Chronicles MA

[sansanjuan]

The undead had their own particular smell. Not just of rotting flesh but of the arcane sorcery that knitted arm to shoulder, leg to hip. The morning air carried this scent from the host of Longdead arrayed before us. The low hum of a communion began in their back rank of sorcerers and carried on the wind like angry hornets shaken from a hive. The priest next to me raised her arms, her wings ruffling. As she began her chant everything happened at once. A shout for “Shields up!” as arrows swarmed in. Thunderstrikes fell in their ranks, my senses sharpened as Wind Guide bathed me. An elephant crumpled like a felled oak as his soul evaporated. Flanking Longdead hurdled themselves into a phantasmal army that appeared seconds before they would have carved into our mages. Banishments shredded undead flesh. Scores fell on both sides. I thought myself doomed as a dozen deathless swarmed the priest and I, too many for her to banish. She was my charge and I was determined to fall before she did. As I parried, Water rained from behind and fell on me, priest and undead without selection. I remember the Longdead looming over me as the Water splashed over him. He reined back his foul steed and lifted his head skyward as the holy water dissolved the magic binding his form. In two heartbeats the priest and I were alone again, many ales in debt to the Water cadre.

-- author unknown

[Jarkko]

Atlantis would like to buy 80 nature gems for 80 fire gems.



(It is about time Atlantis would finally get a Nature mage...)

[Executor]

Talk about stupidity... It seems I forgot to put battle orders on the Fire King.
Ah, lack of astral magic is a real pain in the ***.

[DonCorazon]

R'yeh (turn 46)
The Acropolis in Ermor

Gazul’s appearance and features were hidden behind a deep, unnatural darkness around his robes – the only sign of his otherworldly origins was the trail of slime that he left in his path as he floated down the cobbled path leading to the Acropolis, the heart of the decaying Empire of Ermor. It had been a thousand years since the hooded emissary of R’lyeh had visited the Acropolis. The ancient being’s last visit had been amidst blooming oaks, dancing minstrels, and valiant gladiators dueling in front of roaring crowds. Now the capital was shrouded in gloom, windows shuttered, streets deep in rubbish and bones.

Gazul floated through the decay and into the dark halls of the Acropolis. There he pronounced the will of his master, hissing:

"Too long have the children of the stars endured your unholy presence. The peace we once forged with Ermor was with the living, not the dead. Death is entropy and the end of intelligence and insanity, which we cannot abide. We give notice that the ancient treaties will be terminated according to their terms."

Horrifying wails of rage from the depths of the swirling shadows, as giant skeletal hands reached forth to crush the emissary, only to find Gazul had vanished leaving behind a leather bag. A frail theurg scuttled out from the shadows, opening the sack to find the rotting head of the sea troll who had delivered the message of peace to R'lyeh, so many years ago, eyes still open - frozen in insane terror.

[calmon]

Well i'm out of this game. My last dogpile (on artifacts) its just a too short time ago.

I'm not sure whats the fun for people is to unite 4 vs 1. I'm happy with 2 wars against equal strong Nehekhara on westside and somehow weaker caelum on east. We had a lot of battles since the start of the war.

But know with Shinuyama and R'lyeh NAP notices is just the begin of the end of any fun.

It seems the game ran in the same ways artifacts did. I've no fun to overrun others with a huge alliance and on the same time i'm not a fan of being overruned once again. Sure i'm strong but there are a lot of other nations strong as well therefore i have problems to understand the reason.
Maybe i lack to intrigue enough to prevent this. However its not my world and like i said 'not again'!

I think the new RAND game will be the last one i participate in dominions.

[quantum_mechani]

Originally Posted by calmon

Well i'm out of this game. My last dogpile (on artifacts) its just a too short time ago.

I'm not sure whats the fun for people is to unite 4 vs 1. I'm happy with 2 wars against equal strong Nehekhara on westside and somehow weaker caelum on east. We had a lot of battles since the start of the war.

But know with Shinuyama and R'lyeh NAP notices is just the begin of the end of any fun.

It seems the game ran in the same ways artifacts did. I've no fun to overrun others with a huge alliance and on the same time i'm not a fan of being overruned once again. Sure i'm strong but there are a lot of other nations strong as well therefore i have problems to understand the reason.
Maybe i lack to intrigue enough to prevent this. However its not my world and like i said 'not again'!

I think the new RAND game will be the last one i participate in dominions.

I feel your pain Calmon, and I agree with you normal dominions games hinge far too much on diplomacy (in particular staving off ganging that way). But there are lots of games where that is much less a factor. No diplo games, graphs off and blitz games are all alternatives.

Don't let two disasters of games (this and artifacts) sour you to dominions altogether.

[Calahan]

Originally Posted by calmon

Well i'm out of this game. My last dogpile (on artifacts) its just a too short time ago.

I'm not sure whats the fun for people is to unite 4 vs 1. I'm happy with 2 wars against equal strong Nehekhara on westside and somehow weaker caelum on east. We had a lot of battles since the start of the war.

But know with Shinuyama and R'lyeh NAP notices is just the begin of the end of any fun.

It seems the game ran in the same ways artifacts did. I've no fun to overrun others with a huge alliance and on the same time i'm not a fan of being overruned once again. Sure i'm strong but there are a lot of other nations strong as well therefore i have problems to understand the reason.
Maybe i lack to intrigue enough to prevent this. However its not my world and like i said 'not again'!

I think the new RAND game will be the last one i participate in dominions.

Up until now, I have never had the pleasure of playing in a game with you Calmon, although I will be correcting that in Pasha's new RAND game.

But speaking for myself, and I'm sure many others as well, I would certainly hate to see you leave the Dominions community. You are a very talented player, and you are one of the very few players who, for me at least, always manages to get to the real heart of the issue when it comes to discussing various aspects of the game.

Yourself, Micah and WraithLord are the only players who's posts I religiously read, as they usually without fail highlight some really minor detail in a discussion that is easy to overlook, but which has a major baring on the issue, and normally escapes most regular players attention. It would be a real shame for the community to lose one of the very limited sources of such expertise

I know how much I hate diplomacy in MP games, so I have no problems understanding when players get put off playing in future games because of it. I am more convinced than ever that no diplomacy games are the way forward, since that goes a long way to helping ensure that the most skilful players do well, and not just the players who just happen to have a silver tongue.

Soon I am hoping to start, and be the non-playing admin, in a new RAND game or two. I would be honoured if you considered playing in one of those games, as there you can let your talents do the talking for you

[sansanjuan]

Originally Posted by calmon

Well i'm out of this game. My last dogpile (on artifacts) its just a too short time ago.

I'm not sure whats the fun for people is to unite 4 vs 1. I'm happy with 2 wars against equal strong Nehekhara on westside and somehow weaker caelum on east. We had a lot of battles since the start of the war.

But know with Shinuyama and R'lyeh NAP notices is just the begin of the end of any fun.

It seems the game ran in the same ways artifacts did. I've no fun to overrun others with a huge alliance and on the same time i'm not a fan of being overruned once again. Sure i'm strong but there are a lot of other nations strong as well therefore i have problems to understand the reason.
Maybe i lack to intrigue enough to prevent this. However its not my world and like i said 'not again'!

I think the new RAND game will be the last one i participate in dominions.

cal,
Join or start a team game. With only two teams (such as the recently finished Lord of the Rings game) there is zero diplomacy, no chance of back stabbing, etc. All teamwork. I *really* enjoyed the one I played in.
-ssj

PS Your play in Chronicles is very strong. I've learned a lot trying to hold back the undead horde...

[Executor]

Ganging up is one of the reasons I started my own no diplo game.
I know how it feel to be ripped to shreds by several players, I've been there on more than one occasion, it's interesting at first but eventually really kills the desire to continue the game. Had a game, and still have, where I was in war with 9 out of 9 nations.

I didn't plan having a global war against you, didn't even know Cealum was in war with you at the time I broke the NAP, I did discus attacking you with DC a few times but never made any concrete decisions.
And I've been planning to attack you for a long time, but it took me a while to contain Jotunheim.

[DonCorazon]

Calmon,

I sympathize – I too have been frustrated about the fact that Dom 3 is often a series of dogpiles and comes down to who is best at avoiding being attacked. My last game ended with me fighting a war against 3 nations. With open graphs it makes sense for weaker nations to gang up on the stronger one – why wouldn’t that be the case? In this case, graphs are off but I had plans to war with you for a long time, just kept putting it off to deal with AI TC. Meanwhile, your growing power is obvious and you put up powerful gem producing globals that drew even more attention. I don’t love diplomacy but it’s a part of this particular game.

And as much as I find the most enjoyable/interesting wars are 1:1, unfortunately those are often the ones that usually lead to eventual defeat since they cause you to use up a lot of resources while others prosper. That's what happened to me in Artifacts when I attacked QM - I squandered an early lead in a grinding war and probably ruined chances for both myself and QM.

For those reasons, it seems conventional wisdom to gang up or attack the weakened in Dominions. So I am surprised/sad that your reaction to this is to consider stop playing MP, though I understand your frustration. I think RAND will be a nice change of pace and hopefully gets you motivated to keep playing Dom3.