveal us personality of the brave King of Monkeys, who doesn't know the meaning of the word 'yield'. He fought with grace and valor, so let him reincarnate in another game with more luck on his side.
Kudos.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Turn 79. I'm absolutely flabbergasted I lasted that long.

Short AAR: Kailasa + Indies 9 + Difficult Research = Why me, God? ;)

WingedDog, thanks for the Kudos. But I'd have to say, Kailasa is even worse than Agartha under these conditions.

Well, at least for the vast majority of this game, doing my turns was supremely easy :D

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [11/24 players left]
 

Thank you for the game TB.

Why were the settings so difficult for you?- Uber bless or awake SC would have made your expansion a breeze and for mid late game you have astral power to carry the day.

Admittedly, I never played Kailasa in MP, but in SP expansion is very easy at indies 9. I just use some decoys to avoid archers and that's it more or less.

Would you like to share more details re. your build?

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [10/24 players left]
 

OP updated.
Are we down to 10 players?- Or is it 9?

I cropped the list and here's what I came with:
3. WraithLord
4. WingedDog
5. Isokron
6. Slobby
10. Frozen Lama
11. Agusti
12. Don Pablo
15. Psycho
22. Aethyr

Did I miss one?

Anyway, cheers to all the players and to the last ten or nine or whatever that are left standing :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [10/24 players left]
 

WraithLord
You have missed mysterious Ermor player subbing Alpine Joe.

TwoBits
Yes, please, share you build and game plans with us.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [10/24 players left]
 

Wow, this game started so long ago, I don't really remember the thought process that led me to (perhaps absurdly) take Kailasa with great scales.

I vaguely recall being frustrated in testing with Kailasa's zero protection/no real shield/need magic leadership sacreds. So I must not have hit on the right combination of bless and/or tactics that WraithLord found.

In retrospect, an awake SC pretender probably would have been better (it worked reasonably well for me in YARG1). Maybe I just wanted to try something different?

In any event, while Kailasa does have strong magic potential, the difficult research made it hard to access.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [10/24 players left]
 

Extra long delays this turn... a couple of players have been having life issues preventing them from doing their turns, and I've just added another delay for such reasons. Please be patient and await your turns. They're coming :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [10/24 players left]
 

Attention players: Ulm's player is having to bow out of the game due to time restraints. Delays may occur as a result of searching for a substitute to replace their glorious leader. We are sad to see him/her/it go, and hope he/she/it good luck in their present and future endeavors.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [10/24 players left]
 

48 hours added to the clock for the sub to familiarize themself with the position. Please welcome the new player, _, aboard. Additional delays may be given should the new player request them, of course, and are not necessarily unlikely given how late in the game it is.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [10/24 players left]
 

As Abysia has been defeated this turn, his identity will be revealed. Abysia was played by Aethyr. Thank you for playing, and sticking it out until the end :)

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [10/24 players left]
 

Thanks rdonj, I enjoyed the game.

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [9/24 players left]
 

Thank you Aethyr for the game!

OP updated. We're down to 9, who'll fall next off the boat???

Updated list:
Alpine Joe sub
WraithLord
WingedDog
Isokron
Slobby
Frozen Lama
Agusti
Don Pablo
Psycho

Re: YARG2 , 24 players EA RAND game [9/24 players left]
 

And who is the brave soul who ruled Mictlan?