Elli (Started)
 

Game Name: Elli
Spawned off of Halls of Valhalla, PBEM game on llamabeast's server.

Maximum # of Players: Eight
Early Era, Map Aran
Dom 3.10, vanilla.
Standard settings excepting:
Hall of Fame 5
Graphs off
Renaming allowed

First turn, 48 hours. Then switches to a 30 hr quickhost. Once three people ask for it, switches to a 50 hr quickhost.

1)Atlantis->Sensori
2)Arcosephale-> MartialDoctor
3)Caelum->IndyPendant
4)Ermor->Tharsonius
5)Lanka->Reverend_Zombie
6)Maverni->Torin
7)Sauromatia->Aethyr
9?Fomoria-> Lazy Perfectionist

This a PBEM game on LlamaServer. If you're not familiar with that, ask me, or check out Halls of Valhalla thread for relevant links. Do not password protect your pretender, since other players will not see your turn.

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

If no new recruits by end of week, I'll look into a four player match.

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

I'd like to go Atlantis if no other sea nations show up. If someone else goes some other sea nation, count me out.

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

Always pleasing to see such faith in Atlantis' aquatic prowess.

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

Ain't it? Seriously though, last time I played Atlantis (on this very same map) I ended up 1 province away from Oceania and kinda couldn't win. That wasn't exactly fun.

Let's face it, EA Atlantis is crappy compared to R'lyeh and Oceania. :/

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

I'll take Lanka, please.

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

Malverni before it gets taken

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

[/quote]

Ain't it? Seriously though, last time I played Atlantis (on this very same map) I ended up 1 province away from Oceania and kinda couldn't win. That wasn't exactly fun.

Let's face it, EA Atlantis is crappy compared to R'lyeh and Oceania. :/

[/quote]

Poor lil' fellers, they need some love.

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

I dont think so. Atlantis is strong. But it would be good to be more than one water nation. If no one get other I can be water instead of Malverni.

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

The strongest area Atlantis has is "getting the crap beaten out of it by every other water nation", especially in EA. And it's not that good against land nations, either. Only thing it has going for it are the big sacred mages, since the actual sacred units are awful. Bad Admin (what, like 20?) combined with their insane resource requirements, and horrible MR...

As I said, if someone else chooses an underwater nation, I'm not going to be playing. There are better ways for me to waste my time than play a game where I know with 100% certainty that I'll lose.

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

At a mere 11 water provinces (and horrifyingly close starting positions), I don't think its any problem at all to make Atlantis the only underwater nation. Especially considering the horribly close starting positions i got in a test game for Oceania and Atlantis.

I'll avoid the question of Atlantis' strength like I'll avoid any further big (20+) player games. Until I win something (as ANY nation), or learn something, I'll keep my mouth shut. I figure with 8 players, I have decent odds of victory- not counting other player's skills.

Derailed for a moment there. Only one water nation, Atlantis, allowed in game, on account of their being only 11 water provinces.

With all this debate, I've forgotten who asked for Atlantis.
I'll come back to this thread today and update the player list to include Atlantis, Lanka- oh and almost missed it - Maverni which goes to MoM, if I'm not mistaken.

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

If there is still room I will join as Ermor.

Re: Elli (Recruiting)
 

i would like to be Vanheim

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Okay, that's nice. Filled up fast. Nine people. I'm a bit overloaded with games, so I'll likely step out, leaving us at eight. If not, I'll ask llamabeast to increase the cap to 9.

Need to know whether everybody's ready with a pretender, or needs some amount of time before they are good to go?

If everybody submits a pretender, we'll start ASAP. I'll message Llamabeast now, and make sure he's got all the settings. Deadline for submission looking to be Saturday.

Anyways, everybody above, you're in. I'll update the first post a bit later with a complete player list for convenient PM.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Okay... Everybody got their choice, I'll step out of this game. I'll likely be opening up another HoV game at the end of the month if somebody missed a chance to get in. I needs remember to PM llamabeast, make sure everythings good to go. Deadline for pretenders Saturday, will start earlier if everyone gets their pretenders in.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

To recap for those who don't remember, I ripped this lil info bit from one other game (and replaced the name with this game's name, zomgz).

You can now upload your pretenders to the LlamaServer. To do so:

- Make sure you have no mods enabled
- Go to Game Tools -> Create a pretender god in Dominions
- Go to the savedgames/newlords folder in the dominions directory, and find your pretender file (e.g. mid_pythium_0.2h)
- E-mail the file to: pretenders[ at ]llamaserver[ dot ]net
- Crucially, you must have the game name 'Elli' in the subject line of your e-mail

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Still missing...

Arcoscephale
Caelum
Vanheim

Remember, you gotta submit your Pretenders soonish!

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Should we get a house rule against retreatin mage casting wrathful skyes and stealing bogu´s friends commands?

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

A house rule against a retreating mage casting Mists of Deception and Wrathful Skies sounds good to me. As does stealing Bogus's and his friends' commands.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

I've heard of the "retreat spells" being exploits - so I'm definitely for a house rule on those.

I'm not sure what stealing Bogus's commands is... can someone fill me in on that one?

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Well, they have relics from Dominions 1 as their orders. Namely commands like "Attack Commander/Mage" and "Fire Mage". If you charm them you can steal them and put them on other commanders.

Most people don't like it if someone does that.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

heh the new dirty tricks thread...

agree with both house rules, using the commands with bogu & co is ok, but not to copy the commands

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Flaming Bag of Poop!

Sorry, Tharsonius, but mentioning the dirty tricks thread has given me a new forge item idea.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

hmm, F1N2?

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Hrmf. Pretender (finally!) submitted.

Sorry for the delay; I've been having a helluva time settling on one concept. I'm not entirely happy with what I did settle for, but *shrug* let's see how it pans out.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Heh. I'm not happy with what I'm settling for, either, but it's more related to the nation I chose rather than the pretender itself. There's no way around Atlantis sucking.

Only things going for it is the amphibiousness and the Basalt Kings. The units that I can use, however, are subpar... 20 Admin makes sure I can't use Coral Guards or Living Pillars.

"Yay"

Oh yeah, and we're still missing Vanheim.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Without R'lyeh in the equation, what's so subpar? I've never played EA Atlantis.

On a side note, if you build in a Sea (not deep) province, you get the Kelp Fortress (40 admin). If you find and capture the right bit of shoreline, you can be adjacent to a lot of provinces. They're not gonna be built deep sea or in your capital, though. One of the advantages to being able to build forts underwater. Though not such a big advantage with the way Aran is laid out and its high land connections.

All Shamblers have a basic protection of 7 or 9, so the incomplete armor on the War Shambler isn't an instant death sentence. Have you tried using those? How did it work? Still bad?

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Yes, I have come to the conclusion from test games that War Shamblers are the only way to go. I also tried the Warriors of the Deep. Both die about as much and work about just as well when killing indies. Problem is, they just die a lot, which means constant reinforcement is required. Atlantis has no good units it can easily mass, and the mediocre ones that it does get are hard to mass when you NEED them (early game). And compared to sacreds or regular elite units fielded by other races, they are horrible.

And you mean with R'lyeh *and* Oceania out of the equation, things should be different. Yeah. Now, in this situation, I'd say Atlantis is just subpar compared to many of the land nations instead of being a tasty snack for the other water nations. It's weak, but thanks to it being a water nation, it has a strength which comes into play. I think I'll actually survive long enough to field Basalt Kings.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

My only experience in MP w/Atlantis is in the Armadillo game which just ended. It was MA, but I suspect some of the difficulties are the same; if not greater since EA is (arguably) a weaker version.

I had fun playing w/Atlantis as they have some of the best battle mages in the game. I think that they can be played competively, but will tend to falter in the late/mid to late game. The biggest drawback IMO is that you cannot build (at least im MA) mages in any of the land provinces you capture.

I intend to play as Atlantis again (mainly because I love being the under-dog http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif). When I do, I'm convinced that a rainbow Master Lich is the way to go.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Heh. Not really relevent to this game, but thought I'd share:

In one of my own test games I've been running for this, to help me try to decide what pretender to play, I managed to push a Mighty-AI Atlantis all the way back to his home castle, with only Shipwreckers and spammed mermen from two magic sites. (Granted, the sites allowed me roughly 50 mermen a turn, but still... ; )

Currently, he keeps sending out his 8-Candle, 400-hp, 55-regen-each-turn Wyrm to break my sieges, and I don't have the magic to go down there and nuke his butt. The last battle, that wyrm *single-handedly* routed a 300-merman army of mine without casting a single (useful) spell. I was hoping to turn-50 win the battle; no luck.

I'm sort of having a blast trying to contain the bugger, but I'm beginning to think I'll have to research water-breathers and either Dominion kill him or move some of Caelum's 'overpowered' *cough, hack* regular forces to take him out. My next strategy is to keep the wyrm busy with mermen for some more turns while I try Corpse Construct hordes.

The only good news about the whole thing is that the hordes (and hordes and hordes and hordes...) of cheap mermen I've been creating has me showing second-highest on the army graph, so none of the other AI's want to go to war with me...; )

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Who are we missing, and should I join? Should we start without them? That's the question I'll try and answer later this evening. Opinions welcome, probably best for me to wait until Sunday.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

8)Vanheim->Davegg is missing

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Well LP we've pushed the deadline a couple of times I think. My vote is that we start no later than this evening with you joining in if you're so inclined. However, if you're too overloaded seven players on Aran (it's still Aran, right?) will still make for good game. Anyone disagree?

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Uh, we have? I don't think I noticed anything to that effect, not at least on the forums. I thought the original deadline was end of the week (Sunday), but it was changed to Saturday because there was so much time.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Hmmm...perhaps I'm mistaken--sorry.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

I don´t remember deadline on sunday either but i supose i can wait.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Only in Halls of Valhalla- but we didn't have a deadline so much as a minimum start time (not before Turkey Day). I'm kind of relaxed about the games in HoV, but because so many people show up to join once I spawn its own thread, then I start worrying about timelines.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Squadila, we're off!

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Yep, we're off.
Davegg didn't show, so I jumped in. I'll update the first post to reflect.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

I'm so happy I took one luck.
I usually dread the messages screen, even when I take order 3, misfortune 1. But instead of a plague or riot or whatever, I have a simple five earth gems come my way. Nothing I can do with them, but it's so nice not waiting for the hangman's axe to fall.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

I'm a bit confused as to why I am seeing crowns on my map... When I have played in past games, I only see these when using Victory Points.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Yeah, there are VPs for some reason, but they don't really mean anything but a little increase in dominion when you take 'em when there's no VP victory.

Re: Elli
 

My internet died. Should be able to get turn in Saturday, though I'll extend the timer a few hours.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Ermor is trading for earth gems!
In exchange we can offer astral or fire gems.

Please send me a PM if you are interested

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Just out of curiousity, our starting positions were drawn completely randomly, right? --Cuz if not, I would like to know what I did to earn your hatred so... ; )

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Random. If there is something particularily wrong with your starting position, let me know. I can't help you now, but I can easily mod a starting position out of the game (if the map offers enough valid ones) for future games, and relevant ones.

If it was your neighbors or the indepndent- sorry. The Norns do hate you, and I am merely the vessel of their displeasure. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Well, after playing a couple of games on Aran now I think with 8-9 players someone's bound to find themselves in a very early war.

In the Alta game I found myself boxed in between R'lyeh (who knocked out Machaka quick) and Abysia, who almost single-handledly wiped-up the map with everyone else. FAJ's a very good player; between his skill and my starting position, there was not much I could do.

In the Elli game...well I suspect I'll be fodder soon either to the next wave of Caelum's elephant rush, or to the mighty giants of Fomoria who have just appeared on my border.

I'm not complaining; its just the luck of the draw. It just means that you must have a strategy that allows you to expand quickly and protect yourself from early rushes.

However, with 8 players I think that Llamabeast's modified Paraganos map (used in the Chupacabra game), with modded starting positions, would probally give each player a good chance of expanding and make for a more robust mid-end game. You may want to give this map some consideration for future games.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

Parganos is simply hideous for even that lone water nation, though. Aran's bad with its snaky sea, but Parganos... It has the worst snaky sea ever, AND it has an unconnected sea which you can't get to without marching through land, which means if you're unlucky you won't be getting there at all.

So as someone who's playing a water nation, I much prefer this one snaky sea over a river with a pond that's not connected to my river.

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

there is no unconnected water and still you are marching through a lot of land already...

Re: Elli (Closed, Readying)
 

If a few shore provinces count as "marching through a lot of land", sure, you're right.