MP: Magellan: All-EA Nations CBM game, 3D spherical map, Running

[Quitti]

Light of reason has shined upon Pangaea! What do others think about this?

[Ossa]

Mrf... I dont wanna continue alone - though if everyone else would put their chances as high as I do we'd waste Kalaisa.

But ok... end this game and begin an new one

[Hadrian_II]

Kailasa is happy that enlightenment has come to the people of Magellan.

Now only Helheim is left to surrender.

Also we have 15 SCs still sitting around and waiting for action.

[Aethyr]

Originally Posted by Aethyr

Kailasa has indeed orchastrated a well played game. I am willing to continue, but I see no stopping him a this point. I move that we delcare him the winner.

My opinion has not changed.

[Ossa]

Well, it looks like things are decided then -

Kalaisa wins the game of Magellan. I wont submit any more turns - who was admin?

[Hadrian_II]

i am admin, and i will declare the game finished after the turn has hosted (just to see what happens)

[Jarkko]

I'll send in a null turn.

Grats Hadrian for the well earned victory!

[Hadrian_II]

OK, the game is finished thanks to everyone for playing.

Here is a short AAR of Kailasa, if someone is interested.

The humble beginning:

My expansion was nothing special, just one province per turn with bouncing into other players in every direction very early i was a rather small empire in the start. We met with Ermor (Nice adversary for kailasa, i wanted to invade him after indy expansion, but i did not get to do it), Caelum (way too much archers and artillery, after he did not answer my NAP proposal, i was very paranoid that Caelum would engage) and Nifelheim (looks strong early, but kailasa has no problem against them as Heat 3 dominion makes it impossible for nifel to invade). And how could it be other than Nifel on first contact made huge demands i could not agree upon, so there was war. I invaded and after discovering that he was only using skinshifters i knew that this fight would be short. Nifel was invaded and killed in under 10 turns, but the NAP less state between Kailasa and Ctis forced me to cede some land to helheim as he claimed it.

After that i was preparing for an invasion by Caelum and thought that i would die as soon as he engaged. I was really relieved when Caelum engaged Mictlan and used all his forces there, what gave me the possibility to invade him and conquer his capital very swiftly. (The actions of Caelum looked like he thought he had agreed my nap proposal but forgot to send me the confirmation [not that in a situation like that i would not had backstabbed him anyway as he put all his armies far away and his capital was only 2 provinces from my border])

Ctis who since then had scavenged parts of ermor (who was annhillated by agartha) wanted also to scavenge some parts of caelum and especially claimed the capitol what i could not agree upon. (Also there is to know that C'tis is free lunch for kailasa) After one battle between the armies of Kailasa and C'tis where quickened yavanas anhillated C'tis surrendered and was conquered over the next few turns.

Around that time Mictlan begun to look really scary and also had amassed a huge army of Sacreds on the kailasan border we were very afraid of invasion and eventual defeat at the hand of the demon empire. But we were reliefed that Pangaea thought the same of them and created an anti Mictlan war pact between Pangaea, Helheim, Abysia and Kailasa. This alliance ensured the survival of Kailasa, but we knew if the attack would start Kailasa would take heavy losses from the action and after that would be in a weakened position and would have huge problems with winning the game.

But there was a major luck event for Kailasa our neighbour Agartha had to set himself to AI. (Agartha was deadlocked in an longtime war with Oceania before that, so it has always been a safe border). As the Agarthan AI promptly engaged me i had now a reason to withdraw from the war preperations with Mictlan and fight the Agarthan AI. Soon after wards Pangaea and Abysia engaged Mictlan and where slowly grinding it to death. I think this was the first point in the game, when i knew that i might be the winner in the end, as everything was running perfectly for me.

At this point Oceania cast the Arcane Nexus and some Armageddons, and both things turned out perfectly for me. The armageddons made kailasa the only nation with actual income, and the missing reaction to the casting of the nexus ensured me, that if i would get the nexus there would also be no reaction to it, so i waited for a few turns and did cast my 999 pearl nexus. (who lasted forever)

After i finished conquering Agartha i decided to lay low for some time and accumulate power (as i assumed that as soon i made my move i would get attacked by everyone, i could not know then that i would have the liberty to finish everyone off one by one.) but after Tir set himself to AI i could not help myself to send some thugs there to scavenge some provinces. (after nobody protested me stealing their spoils i knew that i would win the game).

Now was the time for me to move as Pan and Aby had almost destroyed Mictlan, so i entered the war with the invasion of Abysia and some artillery against Pan. At that time i was creating 3 SCs a turn and i always sent one of them against aby and 2 of them into storage to defend the all out attack against me. It looked like aby was trying to organize that attack but nobody wanted to help him so aby set himself to AI.

In the end Pan and Ulm decided to engage me, but they did not have enough material to fight me (or were storing it in their capitals until the end of the game) so i slowly was able to grind them into dust.

So it comes i Hadrian-II have now Ascended to godhood

Also some random notices:

@Ulm: Sitting idle for 50 turns after initial expansion is never the way to victory.

@Helheim: Why did you never attack me, when you saw that i was winning the game?

@Everyone: Who was storing the other Queens of Air and did not use them, also i was missing to see the queens of water and all blood uniques.

p.s. i will write a kailasa guide with the strategies i have used (as i think someone might find that interesting)

p.p.s. i attached my last turn to see if you are interested.

[Quitti]

I had most heliophagi and arch demons at some point, but wasn't able to use them effectively enough due my sad research. Also, the perpetual storm and armageddons pretty much finished me off - no blood income to speak of after that, and it managed to kill EVERY SINGLE ONE of my water mages, and only left me with two astral priests and two high priests left. The perpetual storm negated most of my troops (You can see their remnants in Hadrians turn in the battle of Silvania). At some point I had 30-40 onaquais making freespawn for me, but the 3/3 move bats are useless in the storm...

[Jarkko]

This is the fully objective ( ) AAR from the Pangaean point of view.

Sauromatia nearly nuked Pangaea out early in the game, but Abysia came to my resuce and I got Carrion Woods up early enough to get enough manikin to counter their SC pretender, and enough centaurs to rip their archers apart in berserk rage. With Sauromatian troops also tied against Abysia the end was rather sudden and abrupt, and Sauromatia went under fast after the Gorgon died. I felt the alliance between Pangaea and Abysia was strong and good one, because Pangea and Abysia complement each other so well, and I was happy how Abysia had saved Pangaea

I don't quite know what happened with Marverni. They brought lots of troops on my border during the final turns of the war vs Sauromatia, I panicked and asked for help everywhere, and asked Marverni for a NAP. Total silence was the replies. I got sneakers in, and launched a frontal attack with the troops returning from Sauromatia, at the same time as TC attacked Marverni from the south. Sadly TC was apparently tied on other fronts too, and the Pangaea-Marverni war resulted being basically a one on one, with TC grabbing with airdrops some of the more juicy provinces (especially woods, which are so important to Carrion Woods) during the last days of the war.

Before Marverni went finally under, Pangaea and TC got into war. I felt it was unfair TC now all of the sudden flew in to claim lands I had fought and bled for, TC felt I was unjust as they had attacked Marverni when I was desperately looking for anybody to help against Marverni. TC had absolutely fabulous sacred troops (their own plus the griffon-riders from *two* locations). In the end the massive mass of Pangaeans (at this point mostly manikin and maenads) was simply too much for the elite TC troops, and when broke through with two humongous armies into TC heartlands (with three big armies clashing and jousting with the two TC armies), it was all down-hill for TC, especially as I was able to replace my losses fast enough to actually grow my armies each turn. With cities falling instantly to the hundreds of manikin and maenads sieging, TC ran out of room to manouver, and that was the end of that war.

Mictlan did look very strong, it did seem to me they might be soon in a game winning position. Pangaea, Abysia, Kailasa, Tir and Helheim agreed on a joint attack on Mictlan. I was blood-sacrificing like mad at Mictlan borders to kill their dominion (Mictlan seemed to have massive vampire armies, and I sure didn't want them to be able to take advantage of their immortality). In the end Kailasa and Helheim pulled out, and Tir went AI, and Abysia was getting attacked by AI Tir. Things went pearshaped pretty fast, but I had *lots* of sneakers inside Mictlan borders and *lots* of troops on the borders of Mictlan. In my opinion, with perpetual storm up the point to attack Mictlan was now or never.

The attack on Mictlan began, and it went pretty well. Then the Armageddons started, and things went to poo. My unarmoured troops (who in combat were mass-protected and thus quite tough) died in droves to Armageddon. I couldn't break the defenses of the harder defended Mictlan cities with my diminishing armies, and I was forced to feed in hundreds of troops each turn to replace the horrific losses from Armageddon, and still my frontal armies got so small it did start to look really bad. I continued to blood-sacrifice as fast as I could, and started the saccing next to Oceanian provinces too.

In the end it became clear to me I will lose the game if Oceania is allowed to stay and keep up their globals (even though the Perpetual Storm was good for me). Pangaea joined Ulm to take Oceania down, even though I was able to send only a small part of my armies (but led by my pretender). The capital of Oceania proved too hard to be cracked though, I broke the gates, but with dozens of mages inside ripped my assaulters to pieces (tried to attack IIRC three times, then gave up).

It began to be clear Kailasa is marching towards victory. I summoned tartarians and other death summons to help, but my efforts were too puny. As a last effort I redoubled my blood-saccing and built temples everywhere and summoned telestic animations too. If I was unable to kill Mictlan, Oceania and halt Kailasa with conventional means, then I would try to dominion kill everything.

Then Kailasa attacked Abysia, and I was totally impotent to help my ally. My troops were tied against Mictlan, while I couldn't get my troops out of the ocean as Oceania had freezed all the seas. I sent in the sneakers and began to withdraw from Mictlan lands. I first thought I'd hold some token troops against Mictlan and Oceania, but it proved to be the wrong decission. I pulled out all my troops (informing Mictlan and Oceania of that) and re-aligned against Kailasa. I did ask for Ulm, Mictlan and Helheim to attack against Kailasa, but all I got was excuses; I can understand Mictlan was more than reluctant to join with Pangaea after I had backstabbed earlier, but I still don't quite get what Helheim was doing when the time was to act or die.

I was ready to throw in the towel then, but decided to go out with a bang. I attacked with everything I had, and things went wrong after the initial suprise; to make matters even worse, AI Abysia decided to attack Pangaea (even though I had not attacked their lands so far). Ulm joined the war against Kailasa a couple turns later, but it was too little too late.

Once again, grats for Hadrian for a very well played campaign and a very well deserved victory! For my own part, I made many mistakes during the game (the final mistake was to attack Mictlan, I should have pulled back when Tir went AI and watch how things develope in the east first), but I was happy I actually was able to prove just how deadly the massed manikin-maenads can be if things go right (even though Carrion Woods mean my economy was shot to hell way before Armageddon ) ; after the war with Tien Chi I actually did believe for a while I might be one of the contenders for winning the game, but that just shows how it is bad for the health to catch the victory disease