[Amhazair]

Originally Posted by PriestyMan

That aar is..... huge. That would really be a full-sized novel if you did it for then entire game. I mean someone might get a kick out of reading it, but most people probably dont have time to read 18pages to get through turn 10.

That was what I feared might be the case for some. I mean, I know I'd read it, but then again I readily admit I'm quite weird in a number of ways. And I can't allways tell what is and what isn't

Originally Posted by Hrum

Amhazair, thanks for posting this! I finished reading it and quite enjoyed it. I am sad that it stops right when the action between you and your neighbors seems poised to commence.

Nevertheless, what you provided is both an AAR of your early game, and sort of a proto-guide to early expansion with Marverni. Add more to it about your first war or two, and you would have near on a full fledged Marverni guide in AAR form (from someone who won the whole shebang with the strategies detailed). How awesome would that be!

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed reading about your first 11 turns in the game and if you choose to add to that (albeit I imagine somewhat more summarized than the detail you included for those early turns) so that we can all hear about how Marverni progressed to victory, I would be eager to read more on this from you.

But since others apparently do find it useful, I will at least keep the idea alive. I will warn you the chances of it ever actually happening are small to moderate at best, but hey, a guy should have some unachieved ambitions, right?

Originally Posted by Hrum

In spite of my not playing in Troubling Times, I've been looking in on this thread once in a while since I was curious how the game would shake out with so many players on such a large map (BTW, I just looked at the mapfile to see what indies were added to Myth Drannor. That looks like that was a nasty one! Did anyone take that province and how gnarly was it? At least there weren't any demons flying around, so that's something to be thankful for, I guess... Just a huge TNN army accompanied by gryphons and sidhe thugs & mages - oh joy. ).

At the end all VP province had been taken. (the heavily defended ones all have really good sites, so there's an incentive to go to some trouble for them) A few of them (Trollbark Forest, Vaasa and Northern Thay spring to mind) did remain independent till turns 60 or 70 though. I can't give you any details about Myth Drannor, it was held by Agartha by the time I got scouts in the area. The problem with those provinces is that, while some of them are quite impressive, they still behave as normal independents. (in other words: stupidly. And, perhaps more important, predictably) The SC/Thugs hang around behind the troops, melee surges forward in a big blob, and casters pick from the limited independant spell list. As such they're generally (relatively) easy prey for a properly scripted mid-game army.

Originally Posted by Hrum

I've never tried Marverni before, and didn't really know much about them before reading your AAR, and now I'm thinking I may need to give them a try at some point

I hadn't played them before either, and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. They're generally considered a (quite) poor nation, allthough I think they're making a bit of a comeback in the minds of people. When I started playing they were accepted to be one of the very worst nations around, which I don't think is the case anymore?

I had expected them to be poor early on, and good in mid and late game, while I found them to be mediocre early, and a real powerhouse later. Druids are really, awesome. Really, really awesome. Of course this was the perfect map for them, and I probably would have had to compromise on my scales on a smaller and/or more crowded map. (For medium games I'm leaning towards an awake great sage with decent-but-not-awesome scales to get early Gifts from Heaven, but I'd have to think it over and hash out some numbers properly to be sure.)