Going down in style
 

Ok, the situation:
Multiplayer game using the ringworld map; turn 51; I am mitclan; fighting vs Arco, with Vanhiem a temporary ally, and Caelum a distracted neighbor.
All human players, with the exception of Ctis, who is an AI desert tomb theme distracting the Caelum player
At this point I have about 15 provinces, pulling in about 150gp after upkeep; get about 5 gems of each type (except earth) per turn; some of my provinces are wholly devoted to blood slaving (0 taxes). I am practically 100% reliant on blood to sustain my forces,

Caelum is about double my size, Vanheim is a little worse off than I, from what I can figure; score graphs are off.

Arco is plainly winning, owning the bulk of the provinces, and having cast Eyes of God and Wrath of God. I have advanced into his territory, and my army of fire9 blessed eagle warriors, cross breeds, and occasional summoned devil/imp/drake has been doing well, primarily because all I have been facing are summoned Angels of the Host, fladullents, and madmen. He is summoning them behind my lines.

My spies are deep in his territory, but so far have not found any labs/pretenders/candidate targets for deep summons.

At this point, my intention is to go down in style, making myself to be the biggest pain in the a$$ to arco that I can be, simultaneously learning as much as possible.

So, I ask the board: What cunning, diabolical, clever ideas can I use to make my opponent(s) life insufferable? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

To this end:
I intend to crank up taxes to 200 on these recently conquered provinces, while blood hunting.

Pillage all new provinces

Once my spies find a lab/pretender/temple, attack via provincial disaster/summons Hordes from Hell, etc.

Continue the wanderings of my one and only army deep into arco territory

Unless I convince my neighbors to give me astral pearls, ignore the globals; likewise, will not cast Astral Corruption because of the high cost and high likelihood it will be dispelled.

Re: Going down in style
 

Astral Corruption.

After that there is only blood magic in the game. Else you'll be horrified (attacked by horrors). Boost the spell enough not to get it dispelled.

Then send horrors. Under the corruption many of your horrors will be doom-horrors. You can lay waste to huge armies with horrors.

Re: Going down in style
 

A secret to winning any game is to remember that you don't necessarily have to defeat your opponent, you just have to drive him beyond his tolerance for pain and frustration. It worked for the Vietnamese, and it can work for you. A victory by refusal to admit defeat is still a victory, after all. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

If you can stubbornly resist being eliminated and dish out a level of frustration and pain out of proportion with your actual strength, you can convince your opponent to give up and either bother somebody else, or fold.

Above all else, quitters never win, and winners never quit. Never give up, never surrender!

Re: Going down in style
 

Since dispelling spells is discussed in this thread I might as well ask how do you dispell globals here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif

Re: Going down in style
 

You dispell global spells by either casting the Astral spell aptly named "Dispell" or by casting the global spell yourself (which creates a little tugowar between your spellpower and the original caster. You don't always manage to win).

Re: Going down in style
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Either with the spell "Dispel" (under the Enchantment tree, I believe), killing the caster, or by casting a spell specifically designed to stop a particular global (for example, there is a fire spell which removes Eyes of God, and burns the eyes out of the caster for good measure http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ).

Re: Going down in style
 

Good show Fahdiz! Forgot about killing the caster of the spell.

To stop this thread from being hijacked I recommend building tons of constructs and undead. Put the lot in a forward lowsupply province that's sure to meet the Caelums path. Build a fortress. He'll see a huge red square in the fortress and most likely assume that it is your main army, especially if you put some bigshot summons in there. While he's distracted sieging your fortress, which might take a long time since Caelum units eats a whole lot of supplies, take your real army and rampage trough his backyard. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ March 10, 2004, 21:19: Message edited by: Wauthan ]

Re: Going down in style
 

though killing the caster doesn't seem to work if the caster was a pretender god, which seems to often mess up my trying to get rid of some AI's Burden of Time.

Re: Going down in style
 

If it was the pretender who cast the spell, which is often the case with the AI, it will no be dead until it's banished completely. While it's dead it's simply on a funeral style vacation as far as the game is conserned.

Re: Going down in style
 

A sig line that I use often (and surprisingly no one has commented on) is...
Me: Some play to win or lose. Others just to stay in the game.
Them: Are we talking about games? Or about life in general?
Me: Exactly.


OK besides the metaphysical message it IS also saying something about gaming. And Dominions2 especially. Remember Data playing a game of Strategema with Kolrami? And how he won?
STAR TREK: "Peak Performance" - 4/19/89 - ACT FIVE
DATA "Working under the assumption that
Kolrami is attempting to win, it
is reasonable to assume that he
expects me to play for the same goal."
WESLEY "You werent."
DATA
"No. I was playing only for a
standoff -- a "draw." While
Kolrami was dedicated to winning,
I was able to pass up obvious
avenues of advancement and settle
for a balance."

Ive seen games of Dominions played that way. Well beside the hit-n-run tactics you came up with you might negotiate a new home from one of the other players. Some back province where they dont have alot of defence and they will let you take it without considering it an aggressive act.
Maybe someone who looks like they would LIKE to be aggressive toward arcos but not OPENLY so.

Re: Going down in style
 

Summon Horrors like crazy. Send blood mages into combat, have them summon some horrors, then retreat. It's really annoying... you wreak devastation quite cheaply. I put the Lesser Horror Twin Spear on a scout in an MP game with 5xSummon lesser horror, then retreat orders, and he never lost a battle and was never harmed. He did retreat a lot, but gained the province from which he retreated. Fun! Sent horrors cause indy provinces if they win, but are very cheap.

If you have extra air gems, rain seeking arrows on him... everyone hates those.

Re: Going down in style
 

Casting Eyes of God is very dangerous in a MP game.

Re: Going down in style
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Astral spell, I see. That's why I never came across it. Guess I'll try Arco then.

Re: Going down in style
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Or Pythium. Or Ermor. Or any nation, really - all you need is a pretender with at least 4 Astral, and either access to some Astral sites (for the pearls) or the judicious use of some alchemy.

[ March 10, 2004, 22:09: Message edited by: fahdiz ]

Re: Going down in style
 

thank you for the great responses!! Now I have to hope my opponents don't read this thread!

I will take the advice to heart; it will probably take a few turns to implement, but I will post the results here when it happens.
Thanks again!

Re: Going down in style
 

Say, under Astral Corruption -- now that Dispel is a ritual,is the price of failure the risk of being eaten by a horror?

(And if the horror scales with the magnitude of the ritual... perhaps a Doom Horror?)

Re: Going down in style
 

Yup, looks that way. Hope you have a really beefy mage.

Re: Going down in style
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Not really a concern. If he can cast Dispel, he can cast Returning.

To the OP: Astral Corruption isn't really damaging to Arco, as most Arco's mage can easily evade Horrors when casting rituals etc. It will only cost him half a dozen pearls a turn or so. And maybe a few mages in the turn the AC is cast, before he realizes what's up. I even doubt Arco will try to dispel your GE. I'm sorry for you, but I have no good idea to propose as an alternative, bar harassing him with HfH and such.

Re: Going down in style
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes, but if he's casting returning all the time, all of his mages will quickly wind up entirely concentrated in the capitol, and you can try to then wipe them all out at once.

It also depends on how reliant he is on his rituals. If you're being overrun by standard forces, Astral Corruption is going to be more of a nuisance than a threat.

Re: Going down in style
 

If you really want to go down in style, the most important part of going down in style is to ALWAYS FIGHT TO THE BITTER, BLOODY END.

It can actually be harder and more expensive than it sounds, or is even worth, to entirely annihilate you even after you no longer pose a direct threat: As such, he may end up devoting his attentions elsewhere, and allow you to hang on as a persistent thorn in his side. The added annoyance may eventually bring about his downfall. It may even eventually hand you victory, if you hang on tenaciously and long enough.

As I've said before, a victory by refusal to admit defeat is still a victory nonetheless. While total victory is always nice, you can still win through skillful application of guerrilla tactics and simply push your opponent beyond his level of tolerance for pain and frustration. It's worked throughout history, and as a general rule of thumb, it's safe to say that guerrillas usually win guerrilla wars. Make this work for you, not against you.

Re: Going down in style
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Good point.

But his capital will probably be domed, and probably with more than one dome type. For Arco I expect at least air and astral domes, as well as a damaging dome or 2 if he notices an increase in hostile targeted rituals. And if his mages are concentrated here, they'll be even harder to wipe out by more conventional means.