[RedRover]

Ah, the events that make playing worthwhile.

I have had two exceptional moments so far:

Number One
I was playing Arcoscephale, and Marignon had been annoying me so much I decided to go berserk against his capital.

Well, I went for the capital with my second army (of two), even though I knew his pretender (a Golden Naga) was about--it had just wiped out my first army. Marignon's largest army had moved just a few provinces away and, with luck, I could make a risky dash for his capital and (I hoped) mess up his economy until I could build an army that wouldn't get trashed so fast.

As it turned out, his pretender had joined the big stack instead of going to the capital. Without it, the capital's militia fell and the raiding force proved strong enough to besiege and storm the capital very quickly.

The next turn, my jaw dropped.

I had lost control of his capital province (besieged!!?). Marignon's god was in an adjacent province, and the capital was showing Independent white! What happened??

It turned out that the capital had been hit by the Troll Hero and his buddies, and all my guys had run into the castle!

But the trolls weren't strong enough to assault, the very next turn Marignon attacked. The Troll heroes killed the pretender! This weakened the heroes enough to let me wipe them out the next turn, scavenging a lot of their magic. And what was left of Marignon didn't even blame me for the death of their god!

I love this game!


Number Two
I was playing Man on the Aran map and ended up on the south coast of the dragon's jaw. In the first 8-10 turns, I got down to the southernmost peninsula and built a fort in the plains adjacent to the three coastal wooded/mountain provinces (I had just read that resource-heavy rough ground feeds your castles--yum--and that site looked superb). The next turn R'lyeh took all three of those provinces! It seems his capital was only two spaces offshore (I didn't learn this until much later). OK, annoying, but I could deal with it.

Some turns earlier, I had gotten The Fisherman (ichythid mercenaries), had taken a sea province north of the target peninsula, then one sea province more to make a buffer zone. I had a water mage build a lab down there (I thought I could protect it), with the plan to forge Water Bracers and enable the Voice of Tiamat spell. I wanted to try this out, and the first thing I learned about the spell was you have to be underwater to cast it. I was setting up for a slow underwater expansion and gem hunt with the main effort on land. Finding R'lyeh on my doorstep changed all that, fast.

I built underwater as fast as I could. (On my north side, I had been waging a land war against Atlantis, whom I eventually drove back into the sea.) I didn't want a war on two fronts, especially not with both sea kingdoms, so I was being extra careful around R'lyeh.

The plains castle had decent resources even without the coastal provinces, and the home troops there were ichythid, so I started building them as fast as I could, too. As the turns passed, R'lyeh took his time and conquered all the independent water provinces (Atlantis had shrunk to a single province by this time), then sent a probing attack after me underwater. I beat it, but it was a near-run thing--I decided I really hated the squid-heads. The probe was cheap troops backed by a few illithids, so I didn't know what was to come.

Feeling pretty chipper about this (I had been waiting for R'lyeh to declare war on me), I sent my newly formed fish legions to snap up one of his weak water provinces, while launching a frontal attack with my triton masses. I'd picked up the technique of hitting the illithid commanders with fast-moving triton flankers and it was working well.

Success on all counts! I grabbed the coastal provinces, chortling at the huge number of resource points I would soon be putting into fish-warriors. I picked up a few sea provinces and found R'lyeh itself. It it looked a little tough, so I hit the corner sea province instead.

Then, R'lyeh struck back. A Vastness, a Horror, 4 Shamblers, 4-5 illithids, guards, and a horde of cheap troops. They ate my tritons for lunch without half trying. Trample? Envelop? Do these things get stronger when they munch me? All my guys are turning gray! And the AI cut my retreat route, too! Yeouch!

I had read a lot of HP Lovecraft stories, so I was expecting the worst out of these things. They looked unstoppable. My next three turns were filled with panic. They drove everything I owned at sea back to my two starting underwater provinces. They annihalated about 4 large triton and ichythid Groups before I gave up trying to counterattack or oppose them directly with aquatic stuff. I hunkered down and sweated.

Nothing I tried at sea worked against them. At least (I thought) there's no evidence these things can actually hit me on the land. Also, they didn't try to come at my forward underwater holding, which was defended by the Fishermen, my water mage (Avalon bodyguard), and as many tritons as I could muster. I boosted the coastal provinces to 25 defense. Maybe I could stabilize this...

The next turn, I was horrified when the Vastness, Horror, Shamblers, and company rolled into the coastal provinces, munching militia all the way. I have rarely felt a moment in gaming that matched the feeling I got when those things moved ashore. Wow!

You only really meet a new race once, and this one was definitely worth the price of admission.

I love this game!


Any other unforgettable moments out there?