Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, game ended, revenant - ermor wins!
 

llamaserver
cbm 1.92
sixlands
no diplo
30 hrs hosting
quickhost
middle age
hof 15
turning AI is not a sin

no recruiting 0 gold ettins from sites.

earcaraxe - Abysia
revenant - Ermor
hylobius - T'ien C'hi
ossa - Ulm
uldin - Shinuyama
ghoul31 - Arcoscephale

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, recruiting, 1/6
 

Thanks for setting this up. If you have room, I'd like to take a shot with Ermor. Note: this is my first MP game ever, so I should be easy pickings :)

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, recruiting, 1/6
 

I'll take T'ien Ch'i please.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, recruiting, 1/6
 

Ulm ftw!

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, recruiting, 1/6
 

Shinuyama, please.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, recruiting, 1/6
 

Arco

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, recruiting, 1/6
 

Wow.. that filled fast. Hold a spot for me if you open up to more that 6
-ssj

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, recruiting, 1/6
 

that was really quick :)

game has been set up.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, recruiting, 1/6
 

since i'd prefer to avoid the ocassionally long waiting to start the game, I will open recruiting at tomorrow GMT 14:00 if there are missing pretenders by then. and the spots will be up for grabs.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

It looks like Ossa has disappeared. We should find a sub

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

should have done this disappearing before attacking me on turn 6 :P

im not in the game anymore, so its up to u to find someone.

i'm gonna change the email adress as required or i can send the password to anyoe. have fun!

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

can you make me the admin and send me the password?

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

curtadams has taken over for Ulm. So hopefully he will get in his turn soon.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

Is curtadams, the new Ulm player, active on this forum? Send me a PM if you would like to talk.

T'ien Ch'i

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

This game is supposed to be a non-diplomacy game, which I read to mean no alliances, trading, coordination, etc. etc. Is everyone still interested playing with that setting? Personally, I would prefer if we eliminate it because I think it makes things a lot more interesting, and it seems unworkable to me.

I'm saying this even though I'm pretty sure everyone is going to look at the number of provinces and army size, and then promptly dogpile on me. Before that thought coalesces into pain for me, let me say that I'm much scarier looking than I really am [Evil Laugh]. My units are all chaff, my research isn't very good, and this is my first MP game ever. So really, there's nothing to worry about -- unless your name is T'ien Ch'i and you enjoy sending big scary monsters to ravage my lands and rile up my nation of peace-loving skeletons, zombies, and old men (let's not talk about that unfortunate border incident here). And then you might have something to worry about as I plot your destruction, or at least forcefully evict said monster from the lands that I rightfully conquered from Abysia.


Anyway, I digress. Let me know if we're all all in agreement about the diplomacy thing, so we can begin scheming. Muahahaha.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

I'll play either with or without diplo. If the last player wants to change, I'll start sending out PMs.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

I forgot that it was no diplomacy and i think Hylobius did too because we were both using it. So I think diplomacy is fine at this point.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

I didn't realize it was no diplomacy until a little ways in, so I think all is cool.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

Yeah, sorry about that, I had forgotten that we were not supposed to be using diplomacy. I am fine either way.

That one lost and lonely Grendelkin is wandering the undead wastes trying to find his way home. Anyway, who invaded who? :hurt:

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

He's not lonely anymore. He's up in Grendel Heaven right now :D We did have some issues finding a 50' coffin, but luckily, Blue Grendel meat is highly prized for it's unusual bubbly flavor in Ermoria, so we're going to have a big feast instead.

That was a very unfortunate "border incident" :(

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

My Babel Fish seems to be malfunctioning. Is "border incident" Ermorian for "bloody invasion"?

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

LOL, I lost control of my eater of the dead, and it wiped out my entire army.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

Um, that thing was pretty terrifying a few turns ago, according to my scout report. I'm afraid to think what it's like now.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

I was trying to figure out why there was a lone EotD on my border...

One of my astral mages ("The Grendel Slayer") is going to try to explode his brain remotely this turn. Hopefully, it has one.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

I think it has more than 1000 hit points so even a successful Soul Slay won't do the job (only 999 damage). Plus on my scout report it had a magic resistance of 29 IIRC so don't expect a quick kill even if it is killable that way.

I was thinking that maybe with enough mages casting entanglement and paralyzation I could keep it locked down long enough that it would autoretreat and die, assuming I can grab the province it just left. Hopefully I won't have to try.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

I think that Eater of the Dead is my favorite unit, although I have seldom been brave enough to make one.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

35 MR :(

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/1433/eotdd.th.png

Arco, you'll pay for unleashing that abomination on my lands!

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

Hm, protection 7 - should be killable with a few hundred archers. Once it gets out of that lake, of course. You wouldn't want to take a swim there!

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

The menace is no more!

We fought it again at the bottom of the lake, but this time we sent in a few more squads of undead horsies to distract it while my wraith lord pounded it in the face until it got bored and ran off to it's doom.

I thought I was going to have to build a small army of thugs equipped with soul-slaying x-bows to take care of it, but I got lucky it went back to the lake.

Note: this thing is scary to fight on the surface where it casts acid storm.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

going AI

who wants the password for the game?

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

I'll take it over from you.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

Are you guys cool if I bump up the hosting to 50H?

The turns are becoming quite long, and I think as we near the final phase of the game that this could become an issue.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

I'm fine with that. I forsee some very long turns soon.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

Done!

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

At the request of Ulm, I've extended hosting by 24H.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

OK, I'm ready to concede to Ermor.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

I think we'll need T'ien to concur before we can make it official.

What do you think T?

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

I thought you two would have a good fight to finish the game, but I'm fine with stopping here.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

We had multiple large battles on that last turn, so we definitely ended with some good fights.

I closed out Santa on the Llama server. Great game everyone!

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, game ended, revenant - ermor wins!
 

grats for revenant, and thanks for playing guys!

i would like to summarize the flow of the game a little, here are the beginnings from my aspect:

i used an awake dom9 F4B6 moloch and sloth/turmoil/luck scales, with the plan to start forging contracts by year one. Then build up a strong blood economy and go for a domkill. It was a routine and throughoutly tested opening for me, I had excellent expansion (got the most provinces under the least time), but ulm unexpectedly attacked me about on turn 10. i though it will be the doom of us, dragging down in a too-soon war again, he has no chance to finish me off quickly with my awake SC god. Im convinced i was right, but 3 turns later shinuyama attacked me too, and then ermor "came to the rescue" by putting my western provinces under his protection. so i was put in a hopeless 3 vs 1 battle within two years from start. Actually ermor didnt attack me, and his intervention hindered shinuyama. I managed to beat back or considerably slow down both my opponents, but finally i gave up and went AI. That was year 1-2 from my point of view. Why did u do what u did? Shinu? Ermor? What happened to TC and arco in the meantime?

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, game ended, revenant - ermor wins!
 

I defeated Shin. But Ermor was very powerful at that point. So I formed an alliance against him.

But then Tien Chi broke the alliance and attacked Ulm for some reason. That guaranteed Ermor's victory.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, starting
 

Good for you maybe, you won every one! lol

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, game ended, revenant - ermor wins!
 

The beginning of the game was a bit hazy for me, but I remember I needed an enemy to send my hordes against. I think that I initially went after Shin, who I underestimated, but I don't remember the circumstances. I did end up fighting Abysia, but I think that was when he was already doomed and when I needed to prevent his territory from falling into the wrong hands, i.e. anybody by me.

This is one of the reasons I'm writing up an AAR in the other game I'm in (noobaphobia) so I can keep track of what happened.

Anyway, I do know that I was very very close to being blown out by the combined might of Arco, Ulm, and a lesser extent T'ien. In one particularly bad turn, I attacked T'ien and foolishy used my pretender to mind-burn his capital (don't ask), which feebleminded my immobile oracle. In that same turn, Arco launched a major attack against me, destroying one of my armies, which was soon followed by an invasion by Ulm.

I was so convinced I was dead that I sent the bulk of my forces against Arco in a punitive expedition. I figured that if I was going to lose that I was going to take him down with me. But then something weird happened: I was able to fight off Ulm's Iron Angels after I discovered the glorious Soul Slay spell, and I was able to destroy a good chunk of Arco's invasion force, which left him nearly defenseless against my hordes.

I'm not sure if T'ien was in position to take me on at this point (he seemed more focused on getting SCs), but he probably could have done me in if he had been able to send a major assault on me.

I think I still would have lost at this point, but we had a new player take over Ulm, which changed the entire dynamic of the game. This allowed me to take out Arco in relative peace, who was a super-tough opponent, but had lost the initiative and had to content with multiple 1,000+ armies running wild through his interior. In one pivotal battle I had screwed up my communions and probably would have lost, but Arco cast a spell that bumped all my mages (and I had a lot of them) from astral 1 to astral 2, which allowed me to mass spam paralysis on his SCs.

And of course, let's not forget that eater of the dead, which managed to eat one of Arcos armies :) That didn't help him very much, either :) It gave me trouble afterward as well, but I managed to kill it with the help of one of my few SCs.

Arco, you were one unlucky dude in this game.

By the way, the only time I used an SC against another player was at that very last turn, and the only one that got within range of an enemy got killed. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but I thought it was kinda neat that you don't necessarily need SCs if you have the right nation.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, game ended, revenant - ermor wins!
 

Thanks for the game guys.

In the middle of the game Ermor was getting too big and Arco suggested that we focus on Ermor. I had no agreement with Ossa who was playing Ulm, and never received any communication from him. I sent him a NAP proposal early and had received no reply. With combined attacks from Arco, Ulm and me, Ermor looked to be about finished. I had just been beaten up by Ossa playing Ulm in another game where I outnumbered him badly. I decided that instead of finishing off Ermor and letting Ulm grab much of Ermor's territory that I should attack Ulm before he became too strong. I thought that I matched up better against Ermor in a one on one end game than I did against Ulm. I made an agreement with Ermor and then Ossa dropped and we had a new Ulm player. My fight with the new Ulm went embarrassingly poorly and I was done.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, game ended, revenant - ermor wins!
 

When I took over Ossa had left me a big pile of mages and a commanding lead in artifact Construction. But there was almost no Ulmish army - basically just a hodgepodge of retreat survivors. Ermor had two massive armies on my border and T'ien Chi had a thug army beelining for my capital. I decided to ignore Ermor - because if he attacked there would be nothing I could do - hope he was peaceful, and push back T'ien Chi with my capital mages. First turn I grabbed two provinces while he pulled back. Ermor just sat there. I managed to wipe out T'ien Chi's SC armies with ordinary Ulm troops in front of huge battlemage squads, with the aid of a couple of strong artifacts. T'ien Chi had been negotiating up to the first fight, where I came in to save a fort from attack, but after that he said it was war. I won that war in the second big fight. We both had armies that were melting away with mages and SC's on both sides. His broke first - I think if mine had things would have turned out quite different.

Once he started to lose, T'ien chi holed up mage armies in forts and they were very tough nuts to crack. The last and strongest I never could. In the end I had to fight Ermor and I used my army/mage/special SC strategy, augmented with lots of H2 priests, but it turned out to be useless against his huge communions. The last turn there were something like 8 huge battles, and I lost every one. I even had an SC assassinated by an Ashen Angel and it happens so fast in replay I can't figure out how.

Along with Ermor, I wasn't impressed with SC's in this game. They seem very vulnerable to getting stuck fighting chaff while mages or SC-killers take them down.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, game ended, revenant - ermor wins!
 

I'll double-check my last battle report, but I distinctly saw you kill that Ashen Angel with your SC. I think there might be something bugged because I actually launched two attempts via manifestation, but the first attempt showed me killing what looked like a zombie unit, which was odd since I didn't think you had any undead, and I thought I saw that same SC in the later battle.

You didn't get a chance to experience this, but I had spent significant resources fielding a bunch of 5D liches and 4A+ astral mages w/ penetration items, who were going to carpet bomb your commanders with mind burn, manifestation, and leprosy spells. This is one of the reasons I wanted The Chalice so badly so that I could recover from feeblemind and why I was willing to burn 100 astral gems to get it. However, I kept needing to convert my gems to pay for all those dispels (I couldn't let you have GOH) as well as to outfit my armies appropriately, so I didn't have enough gems to really unleash this on you.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, game ended, revenant - ermor wins!
 

I figured it out. My Iron Angel had Ritual of Returning (I'm not sure how, actually - does Armor of Virtue leave that behind?) and teleported out. Another Ashen Angel (the one you're referring to, I think) died attacking a Cyclops. Did you not send the one that returned the Iron Angel?

I had stationed Astral mages with almost all my armies, so the mind burn would have been manageable. Leprosy and Manifestation would have been problems. But I figured you had something planned with all those gems and that's part of why I didn't see any point in continuing. I figured even if I managed to stop your armies somehow (unlikely enough) I'd just get fried with some global effect like another Arcane Nexus.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, game ended, revenant - ermor wins!
 

I double-checked and the first Ashen Angel took out a shaman. However, the Angel's bane blade turned him into a soulless (what a bad way to go) and caused my initial confusion since I just saw the undead guy. The second angel got the stuffing knocked out of him by that cyclops. I didn't attack any of your angels with manifestation.

Re: Santa in the Chimney - no diplo mp game, 6/6, game ended, revenant - ermor wins!
 

The Ashen angel on my Iron Angel must have been from the Tartarian Chains he was wielding. So the flavor text on *that* item (attacked by monsters from Tartaria) actually means something. Kinda cool. And from the sequencing (the independents are defeated as my angel ported out with the Ashen Angel still there) I think I successfully chained the Ashen Angel. Too bad I returned - would have been cool to keep it!